Indeed, at the end of California's "invisible summer", which Californians complained was indistinguishable from the Spring. http://www.usatoday.com/weathe ... -cold-summer_N.htm?csp=34

As usual, alarmists have latched on to a weather event, attempting to describe it as symptomatic of global warming. Just like the Russian heat wave and the Pakistan floods, neither of which were unprecedented and neither of which can be in any way attributed to global warming - though, granted, only a few have really tried to make those claims stick.

The late summer heat in California is not unusual, and it's easily explained by perfectly natural blocking. The summer cool was not a symptom of global cooling and the September spike is not a symptom of global warming.

It's just fodder for those of an apocalyptic predisposition and an insatiable thirst for the dramatic.

Quote from DeadWolfBones :

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/ ... and.ice.island/index.html

Here's another news article on this event,

http://www.voanews.com/english ... ing-Debate-100590574.html

The same scientist (Muenchow) is quoted, but here he says-

Quote :

"Even a big piece like this over 50 years is not that significant. It's just the normal rate,"...

..."An event like this, this specific event, all flags go immediately up, 'Oh, let's explain this by global warming.' I cannot support that," he said.

On balance, Greenpeace Activist (Melanie Duchin) says:

Quote :

"I think this is more evidence to add to the growing body of knowledge that shows that climate change is happening,"

And the politician (Ed Markey) says:

Quote :

"Scientists have warned us that climate change will result in increased melting of glaciers and polar ice, more frequent and intense heat waves and wildfires, and increased drought and flooding,"

Three views- the scientist, the activist, and the politician.

I would probably go with the scientist in this case.

Steve McIntyre has been named one of the '50 most influential people' in the New Statesman's annual survey.


http://www.newstatesman.com/gl ... 9/climate-mcintyre-keeper

A lovely piece of AGW 'communication'.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSTLDel-G9k

Quote from Electrik Kar :

A lovely piece of AGW 'communication'.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSTLDel-G9k

HAHA that's a massive facepalm. Looks like some people are running out of ideas, or just pure intellect! It's not even good in a 'viral media' sort of way!

The fact it's part funded by the UK tax payer does raise serious propaganda alarm bells. Especially since kids will be watching this. This sorta stuff belongs in 1930s Germany!

I'd call it moral bankruptcy confusing itself with moral superiority.

You live and learn...


edit: this is one of the most ****ed up things I've seen in a long time.

A comment I posted on the very pro AGW site Climate Progress.

Quote :

Thanks Mr Romm/Mr Mckibben for your distancing from this horrible piece of communication. There is probably nothing more chilling to me than seeing people finding humour in the violent coercion of children into silence. That this film was ever approved along the whole chain of production is just unbelievable to me. I’m glad that even some of the most passionate and outspoken advocates of climate action here can see that this film is just so wrong on so many levels.

Personally, I am a sceptic of some of the pieces of evidence for AGW, and a believer (or no reason not to believe) for other pieces of evidence. I guess most people are not so black and white on this issue as some (the producers of this film?) would like to believe. I have also been involved in environmental restoration for most of my adult life, do not own a car or have a licence, am vegetarian and eat 80% organic food. I denounce rabid consumerism. I would like to know that just because I am sceptical of some of the claims of AGW theory that people around me would secretly like to explode me. I wonder how many trees these people have planted, or whether they drive themselves? Maybe it is me that should have the red button?

Anyway. I breathe some kind of sigh of relief here. This will be hard to let down from your end, a lot of people feel justifiably angry at this, myself included. This is coercive propaganda of an extreme kind. There is no reason at all to support this. The Guardian has just lost any respect I may have once had for it. And I don’t think I’ll be getting involved in any 10:10 campaign.


I hope you can ride this criticism with dignity and restraint. I wish you luck in your future communications with the public.

and

Quote :

PS, I also don’t think that the 10:10 campaigners themselves have properly apologised for this. They ‘imagine’ that most people found this funny and a few found it offensive, while the reverse situation is overwhelmingly in evidence. They need to stop dealing in distortions. This doesn’t sound like an apology to me. This is a ’sorry it didn’t work’ kind of apology.

'Tow the official line or die' is the message I got from that, hardly something to laugh about is it? The suppression of anyone who thinks differently.

And AGW is continualy portrayed as if it is a closed case, when it clearly isn't.

