statism watch

It appears the truth in this, as in many matters environmental, is no longer politically correct.

Flashback: Polar bear expert barred from conference by global warming advocates

CBC News
March 5, 2010

The Nunavut government is reducing the number of polar bears that hunters can kill in the Baffin Bay region, where polar bear numbers have been disputed by scientists and Inuit.

Environment Minister Daniel Shewchuk announced Friday that starting this year, the hunting quota, also known as the total allowable harvest, for polar bears in Baffin Bay will be cut by 10 bears annually for four years.

That means the current quota of 105 Baffin Bay polar bears will be reduced to 65 by 2013.

“This population has been considered a conservation concern for some time now,” Shewchuk told reporters Friday in Iqaluit.

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It’s time for a summation of the global warming fraud so far, and Christopher Booker delivers.

Flashback: UK: University at center of Climategate accused of misleading MPs, deleting information | Global warming panel to get independent review | Climate scientists withdraw journal claims of rising sea levels | Climategate U-turn as scientist at centre of row admits: There has been no global warming since 1995 | Leaked climate change emails scientist ‘hid’ data flaws | Canadian scientist says UN’s global warming panel ‘crossing the line’ | Manufactured ‘Science’: Another IPCC Scientist Reveals How UN Scientists talked about ‘trying to make IPCC report so dramatic that US would just have to sign Kyoto Protocol’ | Glacier scientist: I knew data hadn’t been verified | UN wrongly linked global warming to natural disasters | The IPCC glacier meltdown: More global warming fraud exposed | Taxpayers’ millions paid to Indian institute run by UN IPCC climate chief | Climategate: A 2,000-page epic of science and skepticism — Part 2 | Climategate: Al Gore lies | Climategate: A 2,000-page epic of science and skepticism — Part 1 | If Climategate Is No Big Deal, Why Are Questions About It Met With An Armed Response? | Climategate: Investigations into climate fraud fixed | ‘Independent’ United Nations panel to examine Climategate evidence | Bombshell UN Climate Documents Reveal Planned “End Run” Around National Sovereignty | Climategate: Global Warming scientists placed under investigation | Latest Climategate revelation: Climate change data dumped | Climate change: this is the worst scientific scandal of our generation | Obama’s ‘Science Czar’ John Holdren Friend of Climate Deception Lab | “Climategate”: Peer-Review System Was Hijacked By Warming Alarmists | Top Climatology Lab Hacked, E-Mails Reveal Biased Science | E-mails indicate EPA suppressed report skeptical of global warming | Polar bear expert barred from conference by global warming advocates | Top Japanese Scientists: Warming Is Not Caused By Human Activity | IPCC caught with false figures, doubt cast on accuracy of global temperature record

Christopher Booker, The Telegraph
February 27, 2010

The emerging errors of the IPCC’s 2007 report are not incidental but fundamental, says Christopher Booker

The news from sunny Bali that there is to be an international investigation into the conduct of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and its chairman Dr Rajendra Pachauri would have made front-page headlines a few weeks back. But while Scotland and North America are still swept by blizzards, in their worst winter for decades, there has been something of a lull in the global warming storm – after three months when the IPCC and Dr Pachauri were themselves battered by almost daily blizzards of new scandals and revelations. And one reason for this lull is that the real message of all the scandals has been lost.

The chief defence offered by the warmists to all those revelations centred on the IPCC’s last 2007 report is that they were only a few marginal mistakes scattered through a vast, 3,000-page document. OK, they say, it might have been wrong to predict that the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035; that global warming was about to destroy 40 per cent of the Amazon rainforest and cut African crop yields by 50 per cent; that sea levels were rising dangerously; that hurricanes, droughts and other “extreme weather events” were getting worse. These were a handful of isolated errors in a massive report; behind them the mighty edifice of global warming orthodoxy remains unscathed. The “science is settled”, the “consensus” is intact.

