Ideological warfare - by Richard... Wednesday, December 02, 2009

Ideological warfare - by Richard... Wednesday, December 02, 2009

They ain't slackening the pace in the lill'ol USofA. Michelle Malkin is having a go. Google pages are now in excess of 20 million. And the controversy has even reached the hallowed portals of the EU parliament. There, Dutch economist Hans Labohm told a hearing that "climate change has always been with us and always will be".

A member of the influential IPCC, Labohm said, "We are told that temperatures and sea levels are rising and the polar caps are melting. That is the bad news. The good news is that none of it is true." Meanwhile, Russell Gold in is WSJ blog says the debate over global warming is now not a scientific disagreement or even a political debate. It's all-out ideological warfare.

He's dead right, of course – which makes it all the more puzzling that the supposi-Tories and theScarygraph are on the wrong side.

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A romp in the MSM - by Richard...

Picking up on the supposi-Tories discomfort, the climate-change fraud and diverse other matters to do with "Climategate", The Daily Mail is running a long round-up piece. There is nothing new to anyone who has been following the issue closely on the blogs, but this is another sign of how the sceptic agenda is taking hold in the MSM.

Not so in The Daily Scarygraph of course, which is still running full-bore on the warmist creed, giving the delightful Louise Gray a full page feature on how we're all gonna die ... or something like that. Most of the 28 comments are slightly uncomplimentary. 

That fool Will Heaven is still on the case though – although one of his commenters notes, unkindly but accurately, that the only way little Willie can get a decent amount of comments on his blogs is when he disses James (Dellingpole).

Booker's column is running at 1246 comments at the moment, which must please little Louise and Willie mightily, and they will be especially pleased that Charles Moore is reviewing his mate's book under the title "'Saving' the planet will be the real disaster".

I'm not sure this is what the warmists had in mind for their slugfest in Copenhagen though.

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Al-Gore gets it! - by Richard...

Subrosa has it. "This guy's a fraud!"

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Not just the CRU - by Richard...

Devil's Kitchen has an update. They're all at it – as if we didn't know that already.

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Here we go - by Richard...

The BBC climate propaganda unit is in full flow, offering space to Mike Hulme (he of the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia), and Jerome Ravetz.

They say that "Climategate" shows that "we need a more concerted effort to explain and engage the public in understanding the processes and practices of science and scientists." But, courtesy of "Climategate", we understand those "processes and practices" all too well.

Nevertheless, these proto-Marxists acknowledge the need "for major changes in the relationship between science and the public." By this, though, they mean "a more concerted effort to explain and engage the public in understanding the processes and practices of science and scientists, as much as explaining the substance of their knowledge and how (un)certain it is."

And their answer to that is a "Citizen's Panel on Climate Change." Next in line, a Committee of Public Safety?

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Theft of data - by Richard...

Funny how the BBC and all the rest of the media fluff get on their high horse about the "stolen data" from the CRU.

Does anyone recall such constant references to "stolen data" when The Daily Scarygraph did its extravaganza on MPs' expenses? And how many media outlets didn't use that material because it was stolen?

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Oh dear, dear - by Richard...

Heffer really hasn't got it. Under the headline, "David Cameron must learn the dangers of tinkering with the constitution", we are told "Labour has not just hobbled the Union, but wrecked our whole system of government."

In the yards of EVM that follows, not one mention of the EU. Yet the consolidated treaties are part of our constitution, and our supreme government is in Brussels. How can you write about reforming our constitution without mentioning the elephant?

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A peace conference - by Richard...

Bob Krause,Democratic candidate for US Senate today called for President Obama to call an international peace conference to find a permanent peaceful solution to instability in Afghanistan and the surrounding region. 

"It is obvious from intelligence reports that various international interests are actually feeding the fire in Afghanistan, in part to tie down the United States. Russian arms, Chinese arms and Indian arms do provide some evidence that each of these regional powers is using the war in Afghanistan to achieve strategic advantage. In addition, friction between Afghanistan and Pakistan going back to the colonial division of the territory of the Pashtun tribal nation between Pakistan and Afghanistan is driving and complicating US efforts to stabilize the region." said Krause.

"Unless these regional frictions are identified and negotiated, we will only be spilling blood for a temporary fix that will disappear as a will-o-the-wisp into another round of brutal civil war.

