WUWT, Heartland Institute and CFACT advocate global suicide by CO2

Anti-science blogger Anthony Watts didn't write much on the Not the IPCC report himself.  He put up an article by Steve "mad, mad, mad" Goreham before it was released.  He mentioned it in one of his hot sheet postings and now he's put up some nonsense by someone called Paul Driessen, who is a senior policy adviser for CFACT and, from what I read is a lobbyist for various similar organisations that are part of the "destroy the environment" movement.  (Archived here for posterity, but it's not worth reading.)

Science deniers and disinformers are splitting into two main factions.  There are those like Heartland Institute who've chosen to act like lunatics, saying they aren't satisfied with doubling CO2, now they want to shoot for more, advocating 800 ppm.   They are the ones who think Ross McKitrick's recent fiasco is "brilliant".

Then there are the ones who are admitting the world is warming but have shifted to trying to argue that we shouldn't try to prevent worse and more frequent floods, catastrophic wildfires, sea level rises of up to a meter this century, killer heatwaves and extended drought.

Anthony Watts is doing the splits, trying to keep one leg in both camps.  This time he's promoting global suicide by speeding up CO2 emissions.

Some of the regulars at WUWT think Heartland Institute has gone too far, pointing out that it is wrong and that, for example, the earth has indeed got warmer in the past 17 years; and that the Arctic sea ice is not recovering.

The most recent report is just as silly as all the other reports. Is it any wonder that, as Paul Driessen moans:

...the “mainstream” media and climate alarm industry have no interest in reading the report, debating its contents or even letting people know it exists.

Click here to read the main points listed in the NIPCC report to find out why.  If it were to get any airplay it would be along the lines of "what a bumbling pile of stupidity".

Heartland Institute's NIPCC science deniers make startling finds: "CO2 is plant food" and "it's the sun"

The "Not the IPCC" crowd of science deniers from the Heartland Institute have released their latest report (NIPCC page archived here).  The main authors are listed as Craig D. Idso (USA), Robert M. Carter (Australia), S. Fred Singer (USA).  The full list includes people like Tim Ball, and denier Don Easterbrook and Cliff Ollier - so you can imagine the lack of quality and silliness their report contains.

It doesn't look as if they've come up with anything new from their last equally silly report.  I've listed their "summary of findings" from their "Summary for Policy Makers" (ie the tea party in the USA).  I've put their summary document up on Google docs to save you going to the NIPCC website.

They've covered a lot of SkepticalScience's climate myths.  Like many science deniers, they seem to use Skeptical Science's most common denier memes as a cheat sheet. This so-called "report" is a load of crock.  It's nothing more than a repeat and mishmash of some of the silliest denier memes that they used in their previous "reports" from "CO2 is plant food" to "it's the sun" to "it's not warming" to "it's warming but it's a recovery from the Little Ice Age".

Here is their Summary of NIPCC’s Findings, which they list as: Source: “Executive Summary,” Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science (Chicago, IL: The Heartland Institute, 2013).  I've made a brief comment for each of their claims, explaining why each is wrong.

"CO2 is only a weak greenhouse gas" - no, it's not!

False claim: Atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) is a mild greenhouse gas that exerts a diminishing warming effect as its concentration increases. 

Why it is false: CO2 is not mild.  It is the main greenhouse gas that controls earth's climate.  Although it has a smaller effect than water vapour in absolute terms, it is long-lived in the atmosphere.  A change in CO2 acts as a force on climate.  In response to the forcing, water vapour changes, known as a feedback.

"We don't understand the carbon cycle" - that's obvious!

False claim: Doubling the concentration of atmospheric CO2 from its pre-industrial level, in the absence of other forcings and feedbacks, would likely cause a warming of ~0.3 to 1.1°C, almost 50% of which must already have occurred. 

Why it is false: In the absence of any other feedbacks or forcings,a doubling of CO2 would cause a warming of around the same magnitude as a 2% increase in solar radiation.  This effect takes a long time - ultimately the time it takes to complete a carbon cycle - many millenia.  Therefore it is also wrong to claim that almost 50% of which "must already have occurred".