But this completely misses the point. Put the errors together and it can be seen that one after another they tick off all the central, iconic issues of the entire global warming saga. Apart from those non-vanishing polar bears, no fears of climate change have been played on more insistently than these: the destruction of Himalayan glaciers and Amazonian rainforest; famine in Africa; fast-rising sea levels; the threat of hurricanes, droughts, floods and heatwaves all becoming more frequent.

All these alarms were given special prominence in the IPCC’s 2007 report and each of them has now been shown to be based, not on hard evidence, but on scare stories, derived not from proper scientists but from environmental activists. Those glaciers are not vanishing; the damage to the rainforest is not from climate change but logging and agriculture; African crop yields are more likely to increase than diminish; the modest rise in sea levels is slowing not accelerating; hurricane activity is lower than it was 60 years ago; droughts were more frequent in the past; there has been no increase in floods or heatwaves.

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Flashback: Global warming panel to get independent review | Climate scientists withdraw journal claims of rising sea levels | Climategate U-turn as scientist at centre of row admits: There has been no global warming since 1995 | Leaked climate change emails scientist ‘hid’ data flaws | Canadian scientist says UN’s global warming panel ‘crossing the line’ | Manufactured ‘Science’: Another IPCC Scientist Reveals How UN Scientists talked about ‘trying to make IPCC report so dramatic that US would just have to sign Kyoto Protocol’ | Glacier scientist: I knew data hadn’t been verified | UN wrongly linked global warming to natural disasters | The IPCC glacier meltdown: More global warming fraud exposed | Taxpayers’ millions paid to Indian institute run by UN IPCC climate chief | Climategate: A 2,000-page epic of science and skepticism — Part 2 | Climategate: Al Gore lies | Climategate: A 2,000-page epic of science and skepticism — Part 1 | If Climategate Is No Big Deal, Why Are Questions About It Met With An Armed Response? | Climategate: Investigations into climate fraud fixed | ‘Independent’ United Nations panel to examine Climategate evidence | Bombshell UN Climate Documents Reveal Planned “End Run” Around National Sovereignty | Climategate: Global Warming scientists placed under investigation | Latest Climategate revelation: Climate change data dumped | Climate change: this is the worst scientific scandal of our generation | Obama’s ‘Science Czar’ John Holdren Friend of Climate Deception Lab | “Climategate”: Peer-Review System Was Hijacked By Warming Alarmists | Top Climatology Lab Hacked, E-Mails Reveal Biased Science | E-mails indicate EPA suppressed report skeptical of global warming | Polar bear expert barred from conference by global warming advocates | Top Japanese Scientists: Warming Is Not Caused By Human Activity | IPCC caught with false figures, doubt cast on accuracy of global temperature record

Ben Webster, The Times
February 27, 2010

The university at the centre of the climate change row over stolen e-mails has been accused of making a misleading statement to Parliament.

The University of East Anglia wrote this week to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee giving the impression that it had been exonerated by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). However, the university failed to disclose that the ICO had expressed serious concerns that one of its professors had proposed deleting information to avoid complying with the Freedom of Information Act.

Professor Phil Jones, director of the university’s Climatic Research Unit, has stepped down while an inquiry takes place into allegations that he manipulated data to avoid scrutiny of his claims that manmade emissions were causing global warming. Professor Edward Acton, the university’s vice-chancellor, published a statement he sent to the committee before giving evidence to MPs at a public hearing on Monday. He said a letter from the ICO “indicated that no breach of the law has been established [and] that the evidence the ICO had in mind about whether there was a breach was no more than prima facie”.

But the ICO’s letter said: “The prima facie evidence from the published e-mails indicate an attempt to defeat disclosure by deleting information. It is hard to imagine more cogent prima facie evidence.”

The letter also confirmed the ICO’s previous statement that the university had failed in its duties under the Freedom of Information Act by rejecting requests for data. The university had demanded that the ICO withdraw this statement.

