So instead, for the truth, we have to rely on those traditional bastions of openness the Chinese. Says World Climate Report:
What this Chinese-led team has done, in other words, has confirmed the existence of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP). This is the balmy period between about 950 and 1250 when Greenland was green and grapes grew in Northern England which Michael Mann tried to erase in his discredited Hockey Stick chart because it didn't suit his conviction that late 20th century global warming was dramatic and unprecedented. (Hat tip: Watts Up With That)
The late 20th century global warming that started the massive AGW scare in other words is, put into its correct historical context, entirely normal and nothing to worry about. Now please can we sack Chris Huhne, save ourselves £18 billion a year we're spending to implement the Climate Change Act, and stop building those ruddy useless windfarms?
Well no, not quite. But the Guardian's Hair Shirt and Scorpions columnist George Monbiot has at least been frightened into taking a slightly more conciliatory line over the Amazongate fiasco.
Here was his original response when threatened with legal action by Dr Richard North, whom he had accused of being an "egregious fabulist" over what was in fact an entirely accurate story about the IPCC passing off as "peer-reviewed" science an unverified claim that had actually come from a World Wildlife Fund propaganda sheet.
Dear Dr North,
Go ahead, make my day.
Yours Sincerely,
George Monbiot
And here, presumably following advice from his lawyers, is Monbiot's latest Japanese-style non-apology apology at the top of his erroneous column.
In criticising Dr Richard North, below, for not having checked [ eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/01/and-now-for-amazongate.html] whether there was a reference to the claim that up to "40% of the Amazonian forests could react drastically to even a slight reduction in precipitation" in the WWF Report, I was unaware of, and therefore omitted to mention, that Dr North had himself later spotted that there was a reference to the 40% figure in the WWF report. His initial mistake had been corrected on another page [ eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/01/corruption-of-science.html ] (before the Sunday Times article had been written) and he had added a cross-link to the original page, which I failed to note. Apologies.
Do you know what, though? I can honestly say it gives me no satisfaction to witness Monbiot pooing his pants over libel issues. I believe that English libel law, just like the wildly erratic and frankly rather disgusting Press Complaints Commission, does far more to shield evil people (not you, Richard North!) and bad ideas than it does to protect the innocent. I look at Monbiot here and think "There but for the grace of God go I…" So it's not over the legal issue that I find myself gloating over Monbiot's comeuppance, I swear to you. No, the reason I'm so glad he has been humiliated here is because of the victory it has won us Climate Realists against the Warmists in the great AGW propaganda war.
In his latest blog Monbiot describes the Amazongate story as an "issue of mind-numbing triviality."
So a story becomes, I suppose, once it has been revealed that you got your details wrong. But it certainly wasn't how Monbiot felt about the same story when he originally wrote it up.
Indeed, such was his crowing that the impression given was that the entire case against Man-Made Global Warming had been utterly destroyed. He cackled (prancing about like Muffin the Mule on angel dust, I seem to recall):
The ironies of this episode are manifold, but the most obvious is this: that North's story – and the Sunday Times's rewritten account – purported to expose inaccuracy, misrepresentation and falsehood on the part of the IPCC. Now that the IPCC has been vindicated, its accusers, North first among them, are exposed for peddling inaccuracy, misrepresentation and falsehood. Ashes to ashes, toast to toast.
Moral victories like the one we Realists have just won here are vital – especially since the great AGW conflict has now reached its Battle of The Bulge stage, where the Warmists are striking back with a vicious counter-attack of lies, denial, rank-closing and whitewashes.
We have, for example, the depressing – though entirely predictable – news that Michael Mann has been cleared of all wrongdoing by Penn State University.
And the hilarious story at ClimateAudit, in which Lord Oxburgh of Persil tries to explain that even though he headed the Science Appraisal Panel inquiry into Climategate, and even though this panel's stated ambitions were to "reappraise CRUs science", he wanted to make one thing absolutely clear to Steve McIntyre: (Hat tip: Nick Mabbs)
Dear Dr Mcintyre,
Thank you for your message. What you report may or may not be the case. But as I have pointed out to you previously the science was not the subject of our study.
Yours sincerly,
Ron Oxburgh
With true stories as damning as these, why on earth does George Monbiot imagine we Realists have any need to make our stories up?