You know, I would actually like to see the Guardian go down the toilet for this one. They are already apparently on shaky legs financially. I hope people can register their disgust in the way The Guardian have supported this campaign.

I already left my last comment on their website. It was fairly short.

Quote :

Oh and, just a small message for the Guardian

**** you!

Apparently, I’m banned now from posting at Climate Progress.
I left a comment at the site of another guy who was quite rude to me. But that will probably disappear as well. Here it is for posterity-


“Hi Frank.


I just want to understand your reaction to my post on CP. I spelled out plainly that I have been involved in environmental restoration for years and have a consciously low carbon footprint.
Your reaction to my post was that I was an ‘inactivist sock puppet’.
Listen, I have no problem with actions on climate change, so I’m not sure where this came from. I’ve been a CC campaigner/anti nuke campaigner at various times.

Maybe you could list your ‘actions’?

This kind of response to me is exactly representative of the message of the video under discussion, where any deviation from officialdom is greeted with swift retribution, hostility, attack, and silencing. I am banned now from CP apparently so I guess Romm doesn’t really take kindly to this freedom of thought thing either. You know, I am a fairly reasonable guy. You could have engaged me in conversation and persuaded me by whatever it was that you thought I needed to know. I am open minded.
You and others at CP are alienating environmentalists and people who may care about these issues by your approach and that to me is a concern. Concern troll I may be. I agree you all need to sit down calmly and work out what needs to be done here. I suggest better interactions with the people who have problems about the messages being communicated in ‘mainstream’ enviromental media, for a start. You might find that the values being pushed in these communications are not so mainstream and that people are likely going to get upset. And damn right I am upset.

Unfortunately, due to your failure to engage with me on a human level, I’m still upset. And I will be likely pass along my experiences here to anyone who may be interested. If Romm doesn’t want people to connect him to the main message of this campaign than he should bloody well act appropriately!


Stu
“

Quote from Electrik Kar :

You know, I would actually like to see the Guardian go down the toilet for this one. They are already apparently on shaky legs financially.

Surely they can just get a ton of loans and spend their way into prosperity, like they advise the Government to do on every occasion. Mis-guided fools.

And finally, some humour.

Quote :

............Moderator; Welcome to the 25th annual global warming debate. The score now stands at 17 wins for the warmists, and 8 for the sceptics, though I must note that the sceptics have won the last 5 in succession. As as a gesture of goodwill, give...n they lost the the last round, first comment goes to the warmist side.


Warmist; CO2 emissions are causing the earth to warm up. The physics of this process are well known, and the result is that the planet’s temperature will continue to accelerate upwards, causing a catastrophe unless we act immediately to curb emissions.

Skeptic; The well known physics of CO2 includes the fact that the warming effect of CO2 is logarithmic, and so subject to the law of diminishing returns. The amount of CO2 required to cause catastrophic warming is many times what we are capable of producing.

Warmist; But the effects of CO2 are tripled or worse by positive feedback from water vapour.

Skeptic; If that were true, the earth would have experienced catastrophic warming multiple times already, and it hasn’t. You are ignoring the negative feedbacks while extrapolating positive feedbacks for which there is no evidence.

Warmist; The evidence of catastrophic change is already upon us, polar bears for example are going extinct.

Skeptic; The polar bear population has tripled in the last decade…

Warmist; Just because their population is increasing doesn’t mean they’re not going extinct. And warming has already caused increases in sea level that are swamping island atolls.

Skeptic; Island atolls float. The only reason they are being swamped is the amount of buildings being constructed on top of them.

Warmist; Sea level rise will only get worse as the warming accelerates, which it is. Consider the historical temperature record in this graph…

Skeptic; That graph? The one based on 7 trees from Siberia with 50% of the weighting from just one of them? I have 51 reconstructions from around the world, each based on dozens of samples or more, that show a completely different picture.

Warmist; Those 51 reconstructions were debunked by this reconstruction which appeared on the front cover of the prestigious IPCC AR4 report.

Skeptic; Isn’t that the one where the researchers replaced part of the reconstruction with thermometer readings instead of tree ring data because the tree rings diverged from the theory? How is it that you can dismiss the last 60 years of tree ring data as being faulty while claiming that the other 1000 years are accurate?

Warmist; You clearly don’t understand science. The temperature record from GISS clearly shows the earth has never been warmer.

