Law Professor Labels German Federal Environment Agency Authoritarian Pamphlet Against Skeptics “State Propaganda”

By P Gosselin on 22. Mai 2013

Last week, the German Federal Umweltbundesamt (UBA), Germany’s version of the EPA, issued a one-sided alarmist pamphlet that attempts to declare the climate debate over and attacks prominent skeptics.

UBA_Pamphlet

Controversial 123-page pamphlet…in it the German Federal Environment Agency (UBA) declares climate debate over and names and portrays skeptics as “spreaders of half-truths and misinformation”.

In the pamphlet, he German government UBA specifically singles out, identifies, targets and attacks US and German skeptics, thus sparking outrage.

Some of the Americans targeted include scientists Fred Singer, Sallie Baliunas, Willie Soon, Frederick Seitz, Pat Michaels, John Christy, Ross McKitrick and conservative think-tank Heartland Institute. The German targets include European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE), Fritz Vahrenholt, and Sebastian Lüning, as well as journalists and publicists Dirk Maxeiner and Michael Miersch, and film-maker / publicist Günter Ederer, and national newspaper Die Welt.

Today flagship daily Die Welt has a commentary by law professor Thorsten Koch titled: “State Propaganda – The Federal Environment Agency violates the rules of neutrality”.

In his commentary Koch writes:

The pamphlet is a product of official state action in which in one sense the claims that contradict the ‘scientific consensus’ made by ‘climate change skeptics’ (p. 110) are polemicized. Even the ZDF public television website ‘heute.de’ diagnosed it as ‘official state defamation’. This makes the matter legally questionable.”

Koch then explains that the government is allowed to participate and take a position on the climate issue, but adds:

Strange however that a government office is attempting to bindingly specify the state of knowledge in a scientific question. That is the job of a scientist. Even more it is neither scientifically or legally appropriate if scientific truths – and thus ultimately only the current state of the error – are announced with official authority.

Deciding scientific controversies is no duty of the state. The attempt we have here by the Environment Agency to decide a scientific controversy is in this form unique.”

And we may also add that it is also not the duty of a handful of scientists to decide political controversies…at least not in democratic societies.

 

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EU Commission Plans Fundamental Course Change In Energy Policy – More Focus On Economics, Less On Climate

By P Gosselin on 21. Mai 2013

EU CommissionMajor German dailies today are reporting that Europe is beginning to give up on the big green dream it once so deeply cherished and envisioned a great society powered by clean sunshine and wind. After trying for years to force renewable energies onto consumers, the bill came and eyes popped.

Suddenly we are also seeing studies showing that warming won’t be so bad after all, and that CO2 climate sensitivity is much lower than first thought. The policy-making pressure coming from the threat of climate change is disappearing rapidly.

The German leftist TAZ and center-right Die Welt report today that the EU Commission is preparing to embark on a policy to make energy prices lower, and to push climate protection measures off the stage.

The TAZ writes that the “EU Commission is preparing a fundamental change of course in energy policy. Because of the recession in many countries, state and government leaders are to undertake a paradigm change at their summit in Brussels on Wednesday“.

The overall sentiment is expressed, for example, by statements from EU Commissar Günther Oettinger, who told Die Welt:

Over the last decades Germany has continuously made energy more expensive with taxes, levies, fees, and contributions. That now has to change.”

The high energy prices have taken a toll as companies are finding it more difficult than ever to compete globally. The TAZ writes:

Indeed because of the economic weakness in many EU countries, climate change no longer has any priority for the Commission. The sole target of getting 20% of energy demand from renewable sources has been pushed off further. Commission officials are backed by a paper from the mighty European industrial association: Business Europe. According to the study, energy costs for Europe’s concerns are 1.5 to 3 times higher than the USA.

If 400,000 new jobs in the sector of production are to be created, then the EU ‘has to overhaul its climate protection and energy policy,’ said Europe-Business-President Jürgen Thumann.”

So why is energy so much more expensive in Europe than it is in USA? The TAZ writes that this is primarily due to the fact that USA is “exploiting its shale gas reserves using controversial fracking“. The TAZ adds:

According to the EU Commission, energy prices in the EU have risen 37% since 2005. In the USA that have even dropped slightly.

The EU Commission maintains that the following guideline has to apply: ”EU energy policy has to assure uninterrupted supply of households and companies, affordable and competitive prices.”

When it comes to the clash between economics and climate protection, it appears economics is emerging as the most pressing.

Photo credit: EU Commission, JLogan, Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

 

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Otto et al…First Rats To Leave The Sinking Ship That Is Man-Made Global Warming

By P Gosselin on 20. Mai 2013

All the talk now is about the Otto et al paper that just has come out, which claims that, well, the warming isn’t going to be like we thought. Oops.

Otto et al

Chart source: www.nature.com/ngeo/journal.pdf

Spiegel provides a first glimpse of the reaction from Germany: New Study On Climate Change: Earth Warming More Slowly Than Feared.

The Spiegel piece starts:

Most extreme scenarios less likely…

An international team of scientists have corrected the prognoses for climate change downwards. In a new study the scientists calculated a smaller global warming for the next 50 to 100 years than previously expected. But they did not turn off the alarm.”

And later writes:

The annual mean temperature would thus be about 0.9°C and 2°C higher than pre-industrial times. Thus they are considerably less than the forecast of the UN climate scientists in the year 2007, who estimated an increase of 1 – 3°C .