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Flashback: Ottawa won’t budge on secrecy laws | McGuinty won’t deny political interference with Freedom of Information requests | Information commissioner quits, Ottawa chided for lacking ‘guts’ | Canadian Parliament Threatens People For Posting Video Of Proceedings Online | Government secrecy ‘grim,’ watchdog says | Watchdog alarmed by Harper’s information clampdown | Listeria files withheld due to ’systemic’ problems with access to information | Public access vs. government secrecy the issue in Supreme Court of Canada case | Radical change needed in privacy protection, Ont. watchdog says | Files tagged as `sensitive’ cause unfair delays, watchdog says | Tentacles of Secrecy Grip Tightly | Parliament losing power, author says | Over 100 complaints about access to govt. info on Afghan mission: report | Information lockdown: How Harper Controls the Spin | Tories kill access to information database | Harper to create government-run media centre: report

Richard J. Brennan, Bruce Campion-Smith, The Toronto Star
February 9, 2010

OTTAWA—The Prime Minister’s Office has warned senior political staff across government not to interfere in the handling of access to information requests.

The warning comes as opposition MPs are calling for an independent investigation into “all instances of Conservative interference” to foil the release of information.

Guy Giorno, Stephen Harper’s chief of staff, penned a memo on Tuesday to chiefs of staff in federal departments reminding them to “respect” the access to information process, a senior official said.

And they were pointedly warned that it’s an offence to deliberately obstruct access requests.

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Developing countries will love hearing this, considering how ecstatic they were when the ‘Danish Text’ of the Copenhagen accord leaked, which essentially would have made them wards of the World Bank. And just for good measure, developing countries would be disbarred from using cheap energy sources (such as coal fired plants) to get on their feet. Good job, COP15, now let’s get in there and exploit help them some more.

Flashback: UN drops deadline for countries to state climate change targets | Taxpayers’ millions paid to Indian institute run by UN IPCC climate chief | The next big scam: Fraud endemic to carbon market | Climate summit showcases new world order | Copenhagen climate summit: plan for EU to police countries’ emissions | Questions over business deals of UN climate change guru Dr Rajendra Pachauri | Copenhagen Accord Establishes Global Government Framework | Final Copenhagen Text Includes Global Transaction Tax | Climategate: Al Gore lies | World leaders push for climate deal | UN Chief: We Will Impose Global Governance | If Climategate Is No Big Deal, Why Are Questions About It Met With An Armed Response? | IMF could fund climate adaptation: Soros | Copenhagen climate summit in disarray after ‘Danish text’ leak | Bombshell UN Climate Documents Reveal Planned “End Run” Around National Sovereignty | Bombshell UN Climate Documents Reveal Planned “End Run” Around National Sovereignty | Czech President: Copenhagen to be ‘Largest tax increase in world history’ | Friends of the Earth attacks carbon trading as banker scam | Al Gore Set To Become First “Carbon Billionaire” | Oil Companies Support Global Warming Alarmists, Not Skeptics | Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth sequel stresses spiritual argument on climate, downgrades CO2 threat | Copenhagen’s Plans for a New ‘Government’ are Scary | Copenhagen, carbon, and the global corporate agenda

Larry Elliot, The Guardian
January 28, 2010

Rich countries are raiding their aid budgets to bankroll a new global fund to help poor countries adapt to climate change, one of the world’s leading development campaign groups warned today.

Jamie Drummond, executive director of the One group co-founded by the rock stars Bono and Bob Geldof, said the west was being “dishonest” about the $30bn (£18bn) of fast-track finance proposed in Copenhagen last month to persuade developing countries to agree a deal on cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

Drummond said the proposal to spend $10bn a year over the next three years involved no additional money, but was instead being diverted from existing budgets.

The impact, he said, would be to divert funds from health and education spending in Africa to infrastructure projects in Asia and Latin America.

