Secret report reveals CO2 is NOT the major cause of global warming

Actually, it's not in the least bit secret, but you wouldn't know that from the MSM who have categorically failed once more to report on a study which contradicts the IPCC approved narrative.

The paper suggests that, although there is a small underlying trend of warming connected to CO2 (which we are all aware of anyway otherwise this planet would be a freezing hell hole), the conclusion is that most of the warming is not from CO2. They even go as far as to say ....

These conclusions are contrary to the IPCC [2007] statement: "[M]ost of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations."

In other words, the IPCC is wrong, CO2 is not the driver of climate, the majority of the increase is natural and there really isn't any need to cut our economic throat by clamping down on CO2 emissions.

Of course, this one study is no more conclusive proof than anything else, but it amazes me that what should be considered as essentially a good news story is given absolutely no coverage. Why is it that the very real probability of climate change being almost entirely natural and, therefore, the need to spend trillions of dollars mitigating it unnecessary being ignored?

You'd have thought - what with the ballooning credit crisis - that governments all over the world would be dancing with joy at the news, but it seems that they are not. Why would that be?

A global warming experiment you can try at home

As I frequently mention, I'm no scientist but I am endowed with a degree of common sense and common sense tells me that "global warming" is entirely or, at worst, mostly, due to natural causes - and mostly due to that big ball of fire we call "The Sun".

Canutists scoff at this suggestion - even while conceding that the sun was indeed the cause of previous warming cycles. They claim that they know the sun isn't causing the warming this time because there has been no significant increase in something called Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) during this warming cycle. What they frequently fail to mention, however, is that TSI has been at historically high levels both before and throughout this period of warming.

So, armed with this info and my common sense I conducted a small experiment which you can try at home. All you need is a "sun", an "earth" and a little time. As the earth is predominantly water I used a large saucepan of water. For the sun I used a gas hob.

Now turn on the heat and set the setting to low then place the pan of water on the hob. You'll notice that, the water does not suddenly become warm, but, at first, the water remains cold - over time it gradually heats up. What is more, that heat dissipates out of the pan - if you hold your hand over the water you will feel the heat.

Now turn the heat up to medium. What happens? Yes! The water heats up some more and the heat it gives off is increased. Now turn the heat down to low and you'll notice that even though the source of heat is decreased, the warmth from the water remains high for some time after. It does not suddenly return to the previous temperature. This is because the water stores the heat and releases it slowly into the "atmosphere".

Now the clincher. Turn the heat right up and leave it there on high for 30 minutes (to simulate thirty years). Does the water reach it's optimum temperature in the first minute? Not even in the tenth minute. It keeps getting warmer and warmer and giving off more and more heat until it eventually started to boil (about 25 minutes in my case). When I turned the heat off the water did not suddenly become cold - it only cooled gradually.

So, you see, TSI didn't need to get any stronger - just by being turned up high it warmed the oceans for 30 years and those oceans stored up the heat and gradually released it to the world causing a slight warming. Now the sun has "turned off" and those oceans are starting to cool - very slowly. As long as it stays turned off that will continue to happen - hopefully that won't be too long.

I know it's not "scientific", but I have limited resources. I'm sure if the IPCC were to give me some of the billions it spends on research - say, £5,000,000? - I could come up with a peer reviewed (reviewed by my peers down at the Red Lion) study.

You can keep all your bull about watts per sq metre, upper tropospheres and minute increases in an essential trace gas - my common sense says warming is natural and normal and so is cooling. Only one is better for humanity than the other. Can you guess which?

Scared of global warming? Don't be - fear the cold instead

James Spann has been reporting on weather for 30 years and has an interesting post regarding "global warming" here.

Two years ago, it seemed like nothing could stop the global warming train. Most of the media, those in Hollywood, politicians (many on both sides of the cultural divide), and “enlightened environmentalists” were all telling us that man was causing runaway warming of the earth’s atmosphere, meaning global catastrophe only decades ahead for all of us.

