I had the opportunity to talk with John at length during the Weather Channel 30th anniversary reunion which I attended (and live blogged) this past weekend in Atlanta (thanks so very much to all of you who helped with travel expenses, it was a true honor for me to be there.). John felt that this story is one that should be covered by every TV station in America, and I agreed. So, as John does, he leads and hopes others follow.

In the video he says this:

The idea that carbon dioxide produced by our fossil fuels threatens the planet Earth - that one seems to have pretty well failed the test of time.

Of course many on the other side of the AGW debate don’t want to accept that, but the fact is that some have come to their senses and climbed down, such as James Lovelock did recently.

This will be up on YouTube for maximum exposure at some point John assures me, until then, please visit the KUSI-TV website here to watch the video.

EPA’s recently announced regulations on mercury from power plants will, in fact, do nothing substantial about the amount of this element in the global atmosphere. If they were really serious, they would ban volcanoes and forest fires, which are much larger sources.

Total annual releases of mercury to the atmosphere from such natural sources are about 5,200 metric tons per year. The world�s volcanoes tend to concentrate along the Pacific Rim, where the great tectonic plates that define the world’s continents are in flux, and in the mid-Atlantic, where continental drift is expanding the Atlantic ocean, opening up huge rifts that extend far beneath the surface. Forest fires tend to take place where there are forests - especially dry ones like those in the western U.S.

Data published in the refereed scientific journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions indicate that the amount of mercury released into the atmosphere by human activities - mainly from smelting of metals and combustion of coal - is about 2,320 tons, for a total atmospheric increment (natural + anthropogenerated) of a bit over 7,500 tons per year. The human contribution makes up about 31% of the annual total.

Now it gets good, and we can see how absurd EPA’s perseveration on mercury from U.S. power plants is.

The total contribution from all human activity in the United States to the global mercury flux is approximately 120 tons, or about 1.6% of the total. The amount coming from U.S. coal-fired electricity plants is around 48 tons, 0.6% of the global load. But mercury can reside a long time in the atmosphere - up to two years, so, unless it quickly rains out as “wet deposition”, it’s likely to disperse far, far away. In fact, only about 25% of the mercury emitted by our power plants, or 0.2% of global emissions, falls on our soil.

For that we are going to close 68 power plants supplying electricity to about 22 million homes?

Oh, we know, it’s about the children. So just to show how much we care, we present here the relative magnitudes of the sources of atmospheric mercury in the form of babies:

Figure 1. Comparative size of mercury sources given as the area of each of these babies. The biggest baby - the total global annual flux - is about 153 times bigger than the baby representing U.S. power plants. The fact that mercury can reside as long as two years in the atmosphere is why at least well over half of the mercury deposited here is of foreign origin. The almost invisible dot on the extreme right is the amount coming from power plants that winds up on our soil.

Both the EPA and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) used different models to estimate how much of the mercury deposited in the U.S. comes from power plants, and how much comes from foreign sources. They arrived at even lower numbers than we show here. According to EPRI’s 2006 Issue Briefing on mercury:

Analysis of mercury emissions from U.S. sources, including coal-fired power plants, shows that about 2/3 of this emitted mercury leaves the United States. Most of it is assumed to join the global atmospheric pool. Only about 1/15th of the mercury depositing in the U.S. originates from U.S. power plants, even though they account for nearly 40% of U.S. mercury emissions. Mercury deposition occurring over 70% or more of the U.S. surface area originates in other countries, and is often transported thousands of miles before arriving in the U.S. Thus, reducing domestic power plant sources of mercury will not result in proportional reductions in deposition occurring across the U.S.

The fact that the relative numbers are inconstant across the various sources shows how impossible detecting any effects of mercury emissions reductions will be. Further, there is simply no evidence linking mercury from power plants in the U.S. to any single specific case of illness or death.

The fact of the matter is that, in the near term, natural gas is likely to continue to displace coal for electrical generation as it has now become less costly due to the exploitation of the huge amounts of gas and oil lying beneath the nation’s surface in shale rock deposits. There is little doubt that, if this continues, power companies would gradually switch away from coal as plants aged. Unfortunately, the EPA’s activity accelerates this process, inducing unwanted costs and permanently displacing thousands of Appalachian coal workers, for no detectable mercury-related health effect.

References:

Pirrone, N., et al., 2010. Global mercury emissions to the atmosphere from anthropogenic and natural sources. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions, 10, 4719-4752

Electric Power Research Institute, 2006. Sources of Mercury Depositing in the United States. Issue Brief. 3pp

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Note from SEPP TWTW:

EPA: The EPA continues to make outrageous statements. It has been brought to light that in testimony to Congress last September, Administrator Lisa Jackson claimed that further controls of soot would be as beneficial to public health as finding a cure for cancer. There is little question that prolonged exposure to high concentrations of soot cause health problems such as in lungs and eyes. However, already soot in the US is tightly controlled. To equate additional benefits of additional controls with finding a cure for cancer is outrageous.

A senior EPA official described his view of enforcement of oil and gas regulations as similar to the practice of Roman soldiers crucifying natives of a village they just occupied. See this WSJ story on the EPA’s outrageous slash and burn policy.

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EPA’s ‘Crucifixion’ of Energy Sector Exposed

Posted By Rich Trzupek On April 27, 2012 @ 12:44 am In Daily Mailer, FrontPage

For those of us in industry who have watched the agency grow in power and arrogance over the decades, there wasn�t anything all that surprising about somebody suggesting that the EPA uses threats and intimidation against the regulated community. We all know, from long and bitter experience, that’s how the EPA works. What was remarkable is that it was an EPA official admitting it.

Al Armendariz, EPA Region 6 administrator, was caught on tape urging the troops attending a 2010 meeting to be ruthless in their dogged pursuit of dirty rotten polluters (aka: anybody in the private sector). “You make examples out of people who are in this case not complying with the law...and you hit them as hard as you can,� he said. But it was the spectacularly inappropriate analogy Almenadariz utilized to underline the point that really caught the public’s attention:

“It was kind of like how the Romans used to, you know, conquer villages in the Mediterranean,” he said. “They’d go in to a little Turkish town somewhere, they’d find the first five guys they saw, and they’d crucify them. And then, you know, that town was really easy to manage for the next few years.”

Yet, as spectacularly inappropriate as that analogy was, it was also dead-on accurate. When the EPA undertakes an enforcement initiative against one industry sector or another, it goes for the jugular. We�ve seen it time and time again. The initial “crucifixions” take the form of crushing fines against a handful of supposed bad actors, which serves to send a singular message to the rest of the companies in a particular industry sector: resistance is futile. It doesn’t matter whether the administration in power is Republican or Democrat. It�s an EPA thing. Congress has handed the EPA a tremendous amount of power over the years and the Agency isn’t at all shy about wielding it.

Consider the Clean Air Act, for example. Under the Clean Air Act the EPA has the authority to levy fines of up to $25,000 per day for each violation. Those violations don’t have to (and frequently don�t) have anything to do with emitting more pollutants into the air than are allowed by applicable regulations. If the EPA finds that a company didn’t file the right paperwork at the right time, or failed to keep a required record in exactly the right form, or committed a host of other environmental sins that don�t have anything to do with protecting the environment, they can wield their $25,000 per day per violation cudgel to get what they want. And what they want is revenue, both as an end for its own sake, and as a tangible means to “prove” to enviro-activists and Congress that they are doing their job. As I detailed in my book Regulators Gone Wild: How the EPA is Ruining American Industry, the more complex regulations become, the more opportunity the EPA has to pick meaningless nits and jack up enforcement revenue.

It�s all about the price point, as is the case with any protection racket. If the target is a big corporation, you have to load up a lot of alleged violations such that the possible penalty is huge, and then hit them with a settlement offer that makes just a little more fiscal sense than the company deciding to lawyer-up.

The little guys are easier marks. There’s not as much money to be made of course, since one can only squeeze so much juice out of a turnip, but all the Agency has to do is point at the monster settlement it made with the big boys in the target industry and the rest of the peasants are as sure to fall in line as any ancient Turk facing the might of Roman legions.

Need an example? Consider the electric power industry. Starting in 1999 and continuing through present day, the EPA went after coal-fired power plants for allegedly violating certain portions of the Clean Air Act. These complex cases were, in many ways, without real merit in my opinion but it was easier for the big guys to pay what amounted to a tax for daring to operate a coal-fired power plant than engaging in a long, costly legal battle. These cases affected large utilities who operate plants that generate hundreds and thousands of megawatts of electricity.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are the little guys - the local co-ops and municipal utilities that operate small power plants that generate a couple dozen or so megawatts per facility. Some of these local players burn coal. The Obama administration doesn�t like coal. And so, like the heavy in 1930s gangster movie, EPA officials have been calling on these small, environmentally insignificant coal-fired power plants and presenting them with a simple choice: shut down or switch to another fuel, because if you don’t we’re going to come after you, and you�ve already seen what we can do to the big guys. It�s like one of Capone�s boys showing up and darkly observing: “nice power plant you got there pal - it would be a shame if anything happened to it.”

Almost none of this racket is about actual environmental protection. The United States is one of the most environmentally pristine nations in the world and continues to get cleaner every year. No matter. The more we reduce pollution, the more outrageous EPA enforcement becomes. How can it be otherwise? The Agency, the environmental groups whom it answers to and their leftist supporters in Congress use enforcement activity as the primary metric by which the EPA’s successes and failures are judged. As a result, to bastardize Churchill, never in history have so many been fined so much for so little.

Republican Senator James Inhofe announced that he’s launching an investigation into EPA abuse as a result of Armendariz’s all-too-honest comments. Here�s hoping that something comes of the senator’s efforts. There are a few million of us in the private sector ready, willing and able to bear witness to what has been going on, and the nation will be far better off if Inhofe can help rein in this out-of-control agency.

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EPA Administrator resignation not enough. The entire EPA needs to resign

Washington, D.C. - Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, commented on the resignation of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region VI Administrator Al Armendariz in the wake of the release of a video in which Armendariz is caught on tape admitting that EPA’s “general philosophy” is to “crucify” and “make examples” of oil and gas companies so that others are “really easy to manage.”

“After his revelation that EPA’s ‘general philosophy’ is to ‘crucify’ oil and gas companies, it was only right for Administrator Armendariz to resign today - but his resignation in no way solves the problem of President Obama and his EPA’s crucifixion philosophy,” Senator Inhofe said.  “In his letter to Administrator Jackson, Armendariz again pointed to his ‘poor choice of words’ as the reason for his resignation - but Armendariz was just being honest: his choice of words revealed the truth about the war that EPA has been waging on American energy producers under President Obama. 

“We will continue our investigation into the situations surrounding EPA’s apparent crucifixion victims: the American people deserve to know why, in at least three separate cases, EPA tarnished the reputation of companies by accusing them of water contamination; then when the results of their study did not turn out the way they hoped, and they had no definitive evidence to make that link, they quietly walked back their accusations.  We will get to the bottom of this - and we will continue looking into EPA’s actions on hydraulic fracturing beyond these three cases as well.

“Especially as Region VI holds some of the most immense oil and gas resources in the country - including in my home state of Oklahoma - I will be watching who President Obama appoints to replace Armendariz very closely.”

Alert: ‘Gaia’ scientist James Lovelock reverses himself: I was ‘alarmist’ about climate change & so was Gore! ‘The problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago’

Climate Shocker: In 2007, Lovelock Predicted Global Warming Doom: ‘Billions of us will die; few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in Arctic’

MSNBC, perhaps the most unlikely of news sources, reports on what may be seen as the official end of the man-made global warming fear movement.

MSNBC April 23, 2012: ‘Gaia’ scientist James Lovelock reverses himself: I was ‘alarmist’ about climate change & so was Gore! ‘The problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago’

Contrast Lovelock’s 2012 skeptical climate views with his 2007 beliefs during the height of the man-made climate fear movement. [ Flashback 2007: Lovelock Predicts Global Warming Doom: ‘Billions of us will die; few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in Arctic’ ]

How fitting that a major organ of the man-made climate fear promotion, MSNBC, would deliver one of the final and most dramatic death knells to the climate movement.

