Now, about that EPA finding . . .

The end of the Copenhagen nonsense will bring more attention to Washington, in particular the EPA finding that carbon dioxide is a pollutant.  Many Democrats are hoping the EPA finding will pressure Congress into passing cap-and-tax, while others see the potential for the EPA running the show and seeing that as the best outcome.

However, as Stephen F. Hayward notes in the Weekly Standard, the EPA ruling is a political minefield for the alarmists, one that could block actual regulation for years – and give skeptics plenty of time to ensure it never happens - while the “science” behind it continues its collapse.

After all, Copenhagen was supposed to be the moment global warming succumbed to “global governance” – and we know how that turned out.

Cross-posted to VV

From Copenhagen to Nopenhagen

The good news is the alarmists are furious (Washington Post).  The bad news is the president has a pretense of an “agreement” (WaPo) to browbeat Congress or justify EPA regulation.

The politics of this have shifted slightly in the alarmists favor here, but not nearly enough to be of any significance once the impact of Climategate is fully felt.  Outside the US, the “deal” means nothing (Andrew Bolt).

All in all, the conference was about as good as it could get for AGW skeptics.

Cross-posted to VV

Скройте снижение, Часть 2

Andrei Illiaranov, founder of Moscow’s Institute for Economic Analysis, senior fellow at the CATO Institute (h/t Planet Gore), and former economic adviser to Vladimir Putin, comments on the IEA climate data study (emphasis added):

The IEA report shows that Russian meteorological-station data in the last 130 years did not substantiate the rate of warming on Russian territory suggested by the Hadley Climate Research Unit Temperature (HadCRUT) database, which has now been partially released.

IEA analysts point out that Russian meteorological stations cover most of the country’s territory, while the HadCRUT used data from only 25% of such stations in their calculations. Over 40% of Russian territory was not included in their global temperature calculations even though there was no lack of meteorological stations and observations. The data of stations located in areas not listed in the HadCRUT survey often shows slight cooling or no substantial warming in the second part of the 20th century and the early 21st century.

. . .

On the whole, HadCRUT specialists use the incomplete findings of meteorological stations far more often than those providing complete observations. IEA analysts found that the climatologists used the data of stations located in large populated centers that are influenced by the “urban heat effect” more frequently than the unbiased data from the stations located in less populated places.

The IEA authors calculated that the scale of actual warming for the Russian territory in 1877-1998 was probably exaggerated by 0.64°C. Since Russia accounts for 12.5% of the world’s land mass, such an exaggeration for Russia alone should have an impact on the IPCC claim that the global temperature in the last century has risen by 0.76°C.

. . .

The IEA report concludes that it is necessary to recalculate all global temperature data in order to assess the real rate of temperature change during the last century. Global temperature data will have to be modified because the calculations used by Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change analysts are based on HadCRUT research.

In other words, the entire global warming apparatus has been built upon sand.  All of the delegates in Copenhagen are relying on a model that is at best deeply flawed and, given the evidence above, more likely an outright fraud.

This is so big that, of course, MSM must ignore it at all costs, except for NPR – of all places!

Cross-posted to VV

скройте снижение (обновленный и ударенный)

Acccording to this translation website, the above is Russian for “hide the decline” (UPDATE: the parenthetical piece is “updated and bumped”), and according to Kommersant (cited by RiaNovosti and then SDA and WUWT), that’s exactly what was done to Russian temperature data (emphasis added):

Climategate has already affected Russia. On Tuesday, the Moscow-based Institute of Economic Analysis (IEA) issued a report claiming that the Hadley Center for Climate Change based at the headquarters of the British Meteorological Office in Exeter (Devon, England) had probably tampered with Russian-climate data.

The IEA believes that Russian meteorological-station data did not substantiate the anthropogenic global-warming theory.

Analysts say Russian meteorological stations cover most of the country’s territory, and that the Hadley Center had used data submitted by only 25% of such stations in its reports.

Over 40% of Russian territory was not included in global-temperature calculations for some other reasons, rather than the lack of meteorological stations and observations.