Spann then cites various sources to contest some of the misinformation spread about by the Canutists in defence of their belief that they can control the climate. It's well worth a read, but I won't go into it in any more detail here.

What I will say, though, is that given a choice I would rather have a warmer world than a cooler one. It is a choice that I don't have - the climate will do what it bloody well wants regardless of what you, me or the IPCC say or do - but this is something that we should all take note of.

Bi et al. report that "death rates were around 50-80 per 100,000 in June, July, and August [winter], while they were around 30-50 per 100,000 in the rest of the year, including the summer," and that "this finding applied both to the general population and to the elderly population, and to deaths from various causes."

This was a study of death rates in Brisbane, Australia - which has, by our standards, fiendishly warm summers and remarkably mild winters. And yet, even in that city more people die during the cold months than in the summer heat waves.

Of course, this is not really a startling revelation. We know in this country that every year thousands more die in winter than in the summer, but the alarmists would have you believe that a warmer climate will mean more deaths than a cooler one and that is proven to be total rubbish.

Meanwhile, Dennis T. Avery has warned that the world is set for a 25-30 year period of "moderate cooling".

Avery stressed that the planet is only 150 years into a Modern Warming—part of a moderate, natural 1,500-year cycle that’s likely to last several more centuries—and be far more favorable to humans, wildlife and vegetation than the next “icy age” that will inevitably follow.

That's a little more comforting to know that we're not on the threshold of the new ice age just yet, but let's be blunt about this - Avery is suggesting that we will have a period of cooling that will last for a generation or more.

Even though that cooling may be "moderate", the implications for people are severe. Not least because of the increase in deaths which occur in cooler times, but also for the simple fact that a colder climate means less food production. And with 6 billion people competing for food, land and energy it is clear that a cooler climate - even a moderately cooler one - will put significant strains on the human population.

And what if Avery is wrong about the level of cooling? The sun is incredibly quiet at the moment - the solar conveyor has slowed to a crawl, solar cycle 23 continues to drift to conclusion and solar cycle 24 refuses to get going in any meaningful way. At the same time the PDO and AMO have switched to negative cycles which is generally considered a precursor to cooler climate too. With all this going on, some people are predicting a return to a period as cool as the Dalton Minimum or even the Maunder Minimum.

The implications of that are even more severe. Skating on the Thames might sound like fun for a 23 year old living with his parents in a centrally heated home in Richmond-Upon-Thames, but for a pensioner living alone in a badly heated terrace in Carlisle it could mean death.

The truth is, no one knows. Not Avery, not Spann and certainly not the IPCC. But we should find out over the next 10 or 20 years. I hope to God that it doesn't get any colder, but I have more faith in the evidence of history than the computer model predictions of the IPCC.

IPCC: For entertainment only

New rules come into force this week requiring British fortune tellers to declare that their services are for entertainment purposes only because their prophecies are "not experimentally proven".

So whether you're an astrologer writing in a daily newspaper or a crystal ball gazer working in a carnival tent, you are required to emphasise that what you are doing is just a bit of fun and that your prophecies are not guaranteed.

It's a shame the same rigorous standards aren't applied to the IPCC or the likes of George "Moonbat" Monbiot. Just like a bunch of carnies these people have been pushing their computer generated "projections" as genuine, but are unable to prove them experimentally.

They promised ever increasing temperatures year on year, but for 10 years the global temperature has remained stable and actually even fallen. They promised longer and more droughts, more and more hurricanes, but they were unable to prove it experimentally - if anything, experiments and evidence proved them wrong time and time again.

The big question is why should such rigorous standards be applied to a carnival side show while doomsayers like the IPCC, Stern, Gore, Monbiot and the rest of the alarmists can say what they like without ever having to offer the experimental proof?

Computer models are not proof - the modellers themselves admit that - but based on their predictions western governments are falling over themselves in a rush to strangle their own economies.