Source: Realclimate.org

"We're building a straw man" - question is why?

False claim: A few tenths of a degree of additional warming, should it occur, would not represent a climate crisis. 

Why it is false: This is a strawman argument.  There has been and will continue to be much more warming than a "few tenths of a degree".  This is already causing problems for the world and it will get much worse if we do not cut emissions.

"We don't know what we're trying to argue" - well, that's obvious!

False claim: Model outputs published in successive IPCC reports since 1990 project a doubling of CO2 could cause warming of up to 6°C by 2100. Instead, global warming ceased around the end of the twentieth century and was followed (since 1997) by 16 years of stable temperature.

Why it is false: Firstly the argument is very mixed up.  The doubling of CO2 is not the same as any projected surface warming by 2100.  We are on track to double atmospheric CO2 well before the end of this century, maybe triple it. Secondly, global warming has not stopped.  The first decade this century was the hottest on record, hotter than any decade in the twentieth century. In addition to surface and tropospheric temperatures, now even the deep ocean is warming up.

"It's natural" - and we're causing it!

False claim: Over recent geological time, Earth’s temperature has fluctuated naturally between about +4°C and -6°C with respect to twentieth century temperature. A warming of 2°C above today, should it occur, falls within the bounds of natural variability.

Why it is false: The causes of temperature variations in "recent geological time" are known.  The ice ages and deglaciations referred to are caused by changes in solar irradiance combined with changes in CO2 as a feedback (Milankovitch cycles).  The current changes are not a result of natural variability.  They are the result of a very rapid increase in atmospheric CO2 because of human activities - predominately the burning of fossil fuels.  The variation in temperature over the entire Holocene, since the beginning of civilisation is not likely to have exceeded +/- one degree at a maximum.  A rapid warming of 2°C above today would vastly exceed anything that could be caused by "natural variation" of anything other than our huge emissions of CO2.

"We don't believe science" - ummm - oka..a..ay

False claim: Though a future warming of 2°C would cause geographically varied ecological responses, no evidence exists that those changes would be net harmful to the global environment or to human well-being. 

Why it is false.  The main reason for the changes being so harmful is because they are happening so quickly.  Life on earth does not have time to adapt to the changes.  This is one reason we are now witnessing the beginning of the sixth major extinction event and why it's likely to speed up.  Global warming and the rapid rise of CO2 is affecting the oceans through warming of the seas plus acidification; it is affecting the land by melting ice, droughts, wildfires, heatwaves and intense precipitation.  And if you want know about potential direct harm to humans, read what the science says if web bulb temperatures were to exceed an achievable threshhold.

These changes are already causing harm and it will only get worse

"CO2 was higher before life on land existed" - errr ... so what?

False claim: At the current level of ~400 ppm we still live in a CO2-starved world. Atmospheric levels 15 times greater existed during the Cambrian Period (about 550 million years ago) without known adverse effects. 

Why it is false:  This is one of the sillier of this list of silly claims.  Humans didn't even exist 550,000,000 years ago when CO2 levels were 7000 ppm and neither did any other life on land.  Life did start to flourish in the late Cambrian - just not on land.  It wasn't till CO2 dropped and oxygen increased in the atmosphere that the land was colonised with plants and animals.

"Climate changes by magic" - no it doesn't!

False claim: The overall warming since about 1860 corresponds to a recovery from the Little Ice Age modulated by natural multidecadal cycles driven by ocean-atmosphere oscillations, or by solar variations at the de Vries (~208 year) and Gleissberg (~80 year) and shorter periodicities. 

Why it is false: Contrary to what Not the IPCC implies, climate does not change by magic.  Any "recovery" from the Little Ice Age has to be explained in terms of what caused the earth to warm.  Not only that, but it would have to explain why it continues to warm.  "Cycles" and "oscillations" mean that if temperature goes up from a cycle or oscillation it also goes back down again in the same cycle or oscillation.  Otherwise it's not a cycle or oscillation.  The fact is that energy is being built up in the earth system, which is causing the temperature of the air and oceans to rise, the ice to melt etc.

