Executive summary: Al Gore’s new book and movie, both titled An Inconvenient Truth, have been hailed by environmentalists–despite being filled with false or misleading claims about the science of global warming and related issues. This page details errors in the book (2006, Rodale Books), which in summary include:

• Misleading links between weather events and climate      change: Climate is the average of      weather conditions over long time periods; because the climate system is      inherently variable, individual weather events are not indicative of      trends. Nonetheless, Gore overwhelms the reader with many individual      events, claiming this is global warming in action: a European heatwave,      record daily highs in U.S. cities one summer, hurricane Katrina, floods in      Europe and China, and more. To address the issue of climate change, all      such events must be considered over time. As it turns out, in several      cases such analysis refutes any claims of recent trends (for example, with      regard to floods).
  In other cases, the scientific community is engaged in much research and      debate. Gore claims that there is “an emerging consensus” that      hurricane activity is on the upswing due to global warming. The reality is      that this is the subject of much debate in the scientific community:      different researchers have produced contradictory conclusions, but the      factors involved are far more complex than Gore admits, and research is      continuing.
• Misrepresentation of data: Of the various graphs and other data Gore presents,      some of it is misrepresented. Gore presents one graph, said to be      temperature data derived from ice cores, to support the controversial      claim of one research group–Mann et al.–that current temperatures are      higher than anytime in the last 1,000 years. The graph is not the ice core      data, however, but the Mann et al. data derived from tree rings and other      proxies. The broader claim is questioned by many scientists as well–much      research suggests that temperatures around 1100-1300 AD were about as warm      as today–as well as the methodology used to support such claims. Gore      uses another set of ice core data to claim that carbon dioxide      concentrations have driven global temperatures for the last 600,000 years.      He admits the actual relationship is “complicated”, which is as      close as he comes to admitting the fact that the temperature changes came      first, and probably helped drive the carbon dioxide changes.
  These aren’t the only cases of sloppiness with data: Gore claims the      hottest year on record was 2005, but in reality existing observations      don’t have the accuracy to discriminate between, say, 2005 and 1998, a hot      year due to an extreme El Nino event. He claims that the increasing      closures of the barrier’s on Britain’s Thames River show sea level is      rising, but doesn’t mention that the British government recently changed      the rules for such closures, including closing the barriers to deal with low      sea level; and he claims that a particular bird species is “in      trouble” in the Netherlands due to climate change, but researchers      report no change in this bird population. He cites a peak in tornadoes in      2004 as further evidence, but this peak came from new technology      permitting the counting of more weak tornadoes than ever before;      comparison of consistent data shows no trends in tornadoes.
• Exaggerations about sea level rise: Gore claims that potential melting of ice sheets in      Greenland and West Antarctic will force the “evacuation” of      millions of people to escape sea level rise of 6 meters (20 feet). This      flatly contradicts even the worst-case scenarios described by the scientific      community. Most research indicates that such melting, even if it could      occur, would take 1,000 to 5,000 years; the minimum timescale described by      any researcher for such melting is still centuries. Even the United      Nations’ IPCC, source of the “consensus” analysis which still      overestimates future warming, only predicts sea level rise of 0.1 to 0.8      meters (4 to 30 inches) in the next 100 years.
• Misleading claims about effects of climate change: Gore claims that the emergence of new diseases is related      to global warming, but most of the diseases he lists have little or no      relationship to climate. Even in the case of malaria, a disease with a      stronger link to climate, health experts cite the management of human      infrastructure and health systems as far more important factors. In other      cases Gore neglects the strong influence of human resource management, as      with linking occurrence of wildfires or pest outbreaks to global warming.      He also claims global warming is causing a “significant” number      of polar bear drownings, based on a report of four drowned polar bears;      however, other researchers report the polar bear population is generally      unchanged. Melting of glaciers on Mount Kilimanjaro and in Glacier      National Park are cited as consequences of global warming, but in both      cases these glaciers have been melting since the 1800s, when the Earth      emerged from a period of global cooling.
• Reliance on worst-case scenarios: An underlying problem is that Gore seizes upon      worst-case scenarios and presents them as fact–sometimes omitting      important qualifiers. Much of the claims about the consequences of future      global warming rely on climate models that Gore calls “evermore      accurate”, but significant questions about the reliability of these      models remain, and the effects cited by Gore presume that the worse-case      predictions of these models are the correct ones. More generally, climate      change should be considered at the regional or local level, where impacts      would variously be positive or negative–especially depending on how we      choose to respond. Gore consistently discusses the most negative impacts,      and even minimizes the possibility of positive change.
• False claims about scientific views on global warming: Gore asserts that the scientific community is in      essentially unanimous agreement with his interpretation of global warming,      and dismisses skepticism of global warming as an energy industry      conspiracy. Not only are such claims false, they severely misrepresent the      very process of science. Gore cites a flawed editorial from a science      journal to claim that all published research agrees with the      “consensus” view on global warming; in reality, much published      research contradicts Gore’s position on global warming, and a recent      survey of climate scientists found the community fairly split on the claim      that there is an imminent threat from human-caused global warming. Despite      the abundance of scientific research contradicting his position, Gore      instead concentrates on refuting a handful of skeptical claims from      outside the scientific community–and can’t even get the facts right on      those. To add insult to injury, Gore repeatedly impugns the motives of      scientists and non-scientists who question his “consensus” on      global warming. Rather than confront the scientific facts, he stereotypes      the critics and dismisses them based on imagined motives.
• Misleading claims about the responsibility of the      United States: Gore says the United States is      particularly to blame for the claimed global warming crisis, but doesn’t      give a fair view of the issues. He makes misleading comparisons of fuel      economy standards in the U.S. and other countries; also, he criticizes the      U.S. failure to ratify the Kyoto Protocol without acknowledging the ways      in which the Protocol disproportionately targeted the U.S. economy. He      also understates the economic adjustments required to attain the goals he      sets.
• Conceptual errors:      Gore’s explanation of several topics, including the greenhouse effect, the      relationship of carbon dioxide and global temperature, decline in Arctic      Ocean pack ice, structure of the Greenland ice sheet, and ozone depletion,      contain conceptual errors. He may indeed have a correct understanding of      these issues, but what he communicates serves to perpetuate misconceptions      on these subjects. Combined with the low reading level of the text, this      tends to convey the lowest expectations of his readers.

