Graham Readfearn: The undiscerning climate bookshelf

Climate sceptic book Taxing Air coming to an undiscerning book store near you

by Graham Readfearn, 

 

SHELVES in popular book stores can be undiscerning little buggers, as can the book stores themselves.

For example, I recently had cause to wander through the tightly-bound and bulging aisles of my local Dymocks book store. They have some really quite “special” offerings both online and in-store.

Even though we essentially know that astrology is, for all intents and purposes, basically b******s, I can report that the paperback version of “Practical Astrology” is “in stock.”

Failing that, there’s also “Homeopathy for your Cat” within the pages of which you can find out how magic water can cure your ginger’s urinary tract issue.

Are you a book shopping parent who has “wished for a handbook on each child”? Well tough, because Dymocks has sold out of “Homeopathy and Your Child” so you’ll have to work out your kid’s “physical, mental, emotional and spiritual needs” some other way (by the way, I’m not singling out Dymocks here – most of the big high street book sellers also hawk similar enlightenment-crushing garbage).

And there are the books on climate change.

Without any prior knowledge, it’s easy to see how the average punter might be easily fooled by the line-up of  books cosying-up in Dymocks and elsewhere. As you can see by the image above, there’s some excellent stuff on offer from well credentialed authors and scientists.

There’s What We Know About Climate Change by MIT Professor of Atmospheric Science Kerry Emanuel. Just beneath, is The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the front lines from Professor Michael Mann, director of Earth System Science at Penn State University, also in the U.S.

And sharing the same shelf space, is Taxing Air written by Dr Bob Carter, an Australian geologist and advisor to about a dozen climate science denial organisations around the world, and John Spooner, a cartoonist for The Age newspaper in Melbourne, Australia.

Bob Carter’s fringe views on climate change (it’s all natural) make him a favourite of fossil fuel-funded propaganda unit the Heartland Institute and many, many other groups with similarly dismissive views on human-caused climate change and its risks.
Carter was recently let go by James Cook University in Queensland, where he had been an unpaid adjunct professor for over a decade, because he wasn’t pulling his weight.

Carter hinted – and his supporters screamed – that he had been booted out because he was a climate sceptic. I covered that case for DeSmogBlog and also summarised this and other recent goings on for the ABC Science Show.

But back to Taxing Air, which is yet another climate sceptic book with strong links to a conservative “think tank” – in this case, the Institute for Public Affairs, where Dr Carter is the Science Policy Advisor.

The IPA paid for copies to be sent out to Australian members of parliament and has also hosted a launch event for the book. Research has found that almost four out of five climate sceptic books published since the early 80s have links to conservative think tanks.

Dr Carter, it should be noted, has only written one scientific paper on atmospheric climate change, which claimed – wrongly as it turned out – to have found that recent global warming was down to natural cycles of water temperatures in the Pacific. 

One group of leading climate scientists who analysed carter’s paper concluded that the conclusions he and his co-authors drew were “not supported by their analysis or any physical theory presented in their paper.”

But is Taxing Air any good? Well, I have a copy which I’m still trudging through (I may not get to the end). But one academic who has finished it is Australian Ian Enting, and he is none too impressed. Mathematical physicist Enting (author of the Australian Mathematical Scences Institute book Twisted: The distorted mathematics of greenhouse denial) worked at Australia’s leading science agency, the CSIRO, for 24 years in atmospheric research and modelling of the global carbon cycle.

Enting has analysed the book, describing it as a “polemic” characterised by “half-truths and slanted misrepresentation” and “appalling hypocrisy.”

At one point, Enting’s document notes how one chart  in Taxing Air is taken from a leaked draft of the not-yet-published United Nations IPCC Assessment Report 5 (due out in two weeks).

The chart has been altered, Enting’s document notes, removing a shaded area that shows the uncertainty range which, had it been left in,
shows how climate models agree with the observations within the range of uncertainty. Enting finds dozens of other examples like this.

But my real reason for going into the Brisbane Dymocks store was to hunt out a copy of Killing the Earth To Save It, written by UK-based climate science denialist and wind-farm hater James Delingpole.

In the UK, it was published under the name Watermelons. There was something remarkable about the book which I had read and was keen to confirm.

The book was published by Connor Court, which has published several other climate sceptic books. The editorial board of Connor Court also includes the IPA executive director John Roskam.

The IPA also paid for Delingpole to tour Australia to promote his book in September 2012 – a favour which he returned by running a public appeal for people to donate cash to the Melbourne-based group, which doesn’t reveal its funders but has run a long campaign of climate misinformation.

But none of these are the “remarkable thing” I referred to earlier.

The remarkable thing was an entry in Chapter 8 – “Welcome To The New World Order.” Delingpole continues to spruik on his Daily Telegraph blog, most recently earlier this week. Here’s what Delingpole says on page 174 of my newly purchased copy:

Probably the best analysis of the Club of Rome’s tangible effects on global environmental policy comes courtesy of a website called “The Green Agenda”:

While researching [...] and during my academic studies, I have come across many references to the Club of Rome (CoR), and reports produced by them. Initially I assumed that they were just another high-level environmental think-tank and dismissed the conspiracy theories found on many website claiming that the CoR is a group of global elitists attempting to impose some kind of one world government. I am not a conspiratorial person by nature and was faced with a dilemma when I first read their reports. But it’s all there – in black and white.