Co-author Reto Knutti said the new estimates for the time period are welcome.”

Reasons cited for the slowdown are heat absorption by the oceans, reduced solar activity, and high levels of aerosols in the atmosphere. Spiegel ends the article with:

Lead author Otto says the slowdown is not evidence that climate change is not going to happen. ‘You would need a considerably longer time period to be able to say there is not going to be any warming,’ he told the ‘Guardian’. Such a phase could last up to 40 years.”

You’ve got to be kidding me. Now it’s 40 years?

The recent warming was just 18 years long 1980 – 1998, and that was enough for them to declare a permanent climate state of emergency. And now that it hasn’t warmed in 15 years, they’re telling us that we’ve got to wait another 25 years to say that it’s not man-made. Such BS.

First rats to abandon ship

So what would possibly compel a group of mostly alarmist scientists to produce such results? Answer: It has dawned on them that other factors really are playing a big time role and that it wouldn’t be long before they looked like fools. What we are seeing are the first rats swimming off the sinking ship that is man-made global warming.

 

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Veteran Journalists Slam German UBA Environmental Agency…Suppression Of Dissent “Reminds Of Reichskulturkammer”!

By P Gosselin on 20. Mai 2013

A few days ago NTZ wrote about a recently published brochure released by the Umweltbundesamt (UBA), which is Germany’s version of the EPA.

Flasbarth_UBA

UBA Director Jochen Flasbarth lost control of the agency to radical zealots, now under massive fire. Photo: UBA.

The notorious brochure not only included an alarmist summary of climate science today, but also contained a sort of “black list” of US and German skeptics, portraying them as “spreaders of half-truths and misinformation”.

In that article I expressed doubts about this brochure holding up legally, and said we likely have not heard the last of this story. Boy was I right! Hat-tip Bernd Felsche.

Henryk Broder sees parallels with dark regimes

For starters, yesterday, flagship national daily Die Welt, one of the targets of the UBA brochure, published a commentary written by veteran, renowned journalist Henryk Broder. The title: A government agency declares the climate debate ended.

What follows are some of Broder’s comments on the notorious witch-hunting UBA brochure:

The UBA Environmental Agency claims to have the power of authority when it comes to climate change and has put some journalists on the pillory in the debate. Such an approach reminds us of the Reichskulturkammer and the East German regime.”

Broder writes that one has to be careful before making Nazi comparisons, but says “sometimes there are stunning similarities or parallels that bear witness to an amazing continuity of thought and action.” He writes:

There was a Reich Chamber of Films that controlled German film-making. Only members of the Reich Chamber of Films were allowed to work in film production. Every one else was forbidden to work in that occupation. The same rule applied for the Reich Chamber of Theatre, Reich Chamber of the Press, Reich Chamber of Broadcasting, Reich Chamber of Music, and the Reich Chamber of Arts. All these chambers operated under the umbrella of the Reichskulturkammer (RKK) [Reich Chamber of Culture], which was created by the Reich Minister for Education and Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels.

At the end of the Third Reich, the RKK and its departments disappeared into the rubble of German history. And up to today no one has ever proposed a new founding or re-establishment of such an institution. However: There is now a ‘Federal Chamber of Climate’ that is under the name of the Umweltbundesamt UBA.”

I’d like to remind readers that Broder is by no means exaggerating here. The brochure really is that nasty. Rahmstorf is all over it. The UBA brochure takes aim at American and German journalists and scientists only because they have a different opinion about how the world’s weather works over the long-term.

Broder writes that the UBA’s latest step “is an unprecedented case of government authoritarian intervention in a public discussion we’ve seen since World War II“, adding that the UBA has gone too far:

It draws the lines in the climate debate. That means it has ordered an end to the debate. And it determines who has the right to say something, and who is to remain silent.”

If there was ever proof that the warmists have lost the debate, the UBA has delivered it on a silver platter.

Broder concedes that perhaps the comparison to the third Reich is overdoing it, and so ends his commentary:

Therefore the question is not: ‘Is there climate change?’, but rather it is: ‘Are we on the way to a second East German Regime where the government is responsible for today’s weather forecast and the climate for the day after tomorrow?’ “

UBA brochure “a scandal”

Broder is just the latest to speak out on the UBA’s anti-democratic direction. Die Welt Editor in Chief Jan-Eric Peters wrote at his Facebook site:

One should use the term ‘scandal’ sparingly. However, when a government agency such as the German Environment Agency publishes a sort of black list on unliked journalists in a brochure funded by taxpayers, and requests them to stop spreading untruths, then this is indeed a scandal!”

At his klimazwiebel blog Hans von Storch writes in a reader comment writes:

I suspect that there is going to be public, critical interest aimed at this UBA Sleeping Beauty Castle.”

Even devout green protagonaists of man-made global warming are horrified by the UBA’s authoritarian brochure, like ZDF television. Very few media outlets are greener and more one-sided than Germany’s ZDF public television. ZDF journalist Reinhard Schlieker comments, writing that the “UBA goes after journalists and scientists who claim that man-made global warming has not been proven” and that the brochure comes across as an ”official defamation for a ‘good cause’”. Suddenly, we see that the ZDF recognizes that the UBA has gone way over the line, and that there is no consensus in climate science after all.

