Is this what you want, Matt Ridley?

It's not just deniers who have sunk to a new low. Scientific American has too. The magazine made something of a mockery of a collection of in-depth articles about climate change by including an article from science disinformer Matt Ridley. I'm told Matt's article is only in the online edition, not the print edition, but it shouldn't have been in either. Matt claimed (despite all evidence that already we are seeing extreme weather disasters from global warming) that "Climate Change Will Not Be Dangerous for a Long Time".

The misleading headline is really bad and something I'd never expected to see at the once admired magazine. Matt Ridley's article is full of the sort of nonsense you'd expect to read on climate conspiracy blogs. It starts with:

The climate change debate has been polarized into a simple dichotomy. Either global warming is “real, man-made and dangerous,” as Pres. Barack Obama thinks, or it’s a “hoax,” as Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe thinks. But there is a third possibility: that it is real, man-made and not dangerous, at least not for a long time.

COP21 begins in Paris - links to get you up to speed

COP21 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is getting underway at Le Bourget conference centre just outside Paris. It will be a huge gathering of world leaders and delegates from all around the world. The meeting runs from 30 November to 11 December.

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UPDATE: I've just seen that the final text draft has been agreed prepared. I'll let you know as soon as it's available - or you can keep an eye on the UN website. There's a press conference scheduled for 11:30 am CET today - Saturday (Europe time).

Sou 2:30 pm AEDT 12 December 2015

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The purpose

COP meetings aren't scientific meetings, they are about action to mitigate climate change through intergovernmental agreement. The aim of COP21 has been described as "to achieve a legally binding and universal agreement on climate, with the aim of keeping global warming below 2°C".  The "legally binding" is probably not going to be achieved, because the agreement has to be accepted by all parties and there are some who won't be able to accept the legally binding part. The agreement won't be sufficient to guarantee "below 2°C", but will be an important pre-requisite.

The meeting

To keep up to date with drafts etc, here is a link to the main UNFCCC COP21 website and the provisional agenda and overview schedule. There is also an information hub, and live webcasts (I don't know if they will be open to a general audience or not).

Background and commentary

Below are links to some of what is being written about it. It's not exhaustive by any means. I mainly picked articles that provide information about what COP21 is about and what is to be achieved, hopefully.

• The Conversation has a big spread with lots of articles focusing on different aspects.
• From the UK Independent: Paris climate change talks: What the different groups attending expect from these crucial meetings
• Biwa Kwan at SBS (Australia) provides an overview: Paris Climate Meeting: What you need to know about COP21
• Climate scientist Simon Donner writes about the Seven Key Issues To Be Addressed At The Paris Climate Summit
• Matt McGrath of the BBC - COP21: Beginner's guide to the UN Paris climate summit
• The Guardian has a feature spread with lots of articles
• Australia's ABC is notable for it's lack of focus on COP21 apart from a couple of articles in the Drum opinion section and news items about marches and arrests - maybe there is more to come
• Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary General - What I expect from the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris
• Brandon Miller, CNN - 5 things you need to know about COP21

UNFCCC Pledges, websites and reports

There is a special UNFCCC website, which has a the report "Climate Action Now", plus the pledges from each country. It's one of those highly irritating fancy websites designed for touch tablets, where you have to guess a lot, click a lot, scroll a lot, and get mini-bits of information in return - but it mightn't be the information you are looking for. I recommend this link for the Climate Action Now Summary for Policymakers report - although if you're on a notebook or desktop computer, you'll find the website almost as irritating. There's also a web page with a press release, which is easier to read.

It would be great if you can add other interesting links in the comments below.

Eric Worrall's WUWT: Stop educating children

On Anthony Watts' Eric Worrall's blog WUWT**, he is complaining that Australian children are being prepared to face climate change (archived here, cached here).  Eric calls climate education "green indoctrination". If you didn't know, Eric is not in favour of natural resource conservation or science education. I deduce from his article that Eric is not in favour of education at all. I'm guessing, but I'd say that like many people at WUWT he thinks that children should not learn how to learn, instead they should be taught how to read, write and do sums. And that's about all. (Oh, teaching children to be Islamaphobic would go down well with Eric, too.)

Anthony Watts sinks to another vile low: Jim Jones' suicide cult and climate science

With only a couple of days to go until the Paris COP21 talks begin, science deniers are falling apart. Yesterday I wrote how Judith Curry stooped to tabloid writer David Rose as a pulpit for her brand of "no mitigation" advocacy and disinformation. (She is so anxious that her message is falling on deaf ears that she put out a plea to "Be sure to link to the article" and commented "I hope that as a result of this article, i will get a few more twitter followers and followers of Climate Etc.".)

Today Anthony Watts did a Heartland Institute. He posted an article at his blog, WUWT, likening people who accept climate science to Jim Jones and his suicide cult. His latest article proclaims (archived here):

Similarities to Jim Jones and the Cult of Climate Change

"...The apocalypse of an alleged climate change shares many of Jones’ cult-like qualities."

[Update: See the update below relating to plagiarism in the WUWT article.]

