The climate change industry is a disgrace. They’ve been exposed for faking their data, falsifying their formulas, conspiring to keep contrary opinions from being published, and simply making things up -- like the story about the snow vanishing from the Himalayas. Well, they’ve done it again, and you’re not going to believe the audacity this time.
The latest incident involves climate “scientist” Liliana Hisas of the Universal Ecological Fund. Hisas just put out a report that projected a 2.4 degree Celsius increase in temperature during the next decade, which will of course cause massive worldwide food shortages and all kinds of other horrible things. The report in question was published on the American Association for the Advancement of Science website, and was of course, widely covered in the press.
Well, it turns out that the report is wrong. . . very wrong. So wrong, in fact, that the report had to be pulled from the AAAS website.
How wrong was it? It turns out that even if you use the highest estimate for warming, the best you could achieve by 2020 is a 0.2 degree Celsius increase. Thus, the report overstated the maximum amount of warming by ten times. Moreover, according to a climate “scientist” who reviewed the report after this problem arose, the “study. . . confuses ‘equilibrium temperature rise’ with ‘transient temperature rise.’” In other words, the report confuses temporary with permanent.
Ok, embarrassing right? Well, it gets more interesting than that.
Hisas was told about these mistakes before she published the report. So why didn’t she change the report? Well, let’s let climate “scientist” Rey Weymann explain that one:
Seriously? It was too late to correct the numbers? It was too late to yank the report before she had it published. . . on a website, not in a printed journal? It was too late to include a disclaimer. . . . “this report is spectacularly wrong”? How in the world can it be too late?“The author of the study was told by several of us about this error but she said it was too late to change it.”
At least she’s acknowledging the problem now, right? I mean, she retracted the report, right? Well, no. AAAS yanked the report. But the public relations firm which helped issue the report on her and the Universal Ecological Fund’s behalf has issued a statement standing by the study.
Can you imagine a scientist in a real scientific field knowingly publishing a report they knew to be wrong and not retracting it or correcting it, and then even issuing a statement standing by it once their fraud became widely known? Bigfoot scientists have more scientific integrity than this!
And before you think this was just one disreputable scientist, let me point out that climate “scientist” Osvaldo Canziani was listed as scientific advisor on the project. Who is Canziani? He’s part of the 2007 Nobel Prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -- the United Nations climate group whose figures are being used by all global warming enthusiasts and government policy makers everywhere. So what does he say about his utter failure to catch this fundamental and devastating mistake or about the failure to correct these problems even after they were known?
Nothing. He claims to be ill and unavailable for interviews.
The IPCC, by the way, whose reports are used by governments to set environmental policy, has itself been accused of exaggerating its claims.
So what is the response of global warming enthusiasts? Are they repudiating this “scientist” and her lack of interest in putting out accurate reports? Nope. They’re calling this an “honest mistake” and they stand by her conclusions. . . just 100 years from now instead of 10.
This tells us a lot about the validity of climate science. That such a report could be issued and given publicity when the author and the entire global warming enthusiast community knew the report was wrong is stunning. And this report isn’t just wrong, it’s so spectacularly wrong as to be 1000% off in its conclusion. Yet, they stand by the report and its conclusions. This is borderline fraud, and they’re standing on the wrong side of the border. If a drug company had issued something similarly fraudulent, there would be calls for prison time for all of the participants. Yet, strangely, we’re supposed to overlook the utter fraudulence of the report and still believe its conclusions?
So much for climate "science."
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Global Warming Enthusiasts Caught Again
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27 comments:
I would say this is unbelievable, but it's not. These people are lying to get their political agenda put in place so they don't even blink when they get caught.
DUQ, If you want proof of that, just look at this incident. Seriously, she publishes a report that she knows is wrong by a factor of ten, but says nothing until she's caught, and then her PR first stands by the report? And even worse, the rest of the climate change industrial complex basically stands by the report too?
In what other field could you do that without being drummed out of the profession?
What amazes me even more is the number of people who buy into global warming and will ascribe an incident such as this to "climate change deniers who only have an agenda." What, and you guys don't?? Reality check, please! Ugh.