“Development promises are under threat. There is double counting going on. The $30bn is not new money and nor is the $100bn promised for 2020 to help poor countries cope with climate change.”

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Flashback: The universality of war propaganda | Pentagon used psychological operation on US public, documents show | DHS Video Portrays Average Americans As Terrorists | US Spec Ops operates psychological warfare websites targeted at UK | American Intelligence Contractors Leak Canadian Toronto 18 ‘Terror Training’ Video to Web | Pentagon Front Groups Release Laughable Olympics “Terror” Video | Bombs explode, Washington-based Intelcenter releases yet another terror video, China cracks down on transport security | Cheney Considered False Flag Operation to Justify War with Iran | US Counterinsurgency Manual Leaked, Calls for False Flag Operations, Suspension of Human Rights | Massachusetts Police Get Black Uniforms to Instill Sense of ‘Fear’ | CBC Radio Broadcasts Expose of North American Police State | Declassified: Israel, USA Attempted Deliberate Sinking of USS Liberty During Mideast War

By Sahil Kapur, RawStory.com
January 27, 2010

WASHINGTON — Remember the Pentagon Office of Special Plans that helped collect dubious intelligence that led to the war in Iraq? Or the program where the Pentagon secretly briefed military analysts to promote the Iraq war?

Meet the would-be Office of Strategic Deception.

In a little-noticed report earlier this month, the Defense Department’s powerful Defense Science Board recommended creation of an entity designed solely for “strategic deception” against US adversaries.

“Specifically,” the report reads (pdf), “we recommend that the Secretary [of Defense] task both the Under Secretaries of Defense for Policy and Intelligence, and the Joint Staff, working with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, to create a tiger team to lay out courses of action and a way ahead for establishing a standing strategic surprise/deception entity. Once the initial work has been completed, all parts of the interagency should be brought into this effort.”

“Strategic deception has in the past provided the United States with significant advantages that translated into operational and tactical success,” it continues. “Successful deception also minimizes U.S. vulnerabilities, while simultaneously setting conditions to surprise adversaries.”

Deception is a common war-time tactic nations use to gain a leg up on their enemies, but as Wired notes, the Pentagon apparently believes the United States must begin engaging in strategic tricks even before it wages war against another country.

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Flashback: Manufactured ‘Science’: Another IPCC Scientist Reveals How UN Scientists talked about ‘trying to make IPCC report so dramatic that US would just have to sign Kyoto Protocol’ | Glacier scientist: I knew data hadn’t been verified | UN wrongly linked global warming to natural disasters | The IPCC glacier meltdown: More global warming fraud exposed | Taxpayers’ millions paid to Indian institute run by UN IPCC climate chief | Climategate: A 2,000-page epic of science and skepticism — Part 2 | Climategate: Al Gore lies | Climategate: A 2,000-page epic of science and skepticism — Part 1 | If Climategate Is No Big Deal, Why Are Questions About It Met With An Armed Response? | Climategate: Investigations into climate fraud fixed | ‘Independent’ United Nations panel to examine Climategate evidence | Bombshell UN Climate Documents Reveal Planned “End Run” Around National Sovereignty | Climategate: Global Warming scientists placed under investigation | Latest Climategate revelation: Climate change data dumped | Climate change: this is the worst scientific scandal of our generation | Obama’s ‘Science Czar’ John Holdren Friend of Climate Deception Lab | “Climategate”: Peer-Review System Was Hijacked By Warming Alarmists | Top Climatology Lab Hacked, E-Mails Reveal Biased Science | Al Gore Set To Become First “Carbon Billionaire” | IPCC Crushes Scientific Objectivity, 91-0 | What happened to global warming? | IPCC case for global warming melts on multiple fronts | More defects, exclusions in key climate warming data are uncovered | Climate change complacency `global suicide pact,’ UN told | Obama Science Advisor Called For “Planetary Regime” To Enforce Totalitarian Population Control Measures | Washington Post Meteorologist: A Skeptical Take on Global Warming | Global warming is the new religion of First World urban elites | Warming oceans mean less cloud cover | Global Warming or Global Cooling? A New Trend in Climate Alarmism | Counterpoint: Climate skepticism for beginners | E-mails indicate EPA suppressed report skeptical of global warming | Polar bear expert barred from conference by global warming advocates | Global warming alarmists out in cold | Revealed: Antarctic ice growing, not shrinking | Scientists warn global warming accelerating | Top Japanese Scientists: Warming Is Not Caused By Human Activity | IPCC caught with false figures, doubt cast on accuracy of global temperature record