More MSNBC article excerpts:

Lovelock pointed to Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” and Tim Flannery’s “The Weather Makers” as other examples of “alarmist” forecasts of the future..."The problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books - mine included - because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn’t happened,” Lovelock said. “The climate is doing its usual tricks. There’s nothing much really happening yet. We were supposed to be halfway toward a frying world now,” he said. “The world has not warmed up very much since the millennium. Twelve years is a reasonable time… it (the temperature) has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising—carbon dioxide is rising, no question about that,” he added...Asked if he was now a climate skeptic, Lovelock told msnbc.com: “It depends what you mean by a skeptic. I’m not a denier.” He said human-caused carbon dioxide emissions were driving an increase in the global temperature, but added that the effect of the oceans was not well enough understood and could have a key role. “It (the sea) could make all the difference between a hot age and an ice age,” he said. ‘I made a mistake’ As “an independent and a loner,” he said he did not mind saying “All right, I made a mistake.” He claimed a university or government scientist might fear an admission of a mistake would lead to the loss of funding.”

End MSNBC article excerpt.

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Climate Depot began reporting on Lovelock’s conversion away from climate fears in 2010 as he began reconsidering the alleged “settled science.” See below for Climate Depot’s reporting on the evolution of James Lovelock’s climate views.

SHOCK 2010: UK Green Guru James Lovelock Reconsiders Warming Views?!: Lovelock: Man-made Carbon Emissions ‘Have Saved Us from A New Ice Age’—Lovelock: ‘I hate all this business about feeling guilty about what we’re doing. We’re not guilty’—‘We haven’t learned the lessons of the ozone-hole debate. It’s important to know just how much you have got to be careful’—‘According to Dr Lovelock’s Gaia theory, the earth is capable of curing itself. A planet that is effectively alive can regulate itself and its composition and climate,” he said’

2010 Shock: Green Guru Lovelock warms to skeptics! ‘The skeptics have kept us sane...They have kept us from regarding climate science as a religion. It had gone too far that way’

Enviro Guru James Lovelock Admits Obvious: ‘Peer-review process can be exceedingly prejudiced and exert censorship even’

Green Guru James Lovelock Admits the Obvious: ‘Everybody might be wrong. Climate change may not happen as fast as we thought, and we may have 1,000 years to sort it out’

James Lovelock on Ozone hole science: ‘We should have been warned by the CFC/ozone affair because the corruption of science in that was so bad...’ ‘Something like 80% of the measurements being made during that time were either faked, or incompetently done’

Lovelock: ‘We haven’t got the physics worked out yet...I think the public are right. That’s why I’m soft on the sceptics. Science has got overblown’

2010: Green Guru Lovelock Says Warmists ‘Scared Stiff’: ‘The great climate science centers around the world are more than well aware how weak their science is’

Green Guru James Lovelock: Humans are too stupid to prevent global warming—Urges ‘putting democracy on hold for a while’ to battle warming—Lovelock on Climategate: Scandal left him feeling ‘utterly disgusted’—‘Fudging the data in any way whatsoever is quite literally a sin against the holy ghost of science’

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McIntyre Tires of the Science - Mann and the broader enabling opportunistic community

I had also spent some time considering a response to Mann’s book. It amazes me that a reputable scientific community would take this sort of diatribe seriously. Mann�s world is populated by demons and bogey-men. People like Anthony Watts, Jeff Id, Lucia, Andrew Montford and myself are believed to be instruments of a massive fossil fuel disinformation campaign and our readers are said to be “ground troops” of disinformation. The book is an extended ad hominem attack, culminating in salivation in the trumped up plagiarism campaign against Wegman, arising out of copying of trivial “boilerplate” by students (not Wegman himself). Wegman’s name nearly 200 times in the book (more, I think, than anyone else’s).

Virtually nothing in its discussion of our criticism can be taken at face value. Mann begins his account by re-cycling his original outright lie that we had asked him for an “excel spreadsheet”. Mann’s lies on this point had been a controversy back in November 2003. The incident was revived by the Penn State Investigation Committee, which had (anomalously on this point) asked Mann about an actual incident. Instead of “forgetting”, as any prudent person would have done, Mann brazenly repeated his earlier lie to the Penn State Investigation Committee. Needless to say, the “Investigation” Committee didn’t actually investigate the lie by crosschecking evidence, but accepted Mann’s testimony as ending the matter. In the book, instead of leaving well enough alone, Mann once again re-iterated the lie.

Or to pick another example, Mann noted the controversy about the contaminated Korttajarvi sediments (Tiljander), but conceded nothing. Mann said that there was no “upside down” in their “objective” methods and asserted that his results were “insensitive to whether or not these records were used”, a statement contradicted in the SI to Mann et al 2009. In any sane world, Mann would have issued a retraction of the many claims of Mann et al 2008 that depended on the contaminated Korttajarvi sediments. But instead, more attacks on critics.

Picking all the spitballs off the wall is laborious, to say the least.

Perhaps because I was sick, perhaps because I was tired, but, for whatever reason, one day I woke up and I was sick and tired both of the Team and the broader “climate community” that enables them and in which they thrive. I sense that the wider public has a similar attitude.

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ABC Reporter Mocks Global Warming ‘Denialists,’ Calls for More Alarmist Advocacy

ABC reporter and global warming enthusiast Bill Blakemore on Sunday condescendingly dismissed climate change skeptics as “denialists.” In a piece on ABCNews.com, he called for yet more advocacy on the part of journalists.

After noting that confidence in the science of climate change has varied from year to year, Blakemore huffed that these beliefs “don’t seem to be responding all that much, [Professor Jon Krosnick] says, to whatever the global warming denialist campaigns may have been doing.”

Blakemore then lectured meteorologists for not being biased enough:

A number of America�s TV meteorologists and other broadcast weatherpersons have been accused by peer-reviewed climate scientists either of being greatly uninformed about the science of the basics of manmade global warming, or, at the very least, of shying away from any mention of it during broadcasts for fear of losing ratings by driving their audience away with worrisome news.

Instead, complain these scientists, U.S. TV weather journalists, feeling the need to provide some explanation for the unusual weather, often escape into a simplistic nearest-cause answer, blaming the extreme weather on “the jet stream,” while avoiding the science that connects the jet stream�s behavior to manmade global warming � as well as ignoring other larger global patterns that also project such extremes.

Of course, as a recent MRC analysis found out, this isn’t true. ABC so called weatherman Sam Champion in 2008 wondered, “Could global warming one day force us into space to live?”

During another Champion segment in 2007, Good Morning America wondered if “billions” will die from global warming.

Is that “shying away” from global warming disaster talk?

Blakemore himself has a history of climate change alarmism:

“Life around the globe now appears to be under non-stop stress from the heat. NASA scientists say no natural climate cycles can explain it. The heat must be caused in large measure at least by greenhouse gas emissions.... NASA scientists now calculate, Robin, that the planet has at most ten years during which serious greenhouse gas emission cuts have to get well underway, or else by the time today’s kids are reaching middle age, turning about 40, they say the Earth will start to experience temperatures higher than it has known in half a million years.”
- ABC’s Bill Blakemore, Good Morning America, Dec. 15, 2006.

“Many scientists say that it [the Western wildfires] fits exactly into the pattern predicted for global warming....[San Bernadino Fire Chief Mat Fratus] told me he also worries about how all the carbon from the fires only contributes to global warming. That fact about forest fires is something that Al Gore also points out in his new book, and that book is now near the top of the bestseller list. It seems that people are really starting to pay attention to global warming.”
- ABC’s Bill Blakemore, Good Morning America, June 20, 2006.

A previous Blakemore article from April 1st featured these leading headlines:
Global Warming Denialism ‘Just Foolishness,’ Scientist Peter Raven Says U.S. prestige falling as world has ‘pretty well given up’ on any American leadership facing climate change.

Clearly, Blakemore is doing his part for climate change alarmism.

ICECAP NOTE: I attended a Society of Environmental Journalist meeting in BTV in 2007 in which Blakemore was on a panel of advocacy journalists. He remarked he used to pal around with Dr. Bill Gray and laugh about the bad global warming science. Then Hansen and other alarmists educated him and he never spoke to another skeptic again and never would. He said he decided Bill was an old fool based on what his new friends told him. Don’t expect honest unbiased science from ABC’s Blakemore as we saw this week from Lovelock.

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Last Days of the Global Warming Scam

Is the Pope Catholic?  What would people say if he were to come out and admit he might be wrong about the divinity of Christ?

That is essentially what has occurred in the Church of the Green Goddess; James Lovelock, father of the Gaia hypothesis, Defender of the Environmentalist Faith, most radical of Global Warming alarmists, has recanted!

Well, he has retreated, at any rate. Much like the legend of Galileo he has mumbled under his breath “and yet it still moves” (an unproven comment attributed to Galileo at his heresy trial.) Lovelock has stated that, while he was “alarmist” still there is Global Warming, but we just can’t seem to find it. We’ve checked all the usual places; in the oceans, in the troposphere, in the ice caps, in the dryer, under the couch, under the pile of junk mail, and the missing heat just isn’t to be found.  That tricky Gaia!  She likes to play with us so!In an interview with MSNBC Lovelock made such statements as:

“The problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books - mine included - because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn’t happened,”

“The climate is doing its usual tricks. There’s nothing much really happening yet. We were supposed to be halfway toward a frying world now,”

“The world has not warmed up very much since the millennium. Twelve years is a reasonable time… it (the temperature) has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising—carbon dioxide is rising, no question about that....”

Lovelock was wise to walk this back; too much of the evidence simply fails to justify the catastrophic vision of Global Warming theory.

There is the matter of the missing heat which alarmists theorize is hiding at the bottom of the oceans. But they have no mechanism for this heat moving downward, something heat does not normally do, and cannot find it through deep-sea probes. While Arctic ice has been weak, it has reached a new high for recent years. Himalayan glaciers have stubbornly failed to melt and some have even grown. Worldwide precipitation has stubbornly failed to increase in a statistically meaningful way . There is no solid evidence that sea level rise has accelerated in recent years . Oh, and it hasn’t warmed since Bill Clinton’s first term in office.

The next few years should be fun, as Alarmist scientists, desperate to disassociate themselves from this failed theory, run for the tall grass. The Alpha Male of the pack has just retreated.

Read more

WattsUpWithThat

In groupthink, organizations value consensus more than free thought. The emphasis on consensus leads to group polarization, in which a group�s positions become more extreme than any individual would come up with. Alarmist climate science is a textbook example of groupthink in action.

Guest post by Paul MacRae

A while ago, I received an email from a friend who asked:

How can many, many respected, competitive, independent science folks be so wrong about [global warming] (if your [skeptical] premise is correct). I don’t think it could be a conspiracy, or incompetence....  Has there ever been another case when so many ‘leading’ scientific minds got it so wrong?

The answer to the second part of my friend�s question - “Has there ever been another case where so many ‘leading’ scientific minds got it so wrong?” - is easy. Yes, there are many such cases, both within and outside climate science. In fact, the graveyard of science is littered with the bones of theories that were once thought “certain” (e.g., that the continents can’t “drift,” that Newton’s laws were immutable, and hundreds if not thousands of others).

Science progresses by the overturning of theories once thought “certain.”

And so, Carl Sagan has written:

“Even a succession of professional scientists- including famous astronomers who had made other discoveries that are confirmed and now justly celebrated - can make serious, even profound errors in pattern recognition.”

There is no reason to believe that climate scientists (alarmist or skeptic) are exempt from this possibility.

That leaves the first question, which is how so many “respected, competitive, independent science folks [could] be so wrong” about the causes and dangers of global warming, assuming they are wrong. And here, I confess that after five years of research into climate fears, this question still baffles me.

Climate certainty is baffling

It is not baffling that so many scientists believe humanity might be to blame for global warming. If carbon dioxide causes warming, additional CO2 should produce additional warming. But it’s baffling that alarmist climate scientists are so certain that additional carbon dioxide will produce a climate disaster, even though there is little empirical evidence to support this view, and much evidence against it, including a decade of non-warming. This dogmatism makes it clear, at least to those outside the alarmist climate paradigm, that something is very wrong with the state of “consensus” climate science.