This peace conference is urgent not only for the purpose of saving US, ally and Afghanistani lives, but it is also needed to prevent the US military incursion from destabilizing Pakistan. Pakistan has 180 million people. If we think we have troubles in this region of the world with Afghanistan destabilized, just wait until Pakistan is destabilized," added Krause. 

The Bob Krause campaign sponsored a panel of military analysts to respond to President Obama's speech on the war escalation. Besides Krause, participants included Jeffrey Weiss, director of the Catholic Peace Ministry in Des Moines, Richard North, a noted military analyst from Europe, and Gordon Duff, senior editor of VeteransToday.Com. 

An audio tape of the Krause discussion panel in response to President Obama's speech on Afghanistan is available. If you want to hear the discussion, you can call 605-475-4848. Use Access Code 975120#. This is a very detailed discussion Afghanistan and why we need an international peace conference there instead of more troops.

Krause, from Fairfield, is a retired lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, with a brevet promotion to full colonel. He is past state president of the Reserve Officers Association and also served on the nation board of directors of the ROA. Currently he is chair of the Iowa Democratic Veterans Caucus.

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Polyfilla at the ready - by Richard...

The Times is doing the collapse of the Australian carbon emissions trading scheme Bill big time. 

The government's Bill was voted down 41 to 33 this morning at the end of a marathon debate, a defeat the paper says became inevitable "when the main opposition party dumped its leader and replaced him with a climate change sceptic."

This is Tony Abbott. Described as "a right-wing maverick", he has scuppered Kevin Rudd, the current prime minister, who "had been eager to be seen as a world heavyweight in tackling global warming and wanted the legislation in place before the UN summit on climate change in Copenhagen next week." 

There is a similar revolt brewing in the United States, which means a lot of climate alarmists and grandstanders are going to go to Copenhagen empty-handed.

With the cracks showing in the supposi-Tory party, ToryBoyBlog and Iain Dale are ladling in the Polyfilla in an attempt to shore up the crumbling edifice. It is going to take more than two tubs to fill this lot though. 

As for the UK dumping its version of the emission trading scheme, which was at the heart of the Aussie Bill, well – ours is dictated by the EU, which means we are lumbered with it unless Dave grows some, or is otherwise ousted.

It would be hugely ironic if greenery, chosen by the Boy as a symbol of the renaissance of the Tories, should prove to be its downfall. It will be fun watching.

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The big climate change fraud - by Richard...

The scientific consensus that mankind has caused climate change was rocked yesterday as a leading academic called it a "load of hot air underpinned by fraud", says The Daily Express.

Professor Ian Plimer, we are told, condemned the climate change lobby as "climate comrades" keeping the "gravy train" going. Governments were treating the public like "fools" and using climate change to increase taxes.

He said carbon dioxide has had no impact on temperature and that recent warming was part of the natural cycle of climate stretching over billions of years. "Climates always change. They always have and they always will. They are driven by a number of factors that are random and cyclical."

You would expect Plimer to say such things, and he will have no immediate effect on the scientific community, or the politics. But the fact that this story is on the front page of a national paper is something of a breakthrough. The first glimmer of light.

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Message to the Environmental Movement - by Richard...

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The greenie's not for turning - by Richard...

The Independent is telling us that the Boy Cameron is facing "a growing challenge to his authority from senior members of his own party who say they have doubts about the Conservatives' stance on global warming."

Leading figures including Peter Lilley, the former cabinet minister, Andrew Tyrie and Ann Widdecombe are openly questioning the political consensus on climate change. 

David Davis is also warning that the policy of tough targets to cut carbon emissions, supported by the Boy, is "destined to collapse". He criticises "the fixation of the green movement with setting ever tougher targets, in the face of failure to meet earlier promises". 

He adds: "The ferocious determination to impose hair-shirt policies on the public – taxes on holiday flights, or covering our beautiful countryside with wind turbines that look like props from War of the Worlds – is bound to cause a reaction in any democratic country."

Needless to say, Greg Clark, the shadow energy and climate change Secretary, denies that the supposi-Tories are split, insisting the party's sceptics hold "a minority view". He sees no evidence that their numbers are growing. "On policy, there is an increasingly strong consensus on what needs to be done," he adds.

Cameron's aides deny that the Tory leader would have to water down his "strong personal commitment to green issues," saying that would drive the party's policy. They said all parties had climate change sceptics in their ranks.

So there you are. Never mind about "Climategate". The greenie's not for turning.

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The news we want - by Richard...