The ZDF article continues, describing the “chamber” mentality of the brochure:

In Part B of the brochure that the science is settled and that cluelessness rules in the public debate which is influenced by somehow misled journalists. This part is based mainly on findings from Prof. Stefan Rahmstorf, who works at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and vehemently advocates that only qualified scientists should have the right to express views on climate science – everyone else should not be given the authority to do so.”

The ZDF continues:

The publication of the UBA could produce the impression with readers who are unfamiliar with the topic that, with these journalists and authors, we are dealing with intentional fraudsters who are controlled by outside forces and paid by lobbyists.”

Knowing what I know about some of those targeted by the UBA, you can be sure they are not going to take this “defamation” laying down. Expect much more to develop on this in the days and weeks ahead.

Oh, the ZDF ends with:

According to information from heute.de [ZDF] Those involved are are considering a lawsuit. Heute.de has sent a list of questions and requested an explanation.”

 

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CERN’s Jasper Kirkby On The Newest Unpublished Results Of CLOUD: “The Results Are Very Interesting”

By P Gosselin on 19. Mai 2013

NASA Image_of_Earth's_Interrelated_Systems_and_Climate_-_GPN-2002-000121The Latest On The CLOUD Experiment at CERN
By Sebastian Lüning and Fritz Vahrenholt

On May 10, 2013, at the online Austrian ORF, there was a rare interview with the CLOUD Experiment director of the European European Organization for Nuclear Research, Jasper Kirkby. Within the scope of the CLOUD project, it is being investigated to what extent solar activity has on cloud formation via the mechanism of cosmic radiation and the impact this could have on the Earth’s climate (see Chapter 6 of our book “Die kalte Sonne“). Here’s an excerpt of the worthwhile interview:

ORF: What is the relationship between solar activity and cosmic radiation?

Kirkby: Cosmic radiation consists of high energy, charged particles. When they reach our solar system, they are deflected away by the magnetic field of the sun. Foremost by the magnetic field of the solar plasma. When the sun is active, less cosmic radiation reaches the Earth. The relationship to the solar cycle: When there are many sunspots, the Earth receives 10 – 30% less cosmic radiation.

Is this relationship sure?

Yes, it is solidly confirmed. We also know that cosmic radiation ionizes every cubic centimeter of the Earth’s atmosphere. Unsure so far is whether or not this also could have a climatic impact. Clouds are extremely important for the Earth’s climate. If I could magically eliminate all clouds from the atmosphere, then 30 watts of additional heat energy would reach every square meter of the Earth.

To put this number into context: The warming of the atmosphere through the impacts of man is currently pegged at 1.5 watts per square meter. Small variations in cloud cover could have large impacts.

What do your experiments show?

At this point in time we cannot say if cosmic radiation impacts the climate. So far up to now we have investigated the production of condensation nuclei for cloud droplets – particularly those that are formed from gas, i.e. gas-to-particle-conversion”. They represent about half of the condensation nuclei in the atmosphere. The remaining nuclei come from soot and dust.

What gases are involved in this process?

We have looked at sulfuric acid and ammonia. The results of the first trials: Cosmic radiation enhances the formation of condensation nuclei from gases by a factor of 10. But that alone is too little to have a significant impact on cloud formation. According to our latest experiments, there has to be another gas or vapor involved that enhances this process. We suspect organic substances.

Which ones?

The results are currently being reviewed by a journal. Unfortunately I can’t tell you more. Only this much: The results are very interesting. Over the course of the year there are going to be some publications on the subject.

Let’s assume that you are able to show that cosmic radiation indeed does contribute a lot to cloud formation. What would that mean?

I think that the experiments are important in two ways. Firstly, they would show that there is a natural source to climate change. And the other point is that it would change our understanding of anthropogenic climate change. We know quite a bit about greenhouse gases. What we know little about are aerosols. These are particles that come from industry floating in the atmosphere. They surely have a cooling effect. However, we have no idea just how great this effect is. It may be small, but it may be very big. Maybe it is even big enough to offset the additional CO2 in the atmosphere.. We don’t know.

Continue reading at ORF.at.”

Image source: NASA, public domain image.

 

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Spiegel Trashes John Cook’s Survey. Man’s Impact “Remains Hotly Disputed”…Only 10% Have Faith In Models

By P Gosselin on 18. Mai 2013

German flagship news magazine Spiegel Online today has an article authored by Axel Bojanowski which takes a close look at the recent John Cook survey. German alarmists like the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research hailed it as proof that climate science was settled and done.

But Spiegel draws a different a totally conclusion.

First Bojanowski describes how a large number of Americans have serious doubts when it comes to man-made climate change, and so surveys get conducted with the aim of trying to sway public opinion. The latest was carried out by John Cook of the University of Queensland in Australia, and the results were published in the journal of Environmental Research Letters: 97% of thousands of papers surveyed agree that climate change is man-made, it asserted.

But Bojanowski trashes the findings:

There’s an obvious discrepancy between the public perception and reality. The authors speak about ‘consensus on man-made climate change’ – and thus this threatens to further increase confusion within the public. The survey confirms only a banality: Climate scientists overwhelmingly agree that man is responsible for at least a part of the climate warming. The important question of how big is man’s part in climate change remains hotly disputed.

In the draft of the next UN report that will summarize climate science knowledge in September, it is stated: ‘It is extremely likely that human activity is responsible for more than half of the warming since the 1950s.’ The estimations from scientists on the exact extent vary vastly – here the consensus ends.”

