Breaking: US kills IPCC Funding

Via JoNova, news that the US House of Representatives has voted to kill the US funding of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change:

Another victory for science! House votes 244-179 to kill U.S. funding of UN IPCC! 'It no longer wishes to have the IPCC prepare its comprehensive international climate science assessments'

Defund IPCC 'amendment was sponsored by Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Missouri), who read aloud on the floor from the 2009 U.S. Senate Report of more than 700 dissenting scientists! (Written by Climate Depot's Morano)

Luetkemeyer: Americans 'should not have to continue to foot the bill for an (IPPC) organization to keep producing corrupt findings'

Source

Luetkemeyer: Scientists manipulated climate data, suppressed legitimate arguments in peer-reviewed journals, and researchers were asked to destroy emails, so that a small number of climate alarmists could continue to advance their environmental agenda.

Since then, more than 700 acclaimed international scientists have challenged the claims made by the IPCC, in this comprehensive 740-page report. These 700 scientists represent some of the most respected institutions at home and around the world, including the U.S. Departments of Energy and Defense, U.S. Air Force and Navy, and even the Environmental Protection Agency.

For example, famed Princeton University physicist Dr. Robert Austin, who has published 170 scientific papers and was elected a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Austin told a congressional committee that, unfortunately, climate has become a political science. It is tragic the some perhaps well-meaning but politically motivated scientists who should know better have whipped up a global frenzy about a phenomenon which is statistically questionable at best.

Mr. Chairman, if the families in my district have been able to tighten their belts, surely the federal government can do the same and stop funding an organization that is fraught with waste and abuse.

Source

The alarmists are still unable to engage with the argument, but fall back on the usual boilerplate name-calling and argumentum ad hominem:

The amendment was sponsored by second-term Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Missouri), who obviously knows nothing about climate science or the IPCC, and I expect could care less. His talking points were clearly provided by some denial machine operative and Mr. Leutkemeyer simply followed the script.

Source

Clearly, Rep. Luetkemeyer does care, or he would hardly have gone to the effort of presenting this to the House. As always, if you disagree with me, you are following a secret agenda, a line prepared by a 'machine' and you are wicked to the core. If you agree with me, you are a dispassionate and intelligent scientist whose farts smell of lavender.

Nice to see science maintaining its core of impartiality and reasonableness. Interesting times.

Cyclone Yasi

Thankfully, it looks as though Cyclone Yasi hasn't caused the death and destruction that was feared when it was approaching Eastern Australia. So far, no lives have been lost. But via JoNova, there were some of the most awesome images I have ever seen of climatic events. Jo wrote "file under shock and awe", and I can't disagree.

First, a plain old satellite image of the approaching storm:



And then the storm image overlaid on a map of the USA and UK, just for comparison:



That thing is HUGE.

All my good wishes and sympathy to our good friends in Australia. As if you didn't have enough with the floods ... Good luck, guys.

Jo points out in a later post that super-cyclones have been hitting Queensland regularly for at least 5000 years. But that won't stop the alarmists from blaming it all on Global Warming Climate Change Disruption, now will it? After all, if you restrict your time-frame to the right period (say the last 100 years), then man is obviously to blame, no?

Met Office Uncovered

There's an interesting article on the BBC website about the Met Office, and an FOI request made by the BBC over material related to the Met Office's famous prediction of a 'barbecue summer' in 2009 and their apparent inability to predict the current unusually cold spell.

It seems as if the MO has two conflicting operating arms: the scientists (who, we may assume, have normal levels of astuteness and scientific caution) and the PR and Communications arm, who appear to be the MO's propaganda wing. This quotation is revealing:

"The strapline 'odds on for a barbeque summer' was created by the operations and communications teams to reflect the probability of a good summer. Concern over the use of the strapline and its relationship to the scientific information available was expressed by the scientific community, who were not consulted prior to the media release."