Gore’s portrayal of the subject of global warming is scientifically unsupportable; even some scientists who accept the premise of global warming have been willing to call him on some errors. His portrayal of scientific skepticism regarding global warming is shameful; science requires healthy criticism to progress. The effect of attempts by Gore and others to silence dissent is harmful to scientific understanding as well as its application by society. The effort to use such twisted science to further a political agenda is such a harm.

The BBC recently admitted to tilting the climate change discussion by giving preferential reporting to stories supporting global climate change.  This situation is a perfect example of the larger debate over climate change– of how political correctness can lead to scientific theory becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Science runs on grant funding.  Every grad student, post-doc, assistant professor, and tenured faculty depends on grants to pay the bills– and to impress the establishment where they are working to offer academic advancement.  To get funding, one must know where the money is– and where it is not.  Asking for funding to show the ABSENCE of climate change is a sure path to poverty– and to being labelled a heretic.

On the other hand, asking for money to show evidence for the emperor’s new clothes will guarantee that the money will flow in.  This creates a systemic bias where only one outcome is expected and published– and negative findings are ignored.  Twenty years ago, everyone knew that breast implants caused autoimmune disorders;  nobody did research to prove the opposite, and if you study anything long enough, you’ll have a few positive findings.  For those who don’t know the rest of the story, after 2 billion dollars were paid out to ‘survivors’ and attorneys, the matter was put to rest– with a huge study that showed very clearly that there was NO actual connection between implants and autoimmune disease.  Science is filled with similar examples.  Climate change is only another.

UPROAR AS BBC MUZZLES CLIMATE CHANGE SCEPTICS

THE BBC was criticised by climate change sceptics yesterday after it emerged that their views will get less coverage because they differ from mainline scientific opinion.

In a report by its governing body, the BBC Trust, the corporation was urged to focus less on opponents of the “majority consensus” in its programmes.

It said coverage should not be tailored to represent a “false balance” of opinion if one side came from a minority group.

The report was partly based on an independent review of coverage by Steve Jones, Professor of Genetics at University College, London.

Although he found no evidence of bias in BBC output, he suggested where there is a “scientific consensus” it should not hunt out opponents purely to balance the story.

He highlighted climate change as an example along with the controversy over the Measles, Mumps and Rubella vaccine potentially leading to autism.

On climate change, Professor Jones said there had been a “drizzle of criticism of BBC coverage” arising from “a handful of journalists who have taken it upon themselves to keep disbelief alive”.

The report says: “In its early days, two decades ago, there was a genuine scientific debate about the reality of climate change. Now, there is general agreement that warming is a fact even if there remain uncertainties about how fast, and how much, the temperature might rise.”

But critics accused Professor Jones of using the report as a cover to “push the BBC’s green agenda”.

Among them are former Tory Chancellor Lord Lawson, who was accused by the Government’s chief scientific adviser, Sir John Beddington, of making “incorrect” claims in An Appeal To Reason, the peer’s book on climate change.

Lord Lawson, chairman of the sceptical Global Warming Policy Foundation, said the fact that carbon dioxide levels were rising leading to global warming was not under dispute. However, he added, its extent and effect could not be explained by majority scientific opinion alone.

He said: “The BBC is already extremely one-sided on this issue. They have a settled view which is politically correct.