The data of stations located in areas not listed in the Hadley Climate Research Unit Temperature UK (HadCRUT) survey often does not show any substantial warming in the late 20th century and the early 21st century.

Russia was one of the very few places that seemed to still be warming as the rest of the world levelled off this decade – and now we know why: the data was “probably tampered with.”

This also marks Asia as the fourth continent where data has been fudged (the others are North America, Australia, and Antarctica).

UPDATE: As James Delingpole notes in the London Telegraph, this is about a lot more than just Russia:

What the Russians are suggesting here, in other words, is that the entire global temperature record used by the IPCC to inform world government policy is a crock.

Back to the Kommersant account to explain why (emphasis added):

The scale of global warming was exaggerated due to temperature distortions for Russia accounting for 12.5% of the world’s land mass. The IEA said it was necessary to recalculate all global-temperature data in order to assess the scale of such exaggeration.

Global-temperature data will have to be modified if similar climate-date procedures have been used from other national data because the calculations used by COP15 analysts, including financial calculations, are based on HadCRUT research.

For the mathematically challenged, 12.5% is one-eighth.  That’s enough to tilt the entire model.  We now have evidence that the global warming alarmism is, indeed, fraudulent.

This is huge – which, of course, means no one in MSM will cover it.  It’s up to us, in the blogosphere – again – to inform the American people, which is why I’m bumping this to ensure more readers are aware of just how dramatic this is.

Cross-posted (with slight modification) to VV

Can Climategate cure Jim Webb of Foot-in-Mouth disease?

No scandal has proven so powerful as to heal a politician, but as this letter for Speaker Howell implies, Jim Webb (of all people) might very well have been able to put his infamous foot-and-mouth disease behind him.

Webb’s letter is not seen here, but Howell refers to it thusly:

I am writing in reference to your letter to President Obama, dated November 27, 2009, seeking clarification from the President about his understanding of Executive Branch authority to bind the United States in connection with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of Parties 15 in Copenhagen, Denmark. To date, I am unaware of any response you have received from the President regarding this important matter . . . I was pleased it was a U.S. Senator from our Commonwealth who took the time to clarify to our President this important principle of our republic spelled out in the U.S. Constitution. As you note in your letter, our Constitution provides that only legislation agreed upon in the United States Congress, or a treaty ratified by the Senate, could actually create a commitment on behalf of our country to an international emissions reduction program.

Howell goes on to describe the danger inherent in the Administration’s end-run around the elected Congress:

Since your November letter, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has claimed the administrative power to regulate carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act, an unprecedented action that has wide-reaching and potentially negative economic implications for our Commonwealth and Nation. In the wake of the EPA’s action, it has been reported that U.S. diplomats in Copenhagen apparently are assuring the diplomats of other nations that an emissions reduction agreement signed by the U.S. President can be implemented by the EPA regardless of the fact that the U.S. Congress has not passed a cap and trade emissions program.

As the elected leader of the oldest legislative body in the United States, I find it deeply troubling that our
federal government would entertain the idea of undertaking international commitments whose implementation depends on the dictate by an executive branch bureaucracy of potentially draconian and costly rules that the Congress is thus far itself unwilling to impose. If this were to happen, it would be an incredibly troubling erosion of our democratic values.

Now, I’ve been harsh on Howell and Webb (the former less so over the last seventeen months), but both are to be commended for sounding the alarm.  Here’s hoping they keep it up.

Cross-posted to VV

Health Care Update: Socialism out (good), corporatism in (very bad)

Jeffrey H. Anderson (Weekly Standard) gives the latest on the health care “reform” fiasco in the Senate.  The big news, of course, is the apparent death of the “public option” and the Medicare “buy-in.”  In other words, socialized medicine will not pass the Senate this year.  Good news, right?  Sadly, no.

What we do have is a national mandate: everyone must have insurance of a certain kind, and those who can’t afford it will have it covered by government subsidy, or as Anderson notes, “Obamacare is left as this: a mandate that Americans funnel huge sums in new taxes, through the federal government, to private insurers.”

Since the government doesn’t own anything, this isn’t socialism; what we have instead is called corporatism, which IMHO is actually more dangerous to the free market, in part because it appears less threatening.

