Saturday, September 12, 2009

The Independent Front Page Is Fabricated

On last night's 5 Live paper review my co-reviewer Tessa Dunlop got terribly excited by an apocalyptic front page from the Independent, which had news of a ship which had managed to get through the North East passage for "the first time", apparently due to climate change. This was proof, she reckoned, that we are all doomed. She then reckoned that heavy rainfall in Scotland and a drought in Moldova was further evidence. I begged to differ, but she was having none of it.

Today, Richard North on EU Referendum and An Englishman's Castle have blown the whole story out of the water. Here's Richard North...
Front page of The Independent today proclaims: "A triumph for man, a disaster for mankind", heralding the completion of what it claims to be "the first commercial navigation of the fabled North-east Passage."

"It is an epic moment," says the paper, "but also a vivid sign of climate change in the Arctic." The picture caption reinforces the point, telling us: "No commercial vessel has ever successfully travelled the North-east Passage, a fabled Arctic Sea route that links the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific far more directly than the usual southerly cargo route."

And none of this is true. It could not be further from the truth – it is a complete and utter distortion, a fabrication, a lie. An Englishman's Castle sussed it, by the simple expedient of looking up Wikipedia...

Interestingly, the BBC is now downplaying the hype, referring only to "German ships", and admitting that the route has been "passable without ice breakers in 2005", neglecting to tell us that this journey required substantial assistance from ice breakers. So much for global warming.

Not from The Independent though are we allowed to know the truth. Its editorial

There are lies, damn lies, and then there is The Independent.
proclaims that, "One hundred years ago, the news of a ship successfully traversing the treacherous North-east Passage would have prompted popular celebrations and wild enthusiasm." Yet, despite the feat of the Vega in 1879, this is now "a confirmation of just how rapidly and dangerously our climate is changing."

It is worth reading the rest of his analysis. It makes you wonder what other climate change wool is being pulled over our eyes.

53 comments:

Freddy said...

"It makes you wonder what other climate change wool is being pulled over our eyes."

Practically all of it.

Silent Hunter said...

Iain,

You really need to get better informed old bean.

Global Warming IS happening.

But I suppose it's just more 'comfortable' to pretend that it's not. So let's just pretend it isn't.

Do you know, I've never been to Wales, but I'm reliably informed that it exists; but because I have never been there, I take the information with a hefty slice of scepticism.

I'll believe 'Wales' when I see it myself, until then I will continue to scoff at those who claim to speak a different language from us and indulge in close harmony singing. Just because the overwhelming evidence and the majority of so-called travel writers claim to have been there and that it does exist is hardly evidence now is it.

In fact, I met someone last week who also said that they hadn't been to Wales either - proof positive I would say that it doesn't exist.

Wales is just a 'made up' place as far as I'm concerned. :o)

Iain Dale said...

A facile point.I don't deny global warming is happening. Any more than I would deny that it happened in medieval times, or 5000 years ago. Or 50,000 years ago.

TurnedOutNiceAgain said...

Iain,
This sort of thing is happening all the time. Only last month the head of Greenpeace was forced to admit on BBC tv(of all places) that they knew their prediction that the Greenland ice sheet was going to melt by 2030 was wrong, but they had to "overemotionalise" it to get people to pay attention. In other words it was a lie, propaganda.
On tv and radio this week we had regular interviews with various gov agencies pointing out for instance that we had to do away with the domestic air industry. One memorable quote was " we have a perfectly good rail service people can use that."
Just think of that. Shutdown Easyjet, Ryanair , BMI, Flybe, Airbus, british Aerospace. etc.
What was the interviewers response including Paxman on Newsnight?.....Nothing. Incredibly in every interview i did not hear one critical question. It was so apparent that i think it must be official BBC policy not to question anyone who comes on to discuss Climate Change. They are in effect given an open mic. and told to say whatever they like.
Unfortunately we are going to get this sort of report every day now up to the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December.
Environmentalists never have any good news do they?...

Anonymous said...

"A Tory spokeswoman said Mr Cameron accepts that "the way we are living is contributing to the extremes of weather and the climate is changing"."

niconoclast said...

Perhaps you can prevail upon Cameron who seems to have allowed the crazed and toxic Marxist ideology of climate change to gain an unhealthy ascendancy over his mind.This is dodgy science driven by even dodgier politics.

Ralph Hancock said...

