Quote from flymike91 :

Sam the constitution is in no way socialist, in fact it is the exact opposite. It is the modern interpretation of the constitution that has become more socialist. I also don't agree that americans are less aware of foreign politics, they just happen to be so far to the left of the average american that they don't seem relevant to our ways and systems. The problem today is that the liberals in power have this idea that Europe is a utopia where the people answer to and rely on the government for all their needs. Those left-wing politicians are the same ones who act as though the constitution is no longer relevant and try to pass legislation like socialized healthcare which is against everything the constitution was designed to protect: individual liberty, responsibility, and power, not the government's.

Oh, wow. You're about as bad as Beck. "The liberals" are doing things that are unconstitutional, you say? What about the unconstitutional things the last Bush administration did (like the Patriot act, removal of civil liberties etc)? Not to mention the fact they cheated their way into power (at least once).

Quote from Intrepid :

America can feel 'oppressive' but I found it's more about strength of character than anything. Having to be independant and sort yourself out can feel oppressive if your used to being spoon fed, like we are in the UK.

It's a wonderful thing to be advantaged isn't it?

I truely hope you don't ever find yourself at the mercy of debilitating illness or misfortune where you, through no fault of your own, have to rely on the mercy, good will and basic human compasion of others.

Don't bother replying with some such statement as "I wouldn't let it happen to me" or "I'd work out a way to survive" etc.. because you'd only show an ignorance of the randomness of what life can bring on a person if you do.

Point being, it's very easy to believe in the freedom of the individual and free market economies et al ethics when you're in the Privileged position of being smart, healthy and rich (in world terms).

Quote from amp88 :

Oh, wow. You're about as bad as Beck. "The liberals" are doing things that are unconstitutional, you say? What about the unconstitutional things the last Bush administration did (like the Patriot act, removal of civil liberties etc)? Not to mention the fact they cheated their way into power (at least once).

You asume FlyMike supports what Bush did. The actual 'purists' in the American 'right' (right and left politics isn't actually a real thing IMO) like say Ron Paul have been extremely critical. The purists don't like Bush!

Quote from gezmoor :

It's a wonderful thing to be advantaged isn't it?

I truely hope you don't ever find yourself at the mercy of debilitating illness or misfortune where you, through no fault of your own, have to rely on the mercy, good will and basic human compasion of others.

Don't bother replying with some such statement as "I wouldn't let it happen to me" or "I'd work out a way to survive" etc.. because you'd only show an ignorance of the randomness of what life can bring on a person if you do.

Point being, it's very easy to believe in the freedom of the individual and free market economies et al ethics when you're in the Privileged position of being smart, healthy and rich (in world terms).

Which of course is political bribery. Take from the rich, and give to the poor... it's a wonderful vote winner. Only your system doesn't work. Countries that have these system run up huge deficits and debt and lay to ruin... just like we are now. Just look at the UK for ONE moment. We are in an economic mess. We can't afford anything let alone healthcare. Doesn't matter tho as long as it's 'fair'

ANyone gone way off topic. Anyone got any more news snippets

Quote from Intrepid :

ANyone gone way off topic. Anyone got any more news snippets

"Climate nut Brown will ruin Britain"

"The cuts are likely to require controversial measures such as more wind turbines, road pricing and green taxes.

A Treasury spokesman yesterday defended Mr Brown’s offer, saying: “We believe there are considerable economic advantages in investing in green technologies and being at the forefront of them.” "

i.e. advantages needed because of the crippling effect of promising billions of pounds of money we don't have to nations who can't pay it back, totally ignoring the shambles we are in at the present time

something of major importance to this debate...

How Wikipedia’s green doctor ... te 5,428 climate articles

what is shocking is the scale, thousands upon thousands of articles changed by pro-AGW fanatics

"U.K. scientist and Green Party activist William Connolley — would take on particularly crucial duties.