 Indeed.

So what exactly is “The Green Agenda” which Delingpole tells his readers is offering this leading analysis? Here’s the source of the quote, on the website “The Green Agenda.” And who runs “The Green Agenda”? It is a sister site of The Watchman’s Post - which describes itself as a “Christian/ Messianic  End Time Messenger!” based in New Zealand.

That’s right. Delingpole’s “analysis” of a jumped-up conspiracy theory about plans for a one world government come direct from a group of Christian fundamentalists who preach about second comings and “end times.” The watchman’s website details the coming of an “anti-Christ,” “times of distress and tribulation” and “Triads of evil.”

Here’s a taster:

True Christians will be seen at best as ‘insane’ and at worst as worthy of elimination. However, note; the period being introduced at that time and rightly called the ‘Time of Tribulation’ will quickly degenerate into a terrible time of trouble for almost everyone in the whole world, not just believers in Jesus. [We will explain more, later!] We can add with conviction, that we believe the ‘Time of God’s judgmental anger’ is a separate period of time as indicated by the pouring out of the ‘Bowls of Wrath’ when all true Believers will be sovereignly protected! [We will explain later.]

Perhaps it might be worth checking a few more of Delingpole’s sources in “Killing the earth to Save It” which is described by News Corp. columnist Andrew Bolt on the back cover as “wonderful” with “devastating facts and lacerating anecdotes.”

Not just devastating and lacerating, but potentially world ending – apparently – just not in the way Bolt and Delingpole might have expected.

Oh, did I say that Killing the World To Save It and Taxing Air are available in “all good bookshops”?

http://www.readfearn.com/2013/09/the-undiscerning-climate-bookshelf/

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Graham Readfearn: Australia's Department of Defence concerned about climate change threat multipliers

Climate change will 'exacerbate existing problems': Defence

by Graham Readfearn, ABC Australia, Environment, September 11, 2013

As first responders and humanitarian assistance providers, the armed forces will be busy in a climate changed future. Credit: Australian Defence Image Library

See also

• Related Story:Climate change a 'threat multiplier' for DefenceNews Online25 Mar 2013
• Related Story:Defence unmoved by climate change dataNews Online9 Oct 2009
• Related Story:Defence needs to recognise climate of riskNews Opinion12 Jun 2009
• Related Story:Ex-Defence Force chief Admiral Chris barrie helps launch Climate Commission reportNews Online17 Jun 2013

Extreme weather and rising sea levels caused by climate change will significantly increase the need for an effective defence force. It's why the military are taking notice of the scientists.

WHEN AUSTRALIAN professors Colin Butler, Tony McMichael and Will Steffen stood up to talk climate change at a series of briefings in Canberra earlier this year there was something very different about the audience.

This wasn't a forum organised by an environment group where the seats are taken up by the usual cohort of the climate concerned.

Instead, this audience was full of hardheaded military types and members of the defence community - people worried more about conflict and geopolitics than wind turbines and carbon footprints. This invitation to speak on climate change had come from Australia's Department of Defence.

"They wanted to get a handle on the idea of tipping elements in the climate system that could cause rapid change that would be very difficult for human societies to deal with," says Professor Steffen, an Australian Climate Commissioner and executive director of the Climate Change Institute at the Australian National University.

Butler, Australian Research Council Future Fellow at the University of Canberra, displayed maps of places where climate change might act as a "threat multiplier" - food and water shortages in eastern parts of Asia and forced migration across Africa.

"The maintenance of peace and preventing war depends on more than just military personnel and hardware," says Professor Butler. "It also depends on what I call the 'determinants of peace' - that is, having enough basic resources of food, shelter and energy."

It's a far cry from 2009, when a Defence White Paper concluded that climate change would not be a serious consideration for the Defence Forces until at least 2030.

Australia's current National Security Strategy lists climate change as a broad global challenge "with national security implications" alongside the more obvious threats of corruption and the resurgence of violent political groups.

Last month in the journal Science, researchers reported the results of an analysis of "45 different conflict data sets" and found "strong causal evidence linking climatic events to human conflict."

When rainfall and temperatures started to shift, the study found a systematic increase in "the risk of many types of conflict."

One of the study's authors, the University of California's Marshall Burke, told the ABC that if societies in the future responded to these changes in the same way as previous ones, then, for example, "We could see a 50 per cent or greater increase in civil conflict in sub-Saharan Africa as a result of climate change by about 2050."

Does this mean war?

Air Vice-Marshal Neil Hart is head of the Joint Capability Coordination Division at the Department of Defence. His responsibilities include examining the potential impacts of global changes on the preparedness of the Australian Defence Force.

He says that changes in the global climate system have the potential to "exacerbate existing problems" through flooding of low-lying regions, more frequent and severe natural disasters, and shifting rainfall. This could lead to loss of food production in some areas and "climate-driven large-scale human migration."

"Taken together, these factors point to the potential for an increased demand for humanitarian assistance, disaster relief and stabilisation operations over coming decades," he says.

The Australian Government's latest Defence White Paper, published in May, found that global energy, food and water resources were under pressure from population growth, rising affluence and climate change.