Bojanowski then gives Spiegel readers the results produced by Cook: “About two thirds took no position on the subject – they remained on the sidelines. 97% of the rest supported man-made impact.

Also in an additional step, 35% of the authors who took no position were left out of the survey results altogether.

A new German survey produces similar results: no consensus!

Bojanowski then reports on another still unpublished German survey conducted by the University of Mainz in Germany. Senja Post told SPIEGEL ONLINE that “123 of 292 climate scientists asked participated in the study“. The result (warmists may want to sit down before reading):

Only 5% of those responding believed natural factors played the main role in the warming. However, Post then asked about the extent of the man-made warming. The result looked very different. Only 59% of the scientists said the ‘climate development of the last 50 years was mostly influenced by man’s activity. One quarter of those surveyed said that human and natural factors played an equal role’.”

Only 10% of German scientists say computer models are sufficiently accurate

Bojanowski then writes that skepticism is even far more widespread when it comes to the reliability of computer models. ”Only 10% said climate models are ‘sufficiently accurate’ and only 15% said that ‘climatic processes are understood enough’ to allow climate to be calculated.”

Bojanowski sums up: “There’s plenty of fodder there to continue the ideologically influenced debate about climate – no matter what is said about consensus.”

 

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Climate Scientist Hans Von Storch Warns: Climate Scientists Have Been “Taking On The Roles Of Medicine Men And Priests”

By P Gosselin on 18. Mai 2013

Prophet Moses by RembrandtWhat follows is a critical article written by Jens Meyer-Wellmann appearing in German national daily Die Welt that got by me a couple of weeks ago.

The title: “Scientists should not play priest…Climate scientist von Storch accuses his colleagues of spreading panic – and sees no major consequences coming from a dredging of the Elbe River“.

Sebastian Lüning’s and Fritz Vahrenholt’s blogsite www.kaltesonne.de presented an excerpt of the Die Welt article, which I’ve translated in English:

‘Unfortunately in climate science there is a tendency to proclaim absolute truths and to link these immediately to instructions on actions to take,’ von Storch said. ‘The climate pope tells us what has to be done, and for the people it’s: keep your mouths shut. Scientists have been taking over the roles of medicine men and priests. That’s not the job of scientists. Science is supposed to help understand problems, show the possibilities that exist in dealing with them. The best is to show many possibilities. Then the political process has to decide the path to take.’

But some of his colleagues in science like to use ‘stories that point to a catastrophe,’ said the professor of meteorology. One example was the assumption that our region would see ‘murderous violent storms’. But there was no data showing this. ‘It all has a cultural, anthropological background’ . ‘If you sin, then you will be punished. And the punishment always takes on an environmental dimension which also included storms in the past. In former times it was God’s punishment. Today it’s punishment by Nature. Nature is to keep man in check. And for this we see idiotic films like ‘The Day After Tomorrow.’’

With ‘snappy’ and short statements like ‘snow will be a thing of the past’, the loud speakers among the scientists are putting the credibility of science at stake.’”

More info on Hans von Storch here. He also runs the climate blog klimazwiebel.de and is co-author of the recently released book: The Climate Trap: The Dangerous Proximity of Politics and Climate Science.

Graphic: Rembrandt depiction of prophet Moses, public domain work.

 

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Atmospheric CO2 Concentrations At 400 PPM Are Still Dangerously Low For Life On Earth

By P Gosselin on 17. Mai 2013

Fuelgauge_2With atmospheric CO2 concentrations reaching the 400 ppm level, the media and a number of alarmist scientists have set off the mega-alarm bells, claiming “record high levels” of CO2 had been reached, and that the planet is on the verge of an overdose. This is based purely on ignorance of the Earth’s history.

Worrying that 400 ppm is too high is like worrying about your fuel tank overflowing when it reaches the 1/8 mark during filling.

Figure above-right: At 400 ppm CO2 levels are actually dangerously low in historical terms.

From a historical perspective, an atmospheric CO2 concentration of 400 ppm is actually almost scraping the bottom of the barrel. Over the Earth’s history, atmospheric CO2 concentrations have ranged from 180 ppm to 7000 ppm, see Figure 1 below. On that scale we are in fact today barely above the Earth’s record lows.

Figure 1: Atmospheric CO2 concentration is just barely above the life-sustaining levels of 150 ppm. For life to have real buffer against mass extinction, CO2 needs to be closer to 1000 ppm. Source: http://deforestation.geologist-1011.net/.

That 400 ppm is actually dangerously low is a fact the alarmists keep avoiding and suppressing. Below 150 ppm, plant-life dies off on a massive scale. The Earth actually came very close to that point many times over the last 2 million years during the ice ages. At the bottom of the last ice age just 20,000 years ago, life on the planet literally teetered on the brink when CO2 fell to a level of just 180 ppm. Do we really want to live on the brink of extinction?

It’s a fact that biologists have shown that once the atmospheric CO2 level falls below the 500 ppm level, plants really begin to suffer. Many of us have seen the video showing how plants grow faster under higher CO2 concentrations. The following charts show the growth curves of some plants as a function of CO2 concentration:

Soybean and CO2Avena CO2

Figure 2: Plant growth vs CO2 concentration. Plants really begin to suffer once CO2 concentrations fall below 500 ppm. Source: click here.

