Quote: This further strengthened China's negotiating hand, as did the complete lack of civil society political pressure on either China or India. Campaign groups never blame developing countries for failure; this is an iron rule that is never broken. The Indians, in particular, have become past masters at co-opting the language of equity ("equal rights to the atmosphere") in the service of planetary suicide – and leftish campaigners and commentators are hoist with their own petard.

Quote:[color="#FF0000"]Copenhagen was much worse than just another bad deal, because it illustrated a profound shift in global geopolitics. This is fast becoming China's century,[/color] yet its leadership has displayed that multilateral environmental governance is not only not a priority, but is viewed as a hindrance to the new superpower's freedom of action.

Quote:From Miami to Maine, Savannah to Seattle, America is caught in an icy grip that one of the U.N.'s top global warming proponents says could mark the beginning of a mini ice age.

Quote:A United Nations body is expected to retract its oft-repeated prediction that most of the Himalayan glaciers will melt by 2035.

Two years ago, the UN’s Nobel prize-winning body — Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) headed by R.K. Pachauri — had warned of the melting of glaciers, which would have far-reaching consequences for India. Now, evidence has emerged to suggest that the IPCC may have been mistaken.

“We are studying the new evidence,” Pachauri.

The IPCC’s claim was based on an article in the New Statesman, London, which relied on an estimate made by India’s leading glaciologist and Padamshree recipient Syed Iqbal Hasnain.

Fred Pearce, who wrote the article, has told Sunday Times, London, that Hasnain, who made the claim in 1999, had said he would provide a report explaining his conclusion.

“I obtained a copy, and it did not have what Hasnain had said,” Pearce told the newspaper. “It does not mention 2035 as a date by which Himalayan glaciers will melt.”

Hasnain had told Pearce his claim was “speculative”.

Quote:Ramesh turns heat on Pachauri over glacier melt scare [UN-IPCC Meltdown]

The Times of India ^ | 19 January 2010 | The Times of India

Posted on Mon Jan 18 2010 11:52:06 GMT-0800 (Pacific Standard Time) by James C. Bennett



NEW DELHI: The furore over the validity of data used by UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has taken some of the sheen off the Nobel prize-winning institution's reputation.



A day after it emerged that IPCC's dire prediction that climate change would melt most Himalyan glaciers by 2035 was based on mere "speculation", environment minister Jairam Ramesh slammed the processes of the celebrated body saying "due diligence had not been followed by the Nobel peace prize winning body".



"The health of glaciers is a cause of grave concern but the IPCC's alarmist position that they would melt by 2035 was not based on an iota of scientific evidence," the environment minister said.



Ramesh recalled how IPCC chief R K Pachauri had scornfully dismissed doubts raised by an Indian government agency about the veracity of the UN body's sensational projection about melting of glaciers. "In fact, we had issued a report by scientist V K Raina that the glaciers have not retreated abnormally. At the time, we were dismissed, saying it was based on voodoo science. But the new report has clearly vindicated our position," he said.



This may not be the first time that climate science relating to India has been found to be fallacious or incorrect. However, revelation that the data on glacial melt in Himalayas was unverified has dented the image of the IPCC -- which has set the agenda for climate change talks. It has given a handle to climate sceptics who have long accused the IPCC of being biased.



The report by Raina and other glaciologists had found support from some well-known glaciologists from across the world at that time.



Pachauri, the high profile head of IPCC, acknowledged to TOI that the controversy had caused loss of face for the institution. "Of course, it goes without saying (that the IPCC's reputation has suffered). We have to see that its gold-plated standard is maintained," he said.



The embarrassment comes close on the heels of the disclosure of emails among scientists aligned with the IPCC who argued that data undercutting their conclusions should be withheld from public.



When asked what steps the IPCC would take to correct the erroneous information in its report, Pachauri said the group would move swiftly to verify facts at its own level, work to figure how the `deviation from due process occurred' and act on the situation.



Other sources, not willing to come on record, suggested that IPCC was looking at the possibility of a `corrigendum or errata' to be published within the week. While this is not unprecedented in IPCC history, corrections carried out so far related to typographical errors.



This time, however, the body will be correcting an unverified report that not only got included in its findings that framed the cliamte change negotitations but remained undetected for more than two years.



The IPCC is only meant to include peer-reviewed information that has passed the litmus test of being published in reputed journals. But this is not the first time that data on India, often used by industrialised countries to put pressure on Delhi to take actions, has been found to be incorrect.