"It's not warming" - yes, it is!

False claim: Earth has not warmed significantly for the past 16 years despite an 8% increase in atmospheric CO2, which represents 34% of all extra CO2 added to the atmosphere since the start of the industrial revolution. 

Why it is false: Firstly the argument is a repeat of part of the one above. The first decade this century was the hottest on record, hotter than any decade in the twentieth century. In addition to surface temperatures, now even the deep ocean is warming up.  This is very significant!

"CO2 is plant food!" - ROTFL!

False Claim: CO2 is a vital nutrient used by plants in photosynthesis. Increasing CO2 in the atmosphere “greens” the planet and helps feed the growing human population. 

Why it is false: This is the silly denier meme of "CO2 is plant food".  C3 plants like wheat (but not maize) do respond to increased CO2, all other things being equal.  But rising CO2 makes other things not equal.  The downside working against "feeding the growing human population" are temperatures so hot that it kills crops; drought so long that crops, if they get planted at all, don't produce seed or fruit and die from dehydration; rain so intense that it washes away crops that have been planted or prevents farmers from getting into the paddocks to sow their crops; humidity such that plant disease flourishes and reduces productivity.

"It's not CO2" - yes, it is!

False claim: No close correlation exists between temperature variation over the past 150 years and humanrelated CO2 emissions. The parallelism of temperature and CO2 increase between about 1980 and 2000 AD could be due to chance and does not necessarily indicate causation. 

Why it is false: This one is just plain dumb.  Physics explains the greenhouse effect.  Paleoclimatology shows that when CO2 increases in the atmosphere the earth system heats up in response.  Modern climatology shows exactly the same thing.  I'm surprised at how these so-called scientists oscillate between accepting the greenhouse effect and denying it.  They are as bad as Tim Ball and his merry band of "sky dragon slayers".

"It's the sun" - not!

False claim: The causes of historic global warming remain uncertain, but significant correlations exist between climate patterning and multidecadal variation and solar activity over the past few hundred years. 

Why it is false: This is the "it's the sun" argument, which is dumb as.  The causes of historic global warming are explained by science.  The temperature keeps rising even though incoming solar radiation hasn't increased.  That's because atmospheric CO2 keeps rising.


"We're heading for an ice age!" - they didn't go quite that far, but came close!

False claim: Forward projections of solar cyclicity imply the next few decades may be marked by global cooling rather than warming, despite continuing CO2 emissions. 

Why it is false: Even if there were to be a grand minimum it would only reduce the warming by a very small amount.  Earth will continue to heat up very quickly as we continue to pour more and more waste CO2 into the air, polluting the atmosphere for centuries.

Wrap up

Nothing new from the anti-science crowd at the Heartland Institute.  It's not suprising it hasn't caused a ripple in the mainstream media.  One could say the denier mob from Heartland Institute are showing symptoms of brain deficiency.

WUWT is late to the party

I haven't seen this posted on WUWT yet.  Anthony Watts is too busy telling everyone about what the new Abbott government is doing and undoing in Australia.


Note: The "Not the IPCC Report" from the US-based anti-science lobby group, the Heartland Institute, is part of a wider disinformation campaign (as described by Bloomberg) ahead of the release of the real IPCC report at the end of September.  Members of the anti-science brigade are coming out of the woodwork.  Graham Lloyd of the Australian did his bit and so did Mail hack "journalist" David Rose (and again) as well as right wing economist (and failed banker) Matt Ridley and science denying scientist, Judith Curry (and again).

What's going to bite these other disinformers in the proverbial is that they are all saying that the IPCC report is correct (although misrepresenting it).  What will this pack of science deniers say when the real report comes out?  I guess they'll do an about face and say that 97% of scientists are wrong and tabloid journos know better.  Self-contradiction is one of the hallmarks of a science denier.

Twisting Frames: WUWT is back to recycling old 36% geoscientist denier memes, calling them "new"

Anthony Watts of WUWT is retrieving disinformation from the recycle bin, not even bothering to dress it up, and presenting it to his readers as "new".  Are his sales dropping or has he run out of new products?