There are many possible reasons for this scientific blindness, including sheer financial and career self-interest: scientists who don’t accept the alarmist paradigm will lose research grants and career doors will be closed to them. But one psychological diagnosis fits alarmist climate science like a glove: groupthink. With groupthink, we get the best explanation of “how can many, many respected, competitive, independent science folks be so wrong.”

Groupthink was extensively studied by Yale psychologist Irving L. Janis and described in his 1982 book Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascoes.

Janis was curious about how teams of highly intelligent and motivated people - the “best and the brightest” as David Halberstam called them in his 1972 book of the same name - could have come up with political policy disasters like the Vietnam War, Watergate, Pearl Harbor and the Bay of Pigs. Similarly, in 2008 and 2009, we saw the best and brightest in the world�s financial sphere crash thanks to some incredibly stupid decisions, such as allowing sub-prime mortgages to people on the verge of bankruptcy.

In other words, Janis studied why and how groups of highly intelligent professional bureaucrats and, yes, even scientists, screw up, sometimes disastrously and almost always unnecessarily. The reason, Janis believed, was “groupthink.” He quotes Nietzsche’s observation that “madness is the exception in individuals but the rule in groups,” and notes that groupthink occurs when “subtle constraints...prevent a [group] member from fully exercising his critical powers and from openly expressing doubts when most others in the group appear to have reached a consensus.”

Janis found that even if the group leader expresses an openness to new ideas, group members value consensus more than critical thinking; groups are thus led astray by excessive “concurrence-seeking behavior.” Therefore, Janis wrote, groupthink is “a model of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members’ strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action.”

The groupthink syndrome

The result is what Janis calls “the groupthink syndrome.” This consists of three main categories of symptoms:

1. Overestimate of the group�s power and morality, including “an unquestioned belief in the group’s inherent morality, inclining the members to ignore the ethical or moral consequences of their actions.” [emphasis added]

2. Closed-mindedness, including a refusal to consider alternative explanations and stereotyped negative views of those who aren’t part of the group’s consensus. The group takes on a “win-lose fighting stance” toward alternative views.

3. Pressure toward uniformity, including “a shared illusion of unanimity concerning judgments conforming to the majority view”; “direct pressure on any member who expresses strong arguments against any of the group’s stereotypes”; and “the emergence of self-appointed mind-guards ... who protect the group from adverse information that might shatter their shared complacency about the effectiveness and morality of their decisions.”

It’s obvious that alarmist climate science - as explicitly and extensively revealed in the Climatic Research Unit’s “Climategate” emails - shares all of these defects of groupthink, including a huge emphasis on maintaining consensus, a sense that because they are saving the world, alarmist climate scientists are beyond the normal moral constraints of scientific honesty ("overestimation of the group’s power and morality"), and vilification of those ("deniers") who don�t share the consensus.

For example, regarding Symptom 1, overestimation of the group�s power and morality: leading consensus climate spokespeople like Al Gore, James Hansen, and Stephen Schneider have stated outright that they feel it’s acceptable and even moral to exaggerate global-warming claims to gain public support, even if they have to violate the broader scientific principle of adherence to truth at all costs (http://www.paulmacrae.com/?p=51 has examples.) Consensus climate science also overestimates the power of humanity to override climate change, whether human-caused or natural, just as government planners overestimated the U.S.’s ability to win the Vietnam War.

Regarding Symptom 2, closed-mindedness, there are many cases of the alarmist climate paradigm ignoring or suppressing evidence that challenges the AGW hypothesis. The Climategate emails, for example, discuss refusing publication to known skeptics and even firing an editor favorable to skeptics.

Regarding Symptom 3, pressure toward uniformity: within alarmist climate science there is a “shared illusion of unanimity” (i.e., a belief in total consensus) about the majority view when this total or near-total consensus has no basis in reality. For example, the Oregon Petition against the anthropogenic warming theory has 31,000 signatories, over 9,000 of them with PhDs.

Climate scientists who dare to deviate from the consensus are censured as “deniers” -a choice of terminology that can only be described as odious. And the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change explicitly aims for “consensus” in its reports - it does not publish minority reports, and yet it is impossible that its alleged more than “2,000 scientists” could completely agree on a subject as complicated as climate.

Group polarization

Janis notes one other form of dysfunctional group dynamic that arises out of groupthink and that, in turn, helps create even more groupthink:

The tendency for the collective judgments arising out of group discussions to become polarized, sometimes shifting toward extreme conservatism and sometimes toward riskier forms of action than the individual members would otherwise be prepared to take.

This dynamic is commonly referred to as “group polarization.”

As a process, “when like-minded people find themselves speaking only with one another, they get into a cycle of ideological reinforcement where they end up endorsing positions far more extreme than the ones they started with.” [emphasis added]

And because these positions are so extreme, they are held with extreme ferocity against all criticisms.

Examples of alarmist climate groupthink

Groupthink is common in academic disciplines. For example, philosopher Walter Kaufmann, a world-renowned editor of Nietzsche’s works, identifies groupthink in his discipline as follows:

There is a deep reluctance to stick out one’s neck: there is safety in numbers, in belonging to a group, in employing a common method, and in not developing a position of one�s own that would bring one into open conflict with more people than would be likely to be pleased.

Similarly, in the 2009 Climategate emails, CRU director Phil Jones shows this “deep reluctance to stick out one�s neck” in writing (July 5, 2005):

“The scientific community would come down on me in no uncertain terms if I said the world had cooled from 1998.”

Keith Briffa laments (Sept. 22, 1999):

“I know there is pressure to present a nice tidy story as regards ‘apparent unprecedented warming in a thousand years or more in the temperature proxy data’ but in reality the situation is not quite so simple. ...I believe that the recent warmth was probably matched about 1,000 years ago.”

Elsewhere, Briffa notes (April 29, 2007):

“I tried hard to balance the needs of the science and the IPCC, which were not always the same. I worried that you might think I gave the impression of not supporting you well enough while trying to report on the issues and uncertainties.”

All of the above (there are many more examples in the Climategate emails) reveal scientific groupthink, which puts the needs and desires of a peer group - the desire for “consensus” - ahead of the scientific facts. We would, undoubtedly, find other examples of alarmist groupthink if we could examine the emails of other promoters of climate alarmism, like James Hansen’s Goddard Institute.

This groupthink isn’t at all surprising. After all, alarmist climate scientists attend several conferences a year with like-minded people (the views of outright “deniers” are not welcome, as the CRU emails clearly reveal). In the absence of real debate or dissent they easily persuade themselves that human beings are the main reason the planet is warming and it’s going to be a catastrophe. Why? Because everyone else seems to think so and, in groupthink, consensus is highly valued. The same principles operates strongly, of course, in religion.

The ‘hockey stick’ and groupthink

Climate alarmists will, of course, angrily dispute that climate science groupthink is as strong as claimed here. However, groupthink is clearly identified in the 2006 Wegman report into the Michael Mann hockey stick controversy.

As most WUWT readers will know, the Wegman report was commissioned by the U.S. House Science Committee after Mann refused to release all the data leading to the hockey stick conclusions, conclusions that eliminated the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age in order to show today�s warming as unprecedented. In fact, as mathematician Steve McIntyre discovered after years of FOI requests, the calculations in Mann�s paper had not been checked by the paper’s peer reviewers and were, in fact, wrong.

The National Academy of Sciences committee, led by Dr. Edward Wegman, an expert on statistics, identified one of the reasons why Mann’s paper was so sloppily peer-reviewed as follows:

There is a tightly knit group of individuals who passionately believe in their thesis. However, our perception is that this group has a self-reinforcing feedback mechanism and, moreover, the work has been sufficiently politicized that they can hardly reassess their public positions without losing credibility. [emphasis added]

Wegman noted that the Mann paper became prominent because it “fit some policy agendas.”

The Wegman Report also observed:

As statisticians, we were struck by the isolation of communities such as the paleoclimate community that rely heavily on statistical methods, yet do not seem to be interacting with the mainstream statistical community. The public policy implications of this debate are financially staggering and yet apparently no independent statistical expertise was sought or used. [emphasis added]

In other words, alarmist climate scientists are part of an exclusive group that talks mainly with itself and avoids groups that don’t share the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis and alarmist political agenda. Overall, Wegman is describing with great precision a science community whose conclusions have been distorted and polarized by groupthink.

Recognizing groupthink

After the Climategate emails, some consensus climate scientists began to recognize the dangers of groupthink within their discipline. So, Georgia Tech climatologist Judith Curry wrote in 2009:

In my opinion, there are two broader issues raised by these emails that are impeding the public credibility of climate research: lack of transparency in climate data, and “tribalism” in some segments of the climate research community that is impeding peer review and the assessment process.[13]

Similarly, IPCC contributor Mike Hulme wrote:

It is possible that climate science has become too partisan, too centralized. The tribalism that some of the leaked emails display is something more usually associated with social organization within primitive cultures; it is not attractive when we find it at work inside science.[14] [emphasis added]

In short, it is clear that groupthink - a later, more scientific word for “tribalism” - is strongly at work within alarmist climate science, however much the affected scientists refuse to recognize it. As a result of tribalism (groupthink), alarmist climate science makes assertions that are often extreme (polarized), including the explicit or implicit endorsement of claims that global warming will lead to “oblivion,” “thermageddon,” mass extinctions, and the like. Indeed, one of the ironies of climate science is that extremist AGW believers like Gore, Hansen and Schneider have succeeded in persuading the media and public that those who don�t make grandiose claims, the skeptics, are the extremists.

Group polarization offers a rational explanation for extreme alarmist claims, given that the empirical scientific evidence is simply not strong enough to merit such confidence. It is likely that even intelligent, highly educated scientists have been caught in what has been called the “madness of crowds.” Indeed, writing in the Times Higher Education magazine, British philosopher Martin Cohen makes this connection explicit:

Is belief in global-warming science another example of the “madness of crowds”? That strange but powerful social phenomenon, first described by Charles Mackay in 1841, turns a widely shared prejudice into an irresistible “authority”. Could it [belief in human-caused, catastrophic global warming] indeed represent the final triumph of irrationality?

There is strong psychological evidence that alarmist fears of climate change are far more the result of groupthink and the group polarization process than scientific evidence and, yes, this alarmist groupthink has indeed led to the triumph of irrationality over reason.

Paul MacRae is the author of False Alarm: Global Warming - Facts Versus Fears. His blog is at paulmacrae.com.

By Forrest Mims III, For the Express-News

In the early days of this column, concerned readers sent many questions about the earth’s ozone layer, which I began measuring in 1990. Today, public interest in the ozone layer has been replaced by concern about global warming.

Answering questions about global warming requires considerably more space than this 437-word column. So let’s focus in on the temperature history of Texas for now.

The 2011 Texas drought was exacerbated by the highest temperatures since 1895 during June, July and August. Several prominent climate scientists have blamed these record highs on global warming. These claims are puzzling because, in spite of the 2011 record highs, Texas records going back more than a century show slightly more cooling than warming. So I visited the National Climatic Data Center website to review Texas temperature records. The NCDC provides monthly temperature records for 10 Texas regions going back to 1895.

Enlarged

It also provides the average temperature for the entire state.

I retrieved all 12 months of data for each year since 1895 and plotted the average annual temperatures on a chart along with their trend. As shown in the chart, the average temperature of Texas barely changed between 1895 and 2011. The total warming during those 116 years was a statistically insignificant 0.046 degree Fahrenheit. If the record highs of 2011 are omitted, Texas cooled 0.055 degree from 1895 to 2010.

The NCDC temperature data do not fully account for the enhanced warming of weather stations that have become surrounded by buildings and pavement. This is the heat island effect. Dr. Daniel Boice of the Southwest Research Foundation studied the temperature at New Braunfels and San Antonio from 1946 to 1990.

He found that San Antonio has warmed when compared with its smaller neighbor. San Antonio might be several degrees cooler today than in 1885 if no new buildings and roads had been constructed. Why do some scientists insist that Texas is warming when the data show a negligible increase? I don’t know. But I do know that a National Science Foundation program officer told me that applications for atmospheric science grants that do not include a global warming theme stand little chance of acceptance.

