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Share this newsletter:  Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser. HOME     WHO WE ARE     LATEST POSTINGS     GWPF REPORTS     PRESS RELEASES     VIDEOS     CONTACT CCNet 18/03/13 Climate Scientists Turn Sceptical As Climate Predictions Fail British Government Abandons Climate Change Education For Young Children     The Mail on Sunday today presents irrefutable evidence that official predictions of global climate warming have been catastrophically flawed.The graph on this page blows apart the ‘scientific basis’ for Britain reshaping its entire economy and spending billions in taxes and subsidies in order to cut emissions of greenhouse gases. The graph shows in incontrovertible detail how the speed of global warming has been massively overestimated. Yet those forecasts have had a ruinous impact on the bills we pay, from heating to car fuel to huge sums paid by councils to reduce carbon emissions. The eco-debate was, in effect, hijacked by false data. --David Rose, Mail on Sunday, 17 March 2013       Academics are revising their views after acknowledging the miscalculation. Last night Myles Allen, Oxford University’s Professor of Geosystem Science, said that until recently he believed the world might be on course for a catastrophic temperature rise of more than five degrees this century. But he now says: ‘The odds have come down,’ – adding that warming is likely to be significantly lower. Prof Allen says higher estimates are now ‘looking iffy’. --David Rose, Mail on Sunday, 17 March 2013 Many scientists say the pause, and new research into factors such as smoke particles and ocean cycles, has made them rethink what is termed ‘climate sensitivity’ – how much the world will warm for a given level of CO2. Yesterday Piers Forster, Climate Change Professor at Leeds University, said: ‘The fact that global surface temperatures haven’t risen in the last 15 years, combined with good knowledge of the terms changing climate, make the high estimates unlikely.’ --David Rose, Mail on Sunday, 17 March 2013 Professor Judith Curry, head of climate science at the prestigious Georgia Institute of Technology, said: ‘The models are running too hot. The flat trend in global surface temperatures may continue for another decade or two.’ Avowed climate sceptics are more  unequivocal. Dr David Whitehouse, author of a new report on the pause published on Friday by Lord Lawson’s Global Warming Policy Foundation, said: ‘This changes everything. It means we have much longer to work things out. Global warming should no longer be the main determinant of anyone’s economic or energy policy.’ --David Rose, Mail on Sunday, 17 March 2013         The implications of the inconvenient truth we publish today are profound. Since the Kyoto Treaty in 1997, Britain has been impoverishing itself in a lonely quest to cut its CO2 emissions – even though the world’s powerhouse economies, such as China and America, have refused to set any limits. It is clear that the science, supposedly ‘settled’, is deeply uncertain, while growing numbers of experts now say that the effects of greenhouse gases are much less bad than they feared: any warming is going to happen much more slowly than they thought a few years ago. --Editorial, Mail on Sunday, 17 March 2013         The Met Office figures come as a report by the Global Warming Policy Foundation claims there been no “statistically significant increase” in global temperatures in 16 years. Dr Benny Peiser, director of the foundation, said: “The biggest surprise for climate scientists is the discrepancy between the predictions and the reality of ongoing warming standing still. It suggests that the climate models on which these predictions are based are flawed. Scientists are beginning to reconsider whether their previous, more doom-laden predictions, were overegged. We should reconsider all policies that may turn out to be hugely wasteful and potentially economically disastrous.” --Daily Express, 18 March 2013         Mysteriously, anything can be produced as evidence of global warming – hot weather, cold weather, wet weather and dry. Climate change has become a religion and any diversion from the orthodox view is pounced on as evidence of heretical wickedness. Those who beg to differ about the global warming creed are held up as wicked rather than merely sceptical. But now new data from the Met Office is at odds with the doomy computer predictions from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The new data show that the pace of climate change has been wildly overestimated. –-Editorial, Daily Express, 18 March 2013           De rigueur though it may be to describe Sir David Attenborough as a “national treasure” and our “greatest living naturalist”, it really is time he was called to account for the shameless way in which he has allowed himself to be made the front-man for one particular propaganda campaign that has stood all genuine scientific evidence on its head. Last week yet another report picked up on the part Sir David has played in promoting what the facts show to have been no more than a colossal scare story. . --Christopher Booker, The Sunday Telegraph, 17 March 2013     A man with a conviction is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point. We have all experienced the futility of trying to change a strong conviction, especially if the convinced person has some investment in his belief. We are familiar with the variety of ingenious defenses with which people protect their