Anthony Watts has a headline: New peer reviewed paper shows only 36% of geoscientists and engineers believe in AGW

What would have been more accurate would have been a headline like:- even in Alberta - home of the tar sands, only 24% of geoscientists and engineers deny AGW.


It was 68% not 36% and deliberately targeting "deniers"
Anthony's headline is a bald lie.  Twisting the study to suit a denier meme.  Trying to reframe a studing on framing! In fact, if you read the 2012 paper you'll find the following:

1. The main purpose was not to find out the opinions of petroleum geologists and engineers on the causes of global warming, it was to examine "the framings and identity work associated with professionals’ discursive construction of climate change science, their legitimation of themselves as experts on ‘the truth’, and their attitudes towards regulatory measures." (The researchers deliberately targeted that particular segment in that particular location, Alberta, in the hope of finding sufficient deniers to extract meaningful data.) 
2. The 36% refers to the cohort of petroleum engineers and geologists who are adamant that humans are causing global warming and we need to take decisive action
3. In the main study sample, there were 'only' 24% (Frame 2) who "believe that changes to the climate are natural, normal cycles of the Earth". 
4. One group, the 'economic responsibility' frame (10%), included rampant deniers as well as people who thought that climate change is both natural and human caused.
5. Other groupings (68% of respondents) included people who knew that humans are at least a partial cause of global warming, with a full 36% being adamant that "humans are the main or central cause" of global warming.

Does all that look familiar?  Yes, it should.  It's about a paper that was published back in November last year in a paper called Organization Studies.  Anthony didn't dig out the paper itself.  He dug out an old article by James Taylor of the Heartland Institute who writes a blog for Forbes.  Taylor's article isn't new.  It was published way back in February this year.

Not only is the study not "New" it doesn't find what the headline finds or what James Taylor says the study finds.  Nor did it set out to find what the headline suggests.

It's not "New" to WUWT either.  Anthony already posted an article about this same study six months ago! So if the date of Taylor's article (February 2013) or the publication date of the paper itself (November 2012) weren't a clue, Anthony would have known from the last time he put up an article about it (February 2013) that it wasn't a "new" paper and the headline misrepresents the study.

Why Anthony didn't just do a rerun of his previous article on the same subject I don't know.  Maybe he likes the way James Taylor of the Heartland Institute misrepresents the study better than how the malappropropriately named justthefactswuwt and International Business Daily misrepresents the study, like here on WUWT also back in February 2013.

To give an idea of what the paper was all about, here is more of what the researchers state:

How do professional experts frame the reality of climate change and themselves as experts, while engaging in defensive institutional work against others?

To answer this question, we consider how climate change is constructed by professional engineers and geoscientists in the province of Alberta, Canada. We begin by describing our research context and the strategic importance of Canadian oil worldwide, to the economy of Canada, and the province of Alberta. We outline the influential role of engineers and geoscientists within this industry, which allows them to affect national and international policy. Then, we describe our research design and methods.

Here is a segment from an article I wrote about this same study, back in February 2013.

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1. Are engineers and geo-scientists who work in the oil sector less likely to accept climate science?

Um - yeah? No? Not quite the point of the research? And if it were true, what did you expect?

A recent study reported that 36% of geoscientists and engineers surveyed, most of whom are reliant on or whose work relates to the Alberta tar sands or petroleum sector in general, are adamant that humans are causing global warming and we need to take decisive action. (They "view the Kyoto Protocol and additional regulation as the solution").

That can be seen as equivalent to: thirty years ago 36% of engineers (not medical researchers) who develop the packaging for cigarettes being adamant that smoking is a health hazard and urging international agreements be put into effect to force people to quit.