Iain: a slight quibble -- you mention the 'North-West Passage', which is the one around the top of Canada and remains blocked. It's the North-East passage, around the top of Asia, that these ships have got through -- and, as you say, not the first ones to do so in recent years.

This week's New Scientist has an article that should throw further petrol on to your theoretical bonfire, I think: World will 'cool for the next decade'.

Anonymous said...

Maybe it is, but telling misleading lies about it isn't good and you can hardly complain if people assume you are lying about other things, can you ?

The Greenies were telling the same porkies about the NW passage as well. The reality of the Ice in the Arctic is that it can change significantly from year to year, and has done ever since it was opened up in the 1820s.

This variability is one of the main reasons that Franklin got lost, for example, seduced by a very easy earlier season.

As for Wales, well, if we were informed that Wales was famous for its desert climate, coral reefs and the Pyramids of Llampeter we might be somewhat more cynical.

That's what the Environmental Propagandists sound like.

I recall, for example, going on Honeymoon to the Maldives and being told that it wouldn't be there in 20 years. Guess how long I've been married .....

I also recall when I was young, when we had some *really* cold winters (e.g. 62/3) being told that the Ice Age was coming back.

David L said...

I'm not sure what the falsification is - everybody agrees that there is much less ice on the route now than 50 years ago, so much so that you can consider running commercial vessels - not specialized Soviet vessels - along the route. You can argue that climate change is not caused by human activity, but you can't deny that the ice has melted surely? Which is the basic story that the Independent is reporting.

Anonymous said...

I see the Telegraph online is still carrying this on the 'front' of their News page.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/6176989/German-ships-sailing-through-North-East-Passage.html

Christopher Booker must be frothing at the mouth, as he has outed previous versions (last year?) of this story as a nonsense.

james said...

From Wikipedia (not the mostr reputable of sources of course but what's good for the goose and all that: "Images from the NASA Aqua satellite revealed that the last ice blockage of the Northern Sea Route in the Laptev Sea had melted by late August 2008, the first time in 125,000 years that both the Northwest Passage and Northern Sea Route had been open simultaneously".

First time in 125,000 years. The "facile" argument here is from those who attribute this kind of change to natural variances just becasue they have happened in the past. Even the scantest glance at the science confirms that change is happening far, far faster than ever before and that the only explanation is the huge increase in carbon dioxide min our atmosphere(we've understood the properties and effects of carbon dioxide for generations).

My favourite lecturer always told our class that, if you weren't sure of your facts, it was better to keep your mouth shut and have people suspect you were ignorant than to spout off and have suspicions confirmed. I used to quite enjoy this blog but since the start of this year I'm afraid it's been getting worse and worse with every passing week.

Anonymous said...

'I don't deny global warming is happening. Any more than I would deny that it happened in medieval times, or 5000 years ago. Or 50,000 years ago.'

Would you like to comment on the *RATE* of warming?

That's what really exercises scientists not the current temperature which is about the same as the Medieval Warm Period - a little higher in the North Atlantic.

However, the current warming has occurred much faster than those observed in ice cores. That's what suggests something has changed. And the best theory is that our emissions are responsible.

Siberian Tory said...

It's wool pulled down by wolly minded people and scientists who should be ashamed of themselves.

FYI: I am a scientist.

Anonymous said...

The Daily Telegraph also agrees with the Independent's view that this represents a vivid sign of climate change in the Arctic:

"We are seeing an expression of climate change here," said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo. "The Arctic is warming; we're losing the sea ice cover. The more frequent opening of that North East Passage is part of the process we're seeing."

"The Arctic is becoming a blue ocean," Mr Serreze said.

For the last few years, including this year, navigator Roald Amundsen's famous North West Passage has been navigable. Then in 2007, the more crucial deep water channel called M'Clure Strait opened up and now the Northeast Passage, Serreze said. The passage "is the traditional choke point," Mr Serreze said.

That northern route "is going to become more and more open on a seasonal basis," he said. But it will not be consistently open because of local weather patterns that could still freeze it up for long time periods.

This year is shaping up to have the third lowest amount of Arctic sea ice on record, just behind the worst year set in 2007 and in 2008. But just because 2009 is slightly up from the past two years, it is not an upward trend or a recovery, Mr Serreze said. It reflects a change in local weather patterns that occurred in August, he added.

"It's certainly part of the overall decline of sea ice that we've been seeing."

Andrew K said...

I am in Wales, and sad to relate the evidence of global warming is clearly visible here.