The truth is that there is no evidence that climate change is caused by mans CO2 emissions. There is no "experimental proof". All we have are a bunch of very powerful and politically motivated soothsayers who can no more guarantee their predictions than a tarot card reader can.

But the models the IPCC use to predict the future are incapable of seeing the past let alone what is to come. They can not be made to retrospectively match past climate behaviour and yet we are supposed to believe their forecasts?

If you went to a medium who told you that you will only have 2 children, break your arm when you are 27 and die before you are 30 - but you actually have three children, you're already 36 and never had a fracture- then you'd rightly treat their predictions with a considerable degree of scepticism.

But we're supposed to just accept the IPCC computer model predictions even though they are unable to retrodict the past?

And unlike a palm reader, the alarmists aren't even mildly entertaining.

The murder of science

A first class article (pdf) from a Dr. Hertzberg appears on Carbon Sense Coalition. In the article Dr. Hertzberg pulls apart all the propaganda fed to us through the media by the IPCC and Al Gore. He rips through the distortions, wild assumptions and outright lies that make up the hypothesis that man's emissions of CO2 will bring catastrophic global warming.

But more than that he reveals the way once respected journals such as Nature have become so heavily politicised that they are now refusing papers purely because they do not fit with the "consensus".

The most startling evidence of this comes from a Professor Segalstad from the University of Oslo who has carried out the most authoritative study of CO2 lifespan in the atmosphere (at best, five years).

Professor Segalstad writes to Dr Hertzberg saying ...

A manuscript submitted by me to Nature was rejected with only one sentence "30 years of greenhouse effect research cannot be wrong"

THAT is the "consensus". Closed minds and closed doors. Either you conform to the consensus or you will be frozen out - starved of funding and starved of attention.

We are witnessing a murder - the murder of science.

Read it all.

IPCC sea level rise claim is "a fraud"

The claim that the sea is rising at an accelerated rate is bogus. So says one of the world's leading experts on sea level rise, Dr. Nils-Axel Mörner.

So, for example, those people in the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change], choose Hong Kong, which has six tide gauges, and they choose the record of one, which gives 2.3 mm per year rise of sea level. Every geologist knows that that is a subsiding area. It's the compaction of sediment; it is the only record which you shouldn't use.

Not a simple mistake, either. according to Dr. Mörner.

Not even ignorance could be responsible for a thing like that. So tide gauges, you have to treat very, very carefully. Now, back to satellite altimetry, which shows the water, not just the coasts, but in the whole of the ocean. And you measure it by satellite. From 1992 to 2002, [the graph of the sea level] was a straight line, variability along a straight line, but absolutely no trend whatsoever. We could see those spikes: a very rapid rise, but then in half a year, they fall back again. But absolutely no trend, and to have a sea-level rise, you need a trend.

So if it isn't a simple mistake out of ignorance - what then? As he says, to support predictions of impending doom - you need a trend.

Then, in 2003, the same data set, which in their [IPCC's] publications, in their website, was a straight line—suddenly it changed, and showed a very strong line of uplift, 2.3 mm per year, the same as from the tide gauge. And that didn't look so nice. It looked as though they had recorded something; but they hadn't recorded anything. It was the original one which they had suddenly twisted up, because they entered a “correction factor,” which they took from the tide gauge. So it was not a measured thing, but a figure introduced from outside. I accused them of this at the Academy of Sciences in Moscow —I said you have introduced factors from outside; it's not a measurement. It looks like it is measured from the satellite, but you don't say what really happened. And they answered, that we had to do it, because otherwise we would not have gotten any trend!

That is terrible! As a matter of fact, it is a falsification of the data set. Why? Because they know the answer. And there you come to the point: They “know” the answer; the rest of us, we are searching for the answer. Because we are field geologists; they are computer scientists. So all this talk that sea level is rising, this stems from the computer modeling, not from observations. The observations don't find it!

"The observations don't find it!" There is no observed sea level rise, no accelerated rise indicated by satellite data, nothing significant whatsoever - but the IPCC have deliberately falsified data to make it appear there is. Why would they do that?

