Three New Books for the Climate Classroom - and maybe even for the Staffroom if you dare

(1)  The Delinquent Teenager, by Donna Laframboise

(2) How to Get Expelled from School, by Ian Plimer

(3) Don't Sell Your Coat, by Harold Ambler

      (1) The Delinquent Teenager 

An investigative journalist digging behind the fancy PR and slick politics of the climate alarm industry is a very rare beast indeed.  In the UK, environment and science correspondents have proliferated in print and broadcast media, but they have proliferated, and behave, in the way that missionaries might have done in an era of religious excitement and evangelism, one coupled with generous funding for their work and for the faith which sustains them.  In other words, they do not ‘investigate’ so much as ‘pontificate’, and they do not, and in some cases, dare not since it is against their bosses’ explicit guidance, venture out of line.  Donna Laframboise is not one of them.  She is free and fearless.  Her faith is in the power of daylight, of examination of the facts, of publicising the bigger picture and the details overlooked by others in their haste to be part of the crowd and push the new doom-laden religion which has scientists and computer programmers as the high priests, the IPCC as writer and keeper of the gospels, and such as the Royal Society as one of many Bishoprics in search of power not enjoyed by ecclesiasticals since the Middle Ages.

Her focus in this book is on the IPCC – the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.  She is not primarily concerned with the science.  She is concerned with mismatches between what the leaders of the IPCC say, what they do, and what they have failed to do in terms of taking valid opinions and expertise into account.  The organisation presents itself as worthy of trust, but it is not worthy of trust.  It presents itself as an aggregator and reviewer of all relevant science, but it is not – it is a purveyor of a narrow view, a suppressor of debate, and a means by which dissenting voices are ignored.  It tells us it is policy-neutral, to which one can only comment ‘aye, right’ – a double positive which in Scotland conveys a very negative view of the veracity of some assertion.

Why does this matter for schools?  It matters because some materials aimed at children justify their stance by reference to the IPCC.  Consensus.  The UN.  Leading scientists.  Deep research.  Good data.  Great integrity.  Aye, right.  This book is a very useful expose of corruption, conniving, hypocrisy, and deceit.  'But we want to save the planet! So give us a break!'  I don’t think they deserve one, and if you read this book, you won’t either, and in particular, any materials which include the phrase ‘the IPCC says’ will be held by you on the end of tongs while you check them out yourself using more independent sources.  I have helped buy a couple of hundred copies of this book in pdf to email to all the MPs, MSPs, and MEPs in Scotland.

  

(2)  How to Get Expelled from School

A muscular piece of writing from a professor clearly exasperated by the antics and influence of climate alarmists in education and in the media.  I think it perhaps too intense, too sustained and unrelenting to be a hit with most school pupils.  But Plimer has done the heavy lifting here, and provides structure, focus and core content for perhaps as many as 30 to 40 shorter, more heavily illustrated school-level books at various levels.  I hope teachers with a writing bent will pick up from here, and write those lighter books.  They will be needed as part of the long clearing-up operation we face in our schools long after the political foolishness and superficial science of climate alarm has been well and truly consigned to the proverbial dustbin of history.  New books will be required.  In the meantime, and this meantime may last a year or a decade, pupils and parents have to cope as best they can with modern dogma about climate change.  Plimer clearly has his sights on the ‘activist teacher’, and often guides the reader to questions that might expose their real agendas, which are not the education of the young so much as the recruitment of them for ‘the cause’.  I have bought two copies, thanks to a relative carrying them over from Australia – the shipping cost for even a single book being a bit off-putting for me.  This is one for the sympathetic teacher, a reference work for class projects, and a succinct overview of many topics for the keenest of pupils in senior classes.  However, I hope that a great many more books will flow from it, or be inspired by it.  And in that 'meantime', climate realists everywhere could find this book a handy reference.  It is also now available as a pdf, and one group in Australia bought 300 copies to make available to schools there free of charge. [edit 28 Feb - I was wrong about there being a pdf version]
Note added 07 May 2012.

The Australian government has issued a rejoinder to Plimer's book.  As Delingpole has observed, you get most flak when you are over the target.  This looks like an attempted barrage; pdf available here: http://www.climatechange.gov.au/climate-change/understanding-climate-change/response-to-prof-plimer.aspx  Commentary on it here: http://www.crikey.com.au/2012/05/07/dept-of-climate-change-rebuts-plimers-book-for-sceptic-kids/

(3)  Don’t Sell Your Coat

‘As I’ve explained already, I was predisposed by birth

and upbringing to concede the high moral ground to

Al Gore and anybody else who told me that they were

fighting on behalf of Mother Earth.

I was wrong.’

This is a beautiful book in many ways.  First of all, in terms of attracting the attention of whoever may pick it up, it is beautifully laid out, typeset, and illustrated.  You might well buy the Kindle version, but I’ll bet you’ll soon come to wish you had something more tangible for the coffee table.  Second, it is extremely well written.  Friendly, fluent, flowing prose, and although dealing with very contentious issues, civil and coherent throughout.  Third, it provides candid glimpses into the life and the intellectual and political development of boy, youth, and grown man, one who is alive to the world of nature and to the world of ideas, and who thought on both deeply enough to shake off the left-wing (= ‘liberal’ in US-speak) conditioning all around him about climate change, and to think through his own thoughts and seek out data himself.  All of this is edifying, and very helpful and informative.  He does not ignore charts and numbers, but he slips them in so that your number-phobe won’t mind much if at all.  Overall, the book is mostly text, with some superb black and white pictures.  I am going to buy a good few copies to send to my friends and family, hoping this will help them see me and my similar views in a better light.  I tell them I am not the one with radical, controversial views ill-supported by theory and observations – that’s the other ‘side’.  I think this book could ensure that they’ll not sell their coats.  And maybe more of them will keep their hats on when the topic of climate comes up!

Testing the Sagacity of the Royal Society: more grist for pupil projects on climate variation

In November last year, a couple of multi-year projects were suggested: monitoring reports of sea level changes, and reports about the Greenland and Antarctic icecaps.  To add extra interest, these reports and regularly updated charts on the classroom wall, would be considered against the heartfelt, but now tempered, claims of the Royal Society in each of these areas.  These would mostly be relevant to geography classes, although science teachers could also make use of them to help motivative their pupils by linking to topical issues.  Now we have the possibility of extending the appeal to include classes in modern studies, wherever political wheeling and dealing and the interface with science is on the curriculum.