convictions, managing to keep them unscathed through the most devastating attacks. But man’s resourcefulness goes beyond simply protecting a belief. Suppose an individual believes something with his whole heart; suppose further that he has a commitment to this belief, that he has taken irrevocable actions because of it; finally, suppose that he is presented with evidence, unequivocal and undeniable evidence, that his belief is wrong: what will happen? The individual will frequently emerge, not only unshaken, but even more convinced of the truth of his beliefs than ever before. Indeed, he may even show a new fervor about convincing and converting other people to his view. --Leon Festinger, When Prophecy Fails 1956         Debate about climate change has been cut out of the national curriculum for children under 14, prompting claims of political interference in the syllabus by the government that has failed “our duty to future generations”. The latest draft guidelines for children in key stages 1 to 3 have no mention of climate change under geography teaching and a single reference to how carbon dioxide produced by humans impacts on the climate in the chemistry section. There is also no reference to sustainable development, only to the “efficacy of recycling”, again as a chemistry subject. The move has caused alarm among climate campaigners and scientists who say teaching about climate change in schools has helped mobilise young people to be the most vociferous advocates of action by governments, business and society to tackle the issue. --Juliette Jowit, The Guardian, 18 March 2013       1) Climate Scientists Turn Sceptical As Climate Predictions Fail - Mail on Sunday, 17 March 2013 2) Editorial: Time To Face This Inconvenient Truth - Mail on Sunday, 17 March 2013 3) Editorial: Eco Taxes Are Nonsense If The Earth Isn’t Warming - Daily Express, 18 March 2013 4) Sir David Attenborough Should Check His facts On Polar Bears - The Sunday Telegraph, 17 March 2013 5) UK Government Abandons Climate Change Education For Children Under The Age of 14 - The Guardian, 18 March 2013         1) Climate Scientists Turn Sceptical As Climate Predictions Fail Mail on Sunday, 17 March 2013 David Rose The Mail on Sunday today presents irrefutable evidence that official predictions of global climate warming have been catastrophically flawed. The graph on this page blows apart the ‘scientific basis’ for Britain reshaping its entire economy and spending billions in taxes and subsidies in order to cut emissions of greenhouse gases. These moves have already added £100 a year to household energy bills. Steadily climbing orange and red bands on the graph show the computer predictions of world temperatures used by the official United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The estimates – given with 75 per cent and 95 per cent certainty – suggest only a five per cent chance of the real temperature falling outside both bands. But when the latest official global temperature figures from the Met Office are placed over the predictions, they show how wrong the estimates have been, to the point of falling out of the ‘95 per cent’ band completely. The graph shows in incontrovertible detail how the speed of global warming has been massively overestimated. Yet those forecasts have had a ruinous impact on the bills we pay, from heating to car fuel to huge sums paid by councils to reduce carbon emissions. The eco-debate was, in effect, hijacked by false data. The forecasts have also forced jobs abroad as manufacturers relocate to places with no emissions targets. A version of the graph appears in a leaked draft of the IPCC’s landmark Fifth Assessment Report due out later this year. It comes as leading climate scientists begin to admit that their worst fears about global warming will not be realised.  Academics are revising their views after acknowledging the miscalculation. Last night Myles Allen, Oxford University’s Professor of Geosystem Science, said that until recently he believed the world might be on course for a catastrophic temperature rise of more than five degrees this century. But he now says: ‘The odds have come down,’ – adding that warming is likely to be significantly lower. Prof Allen says higher estimates are now ‘looking iffy’. The graph confirms there has been no statistically significant increase in the world’s average temperature since January 1997 – as this newspaper first disclosed last year.  At the end of last year the Met Office revised its ten-year forecast predicting a succession of years breaking records for warmth. It now says the pause in warming will last until at least 2017. A glance at the graph will confirm that the world will be cooler than even the coolest scenario predicted. Its source is impeccable. The line showing world temperatures comes from the Met Office ‘HadCRUT4’ database, which contains readings from more than 30,000 measuring posts. This was added to the 75 and 95 per cent certainty bands to produce the graph by a group that amalgamates the work of 20 climate model centres working for the IPCC. Predictions of global warming, based on scientists’ forecasts of how  fast increasing CO2 levels would cause temperatures to rise, directly led to Britain’s Climate Change Act. This commits the UK to cut emissions by 80 per cent by 2050.  