Connolley took control of all things climate in the most used information source the world has ever known – Wikipedia. Starting in February 2003, just when opposition to the claims of the band [Hadley Centre, CRU etc] members were beginning to gel, Connolley set to work on the Wikipedia site. He rewrote Wikipedia’s articles on global warming, on the greenhouse effect, on the instrumental temperature record, on the urban heat island, on climate models, on global cooling. On Feb. 14, he began to erase the Little Ice Age; on Aug.11, the Medieval Warm Period. In October, he turned his attention to the hockey stick graph. He rewrote articles on the politics of global warming and on the scientists who were skeptical of the band. Richard Lindzen and Fred Singer, two of the world’s most distinguished climate scientists, were among his early targets, followed by others that the band especially hated, such as Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, authorities on the Medieval Warm Period. "

Quote from amp88 :

Oh, wow. You're about as bad as Beck. "The liberals" are doing things that are unconstitutional, you say? What about the unconstitutional things the last Bush administration did (like the Patriot act, removal of civil liberties etc)? Not to mention the fact they cheated their way into power (at least once).

I mentioned "political escape velocity" earlier. It's difficult to achieve for anyone, but it's clearly so especially for Mike, and also I think for Alan. It's not a criticism of Mike or Alan. We all have our notions of how things are and it's often difficult to break out of them to see the bigger pictures.

Connolley is definitely busted, though oddly he's never been busted for being deeply involved in the climate debate. He got busted for other things, which is pretty bizarre really, considering the volume and extent of his control of the climate entries on Wikipedia.

The whole AGW thing seems to be unravelling now, far more than I'd ever thought it would. A lot of people who have had little opinion, or have had an under-developed opinion on climate change will react very negatively to Connolley's behaviour on Wikipedia and will mentally place RealClimate and the AGW movement firmly in the "subversive" and/or "disingenuous" box. Frankly, given Connolley's activities on Wikipedia, I rather think they'd be quite right to do so.

Realistically probably not that useful a link, as I doubt anyone is going to trawl through them all, but here are all the emails in question in their full un edited glory:

http://www.eastangliaemails.com/index.php


Sorry if it's already been linked too.

Is the mainstream media reporting about Connolley yet? I haven't been by a tv in a while. This sounds like the kind of theing they'd whitewash though.

@sam I think we disagree about what the big picture looks like. I think Americans were more free in 1776 than we are now, and it didn't require socialism or a global government.

Quote from flymike91 :

Is the mainstream media reporting about Connolley yet? I haven't been by a tv in a while. This sounds like the kind of theing they'd whitewash though.

Absolutely not a peep from the MSM about Connolley yet. It's exactly the sort of thing they don't want people hearing

2 part article. Some stuff is redundant, some was new to me.


http://network.nationalpost.co ... nd-skepticism-part-1.aspx

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2365992

An interesting talk by Richard Lindzen, (atmospheric physicist & Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, published over 200 times), on the politisization of global warming.


http://reason.tv/video/show/mit-climatologist-richard-lind

Don't know if it's been posted here: Finnish documentaries on "climate change":

part 1: with automatically selected subtitles in several languages. Shows how they made the hockey stick graph.
http://dotsub.com/view/19f9c335-b023-4a40-9453-a98477314bf2

part 2 (of 3 parts): in the 3rd piece they show why the meteostations' measurements drifted upwards in the last decades
http://climateaudit.org/2009/1 ... limategate-on-finnish-tv/

IPCC and Pachauri have been copping a fair bit of flak lately...


In the press,


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/t ... onment/article6991177.ece

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/t ... onment/article6994774.ece

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new ... rified.html#ixzz0dUoPiTkG

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/t ... l&offset=0&page=1

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/t ... onment/article7000063.ece

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/com ... -Glaciergate-scandal.html



In the blogs,


http://wattsupwiththat.com/201 ... rrogance-claim-backfires/

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/23/highnoon-for-pachauri/

http://nofrakkingconsensus.blo ... ons-in-nobel-winning.html

http://climateaudit.org/2010/0 ... rs-and-sunday-in-england/

Bump:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03 ... 1climate.html?ref=science

Quote :

U.K. Panel Calls Climate Data Valid
by the Associated Press

LONDON (AP) — A parliamentary panel investigating allegations that scientists at one of the world’s leading climate research centers misrepresented data related to global warming announced Wednesday that it had found no evidence to support that charge.