“The idea that because scientific opinion falls largely on one side you can’t have a debate is outrageous. Because there’s a strong majority in basic science doesn’t mean the issue is off the table, yet the BBC says it should be.”

The foundation’s director, Dr Benny Peiser, said the report would lead to biased coverage of climate change and stifle any real debate.

He said: “This is nothing the BBC has not been doing for the past 10 years, however. They are completely biased on the issue of climate change and this is nothing more than an effort to push their green agenda.”

Dr David Whitehouse, the foundation’s editor and a former BBC science correspondent, said the corporation had “lost the plot” when it came to science journalism.

He said the corporation was “grouping sceptics with deniers” which would result in a lack of valid scientific input to its reports.

He said: “A sceptic is not a denier, all good scientists should be sceptics. The BBC has got itself into a complete muddle.

“In seeking to get the science right it has missed the journalism which is about asking awkward questions and shaking the tree.”

But the BBC Trust defended the report. A spokesman said: “The report is not suggesting that climate change sceptics will not have a place on the BBC in future.

“The point Professor Jones makes is that the scientific consensus is that it is caused by human activity. Therefore the BBC’s coverage needs to give less weight to those who oppose this view, and reflect the fact that the debate has moved on to how to deal with climate change.”

Climate-change zealots have always seen the world through a warm and zany lens.  But as the Earth’s cooling becomes more obvious, the zealots  become more and more unhinged.

From the Daily Caller:

Hours after a massive earthquake rattled Japan, environmental advocates connected the natural disaster to global warming. The president of the European Economic and Social Committee, Staffan Nilsson, issued a statement calling for solidarity in tackling the global warming problem.

“Some islands affected by climate change have been hit,” said Nilsson. “Has not the time come to demonstrate on solidarity — not least solidarity in combating and adapting to climate change and global warming?”

“Mother Nature has again given us a sign that that is what we need to do,” he added.

Global warming enthusiasts have also taken to Twitter to raise awareness of the need to respond to the earthquake by finally acting on climate change. And the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Lee Doren compiled some of the best ones.

Some examples:

AliceTMBFan said “2 hours of geography earlier talking about Japan has left me thinking…maybe global warming is way more serious then we thought…”

Arbiterofwords tweeted “I’m worried that Japan earthquake, on top of other recent natural ‘disasters’, is a sign we’ve passed point of no return for climate change.”

MrVikas said “Events like the Japan earthquake and tsunami MUST keep climate change at forefront of policy thought: http://bit.ly/cZe8To #environment

Tayyclayy noted her frustration by tweeting “An earthquake with an 8.9 magnitude struck Japan.. And some say climate change isn’t real?!”

DanFranklin postulated “Never really believed all this global warming talk, but after the earthquake in NZ and today in Japan. Maybe we’ve ruined the world.”

And TeamIanHarding tweeted “While Japan witnessed an earthquake we were talking about the problems that global warming leads to in school. Think. Pray. And change.”

Do they have a point?

“Global warming alarmists will exploit any natural disaster to promote their anti-fossil fuel agenda,” Tom Borelli of the Free Enterprise Project told The Daily Caller, adding that the climate change reaction is a result of the “global warming spin machine.”

“First it’s global warming, then it’s climate change, now it’s probably tectonic instability — no doubt all caused by man,” he said.

When contacted by TheDC, Dan Weiss, Director of Climate Strategy at the Center for American Progress, also expressed skepticism at the link between global warming and the earthquake in Japan.

“I am not a scientist,” said Weiss, “but I have never heard of a link between global warming and earthquakes.”

Everything changes– including, perhaps especially, our weather.  Over the last couple years, climate change alarmists have realized that the facts regarding ‘global warming’ do not support their economic and political aims (which include income redistribution and larger government).  So they have seized upon a quirk of human nature to trick people into supporting their cause– the tendency to assign reasons for random events.

When a significant weather event occurs that supports a person’s ideas, those ideas gain strength.  Events that are inconsistent with those ideas are discarded, rather than being applied to the ideas to introduce change and knowledge.  This is just how we are, and how we will always be;  we are more comfortable with reasons– even incorrect reasons– than with randomness.

This quirk of human nature is what spawned the change in strategy by the left, from talking about ‘global warming’ to instead talking about ‘climate change’.  They recognized that there is one thing about climate that will always be true– it changes.  And with their new strategy, they can post headlines for any weather event.  Too hot?  Must be ‘global climate change.’  Too cold?  climate change!  Too wet?  Too dry, too….. perfect?  Climate change!

Watch for this strategy going forward.  And be aware of your own tendency to see reason for things that are random.  The following editorial presents evidence for a climate that is changing–just as it always has.