And the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) have an observation:

The GWPF is drawing attention to a map published on the Met Office website in October which indicated that the UK was likely to experience above-normal temperatures in the ensuing three-month period.

For the GPWF, which is sceptical of the Met Office and other mainstream analysis of global warming, this is evidence of a Met Office tendency to under-predict cold weather and over-predict mild winters.

A picture emerges: scientists working in the background, trying to provide a reliable outlook for the weather, based on probabilities which no-one else understands, and a PR wing, who are determined to turn the scientific advice into catchy, black-and-white memorable phrases which follow the required political agenda.

I liked this comment:

Of course, when it's hotter than average, it's 'climate' - when it's colder than average, it's 'weather.'

Snow: a thing of the past?

Take a read of this, from the Independent of March 2000:

Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past

Britain's winter ends tomorrow with further indications of a striking environmental change: snow is starting to disappear from our lives.

Sledges, snowmen, snowballs and the excitement of waking to find that the stuff has settled outside are all a rapidly diminishing part of Britain's culture, as warmer winters - which scientists are attributing to global climate change - produce not only fewer white Christmases, but fewer white Januaries and Februaries.

According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia,within a few years winter snowfall will become "a very rare and exciting event".

"Children just aren't going to know what snow is," he said.

Yes, I know weather isn't climate, but we've had a lot of weather these last two winters. Good to see the CRU beating the drum. Meanwhile, most of Britain is under two feet of 'decline'.

Science Fact?

I've never been a big fan of Science Fiction, although I have read a fair bit over the years. I have no time for the scary-alien stuff, but there are some very thoughtful and thought-provoking books out there. Robert Heinlein's Stranger In A Strange Land is obviously a classic of the genre, and I would also include one of the two most prescient books I have ever read, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (the other is Nineteen Eighty-Four): books that describe a possible future society, which are both believable and chilling. If SF doesn't go down the 'warring tribes' route (like the Mad Max films), then it is usually a World Government theme, where the people's freedoms have all been taken away 'for their own good', and life is superficially happy (or not) but ultimately purposeless and trivial. In the past, I have cheerfully dismissed this as - well, fiction, as that is what it was. After all, it couldn't happen here, because a) no government would want that level of control, and b) people wouldn't let it happen. No siree.

Then I came across this, thanks to Cats. The article is interesting, but the real interest is in the mass of quotations which support the notion that our leaders really want a World Government, and that the climate change con is simply an instrument to get people's willing compliance for changes that will make the New World Order possible. This idea has been at the back of my mind for some time, but I have always dismissed the more extreme expressions of it as tin-hat paranoia. But the quotations in the article (and there are masses), if genuine, really frighten me. None of the quotes are referenced, and it will be a fair piece of work to track them all down and verify them, but that may be worth doing. If they are genuine, then we have a lot to be worried about, and we need to wake up to the situation fast.

I won't list them all, but here are some examples:

Quote by Mikhail Gorbachev, communist and former leader of U.S.S.R.: "The emerging 'environmentalization' of our civilization and the need for vigorous action in the interest of the entire global community will inevitably have multiple political consequences. Perhaps the most important of them will be a gradual change in the status of the United Nations. Inevitably, it must assume some aspects of a world government."

Quote by Gordon Brown, former British prime minister: "A New World Order is required to deal with the Climate Change crisis."

Quote by David Brower, a founder of the Sierra Club: "Childbearing should be a punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a government license. All potential parents should be required to use contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen for childbearing."

Quote by Club of Rome: “In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill....All these dangers are caused by human intervention....and thus the “real enemy, then, is humanity itself....believe humanity requires a common motivation, namely a common adversary in order to realize world government. It does not matter if this common enemy is “a real one or….one invented for the purpose.”

Quote by Maurice Strong, a wealthy elitist and primary power behind UN throne: “Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsibility to bring that about?”

Quote by David Foreman, co-founder of Earth First!: “My three main goals would be to reduce human population to about 100 million worldwide, destroy the industrial infrastructure and see wilderness, with it’s full complement of species, returning throughout the world.”