Socialism is fairly easy to spot: the government takes over a firm or industry, shunting aside private owners.  In corporatism, by contrast, the government and a firm or industry team up to impose their will on the rest of the economy.  The allied industry scores profits at the expense of losing control over their businesses and becoming the lightning rod for an angry public, while the government gets the control of socialism without its fingerprints in places that would spook most Americans.

As for said Americans, the result is pretty much the same: less economic freedom and higher taxes.  Even worse, because the precedent of government intervention has already been established, corporatism can be a convenient bridge to full-blown socialism for future lefty politicians (the TARP tragedy is already playing out in this manner).

So what looks like a win for opponents of bigger government is actually a neat bait-and-switch by the lefties.  Here’s hoping the American people don’t fall for it.

Will Climategate kill MSM?

Gerald Warner (Telegraph, UK) seems to think so (although it should be noted that, like here, MSM does not include the papers willing to acknowledge their viewpoints – such as the Telegraph and most of the British tabloid press such as the Daily Express - h/t Andrew Bolt), and the reaction from the once-lefty now MSM-approved Guardian is Exhibit A in Warner’s favor (Damian Thompson, Telegraph).

Cross-posted to VV

Whoops! Gore gets caught in another tall tale

This time, his source on the “melting ice caps” cuts his legs out from under him (Times of London via WUWT):

Mr Gore told the conference: “These figures are fresh. Some of the models suggest to Dr [Wieslav] Maslowski that there is a 75 per cent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years.”

However, the climatologist whose work Mr Gore was relying upon dropped the former Vice-President in the water with an icy blast.

“It’s unclear to me how this figure was arrived at,” Dr Maslowski said. “I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this.”

Mr Gore’s office later admitted that the 75 per cent figure was one used by Dr Maslowksi as a “ballpark figure” several years ago in a conversation with Mr Gore.

Again, this will come as a shock to those living outside the United States, but for us Americans, Gore’s issues with the truth come as no surprise.

Cross-posted to VV

OK, so it’s a primary. Now win it.

The fun in the 5th was kicked up a notch this weekend when the GOP committee chose to nominate its candidate for Congress via an open primary on June 8, rather than a convention or “firehouse” primary.

The only candidate who wanted a primary, State Senator Robert Hurt, is thrilled.  At least two of his opponents aren’t (Mason Conservative and Washington Post).  One of them says the party is in a state of “civil war.”

Look, I would much prefer anyone besides Hurt – who has a bad history of voting for tax increases that Tom Perriello can use against him to demoralize the right in general and small-l libertarians in particular – but talk of third-party runs or ripping the process is counterproductive at this point.

There will be a primary on June 8; the limited-government, low-tax Republicans need to win that primary.  I would humbly submit the candidates who are so upset about this swallow hard, figure out who has the best chance of beating Hurt in the primary, and back him.

The Gadsden flag (“Don’t Tread on Me”)  is all the rage today.  We’ll, let’s not forget the other snake flag: the Franklin one (“Join or Die”).  That’s the challenge facing the low-tax, limited-government crew in the 5th.

How the decline was hidden – and why

Deceptive headline aside – David Rose (Sunday Mail, UK) provides the details on the decline that was hidden, how it was done, and why it was done.

In effect, the climate alarmists thought they had a tree-ring dataset that would disprove the medieval warm period (MWP).  The only trouble was that the dataset depicted temperatures falling since 1960, which pretty much exploded its value as a descriptor of the past, let alone a projector of the future.

So, as Iain Dale reveals in his post on the subject, the alarmists simply stopped showing the tree-ring dataset data after 1960, letting the actual temperature data rise by its lonesome – and giving the anti-MWP tree-ring data far more credibility that it deserved.

This was “Mike’s Nature Trick” used to “hide the decline.”  Of course, we now know plenty of other examples of this regarding actual temperature data, but this was the first one revealed to the world by the unnamed whistleblower.

That this was allowed by the entire alarmist community – including the IPCC – reveals how thoroughly corrupted it became.

Cross-posted to VV