"As a frequent first responder to national and international emergencies, Defence needs to be prepared for some of the consequences of global climate system changes, such as potentially increased demands for the Australian Defence Force to undertake humanitarian and disaster relief responses both domestically and across the region."
 

As a threat multiplier, it has the potential to generate and exacerbate destabilising conditions that could reshape the regional security environment.

  The commander of the US Navy in the Pacific, Admiral Samuel Locklear, agrees climate change is a real threat to peace. Earlier this year he said climate change was the greatest long-term security threat for his region.

Rising sea levels could displace communities, he said, and the impacts from climate change could "cripple the security environment."

Rear Admiral Neil Morisetti is the UK's special representative on climate change. Appointed by the Foreign Office, he says climate change will likely "accelerate global instability" and that it challenges "our ability to deliver our core mission of providing national security."

Security council

Professor Tony McMichael, an expert on the impacts of climate change on human health at Australian National University, believes the defence department "can see quite clearly that the world around us is changing pretty rapidly and that has considerable implications for the defence forces on several fronts - both beyond our borders and within."

He says climate change impacts are already causing health issues in the Asia Pacific region, in particular from sea levels rising and damaging land used for growing food.

"So there are concerns that food supplies, agricultural land and even habitable land is now under threat. That represents a number of immediate threats to nutrition, health and safety that in the longer term is likely to disrupt communities."

In September, Australia will take its turn as president of the United Nations Security Council, where there have been long-running calls for more formal recognition of the climate threat.

One of Australia's leading security think tanks, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), produced a detailed report on climate change and Australia's defence force in March.

The report suggested that climate change had "generated little interest in either the Australian Defence Force (ADF) or the Australian Defence Department" compared with the UK and the United States.

"Climate change is transforming the conventional roles of security forces," the report said. "As a threat multiplier, it has the potential to generate and exacerbate destabilising conditions that could reshape the regional security environment."

But the report also pointed out the ADF had been called on to help communities after the 2009 Victorian bushfires, the Queensland floods and Cyclone Yasi in 2011. These events, the report said, had resulted in some of the largest defence deployments ever in Australia.

As the issue of refugees continues to dominate the political landscape, Professor McMichael says the current flows of people "really are just a taste of what's to come as living conditions deteriorate in many parts of the world."

The ASPI report highlighted how there were 250 million people living in the river deltas of Asia. In particular, the report said the Mekong and Ganges-Brahmaputra deltas were regarded as being at extreme risk from sea level rise.

"Many defence forces around the world are obviously seeing the strategic implications of a rapidly destabilising climate and what that might mean," adds Professor Steffen. "It's simply in their interest to be prepared."

http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2013/09/11/3845626.htm

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Climate Sceptic Professor Murry Salby Sacked From Australian University, Was Banned By National Science Foundation For "Deceptive Conduct"

by Graham Readfearn, DeSmogBlog, July 12, 2013

A CLIMATE sceptic professor fired from his Australian university for alleged policy breaches had previously been banned for three years from accessing US taxpayer-funded science research money.

Dr Murry Salby, sacked in May by Macquarie University in Sydney, was the subject of a long investigation by the US National Science Foundation.

The investigation concluded that over a period when Dr Salby was working at the University of Colorado, he had likely fabricated time sheets in relation to research paid for through NSF money.

We conclude that the Subject (Dr Salby) has engaged in a long-running course of deceptive conduct involving both his University and NSF. His conduct reflects a consistent willingness to violate rules and regulations, whether federal or local, for his personal benefit. This supports a finding that the Subject is not presently responsible, and we recommend that he be debarred for five years.

The NSF subsequently decided to only “debar” Dr Salby for three years, preventing him from accessing any NSF research grants or being involved in work related to them. The investigation was carried out by NSF’s Office of Inspector General - an arms-length organisation providing oversight to the NSF.

In recent days, several commentators and bloggers have come out in support of Dr Salby, claiming his contrarian views on human-caused climate change had contributed to his dismissal from Macquarie University. Climate science denialist blogger Anthony Watts claimed Dr Salby’s dismissal illustrated the “disturbing lengths a university will go to suppress ideas they don’t agree with”.

News Ltd columnist Andrew Bolt, a regular denier of the science of human-caused climate change, said Dr Salby had been “persecuted” because he had “challenged the global warming faith”.

Macquarie University released a statement, saying that it had sacked Dr Salby for two reasons, neither of which related to his position on climate science. The statement said Dr Salby “did not fulfill his academic obligations, including the obligation to teach” and “his termination involved breaches of University policies in relation to travel and use of University resources.”

The university also said it had conducted two separate investigations into Dr Salby’s conduct before terminating his employment. The Australian newspaper carried a sympathetic account of Dr Salby’s sacking, reporting an email written by Dr Salby which had previously been published on several climate sceptic blogs.

In that email, Dr Salby claimed he had been poorly treated by the university and alleged the institution had denied him access to research funds he had been promised. He also claimed he had been left stranded at an airport in Paris after the university cancelled his return ticket. In the email, Dr Salby chose to point out how “Macquarie is a publically-funded enterprise. It holds a responsibility to act in the interests of the public.”

The NSF reported in a bulletin on the investigation into Dr Salby:

Our investigation revealed that the subject (Dr Salby), consistently and over a period of many years, violated or disregarded various federal and NSF award administration requirements, violated university policies related to conflicts and outside compensation, and repeatedly misled both NSF and the university as to material facts about his outside companies and other matters relating to NSF awards.