According to Dr. Mörner, the headline grabbing estimate of a sea level rise of 3m in 100 years are also completely ridiculous.

You couldn't have more melting than after the Ice Age. You reach up to 10 mm per year—that was the super-maximum: 1 meter in 100 years. Hudson Bay, in a very short period, melted away: it came up to 12 mm per year. But these are so exceptionally large, that we cannot be anywhere near it; but still people have been saying, 1 meter, 3 meters. It's not feasible!

A rise of 1 metre a century only happens after an Ice Age - and we're currently in an interglacial - so no chance of that whatsoever. The fact is that the IPCC is falsifying data to come up with the answer that their computer models predict. Not only is there no evidence to support their theory, they are changing the evidence that counters it. If that is not political, then what is it?

Time to stop falling for all this garbage. The IPCC, the UN, the EU, the environmental NGO's, the liberal left - they are all involved in the greatest scam perpetrated since man first walked this earth and it is starting to fall to pieces. Some day they are going to have to be held accountable for this fraud.

How to build a straw man

I make no secret of the fact that I'm sceptical of the supposed anthropogenic aspect of climate change. To me, it just doesn't make any sense, but I've not always taken that position.

Ten years ago, as much of the world was signing up to the Kyoto protocol I was one of those who believed that man was having a potentially catastrophic effect on the earth's climate. I believed that because that was what I was being told - by the newspapers, by the television and even on the Internet.

The Internet, back then was a fairly new thing still - but it was through the Internet 10 years ago that I came across the thing that was to ultimately lead me to alter my position on man-made climate change.

The Milankovitch Cycle.

For those of you not aware, the Milankovitch Cycle refers to the way the earth "wobbles" on its axis. The tilt of the earth varies from 22.1 to 24.5 degrees. As it wobbles, the seasons become more or less marked and the poles receive more or less sunlight depending on whether the earth is tilted closer to or further from the sun.

When I thought about that it made me think - if a minor deviation in the earth's tilt can have such a marked effect on the seasons (effectively warming or cooling the climate significantly) then could that be causing climate change?

But the Milankovitch Cycle in itself could not be the cause of climate change because a cycle lasts around 41,000 years. However, it made me realise that if a minor shift in a part of the planet towards the sun can increase the temperature significantly - and a similar shift away from the sun for another part can reduce the temperature significantly then that suggests that the biggest influencer on the climate must be the sun.

This seemed to be backed up the simple fact that the warmest places on earth tend to be the places that are closest to the sun - the tropics. The difference in the distance to the sun between, say, the Tropic of Cancer and Britain is, in terms of the huge distance between the sun and the earth, insignificant - but it was enough for the sun to have a significantly higher warming effect on the Tropic than on Britain.

My thinking was, of course, very unscientific - but it made me wonder if there was more to this "man-made global warming" than was meeting the eye. From that moment on I became sceptical of man-made global warming - sceptical in the true sense of the word in that I decided to look into the subject in more depth and with a more open mind. Instead of believing everything the media was telling me, I started to question everything.

Over the years I have since learned that the sun doesn't generate energy at the same rate all the time, but that it rises in falls in cycles - an indication of which are sunspots. The greater the number of sunspots the more energy the sun gives out. It's not a hard and fast rule, but it is a good indicator of the strength of the sun. And recently we have had the revelation that the suns activity has an effect on cosmic rays which play an important part in cloud formation - and cloud formation plays a hugely important part in climate.

So, over the last ten years I have gone from being a believer in anthropogenic global warming to a confirmed sceptic. When I believed in it it was because I derived almost all my information on the subject from "approved" sources - the media. But thanks to the Internet I was able to find out things that made me think and, by applying what I like to think of as common sense coupled to more scientific findings I have reached the position today where I believe that there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever to support the belief that man-made carbon dioxide emissions are the key driver behind climate change. I don't even believe they are a minor driver anymore - they are utterly insignificant.

