November 22, 2009

Climategate - 2 (updated)

“This is not a smoking gun; this is a mushroom cloud,” said Patrick J. Michaels, a climatologist who has long faulted evidence pointing to human-driven warming and is criticized in the documents.

A short supplement and a marginal note on what could turn out to be the greatest scandal in modern science. The following case, in my opinion, shows that there is something suspect about the media’s coverage of global warming.

Prof. Mojib Latif of Germany’s Leibniz Institute is one of the most prominent climate modellers in the world—he earned several international climate-study prizes—and a lead author for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). To be more precise, Latif has contributed significantly to the IPCC’s last two five-year reports that have stated unequivocally that mankind’s addiction to burning fossil fuels is rapidly changing the climate. The idea that the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans would absorb much of the greenhouse warming caused by a rise in man-made carbon dioxide, and that they would subsequently let off that heat and warm the atmosphere and the land, is exactly what the global warming theory has been based on.

Yet, at the last UN’s World Climate Conference in Geneva (August 31-September 4, 2009), Latif conceded the Earth has not warmed for nearly a decade and that we are likely entering one or even two decades during which temperatures cool. An “inconvenient truth” for global warming alarmists, who since the Kyoto accords were signed in 1997, have been telling us that the Earth is warming and will continue to warm rapidly through this century until we reach deadly temperatures around 2100. But most of the media ignored Latif’s remarks. This was the analogy made by columnist Lorne Gunter in the Calgary Herald:

Imagine if Pope Benedict gave a speech saying the Catholic Church has had it wrong all these centuries; there is no reason priests shouldn't marry. That might generate the odd headline, no?
[…] When a leading proponent for one point of view suddenly starts batting for the other side, it's usually newsworthy.
So why was a speech […] by Prof. Mojib Latif of Germany's Leibniz Institute not given more prominence?


Most members of the mainstream media, in the United States and the rest of the world, seem to be interested only in viewpoints that conform with the global warming myth that they have been promoting for the past few years.

Of course this story has no direct relation with “Climategate,” but you might want to let the info be of some use.

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UPDATE: November 22, 2009, 11:45pm

This is an interesting variation on the theme:

How the MSM reported the greatest scandal in modern science
(The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Times, The Independent, The Guardian, BBC)

But, you know,

As Upton Sinclair once said:
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.”
So don’t expect this scandal to be written up in the MSM any time soon. But why would you want to anyway? It’s all here, where the free spirits and independent thinkers are, on the Blogosphere.


Read also Climate Depot for links to all the latest updates, and An Elegant Chaos for a full reading of those potentially incriminating emails (made available in searchable form!).

7 comments:

  1. We know how investors always jump on our pet concerns- health, environment, being among the highest in the list. Vogue concerns that are given constant media coverage.
    Those who pay more for their 'bio' vegetables are convinced they are all the healthier for it. If the maggots thrive on it then it stands to reason that it can't be bad.
    The State rewards us if we buy a car that 'pollutes' less but is less kind to the machos who still go for the 4x4. We are told to drive a bit slower on the motorways when pollution detectors sound the alarm, as if driving a bit slower is going to make any notable difference to the amount of emissions of CO and CO2 etc.
    We are warned of the real danger of smoking. The warnings are more apparent that the name of the cigarettes. Their price increases constantly, yet they are still sold.
    Additives to the tobacco would insure that millions are still made.
    Marlborough would sooner pay off a fortune to the family of a victim of lung cancer, than suffer too much from cutting down on production.

    But considering the health risk, why is it still legal to produce them? If petrol and diesel driven transport are really the proven cause for environmental concern, why are they still being produced?

    Pharmaceutical companies must be making fortunes from each new wave of infection. Charities too seem to constantly get by far better from their noble concern regarding sufferers of incurable diseases, than the sufferers they are supposed to be helping.

    It goes without saying that there is a great deal of incoherence and hypocrisy regarding these 'vogue concerns'. This would equally apply to 'Global Warming', if there's money to be made from it.

    Evidence however convinces me that it's a reality, exaggerated perhaps, but still a reality. What is also a reality is that relatively nothing of any great effect is being done about it, maybe because no one really knows what's causing it or how the tendency can be corrected. But whatever, it's already evident that fortunes are also being made from this case, from exploiting without curing, what seems to be a real concern.

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  2. A propos of how the MSM reported the scandal, it is to be noted that Climategate was not on the Telegraph’s home page. You needed to scroll down to see the paper’s “Most Viewed” pages… and there was James Delingpole’s blog article right up there at number1!

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  3. I saw the news on Friday. Umbelieavable. Great updates Rob. I have linked you on my blog. Great work!

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  4. Any idea that requires, for its success, the silencing of contrary views is not to be trusted...

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  5. According to the institute of research on climate impact (Potsdam, Germany) a document of 64 pages representing a syntheses of scientific studies on climatic change was published today the 24 November. It affirms that if nothing is done to correct the tendency, the average temperature of the air could increase by seven degrees by the year 2100 in relation to the pre-industrial period. They also estimate that unless urgent measures are taken, the melting of the polar ice-caps will provoke a rise in sea level of between one and two meters from now until the end of the century.

    "To limit the rise in temperature to two degrees, gas emissions must not increase between 2015 and 2020, then they must be reduced rapidly. A society 'de-carbonised'- with zero % emission of CO2 and other 'greenhouse gases' must be reached before the end of the century", so affirm these climatologists who are unlikely to have any financial interests either way.

    http://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2009/11/24/le-rechauffement-climatique-pourrait-atteindre-7-degres-en-2100_1271491_3244.html#ens_id=1271021

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  6. @Mirino:

    I think
    my latest post might be an answer to your comments.

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