The Weather is Not Getting Weirder

By ANNE JOLIS

Last week a severe storm froze Dallas under a sheet of ice, just in time to disrupt the plans of the tens of thousands of (American) football fans descending on the city for the Super Bowl. On the other side of the globe, Cyclone Yasi slammed northeastern Australia, destroying homes and crops and displacing hundreds of thousands of people.

Some climate alarmists would have us believe that these storms are yet another baleful consequence of man-made CO2 emissions. In addition to the latest weather events, they also point to recent cyclones in Burma, last winter’s fatal chills in Nepal and Bangladesh, December’s blizzards in Britain, and every other drought, typhoon and unseasonable heat wave around the world.

As it happens, the project’s initial findings, published last month, show no evidence of an intensifying weather trend. “In the climate models, the extremes get more extreme as we move into a doubled CO2 world in 100 years,” atmospheric scientist Gilbert Compo, one of the researchers on the project, tells me from his office at the University of Colorado, Boulder. “So we were surprised that none of the three major indices of climate variability that we used show a trend of increased circulation going back to 1871.”

In other words, researchers have yet to find evidence of more-extreme weather patterns over the period, contrary to what the models predict. “There’s no data-driven answer yet to the question of how human activity has affected extreme weather,” adds Roger Pielke Jr., another University of Colorado climate researcher.

We do know that carbon dioxide and other gases trap and re-radiate heat. We also know that humans have emitted ever-more of these gases since the Industrial Revolution. What we don’t know is exactly how sensitive the climate is to increases in these gases versus other possible factors—solar variability, oceanic currents, Pacific heating and cooling cycles, planets’ gravitational and magnetic oscillations, and so on.

Given the unknowns, it’s possible that even if we spend trillions of dollars, and forgo trillions more in future economic growth, to cut carbon emissions to pre-industrial levels, the climate will continue to change—as it always has.

That’s not to say we’re helpless. There is at least one climate lesson that we can draw from the recent weather: Whatever happens, prosperity and preparedness help. North Texas’s ice storm wreaked havoc and left hundreds of football fans stranded, cold, and angry. But thanks to modern infrastructure, 21st century health care, and stockpiles of magnesium chloride and snow plows, the storm caused no reported deaths and Dallas managed to host the big game on Sunday.

Compare that outcome to the 55 people who reportedly died of pneumonia, respiratory problems and other cold-related illnesses in Bangladesh and Nepal when temperatures dropped to just above freezing last winter. Even rich countries can be caught off guard: Witness the thousands stranded when Heathrow skimped on de-icing supplies and let five inches of snow ground flights for two days before Christmas. Britain’s GDP shrank by 0.5% in the fourth quarter of 2010, for which the Office of National Statistics mostly blames “the bad weather.”

Arguably, global warming was a factor in that case. Or at least the idea of global warming was. The London-based Global Warming Policy Foundation charges that British authorities are so committed to the notion that Britain’s future will be warmer that they have failed to plan for winter storms that have hit the country three years running.

A sliver of the billions that British taxpayers spend on trying to control their climes could have bought them more of the supplies that helped Dallas recover more quickly. And, with a fraction of that sliver of prosperity, more Bangladeshis and Nepalis could have acquired the antibiotics and respirators to survive their cold spell.

A comparison of cyclones Yasi and Nargis tells a similar story: As devastating as Yasi has been, Australia’s infrastructure, medicine, and emergency protocols meant the Category 5 storm has killed only one person so far. Australians are now mulling all the ways they could have better protected their property and economy.

But if they feel like counting their blessings, they need only look to the similar cyclone that hit the Irrawaddy Delta in 2008. Burma’s military regime hadn’t allowed for much of an economy before the cyclone, but Nargis destroyed nearly all the Delta had. Afterwards, the junta blocked foreign aid workers from delivering needed water purification and medical supplies. In the end, the government let Nargis kill more than 130,000 people.

Global-warming alarmists insist that economic activity is the problem, when the available evidence show it to be part of the solution. We may not be able to do anything about the weather, extreme or otherwise. But we can make sure we have the resources to deal with it when it comes.

Miss Jolis is an editorial page writer for The Wall Street Journal Europe

Is there any doubt about the real motivation behind Soros and Obama when they talk ‘climate’?  There shouldn’t be.  From Bloomberg:

By Alex Morales and Jim Efstathiou Jr. – Nov 5, 2010

At least $65 billion might be raised by taxing foreign-exchange transactions and auctioning pollution permits, a United Nations panel said today in a report recommending ways to finance aid for fighting global warming.

The panel, which includes billionaire investor George Soros and Larry Summers, director of President Barack Obama’s National Economic Council, said selling carbon-emissions permits would generate $38 billion and a financial transactions tax an additional $27 billion, according to the report released today.

The findings are intended to guide envoys at UN climate talks that start this month in Mexico as they seek ways to pay for $100 billion in climate aid that was pledged by 2020 to poor nations at last year’s summit in Copenhagen. The report found that the goal is “challenging but feasible” to achieve.