Climate scientists are right to be concerned about droughts, especially since no Texas drought since precipitation records were begun around 1870 matches the megadroughts revealed in the rings of bald cypress trees. Those droughts occurred hundreds of years before SUVs and power plants began pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, a process blamed for global warming that has not yet arrived in Texas.

Forrest Mims III, an expert reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, was named one of the 50 Best Brains in Science by Discover Magazine. His science is featured at http://www.forrestmims.org. Email him at forrest.mims@ieee.org.

Read more.

Author Note:My latest science column was on how the State of Texas has not warmed from 1895 through 2011, and I’m already dealing with a rather vicious hate mail and some warmists who are quite upset that I am denying global warming. The column was only about Texas, but that didn’t matter.

You can’t deny their religious beliefs. Data doesn’t matter. Ideology and theory and models only count to the believers. See this tragic example of another apocalyptic movement that led to a lost civilization.

By Dennis Ambler, SPPI Blog

On April 12th, the National Park Foundation announced their 2012 Parks Climate Challenge Program Grantees.

So what is the Parks Climate Challenge Program?

This is from the press release:

“Since 2009, the Parks Climate Challenge program has encouraged the use of national parks as classrooms to educate students about climate change through funding and facilitation.  The ability to learn about this important issue through hands-on, science-based field curriculum, has proven a positive model through which to reach students. 

“Climate change is a profound problem and the youth of America need to be at the forefront of the solution,” said Neil Mulholland, President and CEO of the National Park Foundation. “The Parks Climate Challenge is just one of our programs that empowers our youth and strengthens our parks.”

Now in its third year, the program first connects with teachers, giving them the tools to create engaging curriculum to teach to their student on the subject of climate change.”

The Parks Climate Challenge website says that:

“This website serves as a resource to provide all teachers with the tools necessary to be successful in delivering national park centric climate change lessons.”

They describe their program by referring to the “Climate Literacy Principles” developed by the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration.

“These are the guiding and organizing principles for our resource offerings and are the measure by which you can judge the progress of your student’s understanding of climate change.”

Following the links takes us to the follow-up projects where these climate warriors pass on their new-found knowledge to even more vulnerable youngsters:

“After spending a month in North Cascades National Park and three days in Washington, DC, each student partnered with an elementary school class and their local national park to lead service projects in their home communities.”

The press release states that:

“This project was made possible through the generous support of Inner Spark Foundation and individual donors, and is done in partnership with the National Park Service and the National Park Foundation.”

A search for the Inner Spark Foundation reveals that it is a charitable foundation with an address in San Franciso, set up in 2006, with their latest IRS return filed in June 2010. There is no web site, and only details of one “officer”, with no details of trustees or a board of directors. In other words, it looks like a front organisation to hide the real sponsors of this program, whoever that might be.

The board of the National Parks Foundation is chaired by Ken Salazar and has as members, Ellen S. Alberding, President of the Chicago-based Joyce Foundation, where as a Senator, Barack Obama was a director and Peter Knight, President of Al Gore’s Generation Investment Management, New York.

A teacher’s comment on the Parks Climate Challenge website directs colleagues to the Alliance for Climate Education, ACE.

Who are they and what do they do?

ACE describe itself as the national leader in high school climate science education.

“We’re an award-winning national nonprofit dedicated to educating America�s high school students about the science behind climate change and inspiring them to do something about it -while having fun along the way. We’re based in Oakland, California, with educator teams in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, DC, Atlanta, New England, Colorado, Nevada, North Carolina and Wisconsin.

ACE delivers two core offerings: the ACE Assembly and Student Action Program.”

Who funds them?

“ACE is a 501 (c)(3) public charity. Our supporters play a significant role in the success of our work and we are honored to have the support of government agencies, private foundations, companies and individuals.”

The list includes Ebay, Google, Walt Disney, Walmart, McKibben�s 350, Saatchi and Saatchi, and many other organisations. They say about their donors:

“ACE will always be led by the world’s scientific consensus on climate change and will only accept funding if the prospective donor is committed to educating youth on the most updated climate science. The science ACE programs are built on will continue to be: (a) based on the most recent reports of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), some of the most heavily reviewed scientific work in history; and (b) reviewed by ACE’s Science Advisory Board - which includes some of the world’s leading climate scientists.”

It just so happens that their Science Advisory Board contains IPCC authors Kevin Arrigo, Reto Knutti and Terry Root from Stanford and AR4 WG1 lead author Susan Soloman from NCAR.

“ACE will never allow any funder to alter ACE’s commitment to educate students based on the world’s scientific consensus on climate change.

Any prospective corporate donation over $25K will be reviewed by a “Funding Review Committee” consisting of the ED, a staff member, a board member and an independent fundraising advisor. Before considering such corporate contribution, ACE’s Review Committee must determine that such corporation is committed to climate science education and curbing the causes of climate change.”

Another teacher-recommended link from the Parks Climate Challenge website is to National Geographic, where you can download a 124 page booklet called Changing Climate - A guide for teaching climate change in grades 3-8.

The National Geographic Education Foundation Board includes former EPA administrator William K Reilly. Mr Reilly’s other credits are as former President and Chairman of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and currently WWF Chairman Emeritus, Chairman of the Board of the ClimateWorks Foundation, Chairman of the Advisory Board for the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University, Co-Chairman of the Bipartisan Policy Center Energy Project, Co-Chairman of the Board of the Global Water Challenge, and a Director of the Packard Foundation.

The European Version - Teachers Corner

These appalling propaganda pieces are for use with children up to the ages of nine years old. (H/T An Englishman’s Castle):  This book explains the causes and effects of climate change through the story of a boy who helps firemen extinguish a forest fire and save his friend Lila the fox.

This is the agenda that passes for climate science teaching in schools the world over and government agencies are all heavily involved in promoting the IPCC version of climate knowledge. Isn’t it ironic that the Heartland Institute was accused of attempting to “subvert the teaching of science”, when children are given such distorted information as fact by the education system.

By Dr. Tim Ball

Claims of a consensus was an early sign climate science was political. It was used to support official science of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in a public relations campaign to offset and divert from bad science, inadequate data, and incorrect assumptions. It’s in use again as the science of the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) hypothesis fails and people are not persuaded.

Many scientists were fooled, including James Lovelock, a central figure to environmentalism with his Gaia hypothesis. In 2007 he said,

“Before this century is over, billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic.”

Recently he revised his view;

“The problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books - mine included - because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn’t happened.” “We were supposed to be halfway toward a frying world now.”

How could a reputable scientist be so wrong?

Some words have different meanings for the public than for professionals. For example, calling someone a skeptic is considered derogatory, yet it’s a necessity for a scientist. When warming became climate change skeptics became deniers, a nasty ambiguous word. It means you refuse to acknowledge information, but it�s specifically used for a few who deny the holocaust, arguably the most horrendous event in history.

There’s a negative implication to the word consensus. If you’re not part of it you’re out-of-step, stupid, antisocial, or all three. There’s no consensus in science. Even in politics it’s rare to assign a number to a consensus. Apparently to pretend credibility current users say there�s a 97 percent consensus about IPCC climate science.

Numerical measures of the consensus argument appeared early in climate As I recall, approximately 6000 people associated with the IPCC represented the original consensus. That number decreased to 2500 today, but they�re still the consensus according to RealClimate, the web site about which Michael Mann wrote in a 2004 email,

“...the important thing is to make sure they�re loosing (sic) the PR battle. That’s what the site is about.”

A 16 December 2004 entry asks,

“Is there really “consensus” in the scientific community on the reality of anthropogenic climate change?”

Evidence used was the now discredited study of Naomi Oreske that claimed of 928 articles selected objectively by a three word google search, 100 percent supported IPCC science.

On 22 December 2004 there’s another RealClimate insight;

We’ve used the term “consensus” here a bit recently without ever really defining what we mean by it. In normal practice, there is no great need to define it - no science depends on it. But it’s useful to record the core that most scientists agree on, for public presentation. The consensus that exists is that of the IPCC reports, in particular the working group I report (there are three WG’s. By “IPCC”, people tend to mean WG I).

This admits consensus is unnecessary in science, but necessary for climate science “for public presentation” or propaganda.

It’s another circular argument that pervade IPCC science and politics. For example, they hypothesize that CO2 causes temperature increase, program a computer model accordingly, then say the model proves that CO2 increase causes temperature increase. RealClimate says,

“The main points that most would agree on as “the consensus” are:

1.The earth is getting warmer (0.6 +/- 0.2 C in the past century; 0.1 to 0.17 C/decade over the last 30 years (see update)) [ch 2]
2.People are causing this [ch 12] (see update)
3.If GHG emissions continue, the warming will continue and indeed accelerate [ch 9]
4.(This will be a problem and we ought to do something about it)

I’ve put those four points in rough order of certainty. The last one is in brackets because whilst many would agree, many others (who agree with 1-3) would not, at least without qualification. It’s probably not a part of the core consensus in the way 1-3 are.”

So the consensus is their IPCC Reports.

Here are the facts of the consensus today.

1.The rise of 0.6 C has an error of 0.2C or 33 percent - which is scientifically meaningless. Phil Jones a senior member of the IPCC produced the number. The earth is not warming any more.
2.The only evidence people are the cause is in their computer models.
3. Temperature increase precedes CO2 increase in every single record anywhere, except in their computer models.
4.An application of the precautionary principle.

RealClimate said about consensus,

“In normal practice, there is no great need to define it - no science depends on it.”

But climate science of the IPCC and the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at East Anglia was not normal practice: a political consensus was their only hope. As Michael Crichton said,

Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled.

Sounds familiar; the science is settled, and the debate is over because there’s a consensus.

------------------

Climate scientists’ claims of email death threats go up in smoke

by: Christian Kerr
From: The Australian, May 3, 2012

CLAIMS that some of Australia’s leading climate change scientists were subjected to death threats as part of a vicious and unrelenting email campaign have been debunked by the Privacy Commissioner.

Timothy Pilgrim was called in to adjudicate on a Freedom of Information application in relation to Fairfax and ABC reports last June alleging that Australian National University climate change researchers were facing the ongoing campaign and had been moved to “more secure buildings” following explicit threats

Before you celebrate Earth Day, you should take a look at the facts about earth day and the real motivations. You see it is all about power, control and Maltusian philosophy that the earth has limited resources and too many people and that the world through some organizing force (farce) like the UN should remedy that.

In Eco Tyranny, meteorologist Brian Sussman (story below) writes that the environmentalist movement isn’t about protecting the environment at all, it’s about destroying private property, controlling behavior, and expanding government - and the Obama administration has a secret plan to further all of it.

As Earth Day 2012 occurs on Sunday, April 22, Alan Caruba offers a selection of quotes from leading figures in the environmental movement that are worth reading so that you can draw your own conclusions:

In a recent story penned here, I provided perspective on the movement and their real motivations.

David Evans, who consulted for the Australian Greenhouse Office (now the Department of Climate Change) 1999-2005 and 1998-2010, and was a believer in AGW until the evidence supporting the idea that CO2 emissions were the main cause of global warming reversed itself in 1998 to 2006, when he became a skeptic.

“The AGW scam involves a “regulating class” of believers, consisting of the UN, western governments, major banks and finance houses, NGOs and greenies, totalitarian leftists, government-funded scientists, academia, renewables corporations and the mainstream news media. Against them are the doubters: independently-funded scientists, private-sector middle class, and amateurs. The regulating class does not try to hide its belief that it is cleverer and morally superior. Their solution is regulation of the whole world�s economy by themselves, which was the object at the failed Copenhagen climate conference. On climate change, the regulating class has won over the leadership of most professional and business organizations by lobbying and pressure.”

---------

Eisenhower’s farewell address to the nation

“The free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation�’s scholars by federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present - and is gravely to be regarded. Yet in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.