"In 1990, US raised a scare that methane emissions (an intense greenhouse gas) from wet paddy fields in India were as high as 38 million tonnes. It was later found by Indian scientists and globally accepted that it was as low as 2-6 million tonnes," Ramesh said.



Again in 2000, just before crucial negotiations, US and other industrialised countries flogged an unverified report of UNEP that claimed soot from chullahs (earthen cookstoves) was adding greatly to climate change, calling it the Asian Brown Haze.

Quote:The U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been forced to back off its now-discredited claim that the Himalayan glaciers would soon disappear. But it's not true, the panel's vice chairman, Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, told the BBC, that it was simply a "human mistake."



The panel's chairman, Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri, who was forced to admit the claim had no basis in observable scientific fact, said its inclusion was merely a "poor application" of IPCC procedures, acting as if the original source of the claim, Indian scientist Dr. Syed Hasnain, was a total stranger.



.....



Was money another motivation? Booker points out that Hasnain's claim "helped TERI win a substantial share of a $300,000 grant from one of America's leading charities, along with a share in a 3-million-euro research study funded by the EU."

Quote:The Indian government's move is a snub to both the IPCC and Dr Pachauri as he battles to defend his reputation following the revelation that his most recent climate change report included false claims that most of the Himalayan glaciers would melt away by 2035. Scientists believe it could take more than 300 years for the glaciers to disappear.



The body and its chairman have faced growing criticism ever since as questions have been raised on the credibility of their work and the rigour with which climate change claims are assessed.



In India the false claims have heightened tensions between Dr Pachauri and the government, which had earlier questioned his claims. In Autumn, its environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, said that while glacial melting in the Himalayas was a real concern, there was evidence that some were actually advancing despite global warming.



Dr Pachauri had dismissed the government's claims as "voodoo science", but last night Mr Ramesh effectively marginalised the IPC chairman even further.



He announced that the Indian government will establish a separate National Institute of Himalayan Glaciology to monitor the effects of climate change on the world's "third ice cap", and an "Indian IPCC" to use "climate science" to assess the impact of global warming throughout the country.



"There is a fine line between climate science and climate evangelism. I am for climate science. I think people misused [the] IPCC report ... [the] IPCC doesn't do the original research which is one of the weaknesses ... they just take published literature and then they derive assessments, so we had goof-ups on Amazon forest, glaciers, snow peaks.

"I respect the IPCC but India is a very large country and cannot depend only on [the] IPCC and so we have launched the Indian Network on Comprehensive Climate Change Assessment (INCCA)," he said.



It will bring together 125 research institutions throughout India, work with international bodies and operate as a "sort of Indian IPCC," he added.

Quote:The UN climate change panel has admitted to having imprecisely stated in a key report that 55 per cent of The Netherlands is under sea level, saying that is only the area at risk of flooding.



The Dutch government this month asked the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to explain the figure, used in a landmark 2007 report, saying its numbers were that only 26 per cent of the country is below sea level.



It was a new embarrassment for the panel. The same 938-page Fourth Assessment Report also contained an erroneous claim that global warming could melt Himalayan glaciers by 2035.

The IPCC admitted in a note sent to AFP on Sunday that the 55 per cent figure was actually the portion of The Netherlands "at risk of being flooded". It insisted that the imprecision did not affect the conclusions of the report.

Quote:Climategate U-turn as scientist at centre of row admits: There has been no global warming since 1995

By Jonathan Petre

Last updated at 5:12 PM on 14th February 2010



Data for vital 'hockey stick graph' has gone missing

There has been no global warming since 1995

Warming periods have happened before - but NOT due to man-made changes



The academic at the centre of the ‘Climategate’ affair, whose raw data is crucial to the theory of climate change, has admitted that he has trouble ‘keeping track’ of the information.Colleagues say that the reason Professor Phil Jones has refused Freedom of Information requests is that he may have actually lost the relevant papers.

Professor Jones told the BBC yesterday there was truth in the observations of colleagues that he lacked organisational skills, that his office was swamped with piles of paper and that his record keeping is ‘not as good as it should be’.

The data is crucial to the famous ‘hockey stick graph’ used by climate change advocates to support the theory.



Professor Jones also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now – suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon.

And he said that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming.

The admissions will be seized on by sceptics as fresh evidence that there are serious flaws at the heart of the science of climate change and the orthodoxy that recent rises in temperature are largely man-made.

Professor Jones has been in the spotlight since he stepped down as director of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit after the leaking of emails that sceptics claim show scientists were manipulating data.