“Without agreement on finance, we will not be able to reach agreement on other issues for climate change,” Jens Stoltenberg, Norway’s prime minister and co-chairman of the advisory group, said at a press conference in New York. “Now we need the political will to take the decisions.”

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon appointed the panel, called the High-Level Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing, in February. It’s led by Stoltenberg and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. The 21-member group also includes Soros, Summers and Deutsche Bank AG Vice Chairman Caio Koch- Weser.

The report didn’t specify what financial transactions would be covered by the tax beyond saying the focus would be on international currency sales.

‘Court Of Government’

“The ball is really now in the court of governments to move forward on generating these resources,” David Waskow, senior adviser on climate finance for the development charity Oxfam International, said in a telephone interview from Washington. “One can raise substantial public finance from public sources and do it in a way that’s not going to place additional pressure on national budgets and taxpayers.”

The findings would add to the weight behind calls for a tax on financial speculation, sometimes termed a Tobin tax after James Tobin, the Nobel Prize-winning U.S. economist who first suggested the idea in 1971.

Former U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and labor groups including the U.K. Trades Union Congress have supported the idea. President Barack Obama’s administration opposes it. A tax of 0.05 percent on financial transactions may raise as much as $700 billion a year, according to WWF, a Washington-based global environmental activist group.

A financial transactions tax would be “difficult to implement universally” and therefore “only feasible to implement among interested countries,” the panel said in its report.

‘Most Exposed’

Developing nations are “the most exposed” to the impacts of warming, Nicholas Stern, former chief adviser on climate change to the U.K. government and a member of the advisory panel, said in a statement. The UN in 2007 found that while developing countries have contributed the least to the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, they’re the most at risk from the effects of climate change, especially small, island states and nations in Sub-Saharan Africa.

“As Africans, we’ve contributed virtually nothing to the environmental mess our planet is in,” Meles said at the press conference by telephone from Ethiopia. “We will, however, suffer the most.”

The panel assumed a carbon price of as much as $25 a ton on emissions in the levy it suggested. An additional $5 billion might be gained from a tax on carbon offsets in the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism, which polluters buy to make up for emissions elsewhere, according to the study. Private offsets may generate as much as $14 billion.

‘Necessary Transformation’

“Concerted global action and a carbon price of at least $25 is required to achieve the necessary transformation in the global economy,” U.K. Energy and Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne said in a statement. Huhne is a member of the advisory group.

An additional $12 billion would come from a levy on shipping and aviation, the report showed. Waskow said the levies on transportation need to be structured so as not to harm developing nations.

Sources of finance identified in the report included direct contributions from government budgets, a measure it said may generate the full $100 billion while being politically “challenging.”

The panel also looked at a “wires charge” on electricity generation, which it said might provide $5 billion; the removal of fossil fuel-subsidies, which may raise $8 billion; and a carbon tax, which would garner $10 billion. Private finance could provide a net $24 billion, it said.

Soros Proposal Shelved

A proposal Soros made at last year’s climate summit in Copenhagen, that the richest nations use $100 billion of foreign-exchange reserves to help developing nations fight climate change, was deemed not “politically acceptable” by the panel. The money is denominated in what are called special drawing rights, the IMF unit of accounting based on the dollar, yen, pound and euro.

Special drawing rights, created in 1969 to replace gold for large cross-border exchanges, are used by the IMF and other international organizations to account for financial transactions in different countries.

“We are simply asking those who created the problem to stop before it becomes too late,” Meles said. “The prospects for sanity and justice do not appear good, but I refuse to give up.”

Alarmist warnings about the planet are falling flat, according to Washington Times’ editors.

The editorial below from the Washington Times nicely summarizes the state of the current debate over global climate change.  Thank goodness for history!  How fun it will be to look back on Gore’s ‘inconvenient truth’ and marvel at the folly of humanity– that half of a country’s population can be taken in by a politician posing as a scientist… a politician whose hypocrisy is on full display.  “How did he do it?” people will say…. 

The shame is that Gore and and his friends on the Left will likely find a way to convince the media that they NEVER predicted all of those things…  that is what the left usually does, changing stance with the wind and lying about former positions.  I’m keeping ‘inconvenient truth’ around– for laughs.  The article:

Switching terminology from “global warming” to “climate change” to newly favored “global climatic disruption” was supposed to help revive the environmental left’s plunging poll numbers. It hasn’t worked. Nature has, inconveniently, failed to cooperate, with dire predictions of upcoming catastrophes falling flat. Desperation pervades a propaganda effort that has finally gone too far.

The radical green movement is all about scaring the public into adopting unpopular policy initiatives, such as hefty taxes on important sources of energy and increased government direction of our lives through regulation. The Chicken Little strategy can work if the possibility of major disruptions such as a devastating Katrina-style hurricane push people into embracing protection from Washington. Unfortunately for the scaremongers, the disruptions just aren’t happening.