Source: NoFrakkingConsensus

  A new report by Andrew Montford called Nullius in Verba describes how a series of presidents of the Royal Society used their positions to promote a speculative theory of impending climate doom.  This theory is so poorly supported, and often contradicted, by observations of the climate system that it is forced to lean heavily on the more readily manipulated virtual world of computer models to gain some credence - at least among the gullible or among those who see advantage in taking the theory as incontrovertible fact.



Another fine resource for both teacher and pupil interested in the Royal Society has just been posted on Bishop Hill.  The Royal Society is often quoted, along with the IPCC, as an authoritative body we should trust.  Donna Laframboise's book has revealed the IPCC as being far from trustworthy, Andrew Montford's pamphlet has revealed the Royal Society in the hands of irresponsible politically-motivated alarmists, and now we have the words of a Fellow of that Society courteously demolishing any residual respect a naive observer might have clinged to out of deference to such a body.  Here is a small extract, put in italics and partly emboldened by me for display here:

'Although I am not a climate scientist, I am sufficiently conversant with the climate science literature to be able to assess the issues accurately. My conclusion is that the case for catastrophic warming induced by man-made CO2 emissions is extremely weak ...

The case for catastrophic warming rests solely on the sign and magnitude of the feedbacks. As has been often said, “Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence”. The potential of catastrophic AGW is an extraordinary claim, but is without compelling supporting evidence. Because of the way that the AGW issue has been politicized together with the behavior of certain climate scientists, the reputation of science and the institutions that support it have suffered. Further, were catastrophic AGW to join the dreary parade of alarms that have punctuated the recent history of affluent societies, the consequences to science and the Society could be severe. It may take a long time before reputations are restored. It is, therefore, imperative for the Society to stay away from politics and advocacy of AGW or any other science based issue, no matter how beguiling the prospect may seem...'

See the post at Bishop Hill for the rest.  This is a very useful introductory overview of many of the reasons why intemperate alarm over the climate is out of order. Links are provided to back up the letter-writer's concerns.

First you scare ‘em, then you snare ‘em – how the UEA treats 13 and 14 year olds

That epicentre of scarequakes on climate and carbon dioxide, the University of East Anglia (UEA) has been lowering its sights recently to target more than 60 early teenagers in their neighbourhood. (hat-tip: Dave W).  Power Engineering carries the story, as does the print edition of the Norwich Evening News on 9th February (see below).  The impression it gives me is that they want them to be receptive to renewables as a source of energy, and at the same time get them involved in a scary scenario about a planetary emergency to get them on side.

Why would a university stoop to such a thing?  Let us first look at it:

First, you get the youngsters to imagine that fossil fuels have disappeared, that this is really scary, and that they must come up with ideas to save the world.  You pay an outside consultancy to do this, since it is one of their suite of activities for the young, and they no doubt have it down to a fine art.  Now by itself, I can imagine really good teachers, with the right type of pupils, engaging their attention in such a way (with no need of course to pay others to do so).  It is easy to imagine this could lead to lots of ideas and useful discussions.  But what about the rest of it?

Second, you bring in people with a vested interest in renewable energy (in this case Aquaterra ,  Seajacks and a tiny start-up called Wind Elements Ltd) and/or carbon reduction schemes and devices (in this case, Lotus Cars and  the University of East Anglia – the UEA, home of the Low Carbon Innovation Centre , commented on here in 2010, and of course of CRU, perhaps most widely known as the source of the Climategate materials ).  You arrange for the pupils to speed-date their way amongst them.

Third, you alert the press to what you are up to, perhaps invite them to be there.

 Fourth, you invite a children’s hero to attend, in this case a local footballer, perhaps in order to increase the possibility of a positive response from the press, and maybe even encourage more pupils to attend.

Now how does it look?  Can you imagine this happening in the old Soviet Union (‘First, imagine the capitalists have closed down all their businesses in some yet-to-be-liberated land, and you have to save the people there from starvation.  Second, let me introduce Commissar Crulcicski who wishes to tell the class about the new 5 year plan, and the glorious ideals of the Party.  You will each have to talk with him.  You need pay no attention to the comrade reporter from Pravda sitting at the back, but the famous footballer Stakhanovily Matthewski is here to distract deal with any technical questions that may arise.  Let us begin.’)

There’s more.  The no doubt well-intentioned facilitators of the simulation game (Camouflaged Learning) describe it as follows:

‘As the day begins, the students are informed that the Earth’s remaining reserves of fossil fuels have finally been exhausted and, as a result, the fabric of what we consider normal life has immediately started to crumble. No more light, no more heat, no more iPods. No more anything, in fact, meaning something needs to be done- and soon- before the world falls into total chaos.’

The UEA representative at the event is reported as hyping this up just a bit:

‘The students must solve the most catastrophic, significant and terrifying crisis imaginable – a world without power’, she said, ‘…It is essential that they act fast because, unless they’re successful, life as we know it could come to an end.’


If I were of a cynical disposition, I’d call this event ‘Camouflaged Selling – of renewables by the companies, and of alarmism by the university’.  Perish the thought.  Who would do such a thing with such young people?


Footnote

Poor pupils of Norwich.  A similar wheeze was followed by energy giant, EDF, last year at a high school in Norwich when they invited a famous athlete to attend a sustainability day of their devising.  To their credit though, it seems they might have skipped the bit where you first scare the kids:

‘“Days like these are something that pupils will remember for the rest of their lives and it is great that EDF Energy can combine this with a way of getting people together to fight climate change.”
It is hoped that the school’s sustainable efforts will inspire others in the local community to follow in its footsteps and think about what they can do differently in their lives to be greener.
Clive Steed, sustainability manager for EDF Energy said: “We can only tackle climate change effectively by taking action together. As a leading energy company, EDF Energy has an ethical responsibility and the expertise to inspire people to reduce their carbon footprint, which is why we kicked off Green Britain Day.’

 

More on EDF’s marketing-through-kids efforts here: http://www.jointhepod.org/

Education Scotland's Boilerplate Blethers vs Christopher Monckton's Astute Arithmetic

First, the boilerplate blethers on the Education Scotland site:

Climate change is one of the biggest challenges facing the global community in the 21st century. Scientists believe that the world is heating up rapidly and that this will cause changes to our weather and climate.

Scotland is taking a lead on tackling climate change with the Climate Change (Scotland) Act which commits Scotland to the world’s most ambitious greenhouse gas reduction targets. Our country has responded positively to the challenge and is seeking to be a world leader in harnessing renewable technology - creating jobs, helping the economy and demonstrating leadership on the international stage.

However, if we are to meet the targets of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050 then it will require everyone to play their part. This section explains some of the ways that individuals and schools can engage children and young people in hands-on activities to tackle climate change to help them develop new skills and support their development as responsible global citizens.

The above three paragraphs are contemptible contentious in just about every sentence, but I resist the urge to Fisk them here, in favour of merely placing them in close proximity to three from Viscount Monckton: 

When I visited the House of Lords’ minister, Lord Marland, at the Climate Change Department a couple of years ago, I asked him and the Department’s chief number-cruncher, Professor David Mackay (neither a climate scientist nor an economist, of course) to show me the Department’s calculations detailing just how much “global warming” that might otherwise occur this century would be prevented by the $30 billion per year that the Department was committed to spend between 2011 and 2050 – $1.2 trillion in all.

There was a horrified silence. The birds stopped singing. The Minister adjusted his tie. The Permanent Secretary looked at his watch. Professor Mackay looked as though he wished the plush sofa into which he was disappearing would swallow him up entirely.

Eventually, in a very small voice, the Professor said, “Er, ah, mphm, that is, oof, arghh, we’ve never done any such calculation.” The biggest tax increase in human history had been based not upon a mature scientific assessment followed by a careful economic appraisal, but solely upon blind faith. I said as much. “Well,” said the Professor, “maybe we’ll get around to doing the calculations next October.”

Now this Department of Energy and Climate Clowns Change (DECC) is leading the charge for the UK as a whole to ‘to meet the targets of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050’. Let me give the valiant viscount a further three paragraphs to assess the impact on global warming if DECC succeeds completely in its mission:

The UK accounts for 1.5% of global business-as-usual CO2 emissions. At an officially-estimated cost of $1.2 trillion by 2050, or $834 billion after inter-temporal discounting at the minimum market rate of 5%, the Climate Change Act aims to eradicate 80% of these emissions. So just 1.2% of global emissions would be abated even if the policy were to succeed in full.

Business-as-usual CO2 concentration, as the average of all six IPCC emission scenarios, would be 514 ppmv in 2050. A full and successful reduction of UK emissions by 80% over that period would reduce that concentration to – wait for it – 512.5 ppmv. This dizzying reduction of 1.5 ppmv over 40 years would have the effect of abating 0.008 K of the 1.05 K of warming that the IPCC would otherwise have expected to see by 2050.

The UK policy’s mitigation cost-effectiveness – the cost of abating just 1 Kelvin of warming if every nation pursued the UK’s policy with the same cost-ineffectiveness – works out at $108 trillion per Kelvin abated.

So, I hope that conscientious and conforming schoolteachers everywhere, urged to do their bit by such as Education Scotland, will take a little time to explain to their pupils just what kind of difference their sacrifices of time and energy are expected to make using the projections of the IPCC with regard to CO2 and its impact on global warming.  Then I hope their pupils will regard them with the contempt they deserve for their conformance to fatuous climate-alarm-driven policies.  They might even start doubting such statements such as ‘the world is heating up rapidly’ and ‘climate change is one of the biggest challenges’.  Let us hope so. But let us also hope that their teachers get there ahead of them.

CO2 Causes Contempt for Childhood - a climate well-worthy of our alarm

When children less than 6 years old are seen as 'instruments' 'for the achievement of a sustainable society' and that 'we' must make them  'understand deeply, and even shock them out of their unawareness', then something is seriously amiss; somebody somewhere is up to something we should resist.  The quotes are from a UNESCO report recently reported on by Donna Laframboise.

Targeting toddlers under the smokescreen of ‘sustainable development’ has more than just a hint of the peculiar impulses which grip some campaigners convinced that CO2 is a threat to life on earth, and most especially to humans and to polar bears.  Their negativity and exploitation of fear can lead to the absurd as well as to the totalitarian.  Their answer is invariably more state control of what we do and what we think, and where we live, and how we live, and what we might try to do.  Some kind of global rulebook, devised and enforced by an elite is what they want.  Nothing new there – countless religious and political mvoements have sought exactly that for thousands of years.  What is new is the appeal to climate science rather than to one or more deities, or the pseudo-science of Marxism.  Sometimes the outputs of computer programs are brought down as if from on high to be treated as part of the new gospel, interpreted by experts who do not care to have their authority challenged.  There is also nothing new in the targeting of the young, where the big idea is presumably to get at them before they have much chance of resistance.

The report is about a UNESCO conference held in 2007.  The conference-culture it represents is almost caricatured by this extract from the report:

‘This report originates from the international workshop, ‘The Role of Early Childhood Education for a Sustainable Society’, jointly organized in Göteborg, Sweden, by Göteborg University, Chalmers University of Technology and the City of Göteborg, from 2 to 4 May 2007. It was attended by thirty-fi ve participants from sixteen different countries (see ‘List of Participants’). The workshop was a follow-up to the international conference on education for sustainable development, ‘Learning to Change Our World’, held in May 2004, in Göteborg. It was one of four preparatory workshops leading to another international conference on education for sustainable development, to be organized in 2008 or 2009, in the same city. The aim of the four workshops is to discuss promoters and barriers related to learning for sustainability, and to propose recommendations for the upcoming international conference.'

The delegates were described as not really knowing what 'sustainable development' was (and who can blame them!):

 ‘A common question raised in the beginning was ‘What is sustainable development?’ Most of the participants were not familiar with the concept,’

Which makes me think one motivation for this conference was to spread the gospel to them, the innocent delegates, rather than as a meeting place for like-minded people to discuss their work and ideas.  This is reinforced by most of the papers presented - they really are mostly about motherhood and apple pie, about how good it would be if more children could get out in the open-air, enjoy nature, and be kind to one another.  But in amongst this worthy stuff, there are contentious materials that raise the hackles of the sensitive reader, such as this gem:

‘Al Gore’s (2006), An Inconvenient Truth, the Stern (2006) review into the economics of climate change, and the report of the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (2007), have heightened awareness of how humans are over-stretching the Earth’s life-support systems.’ (page 19) 

Each of the three sources given have been widely discredited as reliable guides.  The 'heightened awareness' of which she speaks is best decoded as 'irresponsible, ill-informed alarmism'.

Laframboise has spotted several other phrases to raise the hackles of the concerned citizen:

• educating for sustainability should begin very early in life. (p. 12)
• Young children can be encouraged to question over-consumption. (p. 13)
• young children have capacities to be active agents of change now… (p. 20, italics in original)
• Through their learning and social activism, the children were able to highlight their concerns… (p. 22)
• even very young children…can be proactive participants…as initiators, provocateurs, researchers and environmental activists. (p. 22)
• learning begins at birth…and even before. (p. 54)
• We must find some effective methods of teaching sustainable development that can make children understand deeply, and even shock them out of their unawareness. (p. 85)

'Anthropogenic Global Warming', all but spent.  
'Sustainable Development', let's try that one again.

Now that the climatology, politics, and economics of climate alarmism have been so widely exposed as having no more than 350ppm of integrity and truth, many more people are challenging the associated doctrines.  So much so that one of the arch-plotters faciltating this particular wave of scaremongering, the UN and its various agencies, have decided to downplay 'climate change' at the next Earth Summit, to be held in Rio de Janeiro this June.  What is the focus to take its place?  Why, none other than 'sustainable development'.  Same old attendees, same old luxuries, same old resolutions, same old intention of controlling the world, not least through the crippling of industrial economies, and the keeping of the developing ones underdeveloped (e.g. by massive transfers of funds to their rulers), while at the same time furthering the aggrandisement of certain elites required to supervise it all.

Here are my takes on what 'sustainable development' might really mean:

sustainable = suppressed, inhibited,backward-looking, most likely centrally-planned and imposed by force

sustainable development = suppressed development, centrally-planned by those who know what is best for us and holding out all the promise of past attempts at central-planning on grand scales


Fred Singer has published a brief history of 'sustainable development', which goes back to the 1960s, and in that piece he provides this quote from a Peter Wood, president of the National Association of Scholars:

' Sustainability sounds like a call for recycling and clean drinking water.   But its proponents are much more ambitious. For them, a sustainable society is one that replaces the market economy with top-down regulation. They present students a frightening story in which the earth is on the brink of disaster and immediate action is needed. This is a tactic aimed at silencing critics, shutting down debate, and mobilizing students who never get the opportunity to hear opposing views.'

We now know that 'students' has a very wide scope.  It includes toddlers at nursery schools!  The UN has a declaration on the rights of the child.  Presumably it does not include the right to be protected from interfering busybodies and debate suppressors on the international conference gravy train.  Melanie Phillips saw the danger just as soon as she saw the first Climategate emails back in 2009: '...what we are dealing with here is the totalitarian personality. One thing is now absolutely clear for all to see about the anthropogenic global warming scam: science this is not.'

Note added 9 Feb 2012:  '“Every early-years teacher in the state and the independent sector has told me how much they wish the Government wouldn’t treat childhood as a race,” says Sue Palmer, author of Toxic Childhood and a signatory to the letter.
“Schools have become sausage factories as it is, and putting little children into the grinder earlier and earlier doesn’t make it any better.”'
Quote from an article on state interference at the pre-school level: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/9066921/Knickers-to-the-nappy-curriculum.html

Note added 12 Oct 2017:  Some good news: the USA has given notice of quitting UNESCO in 2018.  Not before time!  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/10/12/u-s-withdraws-from-unesco-the-u-n-s-cultural-organization-citing-anti-israel-bias/?utm_term=.d79a39b9fdb2

Part of a Cure for Climate Change Alarmism? - a simple chart for the classroom wall

Source

The UK Met Office, much to its discredit, played and continues to play a leading role in the promotion of an irrational level of alarm over human impact on climate.  An alarm out of all proportion to what we have observed so far.  Instead of temperatures rising as if CO2 was a control knob for them, we have had a clear flattening out.  For those teachers who know of children disturbed or still frightened by this alarmism, the above chart may help calm them down.  It is constructed using results just released by the UK Met Office and its partner in climatism, The Hadley Centre.  The temperatures may still rise again, of course - we are looking at modest variations here and they can readily go either way for any number of reasons - but they have not followed the prescriptions of those utterly irresponsible alarmists.  Any hint that those people do not possess anything like the competence (omniscience?) they claimed or implied for themselves, might do wonders for any frightened child.  The repair of the mental damage done by alarmism aimed at the young will no doubt be a long and tricky task, but simple, informative graphics such as the above may well have a role to play.  Notice how the Met Office displays the full set of results (none of this is raw data) at their site:

First of all note the emotive use of colour.  Secondly, note that the two periods with an overall rising trend in the 20th century are of similar size and slope - yet CO2 levels are widely agreed to have been very different between these two periods.  Thirdly, note that despite record levels of CO2 emissions being reported in recent years, the rising trend has clearly faltered - as shown more clearly in the first plot in this post. Fourthly, note the fall in 2011 is hard to see (in fact on my browser the plot is cut off at the year 2000 on the Met Office site).

The Daily Mail article which published the first plot raises the possibility of a pronounced cooling being underway.  The PR folks of the green movement will be assessing this for possible use.  Those who profit from spreading fear may well choose to switch to, or merely just include,  threats of ice instead of fire, and our defence against them will be the same.  So, while it might be that sidelining 'climate change' in favour of 'sustainability' is the new wheeze of choice,  let us watch for such as the WWF and Greenpeace including nightmares about ice ages in their PR materials.  For them the 'issue is not the issue', the 'issue' in the PR is whatever they spot as a good opportunity for their aggrandisement, the real 'issue' for them is winning power.  But their point of contact with the young, and indeed with their teachers and parents, is with the issue in the PR.  The task of more responsible adults is to first of all to shield the young from such alarmism, and, failing that, help them see it for what it is and get a calmer, more balanced picture - including the fact that our great energy resources will allow us to deal well with a wide range of climatic conditions.  We can generate confidence, not fear.  We can trust in data, not speculations.  We can be free humans, not lackeys of fund-raising zealots who have a low opinion of humanity.

For the Climate Classroom Wall: ocean heat content observed and predicted

Note the predicted trend (straight red line) compared with some actual observations. 

Quote 'If the model mean continues to diverge from the observations, how many years are required until the models can be said to have failed?'

This is a good statistical question, but it also serves an honest rhetorical purpose as a comment on this chart.

 (Source: Bob Tisdale              Hat-tip: C3)

Compare it with this material aimed at 'kids' on the NASA site:

'The ocean does an excellent job of absorbing excess heat from the atmosphere. The top few meters of the ocean stores as much heat as Earth's entire atmosphere. So, as the planet warms, it's the ocean that gets most of the extra energy.

But if the ocean gets too warm, then the plants and animals that live in it must adapt--or die.
Algae and plankton are at the bottom of the food chain. Plankton includes many different kinds of tiny animals, plants, or bacteria that just float and drift in the ocean. Other tiny animals such as krill (sort of like little shrimp) eat the plankton. Fish and even whales and seals feed on the krill. In some parts of the ocean, krill populations have dropped by over 80 percent. Why? Krill like to breed in really cold water near sea ice. What would happen if there were no sea ice? What would happen if there were very little plankton or krill? The whole food web could come unraveled.'

Quote 'The whole food web could come unraveled.' 

Do you think by any chance they want to scare the 'kids'?
Q. How can they justify this?
A. Because the model projections look alarming

Might be enough to persuade you to read Bob Tisdale's article linked to above.
Or research into what kind of of temperature rise would mean 'the ocean gets too warm'.

The Devil waits for his own: what Burns might have penned for the Green Lords of today

This being Burns Day, I will mark it with an extract from one of his poems in which he imagines the devil (Beelzebub) looking forward to an aristocrat coming to join him in due course after a long and healthy life.  Burns was addressing some Lords, and one in particular, who objected to some poor highlanders trying to escape their poverty by emigrating to North America in 1786.  He hoped that these folks would find someone like George Washington to help them achieve their aims and escape from those Lords who would prefer to keep them under their control.  He hopes there will be no equivalents of the prominent Lords  (North, Sackville, Howe, Clinton) who fought against Washington’s cause - American independence.

Address Of Beelzebub

Long life, my Lord, an' health be yours, 

Unskaithed by hunger'd Highland boors; 

Lord grant me nae duddie, desperate beggar, 

Wi' dirk, claymore, and rusty trigger, 

May twin auld Scotland o' a life 

She likes - as lambkins like a knife. 

Faith you and Applecross were right 

To keep the Highland hounds in sight: 

I doubt na! they wad bid nae better, 

Than let them ance out owre the water, 

Then up among thae lakes and seas, 

They'll mak what rules and laws they please: 

Some daring Hancocke, or a Franklin, 

May set their Highland bluid a-ranklin; 

Some Washington again may head them, 

Or some Montgomery, fearless, lead them, 

Till God knows what may be effected 

When by such heads and hearts directed, 

Poor dunghill sons of dirt and mire 

May to Patrician rights aspire! 

Nae sage North now, nor sager Sackville, 

To watch and premier o'er the pack vile,

An' whare will ye get Howes and Clintons 

To bring them to a right repentance 

To cowe the rebel generation, 

An' save the honour o' the nation? 

They, an' be damn'd! what right hae they 

To meat, or sleep, or light o' day? 

Far less - to riches, pow'r, or freedom, 

But what your lordship likes to gie them? 

The rest of the poem, with a plain English version alongside, can be found here.

Well the ‘Lords’ nowadays are the leaders of the big green NGOs such as the WWF, with useful lords attendant such as Pachauri and Gore.  And those they would deny ‘meat, or sleep, or light o’day’ are the world’s poor, most especially those in the developing countries.    Paul Driessen tells their story. 

And, of course, nowadays, as back then, we have good and decent, and real, Lords too.  Not least Lord Lawson and Lord Monckton.  I feel sure Burns would have wanted to support the GWPF and the SPPI!  

Note added 04 June 2013  More Lords distinguishing themselves in this area.  Newly-accessioned Lord Ridley, author of The Rational Optimist, and of many other powerful presentations and articles.  Lord Donoughue for sustained Parliamentary Questioning of the Met Office.  Lord Lipsey for calling the bluff and bluster of a prominent Guardian alarmist. 

For the Climate Classroom Wall: anthropogenic sustainability threatens communication catastrophe

http://xkcd.com/1007/

The rising levels of 'sustainable' are presenting a major threat to the global communications system, and could even undermine efforts to destroy industrial civilisation by the propagation of alarm about a beneficial trace gas in the atmosphere.  So many participants in these efforts rely on 'sustainable' as a powerful charm to drive away the evil spirits of adventure, optimism, honesty, and scientific rigour.  But as yet, few of them seem to be aware of this major threat to their campaigns.  97% of linguists agree that this key word is under threat of losing any meaning whatsoever, noting that it is already in a 'vague, woolly, and confusing' state.  A little cabal of UN insiders is, thank goodness, preparing a plot to preserve at least a vestige of substance for this precious word, a word so dear to so many intent on controlling our lives, crushing the spirits of the young, and rubbishing the achievements of the past.  Emissions controls will be agreed to keep usage below the safe limit of 1ppm - a level not seen since the 1980s. It may already be too late for some green sites.  Take a look at this example, merely one among the thousands where this vital word is being deployed with a fearful frequency.

(hat-tip for the cartoon link: Jane Coles, comment on 'Unthreaded' yesterday (Jan 23, 2012 at 10:47 PM) at Bishop Hill)

Update 25 Jan 12: A serious threat to the control of sustainable emissions is looming at the so-called Earth Summit in Rio this June: 'In an attempt to avoid too much confrontation, the conference will focus not on climate change but on sustainable development ...'  (source)  Hat-tip: Climate Change Dispatch
 It would seem that the fuss over AGW has served its purpose and will now be sidelined in favour of 'sustainable development'.  More here on that by Luboš Motl.

Cittadini attenti! Opera Administrators turned Climate Activists target your Children

Like something out of the old Soviet Union, where all sorts of enterprises would have been inclined to declare their dedication and support for the current 5-year plan, no matter how remote from their competences, the Opera House at Glyndebourne has taken it upon itself to teach the young a thing or two about climate:

Exhibit (1)
'Gus Christie Executive Chairman Glyndebourne Productions Ltd said:

“The wind turbine is part of an environmental ambition for Glyndebourne and is a response to the global climate threat. We are proud that the turbine will make a significant contribution towards the achievement of renewable energy targets within this region. As an internationally renowned opera house, we want to use our profile to encourage other businesses and individuals to preserve the environment. Climate change is a certainty in our lifetime and we all need to take responsibility for this.”

Exhibit (2)
'Nationally over 15,000 people participate in Glyndebourne’s annual Education Programme.  When the turbine is operating in 2010, Glyndebourne Education will undertake a project focusing on the environment and creativity, using the turbine as its foundation in primary schools within a 25 mile radius of Glyndebourne.  This project will be implemented throughout the school year and is expected to involve over 4,000 children.  For all other ongoing community projects appropriate emphasis will be given to Glyndebourne’s environmental strategy. Glyndebourne will engage its Youth Groups, with over 100 participants aged eight to 18, in making the turbine the focus of their programme in 2010. Glyndebourne will also give talks about the turbine to the 3,500 students attending its performances for schools and ensure that the turbine will form part of our Opera Experience workshops enjoyed by 2,500 primary and secondary students each year.

