The ‘science’ of global warming

By Mark Steyn - Thursday, December 3, 2009 at 10:00 AM - 341 Comments

“The gravest challenge that we face is climate change . . . Every one of our compatriots must feel concerned”—Nicolas Sarkozy, president of the French Republic;

“The climate crisis threatens our very survival”—Herman Van Rompuy, “president” of “Europe”;

“We cannot compromise with the catastrophe of unchecked climate change”—Gordon Brown, prime minister of the United Kingdom;

“Generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children . . . this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal”—Barack Obama, president of the United States.

The science is so settled it’s now perfectly routine for leaders of the developed world to go around sounding like apocalyptic madmen of the kind that used to wander the streets wearing sandwich boards and handing out homemade pamphlets. Governments that are incapable of—to pluck at random—enforcing their southern border, reducing waiting times for routine operations to below two years, or doing something about the nightly ritual of car-torching “youths,” are nevertheless taken seriously when they claim to be able to change the very heavens—if only they can tax and regulate us enough. As they will if they reach “consensus” at Copenhagen. And most probably even if they don’t.

How did we reach this point? Ah, well. Like the proverbial sausage factory, you never want to look too closely at how the science gets settled. The other day, a whole bunch of electronic documents most probably leaked by a disaffected insider from the prestigious Climatic Research Unit at Britain’s University of East Anglia were posted online. Given that the CRU has conceded their authenticity, they provide a fascinating glimpse at the science underpinning the calm measured statements of Sarkozy, Brown, Obama, and wossname, the Belgian bloke—as well as of Kyoto, Copenhagen, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the “carbon credits” scam, the U.S. “cap and trade” monstrosity and every other major “climate change” boondoggle this century. They confirm what the soi-disant “skeptics” have long known:

1) The Settled Scientists have wholly corrupted the process of “peer review.”
Phil Jones, director of the CRU, writing to Michael Mann, creator (le mot juste) of the now discredited “hockey stick” graph, about two academics who disagree with him:
“I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow—even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!”
Professor Mann on an academic journal foolish enough to publish dissenting views:
“Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal.”
Professor Jones’s reply:
“I will be emailing the journal to tell them I’m having nothing more to do with it until they rid themselves of this troublesome editor.”
And you’ll be glad to hear they did!

2) The Settled Scientists have refused to comply with Freedom of Information requests by (illegally) deleting relevant documents.
Phil Jones to Michael Mann on Feb. 3, 2005:
“The two MMs [McKitrick and McIntyre, the latter the dogged retired Ontarian who runs the Climate Audit website] have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the U.K., I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone.”
And, indeed, the CRU subsequently announced that they had “inadvertently deleted” the requested data.

3) The Settled Scientists have attempted to (in the words of one email) “hide the decline”—that’s to say, obscure the awkward fact that “global warming” stopped over a decade ago.
Phil Jones, July 5, 2005:
“The scientific community would come down on me in no uncertain terms if I said the world had cooled from 1998. Okay it has but it is only seven years of data and it isn’t statistically significant.”

4) The Settled Scientists have tortured the data into compliance with political requirements.

From the computer code for one of the “Mann” models:

“Plots (1 at a time) yearly maps of calibrated (PCR-infilled or not) MXD reconstructions of growing season temperatures. Uses ‘corrected’ MXD—but shouldn’t usually plot past 1960 because these will be artificially adjusted to look closer to the real temperatures.”

Yet perhaps the most important revelation is not the collusion, the bullying, the politicization and the evidence-planting, but the fact that, even if you wanted to do honest “climate research” at the Climatic Research Unit, the data and the models are now so diseased by the above that they’re all but useless. Let Ian “Harry” Harris, who works in “climate scenario development and data manipulation” at the CRU, sum it up. Mr. Harris was attempting to duplicate previous results—i.e., to duplicate all that science that’s supposedly settled, and the questioning of which consigns you to the Climate Branch of the Flat Earth Society. How hard should it be to confirm settled science? After much cyber-gnashing of teeth, Harry throws in the towel:

“ARGH. Just went back to check on synthetic production. Apparently—I have no memory of this at all—we’re not doing observed rain days! It’s all synthetic from 1990 onwards. So I’m going to need conditionals in the update program to handle that. And separate gridding before 1989. And what TF happens to station counts?