On Thursday, Florida State University researcher Ryan N. Maue updated his index of tropical cyclone activity to reflect the fact that worldwide hurricane activity has reached a 33-year low. The Western North Pacific has seen tropical cyclone activity at a level 78 percent below normal, proving those seas haven’t been calmer since detailed records were first kept in 1945. Accurately describing this period of global climatic tranquility isn’t going to compel action.

That’s why British screenwriter Richard Curtis released a video on Sept. 30 for the “10:10″ campaign, which is intended to encourage people to cut their personal carbon-dioxide emissions by 10 percent per year starting in 2010. The short “No Pressure” film used techniques right out of a horror flick to depict a schoolteacher blowing up two children who failed to show any interest in pestering their parents to install insulation or squiggly light bulbs to “keep the planet safe for everyone.”

The 10:10 campaign issued an apology for the shocking video, which critics now dub “Splattergate” in reference to the film’s excessive gore. The incident highlights the degree to which supposedly mainstream environmentalists think mankind is a blight on the planet. This is the same radical ideology that motivated last month’s hostage-taking incident at the Discovery Channel.

No less than President Obama’s own top science adviser, John P. Holdren, is a long-term adherent to this strange doctrine. In 1969, Mr. Holdren co-authored an article for the journal BioScience entitled, “Population and Panaceas: A Technological Perspective,” which essentially predicted we’d run out of food by the year 2000. He warned that “man’s present technology is inadequate to the task of maintaining the world’s burgeoning billions, even under the most optimistic assumptions.” Just to stay even, Mr. Holdren calculated global food production would have to double or triple – an impossibility, he claimed, requiring a mass-sterilization plan.

Mr. Holdren’s dire prediction never came true, as none of the left’s self-indulgent fantasies do. The clock is indeed ticking; time is running out for the alarmists in academia, Hollywood and the White House.

Don’t you wish we had honest news in the US?  An interesting article from the BBC:

By Pallava Bagla in Delhi

The UN panel on climate change warning that Himalayan glaciers could melt to a fifth of current levels by 2035 is wildly inaccurate, an academic says.

J Graham Cogley, a professor at Ontario Trent University, says he believes the UN authors got the date from an earlier report wrong by more than 300 years.

He is astonished they “misread 2350 as 2035″. The authors deny the claims.

The Himalayan Glacier: Around for another 300 years

Leading glaciologists say the report has caused confusion and “a catalogue of errors in Himalayan glaciology”.

The Himalayas hold the planet’s largest body of ice outside the polar caps – an estimated 12,000 cubic kilometres of water.

They feed many of the world’s great rivers – the Ganges, the Indus, the Brahmaputra – on which hundreds of millions of people depend.

‘Catastrophic rate’

In its 2007 report, the Nobel Prize-winning Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said: “Glaciers in the Himalayas are receding faster than in any other part of the world and, if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high if the Earth keeps warming at the current rate.

“Its total area will likely shrink from the present 500,000 to 100,000 square kilometres by the year 2035,” the report said.

It suggested three quarters of a billion people who depend on glacier melt for water supplies in Asia could be affected.

But Professor Cogley has found a 1996 document by a leading hydrologist, VM Kotlyakov, that mentions 2350 as the year by which there will be massive and precipitate melting of glaciers.

“The extrapolar glaciation of the Earth will be decaying at rapid, catastrophic rates – its total area will shrink from 500,000 to 100,000 square kilometres by the year 2350,” Mr Kotlyakov’s report said.

Mr Cogley says it is astonishing that none of the 10 authors of the 2007 IPCC report could spot the error and “misread 2350 as 2035″.

“I do suggest that the glaciological community might consider advising the IPCC about ways to avoid such egregious errors as the 2035 versus 2350 confusion in the future,” says Mr Cogley.

He said the error might also have its origins in a 1999 news report on retreating glaciers in the New Scientist magazine.

The article quoted Syed I Hasnain, the then chairman of the International Commission for Snow and Ice’s (ICSI) Working group on Himalayan glaciology, as saying that most glaciers in the Himalayan region “will vanish within 40 years as a result of global warming”.

When asked how this “error” could have happened, RK Pachauri, the Indian scientist who heads the IPCC, said: “I don’t have anything to add on glaciers.”

The IPCC relied on three documents to arrive at 2035 as the “outer year” for shrinkage of glaciers.

They are: a 2005 World Wide Fund for Nature report on glaciers; a 1996 Unesco document on hydrology; and a 1999 news report in New Scientist.

Incidentally, none of these documents have been reviewed by peer professionals, which is what the IPCC is mandated to be doing.

Murari Lal, a climate expert who was one of the leading authors of the 2007 IPCC report, denied it had its facts wrong about melting Himalayan glaciers.