---------

Vaclav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic, visited Australia in July 2011. In referring to the ideological orientations of those individuals and organisations who have significant financial and other vested interests in propagating the ‘Doctrine. of anthropogenic induced climate change, President Klaus said: “They want to change us, to change our behaviour, our way of life, our values and preferences, they want to restrict our freedom because they themselves believe they know what is good for us. They are not interested in climate. They misuse the climate in their goal to restrict our freedom. What is endangered is freedom, the climate is okay.”

After noting that today’s human-induced climate change alarmists are the ideological descendents of the zero and negative population growth advocates of the 1970s who erroneously forecast that human population pressures would lead to increases in global poverty and growing shortages in resources, President Klaus went on to add: “They hate us, the humans, they consider us selfish and sinful creatures who must be controlled by them. I used to live in a similar world - called communism - and I know that it led to the worst environmental damage the world has ever experienced.”

Even the Royal Society has taken a Malthusian direction, and should no longer be regarded as credible on science.

SEEN IN THEIR OWN WORDS:HERE Here are just a few examples:

> Maurice Strong, senior advisor to Kofi Annan, U.N. Secretary-General who chaired the gigantic (40,000 participants) “U.N. Conference on Environment and Development� in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 , who was responsible for putting together the Kyoto Protocol with thousands of bureaucrats, diplomats, and politicians, stated: “We may get to the point where the only way of saving the world will be for industrial civilization to collapse....isn’t it our job to bring that about"]

>“In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill....All these dangers are caused by human intervention...and thus the “real enemy, then, is humanity itself....believe humanity requires a common motivation, namely a common adversary in order to realize world government. It does not matter if this common enemy is “a real one or...one invented for the purpose.” Quote by the Club of Rome.

> Timothy Wirth, U.S. Undersecretary of State for Global Issues, seconded Strong’s statement: “We have got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic policy and environmental policy.”

> Richard Benedick, a deputy assistant secretary of state who headed policy divisions of the U.S. State Department, stated: “A global warming treaty must be implemented even if there is no scientific evidence to back the [enhanced] greenhouse effect.”

> “The data doesn’t matter. We’re not basing our recommendations on the data. We’re basing them on the climate models.” - Prof. Chris Folland, Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research

> “The models are convenient fictions that provide something very useful.” - Dr David Frame, Climate modeler, Oxford University

> “It doesn’t matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true.” - Paul Watson, Co-founder of Greenpeace”

> Unless we announce disasters no one will listen.” - Sir John Houghton, First chairman of the IPCC

> “No matter if the science of global warming is all phony ... climate change provides the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world.” - Christine Stewart, former Canadian Minister of the Environment

> IPCC official Ottmar Edenhofer in November 2010 admitted “one has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy.” Instead, climate change policy is about how “we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth...”

> “The only hope for the world is to make sure there is not another United States. We can’t let other countries have the same number of cars, the amount of industrialization, we have in the US. We have to stop these Third World countries right where they are.” - Michael Oppenheimer, Environmental Defense Fund

> “In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill.” - Club of Rome, The First Global Revolution

> “We must make this an insecure and inhospitable place for capitalists and their projects. We must reclaim the roads and plowed land, halt dam construction, tear down existing dams, free shackled rivers and return to wilderness millions of acres of presently settled land.” - David Foreman, co-founder of Earth First!

> “Complex technology of any sort is an assault on human dignity. It would be little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy, because of what we might do with it.” - Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute

>“Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun.” - Prof Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University

>“My three main goals would be to reduce human population to about 100 million worldwide (we are now at 6.8 billion), destroy the industrial infrastructure and see wilderness, with it’s full complement of species, returning throughout the world.” - Dave Foreman, co-founder of Earth First!

> “Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class - involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, air-conditioning, and suburban housing - are not sustainable.” - Maurice Strong, Rio Earth Summit (THE REASON FOR THE PUSH TO ALTERNATIVE GREEN ENERGY WHICH WOULD CAUSE COSTS TO SKYROCKET AND MAKE ITS USE UNAFFORDABLE).

> “Humans on the Earth behave in some ways like a pathogenic micro-organism, or like the cells of a tumor.” - Sir James Lovelock, Healing Gaia

> “The Earth has cancer and the cancer is Man.” - Club of Rome, Mankind at the Turning Point

> “A cancer is an uncontrolled multiplication of cells, the population explosion is an uncontrolled multiplication of people. We must shift our efforts from the treatment of the symptoms to the cutting out of the cancer. The operation will demand many apparently brutal and heartless decisions.” - Prof. Paul Ehrlich, The Population Bomb

> “A reasonable estimate for an industrialized world society at the present North American material standard of living would be 1 billion. At the more frugal European standard of living, 2 to 3 billion would be possible.” - United Nations, Global Biodiversity Assessment

> “A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal.” - Ted Turner, founder of CNN and major UN donor

> “… the resultant ideal sustainable population is hence more than 500 million but less than one billion.” - Club of Rome, Goals for Mankind

> “One America burdens the earth much more than twenty Bangladeshes. This is a terrible thing to say in order to stabilize world population, we must eliminate 350,000 people per day. It is a horrible thing to say, but it’s just as bad not to say it.” - Jacques Cousteau, UNESCO Courier

> “I suspect that eradicating small pox was wrong. It played an important part in balancing ecosystems.” - John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal

> “The extinction of the human species may not only be inevitable but a good thing.” - Christopher Manes, Earth First!

> “Childbearing should be a punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a government license. All potential parents should be required to use contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen for childbearing.” - David Brower, first Executive Director of the Sierra Club

> “It doesn’t matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true.” - Paul Watson, co-founder of Greenpeace

> “The only way to get our society to truly change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe.” - emeritus professor Daniel Botkin

> “We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis.” - David Rockefeller, Club of Rome executive manager

> “Climate Change will result in a catastrophic, global seal level rise of seven meters. That’s bye-bye most of Bangladesh, Netherlands, Florida and would make London the new Atlantis.” - Greenpeace International (It has risen less than 7 inches in 100 years and is decelerating)

> “We are close to a time when all of humankind will envision a global agenda that encompasses a kind of Global Marshall Plan to address the causes of poverty and suffering and environmental destruction all over the earth.” - Al Gore, Earth in the Balance

> “The earth is literally our mother, not only because we depend on her for nurture and shelter but even more because the human species has been shaped by her in the womb of evolution. Our salvation depends upon our ability to create a religion of nature.” - Rene Dubos, board member Planetary Citizens

> “A keen and anxious awareness is evolving to suggest that fundamental changes will have to take place in the world order and its power structures, in the distribution of wealth and income.” - Club of Rome, Mankind at the Turning Point

> “Effective execution of Agenda 21 will require a profound reorientation of all human society, unlike anything the world has ever experienced - a major shift in the priorities of both governments and individuals and an unprecedented redeployment of human and financial resources. This shift will demand that a concern for the environmental consequences of every human action be integrated into individual and collective decision-making at every level.” - UN Agenda 21

> “Democracy is not a panacea. It cannot organize everything and it is unaware of its own limits. These facts must be faced squarely. Sacrilegious though this may sound, democracy is no longer well suited for the tasks ahead. The complexity and the technical nature of many of today�s problems do not always allow elected representatives to make competent decisions at the right time."- Club of Rome, The First Global Revolution

> “In my view, after fifty years of service in the United National system, I perceive the utmost urgency and absolute necessity for proper Earth government. There is no shadow of a doubt that the present political and economic systems are no longer appropriate and will lead to the end of life evolution on this planet. We must therefore absolutely and urgently look for new ways.” - Dr. Robert Muller, UN Assistant Secretary General

>“Nations are in effect ceding portions of their sovereignty to the international community and beginning to create a new system of international environmental governance as a means of solving otherwise unmanageable crises.” - Lester Brown, WorldWatch Institute

See top 15 most ridiculous enviro claims here.

Also see this. PLEASE NOTE THE DATE…
A United Nations meeting on the environment opened Monday with an official forecast that the world faces an ecological disaster as final as nuclear war within a couple of decades unless governments act now. Lack of such action would bring “by the turn of the century, an environmental catastrophe which will witness devastation as complete, as irreversible as any nuclear holocaust” --Ecological Disaster Feared, Reuters, 11 May 1982.

Meteorologist Brian Sussman blows whistle on president’s scheme

The environmentalist movement isn�t about protecting the environment at all, according to meteorologist-turned-journalist Brian Sussman.

It’s about destroying private property, controlling behavior, and expanding government - and the Obama administration has a secret plan to further all of it, he says.

Sussman is now blowing the whistle on the real nature of environmentalism in his explosive brand-new book, ”Eco-Tyranny.”

He reveals secret memos from inside Obama�s Bureau of Land Management, or BLM, outlining a covert plan “to pursue a program of land consolidation” for the federal government to secure tens of millions of acres of land that will be permanently out of reach for entrepreneurs, businessmen and private citizens.

The plan, entitled “Our Vision, Our Values,” notes that 130-140 million acres under BLM management are worthy of consideration as “treasured lands.” Because ecosystems defy “jurisdictional boundaries, the memo outlines strategies by which the federal government can “rationalize and consolidate” its fragmented landholdings in order to properly “manage-at-scale.” While an ecosystem can simply refer to a single pond or small area, it can also refer to entire geographic regions, thus giving the government an almost unlimited justification to seize private property adjacent to “treasured lands.”

Sussman exposes this is not just theoretical discussion within the White House. The Obama administration is already moving to implement this as policy without consulting Congress by issuing an executive order entitled “America’s Great Outdoors Initiative.”

Learn about Obama�s diabolical plan to control your life by controlling your environment. Get a personally autographed copy of “Eco-Tyranny” today!

The unilateral order explicitly sets as a goal “reconnecting” huge swaths of land under federal ownership, creating large “corridors” compromising millions of acres that will be unavailable for use by private citizens.

The initiative also calls for the federal government to work through “public/private partnerships and locally supported conservation strategies.” This translates into activist environmental organizations having input on all decisions involving expanding government lands.

As it stands, the federal government controls more than 50 percent of the land in eleven Western states.

Sussman explains, �Nearly one-third of all our nation’s land - about 700 million acres - is owned by our federal government. Most of this land is located west of the Mississippi River and is rich with oil, natural gas, and valuable mineral deposits - which they want to lock up. The initiative will aid in that ambition, and more.”

Even more disturbing, Sussman describes the extreme “Gaia” ideology that is driving much of the environmentalist movement. Created by James Lovelock, the Gaia hypothesis holds that the entire earth is a singular living organism that can repair itself under natural conditions. However, people are destroying “Gaia’s” ability to reproduce itself, functioning as a kind of disease destroying the health of the living planet.

Sussman uncovers that the United Nations has actually been promoting this extreme ideology viewing humanity as the enemy. It also has been incorporating spiritual rhetoric in order to create environmentalism as a new religion.

In 1988, the United Nations Global Committee of Parliamentarians on Population and Development held a forum that hosted Lovelock as a main speaker. Lovelock took the opportunity to proclaim that “She [Gaia] is the source of life everlasting and is alive now; she gave birth to humankind and we are a part of her.”

This pseudo-religious rhetoric was echoed two years later at a second U.N. forum, where more than 100 religious leaders called for an alliance between science and religion to defend environmentalism. The late Carl Sagan, an outspoken atheist, introduced the appeal.

The conference also featured a speech by the former communist leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, who called for a “Green Cross” to fight environmental disasters. The group was actually founded, but instead of providing emergency relief it attacks the free market system and works for “basic changes in the values, actions, and attitudes of government, the private sector, and civil society necessary to build a sustainable global community.”

Gorbachev himself on another occasion that “We are part of the cosmos ...cosmos is my god. Nature is my god.”

Sussman explains, “We are witnessing a generation being filled with green religion, a faux spirituality that is as dogmatic, and potentially dangerous, as any on the planet.”

The “Gaia” faith is also not a religion of peace, as extremist groups such as the Earth Liberation Front or “lone wolves” like the Unabomber have already committed acts of terror, including taking hostages, destroying property, and even murder.

Sussman notes the FBI listed domestic ecoterrorism to be America�s No. 1 threat in 2005.

As he explains, “An entire generation and more have now been raised in a perpetual pall that declares the earth is doomed because of mankind�s pollution… for some, such fear mongering becomes a clarion call to hyperaggressive, unapologetic action.”