Quote by Robert Muller, former UN Assistant Secretary General: “In my view, after fifty years of service in the United National system, I perceive the utmost urgency and absolute necessity for proper Earth government. There is no shadow of a doubt that the present political and economic systems are no longer appropriate and will lead to the end of life evolution on this planet. We must therefore absolutely and urgently look for new ways.”

Quote by James Lovelock, known as founder of 'Gaia' concept: “I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while.”

Quote by Jeremy Rifkin, Greenhouse Crisis Foundation: “The prospect of cheap fusion energy is the worst thing that could happen to the planet.”

Quote by Ted Turner, billionaire, founder of CNN and major UN donor: “A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal.”

Quote by John Holdren, President Obama's science czar: "There exists ample authority under which population growth could be regulated...It has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society."

Quote by UK's Keith Farnish, environmental writer, philosopher and activist: "The only way to prevent global ecological collapse and thus ensure the survival of humanity is to rid the world of Industrial Civilization...Unloading essentially means the removal of an existing burden: for instance, removing grazing domesticated animals, razing cities to the ground, blowing up dams and switching off the greenhouse gas emissions machine."

Quote by Club of Rome: "Democracy is not a panacea. It cannot organize everything and it is unaware of its own limits. These facts must be faced squarely. Sacrilegious though this may sound, democracy is no longer well suited for the tasks ahead. The complexity and the technical nature of many of today’s problems do not always allow elected representatives to make competent decisions at the right time."

Quote by Michael Oppenheimer, major environmentalist: "The only hope for the world is to make sure there is not another United States. We can't let other countries have the same number of cars, the amount of industrialization, we have in the US. We have to stop these Third World countries right where they are."

Quote by emeritus professor Daniel Botkin :"The only way to get our society to truly change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe."

Quote by Stephen Schneider, Stanford Univ., environmentalist: "That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have."

Quote from Monika Kopacz, atmospheric scientist: "It is no secret that a lot of climate-change research is subject to opinion, that climate models sometimes disagree even on the signs of the future changes (e.g. drier vs. wetter future climate). The problem is, only sensational exaggeration makes the kind of story that will get politicians’ — and readers’ — attention. So, yes, climate scientists might exaggerate, but in today’s world, this is the only way to assure any political action and thus more federal financing to reduce the scientific uncertainty."

Quote by Christine Stewart, former Canadian Environment Minister: “No matter if the science is all phoney, there are collateral environmental benefits.... climate change [provides] the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world.”

Quote by Timoth Wirth, U.S./UN functionary, former elected Democrat: “We’ve got to ride the global-warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic policy and environmental policy.”

Quote by Richard Benedik, former U.S./UN bureaucrat: "A global climate treaty must be implemented even if there is no scientific evidence to back the greenhouse effect."

Quote by David Frame, climate modeler, Oxford University: “Rather than seeing models as describing literal truth, we ought to see them as convenient fictions which try to provide something useful.”

Strangely enough, the most significant of these quotations for me are the two referring to nuclear fusion:

Quote by Jeremy Rifkin, Greenhouse Crisis Foundation: “The prospect of cheap fusion energy is the worst thing that could happen to the planet.”

Quote by Amory Lovins, scientist, Rocky Mountain Institute: "Complex technology of any sort is an assault on human dignity. It would be little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy, because of what we might do with it."

I had always assumed that the Green objection to energy use, and specifically nuclear energy, was that it was environmentally damaging, and then when a clean and cheap source of energy was developed (and for my generation that has always been fusion), everyone would welcome it and be happy that all the world could share the advantages of plentiful energy that we have had for some time. Apparently not. Plentiful energy, it seems, is a Bad Thing per se, even if it does no harm to the planet. That revelation is frankly shocking to me. I can't see why anyone would object to lots of clean, cheap energy, unless they hate the human race - and that, I'm sorry to say, seems to be a constant theme of the discourse.