The NSF investigation into Dr Salby documented how two companies had been set up to administer grants and research he was conducting. At the time Dr Salby was at the University of Colorado, where he had worked as a professor from 1988 until his resignation in 2007. Dr Salby tried to sue the University of Colorado for constructive dismissal.

Court documents indicate the university placed restrictions on Dr Salby, preventing him access to documents and office space and prompting his resignation. The restrictions were imposed as a punishment resulting from Dr Salby’s alleged reluctance to correctly complete Conflict of Interest forms.

The investigation report found that “the total estimate of improperly collected indirect costs is $117,565.” The report added that payments to Dr Salby from a second company had been based on “fabricated time and effort reports”. The report also found that “the charges based on the reports may also be an unallowable cost in the total amount of $303,281”.

The investigation looked at Dr Salby’s involvement with two private companies and alleged he had misled his university and the NSF about the relationship between those two companies and his involvement with them. Dr Salby or his related companies had applied for funds through the NSF and the investigation alleged he had made an application to two different federal agencies for essentially the same work.

Dr Salby had previously denied this was the case, the report said, and he had argued the projects were different. In relation to these companies, the investigation found:

After many years of operation of the first company, the subject created a second, for-profit company that acted as a subcontractor to the first company. The subject was the sole owner and employee of the second company, which existed solely to receive grant funds from the first company and pay them to the subject as salary.

In relation to the time sheets, a report of the investigation said:

When we asked him (Dr Salby) to supply supporting documentation for the salary payments, the subject provided timesheets reflecting highly implausible work hours—for example, the subject claimed effort averaging nearly 14 hours a day for 98 continuous days between May and August 2002 (including weekends and holidays), and in other instances claimed to have devoted as much as 21 hours per day to the project.

The investigation made six findings against Dr Salby. Among these was that Dr Salby had “repeatedly made false and misleading statements to the University, and failed to abide by its established policies on conflicts of interest and financial disclosures.”

Dr Salby was appointed to his position at Macquarie University in 2008, several months before the final report of the NSF investigation.

The investigation report also details their attempts to get a response from Dr Salby to the final accusations. After couriering the report to Australia, leaving messages on his Macquarie University voicemail and sending emails to two different addresses, Dr Salby responded one month later.

Dr Salby then denied that a second company had been subcontracting to another, denied that the companies were accountable under NSF rules and also claimed that his timesheets were accurate. A letter to Dr Salby, attached to the investigation, outlined the wide-ranging restrictions relating to his “debarment period” when he would not be allowed to access NSF grants.

… you will be barred from having supervisory responsibility, primary management, substantive control over, or critical influence on, a grant, contract, or cooperative agreement with any agency of the Executive Branch of the Federal Government.

DeSmogBlog has approached Macquarie University for a response.

http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/07/12/murry-salby-sacked-australian-university--banned-national-science-foundation

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Heartland Institute - the Keystone Cops Of Climate Science Denial - Strike Again

by Graham Readfearn, DeSmogBlog, June 18, 2013

THERE’S a section on the Heartland Institute’s website pointing readers to “Stuff We Wish We Wrote.”

After events over the last year or so, the chaps at the fossil fuel-funded “think tank” might want to add a new section with the title “Stuff We Wish We Hadn’t Wrote.”

The Heartland Institute, for those who don’t know, is a Chicago-based group promoting any view or position that argues we shouldn’t do anything about human-caused climate change. They run campaigns, hold conferences, write op-eds in the media and pay contrarian scientists.

Right there on the think-tank’s homepage, the group proudly displays a quote from The Economist magazine describing Heartland as “The world's most prominent think-tank promoting scepticism about man-made climate change.”

Yet as is the case with most things Heartland says about climate change, things are not always as they seem. Heartland’s boastful quote is taken out of context and comes from this article in The Economist, documenting a spectacular own goal by Heartland.

Heartland, The Economist wrote, had lost an estimated $825,000 in funding after running a billboard campaign that equated acceptance of human-caused global warming to the values of serial killer Ted “Unabomber” Kaczynski.

So when The Economist was describing Heartland as a prominent think-tank promoting climate science denial, it wasn’t doing it in a good way. No wonder then that Heartland didn’t hyperlink the quote.

This brings us to Heartland’s most recent example of self-aggrandizing – implying the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) thinks they’re awesome because it translated two of Heartland’s reports, only to be told by aforementioned academy to apologise for misrepresenting what they had actually done. Here are the nuts and bolts of the story. On June 11, Heartland released a statement detailing how CAS had translated two volumes of its NIPCC reports  – Climate Change Reconsidered.

The main contributors to the reports, contrarian scientists Craig idso, Fred Singer and Australia-based Robert Carter, were due to fly to Beijing to launch the report, Heartland said. Internal Heartland documents have shown that in 2012, Heartland planned to pay Idso $11,6000 a month for his work on the NIPCC report. Singer was to receive $5,000 per month and Carter would get $1,667 monthly.

On June 12, Jim Lakely, Heartland’s communications director, took to the think-tank’s blog -- “Somewhat Reasonable” -- with unfettered excitement. Under the headline “Chinese Academy of Sciences publishes Heartland Institute research skeptical of Global Warming,” Lakely wrote that CAS’s translation now placed “enormous scientific heft” behind the “questionable notion that man is responsible for catastrophically warming the planet.”