Note that at high CO2 concentrations, such as 800 ppm, plants thrive. But as CO2 levels fall off, growth rates really start to plummet once they fall below 500 ppm. History shows that the Earth sustains much more life, i.e. is much greener and fruitful, when CO2 levels are higher, i.e. in the vicinity of 1000 ppm.

No one disputes that man’s activities have helped to increase atmospheric CO2 concentration, and it should not be in dispute that plants and life on the planet are thankful that man has done so. At 400 ppm, the planet is a safer place to be and will be even safer at 1000 ppm.

Also see here: http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2013/5/17/happer-on-cnbc.html

 

 

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German Ministry Of Environment Identifies, Targets American And German Enemy Skeptics In 123-Page Pamphlet

By P Gosselin on 16. Mai 2013

UBA_PamphletWhen you look at what’s going on in some of the world’s leading democracies today, with some institutions running rampantly out of control without oversight, we should not wonder why people in droves are losing faith and trust in government.

Government issues pamphlet identifying enemy skeptics

The latest example comes from the powerful German Ministry for Environment: Umweltbundesamt (UBA) with the release of its latest 123-page pamphlet titled: Und sie erwärmt sich doch…Was steckt hinter der Debatte um den Klimawandel (It is indeed warming…What’s behind the climate change debate?). In the brochure the UBA (Germany’s equivalent of the EPA) insists the climate catastrophe is coming, and appeals to the public not to listen to skeptics.

In fact, the German government pamphlet specifically singles out, identifies and targets US and German skeptics, portraying them as “spreaders of half-truths and misinformation“. Welcome to open and tolerant debate in the Federal Republic of Germany!

You’ll recall that the UBA are the ones who recently admitted being baffled by the 15-year global temperature stagnation that has taken hold.

Government makes it clear: climate debate not welcome!

Reading the pamphlet, it is clear that this is a one-sided, catastrophe-obsessed propaganda piece that advocates completely the alarmist side of the debate and outright dismisses and marginalizes the growing non-alarmist side. The pamphlet is truly a disservice to the German taxpayers and a mass deception of the public. The Greens and the Ministry of Environment, as you will see, are brazenly targeting specific individuals and organisations whose only “crime” is having a differing opinion. Skeptics are being viewed as a threat.

I can’t imagine how intimidated those named in the pamphlet (especially the German skeptics) must feel today. The full power of the German government has them in its sights.

Only alarmists are cited as honest sources

Just a look at the references cited at the back of the pamphlet on page 116 already tells the story. Sources cited include radical environmental groups Germanwatch, Greenpeace and klimaretter.de, ultra-alarmist institutes like the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, and dogmatic outlier scientists like Stefan Rahmstorf, Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber, and Naomi Oreskes, just to name a few.

UBA has black list of American skeptics

According to the UBA, all the climate doubt stems mainly from the USA. Beginning on page 100, the UBA lists the Americans responsible for “spreading doubt and false information“, among them: ExxonMobil, Fred Singer, Sallie Baliunas and Willie Soon, Frederick Seitz, Joe Barton, Pat Michaels, John Christy, Ross McKitrick and the Heartland Institute. The UBA cites the Union of Concerned Scientists and a one-sided Die Zeit smear from November 2012 as its reliable sources for this information.

The name “Rahmstorf” appears throughout the pamphlet. One quickly gets the impression that the pamphlet stems from the German Ministry of Rahmstorf. Little wonder that when taken as a whole, the pamphlet is a huge public deception. Then again, misleading the public is nothing new for Professor Rahmstorf, for German readers: http://www.klimastorch.de/rahmstorf-vs.meichsner.pdf.

On page 106, the UBA claims that the Climategate e-mails “were stolen”, as if by criminals.

The UBA endorses RealClimate.org

On page 116, the UBA tells readers what it feels are reliable information sources of information on climate science. The German Ministry of Rahmstorf , of course, suggests Stefan Rahmstorf, who is ”an international renown climate scientist who is often featured in up-to-date books, newspapers and television shows” against the “climate skeptical half truths and false reports“. The UBA also recommends Rahmstorf’s Internetblog Klima-Lounge and the Potsdam Institute.

Moreover, the UBA recommends the site of “a group of 11 American and European scientists, among them Stefan Rahmstorf and Michael Mann, RealClimate”. The UBA also suggests alarmist site Klimaretter.Info as a good source of all sorts of information.

Government black list of German skeptics

The UBA also tells us to whom not to go for information (the bad guys) and publicizes a sort of black list of skeptics. On page 110 it lists the “climate change skeptics in Germany“, which include the European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE), Fritz Vahrenholt and Sebastian Lüning, journalists and publicists Dirk Maxeiner and Michael Miersch, film-maker and publicist Günter Ederer, and newspaper Die Welt.

In government’s view, skeptics are crackpots

In a nutshell, here we have the German government informing the public which people to be on the look-out for. If this holds up legally, remains to be seen. It is not the job of the government to tell the public who the goods guys and bad guys are in a public debate.

In its closing statements, the UBA pamphlet writes (p. 113) that:

- Parts of industry are financing campaigns to spread doubt and a false information over the results of climate science; the target is to fool the public;
- Often scientists of foreign disciplines and without any knowledge of climate science appear in public with climate-skeptical claims.”

In the UBA’s view, those who publicly doubt the coming climate catastrophe are to be viewed as crackpots and industry hacks, and are thus to be ignored. The pamphlet reads like a declaration of war. I have a feeling that we have not heard the last of this story.