Go and have a read - there are tons more like these.

We need to wake up to this.

Autumn Leaves

Another low-carbon post brought to you by Gardeners For Global Warming:

Had To Happen

I was sure 'No Pressure' was going to be parodied in the manner of 'Downfall' sooner or later. What I didn't expect is a 'Downfall' version.

There'll be more. This one's a bit lame, to be honest. But it's a start.





UPDATE:

H/t to The Boiling Frog for the clip. Forgot to attribute it when I posted.

Clip has been removed from YouTube and Metacafe, but it is now up on Eyetube. I'm having problems getting it to embed - clip is here.

No Pressure - MP responds

On 1 October, I wrote to my MP, Stephen Crabb, regarding the No Pressure video. This was the reply I received yesterday:

Dear Richard,

Thank you for your email of 1st October regarding the video film 'No Pressure'. I appreciate you bringing this video to my attention and I completely understand your concerns.

I was very shocked to watch the video and I agree that it is extremely tasteless. I will discuss this matter with my colleagues as it is very disappointing that such a supported and well recognised campaign has produced advertising that many people will find distressing.

I will be in touch if I receive any further information about this matter. In the meantime, please do not hesitate to contact me if I can be of any additional assistance or if you have any further concerns.

Kind regards,

Stephen

Stephen Crabb MP
House of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA

Well, at least he agrees about the nature of the film. It was a pity that he didn't address the main point of my letter, which was the amount of public money going to support this misanthropic and thoroughly nasty scam. A reply will be made in due course.

Hal Lewis - another brick falls out of the wall

Via WattsUpWithThat, the resignation letter of Hal Lewis from the American Physical Society. Apologies for the lengthy quote, but the letter needs to be read as a whole,and by as many people as possible.

The cracks have been evident for a while, but is this the start of the collapse?

Sent: Friday, 08 October 2010 17:19 Hal Lewis

From: Hal Lewis, University of California, Santa Barbara
To: Curtis G. Callan, Jr., Princeton University, President of the American Physical Society

6 October 2010

Dear Curt:

When I first joined the American Physical Society sixty-seven years ago it was much smaller, much gentler, and as yet uncorrupted by the money flood (a threat against which Dwight Eisenhower warned a half-century ago).

Indeed, the choice of physics as a profession was then a guarantor of a life of poverty and abstinence—it was World War II that changed all that. The prospect of worldly gain drove few physicists. As recently as thirty-five years ago, when I chaired the first APS study of a contentious social/scientific issue, The Reactor Safety Study, though there were zealots aplenty on the outside there was no hint of inordinate pressure on us as physicists. We were therefore able to produce what I believe was and is an honest appraisal of the situation at that time. We were further enabled by the presence of an oversight committee consisting of Pief Panofsky, Vicki Weisskopf, and Hans Bethe, all towering physicists beyond reproach. I was proud of what we did in a charged atmosphere. In the end the oversight committee, in its report to the APS President, noted the complete independence in which we did the job, and predicted that the report would be attacked from both sides. What greater tribute could there be?

How different it is now. The giants no longer walk the earth, and the money flood has become the raison d’être of much physics research, the vital sustenance of much more, and it provides the support for untold numbers of professional jobs. For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society.

It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford’s book organizes the facts very well.) I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist.