Turned not tossed - Judith Curry denier martyr with David Rose

Tabloid writer David Rose has written another puff piece on Judith Curry. Judith used to be a scientist who dabbled in climate stuff, until she gave it away to write a blog for science deniers. David Rose was never what you'd call a journalist. He's a hack writer for a tabloid in the UK. His article this time didn't even make the grade for the Mail. This time he was relegated to a magazine called The Spectator, which if you're like me and have never heard of it, is described in Wikipedia as "a weekly British conservative magazine. It was first published on 6 July 1828,[2] making it the oldest continuously published magazine in the English language." For a few years Nigel Lawson was editor. Nigel now heads up the denier lobby group the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which, as its name suggests, agitates for more global warming. So science denial articles in The Spectator shouldn't surprise anyone.

RealClimate.org is up and running again

This is just to let you know that realclimate.org is back up and running. It might take a few hours to propagate everywhere. If you have trouble reaching the main site, you can access the back-up website here.

I did have the back-up site in the blog roll for a short spell. I've now changed it back again, but it may take a while to detect. Meanwhile, you can still click on the link which seems to be currently right at the bottom of the blogroll. [I'm leaving it off the blogroll until the links are directed back to the main site.]

Congrats to Gavin Schmidt and co. I really thought it would take quite a bit longer to sort out. They fixed the problem in record time - though they still have to update the links. (You may find yourself going back and from from the main website to the backup website when you click on links.)

Denier weirdness: Judith Curry will not be renewing her subscription

There's been no doubt for quite a long time that Judith Curry has discarded any pretense of being a scientist. Today she made it official, declaring:

The APS Statement on Climate Change is now officially posted [link], minor changes from the draft.  I will not be renewing my membership to the APS.

The American Physical Society released it's revised statement on climate change just over a week ago. It's not terribly strong, but it could have been even weaker given the attempts by science denying members to water it down.

Blistering letter from House Committee member to Lamar Smith about his baseless smear campaign against NOAA scientists

You may have read about US Congressman Lamar Smith's ongoing vindictive harassment and smear campaign against scientists at NOAA. You might have also read about his latest allegations of "whistleblowers". If you are wondering if there is anything behind this, other than a deranged attack on science, scientists and the NOAA, then wonder no more.

There is not.

To prove this point, just read the letter to Lamar Smith from Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson, a member of the committee of which Lamar Smith is chair - the Committee on Space, Science and Technology.

I'll quote some segments damning the unconscionable actions of this vindictive, out-of-control, grandstanding US congressman, Lamar Smith. The bolding and some paragraph breaks are mine.

Lesson 1,126½ in how to be a science disinformer, featuring Bob Tisdale

In this lesson about how to be a climate disinformer, I refer to a recent article by Bob Tisdale (archived here, cached here). In fact I refer to umpteen articles by Bob Tisdale, because his articles are often copies and pastes of his previous articles, with slight updates.

You can also watch a video with Tom Peterson, who gives The Story of Climate Data. This article is worth it for that alone. Dr Peterson is President of the World Meteorological Organization's Commission for Climatology, and recently retired from NOAA.

The purpose of the lesson, and hiding the closing of the gap

The purpose of the deception is to "prove" that all models are useless by hiding the closing of the gap.

Before you start, it's important to see what the observations actually show. Below is a chart of HadCRUT4, plotted with the multi-model mean of CMIP5. The 95% probability is for all uncertainties for HadCRUT observations - measurement and sampling, bias and coverage uncertainties. The uncertainties relating to the multi-model mean of CMIP5 are not plotted. As always, click on the chart to enlarge it.

Fig 1 | Global mean surface temperature observations and multi-model mean.
Data sources: UK Met Office Hadley Centre and KNMI Climate Explorer (CMIP5)

As you can see, with 2015 year to date (to September 2015), the observations are now approaching the CMIP5 multi-model mean. This closing of the gap must be hidden from WUWT deniers at all costs. And it's not hard to do so if you follow the steps in the lesson.

Tim Ball tells fibs about past climates at Anthony Watts' conspiracy blog WUWT

Tim Ball is an uber conspiracy theorist and the author of the first chapter in the greenhouse gas denying book about slaying sky dragons. One might suspect that he pens articles for Anthony Watts so he (Tim) can build up a defense of insanity in his defamation lawsuits. He's quoted Hitler and Osama bin Laden to support his conspiracy nuttery. He thinks that Tom Wigley is angling to be the Leader of the World. He's nuts.

Nevertheless he has a nutter fan club in Anthony Watts and his conspiracy theorising acolytes.

The Medieval Climate Anomaly and the Little Ice Age

Today he's started an article with the following:

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2001 Report claimed that neither the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) nor the Little Ice Age (LIA) occurred. 

I didn't need to check to know that he telling fibs. To save you the trouble let me quote from the 2013 AR5 WG1 report from the IPCC. The medieval warm period is referred to in the IPCC report as the Medieval Climate Anomaly. The report doesn't just mention it 27 times, it states its duration, from 950 to 1250. The Little Ice Age is mentioned 43 times in the document, and its duration is given from 1450 to 1850. Therefore Tim is lying when he claims that the IPCC "claimed that neither the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) nor the Little Ice Age (LIA) occurred". Quelle surprise - not. Lying and deception is pretty well mandatory on denier blogs like WUWT. Below are some of the 70 instances: