"We're not scared anymore Mr Gore." An inspired cartoon story from 2008.

You can get your copy here: http://www.users.on.net/~kerryandmarc/not%20scared%20anymore%20Mr%20Gore%20EE.pdf

 The story shows Mr Gore being welcomed to a classroom, making some of his points, with each of them being refuted by the children.  Eventually, Mr Gore flees. 

Some background on the author:

'Marc Hendrickx has worked as a geologist since completing a BSc (Hons) at Latrobe University, Australia in 1993. His work has included making geological maps for government geological surveys in the Victorian Alps, the deserts of central Australia and in the dry plains of Western New South Wales. Since 2001 he has worked as an engineering geologist specialising in transport infrastructure. At the time of writing he was undertaking a PhD at Macquarie University.  As a geologist Marc sees the effects of natural climate change written into the rock record every time he steps onto an outcrop. He doesn’t need a computer model to tell him the climate’s changing.  The path to a sustainable future will not be born from fear.  Open your eyes and set yourself free.'

More here: http://littleskepticpress.blogspot.com/

Note added 16 Sep 2013: the above link to get a pdf copy of the storybook no longer works.  You can see a fairly clunky version on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DW9_RkHlz2Q

Weather agencies as Trojan horses. Radical meteorology! Lousy forecasts!

Tim Ball has created an interesting hypothesis: that weather agencies, such as the UK Met Office, were deliberately targeted to be Trojan horses for alarmism around CO2.  From there, the schools and the children and their teachers must have looked like sitting ducks.  They were.

Climate Distortions Were Achieved. National Weather Agencies Are The Trojan Horses

Extract:

'Maurice Strong set up the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) through the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) to provide a powerful vehicle for almost complete control of climate science. Each national weather office perpetuates the deception that human CO2 is causing climate change. He controlled the science through the IPCC and the political and propaganda portion under the umbrella of the Rio Conference (1992) and the ongoing Conference of the Parties (COP). By peopling the IPCC with representatives of national weather offices, he attained control of the politics within each nation and collective global control. They’re the Trojan Horses  from which funding and research emanate to deceive the politicians and public into achieving his goal of destroying the industrialized nations.'

The article ends with:

'Maurice Strong built the Trojan Horses around material provided by national weather agencies. Too many scientists and bureaucrats were willing carpenters complicit in the construction and operation. Some of the cladding has been pulled off, but the skeleton remains. National weather agencies continue controlling the IPCC and all climate issues. They also continue to fail miserably with their forecasts. Despite millions spent on a new computer the UKMO predicted a mild winter and were quickly proved completely wrong. They were equally wrong in previous winter and summer forecasts with cheaper computers. They did the IPCC ‘trick’ by saying they don’t do long term forecasts, they are “outlooks”. Environment Canada has similar spectacular failures for which they invent 1984 type newspeak. A Globe and Mail headline last week announced, Environment Canada admits to ‘underforecasting’ snow by 1,000 per cent. The Trojan horse’s all have broken legs; it is time to put them down.'

I fail to see how you can 'put down' a weather agency.  But a root and branch reform, with new leaders and more freedom to follow science rather than ideology would be a good thing.  Perhaps if they just went back to weather forecasting, free from biased-models, that would suffice.

Meanwhile, in our schools the tragedy of misinforming and frightening the children will go on. 

Honest climate science from NASA? Looks like it!

The primary 'forcings' (by which I think they mean the most influential factors) in the climate system do not include CO2!!  Has the home of Drama Queen Hansen been hacked into that such sense as this should be found on its website?

'The Sun is the primary forcing of Earth's climate system. Sunlight warms our world. Sunlight drives atmospheric and oceanic circulation patterns. Sunlight powers the process of photosynthesis that plants need to grow. Sunlight causes convection which carries warmth and water vapor up into the sky where clouds form and bring rain. In short, the Sun drives almost every aspect of our world's climate system and makes possible life as we know it. 

Earth's orbit around and orientation toward the Sun change over spans of many thousands of years. In turn, these changing "orbital mechanics" force climate to change because they change where and how much sunlight reaches Earth. (Please see for more details.) Thus, changing Earth's exposure to sunlight forces climate to change. According to scientists' models of Earth's orbit and orientation toward the Sun indicate that our world should be just beginning to enter a new period of cooling -- perhaps the next ice age. 

However, a new force for change has arisen: humans. After the industrial revolution, humans introduced increasing amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and changed the surface of the landscape to an extent great enough to influence climate on local and global scales. By driving up carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere (by about 30 percent), humans have increased its capacity to trap warmth near the surface. 