In a typically restrained and understated manner, Lakely quotes Heartland President Joseph Bast as saying: “This is a historic moment in the global debate about global warming.”

Bast then tries to drive a wedge between China and other countries involved in United Nations negotiations to agree a deal to cut emissions of greenhouse gases. China’s previous refusal to sign a deal, Bast claimed, was now justified because CAS had translated the Heartland book and this “indicates the country’s leaders believe their position is justified by science and not just by economics.”

Professor Carter told Lakely that Chinese companies would soon leave their Western counterparts in the competitive dust becuase, he said, they were still “hindered by the IPCC’s leaden and outdate global warming ideology.”

Climate sceptic blogger Anthony Watts was similarly excitable, running a post with the title “Heartland’s NIPCC report to be accepted by Chinese Academy of Sciences in special ceremony.” That these statements were published on a Heartland blog with the title “Somewhat Reasonable” seems beautifully ironic, given what followed. Presumably finding Heartland’s actions Somewhat Unreasonable, the Lanzhou Branch of the National Science Library of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which carried out the translation, released a statement. It read:

…the Heartland Institute published the news titled “Chinese Academy of Sciences publishes Heartland Institute research skeptical of Global Warming” in a strongly misleading way on its website, implying that the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) supports their views, in contrary to what is clearly stated in the Translators’ Note in the Chinese translation. The claim of the Heartland Institute about CAS’ endorsement of its report is completely false.

In fact, the translation was “purely non-official academic activities [of] the group of translators” and “they do not represent, nor they have ever claimed to represent, CAS or any of CAS institutes.” Perhaps Heartland had made an innocent mistake?  Nope.

The above fact was made very clear in the Translators’ Note in the book, and was known to the NIPCC report authors and the Heartland Institute before the translation started. The false claim by the Heartland Institute was made public without any knowledge of the translator group. Since there is absolutely no ground for the so called CAS endorsement of the report, and the actions by the Heartland Institute went way beyond acceptable academic integrity, we have requested by email to the president of the Heartland Institute that the false news on its website to be removed.

We also requested that the Institute issue a public apology to CAS for the misleading statement on the CAS endorsement. If the Heartland Institute does not withdraw its false news or refuse to apologize, all the consequences and liabilities should be borne by the Heartland Institute. We reserve the right for further actions to protect the rights of CAS and the translators group.

Just in case anyone was in any doubt, the overarching Chinese Academy of Sciences also issued a statement urging the public to ignore Heartland’s “misleading information.” Heartland promptly threw its previous bravado-soaked statements down the memory hole, deleting all pages. In the intervening days, Bast no longer seems to think this to be a “historic moment.” Cue embarrassing climb down.

Some people interpreted our news release and a blog post describing this event as implying that the Chinese Academy of Sciences endorses the views contained in the original books. This is not the case, and we apologize to those who may have been confused by these news reports. To be clear, the release of this new publication does not imply CAS and any of its affiliates involved with its production 'endorse' the skeptical views contained in the report. Rather, as stated in the translator's preface of the book, 'The work of these translators, organizations and funders has been in the translation and the promotion of scientific dialogue, does not reflect that they agree with the views of NIPCC.

It’s worth bearing in mind that less than a week after Heartland had tried to tell followers that China was doubting the risks of human caused climate change, the country launched the first of seven emissions trading schemes.

Perhaps a better way to describe The Heartland Institute might be “The Keystone Cops of the climate science denial movement” but they’ll probably just stick with the line from The Economist.

http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/06/18/heartland-institute-keystone-cops-climate-science-denial-strike-again

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The Heartland Institute's skeptical Chinese fantasy

The Chinese Academy of Sciences translated a Heartland report, but endorses the climate change consensus

US and Chinese flags in front of the White House. The USA and China recently agreed to reduce emissions of HFCs, which are potent greenhouse gases. Photograph: Carolyn Kaster/AP

 

by Dana Nuccitelli, Climate Consensus: The 97%, The Guardian, June 14, 2013

The Heartland Institute is a fossil fuel-funded think tank that gained notoriety in May 2012 for launching an ad campaign comparing those who agree that humans are causing global warming (that's 97% of climate scientists and the majority of the rest of us) to the Unabomber and Osama bin Laden.

 

Billboards in Chicago paid for by The Heartland Institute along the inbound Eisenhower Expressway in Maywood, Illinois. Photograph: The Heartland Institute 

  Heartland also funds a report written by a group calling themselves the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), which tries to be the contrarian response to the IPCC. The NIPCC report itself is BS (Bad Science), repeating numerous long-debunked climate myths and cherry picking data.

However, a branch of the Chinese Academy of Sciences recently decided to translate the NIPCC report. The Heartland Institute has triumphantly trumpeted this as evidence that the Chinese are becoming "skeptics" and the climate consensus is crumbling, claiming for example,

"The trend toward skepticism and away from alarmism is now unmistakable,"

"Publication of a Chinese translation of Climate Change Reconsidered by the Chinese Academy of Sciences indicates the country's leaders believe their [failure to sign a global climate treaty] is justified by science and not just economics."