Sussman shows how the militant tactics and religious rhetoric of the environmental movement fuse with an effort to secure unlimited government control and divisive racial ideologies.

A case in point is Van Jones, the “Green Jobs Czar” of the Obama Administration.

A self-described revolutionary, Jones was arrested during the 1992 Los Angeles riots and decided he wanted to “be a part of” groups of “young radical people of color - I mean really radical: communists and anarchists.”

Jones was a member of the Bay Area radical Marxist group Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement, or STORM. He also worked to free convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Just before his White House appointment in 2009, Jones connected the dots between his extremist past and environmental advocacy by declaring, “This movement is deeper than a solar panel ... don’t stop there! We’re gonna change the whole system! We’re gonna change the whole thing ... we want a new system!”

Jones was never fired by the Obama administration, and merely resigned to spare the White House further scrutiny in September 2009.

Sussman summarizes, “Let’s be clear about this movement - it’s being driven by a doubt communistic and socialistic ideology. Each time you hear an eco-activist or representative of an environmental organization speak, know this: he or she is knowingly pushing the message of Marx and devoutly hoping to see the United States changed. These activists will spin, bewilder, and lie.”

Sussman also describes the long history of partnership between communism and environmentalism, including the shocking fact that the very first person who described climate change as heralding the extinction of the human race was Frederick Engels - the coauthor of the Communist Manifesto.

Vladimir Lenin, whom Sussman calls the “Communist Green Giant,” issued a Decree on Land in 1918 that declared all forests, waters, and minerals to be the property of the state, and later would restrict forests from being used for industrial production as a “preservation of monuments of nature.”

As Sussman observes, “April 22 is the date of Lenin�s birth ...selecting that date to ‘celebrate’ Earth Day was clearly no coincidence. In light of Lenin’s devotion to nature - even at the expense of his own people - the communist vanguard provided a model for the government’s role in regulation of the environment.�

As Sussman reveals, such policies, tactics and rationales are remarkably similar to what the Obama administration is trying to implement today.

Another Obama executive order, titled “Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy, and Economic Performance,"empowers the federal government to require vendors and contractors to report greenhouse gas emissions, document all efforts to reduce greenhouse gases, and ensure all suppliers are “using processes that minimize greenhouse gas emissions.”

See also the Ideology of Catastrophe. These are not great souls who alert us to troubles but tiny minds who wish us suffering if we refuse to listen to them.

As Earth Day approaches on April 22--the birthday of Vladimir Lenin--my blog (http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com) better known as “Warning Signs” will devote the week ahead to an examination of environmentalism’s roots and deceptions. You are welcome to visit the blog and share any or all of its commentaries.—Alan Caruba

The week begins with the commentary below.

As the nation and the world closes in on Earth Day, April 22nd, a tsunami of Green propaganda will overwhelm us with all the usual lies about global warming - now called climate change - and calls to reduce the use of all fossil fuels in order to reduce “greenhouse gas” emissions.

This Big Lie ignores the fact that there is no relationship between carbon dioxide (CO2) and the climate. CO2 reacts to climate change. It does not drive it. The Big Lie ignores the fact that the Earth has been cooling for fourteen years.

The past three and a half years of the having Barack Obama as President have been filled with constant crisis, not the least of which was the nation’s financial crisis which he constantly reminds us he “inherited.” He has not, however, solved it with proven ways to put millions back to work and turn around a stagnant economy.

Instead he devoted his best efforts to a takeover of one-sixth of the nation�s economy, the healthcare industry. His administration has waged a steady war on access to energy reserves vital to the nation’s economy. The result of these policies are being felt at the gas pump as prices rise to historic highs while billions of barrels of oil in the U.S. remain underground.

His devotion to all the eco-lies was seen in the millions wasted on “green jobs” with his failed “stimulus” and loans to “green industries”, primarily wind and solar power. Other schemes included high-speed trains where none are needed or wanted. To this day Amtrak has never made a profit. And electric cars remain impractical and unaffordable.

His environmental commitment was perhaps best seen and heard when Obama attended a United Nations Conference of Parties in Copenhagen in March 2010. His speech to the delegates and world press contained all the lies associated with “climate change” and the failed policies he was pursuing two years ago and earlier.

“We come together here in Copenhagen because climate change poses a grave and growing danger to our people. You would not be here unless you - like me - were convinced that this danger is real. This is not fiction, this is science,” said Obama.

Aside from the fact that the climate has always been in a state of change for Earth’s 4.5 billion years, the science employed to frighten people about such change does not bear any resemblance to real science which is an impartial blend of data based on replicable experiments.

Real science does not have a political agenda. The bogus science of global warming was revealed in November 2009 when the world learned that a handful of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) “scientists” had systematically distorted the scientific process, conjuring up false computer models that ignored significant elements of climate history. The revelations would be dubbed “Climategate.”

Never one to not criticize America, Obama reminded the delegates that America was “the world’s second largest emitter” of greenhouse gases even though such gases do not function as a greenhouse, trapping and holding heat. If they did, how would one explain the fact that the Earth has been in a natural cooling cycle since around 1998?

What is the mark of a developing or successful economy? It is the use of energy!

Obama promised that the U.S. would work “to phase out fossil fuel subsidies” and promised “historic investments in renewable energy” and his intention to put Americans “to work increasing efficiency in our homes and buildings; and by pursuing comprehensive legislation to transform to a clean energy economy.”

Such a transformation is ludicrous. America runs on oil, on coal, on natural gas, on hydroelectric and nuclear power. The investments in wind and, in particular, solar power, have wasted millions of taxpayer dollars. Combined, wind and solar provide less than two percent of the nation�s electrical power while coal provides nearly half. It has been the use of coal that the Obama administration’s Environmental Protection Agency has been determined to reduce or end, falsely claiming CO2 is a “pollutant.”

Typically, Obama said “There is no time to waste.” In reality the Obama administration has wasted every opportunity to increase access to America�s vast energy reserves. Even when bragging about oil production, Obama never admits that it is occurring on private land. His administration has virtually shut down access to exploration and extraction on federally owned and managed land.

Environmentalism is the mask of communism, concentrating ownership of all property and productivity in the hands of the government. Even when addressing the need to ensure clean air and water, it has been used as a blunt instrument of power to limit economic development.

These are well established environmental lies and they are Obama’s environmental lies.

The Copenhagen conference came to a hasty end as the world’s leaders fled the city to avoid being trapped there by a massive blizzard. The global warming they all warned against in 2010 was not occurring and is not occurring.

ICECAP NOTE: Obama supports the UN request that the US provide to the UN 2.5 Trillion dollars over the next decade to support global ‘sustainability’, the already failed global green agenda. Obama supports this globalization effort and this expenditure. This is a wealth transfer mechanism and has little to do with climate change or environmental issues as admitted by IPCC official Ottmar Edenhofer in November 2010 “one has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy.� Instead, climate change policy is about how �we redistribute de facto the world�s wealth...� We would cede soverienty in the process, enabling the UN to impose laws that we are obliged to follow and global taxes we are obliged to pay. Instead of supporting the UN, we should kick their useless asses out of the US and convert the UN towers to low income housing. Let the UN find another sucker for a world HQ, (some have suggested Obama’s birthplace - An internal bulletin from the Kenyan National Security Intelligence Service, or NSIS, states that the Kenyan government in 2009 commissioned a cultural museum in the Obama home village of Kogelo to honor the “birthplace of President Barack Obama” and rededicate the tomb of his father, Barack Obama Sr. See) and use the 2.5 trillion to pay down our national debt.

In many ways, the worst aspect of environmentalism is why Greens not only feel free to terrorize children with doomsday scenarios, but feel compelled to do so.

I have been reviewing books for some fifty years and with the publication of Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” in 1962 and books such as Paul Ehrlich’s “Population Bomb” have been offering scenarios intended to move people and governments to take action that, in retrospect, were based on bad “science” and absurd doomsday predictions.

If you were fooled by global warming, they are counting on you to be fooled again by “sustainability”, their reworking of Marx’s communism in the form of a grandiose scheme to control all of the Earth�s bounty. In June the United Nations will hold a Rio+20 conference that will declare that governments exist to ensure “sustainable well-being and happiness.” The Declaration of Independence offers the opportunity to pursue happiness. It does not guarantee it, nor does it suggest that it is government’s job to provide it.

A key element of the Green’s endless indoctrination schemes has been to reach children, the most vulnerable among us and for this reason our schools have been turned into Green prisons where their version of the Earth is pumped into the minds of children here and around the world.

Their primary teaching tool is fear. Fear that the oceans will rise and wipe out entire cities. Fear that the rainforests are disappearing. Fear that entire species are being destroyed by the hand of man. Fear that the use of any kind of fuel, coal, natural gas, and oil is despoiling the planet.

I have reviewed books for some fifty years at this point and I could not put a number on the books for children that hammer home these and other terrifying themes. One crossed my desk the other day, “Our House is Round: A Kid�s Book About Why Protecting Our Earth Matters” by Yolanda Kondonassis and illustrated by Joan Brush. It has been called “the perfect children’s introduction to environmental issues” by Fred Krupp, the president of the Environmental Defense Fund.

The author is not a biologist, a geologist, a meteorologist, or any other kind of scientist. She is a Grammy-nominated classical harpist. A harpist!

“Our Earth has gotten messy. What should we do?” she asks her young reader. What does she mean by “messy”? Her answer is that “cars, trucks, and factories make pollution, a kind of dirty gas or liquid that goes out into the air and into our rivers, lakes, and oceans.” This book is written for children age five to nine!

Imagine now what it must be like to be that age and be told that the air is polluted and the water is as well. This verges on child abuse.

“Pollution goes up into the sky and forms a blanket of gas that holds heat within Earth’s atmosphere. That makes our whole Earth warmer and leads to unclean air for breathing, melting polar ice caps, rising sea levels, and extreme weather patterns. Scientists call this warming of our Earth�s temperature CLIMATE CHANGE.”

It is a LIE. The Earth has been cooling for fifteen years.

Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. It is a gas as vital to all life on Earth as oxygen is to the life of living creatures. Without it, not a single blade of grass or tree or the vegetation we call “crops” would not grow. Livestock and wildlife depend on that vegetation. If you are age five to nine, you likely are unaware of this.

This book and all the others that incorporate these lies are a form of psychological terror.

The same week I received “Our House is Round”, I also received “The Big Green Book of the Big Blue Sea” and “Earth-Friendly Buildings, Bridges, and More.” You could stack all the environmentally-themed children’s books I’ve seen and it would reach up several stories.

They are a corruption of geophysical and biological science. They have nothing to do with “saving the planet” and everything to do with distorting children’s understanding of the real world.

It does not matter that the Ms. Kondonassis thinks she is serving humanity. The great lie of communism is that it will create a collectivist utopia. In reality it has always depended on terror to maintain itself and it has failed wherever it has been tried. Environmentalism is its latest permutation.

It is the same reason that communism derides religion for its emphasis on life and morality.

It is the same reason Americans are being subjected to government imposed limitations on energy and transportation, and coerced social change, altering and secularizing our society.

I have devoted my life to freedom of the press, freedom to publish, freedom to speak out, and to urge participation in the life of the greatest nation on Earth, but some books like “Our House Is Round” are the worst kind of mental pollution.

Envionmentalism, like all tyrannies, begins by indoctrinating children.

Editor’s Note: In 1974 Alan Caruba was a founding member of the National Book Critics Circle.

In the AGW movement in the last 15 years, alarmists had to counter a lot inconvenient truths: the Medeival Warm Period, the 1940s warm blip, the cessation of a 20 year warming after 1998, the lack of the hotpot in the troposphere over the lower latitudes strongly shown in the models, the lack of warming and loss of ice over the antarctic and also the ice core data that showed that CO2 followed not led temperature shifts largely because of degassing or absorption in the oceans. They abused the system by taking control of the peer review process and then pumping out garbage papers with bad science and faulty statistical methods to try and make these issues go away and provide to their friendly enviro journalist and the politicans the ammunition to try and convince the too trusting public that we were causing a planetary emergency requiring a major change in oiur lifestyle and push an unsound energy and share the wealth agenda. Literally billions of dollars were provided to these liar scientists to create this case.  The likes of Mann, Steig, Santer, Ramsdorf, Wang /Lean, Peterson are just a few names. There has always been a rush to publish the most ‘useful’ though scientifically flawed papers just before major IPCC or EPA reports. When they could not argue or present alternative science they took to ad hominem attacks.