Crispy, You're right. No matter how obvious the fact they are full of it, they always claim that their own side only makes honest mistakes, and even then they are right in principle even if all of their facts were wrong. And somehow, we're worse than Hitler for pointing out their own lies, frauds and stupidity. Amazing isn't it?
One thing is for sure, people who act that way should never be trusted about anything, because you can't believe anything they say.
Andrew, I'd read about this yesterday but didn't understand some of the technical details involved, so thanks for clearing it up for us.
I really don't know what to pin this irresponsibility and fraudulence on. Either they know the whole AGW claim is false, in which case they're keeping it going to achieve a political agenda or maybe just to keep the funding flowing in, or they believe it to be substantially true. In that case, their cover-up would make sense, in a twisted sort of way, as publicizing the errors would distract attention from "the cause." Right now, I don't know which of those explanations is more troubling.
T_Rav, You're welcome.
I think it's actually a little of both. I think there are some scientists who really do believe that we're causing global warming. They're not bright people, but they're honest. The key to spotting these people are massive, easily debunked errors in their reports -- usually their statistics are a mess.
But I would say that most are in this for politics or money. The idea of faking data to continue funding and warping conclusions to make the right people happy has an ancient tradition in science. So many of them are in that boat. They got into this field and they know that they won't get any funding if they conclude that either nothing is happening or that there's nothing we can do about it. So they find what they need to find. I think the East Anglia people of Climategate Fame may fall into that category. They had a good thing going and their ability to keep it going depended on their views remaining unchallenged. The key to finding these people is their ardent desire to defend things that have already been proven to be false -- like the hockey stick, and their desire to stifle opponents, by for example, keeping them out of professional journals.
But then you also have the ardent socialists who see climate change as a way to push their political agendas. I would say that anyone connected to the UN falls into this category. The guy who runs IPCC, for example, is an Indian Railway Engineer who runs it as a political shop rather than anything having to do with science. The key to spotting these people is that their reports always include recommendations about how much money needs to be sent where to stop the problem.
T-Rav, Also, having a minor science background, I can tell you that nothing in climate science even approaches scientific muster. Their observed data is too small to be statistically significant, their methods of data collection are unreliable, their math is horrible, their theories are nothing but guess work and fudge factors and none of them have been proven (or more importantly, none of them can be proven), and their models are incapable of predicting anything. Indeed, they satisfy none of the requirements imposed in every other instance to be considered a science.
Yet, they have no qualms about making wild predictions about events that their models can't even make a reasonable guess at. That makes them more like science fictionists than scientists.
Andrew, I think you're probably right in your evaluation, which makes the "scientists" doubly guilty: Not only are they obviously wrong or flawed, but access to the right information is so easy for them. AGW is one of the few subjects I've read up on sufficiently and mentally catalogued to the point I would be comfortable having a face-to-face argument about it (in most cases I'm not quick enough with the tongue, which is why I resort to blogging), and while, like you, I have some background in science, these points shouldn't have occurred just to me, or you, or even everyone here. If we can figure out these gaping holes in the argument, they're surely obvious to the people coming up with these claims. Either we're so completely wrong that we've gotten the scientific method itself backwards, or they're not being entirely honest with the public. And I don't think we got the scientific method backwards.
Incidentally, I don't know if you've seen this or not, but there was news on Monday that the sea level--you know, that thing that will keep going up and up until Florida disappears, because horrible AGW is melting the ice caps--suffered the greatest drop last year since records were kept. Here's the site, if you want to go in and do your magic link thingy:
http://theinconvenientskeptic.com/2011/01/2010-sea-level-largest-drop-ever-recorded/
In my opinion, the real kicker is this line: "In order for the IPCC prediction to be correct of a 1m increase in sea level by 2100, the rate must be almost 11 mm/yr every year for the next 89 years." In other words, not only will the sea level have to start going up again to meet the IPCC's claims, it will have to rise at a rate more than triple the 1993-2010 average, every year, for the rest of the century. Sure.
T_Rav, I couldn't agree more. If an untrained blogger can spot holes in a theory or method that a trained scientist has spent their careers examining, something is very wrong. And I don't think the problem lies on our end. These mistakes aren't occurring in areas where common sense may fail (i.e. areas where only math can solve a question), these are mistakes in simple, obvious areas. . . . your numbers don't add up, you excluded important data, it didn't do what you say it did, etc.