If you head up the Ogwen Valley to Llyn Idwal, only striations across the rocks remain of the glaciers that once covered the land. And the polar bears have been wiped out!

Silent Hunter said...

FYI I'm a scientist.

Really?

Who pays your salary - who do you work for and in what field do you specialise.

Petrochemicals, perchance?

The scientific evidence pointing to a huge, exponential increase in this effect is overwhelming. Those providing smoke screens and claiming to be scientists - like Bjorn Lomburg and his ilk are all tainted by links to big business; for whom profit trumps all - including their workers, the indigenous peoples where they have their factories and the environment.

But hey! Who cares . . . as long as we can carry on consuming without having to bother about wondering where it all comes from and what the real cost might be.

Note to Bankers - You can't eat money!

bonte said...

Well done Mrs Dale. Peeps take any global warming propoganda at face value these days even though they realise Politicians are milking the lies for all they are worth.

FACT Planet Earth has got colder over the last ten years.

Anonymous said...

"Those providing smoke screens and claiming to be scientists - like Bjorn Lomburg and his ilk are all tainted by links to big business."

Actually Bjorn Lomborg (writer of The Skeptical Environmentalist) has moved from being a "climate change denier" to being a firm believer in man-made global warming. He has written that the science in favour of AGW is overwhelming.

He does however disagree with most environmentalists as to how best to deal with the effects of climate change. He'd favour money spent on dealing with greater desertification and rising sea-levels rather than reducing CO2 emissions.

Anonymous said...

"FACT Planet Earth has got colder over the last ten years."

Well, that's a very peculiar way to look at the temperature record.

1998 (according to some climate institutes) was the hottest year on record. However the average temperature over the last ten years is higher than the average for the previous ten years and the previous ten years before that.

The eleven warmest years on record have all taken place in the last fifteen years.

Anonymous said...

Channel 4 News have just covered this story.

Jabba the Cat said...

@ Silent Hunter said...

"The scientific evidence pointing to a huge, exponential increase in this effect is overwhelming."

It may seem so in your mind and Al Gore's, but in the real world it is increasingly obvious, and thankfully articulated by greatly increasing numbers of scientists and engineers, that the computer climate models and subsequent theories so beloved of the AGW alarmists are so far disconnected from actual climate events as to make them highly unreliable and useless as a foundation for regressing our way of life.

Anonymous said...

Indeed as I watched 'The Papers' last night I told my family it was not true.
Significantly one of the more usually sober commentators took it as gospel (the bloke from the commercial radio station I think) - it shows how far the AGW scam has got.

Silent Hunter - Wales exists; fact - its been mapped and plotted. You say you are a scientist - well that proves nothing, lost od scientists believed in eugenics and lots and lots of scientist have exposed the myth of global warming.



Global Warming does not exist; fact - it too has been plotted. Global temps now are exactly the same as when NASA's Hansen started this scam rolling over 20 years ago.

Anonymous. Climate Change is the only thing I do not agree with Cameron about. Well the only thing significant in the great scheme of things. In believe in capital punishment.

iCowboy - I refer you to the points above. Temperatures are not rising - as Gordon would say that is a zero 'rate' of increase. Summer temps in North America are lower than average this year.
Only recently a 'scientist' has said so -
Henrik Svensmark, Professor, DTU, @ Copenhagen said
"Indeed, global warming stopped and a cooling is beginning. No climate model has predicted a cooling of the Earth, on the contrary. This means that projections of future climate is unpredictable"

And this years Arctic summer ice melt is lower than average. All scientifically plotted. There is nothing unusual about current Arctic ice conditions and Antarctic ice is thickening.

Get a clue Silent hunter said...

Silent Hunter,

get a grip, you're hysterical and wrong.

The Globe stopped warming when Blair got in.

As for anybody doubting AGW being 'obviously' employed by an oil company - you are an idiot.

How about wondering how many Anthro (mankind-produced) GW types are employed solely because they can skew models / predictions and statistics to provide hysterical "we're all going to die" scenario?

Gore just bought himself a new, huge houseboat - you sucker, do you really think he's a believer in AGW? He's making a fortune out of your stupidity.

Anonymous said...

BTW - I take exception to our scientific friend questioning anti AGW funding - assuming it to be oil funding and other some such. And assuming that to be tainted.

Its not the funding that matters, its the science. Junk science like Manns hockey stick is a case in point. Still his mythical curve has kept him in funding and in the papers.

