Wedded to their lies - by Richard... Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Wedded to their lies - by Richard... Tuesday, February 23, 2010

The warmists have been continuing to huff and puff about the terrible sceptics who are calling their religion into question, one of the latest broadsides coming from The Guardian yesterday, headed: "Do climate change sceptics give scepticism a bad name?"

The details need not detain us, other than to note that this is an authored piece by Adam Corner, a research associate at Cardiff University. His interests, we are told, "include the psychology of communicating climate change".

It might help though if Corner told us that his "interests" were slightly more formal than his casual description would imply. His University is in fact a partner in an EU-funded project called PACHELBEL, funded to the tune of €1.68 million, researching "consumer behaviour" in relation to climate change.

Corner's work comes on the back of an earlier survey which addresses resistance to the climate change message, making this apparently independent academic a paid servant of the EU, charged with fighting climate scepticism.

Although not always picked up directly, it is this patina of dishonesty shrouding the warmists that is breaking though. Nothing they say is now regarded as trustworthy.

With that in mind, we had another look at Pauchauri's golf course and the TERI claim that the irrigation included an "efficient rainwater harvesting system".

The golf course is part of the "Retreat" site, of which TERI is inordinately proud, featuring it in detail on its website. Strangely, there is no mention of rainwater harvesting – or indeed of the golf course or cricket pitches, much less the badminton green.

Where we do get a reference to water harvesting is in respect of waste water produced on the site, which we are told is used for irrigation – all five cubic metres or about 1000 gallons a day. The system is pictured above.

Considering the site may need as much as 300,000 gallons a day during the dry season, that 1000 gallons seems hardly sufficient.

Nevertheless, taking TERI at its word, we took a look at the rainfall stats of the region and calculated that the two feet of rainfall, over 27 rainy days would yield just over 42 million gallons on the basis of full recovery. Yet the requirement for irrigation, even at a reduced rate of 100,000 gpd would require over 300 million gallons for the entire season.

These are only rough calculations, based on several assumptions, and they may even be wildly wrong. But they are enough to cast doubt on a source that has already exhausted its quota of trust. The odds are, the site has a borehole and is robbing fellow Indians of their drinking water in a water-parched city.

As a refreshing change, therefore, we see today an editorial in the Wall Street Journal. It tells us that sceptics "don't doubt science -they doubt unscientific claims cloaked in the authority of science." 

"Those who want to persuade others of the truth as they see it", the paper concludes, "need to make their case as transparently as possible." Technology enables access to information and leads us to expect open debates, conducted honestly and in full view. This is inconvenient for those who want to claim unequivocal truth without having the evidence. But that's the way it is.

This is something the likes of Corner, Pachauri and the rest need to learn, but seem incapable of learning. Shrieking at us, calling us names, and demanding unqualified belief, isn't working any more – it never really did. But they can't try honesty – if they do, they have no scare and lose their power.

The warmists, therefore, are wedded to their lies. They have nowhere to go.

CLIMATE CHANGE – FINAL PHASE THREAD

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That "conspiracy" meme - by Richard... Monday, February 22, 2010

Anthony Watts over at Watts up with that is a tad miffed with The Guardian - and rightly so.

But we are all getting a little weary with the desperation of the warmists to pin their conspiracy meme on us – the constant prattling about climate sceptics being funded by corporate interests.

As with just about everything associated with these people, there is a fundamental dishonesty about their argument. They pick up on the sceptic funding, ignoring the fact that most activists are entirely self-funded and working on a shoe-string, and ignore completely their own funding.

Yet, when it comes to corporate funding, one of the biggest "corporates" of them all is the European Union. In the run-up to the IPCC's AR4 (2002-2006), it threw €2.3 billion – yes BILLION – at climate change under its FP6-SUSTDEV programme.

Taking account matched funding from institutions and member state governments, plus separate national programmes (such as the £243 million the UK has allocated to the Met Office), and you are almost certainly talking about a sum in the region of €5 billion, out of Europe alone.

We do not have the specific figures for US research in that very narrow period (2002-2006), butJoanne Nova offers a sum of $36 billion for climate research over 20 years.

Given inputs from Canada, Australia and other developed countries – all within the same nexus – and the huge flow of funds from the giant US charitable foundations, plus corporate spending and the NGOs, and you can easily make a case for expenditure on pushing the climate change agenda in the run-up to AR4 exceeding $10 billion ... or £10 billion if you prefer, as long as we are in ballpark figures.

It is virtually impossible to work out the level of sceptic spending, but even if you put the total figure at £100 million (and that would take a giant leap of faith), that gives a spending ratio of something like 100:1 in favour of the warmists.

One could, of course, take the warmist paranoia over sceptic funding as a compliment. Despite the torrent of funds, they are on the back foot, run ragged by a citizen army, many equipped with no more than a laptop and a brain.

On the other hand, you can see where the warmists are coming from. Having thrown money at their new religion and been unable to prove their case, for them to admit that they are being defeated by so slender an opposition must be the ultimate humiliation.

Hence, for their own self-esteem, they have to invent their "well-funded, highly organised conspiracy" meme. To admit to reality would be more than they could cope with – they would probably suffer collective nervous breakdowns if they confronted the truth.

Speaking of which, does anyone know where Moonbat is?

CLIMATE CHANGE – FINAL PHASE THREAD