These are the sorts of basic mistakes that should draw an "F" in any class on the subject. But instead, the whole climate lobby tries to cover these mistakes up and then, when caught, says "well, it doesn't matter because the results are still valid."
No. . . that's not how that works.
Here's your link: LINK
In terms of the sea level, what I find so amazing is how they ignore proven history and, as your example points out, math. The math says their predictions cannot happen. So to say it will happen tells us they are lying for some reason.
Then you look at history and you realize how volatile our climate has been and suddenly you realize that the cause to which they are attributing their false theory can't be the cause (because this all happened before we bought cars). Thus, you have solutions offered to eliminate a cause that can't be the cause of a problem that isn't a problem and even if it is, it's an inevitable natural process that we can't stop.
That's either evidence of insanity or an ulterior motive.
Andrew,
Nice article.
I am reading a new book now. I is called "Death by Liberalism: The Fatal Outcome of Well-meaning Liberal Policies". Since I have a Kindle, I downloaded it. It is very interesting. The author, J.R. Dunn chronicles the history of Liberal polices which demonstrate the folly of listening to them. Almost every idea coming out of a liberal's mouth has deadly if not serious consequences which are never taken into account.
If you download the Kindle Program to your PC, you won't have to buy the Kindle itself. It is free software from Amazon for use with your PC.
Andrew,
I found it at American Thinker earlier this week. This is the link to the article.
Joel, Thanks for the link. It sounds like an interesting AND NECESSARY book. (If you'd like to review it, send me an e-mail).
I've noticed for years now that liberal policies always sound nice when they say them -- "we're going to help XXX." But they never turn out that way. They usually turn into a wreckage of easily foreseen problems that destroy people, families, communities, lives, etc. And then the liberals throw their hands up in the air and proclaim, "look at all these problems? How did this happen?" And then they want everyone to pay to do the same thing all over again to fix the problem that the policy itself caused!
I'm not kidding when I say that liberalism is a mental condition. It's very close to a classic definition of insanity: "to keep doing the same thing over and over, but to expect different results."
By the way, somewhere a comment has disappeared. I'm sorry about that. I assume blogger will bring it back once it does whatever it does to it.
Andrew, I suppose in a technical sense, they could argue that yes, their predictions are valid, but that's only because you can play around so much with formal logic (not that that's a bad thing). The real test is whether or not the predictions are SOUND, which means you have to have a valid argument and all your premises have to be true. Clearly the premises are not all true.
Even if you didn't know the facts behind the claims, just a little common sense, AGW would still be highly questionable. As a political science class, of all things, explained, if all you have is an increase in x, coincident with an increase in y (x in this case being rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and y rising global temperatures: and yeah, I'm aware that even y is highly suspect), you cannot conclude from this that x causes y. That's called "correlation," and there's a big difference between that and "causation." You could just as easily argue that y causes x, or even that a third factor z caused both independently of each other. What does it say about our governments, that they are acting with complete faith (or at least professed faith) in a theory that can be exploded, or at least badly undermined, by a college freshman?
(Rhetorical, of course. I already know what it says about our governments.)
Andrew,
Let me have a day or so to think about that review. I need to do research. :-)
T_Rav, That's a fundamental point of logic that too many people simply will not grasp: correlation does not equal causation. Unfortunately, there is something in our natures that causes us to believe that correlation probably means causation.
But scientists should know that's not true. So what are we to conclude when supposed scientists jump on correlation and assume that it means causation? I would say, personally, that we should conclude that there is something wrong with the scientists. Unfortunately, our political class sees this just as a great opportunity to exploit science for political gain.
In terms of the models, they're horrible. The few reputable climate scientists admit that there are hundreds of millions of factors that influence climate and that the models don't even begin to account for a fraction of those. And because of that, they haven't been able to predict anything with any accuracy. In fact, all of the predictions they've put out there have been wildly off the mark.
The whole field is a disgrace.
Joel, Sure, no rush. If you want to do it, just let me know when you're ready. If not, no big deal.