“OH F–K THIS. It’s Sunday evening, I’ve worked all weekend, and just when I thought it was done I’m hitting yet another problem that’s based on the hopeless state of our databases. There is no uniform data integrity, it’s just a catalogue of issues that continues to grow as they’re found.”

Thus spake the Settled Scientist: “OH F–K THIS.” And on the basis of “OH F–K THIS” the world’s enlightened progressives will assemble at Copenhagen for the single greatest advance in punitive liberalism ever perpetrated on the developed world.

Back in the summer, I wrote in a column south of the border:

“If you’re 29, there has been no global warming for your entire adult life. If you’re graduating high school, there has been no global warming since you entered first grade. There has been no global warming this century. None. Admittedly the 21st century is only one century out of the many centuries of planetary existence, but it happens to be the one you’re stuck living in.”

In response to that, the shrieking pansies of the eco-left had a fit. The general tenor of my mail was summed up by one correspondent: “How can you live with your lies, dumb­f–k?” George Soros’s stenographers at Media Matters confidently pronounced it a “false claim.” Well, take it up with Phil Jones. He agrees with me. The only difference is he won’t say so in public.

Which is a bit odd, don’t you think?

Phil Jones and Michael Mann are two of the most influential figures in the whole “climate change” racket. What these documents reveal is the greatest scientific scandal of our times—and a tragedy. It’s not just their graphs but their battle lines that are drawn all wrong. Science is never “settled,” and certainly not on the basis of predictive models. And any scientist who says it is is no longer a scientist. And the dismissal of “skeptics” throughout the Jones/Mann correspondence is most revealing: a real scientist is always a skeptic.

It may well be that Warmergate has come along too late. I won’t pretend to know the motivations of Jones, Mann and their colleagues, but judging from recent eco-advertising their work appears to have driven worshippers at the First Church of the Settled Scientist literally insane. A new commercial shows polar bears dropping from the skies onto city streets and crushing the cars below. To those of us who still quaintly recall 9/11, it evokes grotesquely those poor souls who chose to jump from the Twin Towers and die in one last gulp of air rather than perish in the fireball within. But who cares? Their plight is as nothing next to that of the polar bear. Why are they plummeting to their deaths from the heavens? As the ad explains, “An average European flight produces over 400 kg of greenhouse gases for every passenger. That’s the weight of an adult polar bear.”
Oooookay. It’s A Warmerful Life: every time they call your flight, a poley bear loses its wings.

Some in the political class go along because it’s too much effort to resist. A few are presumably true believers. But what a lot of the rest like about “global warming” is the “global” bit: you can’t do anything about it at town or county or even national level. No, sir, we need a “global” response. Fortunately, as Herman Van Rompuy, “president” of “Europe,” puts it: “2009 is the first year of global governance.”

That’s great news, isn’t it? I would urge the delegates at Copenhagen to listen to the experts and issue a comprehensive statement fully reflecting the rigorous scientific evidence. Here’s my draft:

“OH F–K THIS.”

Formally Proposed Parliamentary Reform of the Week

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, November 24, 2009 at 11:52 AM - 3 Comments

A British committee set up in the wake of all that unpleasantness over MPs’ expenses, comes back with some suggestions.

“Achievable” but radical change to rebuild parliament’s independence from the executive, including a new body of elected backbenchers responsible for organising Commons business, is proposed today by a prestigious select committee set up by Gordon Brown.

The report also suggests that the public should be a given some direct say over what MPs debate, through devices such as e-petitions. Prime minister’s questions would be shifted from Wednesday to Thursday afternoon to liberate more time for backbenchers on Wednesday. It calls for Commons select committees to be streamlined and given more independence from the government so they are able to scrutinise Whitehall departments more thoroughly. Their chairmen ought to be elected by the whole house in a secret vote, rather than effectively agreed between the party whips, it says.

Great moments in modern communication

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, November 11, 2009 at 8:38 PM - 40 Comments

Condolences are apparently due to the Transport Minister.

Some 1,700 luminaries, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper, were in the middle of dinner Tuesday night when smart phones throughout the room began to buzz with the news: “Lady Thatcher has passed away.”

… It eventually reached the ears of Harper, or someone close to him. Harper aide Dimitri Soudas, back in Ottawa, was dispatched to confirm the news and start preparing an official statement mourning the death of the Iron Lady, an icon to many in Harper’s Conservative party.

Soudas immediately emailed his contacts at Buckingham Palace and in British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s office. They had no idea what he was talking about. Lady Thatcher, they informed an embarrassed Soudas, was still very much alive.

