More conspiracy theories from WUWT: It's a strong climate plot

WUWT is one of a multitude of conspiracy theory blogs on the internet. Anthony Watts, the blog owner, specialises in conspiracy theories of the climate kind. Today he's posted another article from one of his nuttier paranoid guests, whose name is Tim Ball (archived here). He's a frequent guest also on one of the even nuttier websites in Canada, which promotes "Freedom Water".

Tim is just writing about his normal (normal for him that is) theories that global warming is a plot hatched by a man called Maurice Strong. You can read an interview with Maurice Strong at the Guardian - by Leo Hickman, back in 2010.

Apparently Maurice Strong created global warming back in the 1980s. He must have had thousands of people in on the conspiracy, because he was able to alter scientific journals dating back to the beginning of the 19th century. That means he must have not only co-opted some of the world's leading scientific publishers and all their staff, he must have hauled in librarians all around the world to doctor old copies of scientific journals.


Imagine the work involved. Getting paper and ink of the right age. Changing the numbering systems going back through old editions. Getting someone to manufacture identities with names like Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier, John Tyndall, Svante Arrhenius and Guy Stewart Callendar. Strong was even able to alter historical White House reports that were given to the US President, Lyndon B Johnson, back in 1965 and insert a report by some fictitious character called Roger Revelle.

Maurice Strong has extraordinary power. Not only was he able to subvert the 193 member nations of the United Nations, he single-handedly ran the World Meteorological Organisation. With the help of operatives posing as scientists and running another communist/fascist/socialist/Lysenkoist secret society - called The Royal Society, he managed to persuade the leading scientific societies throughout the world to say that global warming is real and caused by humans. (The jury is out as to whether or not the American Physical Society will continue to support the climate conspiracy.)

You want proof? Surely not. Isn't the word of Anthony Watts and his sidekick Tim Ball sufficient proof?

One curious thing is that Tim Ball hails from Canada. So does Maurice Strong. Strong was born in Manitoba, which housed the university at which Tim Ball taught geography. I don't know if their paths ever crossed. I imagine that Tim would cower in fear if he ever met this god of a man in person.

This time around Tim doesn't call on his heroes, Adolf Hitler and Osama bin Laden. At one point he wrote (just in case you were thinking I exaggerate):

A major challenge for those fighting the manipulations of the IPCC and politicians using climate change for political platforms is that the public cannot believe that scientists would be anything less than completely open and truthful. They cannot believe that scientists would even remain silent even when science is misused. The politicians exploit this trust in science and scientists, which places science in jeopardy. It also allowed the scientific malfeasance of climate science to be carried out in the open.

A particularly egregious exploitation was carried out through science societies and professional scientific groups. They were given the climate science of the IPCC and urged to support it on behalf of their members. Certainly a few were part of the exploitation, but a majority, including most of the members simply assumed that the rigorous methods of research and publication in their science were used. Lord May of the UK Royal Society was influential in the manipulation of public perception through national scientific societies. They persuaded other national societies to become involved by making public statements.

Scientific societies are peopled by sheeple, obviously. They are not in a position to judge science for themselves. Not like the fake sceptics at WUWT, who just know that climate science is a hoax, a scam of gigantic proportions, all manufactured by a single individual, oil magnate Maurice Strong.

It is a really bad situation. Tim told how at one meeting of the IPCC:

The Russian Academy of Science, under its President Yuri Israel, refused to participate. At a United Kingdom Meteorological Office (UKMO) 2005 climate meeting he was put in his place.
“The Russian scientist was immediately and disrespectfully admonished by the chair and former IPCC chief Sir John Houghton for being far too optimistic. Such a moderate proposal was ridiculous since it was “incompatible with IPCC policy”.
Israel, a Vice-chair of the IPCC, knew what he was talking about from the scientific and political perspective. 