Skeptic; Can we see the raw data that went into that temperature record along with how the values were adjusted and the final results arrived at?

Warmist; No.

Skeptic; Why not? What have you to hide?

Warmist; As I said before, you clearly don’t understand science so there is no point showing it to you.

Skeptic; Well we departed from actual scientific discussion when you brought up polar bears extinction…

Warmist; Exactly my point. Studies indicate that people with skeptic viewpoints are lacking in education, are intellectually deficient, or are psychopaths who care little about humanity, so you keep dismissing the graphs and charts on flimsy excuses.

Skeptic; Flimsy excuses? You are proposing that we constrain the world economy, endanger the food supply, and sink the global standard of living to levels that will most certainly result in the death of millions based on data you won’t show me, anecdotal stories about polar bears that upon investigation are completely false, and reports that I dismiss because they are based on ridiculous notions like the worldwide temperature being represented by a single tree in Siberia, and you accuse me of flimsy excuses?

Warmist; Precisely. You are psychologically incapable of evaluating the science objectively due to your defective upbringing and education. There may even be a genetic component to your psychosis, though evidence that skeptic views are increasing amongst the population suggests that these traits are more wide spread than previously thought. In order to safe guard humanity, it may be necessary to take steps to control sceptics in order to prevent them from destroying the rest of us.

Skeptic; Uhm… that sounds like a threat.

Warmist; Being defective in terms of upbringing and intelligence, it is not a surprise that you perceive a threat where none was made.

Skeptic; Fine. Then explain to me what you meant.

Warmist; Well, we’ve invented this little grey box with a red button on top (shows box), and when we press the button (presses button)

Skeptic; (explodes, spattering blood and gore across the stage)

Moderator; Oh my!

Warmist; Having presented a robust scientific explanation of the effects of CO2, backed up by robust studies demonstrating the correlation with accelerating temperatures which will have catastrophic effects on humanity according to a myriad of robust scientific models, which sceptics are psychologically incapable of understanding, and have failed to rebut in this debate, the science is settled, and culling of the human population by those of us who do understand is required in order to save us from ourselves.

Moderator; But…

Warmist; (brandishes little box with button)

Moderator; (hastily) I declare the debate resolved in favour of the warmists. This is a victory for science.

Warmist; (brandishes little box)

Moderator; (gulps) I meant a ROBUST victory for science. There is no further need for debate.

It could be fun if it weren`t true.

There's no need to think like that. This film has copped a thrashing from basically all quarters, from all sides of the debate. Linking greens to the actions on display here is unfair. Some people did find it funny, and I might have a problem with that (those people), but mostly the reaction has been one of universal disgust.

just for clarification: i'm talking about the 10:10 video posted earlier, which is source material for this little skit above

What gets me about the whole debate is that warmists have somehow made it so that even if you don't believe entirely in global warming, cutting your carbon and submitting to their propaganda is still good " coz just in case".

I will never submit to any progaganda, but you know, if buying a few lightbulbs is going to shut people up and get them off my back, then I'm happy to do it

The problem here amazingly seems to be not so much about actions, but about beliefs. People apparently get awfully upset when you tell them that you don't believe in what they believe in. What people are actually doing seems somehow irrelevant to true believers- atleast from my experience over the last few days with some of these people. It's been quite an eye opener, this all coming right on the heels of this horrible Green PR disaster which sells the message of the dominance of a belief structure over human lives. These people may not be fascists, but some of them have problems, that's pretty plain.

The issue here is people need to be realistically persuaded in order to do something. Not coerced, not lied to, not excluded or ignored, not labeled or propagandised to or terrorised. But talked to and reasoned with on a human level. That's been the problem here for quite a while. People aren't being treated like people, but fools. I think that when you get into this stuff heavily, what the science is actually saying and what people manage to spin from it are two different things. I feel that any alarm someone feels over this issue is their own at this point. It's a choice. I personally mightn't feel alarm, but on the other hand I'm not completely convinced that there is nothing to worry about. In that case I feel that it may be prudent that some actions are taken on climate change, and actually that 10:10 thing looked like it was going to be a pretty cool campaign. I will in no way support them now though. They've totally ****ed themselves up.

There are no regrets options that we should be looking at- things we could be doing that even if AGW turns out to be a huge dud, we will still have created a positive difference. These are the things we should be talking about, imo.