Here is Dr Easterbook’s first attempt at a reply.

In a paper “Global warming preceded by increasing carbon dioxide concentrations during the last deglaciation”, Shakun et al.(2012) contend that rising temperature at the end of the last Pleistocene glaciation were preceded by increasing atmospheric CO2.  In his usual masterful fashion, Willis Eschenbach has dug deeply into the data used in the paper and shredded the conclusions in it (see and here. So rather than dwell on the things that Willis has already shown so well, I thought I�d take a look at some of the assumptions and misconceptions that paper is built upon.

When reading a paper like this, I always like to ask myself, what are the basic assumptions that underlie the methodology involved?  What contentions are simply stated as fact or generated in a computer model, rather than demonstrated with real, physical evidence? I will confess here that I don’t believe computer models really prove anything. Sure, they can suggest many things and point out areas of interest, but I live the real world and prefer real physical evidence upon which to base important conclusions.  That doesn’t mean I discount models out of hand - it simply means that I look for physical evidence to confirm or deny what the models are saying. So I asked myself a series of questions about the basic issues in this paper.  Here are some of the questions that I came up with (the answers follow).

1. Can the Antarctic ice cores be dated with sufficient accuracy to establish a firm temperature chronology?
2. Are the 80 temperature proxies used in the paper sufficiently accurate to establish a solid global temperature chronology?
3. Can CO2 in the ice cores be measured with validity and accuracy?
4. Can the difference in the age of the trapped air and the age of the enclosing ice be determined and is it constant with age?
5. Are CO2 measurements from air bubbles valid or do diffusion and the uncertainty in the timing of isolation of air in bubbles render them invalid?
6. Is the data from Antarctic ice cores consistent with data from the Greenland ice cores?
7. Is the temperature chronology of the ice cores and global proxies consistent with the well-dated, global glacial record?
8. Is the so-called �see-saw� of climate changes between hemispheres valid, i.e, are climate changes in the Northern Hemisphere out of phase with those in the Southern Hemisphere?
9. Would correlation between CO2 and temperature necessarily prove that CO2 causes climatic warming?
10 Since CO2 is incapable of causing climatic warming by itself (CO2 makes up only 0.038% of the atmosphere and accounts for only a few percent of the greenhouse gas effect), is there evidence of concomitant increase in water vapor (which causes more than 90% of the greenhouse gas effect)?
11. Is the AMOC the only viable causal mechanism?  What about the influence of the Pacific Ocean, which covers about half the Earth’s surface

Enlarged

So, what is the main contention of this paper and what does it imply? The authors claim to have “compelling evidence that rising CO2 caused much of the global warming” at the end of the last ice age, roughly 11,000 to 25,000 years ago. According to the authors, “if you reconstruct temperatures on a global scale - and not just examine Antarctic temperatures - it becomes apparent that the CO2 change slightly preceded much of the global warming, and this means the global greenhouse effect had an important role in driving up global temperatures and bringing the planet out of the last Ice Age.” The crux of their contention is illustrated in their Figure 2.

Enlarged

Shakun et al. Figure 2. The Red line is Antarctic temperature curve based on ice cores; the yellow dots are CO2 measurements from ice cores; the blue line is composite global temperature from 80 proxies. 

Willis has sliced and diced the data behind these curves so be sure to read his analyses. I�ll refer to some of his graphs and conclusions but look at the Shakun et al. contentions from a somewhat different angle. Because this is such a marked divergence from the widely held view that CO2 lagged rising temperatures at the end of the last ice age, careful scrutiny must be given to evidence and assumptions upon which this contention is based. Right off the bat, a most surprising conclusion in this paper is that the authors claim that correlation proves cause. Simply showing that CO2 correlates with anything surely doesn�t prove that CO2 was the cause. It�s the same kind of mindset involved with the oft-heard claim that if we have had global warming while CO2 was rising that proves the cause was the rise in CO2.  Heck, I had hair before CO2 began to rise, but I don’t blame that on CO2.

So let’s look at each of questions posed above.

1. How accurate is the dating of Antarctic ice cores? How can you date ice that has nothing in it that can be directly dated?  The Shakun et al. paper states that they use the methodology of Lemieux-Dudon et al. (2010), which involves construction of a model using estimates of snow accumulation rates, temperature, firn densification rates, and ice flow rates, all of which vary from glacier to glacier and from glaciation to interglaciation (thus introducing large potential errors). The modeling data is then modified by matching with tephra horizons, sulfate spikes, δ18O, firn densification model results, and orbital tuning. All of the assumptions built into the modeling are cumulative, resulting in large possible age errors.  As Lemieux-Dudon point out “One special feature of glaciological models is a large model error due to unresolved physics and errors on the forcing fields, clearly affecting the quality of the inferred dating scenarios.” What this means of course is that the age determinations of the Antarctic cores are, at best, educated guesses with large uncertainties.  Because chronology is so critical to the Shakun et al. contention, the ages of the Antarctic cores shown in their Figure 2 cannot be considered accurate.
2. Are the 80 temperature proxies used in the paper sufficiently accurate to establish a solid global temperature chronology? Willis Eschenbach has made a detailed analysis of the data used to construct the global temperature curve in Figure 2 of Shakun et al.(see this in his web posting) He plotted individual curves for each of the 80 temperature proxies used to create Figure 2 in the Shakun et al. paper. What he found was large variability in the data, which led him to conclude that “The variety in the shapes of these graphs is quite surprising Yes, they�re all vaguely alike, but that’s about all.  The main curiosity about these, other than the wide variety of amounts of warming, is the different timing of the warming.” When he ploted all the individual proxies all together (see below), the scatter is readily apparent, leading him to conclude: “It’s clear that there is warming since the last ice age.” “But if you want to make the claim that CO2 precedes the warming? I fear that this set of proxies is perfectly useless for that.  How on earth could you claim anything about the timing of the warming from this group of proxies? It’s all over the map.”

Large scatter of individual data points on Williis’s plot from the 80 proxies used in the construction of the Shakun et al. temperature curve. I’ve added lines to show the age of Younger Dryas interval, which doesn�t correspond to the dip in the Shakun et al. temperature data.

Enlarged
Just for fun, I superimposed the curves on Shakun et al. figure 2 over Willis�s data point plot (see below). Because the global temperature curve (the blue curve) was presumably derived from the data in Willis’s plot, it should fit well with it. Interestingly, it doesn�t. I’ve shown with a blue arrow the dip in temperature that corresponds to the Younger Dryas and a black arrow pointing to what should be the same dip in temperature on the plot of individual data points.  Other arrows point to similar differences for the end of the Younger Dryas.  Now you would think that since the Shakun et al. blue curve was constructed from the individual data points shown on the graph, the two should surely be compatible!  I�ve also shown on the graph the well-established age of the Younger Dryas - note that the Shakun et al. global temperature data points show a dip in temperature (presumably the Younger Dryas) that is considerably younger. Makes you wonder!

Comparison of the Shakun et al. global temperature curve with the data from which it was constructed. The blue arrows point to the Younger Dryas dip in temperatures and the black arrows point to the ending of the Younger Dryas.  The two should match, but don�t.
3. Can CO2 in the ice cores be measured with validity and accuracy?
4. Can the difference in the age of the trapped air and the age of the enclosing ice be determined and is it constant with age?
5. Are CO2 measurements from air bubbles valid or do diffusion and the uncertainty in the timing of isolation of air in bubbles render them invalid? Because these questions are all inter-related let’s consider them together. The validity of measurement of CO2 from bubbles in ice cores has been challenged in a number of studies.  There are several basic problems:  (1) air becomes trapped in ice during the conversion of snow to firn to ice.  Air in the snow/firn phase remains in contact with surface air until it turns to ice and seals off air bubbles from further mixing with surface air.  The depth at which sealing occurs varies considerably, depending on the rate of firn densification, and may extend to more than 100 meters and take a thousand years or more.  This means that the age of air in a bubble is not the same as the age of the inclosing ice. Snow densification rates vary considerably between temperate and polar glaciers and between glacial and interglacial climates, making it difficult to measure and date adequately.  In any case, rates are not likely to be constant. (2) a second problem results from possible diffusion along the walls of an air bubble, which can upset the CO2 concentration in the bubble.  These and other problems mean that measurement of CO2 in ice cores is not straight forward - measurement of CO2 concentrations in ice bubbles and determination of the age of the air are likely to be quite variable. General trends are apparent in CO2 ice core measurements, but variability in CO2 concentrations and age remains problematic.

At this point, answering the remaining questions is quite obviously going to take some time, so they will be considered in Part 2, here.

Policies to reduce global warming may be doing more harm than good to public health in both developing and industrialised countries. This is the conclusion of a new report published today by the Global Warming Policy Foundation.

In his report, Dr Indur Goklany, a leading expert on human health and climate change, shows that

� Global warming does not currently rank among the top public health threats

� The contribution of much-publicized ‘Extreme Weather Events’ to global mortality is negligible and declining.

� Poverty is a much larger public health threat than global warming

� Present climate policies are already adding to death and disease

� Focused adaptation to climate change and/or economic development would provide greater health benefits at lower costs than climate mitigation policies.

The report warns that exaggerating the impact of global warming on human health seriously risks misdirecting the world�s priorities and resources in combating poverty and improving public health.

“Climate policies that hinder or slow down economic development or increase the price of energy and food threaten to augment poverty and, as a result, increase net death and disease,” Dr Goklany said.

The increase in biofuel production between 2004 and 2010, for example, is estimated to have increased the population in absolute poverty in the developing world by over 35 million, leading to about 200,000 additional deaths in 2010 alone.

“Focused adaptation designed to reduce vulnerability more broadly to today’s urgent health problems would deliver greater reductions in deaths at a lower cost than climate mitigation policies,” Dr Goklany added.

Full report is here.

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Icecap Note: The US Demagogue party wants to tax big oil to generate $41 billion in ten years. Big oil already pays more in taxes than any other industry but it an easy target because everyone pays the price at the pump or in their electric bills. Only it is the demagogue party that is responsible by blocking new coal, oil and even making attempts to slow or stop the natural gas fracking to piush their green agenda which has miserably failed in Europe. Obama admitted to wanting electrictity prices to ‘necessarily skyrocket’ and his energy secretary Chu said $8 gasoline would be a benefit to his energy plans.

Tropical Pacific spatial trend patterns in observed sea level: internal variability and/or anthropogenic signature?

B. Meyssignac1,2, D. Salas y Melia4, M. Becker1,3,*, W. Llovel5, and A. Cazenave1,2
1Universit� de Toulouse, UPS (OMP-PCA), LEGOS, UMR5566, 14 Av Edouard Belin, 31400 Toulouse, France
2CNES, LEGOS, UMR5566, 18 avenue Edouard Belin 31 401 Toulouse, France
3CNRS, LEGOS, UMR5566, 14 av Edouard Belin, 31400 Toulouse, France
4M�t�o-France CNRM/GMGEC CNRS/GAME, 31000 Toulouse, France
5JPL, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA
*now at: ESPACE-DEV/UAG, UMR228, Cayenne, French Guiana, France

Abstract. In this study we focus on the sea level trend pattern observed by satellite altimetry in the tropical Pacific over the 1993�2009 time span (i.e. 17 yr). Our objective is to investigate whether this 17-yr-long trend pattern was different before the altimetry era, what was its spatio-temporal variability and what have been its main drivers. We try to discriminate the respective roles of the internal variability of the climate system and of external forcing factors, in particular anthropogenic emissions (greenhouse gases and aerosols). On the basis of a 2-D past sea level reconstruction over 1950�2009 (based on a combination of observations and ocean modelling) and multi-century control runs (i.e. with constant, preindustrial external forcing) from eight coupled climate models, we have investigated how the observed 17-yr sea level trend pattern evolved during the last decades and centuries, and try to estimate the characteristic time scales of its variability. For that purpose, we have computed sea level trend patterns over successive 17-yr windows (i.e. the length of the altimetry record), both for the 60-yr long reconstructed sea level and the model runs. We find that the 2-D sea level reconstruction shows spatial trend patterns similar to the one observed during the altimetry era. The pattern appears to have fluctuated with time with a characteristic time scale of the order of 25-30 yr. The same behaviour is found in multi-centennial control runs of the coupled climate models. A similar analysis is performed with 20th century coupled climate model runs with complete external forcing (i.e. solar plus volcanic variability and changes in anthropogenic forcing). Results suggest that in the tropical Pacific, sea level trend fluctuations are dominated by the internal variability of the ocean�atmosphere coupled system. While our analysis cannot rule out any influence of anthropogenic forcing, it concludes that the latter effect in that particular region is still hardly detectable.