Tim's impeccable source was the sports science graduate, Benny Peiser, who runs a lobby group for fake sceptics in the UK urging policies to make more global warming. It's called the Global Warming Policy Foundation. (I don't know how he plans to make the world warmer, as it can't be by burning fossil fuels, which every fake sceptic knows can't result in CO2, or if it does then it can't get into the air, or if it does then it can't act as a greenhouse gas, or if it does it can't make the world warmer.) I went to see what Benny reported the Russian scientist as saying. Here it is:

...he pointed out the potentially gigantic economic cost of any attempts to "stabilise" the world's climate: "Stabilization is not free for the world community. Economic analysis of stabilization scenarios using, in particular, 1000, 750, 650, 550 and 450 ppmv of CO2 as stabilization levels show that this may cost up to 18 trillions $US of 1992." Applying a cost-benefit analysis to the potential damage as a result of increasing temperatures evaluated against the cost of CO2 stabilisation, Professor Israel proposed moderate limits for CO2 concentration and surface temperature for the 21th century:
a) CO2 concentration should not exceed 550 - 700 ppmv;
b) A rise in surface temperature should be less than 2.5°C for the globe and less than 4°C for the Arctic;
c) Global mitigation costs should not exceed 10 - 20% of the increase in global GDP;
d) Sea level rise should be less than 1 m.

Well, that wasn't a very good denial of global warming was it. Tim ought to check his sources more carefully.

Tim also quotes Article 1 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which defined climate change, for the purpose of the Convention, as follows:

2. "Climate change" means a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods.

It also defines a few other things, such as:

1. "Adverse effects of climate change" means changes in the physical environment or biota resulting from climate change which have significant deleterious effects on the composition, resilience or productivity of natural and managed ecosystems or on the operation of socio-economic systems or on human health and welfare.

Conspiracy theorists are generally not very clear thinkers. If they were they'd have realised that in order to distinguish between changes of climate attributable to human activity from that attributable to natural climate variability, one must be able to determine what is attributable to natural climate variability. Or perhaps Tim does understand this, but just cannot process the thought properly, because he did write:

Because of the political agenda people were allowed to believe the IPCC were studying climate change in total. The reality is you cannot determine human causes of change if you do not know or understand natural causes. The forcing diagrams used in early IPCC science Reports illustrate the narrowness (Figure 1) and its limitations. 

Tim's first sentence suggests that he has never read any of the IPCC reports. If he had he'd not have been able to miss all the sections in all the chapters that were about climate - and climate change. Such as all the parts about the impact of solar radiation, the impact of volcanic eruptions, greenhouse gases etc etc.  Tim put up a chart of the human influences on climate, but he chose not to put up any charts of other influences on climate, such as these ones:

He must have missed them.

Nor does Tim attempt to say what he thinks has been causing the earth to heat up so dramatically. He might have wanted to avoid the word "magic".

Tim isn't aware of the timetable for release of the IPCC reports. He wrote:

Most people, including most of the media don’t know that the science reports exist. This is because the Summary for Policymakers Report is released with great fanfare months ahead of the science report.

He's wrong. The science report is released within days of the Summary for Policy Makers. Here is the press release for WG1, and a quote:

GENEVA, 30 September – The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has posted online the full Working Group I contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report in an unedited version, following the release of its Summary for Policymakers on 27 September 2013. 

Anthony Watts specialises in disinformation at his anti-science blog, WUWT. This is just one more example not just of plain disinformation, but of paranoid conspiracy nuttery.

From the WUWT comments

Tim's article has brought all the paranoid conspiracy nutters out of the WUWT woodwork.  M Courtney has a severe case of scientists don't know nuffin-itis. He doesn't say what they don't know but he's sure that what they know "must be wrong":

June 1, 2015 at 3:35 am
The vast majority of people who have ever studied climatology have studied it in the last 25 years. Hardly anyone was studying the field before it became important in saving the world. Most of the university departments didn’t even exist before the 90s.
That means the vast majority of people who have ever studied climatology have based their whole career on the science being right over those 25 years.
Backing down from that is not a good career move when nobody in the field has anything else to pull back to.
Why fund these new departments if they aren’t saving the world ort getting anything right?

andrewmharding lists all the things he thinks that scientists have got "wrong". Does he really and truly believe this? Where on earth does he get his quackery?