But the panel, the Science and Technology Committee of the British House of Commons, did fault scientists at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit and its director, Prof. Phil Jones, for the way they handled freedom of information requests from skeptics challenging the evidence of climate change.

The panel said that Professor Jones and his colleagues could have saved themselves a great deal of trouble by aggressively publishing all their data instead of worrying about how to stonewall their critics.

The lawmakers’ inquiry is the first of three to be opened in Britain since the dissemination in November of e-mail messages and data between the scientists that were apparently hacked from a computer system.

The lawmakers emphasized that nothing in the more than 1,000 stolen e-mail messages or in the ensuing controversy challenged the scientific consensus that “global warming is happening and that it is induced by human activity.”

At the same time, the lawmakers stressed that their report, written after only a single day of oral testimony, did not cover all the issues and that two other inquiries into the integrity of the science would be more thorough.

The lawmakers expressed sympathy with Professor Jones, whom Phil Willis, the committee’s chairman, said had been made a scapegoat for conflicts within the sphere of climate science.

“The focus on Professor Jones and the C.R.U. has been largely misplaced,” the report said.

The publication of the e-mail messages ahead of an international conference in Copenhagen on climate change set off an online furor, in which skeptics of human-made climate change referred to the controversy as “Climategate.”

The lawmakers noted that they decided to investigate the matter because of “the serious implications for U.K. science.”

Nicely timed to coincide with a massive hike in 'green taxes' for road users and fuel costs!

Yep, it's surely all a massive conspiracy!

:sleep2:

Quote from hrtburnout :

Yeah, I miss him too, where is he hanging around these days anyway?

I must say that the title is atrociously misleading. The "panel" - i.e. the parliamentary enquiry - didn't examine the data at all. Neither did it say, anywhere in the report (which I read the very minute it was released) that it found the data to be valid.

It's small wonder that a recent poll found that only 1% of people believe mainstream media is the best source for information on climate change.

Stopped reading here:

Quote :

At the same time, the lawmakers stressed that their report, written after only a single day of oral testimony, did not cover all the issues and that two other inquiries into the integrity of the science would be more thorough.

Sounds more like a PR exercise than an investigation. Looking forward to the other 2 inquiries.

Quote from amp88 :

Sounds more like a PR exercise than an investigation. Looking forward to the other 2 inquiries.

You're absolutely right, of course. Over at Spiked, Frank Furedi bagged the whole thing perfectly. It was a "ritual". He explains how and why... http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/8368/

Quote from SamH :

It's small wonder that a recent poll found that only 1% of people believe mainstream media is the best source for information on climate change.

That's an unfortunate consequence of legislation and taxation forcing companies to promote the 'green concept'. The mainstream media is in such a state right now in regards to revenue it really can't afford to go promoting an anti-green agenda in fear of scaring away companies having to advertise their 'green' credientials. The whole thing is one stinking big mess.

There are several issues here. One is a welcome confirmation by the committee that more transparency is required by UEA CRU and the climate community in general. There was an astounding admission by Jones here that providing data was not standard practice in climate science (I think that would set climate science apart as the only field in which it is ok to not show your work). Amazingly, even under peer review, the reviewers (Phil's friends) apparently would never ask for any supporting data- this means that this stuff has been taken on faith for a very long time. It certainly gives new meaning to the term 'peer review', ie- it's basically a meaningless term when applied here.

The panel stressed that this was not an inquiry into the science. Yet it's conclusion is that the science is robust. How can they come to that conclusion if they have not done proper investigation?

The committee disappointingly fell for the offical version of 'the trick' emails. They concluded that this was nothing more than a "colloquialism for a “neat” method of handling data." This has been shown to be a false reading by Steve McIntyre who has gone into this issue in great detail. Steve was able to show clearly that the 'trick' was indeed a trick (in the normal sense of the word)- you can read his latest thoughts on the committees findings, here.

I would agree with others here that the inquiry wasn't really anything other than a performance, a whitewash. But if nothing else comes out of it, there is acknowledgement now that climate science must become more transparent. This is good progress. It's what most sceptics want and have been calling for for a long time... simply the re-establishment of the scientific method in climate science (or the ability to replicate or falsify anothers work).

In other words, normal science.

So, is the global warming caused by human CO2 or not? ^^