Both exhibits found here:  glyndebourne.com/news-article/wind-turbine-proposal-press-statement

All this will go down well enough in the upper echelons of the BBC, the Royal Society, the Labour Party, the Green Party, and no doubt quite a few other playpens for the political class.  But it will not go down well with the people and councils of Sussex who opposed the turbine and had their views squashed by Hazel Blears acting for a government 'back in the day' that did not hesitate to push climate alarmism for political advantage - even to the point of deliberately frightening children.  And it will not go down well with anyone who is familiar with the diseconomies of windpower, nor with anyone who is familiar with the profound weaknesses of the case for alarm over human impacts on climate.  Nor with anyone who does not care to see the skyline of the Downs needlessly and extravagantly industrialised at the expense of electricity consumers, raptors, bats and others at risk from the blades.

Pic credit

Much as I love opera, much as I would dearly love to go to a performance at Glyndebourne, I can only wish them maximum embarrassment from this venture.  I predict the thing will be dismantled within 5 years, and after that, if not before, I hope the Opera House will devote itself to opera, and not to being a victim of political activists nor to being a pusher of child-unfriendly and scientifically absurd alarmism over CO2.



 Melodramatic posturing around 'the global climate threat' might make for an amusing light opera, but it will not make for good education.

Climate Credulity of Operatic Proportions: a misled schoolgirl and a monument to madness at Glyndebourne

http://www.sussexdownsmen.org.uk/news/turbine.html

 A large turbine has been erected on a site 80m above sea level, owned by and overlooking the famous Opera House at Glyndebourne.  The location is on the South Downs, a particularly beautiful part of south-east England.  Naturally, the erection of such a burden on electricity consumers, and a noisy, dangerous disruption to a once-precious skyline to boot, was preceded by a lot of opposition in planning,  but the primary beneficiaries of the subsidies, Northern Energy and presumably the opera house, have welcomed it.  The Guardian newspaper gave the official opening very generous coverage (indeed only a Labour government minister intervening gave it the go-ahead against local wishes).  Hat-tip for the Guardian link and some discussion of it at Bishop Hill.

A senior pupil from a nearby school is reported as making this disturbing remark:

 

‘I don't get how anyone can object to it. In a few years' time they won't even notice it. In another few years, if we don't do something about climate change, this view won't be here anyway because we'll all be under water.’

The location of the turbine is on a hillside at about 80m above sea level, in the midst of the South Downs which go up to 270m above sea level.  The nearby village of Glynde is at about 25m above sea level, and near to a low river valley only 5 to 10m above sea level (the location is close to the south coast, near Lewes).

Even the discredited and despicably alarmist IPCC only projects global sea level rises in the range of 0.2 to 0.6m by the year 2100. Recent trends is the slow and steady sea level rise of the past 150 years suggest that even the lower end of this range may be of the high side for some locations at least.  The sinking of the SE corner of England into the sea at around 0.5 to 1mm per year might add as much as another 0.1m to the sea level rise there, but we are still dramatically short of threatening Glyndebourne.  An expert in coastal erosion in England, E.M. Lee, has noted much exaggeration in projections based on IPCC reports:

‘."perhaps we were all too keen to accept the unquestioned authority of the IPCC and their projections." Thus, he ends by stating "I am left with the feeling that a healthy skepticism of the climate change industry might not be such a bad thing," ‘

Oh that the teachers of this deluded schoolgirl had had such insight!  There is not the slightest prospect of the sea reaching Glyndebourne 'in another few years', and arguably not even in whatever may be left of the Holocene if we are close to the end of it.

Who taught what and when to this schoolgirl?  Perhaps she is exceptionally credulous and vulnerable to scare stories.  That does not forgive those who have misled her, but it does give hope that not all her classmates are in the same sorry state as she is with regard to climate change and sea-levels.

A propaganda puff for the turbine by Northern Energy and the local council may deserve part of the blame.  It confidently declares that:

 ‘There is now compelling evidence that human activity is changing the world’s climate. Temperatures are rising and so are sea levels. Extreme weather is becoming more common.’

All four of these assertions are misleading to the uninformed reader to the point of severe deception.  First, two platitudes: climate changes all the time, human activity must affect it.  All things in and around the climate system affect it.  It is immensely complex, and driven by powerful forces that make any plausible human effect look derisory in comparison.  In recent decades, the system has been acting pretty much as if the additional CO2 was having no effect at all. For rebuttals of all four assertions in this short sentence by Northern Energy, let me just direct the interested reader to the C3 web site. Scroll down to find dozens of papers, mostly peer-reviewed studies in the scientific literature, that undermine each of the scaremongering claims being exploited by Northern Energy.

Meanwhile, from  California, another playground for those driven to distraction by eco-scares, here’s some sea level history there for the past 70 years( Real Climate & Data source)

 Scary, eh?

Not the sea levels - they'e acting just as if the rising CO2 does not matter - but the alarmism.

 It is scary that so many can be fooled so easily and so deliberately by so few based on so little.  

Gilbert & Sullivan would have had a field day with this sorry fiasco at Glyndebourne.

Picture for the Climate Classroom Wall: the apparent impotence of airborne CO2 as a driver of warming

The C3 website has used the latest data published by NOAA's National Climatic Data Center to produce the above chart.


Two adjacent 50 year periods are compared side by side, for overall global temperature rise, and overall ambient CO2 rise:

1912 to 1961:   the temperature increase is 0.52C, the CO2 increase, 18ppm.
1962 to 2011:   the temperature increase is 0.41C, the CO2 increase, 74ppm. 

Whatever the overall effect of the CO2 increase is on global temperature, it is clearly not a dominating factor causing warming.  The atmosphere is behaving as if the extra CO2 does not really matter very much at all since the temperature jumps are similar, whilst the CO2 jumps are clearly not.

Note.  

Steven Goddard at Real Science describes a similar result, using the periods 1975 to 2008, and 1915 to 1944.  These periods also are believed to show a modest warming of similar size, but the former period had a far larger increase in CO2 attributed to it (54ppm compared to 9ppm).  These periods are of interest because they appear in Email 2234 of the Climategate set– as highlighted by Tom Nelson. 