The funding we have to fear comes from govts and the EU who wish to imprison us in their thrall with scams like AGW. Scams which allow the Met Office to buy millions worth of deep blue type computers - and pays the bonuses.

Anyone who cares to read Norths article will see that the route "has been commercially exploited since 1935". Russian ships use it regularly. "The volume of sea traffic reached 7 million tons in 1987."

As ever junk passing for science and jokers parading as scientists.

ukipwebmaster said...

Those purple blotches must be getting bigger Iain?

thespecialone said...

Silent Hunter - you are a typical warmist. You refuse to believe that any other point of view is worth listening too. You use the same argument about those scientists who refuse to believe in man made GW and that is they work for the oil industry.
So how about this? Al Gore makes millions out of the global warming industry. Yet, he uses a private jet, owns a boat (oooo how much fuel must that use?), and I bet he doesnt drive, or get chauffeured around in, a small engined car. 33000 scientists signed up against the MMGW theory. Are they ALL employed by the oil industry? How about all those scientists employed around the world by governments or other industries whose interests lie in the global warming scam? Funny how people like you never seem to mention them. Can you also tell me Silent Hunter? What makes YOU so sure about global warming? Your 'Wales' paragraph is pretty pathetic as well. When Madonna, Sting and all the other famous people jumping on the global warming bandwagon stop flying their private jets around the world, then I might, and it is a massive might, just start to believe in MMGW. Oh. Do you believe that we should pay more taxes to save polar bears? What is the justification for paying more? I will tell you why. Because it is yet another exciting way for the government to control us. Like Marxist governments like to do.

JohnRS said...

To the alarmists on this page I suggest you take a daily look at www.climatedebatedaily.com and see the regular flow of scientifically credible papers refuting the whole MMGW theory. Read both sides of the debate and try to keep an open mid about what's actually happening around the world.

I've been doing this for a while. 2 years ago I thought MMGW might be true, a year ago I was very doubtful, now I'm convinced (as is the UN itself, believe it or not!) that MMGW isnt happening.

The climate is changing - funnily enough it always has. But the peer-reviewed empirical evidence gathered by real scientists using real instruments in real geographic locations, as opposed to unproven, inaccurate computer models and over-emotional political speeches, is now overwhelmingly against the alarmist view.

To paraphrase - It's the planet stupid!!

Wycked Hors said...

"It will without doubt have come to your Lordship's knowledge that a considerable change of climate, inexplicable at present to us, must have taken place in the Circumpolar Regions, by which the severity of the cold that has for centuries past enclosed the seas in the high northern latitudes in an impenetrable barrier of ice has been during the last two years, greatly abated.

(This) affords ample proof that new sources of warmth have been opened and give us leave to hope that the Arctic Seas may at this time be more accessible than they have been for centuries past, and that discoveries may now be made in them not only interesting to the advancement of science but also to the future intercourse of mankind and the commerce of distant nations."
President of the Royal Society, London, to the Admiralty, 20th November, 1817
President of the Royal Society, Minutes of Council, Volume 8. pp.149-153, Royal Society, London.
20th November, 1817.

Nothing new under the sun...

Joe Public said...

Prediction:

The world will get warmer. And, colder. Not necessarily in that order.

Thomas said...

“Who pays your salary - who do you work for and in what field do you specialise. Petrochemicals, perchance?”

Silent Hunter: Do you know how paranoid that makes you sound? I never understand why people think this sort of ad hominem attack is effective. Government funding for climate change research is now several hundred million pounds in the UK alone. In fact the politicisation of science has gone so far that it’s quite difficult to get university funding in some areas (geology, for example) without at least linking a research proposal to global warming. It’s undeniably true that there are very many scientists whose funding would be severely threatened if global warming were ever found to be less of a threat and that the fear of global warming has been very useful for some people’s careers, just as fear of the Millennium Bug once made a lot of money for IT companies.

For what it’s worth I believe in anthropogenic global warming. I’m only pointing out that the conflict of interest argument works both ways. You know nothing about Siberian Tory. This instinctive, unvarying desire to destroy the reputations of those who disagree with your views rather than attack their arguments makes you look weak and makes me question your own agenda. I don’t accuse you of being tainted by links to big government, yet you seem to believe that nobody can possibly disagree with your views and that those who claim to are simply being bribed to say so by oil companies, do you really think that?