Final Revised Paper (PDF, 17519 KB) Discussion Paper (CPD)

PAUL WALDIE WINNIPEG - From Thursday’s Globe and Mail

The debate about climate change and its impact on polar bears has intensified with the release of a survey that shows the bear population in a key part of northern Canada is far larger than many scientists thought, and might be growing.

The number of bears along the western shore of Hudson Bay, believed to be among the most threatened bear subpopulations, stands at 1,013 and could be even higher, according to the results of an aerial survey released Wednesday by the Government of Nunavut. That’s 66 per cent higher than estimates by other researchers who forecasted the numbers would fall to as low as 610 because of warming temperatures that melt ice faster and ruin bears’ ability to hunt. The Hudson Bay region, which straddles Nunavut and Manitoba, is critical because it’s considered a bellwether for how polar bears are doing elsewhere in the Arctic.


The study shows that “the bear population is not in crisis as people believed,” said Drikus Gissing, Nunavut’s director of wildlife management. “There is no doom and gloom.”

Mr. Gissing added that the government isn�t dismissing concerns about climate change, but he said Nunavut wants to base bear-management practices on current information “and not predictions about what might happen.”

The study’s conclusions drew concern from Andrew Derocher, a professor of biological sciences at the University of Alberta who has been studying polar-bear populations for years. Prof. Derocher said the 1,013 figure is derived from a range of 717 bears to 1,430. “It’s premature to draw many conclusions,” he said, adding that there were no comparative figures and the upper end of the range, 1,430, was highly unlikely.

Derocher also said some details in the survey pointed to a bear population in trouble. For example, the survey identified 50 cubs, which are usually less than 10 months old, and 22 yearlings, roughly 22 months old. That’s nearly one-third the number required for a healthy population, he said. “This is a clear indication that this population is not sustaining itself in any way, shape, or form.”

The debate over the polar-bear population has been raging for years, frequently pitting scientists against Inuit. In 2004, Environment Canada researchers concluded that the numbers in the region had dropped by 22 per cent since 1984, to 935. They also estimated that by 2011, the population would decrease to about 610. That sparked worldwide concern about the future of the bears and prompted the Canadian and American governments to introduce legislation to protect them.

But many Inuit communities said the researchers were wrong. They said the bear population was increasing and they cited reports from hunters who kept seeing more bears. Mr. Gissing said that encouraged the government to conduct the recent study, which involved 8,000 kilometres of aerial surveying last August along the coast and offshore islands.

Mr. Gissing said he hopes the results lead to more research and a better understanding of polar bears. He said the media in southern Canada has led people to believe polar bears are endangered. “They are not.” He added that there are about 25,000 polar bears across Canada’s Arctic. “That’s likely the highest [population level] there has ever been.”

There’s much at stake in the debate. Population figures are used to calculate quotas for hunting, a lucrative industry for many northern communities. Hunting polar bears is highly regulated but Inuit communities can sell their quota to sport hunters, who must hunt with Inuit guides. A polar-bear hunting trip can cost up to $50,000. Demand for polar-bear fur is also soaring in places like China and Russia and prices for some pelts have doubled in the past couple of years, reaching as high as $15,000.

The Nunavut hunting quota in the western Hudson Bay area fell to 8 from 56 after the 2004 report from Environment Canada. The Nunavut government increased it slightly last year but faced a storm of protest. Over all, about 450 polar bears are killed annually across Nunavut. Mr. Gissing said a new quota is expected to be announced in June.

Video.

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See also Dr Craig Loehle’s analysis on WUWT Climate Change Impacts In The USA is Already [NOT] Happening.

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Dr Richard Lindzen did a great job testifying at the House of Commons, here’s the key summary:

Stated briefly, I will simply try to clarify what the debate over climate change is really about. It most certainly is not about whether climate is changing: it always is. It is not about whether CO2 is increasing: it clearly is. It is not about whether the increase in CO2, by itself, will lead to some warming: it should. The debate is simply over the matter of how much warming the increase in CO2 can lead to, and the connection of such warming to the innumerable claimed catastrophes. The evidence is that the increase in CO2 will lead to very little warming, and that the connection of this minimal warming (or even significant warming) to the purported catastrophes is also minimal. The arguments on which the catastrophic claims are made are extremely weak - and commonly acknowledged as such. They are sometimes overtly dishonest.

Update: See Dr. Lindzen’s reponse to critics of his testimony.

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Mark Albright and Ken Schlicte report

Climate Impacts Group has stated:
There is good reason to expect warming to continue as a result of climate change, with a likely warming rate of about 0.5�F (0.27�C)/decade.

And yet we have experienced cooling over the past 20 years (1992-2012) of -1.0 to -1.5 deg F at undeveloped and rural farmland sites in the Pacific Northwest. 

Rural:
Hanford (khms):
10 yrs (1992-2001) mean (deg F):  54.4
10 yrs (2002-2011) mean 53.7 -0.7
5 yrs (2007-2011) mean 53.0 -1.4

Farmland:
Corvallis agrimet:
10 yrs (1992-2001) mean (deg F):  52.8
10 yrs (2002-2011) mean 52.3 -0.5
5 yrs (2007-2011) mean 51.7 -1.1

Farmland:
Forest Grove agrimet:
10 yrs (1992-2001) mean (deg F):  52.9
10 yrs (2002-2011) mean 52.4 -0.5
5 yrs (2007-2011) mean 51.8 -1.1

Farmland:
Eugene (keug):
10 yrs (1992-2001) mean (deg F):  52.9
10 yrs (2002-2011) mean 52.5 -0.4
5 yrs (2007-2011) mean 51.9 -1.0

Urban:
Portland (kpdx):
10 yrs (1992-2001) mean (deg F):  54.6
10 yrs (2002-2011) mean 54.4 -0.2
5 yrs (2007-2011) mean 53.7 -0.9

Urban:
Salem (ksle):
10 yrs (1992-2001) mean temperature (deg F):  53.4
10 yrs (2002-2011) mean temperature:  53.2 -0.2
5 yrs (2007-2011) mean temperature:  52.9 -0.5

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See the Galileo Movement here. Visit Then click on the blue text: “9.2.12 Evidence of Political Fraud - Malcolm Roberts”

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Climatologists vs. Weather Forecasters

Climatologists believe in man made global warming, because without it they receive little funding or recognition. They can make predictions 100 years in the future, and change them every few months.

Weather forecasters don’t believe in man made global warming, because their job depends on being continuously accurate and telling the truth.

a survey conducted by George Mason University in 2010* that found 63% of weathercasters believe global warming is due mainly to natural causes compared to just 31% who think it�s mostly a result of human causes. Some 27 percent of weathercasters referred to global warming as “a scam.”

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A catalog of collected papers from SPPI has just been updated through February 2011 and posted on our website. Papers cover many aspects of the energy/environment and science/policy arena. Click on the PDF file to open the catalog, and then click on the link to any particular paper to open its PDF for reading or printing. Many of the papers have a Summary for Policy Makers, convenient for highly busy readers.

The sets of papers once called “BlogWatch” , “ScareWatch” and “Commentary and Essays” have been replaced with postings at the SPPI Blog. The SPPI Blog has a pretty good search engines for key words.

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See John Coleman’s excellent video summary ”There is NO Significant Global Warming” on KUSI Coleman’s corner. No one communicates better to the public.

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See Dr. Doug Hoyt’s Greenhouse Scorecard on Warwick Hughes site here.

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From Jack Black’s Climate Change Dictionary

PEER REVIEW: The act of banding together a group of like-minded academics with a funding conflict of interest, for the purpose of squeezing out any research voices that threaten the multi-million dollar government grant gravy train.

SETTLED SCIENCE: Betrayal of the scientific method for politics or money or both.

DENIER: Anyone who suspects the truth.

CLIMATE CHANGE: What has been happening for billions of years, but should now be flogged to produce ‘panic for profit.’

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE: Leftist Nutcase Prize, unrelated to “Peace” in any meaningful way.

DATA, EVIDENCE: Unnecessary details. If anyone asks for this, see “DENIER,” above.

CLIMATE SCIENTIST: A person skilled in spouting obscure, scientific-sounding jargon that has the effect of deflecting requests for “DATA” by “DENIERS.’ Also skilled at affecting an aura of “Smartest Person in the Room” to buffalo gullible legislators and journalists.

JUNK SCIENCE: The use of invalid scientific evidence resulting in findings of causation which simply cannot be justified or understood from the standpoint of the current state of credible scientific or medical knowledge

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Speaking of junk science, see Lubos Motl’s excellent point by point counter to the John Cook 104 talking points document attacking the skeptical science here.

NOTE: Heartland has the presentations and powerpoints posted for the Heartland ICCC IV.  If you could not go, there is plenty to see there. Please remember the goldmine of videos and PPTs at the Heartland ICCC proceeding sites for 2008 NYC here, 2009 NYC here and 2009 DC here. Here is a PPT I gave at the Heartland Instutute ICCC Meeting in 2008 and here is the follow up in 2009. Here is an abbreviated PPT in two parts I presented at a UK conference last month: Part 1, Part 2.

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See C3 Headlines excellent collection of graphs and charts that show AGW is nonsense here.

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See Climate Theater with a collection of the best climate skeptic films and documentaries here. See additonal scientific youtubes here.

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900+ Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skepticism of “Man-Made” Global Warming Alarm and here a list of 1000 stories suggesting global cooling has begun.

“The above papers support skepticism of “man-made” global warming or the environmental or economic effects of. Addendums, comments, corrections, erratum, replies, responses and submitted papers are not included in the peer-reviewed paper count. These are included as references in defense of various papers. There are many more listings than just the 900-1000 papers. Ordering of the papers is alphabetical by title except for the Hockey Stick, Cosmic Rays and Solar sections which are chronological. This list will be updated and corrected as necessary.”

The less intelligent alarmists have written a paper allegedly connecting the scientists to Exxon Mobil. Here is the detailed response from some of the featured scientists. Note that though this continues to be a knee jerk reaction by some of the followers, there is no funding of skeptic causes by big oil BUT Exxon has funded Stanford warmists to the tune of $100 million and BP UC Berkeley to $500,000,000. Climategate emails showed CRU/Hadley soliciting oil dollars and receiving $23,000,000 in funding.

See still more annotated here.

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Many more papers are catalogued at Pete’s Place here.

The science and economics of global warming are not too complicated for the average person to consider and make up his or her own mind. We urge you to do that. Go here and view some of the articles linked under “What’s New” or “A Primer on Global Warming.” Or go here and read about the new report from the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), which comprehensively rebuts the claims of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Go here for the sources for the factual statements in the ads.

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See the ICECAP Amazon Book store. Icecap benefits with small commission for your purchases via this link.

Also available now some items that will gore your alarmist friends (part of the proceeds go to support Icecap):

See full size display here.

And “My carbon footprints are bigger than yours and plants love me for it” items here and here

See sister sites:

WeatherBell Analytics here.

Website of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) here.

Coleman’s Corner here.

Science and Public Policy Institute here.

Intellicast Dr. Dewpoint Library here.

RedNeck Engineer Energy and Innovation here.

The Weather Wiz here. See how they have added THE WIZ SCHOOL (UPPER LEFT) to their website. An excellent educational tool for teachers at all class levels. “Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel” - Socrates (470--399 BC)