So what has the APS, as an organization, done in the face of this challenge? It has accepted the corruption as the norm, and gone along with it. For example:

1. About a year ago a few of us sent an e-mail on the subject to a fraction of the membership. APS ignored the issues, but the then President immediately launched a hostile investigation of where we got the e-mail addresses. In its better days, APS used to encourage discussion of important issues, and indeed the Constitution cites that as its principal purpose. No more. Everything that has been done in the last year has been designed to silence debate

2. The appallingly tendentious APS statement on Climate Change was apparently written in a hurry by a few people over lunch, and is certainly not representative of the talents of APS members as I have long known them. So a few of us petitioned the Council to reconsider it. One of the outstanding marks of (in)distinction in the Statement was the poison word incontrovertible, which describes few items in physics, certainly not this one. In response APS appointed a secret committee that never met, never troubled to speak to any skeptics, yet endorsed the Statement in its entirety. (They did admit that the tone was a bit strong, but amazingly kept the poison word incontrovertible to describe the evidence, a position supported by no one.) In the end, the Council kept the original statement, word for word, but approved a far longer “explanatory” screed, admitting that there were uncertainties, but brushing them aside to give blanket approval to the original. The original Statement, which still stands as the APS position, also contains what I consider pompous and asinine advice to all world governments, as if the APS were master of the universe. It is not, and I am embarrassed that our leaders seem to think it is. This is not fun and games, these are serious matters involving vast fractions of our national substance, and the reputation of the Society as a scientific society is at stake.

3. In the interim the ClimateGate scandal broke into the news, and the machinations of the principal alarmists were revealed to the world. It was a fraud on a scale I have never seen, and I lack the words to describe its enormity. Effect on the APS position: none. None at all. This is not science; other forces are at work.

4. So a few of us tried to bring science into the act (that is, after all, the alleged and historic purpose of APS), and collected the necessary 200+ signatures to bring to the Council a proposal for a Topical Group on Climate Science, thinking that open discussion of the scientific issues, in the best tradition of physics, would be beneficial to all, and also a contribution to the nation. I might note that it was not easy to collect the signatures, since you denied us the use of the APS membership list. We conformed in every way with the requirements of the APS Constitution, and described in great detail what we had in mind—simply to bring the subject into the open.

5. To our amazement, Constitution be damned, you declined to accept our petition, but instead used your own control of the mailing list to run a poll on the members’ interest in a TG on Climate and the Environment. You did ask the members if they would sign a petition to form a TG on your yet-to-be-defined subject, but provided no petition, and got lots of affirmative responses. (If you had asked about sex you would have gotten more expressions of interest.) There was of course no such petition or proposal, and you have now dropped the Environment part, so the whole matter is moot. (Any lawyer will tell you that you cannot collect signatures on a vague petition, and then fill in whatever you like.) The entire purpose of this exercise was to avoid your constitutional responsibility to take our petition to the Council.

6. As of now you have formed still another secret and stacked committee to organize your own TG, simply ignoring our lawful petition.

APS management has gamed the problem from the beginning, to suppress serious conversation about the merits of the climate change claims. Do you wonder that I have lost confidence in the organization?

I do feel the need to add one note, and this is conjecture, since it is always risky to discuss other people’s motives. This scheming at APS HQ is so bizarre that there cannot be a simple explanation for it. Some have held that the physicists of today are not as smart as they used to be, but I don’t think that is an issue. I think it is the money, exactly what Eisenhower warned about a half-century ago. There are indeed trillions of dollars involved, to say nothing of the fame and glory (and frequent trips to exotic islands) that go with being a member of the club. Your own Physics Department (of which you are chairman) would lose millions a year if the global warming bubble burst. When Penn State absolved Mike Mann of wrongdoing, and the University of East Anglia did the same for Phil Jones, they cannot have been unaware of the financial penalty for doing otherwise. As the old saying goes, you don’t have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing. Since I am no philosopher, I’m not going to explore at just which point enlightened self-interest crosses the line into corruption, but a careful reading of the ClimateGate releases makes it clear that this is not an academic question.

I want no part of it, so please accept my resignation. APS no longer represents me, but I hope we are still friends.

Hal

==========================================================

Harold Lewis is Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, former Chairman; Former member Defense Science Board, chmn of Technology panel; Chairman DSB study on Nuclear Winter; Former member Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards; Former member, President’s Nuclear Safety Oversight Committee; Chairman APS study on Nuclear Reactor Safety Chairman Risk Assessment Review Group; Co-founder and former Chairman of JASON; Former member USAF Scientific Advisory Board; Served in US Navy in WW II; books: Technological Risk (about, surprise, technological risk) and Why Flip a Coin (about decision making)

What Will You Be Doing On 10/10?