However, Heartland's interpretation of these events does not jibe with the statements or actions of the translators, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, or the Chinese government. Here are relevant comments from the NIPCC translator's preface [PDF]:

"The most recent [IPCC] report ... found that most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely (>90%) due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations, represents the consensus scientific opinions on international climate change studies. Yet, as with any academic topic, there are still differing viewpoints and debates on the causes, facts, impacts and trends in climate change."

"In order to help Chinese researchers to understand different opinions and positions in debates on climate change, at the end of 2011, we contact The Heartland Institute, the publisher of these two reports."

"The work of these translators, organizations and funders has been in the translation and the promotion of scientific dialogue, does not reflect that they agree with the views of NIPCC"

And here is the Chinese Academy of Sciences' response to inquiries about the translation and Heartland's (mis)interpretation of its meaning:

"...this is only a book cooperation between the Lanzhou Branch of the National Science Library and Heartland Institute, and is limited only to copy right trading, with no academic research work involved.

A few CAS experts participated in the translation of the book, aiming to demonstrate different voices in the global scientific field to the Chinese science community, however, that does not mean that we CAS joined the research or agree with their view point; neither does it mean that CAS will decide "promote" the climate "skeptic" view or group."

These are not quite the ringing endorsements of the NIPCC report or the climate contrarian position that the Heartland comments imply. In fact, the Chinese Academy of Sciences has signed onto this joint statement along with 12 other Academies of Science, in which they endorse the IPCC consensus position on human-caused global warming and note,

"Responding to climate change requires both mitigation and adaptation to achieve a transition to a low carbon society and our global sustainability objectives."

In short, the Chinese Academy of Sciences endorses the IPCC consensus position that humans are causing global warming. They recognize that there are dissenting views (from the 2–3% minority in the scientific literature), and they offered to translate the NIPCC report as an opportunity for climate contrarians to make their case. However, the translators and Chinese Academy of Sciences explicitly note that this translation does not mean they agree with the contrarian position or the contents of the NIPCC report.

In fact, China has recently been taking a leading role in addressing climate change. They're testing out a carbon cap and trade system, are trying to ensure that their coal consumption has peaked, and have reached an agreement with the USA to reduce hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) emissions, which are potent greenhouse gases. China has also been diversifying towards more low-carbon energy sources.

Does this sound like a country that denies that human greenhouse gas emissions are causing climate change, as Heartland suggests?

As if Heartland's misrepresentation of China and its Academy of Sciences weren't bad enough, they also distorted the positions of the Russian and Polish Academies of Sciences, claiming the translation "follows strong statements by the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Polish Academy of Sciences dissenting from claims that global warming is either man-made or a crisis."

The claim about the Russian Academy of Sciences is based on a statement from a single scientist affiliated with the Academy. What does the Russian Academy of Science actually say about global warming? They signed the same joint statement as the Chinese Academy of Sciences, endorsing the IPCC consensus view that humans are causing global warming, and that we must "transition to a low-carbon society."

The claim about the Polish Academy of Sciences is based on a statement from the Academy's geologic science committee. Like its Chinese and Russian counterparts, the full Polish Academy of Sciences has signed statements endorsing the human-caused global warming consensus. For example in 2007 (Google English translation) and in 2010:

"It is widely agreed that human activities are changing Earth's climate beyond natural climatic fluctuations. The emission and accumulation of greenhouse gases associated with the burning of fossil fuels, along with other activities, such as land use change, are the principal causes of climate change."

So Heartland's claim about "the trend toward skepticism" (where "skepticism" actually means contrarianism) is pure fantasy. The reality is that the Chinese, Russian, and Polish Academies of Science all endorse the consensus position that humans are causing global warming.

Moreover, as our recent study found, that consensus position is growing in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. As Graham Readfearn recently documented, over the past two decades, fossil fuel interests have engaged in a number of campaigns to cast doubt on the existence of the consensus on human-caused global warming. Convincing the public that this settled science is still in dispute has long been a top priority for industry groups.

 

Cook et al. (2013) 97% consensus results and notable anti-consensus campaigns. Image by John Garrett
Heartland's misrepresentation of the positions of the Chinese, Russian and Polish Academies of Science is the latest in this long line of efforts to cast doubt on the expert consensus on climate change. However, if the Bad Science in the NIPCC report represents the "differing viewpoints" the Chinese will be exposed to, I wouldn't bet on them reversing their endorsement of the human-caused global warming consensus anytime soon. Global temperatures will continue to rise, and the expert consensus on human-caused global warming will continue to grow along with them.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/jun/14/climate-change-heartland-chinese-academy-sciences

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Graham Readfearn: The Slippery Slope to Slime -- Australia's Great Barrier Reef

by Graham Readfearn, ABC (Australia) Environment, April 15, 2013

Australia's Great Barrier Reef is unparalleled in its beauty. But now a new scientific experiment is revealing the future for the reef if climate change continues, and it doesn't look good.

Heron Island is a hub of marine research in the Great Barrier Reef.Credit: University of Queensland (supplied)

ON A LARGE WOODEN deck on a coral cay island in the middle of the Great Barrier Reef, research assistant Aaron Chai removes the lid from one of 12 circular white water tanks.

"This is the 'do nothing' tank," he says, peering inside at a careful arrangement of dead, slimy, algae-covered and bleached-white corals.