June 1, 2015 at 4:40 am
Agree totally with you. Second hand tobacco smoke, less saturated fat in the diet and more carbs, unleaded petrol, diesel as opposed to petrol Climate change aka AGW. The list is never ending.

Bruce Cobb doesn't hesitate to let everyone know he is an utter nutter of the climate conspiracy kind.

June 1, 2015 at 4:03 am
Why pussyfoot around? They are Climate Liars. They come in all stripes, and have varying reasons for being part of the Biggest Lie in human history.

Scottish Sceptic is another one who's never bothered to open an IPCC report, or if he has he couldn't understand a scientific word of it:

June 1, 2015 at 4:08 am
How much of the IPCC report do you need to read before they give you the only actual science: the amount by which the CO2 warms the planet without feedbacks.
Is it:
a) in the executive summary for policy makers
b) the first chapter for policy makers
c) in any of the of the material for policy makers?
d) in the technical summary?
e) in the chapters dealing with CO2
f) anywhere in the IPCC report at all
g) no where not any where – indeed only ever mentioned once as a footnote I think in 2004
If it’s not obvious, the simple science – the only actual science in this whole damned scam is no where in the IPCC report.
That proves intentional deception

Mark from the Midwest waffles and manages to say nothing much of any consequence. What he does say he's not taken to heart. Just how hot will the world have to get before he "knows when to cut his losses and move on"? He's clearly a climate conspiracy theorist, so probably ten degrees of warming wouldn't convince him.

June 1, 2015 at 4:49 am
I believe incompetence and deception are not mutually exclusive, although when the incompetent engage in deception it’s not always an intent to deceive. When you are sufficiently incompetent to “not know what you don’t know” it becomes much easier to defend your work in non-scientific ways, (e.g., they’re “confused” or “the missing heat is somewhere … we’ll find it”), rather than revise, correct, improve.
I’ve spent much more of my professional life in private industry than in academia, and In business the smart people aren’t always the one’s who get it right the first time, the smart people are the ones how know when to cut their losses and move on, while the dumb ones will gladly stay with the sinking ship until it’s too late.

Here are some late entries to the weirdest, wackiest and most implausible conspiracy theory competition, run daily at WUWT. Many deniers' are obsessed with money and cannot conceive that there are people for whom knowledge is a much bigger driver. Deniers really are nuts.

Tom O

June 1, 2015 at 7:27 am
The sad part is that there are those that prefer to be part of the political solution based on the fact that “baby, that IS where the money is.” You can be a good scientist, do the studies and realize that the public and policy makers are being duped, but unless you prefer to work as a stall cleaner at the race track, you are in no position to say anything, for “politics” pays the bills, not “being correct.” Thus you have no choice but to compromise yourself, or cease having a job in the field that you studied. And frankly, working in the field you studied will pay back those “student loans” faster than cleaning stalls at the local race track. Truth may be the first victim, but integrity is a close second.

mairon62

June 1, 2015 at 7:35 am
Authoritarians bent on totalitarian rule always insist that the “truth” is simply what ever they say it is. If they say that co2 causes warming and must be “stopped”, then that is simply the way it is. If you question this arrangement you are questioning their authority to rule you and their power to destroy you; science has nothing to do with it. 

crosspatch

June 1, 2015 at 7:39 am
It is a racket. The same scientists who produce the IPCC “assessment reports” that lead to UNFCCC recommendations get paid to implement those recommendations by their home countries as consultants to the government (Example: University of East Anglia influential in IPCC assessment, which leads to UNFCCC policy recommendations. Tyndall Centre is then conrtacted by DEFRA in the UK to implement UNFCCC recommendations — and Tyndall Centre is — University of East Anglia). So the actions of those who sit in the IPCC panel bring cash into the university.

I didn't realise Mike Maguire was such a conspiracy nutter till now - of the Tim Ball/One World Guvmint/New World Order/Agenda21/Maurice Strong type.  He says he used to be a meteorologist before taking up this new hobby. People are strange.

June 1, 2015 at 8:39 am
Dr. Ball,
You’ve written many good articles but this one seems to concisely nail the root of the problem especially well.