The Lie

Poor denmor (probably all unknowing given that deniers rarely read let alone absorb scientific papers) quotes from a blog article that quotes from another article that refers to a research paper in the social sciences/management journal "Organization Studies". (No respectable denier - except Brad - would go straight to the source.) Let's be generous and say, because he was too lazy or incompetent to read the paper in question, denmor wasn't aware that he was spreading a lie. He also seems blissfully unaware that very few oil engineers and geo-scientists would be involved in climate research. All scientists and engineers probably look the same to him.

Looking at the categories ('Frames') in the paper, there were 'only' 24% (Frame 2) who "believe that changes to the climate are natural, normal cycles of the Earth". All other groupings (68% of respondents) included people who knew that humans are at least a partial cause of global warming, with a full 36% being adamant that "humans are the main or central cause" of global warming. (Eight per cent were unable to be categorised. One group, the 'economic responsibility' frame (10%), included rampant deniers as well as people who thought that climate change is both natural and human caused.)

Beknownst (or unbeknownst) to denmor, the researchers deliberately targeted an industry (petroleum) and locale (Alberta Canada) that is economically tied to CO2 pollution so they could get a big enough cohort across the full spectrum (including deniers). They were keen to find out more about how people of different viewpoints frame/rationalise their thinking within the context of organisational management.

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Frames define the debate

Ironically, in trying to reframe the study, all the deniers are showing they know pretty well the following, as quoted by the researchers:

Frames define how ‘the debate … over climate change is determined by which actors are engaged, what kinds of problems are debated, how those problems are defined, and what kinds of solutions are considered appropriate’ (Hoffman, 1999, p. 1369; also see Hoffman & Jennings, 2011)

From the WUWT comments

The mods missed this one, but the commenters didn't.  With many turning on Vince and telling him in no uncertain terms that "I am a retired engineer and I don't believe in AGW and most of my friends are the same so therefore climate science is a hoax, so there! PS don't be so rude to us WUWT deniers."

Vince Wilkinson (@Archeobiognosis) says:

February 17, 2013 at 12:10 pm

CAVEAT EMPTOR
The WUWT regurgitation machine is in full swing here, attempting to manipulate public opinion with smoke and mirrors and little else.

Firstly, Taylor has been criticized by the reports authors posted on the Forbes article, for using data that was not controlled in it’s collection. The survey targeted Geophysicists and engineers actively promoting the industry viewpoint. Walk into a meeting of alcoholics anonymous and you can find 100% of the people have been drinkers.

Secondly, of the 1077 surveyed, the majority believe warming is partly caused by man.

So, if you read this post and immediately think, I knew it, you are suffering from extreme confirmation bias. Read behind the headlines to discover the truth and don’t expect to find anything other than fraudulent disinformation from the likes of Watt Up With That.

Hot Weather and Climate Change - Or How to Make a Molehill out of a Mountain WUWT-style

Adapted from a WUWT "guest essay" by Steve "Mad, Mad, Mad" Goreham with original and adapted illustrations and annotations and maybe a bit of literary license by HotWhopper

On Sunday, Death Valley temperatures reached 129^oF (53.9^oC) a new June record high for the United States and the world, according to the National Weather Service and a new June world record according to Jeff Masters. Temperatures at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas reached 117^oF, tying the previous record set in 1942 and 2005. National Geographic, NBC News, and other media ran stories attributing the Southwest heat wave to human-caused global warming. But history shows that today’s temperatures are nothing extraordinary.  In fact if you go back in time only about 450 million years, you would have found it quite a bit warmer.  You might have some trouble finding Las Vegas is all.  Anyway, if you think you were hot in the last few days, just wait a decade or two.

The United States high temperature record was doubtfully/maybe set in 1913, measured in Death Valley on July 10th. Twenty-three of the 50 US state high temperature records date back to the decade of the 1930s. Seventy percent of state high records were set prior to 1970.  And the USA IS the entire world.  Well, it's all that matters isn't it.

The alarm about climate change is all about one degree or two degrees or four degrees or six degrees or more, depending on how far ahead you want to look. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), global surface temperatures have increased about 1.3^oF (0.7^oC) since 1880.  Okay, maybe 0.8^oC since 1880, or 1^oC since 1910 but who's counting? . Proponents of the theory of man-made warming claim that this is evidence that man-made greenhouse gases are raising global temperatures.  Pfffft! We know better, don't we.  In fact I'll show you that temperatures haven't increased a cracker, or nothing worth counting, unless you live on an ice sheet in Greenland.