(Edited 22 Jan 2012 to delete last two sentences in the original Note for being inessential)

Climate Change Scaremongering threatens the physical as well as the mental wellbeing of children: wind turbines in school grounds now complement the scare stories in school rooms

Wind-turbines have been installed in schools in the north of Scotland, no doubt driven by the Scottish government’s pursuit of its nightmarish daydream of massive expansion of wind-energy.  A pursuit being justified by a supine trust in assertions that (a) rising CO2 levels in the air are a real and present danger of great severity and (b) modest reductions in human-related emissions in industrialised countries can have an appreciable effect on them, and on climate.  I say modest, because it is well-established that windfarms have a next to negligible effect in reducing industrial CO2 thanks not just to the CO2 produced in their manufacture, installation, and maintenance, but also to the CO2 from the required back-up provided by conventional power sources forced to operate in a sub-optimal way and the additional CO2 from relocation of industries to countries with fewer emission controls.  In addition, examples abound that even a wholesale overnight cessation of human-related CO2 emissions in entire countries such as Australia would, by the theories of the IPCC itself, have a negligible effect on climate.  We may conclude that a shutting-down of Scotland would have even less effect.  Only abject fear could make anyone lose so much rationality as to want to pursue such a goal.  The kind of fear that climate alarmists would love to see spread throughout our schools.

Pupils at risk from school turbines claim

‘Information provided by the authority shows that turbines have been erected, at a cost of £25,000 each, at nine north schools – Crossroads Primary (Thurso); Castletown Primary; Bower Primary (Wick); Culloden Academy (Inverness); Craighill Primary (Tain); Dornoch Academy; Inver Primary; Stoer Primary and Gairloch High School.’

But they are being opposed, as the article at the above link explains:

‘HIGHLAND Council’s policy of erecting 6kw micro wind turbines at schools is putting pupils at risk, a north-west Sutherland woman has claimed.
Dr Stephanie James, of The Smithy House, Stoer, wrote this week highlighting her concerns to the authority’s top official, chief executive Alistair Dodds.
She fears it is only a matter of time before there is a fatality caused by a turbine malfunction.
Dr James, who has previously contacted planners a number of times about her concerns, decided to take action again after a blade flew off a small domestic turbine situated behind Rhu Stoer Village Hall.
No-one was hurt in the incident which happened at Hogmanay.
Dr James was among a number of people who objected to the erection of both the micro turbine at the eight-pupil Stoer Primary and the one at the village hall.
Planning consent for the Proven WT6000 turbine, mounted on a 15metre column at Stoer school, was granted in April last year. The 6kw turbine has a rotor diameter of 5.5metres.
The 15m high Eoltec Scirocco turbine at the hall was given the go-ahead by planners in November 2010 and erected six months ago.
The council has pursued a policy of erecting turbines either on school buildings or in school grounds in a bid to save money and to boost their green credentials.
A similar turbine at the Rhue Stoer Hall was also given the go-ahead in November 2010 and erected amid much controversy.
In her letter to the chief executive, Dr James points out the failure in November 2009 of a 50metre high wind turbine installed at Raasay School which collapsed and landed in the school playing field.
She claimed that in recent years there had been 66 fatalities with many more injuries in the UK as a result of various wind turbine malfunctions.
She states: "Pieces of blade are documented as travelling up to 1300 metres and blade pieces have gone through roofs and walls of nearby buildings.
"Other serious incidents have occurred through structural failure from poor quality control, lack of maintenance and component failure. As turbines are now being placed in relatively close proximity to buildings, including schools, the accident frequency is expected to rise." ‘

We can add this to reports relayed on this site of the school room unfit for use because it was too cold by design, and the school rooms unfit for use because they were too cold by choice of the headmaster, and the school turbine shut down for killing birds and distressing children in the school grounds. [note added 6 Feb 2012: toilets to save the planet become a health risk in a Florida school] A report of the Raasay incident mentioned above is given here, from which the following extract is taken:

'Wind blades fell in school yard

Published: 21/11/2009

Children at an island primary were sent home after a newly-installed wind turbine next to their school collapsed, it emerged yesterday.

Parents of youngsters at the 18-pupil Raasay Primary School were asked to collect their children following the incident on November 13.

The 50ft turbine will “remain out of commission” until an investigation has been carried out.

The 6KW machine was installed at the school earlier this month, but was soon the subject of complaints due to the noise it was making.’

These are examples of so-far minor harm from policies driven by climate alarmism, and they illustrate the foolishness that such policies can drive people to.  Scotland will increasingly look ridiculous as the rush into renewable energy increases costs, increases risks to life and limb, reduces reliability of supply, increases damage to the environment, and brings degradation of wild places with industrial equipment that will be abandoned and left to rot as and when the subsidies dry up.  And dry up they must as other countries pursue the possibilities for far cheaper energy from shale gas and methane hydrates, not to mention the more familiar coal, gas, nuclear, and oil reserves, making Scottish industry uncompetitive and Scottish domestic life impoverished in comparison. 

A wind turbine lies on its side after crashing to the ground in Lothian and Borders during high wind conditions

P.S. It is happening in the States as well, as this report from Indiana shows: 'Opposition is forming to the Eastern Howard School Board’s plans to install a 350-foot-tall wind turbine on the southern edge of Greentown.' (hat-tip: Industrial Wind Action Group)

Note added 09 May 2012 'Wind turbines at 16 schools in the Highlands have been turned off amid concerns about the planning and installation of the devices.  Highland Council commissioned checks of where turbines were sited after worries were raised by councillors and members of the public.  The local authority said the operation of the turbines would be suspended until risks were fully assessed.  Three secondary schools and 13 primaries are involved.'  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-18003157


Note added 04 September 2013 'Two blades were ripped from the 18m high turbine in the Scottish Highlands and thrown up to 60 yards away after it was hit by 40mph gales. A third was left badly buckled.

The incident has led to calls for all wind turbines to be removed from school playgrounds in the Highlands as the council’s safety trigger for turbines to be shut down currently stands at 80mph winds – 6mph above hurricane force.'  