Richard Foot, CanWest News
January 26, 2010

A senior Canadian climate scientist says the United Nations’ panel on global warming has become tainted by political advocacy, that its chairman should resign, and that its approach to science should be overhauled.

Andrew Weaver, a climatologist at the University of Victoria, says the leadership of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has allowed it to advocate for action on global warming, rather than serve simply as a neutral science advisory body.

“There’s been some dangerous crossing of that line,” said Weaver on Tuesday, echoing the published sentiments of other top climate scientists in the U.S. and Europe this week.

“Some might argue we need a change in some of the upper leadership of the IPCC, who are perceived as becoming advocates,” he told Canwest News Service. “I think that is a very legitimate question.”

Weaver also says the IPCC has become too large and unwieldy. He says its periodic reports, such as the 3,000 page, 2007 report that won the Nobel Prize, are eating up valuable academic resources and driving scientists to produce work on tight, artificial deadlines, at the expense of other, longer-term inquiries that are equally important to understanding climate change.

“The problem we have is that the IPCC process has taken on a life of its own,” says Weaver, a climate-modelling physicist who co-authored chapters in the past three IPCC reports.

“I think the IPCC needs a fundamental shift.”

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Flashback: Glacier scientist: I knew data hadn’t been verified | UN wrongly linked global warming to natural disasters | The IPCC glacier meltdown: More global warming fraud exposed | Taxpayers’ millions paid to Indian institute run by UN IPCC climate chief | Climategate: A 2,000-page epic of science and skepticism — Part 2 | Climategate: Al Gore lies | Climategate: A 2,000-page epic of science and skepticism — Part 1 | If Climategate Is No Big Deal, Why Are Questions About It Met With An Armed Response? | Climategate: Investigations into climate fraud fixed | ‘Independent’ United Nations panel to examine Climategate evidence | Bombshell UN Climate Documents Reveal Planned “End Run” Around National Sovereignty | Climategate: Global Warming scientists placed under investigation | Latest Climategate revelation: Climate change data dumped | Climate change: this is the worst scientific scandal of our generation | Obama’s ‘Science Czar’ John Holdren Friend of Climate Deception Lab | “Climategate”: Peer-Review System Was Hijacked By Warming Alarmists | Top Climatology Lab Hacked, E-Mails Reveal Biased Science | Al Gore Set To Become First “Carbon Billionaire” | IPCC Crushes Scientific Objectivity, 91-0 | What happened to global warming? | IPCC case for global warming melts on multiple fronts | More defects, exclusions in key climate warming data are uncovered | Climate change complacency `global suicide pact,’ UN told | Obama Science Advisor Called For “Planetary Regime” To Enforce Totalitarian Population Control Measures | Washington Post Meteorologist: A Skeptical Take on Global Warming | Global warming is the new religion of First World urban elites | Warming oceans mean less cloud cover | Global Warming or Global Cooling? A New Trend in Climate Alarmism | Counterpoint: Climate skepticism for beginners | E-mails indicate EPA suppressed report skeptical of global warming | Polar bear expert barred from conference by global warming advocates | Global warming alarmists out in cold | Revealed: Antarctic ice growing, not shrinking | Scientists warn global warming accelerating | Top Japanese Scientists: Warming Is Not Caused By Human Activity | IPCC caught with false figures, doubt cast on accuracy of global temperature record

Marc Morano, Climate Depot.com
January 26, 2010

Alabama State Climatologist Dr. John Christy of the University of Alabama in Huntsville, served as a UN IPCC lead author in 2001 for the 3rd assessment report and detailed how he personally witnessed UN scientists attempting to distort the science for political purposes.