Rachel said...

I have a conspiracy theory!!!

To create a global government we need a global problem. A problem that can (by using appropriate scare tactics) frighten everyone into believing that those governments that do not take action to reduce their (for instance) CO2 levels should be taken over for the 'greater good of mankind.'

Not a bad plan and a rather good conspiracy theory!

Cynic said...

Dear Hunter

Well Old Bean, there are those who believe in Alien Abduction. They ahve seen the evidence, heard the witnesses and know there is a massive Government cover up. So it must be real.

With Global warming its much the same. There is evidence that suggests there is Global Warming but it is inconclusive. The problem is that there is just not enough data to tell. But the science has now been perverted into a new age religion. Those who challenge or ask questions are shunned vilified and face the destruction of their careers. Grants arent awarded for research that might seek to test the core beliefs. People who hold deviant views are excluded from conferences.

There are organisations that specifically target the disbelievers and anyone who gives them a platform - and that alone should tell you something.



So all of this is more about human psychology, inadequates who need a cause to define their lives and access to reserach grants and business, more than objective science. It also suits Government to play along to force us to reduce dependency on oil for strategic reasons.

Let me give you a little example of perhaps the next great moral panic. Studies show that historically the earth magnetic field reverses every so often ie north becomes the south pole etc. This change appears to happen quite quickly sometimes ie over a couple of hundred years.The last change was 800,000 years ago. As the average gap betwen changes is 250,000 years we are well overdue one. When this gains common curreny we will have all the same poeple who are hand wringing over climate change alleging that its all out fault.

Thr second iussue is, if there is Global Warming, what is causing it? Again, old bean, scientifically and objectively we simply dont know. The climate of this planet continually changes - thats good old mother nature and her evolution thingy for you - and what we cannot see is where we are on the long term trends.

Cynic said...

'everybody agrees that there is much less ice on the route now than 50 years ago'

I dont


'The scientific evidence pointing to a huge, exponential increase in this effect is overwhelming.'

It isnt and do you even know what exponential means?

It is clear, Silent Hunter, that you honestly believe all this nonsense. Well, sorry to be the man who tells you that there aint no Santa Claus

Sean said...

Lots of emotion in the comments. Not much verifiable fact.

I'm a climate change agnostic. But I'm going to spend a few days later this month reading the arguments for and against, as partly described in my blog.

Let's have fewer rants and more facts.

Anonymous said...

Isn't everything in 'The Independent' is a lie?

Not a sheep said...

The Independent with a "fabricated" front page! I think that you will find that a fair number of them are; including many of those spreading the new religion of Climate Change and those that accuse Israel of all sorts of evil.

Neil A said...

Without wanting to sound defeatist (but doing so anyway) is there really any point in worrying about our carbon output whilst the population of the planet is rising at such a rate? Even if we manage to halve emissions per head over the next 50 years, the doubling of population we will probably see in that time will bring us right back to where we started, except with even more people living on flood plains, and even more food poverty.

Conversely, if we could find a way to reduce the population by 50% over time then climate change would reduce with it.

Daniel said...

It would be strange to conclude from this headline that there is a reason to doubt the reality of climate change - which is what Iain's "pulling the wool" line seems to suggest.

Yes, we can conclude that the Independent and BBC have employed some very poor journalists, but that's about all.

The theory of anthropic global warming rests on an unusually sharp global rise in temperature (recorded on ordinary thermometers) coinciding with a rise in carbon dioxide emitted by industrial processes, both as clearly established as the existence of the Moon. It hasn't anything to do with sea routes, regardless of what the alarmists at the Independent or the BBC may say.

Jabba the Cat said...

For those who would like to learn more about the AGW alarmism and it's lack of foundation here are a few good places to start,

http://wattsupwiththat.com/about/

http://www.climateaudit.org/

http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/about/

I've given links to the about pages for two of the sites.

Steve McIntyre who runs Climate Audit does not have an about page but suffice to say that he is the chap who showed that Mann's hockey stick graph and associated mathematical modelling was a load of tosh etc...nuf said.

There are plenty more links to other sites from Anthony Watts home page to both pro and anti AGW sites.

Read, learn, discuss, think for yourself, and then decide what adds up and what does not.

Cynic said...

Daniel

The problem with your argument is the relative impact of those emmissions on the atmosphere and climate. This is fiendishly difficult to calculate.

All we have at the minute and two sets of facts. There is no clear demonstration of cause and effect

neil craig said...