In the Seventies, scientists and policymakers were just as concerned about a looming ‘ice age’ as they have been lately about global warming – as the Time magazine cover  pictured here illustrates. Varying fears: In 1977 we were warned of the 'next ice age', now we are warned that the planet is getting dangerously hot Temperatures had been falling since the beginning of the Forties. Professors warned that the trend would continue and food crises were going to get worse because of shorter growing seasons. Newsweek magazine reported that evidence of cooling was so strong ‘meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it’. But, it lamented, ‘scientists see few signs that government leaders anywhere are even prepared to take the simple measures of introducing the variables of climatic uncertainty into economic projections’. It said the planet was already ‘a sixth of the way towards  the next ice age’. While recently every kind of extreme weather event has been blamed on warming, in the Seventies the culprit was cooling. One article predicted ‘the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded’, along with ‘droughts, floods, extended dry spells and long freezes’. The current Energy Bill is set to increase subsidies for wind turbines to £7.6 billion a year – leading to a combined cost of £110 billion. Motorists will soon see a further 3p per litre rise in the cost of petrol because this now has to contain ‘biofuel’ ethanol. Many scientists say the pause, and new research into factors such as smoke particles and ocean cycles, has made them rethink what is termed ‘climate sensitivity’ – how much the world will warm for a given level of CO2. Yesterday Piers Forster, Climate Change Professor at Leeds University, said: ‘The fact that global surface temperatures haven’t risen in the last 15 years, combined with good knowledge of the terms changing climate, make the high estimates unlikely.’ And Professor Judith Curry, head of climate science at the prestigious Georgia Institute of Technology, said: ‘The models are running too hot. The flat trend in global surface temperatures may continue for another decade or two.’  James Annan, of Frontier Research For Global Change, a prominent ‘warmist’, recently said high estimates for climate sensitivity now look ‘increasingly untenable’, with the true figure likely to be about half of the IPCC prediction in its last report in 2007. Avowed climate sceptics are more  unequivocal. Dr David Whitehouse, author of a new report on the pause published on Friday by Lord Lawson’s Global Warming Policy Foundation, said: ‘This changes everything. It means we have much longer to work things out. Global warming should no longer be the main determinant of anyone’s economic or energy policy.’   see also: The Great Green Con no.2: How councils duped by bad science hire 'eco' snoopers - but slash OAPs' benefits …. And the MPs and peers who benefit from green causes 2) Editorial: Time To Face This Inconvenient Truth Mail on Sunday, 17 March 2013 The implications of the inconvenient truth we publish today are profound. Since the Kyoto Treaty in 1997, Britain has been impoverishing itself in a lonely quest to cut its CO2 emissions – even though the world’s powerhouse economies, such as China and America, have refused to set any limits. It is clear that the science, supposedly ‘settled’, is deeply uncertain, while growing numbers of experts now say that the effects of greenhouse gases are much less bad than they feared: any warming is going to happen much more slowly than they thought a few years ago. It is time to join the dots. The way is open to solving this country’s most serious problems, all at once. The Chancellor, pondering next week’s Budget, knows the US is not only avoiding a triple-dip recession but is also expecting more than three per growth this year. This is thanks mainly to ‘fracking’ for the natural shale gas beneath its soil, which produces 37 per cent of the CO2 emitted by coal when generating cheap, clean electricity. In the US, once-moribund industries are being reborn, with jobs lost to China now returning home, while CO2 emissions are back to 1990 levels. Britain can follow this lead. We too have vast reserves of shale gas, as yet untapped. The time has come to scrap the Energy Bill, together with existing ‘renewable’ energy subsidies. It is now clear that we have decades to come up with the really serious low- carbon energy sources which may one day be needed.  By abandoning wind, nuclear and other failed, risky or dubious ‘renewables’, and exploiting the benefits of shale gas, we can simultaneously boost our economy and shrink our national carbon footprint. It would be irresponsible to ignore such an opportunity.       3) Editorial: Eco Taxes Are Nonsense If The Earth Isn’t Warming Daily Express, 18 March 2013 Green taxes have already added at least £100 a year to household energy bills and successive governments have viewed the threat of global warming and rising CO2 levels as a as a means of brow-beating the public while making them pay for the privilege. Mysteriously, anything can be produced as evidence of global warming – hot weather, cold weather, wet weather and dry. Climate change has become a religion and any diversion from the orthodox view is pounced on as evidence of heretical wickedness. Those who beg to differ about the global warming creed are held up as wicked rather than merely sceptical. But now new data from the Met Office is at odds with the doomy computer predictions from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The new data show that the pace of climate change has been wildly overestimated. Scientists are admitting that warnings of global catastrophe were way off the mark. “The odds have come down”, admitted Myles Allen, Professor of Geosystem Science at Oxford University who until recently believed that we were in for an apocalyptic temperature rise of five degrees this century. The new Met Office figures indicate that there has been no significant increase in the world’s temperature since 1997. Politicians love cherry-picking science “facts” to support their own agendas. Let’s see how they talk their way out of the Met Office’s inconvenient findings.     