One degree over more than 130 years isn’t very much. It's hardly worth worrying about.  Just because it's never been this hot in the ten thousand years since civilisation began doesn't mean you have to be concerned.  Just think, in contrast, Chicago temperatures vary from about -5^oF to 95^oF, about 100 degrees, each year.  And if you compare the lowest temperature ever recorded on earth with the highest temperature ever measured (by satellite) - well, you'd relax for sure.

When compared to this 100-degree annual swing, the rise in global temperatures since the 1800s is trivial, captured by a thin line on a graph.  So is the annual variation in Chicago temperatures when you make the scale right.  And as for a piddly degree or two for the entire world, just look and see...

Nevertheless, NOAA repeatedly raises concern about global temperatures. The NOAA website proclaims that “May 2013 global temperatures were the third highest on record.” This sounds alarming unless one understands that “on record” refers to the thermometer record, which only dates back to about 1880. Ha! My dad was alive back then - so there!  I bet yours was too.

Climate changes over hundreds and thousands and millions and zillions of years if not longer. (Or, if you are a young earther, maybe just a coupla thousand years or so). Data from Greenland ice cores show several periods during the last 10,000 years that were warmer than today on the ice sheet in Greenland, including the Roman Climate Optimum at the height of the Roman Empire and the Medieval Warm Period, when the Vikings settled southwest Greenland and grew potatoes. The warm and cool eras since the last ice age were due to natural climate cycles, not greenhouse gas emissions. The “on record” period that NOAA references is only a tiny part of the climatic picture.  A very tiny part.  A teeny weeny part.  Like as if your life was but a milli-molly-mandy second dancing on the head of a pin.

Global average temperature is difficult to measure. You need lots and lots and lots of thermometers.  And even microwave ovens in satellites.  The data sets of NOAA are an artificial estimate at best. They are based on manmade thermometers not natural thermometers like trees and plants that eat CO2. They start with a patchwork collection of thousands and thousands and millions and billions of thermometer stations that inadequately cover the globe. They get wet too.  Think of what sea water does to artificial thermometers.  They get all rusty and covered in barnacles and stuff.  Station coverage of the oceans and of the far northern and southern regions is inconsistent and poor. Stations are dirt poor.  Not like us.  We're filthy rich and successful.  To cover areas without thermometers, averaging estimates are made from surrounding stations to try to fill in the holes.  And sometimes they fall into the holes.  It was only early this year they found one averaging estimate in Australia that fell down a hole in China and came out the other side.  It was very angry.  And it was summer time, so it wasn't just angry it was hot as well.  One real angry summer hot averaging estimate that one was.

In addition to coverage problems, gauge measurements often contain large errors. Man-made structures such as buildings and parking lots absorb sunlight, artificially increasing local temperatures. Now if women had made those structures such as buildings and parking lots they would be a lot more sturdy and would radiate with light and happiness.  Cars, air conditioners, and other equipment generate heat when operating, creating what is called an Urban Heat Island effect.  That's kind of like a Metro Yuppi effect. With spangles.

The accuracy of the US temperature record is questionable. US isn't what it used to be.  Now they are even talking about importing the temperature record from China.  What is happening to our once proud nation? Meteorologist Anthony Watts, not quite graduated from Purdue but was a real live weather announcer on a real live television station, and creator of the science-bashing website WattsUpWithThat, led a team of volunteers that audited more than 1,000 US temperature gauge stations from 2007 to 2011. Over 70 percent of the sites were found to be located near artificial heating surfaces such as buildings or parking lots, rated as poor or very poor by the site rating system of the National Climatic Data Center, a NOAA organization. That's why the NOAA is resiting them all in China.  It's quality is far superior these days now that the USA has gone to rack and ruin.  These stations were subject to temperature errors as large as 3.6^oF (2^oC).  That's as big as anything.  Just think of that ice sheet in Greenland.  Well it's ten times bigger.