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http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100045575/sneaky-bullying-self-pitying-climategate-scientists-write-to-sir-muir-russell-inquiry-begging-make-it-a-whitewash-hat-trick/
Sneaky, bullying, self-pitying Climategate scientists write to Sir Muir Russell inquiry begging: 'Make it a whitewash hat trick!'
Does the shamelessness of the noisome Michael Mann and his Hockey Team know no bounds?
(No. Ed)
Not content with the two whitewash inquiries into Climategate so far, Mann and his Hockey Team (though mainly Mann, probably – the writing is very much in his half-wheedling, half-blustering style) have written to the chairman of the third and final inquiry Sir Muir Russell to "express some serious concerns" and to "provide specific suggestions" as to what his conclusions might be.
Here is a summary of what they urge in the letter, which you can read in full at Bishop Hill. (Hat tip: Nick Mabbs)
1. There should be a cosy arrangement where corrupt, parti-pris scientists should be free to carry on behaving as badly as they like without any risk of their skulduggery being exposed by awkward public investigations. Private emails in which, say, they gloat about the deaths of climate sceptics, fantasise about physical violence against sceptics, plot how to misuse public funds, plot how to discredit scientists who legitimately disagree with them, plot how to shut down journals which don't act as their amen corner, etc, should remain private.
2. The Muir Russell inquiry should continue to promulgate the great Climate Change lie.
"We believe that it is important to state unequivocally in your findings (and any summary of your findings) that nothing that you have seen calls into question the scientific consensus on human-caused climate change."
3. Don't listen to McIntyre and McKitrick because they know their stuff, they rumbled us twice with the Hockey Stick and we would much prefer it if you just accept that everything we tell you is true.
"Not all the evidence submitted to the Independent Climate Change Emails Review (ICCER) comes from parties with genuine interest in furthering scientific understanding. We hope that this can be taken into account in evaluating the credibility of submitted evidence."
4. Feel sorry for us. We are the victims in all this. Sob. Sniff. Now where did we put that onion?
"We hope you are able to acknowledge and take into account the intense campaign of harassment that has been directed at CRU and other climate scientists."
For me it's this last one that takes the biscuit. Really, the most disgusting thing of all to emerge from the Climategate emails was the way Michael Mann and his Hockey Team bullied any scientists who disagreed with them, effectively seeking to deny them a livelihood by having them shut out of the peer review process. Good decent men have had their careers stymied or even ruined by Mann's bully mob. How dare they have the gall to complain when these activities are publicly exposed?
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http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100045252/ha-ha-ha-ha-ha/
Ha ha ha ha ha!
In all the excitement yesterday I missed the most important story of the day. And in my very own paper too.
It seems that they're running out of power on Eigg, "the world's greenest island," which only recently won a big eco prize (run, presumably, by the kind of people who never have to live with the consequences of renewable energy).
The shortages come only months after Eigg's innovative renewable power grid won a share of a £1 million first prize in a nationwide competition to become model on how to tackle climate change.
Its community-owned triple solar, wind and hydro generating station, thought to be the first of its kind, impressed the judges in the Big Green Challenge, run by the National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts (NESTA).
But Mother Gaia is not impressed.
Weeks of what passes for heatwave conditions in the Inner Hebrides have caused water levels on the island's three main burns to drop uncharacteristically low, cutting off the island's hydroelectricity supply.
The normally powerful Atlantic gusts in the tiny island south of Skye have also reduced to a pleasant breeze leaving the island's wind turbines idle for hours on end.
As a result, the community owned power company has placed the island on "red alert" and issued notices effectively rationing electricity.
It has had to revert to using old-fashioned diesel power to run a backup generator to keep the lights on.
Truly you'd need a heart of stone not to laugh. But it gets even better. Go on: guess how they've decided to "solve" the problem. Think of the stupidest way you could spend you money on power generation in a place where there really isn't that much sun.
Yep:
The trust is now planning to spend part of its £300,000 share of the prize money on more solar panels to prevent a repeat of the shortages in future years.
Read also this report from yesterday's Guardian. (Hat tip: Andrew Gibson) You'll be most surprised to learn that Britain's wind farms aren't producing nearly as much power as they were supposed to. All the fault of last year's "dry" winter, apparently. Or the failure of the people to make sufficient sacrifices to Aeolius. Or some such.