My view is that, given current information and predictions on solar activity, we are likely as not to see a significant decrease in that activity in the near future - in the next 10-20 years - which will lay to rest this myth once and for all. If these predictions are correct - and there is no guarantee they will be, after all, they are just predictions - then the earth is about to enter a significant cooling phase that may equal conditions of Dalton Minimum or even the Maunder Minimum - periods when freezing winters were common place in Britain.

I wonder, if this happens as I expect, what will happen then to all those people who have supported and propagated the AGW myth? For instance, the IPCC? If we do enter a cooling phase and if we do see temperatures plummet (without any decrease in CO2 levels - what will the reaction of people be to the IPCC? Or the NGO's like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth? And what about the national governments and politicians? And what will be the response to science?

If, as I expect, it is revealed in the near future that all these groups have been lying to us for years and years then I believe it is entirely possible that we will see a collapse of the current establishment. People just will not trust these groups again - not the UN, not the EU, not the NGO's, not the scientists, not the media (especially the BBC) and not the old political parties - for a very long time.

It could mean anarchy, though I suspect it will just mean a return to sensible politics again - with new parties filling the void. Crucially, though, I believe it will see the end of the liberal left - the principle group behind the propagation of the AGW myth.

I have been told that by pinning my beliefs on the prospect of this coming cooling phase, I have built a straw man for myself. Ignoring that the use of "straw man" in this instance is incorrect and assuming they mean an argument that will easily be refuted if we do not enter a cooling phase, I beg to differ. the "cooling phase" is dependent on the predictions of sun activity being right - they may not be and the sun may continue at its current level for some time.

And even if the suns activities don't make a difference and climate change really is driven by man then what does it matter to me? I'm just a blogger who is swimming against the tide. If I'm proven wrong so what? What have I got to lose other than looking a bit silly?

The real straw man has been built by the AGW supporters - and it is massive. And hiding behind this straw man are the reputations and interests of huge organisations, massive political structures and even science itself. These are the groups and people who really have something at stake and that really is a straw man to be proud of.

I also wonder what lengths they will go to to protect their interests and reputations and preserve their power?

IPCC Lead author admits models are garbage

Kevin Trenberth, one of the lead authors of the recent IPCC report has made some startling revelations.

First of all, he claims that the IPCC makes no predictions - just presents possible scenarios.

In fact there are no predictions by IPCC at all. And there never have been. The IPCC instead proffers “what if” projections of future climate that correspond to certain emissions scenarios. There are a number of assumptions that go into these emissions scenarios. They are intended to cover a range of possible self consistent “story lines” that then provide decision makers with information about which paths might be more desirable.

Then he admits that those predictions are made without giving consideration to other climate factors.

But they do not consider many things like the recovery of the ozone layer, for instance, or observed trends in forcing agents. There is no estimate, even probabilistically, as to the likelihood of any emissions scenario and no best guess.

Not sure what he means by "observed trends" - perhaps he is referring to the fact that methane emissions have flattened out and may even be falling - but it's clear that he means that the IPCC are choosing to omit "many" climate factors. And no estimate of the likelihood of these scenarios coming true, either - not even a "best guess". In other words, it's all just pure speculation.

Next, he admits that their climate models are pretty much useless.

None of the models used by IPCC are initialized to the observed state and none of the climate states in the models correspond even remotely to the current observed climate. In particular, the state of the oceans, sea ice, and soil moisture has no relationship to the observed state at any recent time in any of the IPCC models. There is neither an El Niño sequence nor any Pacific Decadal Oscillation that replicates the recent past.

So these models - on which we are supposed to gamble our economic future - are so poor they can not even be made to reflect the current climate. And yet we're supposed to believe that they can predict the future?

Finally, he admits that, far from the science being settled it has barely started.

However, the science is not done because we do not have reliable or regional predictions of climate.