… Turns out it was Transport Minister John Baird’s beloved 16-year-old cat – whom he’d named Thatcher out of admiration for one of his political heroes – who had ceased to be.

G8 PDA

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, September 25, 2009 at 2:23 AM - 4 Comments

An entertaining pool report from the official welcoming of G8 leaders to Pittsburgh.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper arrives with his wife. They get a warm welcome from both Obamas, the warmest so far. There’s a lot of familiarity. Hugs, chats about daughters.

Granted, it would still seem, at least on the public display of affection scale of American relations, that the Harpers rank slightly behind the Browns (“hugs, kisses, more hugs, more kisses, handholding, you name it”) and Sarkozys (“Mr. Obama kisses her four times … Mrs. Obama and Mrs. Sarkozy chat warmly. A lot of touching there too”).

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Afghanistan and Pakistan

By Michael Petrou - Friday, September 4, 2009 at 1:01 PM - 0 Comments

The text of his speech, delivered this morning, is posted here.

Week in Pictures: July 30th – August 7th, 2009

By macleans.ca - Friday, August 7, 2009 at 1:01 PM - 2 Comments

In the loo, metaphorically speaking

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, July 7, 2009 at 9:34 PM - 19 Comments

Gordon Brown welcomes Stephen Harper back to Europe.

In an interview with The Globe and Mail and other media at 10 Downing St. on the eve of the G8 summit in L’Aquila, Italy, Mr. Brown outlined a “growth strategy for the world” consisting of African development funding, investments in climate-change reduction and reform of global institutions to create a worldwide regulatory framework.

While those ideas have won broad support with the major European nations and U.S. President Barack Obama and are likely to set the agenda at the Italian summit today, they also differ sharply from the aims of Mr. Harper’s government, which has moved away from African aid, avoided a major role in carbon-emissions reduction and shunned the notion of international regulatory bodies.

An updated version of the story softens the Brown v. Harper angle.

Newsmakers of the week

By Lianne George - Thursday, June 18, 2009 at 11:40 AM - 0 Comments

Phelps gets smoked

At the Santa Clara Grand Prix in California last Sunday, Vancouver’s Brent Hayden finished the men’s 100-freestyle race in 48.44 seconds, a meet record, beating eight-time Olympic gold medallist Michael Phelps by a full half-second. “I was really excited,” Hayden told the Canadian Press. “Michael is such a great competitor and every time I get up and race him, it’s such an honour.” Phelps—newly mustachioed, and recently back after a three-month suspension by USA Swimming for getting caught smoking marijuana on film—won two of his four races at the meet. “I’m ready to go home and sleep in my own bed,” he said.

Here’s your visa, Mr. Rae. You’re not welcome.

Last week, Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae was turned away at a Sri Lankan airport, allegedly for being a Tamil Tigers supporter and a “security risk”—and an Ontario resident may be to blame. According to the Toronto Star, Irangani de Silva, a Sri Lankan expat who lives in London, Ont., wrote an opinion piece in the June 8 issue of The Island, a major Sri Lankan newspaper, in which she counselled Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohona to revoke the visa that had been issued to Rae for a three-day visit. She also denounced Rae for having suggested in the Commons recently that Canada ought to look into human rights violations committed by Sri Lankan officials over the course of the bloody 25-year civil war between the Sinhalese majority and the Tamil minority. “We are sure that [Rae] will return with a damning report on the government of Sri Lanka and push for war crimes investigations, publish media reports that there is discrimination, etc.,” de Silva wrote. Granting a visa to Rae, she said, was an “act of foolishness.” In Sri Lanka’s state-owned Daily News, the anti-Rae vitriol continued after his departure. One columnist argued that Rae is pandering to the large faction of Tamil expats he represents in Canada “who are not just vocal but openly violent in their support for the cause of terrorism in Sri Lanka.” In his statement, Rae called the charges made against him “absurd” and “a lie, pure and simple.” Continue…

Britain's unravelling

By Michael Petrou - Thursday, June 18, 2009 at 11:00 AM - 19 Comments

Given British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s reportedly paralyzing fixation on the smallest details of running a government, it is perhaps fitting that he was brought to the brink of his political demise because of a bath plug. Well, that and a toothbrush holder, a box of matches, horse manure, a chocolate Santa, moat cleaning, and a duck house—not a duck blind, a place where hunters conceal themselves while shooting ducks, but a structure where ducks can shelter in case they’re cold. Or maybe wet.