More tomorrow.

Graphic source: www.umweltbundesamt.de/

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Alaska Shatters Decades Old Cold Records, Snow In Britain (Now A Thing Of May!)

By P Gosselin on 15. Mai 2013

A few years ago, scientists were claiming that the Arctic would warm quickly in response to global warming. But then temperatures in the northern hemisphere began to drop.

And before you knew it, scientists were claiming that cold temperatures actually proved global warming.

Alaska forecast_May15_22Asia forecast 3

No warming in sight for Alaska. Temperature anomaly forecast for May 15 – 22. Source: wxmaps.org.

If we look at Alaska over the last few days, then global warming must be galloping out of control. Before you know it, the globe will be covered in ice as it overheats. Hey, that’s global warming science…and there are plenty of dupes and chumps out there to lap it all up.

The online News Miner of Alaska reports on a number of records being set. What follow are some new May 14 records, with the old ones in parentheses:

- Eielson Air Force Base: 22°F (26°F in 1954).
- College Observatory, University of Alaska Fairbanks: 21°F (24°F in 1964).
- Bettles: 11°F (22°F in 1986).
- Galena: 13°F (16°F in 1965).

The News Miner also reports that record low daytime highs were recorded:

Fairbanks also set a new record for the coldest high temperature at the airport Monday with a high temperature of 37 degrees. That broke the record of 40 set in 1937.
Other record low maximum temperature records were reported at Galena (31), Tanana (34) and Eielson Air Force Base (38).
Fairbanks avoided another record cold high temperature Tuesday when the high temperature at the airport hit 40 degrees, surpassing the record of 39 degrees in 1937″

That means sea ice melt will be delayed, thus the sunlight will get reflected back out, and then the albedo catastrophe that the warmists keep bringing up when ice melts will occur in reverse. Oh, I forgot. In climate science these processes are only true in one direction, i.e. warming.

Meanwhile the online UK Daily Mail reports of snow in Britain: http://www.dailymail.mailonline.

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New York Times Conceding Low Sensitivity! Now Talking About “CO2 Quadrupling” To Get Catastrophe Scenarios!

By P Gosselin on 14. Mai 2013

It’s not every morning one wakes up and finds you’ve been quoted by the New York Times. That’s what happened to me this morning.

CO2

CO2 losing its fizz. Public domain photo.

In his article, A Change in Temperature, Justin Gillis tells his readers that the issue of CO2 climate sensitivity has become more hotly disputed than ever, but warns catastrophe still looms.

Here are just a few comments I have:

1) The New York Times first have to learn that science is not about insisting you are correct, or being obsessed with a popular pet hypothesis. In the article Justin Gillis and scientist James Annan come across as having a very hard time departing from the hypothesis that CO2 climate sensitivity is high.

2. CO2 lags temperature, history has proven. Moreover, although CO2 has risen tremendously (in relative terms) over the last 15 years, the global temperature has not. For the last 15 years, sensitivity has been zero. Worse, there’s strong, mounting evidence that there isn’t going to be any warming for another 10 or 20 years at least. (Hint: oceans).

3. There’s no correlation between CO2 and temperature. Of the last 130 years, CO2 has risen 100% of the time, but temperature have risen only during 45 of those years (1920-45 and 1978-98). That’s a very lousy correlation. And you only need to look back at the previous Eemian interglacial. While CO2 was steady at about 260 ppm, the temperature dropped 6°C.

Now it’s CO2 quadrupling

4. But what I find particularly interesting about Gillis’s latest article is that the once much ballyhooed consensus is totally shattered, and the overall warmist retreat now taking place. It is clear that scientists are now abandoning the high CO2 sensitivity values in droves. Naturally we don’t expect them to abandon the high values and to run right over to the low CO2 climate sensitivity values. The next logical step is that they adopt the middle sensitivity values, and act like those are going to be catastrophic as well.

…several recent papers have offered best estimates for climate sensitivity that are below four degrees Fahrenheit, rather than the previous best estimate of just above five degrees, and they have also suggested that the highest estimates are pretty implausible. Notice that these recent calculations fall well within the long-accepted range — just on the lower end of it.”

But even mid-range sensitivity values are becoming difficult for people like Annan to defend, and so now they’re forced to consider undramatic low CO2 sensitivity values.

It will certainly be good news if these recent papers stand up to critical scrutiny, something that will take at least a year or two to figure out.”

And German journalist science Jürgen Schönstein writes about the NYT article at ScienceBlogs here:

(Annan assumes that the warming from a doubling of atmospheric CO2 will be at the lower end of the projected ‘range’).

The problem here, however, is that with low CO2 climate sensitivity it gets really hard to conjure up catastrophic warming scenarios with a doubling of CO2. So what to do?

No problem. Gillis and Annan present their latest trick: They talk about tripling or even quadrupling of CO2 to get the catastrophe which they are so obsessed with, and claim it’s really plausible.

Some experts think the level of the heat-trapping gas could triple or even quadruple before emissions are reined in. [...] Even if climate sensitivity turns out to be on the low end of the range, total emissions may wind up being so excessive as to drive the earth toward dangerous temperature increases.”

There you have it. Now climate scientists and the catastrophe-obsessed media are now forced, for perhaps the very first time, to talk about CO2 quadrupling in order to get the much wanted catastrophe scenarios.