4) Sir David Attenborough Should Check His facts On Polar Bears The Sunday Telegraph, 17 March 2013 Christopher Booker Sir David was wrong to join the chorus on global warming False alarm: between 1966 and 2006 polar-bear populations increased Photo: ALAMY   De rigueur though it may be to describe Sir David Attenborough as a “national treasure” and our “greatest living naturalist”, it really is time he was called to account for the shameless way in which he has allowed himself to be made the front-man for one particular propaganda campaign that has stood all genuine scientific evidence on its head. Last week yet another report picked up on the part Sir David has played in promoting what the facts show to have been no more than a colossal scare story. It is now seven years since Sir David was first wheeled out by the BBC as the main cheerleader in its campaign to whip up panic over man-made global warming. In two documentaries, he presented himself as a one-time “climate sceptic” who had now been convinced by the evidence. The only problem was that, as he repeated a series of familiar alarmist mantras, there was little sign that he had checked the evidence for any of them: not least his claim that, thanks to the melting of Arctic ice, the world’s polar bear population, already down by a quarter, could be facing extinction. Pressure groups such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth had already made polar bears the most iconic image for their crusade to save the planet. WWF, in its relentless pursuit of funds, was moving on from pandas to appealing to the public to “pay £3 a month to adopt a polar bear”. Vainly, in the face of this avalanche of propaganda, did an array of experts and bodies such as the US National Biological Service and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature point out that, thanks to curbs on hunting in the Seventies, the world’s polar bear population had, in fact, risen from 10,000 in 1966 to 25,000 or more in 2006; that all but one of their 19 main groups were significantly increasing in numbers; and that, based on observed data rather than highly questionable computer models, there was not a shred of evidence of any threat to the bears from climate change. Al Gore twice famously fell flat on his face in promoting the cause, first when his film An Inconvenient Truth focused on the fate of four bears that were later shown just to have drowned in a storm; then when he made big play with a picture of two bears on a half-melted iceberg, which the photographer later protested she had only taken because it was a striking image, unconnected in any way with climate change. But although Al Gore may have been notoriously reckless in misusing evidence, he has no pretensions to being a scientist. Sir David’s reputation, on the other hand, is that of a man with respect for science, although this did not prevent him in 2009 from supporting a ridiculous BBC publicity stunt involving a giant blow-up plastic polar bear floating down the Thames, or making polar bears a key feature of his Frozen Planet series in 2011, ending in a propaganda pitch for global-warming alarmism that somehow managed to overlook the fact that polar sea ice had recently been greater in extent than at any time in 30 years. When, last week, the Global Warming Policy Foundation published a new report, Ten Good Reasons Not to Worry About Polar Bears, Matt (now Lord) Ridley referred in his foreword to Sir David’s bizarre determination to ignore the evidence. The report’s author, Susan Crockford, an experienced Canadian polar bear expert, explains just why there is no connection between the thriving polar bear population and climate change, and how this has been concocted into one of the great urban myths of our time. Nothing is going to stand in the way of Sir David’s reputation as a national treasure, even though it rests so largely on the extraordinary skill of the cameramen who make his documentaries so memorable. But for his readiness to lend his immense prestige to a scare story that defies all the evidence he deserves no respect at all.   5) UK Government Abandons Climate Change Education For Children Under The Age of 14 The Guardian, 18 March 2013 Juliette Jowit Debate about climate change has been cut out of the national curriculum for children under 14, prompting claims of political interference in the syllabus by the government that has failed “our duty to future generations”. The latest draft guidelines for children in key stages 1 to 3 have no mention of climate change under geography teaching and a single reference to how carbon dioxide produced by humans impacts on the climate in the chemistry section. There is also no reference to sustainable development, only to the “efficacy of recycling”, again as a chemistry subject. The move has caused alarm among climate campaigners and scientists who say teaching about climate change in schools has helped mobilise young people to be the most vociferous advocates of action by governments, business and society to tackle the issue. Full story