Other important forcings of Earth's climate system include such "variables" as clouds, airborne particulate matter, and surface brightness. Each of these varying features of Earth's environment has the capacity to exceed the warming influence of greenhouse gases and cause our world to cool. For example, increased cloudiness would give more shade to the surface while reflecting more sunlight back to space. Increased airborne particles (or "aerosols") would scatter and reflect more sunlight back to space, thereby cooling the surface. Major volcanic eruptions (such as that of Mt. Pinatubo in 1992) can inject so much aerosol into the atmosphere that, as it spreads around the globe, it reduces sunlight and cause Earth to cool. Likewise, increasing the surface area of highly reflective surface types, such as ice sheets, reflects greater amounts of sunlight back to space and causes Earth to cool.
Scientists are using NASA satellites to monitor all of the aforementioned forcings of Earth's climate system to better understand how they are changing over time, and how any changes in them affect climate.'

See for yourself here:  http://science.nasa.gov/earth-science/big-questions/what-are-the-primary-causes-of-the-earth-system-variability/


Hat tip: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/12/climate_change_its_the_sun_stu.html

They thrived in the fear they created: 1972, and the fatuous 'Blueprint for Survival'

Donna Laframboise has written a very informative essay about the 'Blueprint for Survival' published way back in 1972.  This, along with the similarly fatuous 'Limits to Growth' published in the same year and Ehrlich's 'Population Bomb' published a little earlier, was the output of a handful of rich and poorly-informed, weak on science, weak on economics, weak on history, weak on humanity, men in the West, claiming to be desperately anxious about the future of humanity.  Laframboise has identified a very influential subset: the Drama Queen Scientist.  They live in the wealthy West, they have enought money, enough security, but what they lack is sufficient publicity.  They discovered that scaring people witless was a pretty good way to get it. 

 Some extracts (my italics) from the essay:

'The 34 distinguished biologists, ecologists, doctors, and economists who endorsed the Blueprint are accountable to no one. If such people started making decisions regarding economics, public health, transportation, and other matters we’d be exchanging representative democracy for tyranny on the part of these select experts. We’d be saying that a small number of people know better than we do what is best for us and our children.
I think that’s bunk. I also think it’s important to note that some experts are drama queens. For them, the glass is always half empty and everything is always a crisis (rather than a manageable problem). Unfortunately, drama queens tend to attract media attention. We therefore need to start noticing that, no matter what the specific problem has been, drama queen scientists have been pushing the same unpalatable solutions for 40 years:  fewer humans, less consumption, less travel – and less freedom.'

...

'The past 40 years bear little resemblance to the horror story the drama queens were predicting back in 1972. Average people are now richer and healthier. They live longer lives and many enjoy access to more food, culture, and technology than did the princes of old. In much of the world the air and water is cleaner than it was in the 1970s, and the forests are larger. As books such as Matt Ridley’s Rational Optimist patiently explain, the planet is not headed to hell in a handcart. Things are far from perfect, but the current situation looks nothing like the collapse predicted by the Blueprint 40 years ago.'

...

'When I read the Blueprint I’m reminded of Soviet Communist Party literature prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Communists also thought they were building a better world. They thought they could alter human nature and that, if they only planned carefully enough, a prosperous and harmonious society would transpire. Communist party publications, I might add, were characterized by the same pompous, judgmental tone.
The Communist reality, however, was a disaster. Which means that before I’m willing to place my trust in anyone else’s utopian fantasies they’ll need to spend an awful lot of time explaining what they’ve learned not to do based on their careful study of the Soviet and Chinese debacles. Quick tip: let’s start with how many independent safeguards will ensure that millions of souls cannot be starved or murdered by their own government.
Drama queens inhabit a fear-filled world – one that’s dangerously unpredictable and in which some small matter can trigger the apocalypse. They have little faith in their own ability to cope, in humanity, or in the future. No matter how many good things have happened, they insist on identifying the flaw in every apple. They are a personality type – and they are a part of our collective humanity.
But a world that permits that part of us to determine the future is a world in which the future may, indeed, turn out to be bleak.'

How many senior teachers, heads, etc were students in the early 1970s and were influenced by the fluent balderdash of the Blueprint or the Limits or the P-Bomb?  How many of our current politicians, and senior civil servants, and media managers, were also victims of them?  Can we suppose part of the astonishing success of the IPCC-spin on climate is due to such influences?  Can we find ways to protect future generations from them?

Something for the classroom wall - cartoons by Josh to get them thinking (and laughing)

Source, and contact details for permissions: http://cartoonsbyjosh.com/

Also showing at good blog sites near you, e.g.

http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2010/12/10/josh-62.html
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/10/friday-funny-the-new-and-improved-4-legged-agw-table/