In July last year, this small reef ecosystem looked very different - corals of vivid purples and blues beside the bright greens of turtle weeds. Since then the levels of carbon dioxide and temperature in the bowl-shaped tank have been changed to the kind of conditions expected by the end of this century if the world 'does nothing' about climate change and its fossil fuel use.

"It's the slippery slope to slime," says the University of Queensland's Associate Professor Sophie Dove, who is running this experiment on the university's research station on Heron Island, about 80 kilometres off Gladstone in central Queensland.

The World Heritage-listed Great Barrier Reef is already under stress from natural and man-made hazards. There's climate change and ocean acidification, both driven by burning fossil fuels; run-off from farmland; attacks by crown-of-thorns starfish; cyclones; fishing; and shipping.

A study led by the Australian Institute for Marine Sciences found that since 1985 the reef has lost more than half its coral cover, with two thirds of that loss occurring since 1998.

Tanks of tests

Dove's experiment aims to find out what the future may hold for the reef. All the tanks have inside a near-identical mini-ecosystem with specimens taken from a reef slope next to Heron Island. Each tank is filled with sediments, rocks, 11 different types of coral, two types of snails and various other species such as sea cucumbers, small crabs and blenny fish.

There are three 'control' tanks where temperature and carbon dioxide (CO₂) levels change every two hours in line with measurements taken by a sensor on the reef slope.

Conditions in three 'pre-industrial' tanks are treated to temperatures about 1°C less than today and CO₂ levels at 100 parts per million below current levels in the atmosphere, a reduction of around 25 per cent.

Then there are the future tanks. One future scenario presumes the world will do something on emissions so that as we approach the end of this century temperatures are about 2°C warmer and CO₂ levels rise a further 220 ppm.

The ecosystems in three 'do nothing' tanks undergo temperatures about 4.5°C above today with CO₂ levels raised 600ppm.

All of the different scenario tanks move in tandem with the control tanks, meaning they undergo the normal daily and seasonal changes that happen on the reef.

Coral in Tank 4 in July 2012. This tank imitated contemporary conditions on the reef.


Coral in Tank 4 in March 2013. The coral has developed as expected.

Slime

In the 'do nothing' tanks all but one of the corals has died and is being slowly covered in algae. Some of the coral skeletons have actually started to dissolve in the increased acidity of the water.

"If you look at those reefs in those future tanks now, they are really not all that attractive to tourists," says Dove. "It's not something that people would want to go and see. It is becoming more of a mono-culture and that stuff probably isn't that palatable to the fish. That slippery slope to slime looks to be coming true."

As humans have pumped more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels, oceans have absorbed about a third of this extra CO₂. This makes the water slightly more acidic and in theory makes it harder for corals to maintain their skeletons.

Coral in Tank 3 in July 2012. Conditions in this tank mimicked those expected in around 100 years if the world does nothing to kerb its fossil fuel use, with higher temperatures and acidity.


Coral in Tank 3 in March 2013. The coral has not survived and algae has taken over.

Warmer and cloudier water can also slow down the growth of corals and some studies have found corals are already growing more slowly in parts of the reef.

When increased temperatures put stress on corals their relationship with their colour-giving algae can break down, leaving behind a "bleached" coral.

"There's always life and death on the reef," says Dove. "We want to see if those corals that are bleached can spring back and go again.

"But we do need to look at what happens to dead coral because most of our live coral sits on a bed of dead stuff underneath. You don't want to be standing on a ladder that's full of woodworm.

"We want to keep the experiment running because we want to see how quickly some things disappear altogether."

Scientific studies published in recent weeks have used projections and computer models to predict the kind of effects on coral reefs that Dove can see in the tanks on Heron Island.

One study published in the journal Nature Climate Change looked at how often coral reefs might bleach in the future. The study found that under all but the most optimistic scenarios for cutting CO₂ emissions, bleaching would be an annual event for 95 per cent of the world's coral reefs by the year 2075

Some reefs in northwestern Australia were even more susceptible to bleaching, the study predicted, with annual bleaching taking place in less than 14 years from now if emissions go unchecked.

A recent study from Western Australia found that a severely disturbed reef may take as long as 12 years to recover from a bleaching.

Meanwhile a study led by the University of New South Wales Climate Change Research Centre found that reefs in shallow waters could be subjected to even higher levels of acidification than was previously thought.

Yet far from climate change being a problem for the future, Dove says the healthy coral in her 'pre-industrial' tanks suggests "the world's already been running a big experiment on the reef over the last 100 years".

She plans to keep her own experiment running to get at least a full year of observations and will soon start to write up results to submit to scientific journals.

When she moves off the subjects of statistics, measurement, "calcification rates" and "symbionts" and onto reefs as amazing places to visit, a whimsical smile breaks.

She has spent the last 30 years or so exploring the wonders of coral reefs. If she's not studying them, she's holidaying on them.

"Some places are just magic," she says. "It's beautiful. There is still some hope but we have to put in a bit of effort. I would hate for it not to be there for people to see."

http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2013/04/15/3730941.htm

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Newspaper rag, The Australian, provides space for absurd gibberish from James Delingpole

The Australian publishes James Delingpole’s call for climate “alarmists” to face court with power to issue death sentence

James Delingpole (at left)

by Graham Readfearn, Graham Readfearn's blog, April 3, 2013

I IMAGINE only a small percentage of people reading this have had any journalism training, but don’t let that stop you from pondering the following ethical question.