“I was at the table with three Europeans, and we were having lunch. And they were talking about their role as lead authors. And they were talking about how they were trying to make the report so dramatic that the United States would just have to sign that Kyoto Protocol,” Christy told CNN on May 2, 2007. – (For more on UN scientists turning on the UN years ago, see Climate Depot’s full report here. )

Christy has since proposed major reforms and changes to the way the UN IPCC report is produced. Christy has rejected the UN approach that produces “a document designed for uniformity and consensus.” Christy presented his views at a UN meeting in 2009. The IPCC needs “an alternative view section written by well-credentialed climate scientists is needed,” Christy said. “If not, why not? What is there to fear? In a scientific area as uncertain as climate, the opinions of all are required,” he added.

‘The reception to my comments was especially cold’

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Flashback: UN wrongly linked global warming to natural disasters | The IPCC glacier meltdown: More global warming fraud exposed | Taxpayers’ millions paid to Indian institute run by UN IPCC climate chief | Climategate: A 2,000-page epic of science and skepticism — Part 2 | Climategate: Al Gore lies | Climategate: A 2,000-page epic of science and skepticism — Part 1 | If Climategate Is No Big Deal, Why Are Questions About It Met With An Armed Response? | Climategate: Investigations into climate fraud fixed | ‘Independent’ United Nations panel to examine Climategate evidence | Bombshell UN Climate Documents Reveal Planned “End Run” Around National Sovereignty | Climategate: Global Warming scientists placed under investigation | Latest Climategate revelation: Climate change data dumped | Climate change: this is the worst scientific scandal of our generation | Obama’s ‘Science Czar’ John Holdren Friend of Climate Deception Lab | “Climategate”: Peer-Review System Was Hijacked By Warming Alarmists | Top Climatology Lab Hacked, E-Mails Reveal Biased Science | Al Gore Set To Become First “Carbon Billionaire” | IPCC Crushes Scientific Objectivity, 91-0 | What happened to global warming? | IPCC case for global warming melts on multiple fronts | More defects, exclusions in key climate warming data are uncovered | Climate change complacency `global suicide pact,’ UN told | Obama Science Advisor Called For “Planetary Regime” To Enforce Totalitarian Population Control Measures | Washington Post Meteorologist: A Skeptical Take on Global Warming | Global warming is the new religion of First World urban elites | Warming oceans mean less cloud cover | Global Warming or Global Cooling? A New Trend in Climate Alarmism | Counterpoint: Climate skepticism for beginners | E-mails indicate EPA suppressed report skeptical of global warming | Polar bear expert barred from conference by global warming advocates | Global warming alarmists out in cold | Revealed: Antarctic ice growing, not shrinking | Scientists warn global warming accelerating | Top Japanese Scientists: Warming Is Not Caused By Human Activity | IPCC caught with false figures, doubt cast on accuracy of global temperature record

David Rose, Daily Mail
January 24, 2010

The scientist behind the bogus claim in a Nobel Prize-winning UN report that Himalayan glaciers will have melted by 2035 last night admitted it was included purely to put political pressure on world leaders.

Dr Murari Lal also said he was well aware the statement, in the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), did not rest on peer-reviewed scientific research.

In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, Dr Lal, the co-ordinating lead author of the report’s chapter on Asia, said: ‘It related to several countries in this region and their water sources. We thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action.

‘It had importance for the region, so we thought we should put it in.’

Dr Lal’s admission will only add to the mounting furore over the melting glaciers assertion, which the IPCC was last week forced to withdraw because it has no scientific foundation.