So there have it - straight from the horses mouth. The IPCC cannot make even a guess, let alone a "best guess", they deliberately ignore many climate factors, the models are useless and they can not make even a reliable prediction about regional climate - today, tomorrow, in ten years or 100 years time.

But we should all believe it and hamstring our economic future based on this? Russell Grant, eat your heart out.

The heat is on for AGW supporters

Browsing the web last night, I came across this interesting article from Web Commentary. Take a look at this graph.

I expect most people are aware - actually, no they probably aren't - I expect most people who have bothered to look for themselves are aware that the more CO2 is released into the atmosphere, the progressively less effective it becomes as a greenhouse gas - but this is the first time I have seen a graph that so clearly demonstrates how rapidly that effect diminishes and how little effect is caused by recent changes to CO2 emissions.

Notice that the biggest effect comes from the first 20 ppm (parts per million) of CO2 and that this first 20 ppm has a greater effect than the next 400 ppm combined. Please note, that this is not a "forecast" or a model-based prediction. This is established scientific fact. We KNOW this.

Current levels of atmospheric CO2 are estimated at 380 ppm with the IPCC warning that global catastrophe awaits us if this increases much beyond 420 ppm. The study (pdf) from which this graph comes from actually tells us that an increase of atmospheric CO2 to 620 ppm will actually only induce a rise of 0.16C. We will reach a CO2 level of 620 ppm - if nothing changes and if China continues its economic expansion at the current rate - somewhere around 2150.

As Web Commentary points out, even the level of 620 ppm is not anything unprecedented.

The geologic record of past climate (paleoclimate) reveals that over the past 500 million years, atmospheric carbon dioxide has been an order of magnitude higher than it is today (up to 16 times higher)! Over that same time span, Earth has experienced four ice eras (colder than normal climate regimes lasting 45 million to 65 million years). During the coldest of those four ice eras, 450 million years ago, Earth was a virtual snowball of ice - while atmospheric carbon dioxide was 15 times higher than it is today (about 5600 ppm)! According to the IPCC/Al Gore theory, that would have been impossible. Yet the record is clear. Oh yes, it should be noted that Earth is still in the last of those four ice eras, though the record reveals the current ice era is the mildest of the four and Earth should emerge from the current ice era in a relatively short time (within the next five million years).

Also rather interesting, to me anyway, is that the Archibald study - Climate Outlook to 2030 - actually focuses more on the forthcoming Solar Cycle than atmospheric CO2. It notes that....

The increased length of Solar Cycle 23 supports the view that Solar Cycle 24 will be weak, with the consequence of increased certainty that that there will be a global average temperature decline in the range of 1° to 2° C for the forecast period. The projected increase of 40 ppm in atmospheric carbon dioxide to 2030 is calculated to contribute a global atmospheric temperature increase of 0.04°C. The anthropogenic contribution to climate change over the forecast period will be insignificant relative to natural cyclic variation. (My emphasis)

This is a prediction to 2030 - just 23 years away - suggesting that, contrary to what the IPCC, Al Gore and all the MSM are telling you, there is likely to be a drop in global temperature of 1-2 C in the next 23 years. To put this into context, the lower level of temperature drop in the coming 25 years will be greater than the total increase in global temperature that has been estimated to have taken place over the last 100 years! In the worst case scenario - a drop of 2C - we will see a temperature drop to levels last experienced during The Little Ice Age when the Thames frequently froze over.

Now, given that this change in climate is predicted to start very soon - we should know within the next five years I would guess - then does it not make sense to adopt a "wait and see" policy? The fact that this isn't happening and that, in fact, the calls for action on "Global Warming" have become ever more strident and immediate suggests to me that those who support AGW are starting to realise that their time is running out. Not because the world will endure catastrophic global warming or that a “tipping point” will soon be reached, but because they could very soon be proved wrong.