Insofar as it is a sign of anything it is a sign that human technology is improving faster than anything nature is doing & we now have stronger ships & satellite pictures that can tell us how the weather is.

In fact it doesn't even prove that conclusively since this has been done many times before.

During WW2 while the Hitler Stalin pact was still in force a number of German ships sailed to Japan by this route.

So while the BBC may be "downplaying the hype" compared to even less honest sources by saying it has "been passable since 2005" they are still, quite deliberately, lying.

It is a statistical certainty (ie above 99.9% that anybody who supports the global warming lie is a totally corrupt eco-fascist willing to tell absolutely any lie & should be treated as such until they prove they have previously dissociated themsleves from the rst of the movement.

Whether we are experiencing "global warming" depends entirely on the baseline chosen. It has warmed since 1750 & 10,000BC & cooled since 5000BC, 1300, 1933 (probably) & 1998. . None of the changes since 5,000 BC were "catastrophic" & there is no evidence, none whatsoever, that any catastrophic warming is in sight. I challenge ANYBODY on the eco-fascist side to produce such evidence.

Stevo said...

"Images from the NASA Aqua satellite revealed that the last ice blockage of the Northern Sea Route in the Laptev Sea had melted by late August 2008, the first time in 125,000 years that both the Northwest Passage and Northern Sea Route had been open simultaneously"

Thankyou. That's the funniest thing I've read all week. I wasn't previously aware that the Aqua satellite had been monitoring the situation for that long.

Relatively complete global records date back about 30 years, and even incomplete ones only about a eighty. How many climate monitoring stations were there in Antarctica in 1900? Or across the Pacific Ocean? How can anyone possibly say they can measure the average global temperature a hundred years ago to an accuracy of a fraction of a degree?

The local records we have indicate that neither amount nor rate of warming are out of the ordinary. For example, the HadCET temperature series for England shows a similar sort of 50-year rise between about 1680 and 1733. Only bigger, and steeper, and peaking within a fraction of a degree of the current peak.

Beware of the fallacy of assuming that correlation implies causation. Lots of things have increased (or decreased) over the past 50-100 years. Why not one of them?

Anyway, NASA say it's because of unusual winds. (http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/quikscat-20071001.html) Or this statement "Although it is tempting to attribute these statistically significant (99% level) trends to GHG loading, the observed sea ice record has strong imprints of natural variability." That's from a group of believers. And the Antarctic ice, by contrast, is not playing ball at all. (http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.area.south.jpg / http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.anom.south.jpg)

Not that it should be relevant, but yes, I am a qualified professional physicist/mathematician, and no, I have never been paid or employed by anyone in the energy industry, or anyone else with a stake in the matter. I'm just unhappy about what all of this is going to do to Science's reputation when the whole thing collapses.

Victor, NW Kent said...

In 1976, just over 30 years ago, there was incontrovertible scientific evidence that we were entering a new Ice Age. Climatologists the world over assured us of that.

All of us must believe in climate change - it is observable fact. It changes year by year and I remember the drastic winter of 1947 and the scorching drought of the summer of 1948.

To make two perhaps unrelated pieces of phenomena into a single unified theory is dangerously illogical and unscientific. The proof that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide causes global temperature increases reminds me of one of my tutors so long ago. He said "The Pope does not believe in birth control. Stalin does not believe in birth control. Therefore the Pope is a a Communist or perhaps Stalin is a Catholic".

Years later I see that the word "believe" is important as it has here a significance that the exponents did not doubt that birth control was possible but that they opposed its use.

We see on a continuous basis the obsolesence of many "accepted" scientific theories. The origin of mankind from a common East African ancestor was a Leakey theory for personal advantage. It is in the process of being disproven by other "facts". And so we go on. Computer simulations are being purveyed as they were actualities. The MSM has space to fill.

Anonymous said...

"In 1976, just over 30 years ago, there was incontrovertible scientific evidence that we were entering a new Ice Age. Climatologists the world over assured us of that."

This is a well-known myth propagated by those wishing to discredit climate scientists. There was never any scientific consensus about a new ice age in the 70s.

A couple of scientific papers discussed the possibility of a new ice age in the future and this lead to some sensationalist media coverage.

A recent study of scientific papers from the 60s and 70s dealing with climate showed the vast majority supporting the thesis of a warming planet.

cassandra said...

I nominate 'stevo' for the best post of the day!