According to the IPCC’s statement of principles, its role is ‘to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis, scientific, technical and socio-economic information – IPCC reports should be neutral with respect to policy’.

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The rocker panels have already rusted out and now it seems the wheels have completely fallen off the IPCC.

Flashback: The IPCC glacier meltdown: More global warming fraud exposed | Taxpayers’ millions paid to Indian institute run by UN IPCC climate chief | Climategate: A 2,000-page epic of science and skepticism — Part 2 | Climategate: Al Gore lies | Climategate: A 2,000-page epic of science and skepticism — Part 1 | If Climategate Is No Big Deal, Why Are Questions About It Met With An Armed Response? | Climategate: Investigations into climate fraud fixed | ‘Independent’ United Nations panel to examine Climategate evidence | Bombshell UN Climate Documents Reveal Planned “End Run” Around National Sovereignty | Climategate: Global Warming scientists placed under investigation | Latest Climategate revelation: Climate change data dumped | Climate change: this is the worst scientific scandal of our generation | Obama’s ‘Science Czar’ John Holdren Friend of Climate Deception Lab | “Climategate”: Peer-Review System Was Hijacked By Warming Alarmists | Top Climatology Lab Hacked, E-Mails Reveal Biased Science | Al Gore Set To Become First “Carbon Billionaire” | IPCC Crushes Scientific Objectivity, 91-0 | What happened to global warming? | IPCC case for global warming melts on multiple fronts | More defects, exclusions in key climate warming data are uncovered | Climate change complacency `global suicide pact,’ UN told | Obama Science Advisor Called For “Planetary Regime” To Enforce Totalitarian Population Control Measures | Washington Post Meteorologist: A Skeptical Take on Global Warming | Global warming is the new religion of First World urban elites | Warming oceans mean less cloud cover | Global Warming or Global Cooling? A New Trend in Climate Alarmism | Counterpoint: Climate skepticism for beginners | E-mails indicate EPA suppressed report skeptical of global warming | Polar bear expert barred from conference by global warming advocates | Global warming alarmists out in cold | Revealed: Antarctic ice growing, not shrinking | Scientists warn global warming accelerating | Top Japanese Scientists: Warming Is Not Caused By Human Activity | IPCC caught with false figures, doubt cast on accuracy of global temperature record

Jonathon Leake, The Sunday Times
January 24, 2010

THE United Nations climate science panel faces new controversy for wrongly linking global warming to an increase in the number and severity of natural disasters such as hurricanes and floods.

It based the claims on an unpublished report that had not been subjected to routine scientific scrutiny — and ignored warnings from scientific advisers that the evidence supporting the link too weak. The report’s own authors later withdrew the claim because they felt the evidence was not strong enough.

The claim by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), that global warming is already affecting the severity and frequency of global disasters, has since become embedded in political and public debate. It was central to discussions at last month’s Copenhagen climate summit, including a demand by developing countries for compensation of $100 billion (£62 billion) from the rich nations blamed for creating the most emissions.

Ed Miliband, the energy and climate change minister, has suggested British and overseas floods — such as those in Bangladesh in 2007 — could be linked to global warming. Barack Obama, the US president, said last autumn: “More powerful storms and floods threaten every continent.”

Last month Gordon Brown, the prime minister, told the Commons that the financial agreement at Copenhagen “must address the great injustice that . . . those hit first and hardest by climate change are those that have done least harm”.

The latest criticism of the IPCC comes a week after reports in The Sunday Times forced it to retract claims in its benchmark 2007 report that the Himalayan glaciers would be largely melted by 2035. It turned out that the bogus claim had been lifted from a news report published in 1999 by New Scientist magazine.

The new controversy also goes back to the IPCC’s 2007 report in which a separate section warned that the world had “suffered rapidly rising costs due to extreme weather-related events since the 1970s”.

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