My view is that there are going to be an awful lot of people who are going to look very silly in the not too distant future - and these people have a huge vested interest riding on this. If they fail to achieve their ambitions within the next five years then there will be a significant backlash against them all - the NGO's of course, but particularly the IPCC, the UN and the EU. The collapse of the AGW scam could herald the collapse of supranationalism too. Is it any wonder that these organisations are now going all out to gain the control they need before it's too late?

The real agenda

If anyone still doubted that the supporters of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) have another agenda at the root of their cause, George Monbiot dispels that doubt today in The Guardian.

The best way to give the poor a real voice is through a world parliament.

Er ... OK. So the best way to give the poor a voice is to move the government as far away as possible. Yep - that's really going to work. What a dribbling loon. Anyway, back to the issue - do AGW supporters believe in the theory because they are really concerned for the future of the earth or do they believe in it because it gives them a route to establish their "world government".

Those of us who want a world parliament are often accused of trying to invent a system of global governance.

There's your answer. Straight from the horses mouth. Moonbat then tries to shrug off his personal crusade as just giving us what we want.

But there is already a system of global governance. The UN security council, the World Bank, the IMF and the World Trade Organisation make decisions that affect us all. They do so without our consent.

Very true, but they do so also only with our cooperation. The global "governance" only goes as far as any nation allows it and certain nations - Iran and North Korea being prominent recent examples - often refuse to play the game. This is one of the things that Moonbat and his cohorts forget. "International law" does not exist. What "international law" is a series of agreements between consenting nations to abide by certain treaty agreements - and a treaty can be changed or cancelled at any time by any nation.

We then move to the crux - at least what I perceive to crux to be - of Moonbat's agenda.

Those who claim, like the British Eurosceptics, that regional or global decision-making is unnecessary are living in a world of make-believe. No political issue now stops at the national border. All the most important forces - climate change, terrorism, state aggression, trade, flows of money, demographic pressures, the depletion of resources - can be addressed only at the global level.

Wrong! First of all, few Eurosceptics claim that regional or global decision making is unnecessary. On the contrary, it has always been necessary and that is why we have such a thing as a "Foreign Office" to negotiate regional and global decision making on our behalf. What we Eurosceptics don't agree with is the idea that a single negotiator can work on behalf of a dozen or more disparate nations and peoples all of whom have different needs and requirements. Secondly - and more importantly - all of those "important forces" - apart from one - can be controlled or stopped at the national borders by national governments. The one that can not, as Georgie well knows, is climate change.

That is why it is so crucial for him and his ilk to establish climate change as a man made event rather than the entirely natural event - and an event completely beyond the control of any national OR "world government".

But at least he's admitted what it's really about.

Crumbling consensus

A scientist recruited by the IPCC to review articles on climate change which the IPCC reports reference has given us an indication of just how thorough the IPCC review process is - and a classic condemnation of the so-called "consensus" claimed for those 2500 scientists.

Steve McIntyre was invited in 2005 to be a reviewer for the upcoming IPCC AR4 and asked, not unreasonably, for the IPCC to provide sources for data in related in articles that he was being asked to review. The IPCC flatly refused and their reply was highly revealing.

[T]he IPCC process assesses published literature, it does not involve carrying out research, nor do we have the mandate or resources to operate as a clearing house for the massive amounts of data that are used in the climate science community or referred to in the literature used by our authors.

So the IPCC does not carry out research nor do they check the data in articles which the report authors use in their report to support the claims they make?

Out of the 2500 scientists the IPCC claims to be part of their consensus, it turns out that some 1200 of them are employed as "expert reviewers", but if Mr McIntyre's example is anything to go by they do not have access to the data required to review the articles. Which means that some 1200 of the 2500 are performing their reviews without the information that supports the articles they are supposed to be reviewing!

As one of the commenter's, notes ...

“What sort of peer review is it, when the peer reviewer cannot see the data used or the supporting calculations?”

Good question. The answer is that it isn't a peer review at all and that the point of the IPCC is not to critically assess research and data on climate change, but to find anything that will support it's politically motivated pre-conceived assertions that global warming is man-made.