But he admitted the report relied on non-peer reviewed – or ‘unpublished’ – documents when assessing the status of the glaciers.

‘Alarmist’

Recently India’s Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh released a study on Himalayan glaciers that suggested that they may be not melting as much due to global warming as it is widely feared.

He accused the IPCC of being “alarmist”.

Mr Pachauri dismissed the study as “voodoo science” and said the IPCC was a “sober body” whose work was verified by governments.

But in a joint statement some the world’s leading glaciologists who are also participants to the IPCC have said: “This catalogue of errors in Himalayan glaciology… has caused much confusion that could have been avoided had the norms of scientific publication, including peer review and concentration upon peer-reviewed work, been respected.”

Michael Zemp from the World Glacier Monitoring Service in Zurich also said the IPCC statement on Himalayan glaciers had caused “some major confusion in the media”.

“Under strict consideration of the IPCC rules, it should actually not have been published as it is not based on a sound scientific reference.

“From a present state of knowledge it is not plausible that Himalayan glaciers are disappearing completely within the next few decades. I do not know of any scientific study that does support a complete vanishing of glaciers in the Himalayas within this century.”

Pallava Bagla is science editor for New Delhi Television (NDTV) and author of Destination Moon – India’s quest for Moon, Mars and Beyond. 

Mr Pachauri dismissed the study as “voodoo science” and said the IPCC was a “sober body” whose work was verified by governments.

But in a joint statement some the world’s leading glaciologists who are also participants to the IPCC have said: “This catalogue of errors in Himalayan glaciology… has caused much confusion that could have been avoided had the norms of scientific publication, including peer review and concentration upon peer-reviewed work, been respected.”

Michael Zemp from the World Glacier Monitoring Service in Zurich also said the IPCC statement on Himalayan glaciers had caused “some major confusion in the media”.

“Under strict consideration of the IPCC rules, it should actually not have been published as it is not based on a sound scientific reference.

“From a present state of knowledge it is not plausible that Himalayan glaciers are disappearing completely within the next few decades. I do not know of any scientific study that does support a complete vanishing of glaciers in the Himalayas within this century.”

Pallava Bagla is science editor for New Delhi Television (NDTV) and author of Destination Moon – India’s quest for Moon, Mars and Beyond.

I have been too busy lately to do my part to keep readers entertained, and I am sorry for that. There is so much nonsense in the world lately that it is getting more and more difficult deciding where to start! There have been a number of events consistent with the things I have written about on my companion web site ’Warmal Globing’… for example, I write on one of the pages about the way science works, or more importantly the way scientific funding works. As a former scientist and former grant applicant, I know that one must apply for the right things if one is to get funded. The applicant ALWAYS looks at who is funding the grant, and what that agency ‘wants’ to find. Yes, the grants always come with wording like ‘unrestricted funding’, but all scientists know the ‘nudge nudge wink wink’ behind that statement! And sure enough– we recently found that a number of very respected scientists have engaged in ‘unscientific’ behavior by covering up or distoring data, hiding messages that admit to doubts caused by the REAL findings– the findings that they can’t report, for fear of losing the golden goose that is global warming. Just think about it– can you imagine how much money will be lost by so many people, if global warming turns out to be a crock?! And it is a crock, of course. And eventually the truth will come out, because as much as Al Gore wants it to happen, the low-lying areas of the world will not be inundated with the floods– beyond the floods that they have ALWAYS been inundated by.

Which brings up another point that is also on my web site… the global warming zealots get to blame everything on ‘warming’! We recently had a cold spell and nasty snowstorm across the southeast US– in fact, it shut DC down for several days, just as they were getting ready to pass more carbon taxes ‘to stimulate the economy’ (you truly cannot make this stuff up). One of the Kennedy clan had just penned an op-ed about the good old days when it snowed so much more…. suggesting that it snows less now because of ‘global warming’. BTW, even the smart people out there who are idiots about global warming will admit that what they refer to as the current ‘climate change disaster’ has nothing to do with the snow that a Kennedy is writing about– that all of the local phenomena people tend to point to as they nod their heads in reality have nothing to do with ‘climate change’. But as he pens this piece, this massive snowstorm hits. But what does the mainstream media do? They BLAME GLOBAL WARMING FOR THE SNOW!!! They truly get it both ways– because in their odd world, warming causes cooling. Yes, I understand what they are saying- that the contrast in temps and the increased ‘thermal energy’ somehow causes storms that include snow and ice….. but it is not reasonable for them to claim that warming causes less snowstorms (ala Kennedy) and at the same time say that the snow is FROM the warming. And besides– also on my web site there is a copy of the Newsweek article from the 1970′s about the coming disaster of global cooling, and in that article the same scientists who are cited now were saying that the Earth would have increased glaciers and tornados and snowstorms, all from ‘global cooling’.