Simple problems can throw off gauge readings. Temperature stations are louvered enclosures that are painted white to reflect sunlight and minimize solar heating. As the station weathers and the paint ages, gauge stations read artificially high temperatures. Astudy published last month found that after only five years of aging, temperature stations will record a temperature error of 2.9^oF (1.6^oC) too high. Well, one of them did once, anyway.  This is greater than the one degree rise in the last 130 years that NOAA is alarmed about.  It's huge.  That explains why some people in California thought they were hot over the weekend.  They weren't really hot at all, it was just all those wonky "made in the USA" weather stations with a peeling StetsonHat thingummy that forgot to put on the sunscreen.

In addition to temperature measurement error, NOAA makes “adjustments” to the raw temperature data. According to a 2008 paper, after raw thermometer data is received, a computer algorithm “homogenizes” the data, adjusting for time-of-observation, station moves, thermometer types, and other factors to arrive at the official temperature data set.  You're a full blooded American, would you drink pasteurized milk?  Would you drink "HOMOGENIZED" milk?  No! A big fat NO!!! It's not natural! Say NO!!! to "homogenized" temperature.  Insist on natural raw temperature with the cream floating on top.  It's good for you.

Source of the one you're not supposed to look at: NOAA

This sounds good until one looks at the adjustment that NOAA has added. For temperature data from 1900 to 1960, very little adjustment is added. But after 1960, NOAA adds an upward adjustment to the thermometer data that rises to 0.5^oF (0.3^oC) by the year 2000. This gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “man-made global warming.”  I mean they shouldn't have adjusted the raw temperatures for Urban Yuppi latte sipping heat islands or time of observation bias.  The very word "bias" tells you how prejudiced all these alarmists are against raw, natural thermometers and then exporting them to an ice sheet in China.  It's not American!  It's unpatriotic!

Heat waves are real just as climate change is real. But they aren't really heat waves because the theromometers are all suffering UHI disease but don't adjust them because we like our thermometers raw. But a piddly little heat record of 117^oF (47.2^oC) in Las Vegas or one degree Celsius of global temperature rise since the Civil War - okay, one and a bit degrees - satisfied? - is not evidence that humans should be overly alarmed when other factors have been shown to be contributors of the same or greater magnitude than the posited temperature rise from greenhouse gas emissions what a long sentence this turned out to be.  Like yuppies and artificial thermometers on an ice sheet.  DON'T BE SCARED!!! IF YOU GET SCARED ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING WE'LL GET A CARBON TAX AND WE'LL ALL DIE IN POVERTY!!!

Steve Goreham is Executive Director of the Proud to Be American Anti-Climate Science Coalition of America in the USA but shifting to China where they make decent thermometers and author of the new book that I can't give away: The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism: Mankind and Climate Change Mania that was bought for free and used for kindling by every environmental scientist in as many universities that the Heartland Institute could find in the telephone book.  You can read the glowing tributes to my superbly brilliant denialist bible here on Amazon.

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Looks as if some WUWT-ers had the same reaction as I did :D

Our old mate Chad Wozniak says of Mad, Mad, Mad Steve's article:

July 3, 2013 at 4:29 pm The blind leading the deaf leading the insensible
The impertinent leading the arrogant leading the egomaniacal
I never cease to be amazed at the effrontery of the people who persist in demitting this sort of flatulence. White is not black, red is not blue no matter how many times they say it is.

Theo Goodwin wisely adds (excerpt):

July 3, 2013 at 3:32 pm  To paraphrase Socrates, recognizing one’s ignorance is the beginning of knowledge.

China is not happy. Heartland Institute in its missionary zeal seriously overstepped the mark.

Oops!  Heartland Institute is in the poo again!  This time with China. Not good.