Quote from Electrik Kar :

A lovely piece of AGW 'communication'.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSTLDel-G9k

Wow. I.... wow.

Sony & Kyocera are now pulling out of 10:10.

How this could end up being published is beyond me. How can you not see how wrong your own message is? The apology is even worse. It is a "sorry it didn't help the cause" apology. A "sorry they didn't get it" apology. That's scary.
I honestly think that to be that far off on both the vid & apologies you need to be slightly disconnected from reality. The ones who have approved this are so deep in their cause that they have lost touch with the world they live in. They have lost touch with the "normal" people around them. The same people that they're actually trying to convince...how sad.

I'm glad most of the green community also saw how wrong this was. 'sigh of relief'. Let's move on.

"The ones who have approved this are so deep in their cause that they have lost touch"

Hi Phil. Yeah, it's pretty out there. I've said on other blogs that the only way that something like this could have actually happened is through an extreme case of groupthink.

Yet on reflection this also seems to be a wrong reading. Franny Armstrong the producer- said to the media recently that there was only '4 years to stabilise the climate system' or words to that effect. Thinking on this, one might really excuse Franny from any allegations of groupthink whatsoever, as I've actually never heard anybody say that before. This may be original thinking here.


PS, here are some threads on this film which I have been involved with over the past days. Some interesting discussion in there.

http://diggingintheclay.wordpr ... 10-they-just-dont-get-it/

http://diggingintheclay.wordpr ... plosions-and-an-own-goal/

Also Sam and I have been chatting it up (of course) over at Keith Kloor's over a few different threads.

http://www.collide-a-scape.com ... eres-a-war/#comment-19270

Finally, I think the best kind of foil or pairing for this video is a short one by a Doctor Bronowski, from the BBS series, Ascent Of Man. It ties in very fittingly with the messages on display in the 10:10 film. This guy is great.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5Umbn6ZBuE


edit: Entering the Parody Zone:

Quote :

The Early 21st Century Classics in Ideological Environmentalism Humor.

Episode #2 – From old Eugenie, Franny, Daniel, Lizzie and the whole 10:10 team

Welcome everyone, sorry our first episode blew up on us, but onward and upward.

Today, we are excited to present how we promote brownies in a way that actually reduces the carbon footprint of the planet. Yummy and good for the planet.

Step one – buy 2 lbs of powdered cocoa unsweetened, the quality is irrelevant since we are just going to bury it in the ground. There, doesn’t that make us feel good already? Ohhhhhhh, tingley.

Step two – About the milk and butter for the brownies, take your crossbow out to your neighbor’s dairy farm (don’t use guns, the ammunition is sooooo carbon rich) and shoot a dairy cow. Yep, you got it. Just bury it in the ground. Tingley, tingley feeling.

Step three – well, you can see the general process . . . . repeat with the normal brownie ingredients in any old recipe...

Quote from Electrik Kar :

Franny Armstrong the producer-

From Sept 1st on The Guardian.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/envi ... 01/franny-armstrong-10-10

Quote :

"Sorry," Armstrong says, apologising for the yeast story. "I just think about climate change all the time and campaign around it 24/7. When I take a day off, I think what a waste of time. I'm just a climate-change obsessive. That's all I do."
Where did Armstrong's climate-change obsession come from? "I must have been 14," she says, "and I remember my teacher telling us about something called the greenhouse effect and that in a century's time the planet may not be able to sustain life. I thought, oooh, that sounds quite a big deal. And then I was supposed to go off to the next lesson – PE or something – and forget about that."
She never did.

Quote :

"I just believe if you're not fighting against climate change and you're not doing a job – like a teacher or a doctor – that is about improving the world, then you're wasting your life."

She seems pretty.....balanced. I now have a slightly better understanding on how this video made it.

Quote :

PS, here are some threads on this film which I have been involved with over the past days. Some interesting discussion in there

Lots of good stuff...

Quote :

As I was watching, I thought it was a satire of green orthodoxy.

Hahahaha that is EXACTLY what I thought while watching it. But then the end came and I realized it was...well... what it is. Then my brain had a really hard time processing this. Just like Sam it looks like. Loss of words. I simply couldn't understand...at all. That really is a weird feeling.