These are among the things that British MPs have charged to taxpayers under rules that permit them to claim for expenses supposedly related to the performance of their parliamentary duties. And while sticking the taxpayer with the bill for an ice cube tray or a souvenir mug from the Tate Modern museum strikes most Britons struggling in the midst of a recession as outrageously miserly, many of the abuses were much costlier.

Continue…

Week in Pictures: June 4th – June 10th, 2009

By macleans.ca - Thursday, June 11, 2009 at 12:54 AM - 0 Comments

Meanwhile in London…

By Paul Wells - Monday, June 8, 2009 at 7:33 PM - 4 Comments

…Gordon Brown turns out to be the toughest man Labour has.

The precise moment at which Gordon Brown's fate was sealed

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, June 6, 2009 at 1:44 PM - 11 Comments

April 4, 2008. London, England. The Progressive Governance conference. A Canadian politician is invited to address the gathering of liberal world leaders and ventures the following quip.

In the 2006 election, the Conservative party won a plurality of seats in the House of Commons and formed a minority government. I do not view this Liberal defeat as an indication that the Liberal Party has ceased to reflect the values and aspirations of a large majority of Canadians. Rather, this defeat demonstrates the fact that it is very difficult for a political party to remain in power longer than ten years. To our UK hosts I want to emphasize that I say it’s difficult, not impossible, even with a change of leader, and even if that leader is your former extremely successful Finance Minister!

The speaker, the jester who felt he was in secure enough of a position to mock the predicament of Mr. Brown… ladies and gentlemen… Stephane Dion.

And you thought you were having a rough day

By Paul Wells - Tuesday, June 2, 2009 at 12:38 PM - 11 Comments

Gordon Brown losing control of his own cabinet shuffle as ministers quit.

Featuring the quote most prime ministers would rather not read from their own House leader: “It’s not the wheels falling off the government.”

An end to sofa government

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, May 26, 2009 at 10:53 AM - 5 Comments

David Cameron wants to overhaul British democracy.

But it’s not just by decentralising power and reforming parliament that we can redistribute power away from an over-mighty executive. We need to end the culture of sofa government, where unaccountable spin doctors in No 10 – whether it’s Alastair Campbell or Damian McBride – toss around ideas and make up policies not to meet the national interest but to hit dividing lines or fit the news cycle. So we’ll put limits on the number of political advisers, strengthen the ministerial code, protect the independence of the civil service, and ensure that more decisions are made by cabinet as a whole.

Much more at the Guardian’s New Politics project. Read and imagine what it’d be like if we were having as serious a discussion in this country.

Succession: opening up the palace

By Rachel Mendleson - Friday, April 10, 2009 at 3:40 PM - 0 Comments

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called for an end to the discriminatory laws of royal succession last week. Then, almost as quickly, his government killed a private member’s bill that would have started the process, claiming it was not the “appropriate vehicle.” After Friday’s decision, Brown—who publicly decried the precedence of male heirs and the ban on royals marrying Catholics, which dates back to the 1701 Act of Settlement—was accused of peddling “spin” to boost his popularity. Still, with any such action requiring approval from all 16 countries where the Queen is head of state, he says he’ll raise it at the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in November.

The PMO did not respond to questions from Maclean’s regarding Stephen Harper’s position on the issue. But Simon Fraser University professor Andrew Heard suspects “the Canadian government would readily agree” to changing laws that “run counter to modern democratic values.” Some experts, though, warn that in countries where the Queen is little more than a figurehead, the succession question could ignite debate about the relevance of the monarchy. The issue is, in fact, attracting attention in Australia, where voters narrowly rejected a proposal to become a republic in 1999.

Continue…

Snubwatch: Duck or you'll get pool spray all over you!

By Paul Wells - Tuesday, March 3, 2009 at 9:25 AM - 19 Comments

Joint Obama-Gordon Brown press conference cancelled; instead, the two leaders will get a “pool spray,” described as “a few shouted questions from pool reporters during a photo opportunity.” (Fun fact: last week a senior aide to Stephen Harper told me the notion that White House reporters sometimes shout questions during photo ops is “bullshit.”) The rest of the linked article is a highly amusing attempt to gauge, with precision instruments, the extent to which Brown is held in esteem, or otherwise, in the new White House. Woe: Obama returned Bush’s bust of Churchill!