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/10285964/Wind-turbine-destroyed-by-wind.html

Note added 12 December 2013:'The high winds were so strong last Thursday that an arm of the turbine at Seascale School flew off and landed 200 yards away in a field.'   Head teacher revealed as a useful idiot:  'Gillian Hartley, headteacher at Seascale Primary School, said the turbines are designed to work in high winds but last week’s weather was exceptional.  Mrs Hartley said: “It was extreme circumstances. Once the turbine is fixed it will be perfectly safe. The maintenance company don’t envisage it happening again.”

http://www.whitehavennews.co.uk/news/wind-turbine-blade-shears-off-1.1104503

(hat-tip Bishop Hill commenter on Unthreaded: Dec 12, 2013 at 3:53 PM | Phillip Bratby)

Note added 13 December 2013: 'The wind turbine at Seascale Primary School had been approved in the economic interests of the school. However, it was agreed that the turbine had subsequently presented more than the expected visual and auditory intrusion for the local community and that the proposed 
economic benefits to the school had not materialised.' Extract from a letter in 2012 from Seascale Parish Council (http://www.seascale.org.uk/Copeland%20BC%20re%20Mawson%20monopole%20mast,%2016%20Apr%202012-1.pdf )
(hat-tip Bishop Hill commenter on Unthreaded: Dec 13, 2013 at 1:26 AM | Gareth)

Note added 22 December 2014.  A turbine has fallen over again in the north of Scotland. 

'A PUBLICLY funded, £37,000 wind turbine sited next to a community hall in north-west Sutherland has crashed to the ground for a second time.

The tower of the 15-metre high turbine at remote Rhue Stoer Hall, north of Lochinver, snapped in two last Thursday, sending the gear box housing and blades tumbling to the ground. It is the second such structural failure in two years.

The turbine was reported to be "askew" and making a "funny noise" just prior to the crash.

Members of the Rhue Stoer Community Association, which runs the hall, were remaining tight lipped about the latest occurrence. But the incident has reignited concerns about siting small-scale wind turbines close to public buildings, particularly schools.'

http://www.northern-times.co.uk/News/Anger-as-turbine-crashes-to-earth-for-second-time-19122014.htm

See also: http://stopthesethings.com/2014/12/21/gravity-bringing-wind-power-to-its-knees-blades-keep-flying-as-farmers-schoolkids-learn-to-run-duck-for-cover/

Climate Change Conflict in the Classroom: positions provided for the teachers vs questions provided for the pupils

On the one hand, a large non-profit organisation in the United States, the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) is reported today as intending to  'mount an aggressive effort to teach the nation’s schoolchildren that climate change is real and is being driven by human activity.'  (hat tip: Tom Nelson)

On the other hand, a professor in Australia, Ian Plimer, has recently published 101 questions on climate in a book entitled 'How to Get Expelled from School' .















They both take an aggressive stance:


NCSE: 'Climate change denial is already threatening the integrity of science education in public schools and elsewhere. These attacks occur in individual classrooms, local school boards, state boards of education and state legislatures, and informal learning environments. And even in the absence of explicit attacks, science educators report experiencing implicit pressure to compromise on the scientific accuracy of their presentations of climate change. NCSE helps concerned citizens to defend accurate science education in all of these settings.'
Plimer: 'The issue of human-induced global warming is about power and has little to do with the environment, saving the planet, creating a better world and freedom of speech.  Except when travelling in communist and other totalitarian countries, all my life I have enjoyed freedom of speech.  The present state of public debate on climate is such that the government-approved beliefs are virtually compulsory.  Those imposing their apocalyptic doctrinal views upon want no rational civilised argument (e.g. "the science is settled"), claim that there is a "consensus", attempt to denigrate, and vilify and marginalise those who question the dogma (e.g. "climate deniers").'


The report in the Washington Times, suggests that the NCSE wants to 'launch a public relations effort. If it is successful, climate change skeptics could become a small minority and might be derided for their beliefs.'  The NCSE site's new section on climate change is already replete with frequent use of the 'denier' insult, and of course is maintaining that its proposed attack on climate realists is akin to its attack on religious fundamentalists over 'intelligent design'.  I think they have fallen off their fence on to the wrong side - their new campaign will support the green fundamentalists and those who ride on their backs to win political power.  The cause of good science, and honest straightforward schooling, will be advanced not by them and all the wealth of Big Green, but by such as Plimer and his humble list of questions in the minds not just of pupils but of parents, politicians, and teachers themselves.

Note added later: This report describes the NCSE as 'small':
'NCSE, a small, nonpartisan group of scientists, teachers, clergy and concerned individuals, rose to prominence in the last decade defending evolution in the curriculum.  The controversy around "climate change education is where evolution was 20 years ago," said Eugenie Scott, executive director of NCSE.'

Teachers, whatever you do, don't tell your pupils that climate science is settled about global warming

 The general awareness of climate science may have been severely contaminated by special-interest groups such as the WWF and GreenPeace intent on swelling their coffers and assuming heroic stances simultaneously.  It is not easy for teachers to present a calm and sensible view in these circumstances, not least if their curricula have already been invaded by such interest groups.  Two things, however, seem reasonably clear: 

(1) nothing extraordinary has been observed in weather phenomena over the past 30 years of the CO2 scare, and much of what has been seen contradicts the forecasts of some prominent alarmists such as the streets of New York remaining above sea level, polar bears increasing in numbers, storm levels failing to increase, and of course tropospheric temperatures refusing to shoot up.

(2) learned scholars dispute the core mechanisms posited by some scientist-alarmists as being at the heart of their concerns.  The quote below is evidence of this dispute:

'Recently, Gerlich and Tscheuschner listed a wide variety of attempts to explain the so-called atmospheric greenhouse effect. They disproved these explanations at the hand of fundamental physical principles like the second law of thermodynamics. By showing that 1) there are no common physical laws between the warming phenomenon in glass houses and the fictitious atmospheric greenhouse effects, 2) there are no calculations to determine an average surface temperature of a planet, 3) the frequently mentioned difference of 33 K is a meaningless number calculated wrongly, 4) the formulas of cavity radiation are used inappropriately, 5) the assumption of a radiative balance is unphysical, 6) thermal conductivity and friction must not be set to zero, they concluded that the atmospheric greenhouse conjecture is falsified.

Based on our findings, we argue that 1) the so-called atmospheric greenhouse effect cannot be proved by the statistical description of fortuitous weather events that took place in a climate period, 2) the description by AMS and W·MO has to be discarded because of physical reasons, 3) energy flux budgets for the Earth-atmosphere system do not provide tangible evidence that the atmospheric greenhouse effect does exist.'

Source: a recent paper by Kramm and Dlugi entitled ‘Scrutinizing the atmospheric greenhouse effect and its climatic impact’

http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?paperID=9233

(hat tip: Greenie Watch, http://antigreen.blogspot.com/2012/01/carefully-reasoned-new-paper-finds-no.html#links)