Great post stevo, top notch and to the point.
The aqua sattelite up there for 125.000 years? Our early ancestors must have been more advanced than we thought.
Given that the poster James puts his faith in a well known AGW/AAM alarmist site like Wiki, whose pages are fanatically monitored for denialist heretics and deleted ASAP and given that the evidence going back 125.000 yrs is about as sparce as Kinnocks noggin, I think we can safely say that his assertions can be discounted.

Sea ice levels in the arctic can be monitored easily by visiting 'watts up with that' and scrollong to the thumbnail.

Ludo said...

"In 1976, just over 30 years ago, there was incontrovertible scientific evidence that we were entering a new Ice Age. Climatologists the world over assured us of that."

At about that time I did a science degree with a substantial Environment component. There was no scientific consensus regarding climate change.

There was a great deal of conflicting evidence, some of which supported global warming (the much talked about "greenhouse effect") and some pointed to global cooling.

There was much discussion between climatologists, with roughly equal numbers in the opposing camps.

Anonymous said...

The media hype over a coming ice age in the 70s may very well not have been accepted by actual scientists who knew what they were talking about.

That's the same as the current scam over MMGW (oops, sorry, MMCC). The true eco-fascist believers are almost all not scientists but know how to make a fast buck and like the idea of their own self-importance.

Daniel said...

@Cynic - I don't think you read my comment very carefully. To put it as simply as possible: whether AGM is true or not, the incompetence of the Independent's environmental journalism is not evidence against AGM.

Anonymous said...

Quite so.

The more I hear about man made 'global warming' the less I believe in it.

Maybe the climate is changing, but I very much doubt that human activity has much to do with it.

It all looks more and more like a racket to make us pay more tax and surrender more of our lives to government control.

Robert said...

"Silent Hunter" - You need to stop the argument from interest nonsense. Even Exxon (so often excoriated) provides far more funding for "consensus" climate research than for skeptical positions. The funding gap between the alleged consensus and skeptical scientists is literally of the order of 1000 to 1, so were I you, I would not draw attention to the issue. The financial and professional incentives all lie in preserving the consensus. Remember, after all, that Enron was relying on the coming in of CO2 trading to save their business, and lobbied heavily to try and get legislation in time.

Secondly, the comment was made that Bjorn Lomberg "was a climate denier". Nonsense. Lomborg was a committed member of Greenpeace when he began work on what would become "Skeptical Environmentalist". In that, and all subsequent books, he has merely assumed that IPCC publications are truthful and accurate in all respects, and then drawn economic conclusions from the numerical data in the reports. That inevitably puts him at odds with some scaremongers - Al Gore, with his 20 ft sea level rise, for instance - who weave new predictions out of whole cloth without any basis in the published literature. I don't agree with Lomborg's assumptions (there are too many well documented errors in the data and models used to be comfortable even with the basic IPCC material), but respect his naive belief that using an agreed common base text would enable a rational debate to ensue. Similar statements about Lomborg, like the argument from interest ("you're just spouting what they oil companies tell you to") are really useful shibboleths. Once you hear them, you know that the speaker doesn't understand the first thing about the subject, and can safely be ignored.

If you really want to convince me, show me the *empirical* study that suggests a causal link *from* CO2 concentration *to* global temperature.

neil craig said...

Having been around in the 70s i can say that the current attempt airbrush the global cooling scare out of existence is not truthful. One reason the media pushed it is that the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of science - their equivalent to the Roual society) hosted press conferences on the subject. James Hansen, the leading promoter of warming alarmism, was also involved in the cooling scare.

As for there being any "consensus" - this "consensus" consists of the politically appointed IPCC, whose results get rewritten by politicians before publication & various government funded organisations (eg the Royal Society though they are backtracking). The largest single assessment of scientific opinion is the Oregon Petition in which 31,000 scientists have said not only is that there is no catastrophic warming but that CO2 increase is on balance a good thing.

Anonymous said...

Just the thing for all your Global Warming deniers

http://www.justgofaster.com/Default.aspx?tabid=187

neil craig said...

I said earlier that the "environmentalist" movement were overwhelmingly deliberately making it up & "I challenge ANYBODY on the eco-fascist side to produce such [ie ofANY evidence of catasrtophic warming] evidence."

Clearly no reader here, no BBC/Guardianista/Green party liar, nobody from realclimate, nobody at all feels able to produce anything at all.