If you read a newspaper story that included a direct quote from someone – let’s say, for instance, UK climate scientist Dr David Viner – would it be acceptable to put quotation marks on the headline of that story and claim it was a quote from Dr Viner? You can have a minute to think about it.

It might help you to know that the headline was not written by the reporter who interviewed Dr Viner and wrote the story, and certainly not by Dr Viner himself. In short, a third person – a sub-editor – wrote the headline.

You don’t need a minute? Of course not: it would be unprofessional, unethical and factually wrong to pass off a sub-editor’s made-up words as Dr Viner’s.

The Australian newspaper has just published a column from UK-based climate science mangler and anti-wind farm activist James Delingpole that tries to argue that Australia’s recent unprecedented heatwave and hottest month on record wasn’t all that hot and that global warming “alarmists” should be answering to a court with the power to issue a death sentence (no, I don’t exaggerate, but we’ll get to that at the end).

In the story, Delingpole says that Dr Viner had “famously declared” in 2000 that “Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past”.

But here’s the thing. Dr Viner never did utter those words. He was indeed quoted in a story in the UK’s The Independent newspaper which carried the headline “Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past”. But the headline was a gross over-statement: the first paragraph makes the  far more modest claim that a trend to warmer winters meant that  “snow is starting to disappear from our lives”.

The reporter, Charles Onians, quoted Dr Viner as saying that within a few years winter snowfall will become “a very rare and exciting event.” Note the absence of quote marks on the time frame being within a few years – they were Onians’s words, just as the headline was the sub-editor’s.

So Dr Viner’s actual prediction was that at some point in the future snow could become “a very rare and exciting event.” As well, the story paraphrases him as adding an important qualifier – that heavy snow will return occasionally and catch people unprepared. But Delingpole leaves this bit out.

Delingpole then uses the non-quote that Dr Viner didn’t say as a launchpad to ridicule him. “Viner has since become a legend in his own lunchtime, frequently quoted on the internet, sometimes having his name joshingly used as a synonym for snow. This isn’t because he got his prediction right, of course. It’s because, like Flannery, he got it so spectacularly, hilariously, hopelessly wrong.”

Hopelessly wrong, Mr Delingpole? What, like hopelessly attributing a quote to someone who never said it?

Delingpole is of course “reporting” from an unseasonably cold and recently snowbound United Kingdom, which the BBC reports has just experienced its second coldest March since records began.

Scientists are now reporting a link between the loss of sea ice in the Arctic – driven by human-caused climate change – and cold snaps in the northern hemisphere like the one experienced by the UK. A recent scientific paper in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences explained the link.

Delingpole also says in the column that Australia’s recent record-breaking summer heatwave wasn’t that hot. “The thermometers were higher when the First Fleet arrived in the Sydney summer of 1790–91,” writes Delingpole, presumably having travelled back in time to check that the First Fleet thermometer was positioned within something resembling a Stevenson screen to ensure sunlight or incorrect air flow didn’t corrupt the reading.

It’s possible that Delingpole based his statement from this guest blog post by Australian MP Craig Kelly on Watts Up With That, where Kelly wrote that on December 27th, 1790, one of these First Fleet thermometers near Observatory Hill in Sydney recorded a temperature of 42.8 °C.

It’s a shame that Delingpole didn’t check this figure. Four days after Kelly wrote that story, Sydney recorded its hottest day ever with 45.8 °C at Observatory Hill on 18 January – a full three degrees hotter than Kelly’s favoured First Fleet thermometer. Even The Australian reported it.

But in any case, Australia’s recent record breaking heatwave wasn’t a heatwave confined to one temperature reading in one place. As a Bureau of Meteorology special climate statement pointed out, “maximum temperatures over the period 1–18 January have been 6 °C or more above normal over a wide area of interior central and southern Australia and 45 °C has been reached at least once during the event over 46.9% of Australia.”

You might think that The Australian would be wary about using Delingpole, after a recent Australian Press Council upheld a complaint about one of his previous contributions to Australia’s only national newspaper.

In that story in May last year, Delingpole quoted an un-named sheep farmer as saying that the wind farm industry  was ”bloody well near a pedophile ring. They’re f . . king our families and knowingly doing so.”

The APC said this was “highly offensive” and “the level of offensiveness is so high that it outweighs the very strong public interest in freedom of speech.”

But rather than heed the blunt-toothed press council’s finding, Delingpole was given more space by The Australian to respond. He wrote: “I stand by every word of the piece – especially the bit about pedophiles. I would concede that the analogy may be somewhat offensive to the pedophile community.”

How could even Delingpole top this statement for offensiveness?  He has a prime contender at the bottom of his most recent column, where he writes: “The climate alarmist industry has some very tough questions to answer: preferably in the defendant’s dock in a court of law, before a judge wearing a black cap.”

To those not au fait with the traditions of the English courts, black caps were only worn by judges when handing out death sentences.

By continuing to publish such low-grade and offensive polemics, in my view the only things hanging limp from the gallows are The Australian's credibility on climate change and its professional standards.

http://www.readfearn.com/2013/04/the-australian-delingpole-death-sentence/

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