His bad

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, February 5, 2009 at 1:40 PM - 18 Comments

The New York Times on Barack Obama’s admission.

The primary weapon for a president who really intends to clean up Washington is credibility — and that requires integrity. Mr. Obama showed that he has both of those things in abundance with his refreshingly frank admission that he “screwed up” and his assurance that he had learned from his mistake.

The Economist on whether Gordon Brown should own up to Britain’s economic troubles.

… most other politicians adhere to Benjamin Jowett’s famous dictum about apologies: never! Under duress, and in suitably lawyerly periphrases, they may, at most, express a compassionate “regret” for something inconsequential that they, or ideally someone else, did a long time ago … The explanation for this reticence is simple: self-criticism is an admirable trait in human beings but a potentially fatal one in politicians. A minister who apologises for a big policy error may be lauded for his honesty but sacrifice his credibility. Why should the public trust Mr Brown to get Britain out of its economic hole if he admits to having dug the country into it?

Apart from a sideways admission of error on Iraq during the last campaign, it’s difficult to remember an apologetic moment from Stephen Harper. As demonstrated by this magazine’s interview with him last month, he’s not much for public introspection. There is surely, as the Economist points out, some sense in that—it is probably not entirely his fault that our politics are so unreasonable.

'United, however fleetingly, in framing a joint future'

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, January 22, 2009 at 2:26 PM - 4 Comments

Using the example of Gordon Brown, the Telegraph’s Mary Riddell explains how even the least mesmerizing of leaders—see all of ours—can emulate Barack Obama. 

Even in good times, Brown would not be an Obama-style lightning conductor of public euphoria. Any firm rash enough to market hats embroidered “Gordon” in diamanté lettering would find itself in receivership faster than you can say FishWorks. His soundbites, such as “Real Help Now”, are never likely to be borrowed by Pepsi and emblazoned on buses. Brown-branded soap would not displace Imperial Leather. Still, a nation’s mood is not gauged by gimmickry alone.

Continue…

Behold the ridiculousness of this existence

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, November 19, 2008 at 10:19 PM - 24 Comments

For some months now, the Prime Minister’s Office has been conducting periodic briefings for reporters—usually bureau chiefs, but generally one representative from each of the major media outlets. John, Paul and I have regularly attended (except when we don’t get the note). The topics discussed typically range from the Prime Minister’s itinerary to upcoming government action to the PMO’s spin on whatever happens to be making news at the moment.

There is only one rule at these briefings: the government official conducting the briefing must not be identified by name.

Everyone in the room agrees to this. And, in the myriad reports that follow, any information gleaned subsequently cited to a “senior government source” or some such.

This is now widely accepted practice. But, er, why? Continue…

They don't draw them like that anymore

By selley - Thursday, November 13, 2008 at 5:07 PM - 4 Comments

And now, for no good reason, the most unnecessarily revolting editorial cartoon we’ve seen in ages:

New Labour indeed

By Paul Wells - Monday, October 13, 2008 at 11:57 AM - 0 Comments

Gordon Brown gets a good review. The reviewer gets to polish his resumé.

UPDATE: At the Grauniad, a columnist connects the dots. At the Telly, not a word about the Nobel. Somebody’s grumpy? Presumably they’ll get round to it.

Statements that are never true (an occasional series)

By Paul Wells - Friday, July 25, 2008 at 1:05 PM - 0 Comments

“It doesn’t get worse than this.”

— Guardian columnist Martin Kettle, after a Scottish Labour prime minister managed to lose a Glasgow seat in a by-election.

Martin: You’re right, that’s pretty bloody amazing. But it always gets worse.

BTC: Of course there's no sense speaking above our level

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, June 19, 2008 at 12:45 AM - 0 Comments

What must it be like to live in a grown-up country? I bet it’s nice. I bet they have exotic foods there. Like Marmite.

In any event, John McCain’s going to be in Ottawa on Friday. He’s going to give a speech. It’s going to be about North American free trade. He’s going to say he sees it continuing if he becomes president. And this is obviously a crisis.

Indeed, how shameful an event will this be for our country? So shameful that our Prime Minister, having refused to meet with the Republican candidate, will be out of town and has advised all but one cabinet minister and one backbencher to keep an equally safe distance. Continue…

Ding

By Paul Wells - Friday, May 30, 2008 at 10:30 AM - 0 Comments

If you’re in Britain and angry at Gordon Brown, the phone’s for you.