 

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400 PPM CO2 Concentration Announcement Unleashes Wave Of Mass Hysteria In Germany

By P Gosselin on 14. Mai 2013

Watching the reaction from the greens, media, climate scientists, and a number of politicians here in Germany reminds me of the time when I was in 6th grade and a friend of mine and I threw a dead mouse in a group of 3rd grade schoolgirls out on the school yard. That sent them off in all directions screaming hysterically. :)

i_survived_400ppm_tshirt WUWT

Order yours at: WattsUpWithThat

Well that’s pretty much the reaction we’ve seen with many of the adults (grown men) here in Germany when Scripps announced that CO2 concentration had reached the 400 ppm level. You see, the day before when the concentration was 399.99 ppm, everybody was just going about their business; life was normal. But when the CO2 concentration reached 400 ppm, the gates of hell opened.

As one of the few calm people here, I now find myself busy dispensing on-site counseling to the emotionally shocked and hysterical in the report’s aftermath, and so I don’t have so much time. But here’s some reaction we’ve seen over the last few hours from the media, greens and “leading scientists”:

Green party honcho, drama-queen Dr. Herrmann Ott:

Exceeding the 400 ppm threshold of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere symbolizes the drama of galloping climate change and the threats to our civilization connected with it. [...] To avert the unimaginable consequences of a continued dramatic increase in CO2, immediate and effective climate protection must have top priority!”

The leftist daily TAZ quoted Ralph Keeling of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego [translated, not the original quote]:

‘We are moving into dangerous territory,’ said Ralph Keeling of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego. [...] In his view the efforts to reduce CO2 have failed. Some impacts of climate change are now irreversible.”

The centrist online FOCUS magazine wrote:

The CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has reached a historical high. [...] Policymakers have to finally take action.”

Stephan Bakan of Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg (via klimaretter.de):

The climate models show that independent of short-term fluctuations, the global mean temperature of the lower atmosphere continues to rise with increasing CO2 concentration. With every increase we are moving towards the 450ppm level. And the time remaining for effective emissions reduction reduces accordingly.”

450 ppm? At least now we know when to expect the next outbreak of mass hysteria.

Jelle Bijma of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Ocean Research in Bremerhaven, reported by klimaretter.de):

With this we surpass the 400 ppm mark for the first time in 25 million years. [...] The Earth’s climate does not fundamentally react to the rise in CO2 in a linear fashion, explained Bijma. However there seems to be a relationship: The continued increase in greenhouse gas concentration as a whole strengthens the tendency to warming of the atmosphere. The higher the CO2 concentration, the graver are the consequences of climate change.”

The German Green Party wrote at their site:

Reaching the 400 ppm mark and the foreseeable increase in CO2 concentrations mean a much warmer world, and foremost a more volatile world connected with a sea level that is meters higher. [...] It has probably been 3 million years since CO2 concentrations have been so high. [...] To avert the consequences of a further dramatic increase in CO2 emissions, we must immediately and effectively protect the climate.”

There’s much more of course. But I’ve got to get back to calming the hysterical here. I’m telling them that over the Earth’s history CO2 have meandered over a broad range of 180 ppm to as high as 7000 ppm. At 150 life really starts having problems. During the ice ages we were dangerously low, below 200 ppm. At 400 ppm we now at least have a small buffer against extinction.

At the moment they are blocking it all out, of course. But tomorrow when they wake up, they will see that the earth is still there. It’s a slow process that moves one step at a time. They’ll wake up 5 mornings in a row, then do so for a whole year, and then for a decade, and more, and the world will still be there. Most by then will have relaxed and returned to a functional life.

 

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Climaphobe German Scientist Insists Climate Scientists Need To Take Over Global Policy-Making

By P Gosselin on 13. Mai 2013

WickeSometimes I really wonder about the people major media outlets choose to interview. The ones with the most spectacularly catastrophic visions get all the attention.

German scientist Lutz Wicke (photo right) said in an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) that “future generations will curse us climate scientists” and that we now find ourselves in an “absolutely desperate situation” with regards to climate protection.

H/t: Oliver Geden @Twitter.

Wicke’s alarmist interview comes on the heels of the 4th International Petersberger Climate Dialogue in Berlin, which was supposed to lay the groundwork for the next UN climate conference in Warsaw in November. Representatives from 35 countries atteneded the Berlin Petersberger Climate Dialoge. However, little if any progress was achieved.

If Lutz Wicke is an indication, then activist scientists are becoming increasingly frustrated, outraged and impatient.

Wicke is from the Institute for Environmental Management at the ESCP Europe and in the interview “he is demanding that climate scientists worldwide join together and exert more influence on policymaking.”

Wicke says there’s absolutely no reason for optimism when it comes to nations finding an effective agreement to stem global warming.

Wicke has visions of Sahara-like summers

Wicke expects global temperature this century to rise 4°C, which, he says “means 8°C in the Mediterranaen region“:

Then in the summertime we will have heat waves there like in the Sahara. The living space of billions of people will destroyed.”

Wicke seems to suffer from acute climaphobia and to be obsessed with end-of-world scenarios. One thing is certain: he’s intent on spreading his fear to the readers of the Süddeutsche.