Yeah, I'm still very much baffled by the 10:10 video. I suspect that Curtis has himself a Golden Goose complex going on. He's surrounded by "luvvies" who think (or at least say) that everything he does is wonderful, simply because he does it. It's manifestly group-thinking. That's how I think the mini-film came to be released. How it got to be created, though, is a different story.

The premise isn't funny, it's truly sinister. The execution (literally) is sinister to the point of being sick. That the characters with the button wave off the apathetic individuals with "your choice, no pressure", immediately prior to exterminating them - a precise, deliberate theme, consistent across each of the scenes - gives the biggest clue to the "message" in the film - if there is any message, this is it. Genuinely sadistic in the darkest sense.

Stu, I personally think you're letting Tim Lambert off lightly. It is his "ministry" which inspires the adolescent behaviour of his flock. It's no coincidence that, on all of the green blogs anywhere, the only place where there has been such vile behaviour towards the "10:10 offended", as well as a quite perverse and vitriolic defence of the 10:10 video, is on Lambert's blog. That speaks volumes, IMO, of Lambert. His loyal followers are of a very specific mindset, most clearly demonstrated in the polarisation of this issue.

It's a profound instance of irony that Lazar - with whom I've locked horns many times in the past over climate science - has been accused of "concern trolling", for his defence of you on Deltoid. If anything good comes of this, I hope it's that Lazar grows to recognise the profound idiocy inherent in accusing sceptics of "denialism". That would be a win.

Quote from SamH :

Yeah, I'm still very much baffled by the 10:10 video. I suspect that Curtis has himself a Golden Goose complex going on. He's surrounded by "luvvies" who think (or at least say) that everything he does is wonderful, simply because he does it. It's manifestly group-thinking. That's how I think the mini-film came to be released. How it got to be created, though, is a different story.

The premise isn't funny, it's truly sinister. The execution (literally) is sinister to the point of being sick. That the characters with the button wave off the apathetic individuals with "your choice, no pressure", immediately prior to exterminating them - a precise, deliberate theme, consistent across each of the scenes - gives the biggest clue to the "message" in the film - if there is any message, this is it. Genuinely sadistic in the darkest sense.

Stu, I personally think you're letting Tim Lambert off lightly. It is his "ministry" which inspires the adolescent behaviour of his flock. It's no coincidence that, on all of the green blogs anywhere, the only place where there has been such vile behaviour towards the "10:10 offended", as well as a quite perverse and vitriolic defence of the 10:10 video, is on Lambert's blog. That speaks volumes, IMO, of Lambert. His loyal followers are of a very specific mindset, most clearly demonstrated in the polarisation of this issue.

It's a profound instance of irony that Lazar - with whom I've locked horns many times in the past over climate science - has been accused of "concern trolling", for his defence of you on Deltoid. If anything good comes of this, I hope it's that Lazar grows to recognise the profound idiocy inherent in accusing sceptics of "denialism". That would be a win.

I think the 10:10 campaign should be congratulated though, because it's them who have exposed that nasty, vile, and quite frankly terrifying nature of some of the green lobby. no longer can they hide behind the "we love the planet" BS that has allowed them to run riot over public opinion.

Either they can come to the argument with good science (whatever that means) or they can go hide in the hole they came out of.

Hi Sam. Thanks for that- and I'm thinking on it.

My basic motive here is that I'm prepared to accept reasonableness when it is shown. There was no way that this was going to resolved the way things were headed, so I simply offered the peace pipe. What Tim does next, if anything- will be instructive. I don't know him apart from what I've seen recently, so I'm quite prepared to give him the benefit of doubt, but I heavily suspect that you are right here.

I don't understand how people like Tim cannot see that this is hurting 'their cause'. Lazar was correct the point out that environmentalists are just getting pissed off by being treated in this way, I was certainly not the only one.

PS- people obviously plainly see that Tim misread my posts. He hasn't apologised for that, but perhaps the space is now set where he can. Let's find out!

NIWA appears to be washing their hands

http://www.climateconversation ... was-statement-of-defence/

Quote :

NIWA has formally stated that, in their opinion, they are not required to use the best available information nor to apply the best scientific practices and techniques available at any given time. They don’t think that forms any part of their statutory obligation to pursue “excellence”.

Also,

http://www.suite101.com/conten ... dal-a294157#ixzz11g0Cjj2e
and Bishop Hill