The raw data, collected from hundreds of weather stations around the world and analysed by his unit, has been used for years to bolster efforts by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to press governments to cut carbon dioxide emissions.



http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1250872/Climategate-U-turn-Astonishment-scientist-centre-global-warming-email-row-admits-data-organised.html#ixzz0fjiyRY9m

Quote:Former foreign secretary Shyam Saran Friday announced his decision to quit as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's special envoy on climate change.

"This is not something new. I had informed the prime minister's office earlier that March 14 would be my last working day," Saran told IANS.

Quote:Physicist Dr. Denis Rancourt, a former professor and environmental science researcher at the University of Ottawa, has officially bailed out of the man-made global warming movement.



In a hard-hitting and exclusive new exclusive video just released by Climate Depot, Dr. [color="#FF0000"][size="5"]Rancourt declares that the entire man-made global warming movement is nothing more than a “corrupt social phenomenon.” “It is as much psychological and social phenomenon as anything else,” Rancourt, who has published peer-reviewed research, explained in a June 8, 2010 essay.[/size][/color]



Watch Rancourt video here.



“I argue that by far the most destructive force on the planet is power-driven financiers and profit-driven corporations and their cartels backed by military might; and that the global warming myth is a red herring that contributes to hiding this truth. In my opinion, activists who, using any justification, feed the global warming myth have effectively been co-opted, or at best neutralized,” Rancourt said.



“Global warming is strictly an imaginary problem of the First World middleclass,” he stated.



Environmental censorship



Rancourt’s dissent on man-made climate fears has not set well with many of his fellow green friends. “When I tell environmental activists that global warming is not something to be concerned about, they attack me — they shun me, they do not allow me to have my materials published in their magazines,” Rancourt explained to Climate Depot.



Rancourt bluntly examines why his fellow environmentalists are wrapped up in promoting climate alarm. (Note: Rancourt also ridicules environmental concern over acid rain and the ozone hole. See below)



“They look for comfortable lies that they can settle into and alleviate the guilt they feel about being on privileged end of the planet — a kind of survivors guilt. A lot of these environmentalists are guilt laden individuals who need to alleviate the guilt without taking risks,” he said. “They are weekend activists…looking for lies to hitch onto.”



“The modern environmental move has hijacked itself by looking for an excuse to stay comfortable and stay away from actual battle. Ward Churchill has called this pacifism as pathology,” he explained. “If you are really concerned about saving world’s forests or habitat destruction, then fight against habitat destruction, don’t go off in tenuous thing about co2 concentration in the atmosphere. Actually address the question; otherwise you are weakening your effect as an activist.”

....

Quote:Top US scientist Hal Lewis resigned this week from his post with the biased American Physical Society.

He admitted global warming climate change was nothing but a scam in his resignation letter.



The Telegraph reported:



The following is a letter to the American Physical Society released to the public by Professor Emiritus of physics Hal Lewis of the University of California at Santa Barbara.



Sent: Friday, 08 October 2010 17:19 Hal Lewis

From: Hal Lewis, University of California, Santa Barbara

To: Curtis G. Callan, Jr., Princeton University, President of the American Physical Society

6 October 2010



Dear Curt:



When I first joined the American Physical Society sixty-seven years ago it was much smaller, much gentler, and as yet uncorrupted by the money flood (a threat against which Dwight Eisenhower warned a half-century ago).



Indeed, the choice of physics as a profession was then a guarantor of a life of poverty and abstinence—it was World War II that changed all that. The prospect of worldly gain drove few physicists. As recently as thirty-five years ago, when I chaired the first APS study of a contentious social/scientific issue, The Reactor Safety Study, though there were zealots aplenty on the outside there was no hint of inordinate pressure on us as physicists. We were therefore able to produce what I believe was and is an honest appraisal of the situation at that time. We were further enabled by the presence of an oversight committee consisting of Pief Panofsky, Vicki Weisskopf, and Hans Bethe, all towering physicists beyond reproach. I was proud of what we did in a charged atmosphere. In the end the oversight committee, in its report to the APS President, noted the complete independence in which we did the job, and predicted that the report would be attacked from both sides. What greater tribute could there be?



How different it is now. The giants no longer walk the earth, and the money flood has become the raison d’être of much physics research, the vital sustenance of much more, and it provides the support for untold numbers of professional jobs. For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society.



It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford’s book organizes the facts very well.) I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist.



So what has the APS, as an organization, done in the face of this challenge? It has accepted the corruption as the norm, and gone along with it…