Great post Andrew, but I'm mad as hell and frustrated that I doubt anything will be done. The person should lose their job. Does this organization receive government funding? Even if they don't, if government agencies rely on their data, a hearing needs to be held to make certain there data is never, ever utilized again.
We still do not have the media resources of the left at our disposal, but I do look to our politicians and their staffs to counter every bogus claim.
Joel- I saw the American Thinker article. That is another excellent site (e.g. like this one :-))
I’m with Jed this crap is really beginning to piss me off, somebody’s ass should be in a sling. If I did my job as crappy as these jerks…I’d be a liberal, just wow!
Jed, I don't know for a fact that they get American funding, but I would think they do -- certainly private funding of some sort, which is often backed by public money.
I can say for certain that the IPCC does get US taxpayer funding -- to the tune of $12.5 million annually, and they are associated with this report as scientific advisors. But you will be happy to know that the Republicans are proposing cutting that off!
In terms of firing this person, I couldn't agree more. If I ran the organization this person worked for, I would fire them in a heartbeat. This is a disgrace whether you believe in global warming or not.
And since I don't believe in this and I see this as nothing more than a fraud or hoax perpetrated on our citizens, the fact that they would not fire this person is an outrage!
Sadly, I also know that this little club of global warming enthusiasts will never fire one of their own for wrongdoing. Instead, they'll have a fake inquiry which will conclude that mistakes were made, but in the end no one is to blame and the cause is unaffected by whatever minor misunderstand it was which the evil-racist-right-wing-global-haters tried to exploit.
And yes, while I am making fun of this, it does indeed piss me off a lot!
Stan, "then I'd be a liberal" -- LOL! Sad, but true. I can't imagine anyone in any real profession outside of professional liberal who could get away with doing something like this. Seriously, in many industries, you'd be in jail for doing this. Seriously, could you imagine the liberal outcry if a drug company produced a similar "quality" proposal to support their drug?
Global Warming
The Washington Post
The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in
some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a
report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consulate, at
Bergen, Norway. Reports from fishermen, seal hunters, and explorers
all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto
unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions
report that scarcely any ice has been met as far north as 81 degrees
29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf
stream still very warm. Great masses of ice have been replaced by
moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many
points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared.
Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic,
while vast shoals of herring and smelts which have never before
ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing
grounds. Within a few years it is predicted that due to the ice melt
the sea will rise and make most coastal cities uninhabitable.
===================
Oh, I apologize, I neglected to mention that this report was from November 2, 1922, as reported by the AP and published in the Washington Post....... 88 years ago!
=
"too late to change it." bwhahahaha. i think that's the far-left's secret handshake. they actually know the truth about ~hot-button issue here~ but never would they tell the truth (which ironically would win them some respect if they ponied-up). with so many lies already in circulation, it's just to darn late to change it.
typical.
Tom, Two words. First: "cycles." That's the word the global warming industry desperately tries to avoid acknowledging. The Earth moves in cycles, so does the sun. Things get hotter and colder, and there isn't much we can do about. So attributing it to us is ridiculous.
Second: "alarmism." It's ridiculous that at the first a drop or rise in temperature, these chicken littles start screaming about "if this goes on forever, bad things could happen!" Right, and it if keeps getting darker and darker forever at night and never gets brighter, then bad things could happen too! They need a strong dose of reality.
Patti, If they treated this like a real science and kept their conclusions within the reach of their data, corrected their mistakes, and actually found ways to prove their contentions then I would be more than willing to listen. But right now they're just looking for any data they can find (or making it up when they can't find any) to prove theories that make no sense, so they can impose "solutions" that make even less sense.
That's not science, that's lying for political reasons and I will not let them have their way.
They must think we're stupid if we won't hold this against them? This is like telling a lie to a friend even though they know it's a lie and then refusing to admit it was a lie. How stupid!
Ed, I think they're counting on it. They're counting on people hearing the first headline and taking that in, and then not bothering with the correction. . . if it ever comes.
Seriously, 50 million people probably heard the story when it was published and only 2 million heard about the mistake. So it's a win for them. Sadly, lying pays off when the media is on your side.
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