Since August last Rupert Murdoch has been ramping up the volume on charging for online news content. 

And he was at it again yesterday, reiterating his belief that internet users will pay for content, saying they would be happy to shell out for "information they need to rise in society". From the beginning, newspapers have prospered for one reason: giving readers the news that they want," he said.

This is from a media mogul whose business lost an eye-watering £2 billion last year, whose Times and Sunday Times newspaper group lost £51.3 million in the year to 29 June 2008 – before even the collapse of Lehman Brothers and recession hit the advertising market.

Nevertheless, one would like to think that Murdoch is right on two counts – that people are prepared to pay for information they need, and that newspapers have prospered for one reason: the have been giving readers the news that they want. 

Therein, we feel, lies Murdoch's problem, which he shares with the rest of the legacy media. They have long ago stopped giving us the information we need, much less what we want. Instead, they have become propaganda organs, pushing their own agendas.

This disease, evident enough in The Times, is glaringly obvious in The Daily Telegraph, which is also losing money hand over fist. Despite there being the clearest of evidence that this paper's readers are hostile to the warmist creed, its output has been given over to promoting the cause, to an almost laughable extent.

Thus, with over 12 million pages on "Climategate", the Telegraph's environment correspondent Louise Gray chooses to visit the issue only now, towards the end of its second week. But even then, hers is only a passing reference, the main thrust of her story being to pick up a small error on Lord Lawson's think-tank website.

That is enough for Gray to write under the triumphal headline: "Climate sceptics get it wrong," as she gleefully announces that the think-tank was "set up in the wake of the 'climategate scandal' that saw scientists at the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU) accused of manipulating climate change data."

But since Louise Gray is so concerned about accurate reporting, she might like to revisit a story published by her colleague Paul Eccleston on 14 November 2008, also in The Daily Telegraph. This announced: "Himalayan glaciers 'could disappear completely by 2035'", a report based – so we are told – on claims by "Indian climate experts".

However, the Pajamasmedia blog has tracked down the original source of the research on which this claim was based, which found its way into the IPCC 2007 climate change reports. And it turns out that the research was published in a paper by Kotlyakov, V.M., ed., in 1996, entitled "Variations of Snow and Ice in the Past and at Present on a Global and Regional Scale, Technical Documents in Hydrology."

Far from warning about the demise of the glaciers in 2035, though, the authors calculate, on the basis of linear projections of current trends, that the glaciers will disappear by 2350. The figure of 2035 then emerges in the official IPCC documents, explicable only because the IPCC authors misread 2350 as 2035 - a typographical error.

From there, it seems, the lower, erroneous figure has acquired the mantle of fact, by dint of its authoritative provenance and its constant, uncritical repetition in the likes of The Daily Telegraph. Even yesterday our Louise was prattling on about glaciers disappearing, yet never once has she sought to check the source of her claims.

And that really is the problem writ large. The media have stopped giving us the news we want, and are now attempting to feed us with the news they want us to believe. And we ain't buying it – literally or figuratively. Nor will we buy it, for as long as the legacy media treats it customers with such contempt.

More on Your freedom and ours.

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The wages of "Climategate" - by Richard... Tuesday, December 01, 2009

The Associated Press is reporting that Phil Jones, director of the "prestigious" Climatic Research Unit is stepping down "pending an investigation into allegations that he overstated the case for man-made climate change".

We are told by the University of East Anglia authorities that he is to relinquish his position until the completion of an independent review into allegations that he worked to alter the way in which global temperature data was presented.

This is the first scientific "casualty" of the Climategate scandal. And, although it may presage a whitewash, the fact that this action has been taken immediately prior to the Copenhagen conference, suggests that the furore is being taken seriously by the university.

The move on Jones follows the dumping of Malcolm Turnbull, the former leader of Australia's Liberal party, and his replacement by Tony Abbott, an avowed climate sceptic. Turnbull is regarded as the first major political casualty of the scandal.

Both these episodes largely vindicate bloggers and the few media commentators who took up the issue, leaving the MSM trailing. One wonders whether the media will now take the issue more seriously.

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The wages of Lisbon - by Richard...

The Tory Boy blog picks up the report that approval for the Boy is declining, the start of the fall coinciding with his sell-out on the EU referendum.

Cranmer gets the point, but it is clear that too many of supposi-Tories don't. The Boy thought he had parked "Europe" with his faux policy – he hasn't. It is coming back to haunt him, and will continue to do so until he addresses it.