For a long time, the lack of progress in implementing an eco-authoritarianism on the world was blamed on political leaders, especially those from the USA, China and India. But now Wicke says climate scientists must take a share of the blame:

…they should have appropriately advised the political leaders. That didn’t happen. Even climate politicians are not expert enough to tell us in detail how agreements are to be designed so that a reduction in emissions can be reached.”

Wicke angry that states failed to boss citizens around

Here Wicke advocates that climate-paranoid scientists write international agreements for politicians. It gets better. A little later on in the interview he says:

It is crystal clear that states worldwide are not able to require themselves to appropriately reduce their emissions of climate gases, or to comply to these requirements. They can’t influence their citizens and the economy so that they accept it.”

In Wicke’s view, states just aren’t capable of bossing around their citizens and getting them to commit economic suicide. European climate alarmists are growing impatient.

Later in the interview Wicke suggests limiting per capita CO2 emissions globally to five tons per person, or taxing fossil fuels so much that they’ll be too expensive to use.

So why aren’t these brilliant ideas not being discussed, the Süddeutsche asks? Wicke:

Among other other things, climate scientists have been much too quiet about this.”

Wicke says scientists should write the international agreements

Amusingly, the Süddeutsche asks Wicke if climate scienists really are the right people to hammer out international agreements. Wicke:

Who, when not us, should politcians, who we meet at climate conferences, should make concrete proposals? Climate science cannot restrict itself to develoiping computer models. For that, the matter is just too important and dramatic.”

Then he says climate scientists need more funding so that they can do the things they need to do to rescue the planet.

Wicke: climate scientists can rescue the future generations

Wicke disagrees with Hans von Storch, who says science should deliver the results and leave the job of policymaking to the policymakers and citizenry. But Wicke insists:

Scientists cannot act like it’s all none of their business. We can’t just provide the diagnosis and then quit. We also have to try to prevent the prognoses from happening. This is about the destiny of future generations.”

Gee, who really stands to benefit in that deal? What would a roofing company be tempted to tell a homeowner who isn’t allowed to get a second opinion?

By now we get the sense that this Wicke scientist obviously is interested in only one thing. And we thought Schellnhuber was bad.

The Süddeutsche then correctly points out that scienitists in the past have made many false prognoses, so can the scientists really be trusted? Wicke:

The models must undergo continuous correction, that’s completely clear. But in the meantime the biggest problems we had at the start of climate science have been overcome. Also in the next 7-year IPCC report there will again certainly be small corrections to the earlier prognoses. But the certainty of how things will develop will be even greater. And we can thus expect the worst fears to be confirmed … with business as usual there will be with a high probability an increase in temperature of around 6°C by 2100. [...]

If we do nothing now, then also us climate scientists will be cursed by the future generationsfor not having done enough to avoid the catastrophes – even though we knew they would happen.”

Just for Wicke, and his followers, here’s a chart showing what “small corrections” are needed:

ipcc_fig1-4_models_obs

Chart source: Chapter 1 of the IPCC AR5 second order draft.

Photo credit Luz Wicke: www.escp-europe/

 

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The Real Reason Why The Warmists Totally Dread The Future Of Rising CO2…Divergence!

By P Gosselin on 12. Mai 2013

I was looking at the Climate4you.com/ chart Joe Bastardi used in a recent post. It shows the CO2 and the temperature curves. In it we already see the first signs of why the warmists are getting seriously nervous. The divergence is beginning:

Bastardi_1

Figure 1: TODAY: CO2 concentration and global temperature. The divergence began in 2005.

I asked myself what is it going to look like in 10 or 15 years with the negative AMO and PDO (let’s leave out the solar activity slumber for now) continuing. So I took the Climate4You chart, cut and extended it out to the year 2030. We know CO2 is going to keep rising. Next I simply extended the negative phase of the AMO and PDO global temp out to 2030 so that it’s behaves similarly to the last negative phase for the 1950s, 60s and 70s. Doing that you get the following development:

000What the warmists are afraid of

Figure 2: 2030…oh my, what a wonderful correlation.

Now you know why the warmists are crapping bricks big time right now. They see the writing on the wall – they know the Great Climate Scam has got but only a few more years to live, and then it is over! RIP! It’s going to get worse with every passing year. In fact, let’s hope CO2 skyrockets to 500 ppm soon…it’ll make their error look even more profound.

Many will argue that you just can’t assume the AMO and the PDO will have a similar impact as it did from 1950s through the 1970s. Well, we’ll see. So far it’s right on track!

And let’s recall that next years will see low solar activity, and so the temperatures could drop even more. It gets even worse if a major volcano erupts. The warmists are not going to have a place to hide.

 

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WeatherBELL: “Major, Historic 3-Day Cold Outbreak” To Grip Northeast USA

By P Gosselin on 12. Mai 2013

No, NTZ has not been taken over by Joe Bastardi and WeatherBELL (But I’m open for offers :) ).

Seriously, it’s just that Joe has had some interesting news lately, and here’s another that’s happening in our time of “global warming” and “record” 400 ppm CO2.

WeatherBELL5_11

Mid-May frost forecast to wipe out fruit. Source: www.weatherbell.com/saturday-summary-may-11-2013

The latest comes from his Saturday Summary 5/11. At the 5:50 mark:

But what the GFS has been insisting on, is the major historic 3-day cold outbreak.”

Are things ever going to warm up?

Over the long-term Joe says it’ll probably cool “worse than we thought”. Read my last post from yesterday.

 

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