The other thing that happened just recently was that another leading global warming alarmist announced ‘never mind’, admitting that the Earth’s temp has not changed significantly in over 15 years.  Never mind.  Think about all the money wasted over the last few years, and the raised taxes, the increased government control, the sagging economy, the disastrous election of Democrats–  all over something that doesn’t exist.  Can we sue Al Gore?  Maybe he and Obama can travel to Stockholm together and both give their silly awards back at the same time!  You know what?  They are both so shameless that they would each give a speech about why it is OK flying separately, now that ‘they were right all along that the Earth wasn’t warming’.  And people would actually believe them, and some would credit them for finding out that global warming is a myth.

Another realist’s thoughts on the issue of global warming were sent my way.  Here is the link:  75 reasons to be skeptical of global warming

Today Drudge linked to an opinion piece by Froma Harrop of the Providence Journal, where she dragged out HER favorite scientist and explained why we all had better listen.  I have noticed since the advent of blogging that the world can be divided into two groups of people– blog writers and blog readers.  The same thing holds true for editorial writers;  they spend more time writing in support of their own opinions than reading anything that risks challenging those opinions.    I looked over her other opinion pieces over the years and had no trouble seeing her politics.   As a scientist (yes, Froma, with a real PhD) I instantly realize that view is good for little in regard to education–  but I read it anyway, as that is the only way to come to an accurate conclusion– that is, to challenge one’s self to new opinion on a regular basis.

Harrop says that HER expert on climate science coined the term ‘global warming’ way back in the 1970′s, which is interesting, given that anyone who was anyone in climate circles back then would have dismissed her expert faster than Hollywood dismissed Michael Crichton after ‘State of Fear’ was published!  Over on the web site you can read the Newsweek article from 1975 or see the graphic from Time Magazine from 1974, both from a time when the world’s climate scientists were warning us about impending disaster from global COOLING.  In fact, the articles described the recent spike up in tornadoes, and the shortened growing seasons in Europe, as evidence that the cooling was already having horrible effects on the earth.  The site mentions the controversial idea of covering the polar ice caps with soot to try to absorb more of the sun’s heat, musing whether that would be a bad idea.  Hmmm…..   makes you wonder what people will say about US in 30 years!

Read this report and more at WarmalGlobing.com

Harrop mentions the newspaper ad taken out awhile back signed by almost 100 climate ‘scientists’– a group of straw men for her expert to knock down.  She does NOT mention the fact the many of the original proponents of global warming or ‘anthropomorphic climate change’ have abandoned their earlier opinions or research, which is why one rarely hears scientists talking about the subject anymore.  Now all we hear from are the politicians and their ‘true believers’ (and of course teenagers, who always think that whatever THEY are doing is the most important thing in the world– so this MUST be a critical age for climate!).

Neither does Harrop mention the petition by well over 30,000 scientists that can be read at the Oregan Institute on Science and Medicine (I haven’t seen it for awhile, so it might have many more by now!).

Realize that scientists are slow to come around for at least two reasons.  First, ‘warming’ is where the money is- if you want funding, you don’t go out asking for funds to look at global cooling!  In fact, since most of the cash for research comes from advocacy groups (including the largest advocacy group of all, the US government– which has thousands of bureaucrats who rely on the hundreds of programs that ‘save the planet’), a researcher BETTER come up with the ‘correct’ findings– or good luck getting funded next year!!  The second reason for scientists to embrace ‘warming’ is because they have seen what happens to their colleagues who didn’t.  There is no news when a PhD fails to make tenure– but it happens all the time.  Universities tend to have a ‘with us or against us’ spirit on the inside, despite the claims of academic freedom to the outside.  It is not a coincidence that your children all become bleeding hearts by the end of four years of college!   And if the folks on the tenure committee don’t take you down, the media will get hold of one sentence that sounds absolutely crazy when placed in the wrong context, and down you’ll go!

It is so nice, by the way, to have John Stossel out there again.  He was viewed as brilliant by his media ‘friends’ until he started saying the WRONG truth– and suddenly ABC didn’t find his stories as interesting.  I’m glad we have one network left where the reporters are not taking marching orders from the government!

The worst thing about people like Harrop and the stories they write is that they are the reason that we get things wrong so often.  Had Newsweek and Time had their way years ago, we would now have black spots on each end of the planet.  Now we have the equivalent with writers like Harrop, the major networks, and Obama and the US government– three interest groups with power over our future, all with no knowledge of science.  Even worse, none of these groups even know how to critically evaluate science!  REAL science does NOT need cheerleaders like Harrop–  real science can take care of itself, and allow the truth to prevail.  The reason policies to control ‘global warming’ are floundering is because the science behind it is fatally flawed.  The public got a look at climate-gate last week– at least those members of the public who read newspapers outside of the United States!  We all saw the extent that true believers will go to promote their beliefs– and to be sure of a new round of funding!

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