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From the Lanzhou Branch of the National Science Library, Chinese Academy of Sciences website:

The Statements on the Chinese Translation of the“Climate Change Reconsidered—NIPCC Report”

时间: | 2013-06-14 | | 【大 中 小】【打印】【关闭】

The Chinese translation of the “Climate Change Reconsidered—NIPCC report” was organized by the Information Center for Global Change Studies, published in May 2013 through Science Press, with an accompanying workshop on climate change issues in Beijing on June 15, 2013. However, the Heartland Institute published the news titled “Chinese Academy of Sciences publishes Heartland Institute research skeptical of Global Warming” in a strongly misleading way on its website, implying that the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) supports their views, in contrary to what is clearly stated in the Translators’ Note in the Chinese translation.

The claim of the Heartland Institute about CAS’ endorsement of its report is completely false. To clarify the fact, we formally issue the following statements:

(1) The translation and publication of the Chinese version of the NIPCC report, and the related workshop, are purely non-official academic activities the group of translators. They do not represent, nor they have ever claimed to represent, CAS or any of CAS institutes. They translated the report and organized the workshop just for the purpose of academic discussion of different views.

(2) The above fact was made very clear in the Translators’ Note in the book, and was known to the NIPCC report authors and the Heartland Institute before the translation started. The false claim by the Heartland Institute was made public without any knowledge of the translator group.

(3) Since there is absolutely no ground for the so called CAS endorsement of the report, and the actions by the Heartland Institute went way beyond acceptable academic integrity, we have requested by email to the president of the Heartland Institute that the false news on its website to be removed. We also requested that the Institute issue a public apology to CAS for the misleading statement on the CAS endorsement.

(4) If the Heartland Institute does not withdraw its false news or refuse to apologize, all the consequences and liabilities should be borne by the Heartland Institute. We reserve the right for further actions to protect the rights of CAS and the translators group.

Information Center for Global Change Studies,

Scientific Information Center for Resources and Environment, 

Chinese Academy of Sciences,

June 14, 2013.

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See here for my initial take on the topic.

See here for the formal notice from the Chinese Academy of Sciences

Click here for the above notice from the Lanzhou Branch of the National Science Library, Chinese Academy of Sciences

H/T Lillian and Dan on Ben's wottsupwiththat.com

Denier Weirdness: Money to Burn...

You Can't Judge a Book by Its Cover But You Can Judge a Book by the Sender

Books come in all shapes and sizes.  Some have pretty covers, some have blank pages waiting to be written on.  Some are expensive, some cost nothing.   Some are so bad they should be pulped...or burnt.  The Heartland Institute must have been given some money and told to burn it, because it looks as if it paid for such a book, written by Steve Goreham.

Anthony Watts and his bunch of scientific illiterates are pretending to be irate that a meteorology department would consider burning a book that's not worth the paper it's written on.  The book is not actually for the illiterate, it's written for the illiterati.  It's aimed squarely at people who take pride in the fact that they are ignorant and refuse to learn.

The book derides knowledge and mocks climate science and all related fields of study.  Heartland Institute for reasons known only to themselves, sent oodles of free copies to climate scientists and those researching related fields.

Why did the Heartland Institute send it out in bulk to the very people in the best position of all to see it for the nonsense it is?  Why send a book deriding knowledge to knowledge institutions?  To people who take pride in their high level of knowledge and learning?  Are the people at Heartland Institute so ignorant that they think it will be well-received?

Laughing Stock

Here is what one unwilling recipient of the book wrote:

I was in an office at a university when this book arrived in the mail. It quickly became the laughing stock at the university that day. If the Heartland Institute thought they were going to hoodwink educators with this crap they were dead wrong. People rolled their eyes at it and snorted their favourite beverage out their nose as they read it.

I mean really.  What was Heartland Institute thinking?  They sent out hundreds of free copies of a book trashing science - and where did they send it?  To the very science departments they were trashing.  Did they expect the scientists would write rave reviews of a book that rubbished their life's work and mocked two centuries of solid scientific knowledge? 

I guess it's not enough for them to liken people who accept science to mass murderers.  Perhaps they truly believe that a dumb, crass free book will be all it takes to 'convert' scientists to the religion of the illiterati.