10 October 2010, a 'Global Day Of Doing', according to 1010global.org.

Leaving aside the raunchier interpretations of that phrase (how do you make it last a day?), I wonder what we will all be doing tomorrow?

I have had two excellent bonfires of fallen leaves this week, during which I created enough smoke to fill the Millennium Dome twice over. But I doubt if I will have time to do that on Sunday. Here's my plan:

1. Monster breakfast at the café at Withybush Airfield, in the company of some fellow members of TOMCC. Black pudding, bacon, eggs, sausages, toast, coffee - how many sacred cows bite the dust in just one meal? And of course by eating there we are supporting the local flying club. Flying - the worst contributor to climate change, according to 10:10 director Franny Armstrong, although she is not averse to a lot of flying herself if she feels the need, of course. It's OK when they do it.

2. Ride-out to Tan-y-groes in Ceredigion. Only 30 or so miles, but I will be sure to wind it on big-style and create as many unburnt hydrocarbons in the atmosphere as is humanly possible.

3. Visit to the Internal Fire Museum of Power, for their End-of-Season Crankup, where we will enjoy a day of looking at various stationary engines going duff-duff-duff and generally creating noise and smoke. We had this visit planned long before 10:10 was announced, but it couldn't be more appropriate, really.

4. Swift ride home, killing a few foxes and badgers if they get in the way.

5. Massive bonfire if time allows.

I'm going to a harp concert (the plinky-plonky kind, not a harmonica recital) at the village church in the evening. It's not promising from an anti-environmental point of view, as I will only be sitting and listening, but I will try to think up some way to increase my carbon footprint while I am there. Perhaps I will set fire to some of the less-tasteful kneelers, or the vicar's cassock.

Whatever you do, make it smelly and noisy. And whatever you are driving or riding - give it some. No pressure.

My Reply To 10:10

This afternoon, I received a reply from 'The 10:10 Team' to my email of complaint (in the comments) of six days ago.

This is what they said:

Hello Richard,

We're really sorry for the mistake that we made with film. We accept that it was off-the-mark and off-message, and we quickly removed it from our site.

Our UK director has made a statement on the issue, if you haven't seen and wish to see it, you can find it at http://www.1010global.org/uk/2010/10/statement-1010-uk-director. As it says, we are taking the matter very seriously and will be reviewing our processes and procedures to identify how we made the mistake.

We sincerely apologise for the offence the film has caused, and hope you will stick with us.

10:10 team

I suspect that this is a generic reply that will have gone out to everyone who wrote to them. Here is my reply today:

Dear 10:10 Team

Thank you for your email, in reply to my complaint of 1 October about your 'No Pressure' video clip. I appreciate that you have taken the time to respond.

However, I feel you have slightly missed the point. I was not offended by the clip in the slightest, and even if I was I don't regard offending me as a crime. You have the right to express your viewpoint, and I wouldn't stand in the way of that. I am aware that the film was intended to be funny, and to the extent that I understand modern humour, I 'get' what you were trying to do. I laughed at Sam Peckinpah's 'Salad Days', and Mr Creosote too.

However, the film revealed a totalitarian mindset which I found profoundly disturbing. The children who were exploded, remember, were not against the idea of 10:10 - they were merely insufficiently enthusiastic. Healthy scepticism is obviously not part of the 10:10 creed - it's 'believe or be marginalised'.

Since I believe that you are all well-meaning and fundamentally decent people, I would ask you to consider seriously the following:

Look at the reaction of the children and office workers who were not exploded. They were not portrayed as cheering happily as their colleagues were disposed of - they were shocked and terrified. That - and I use this word deliberately - is a fascist method for the control of a population: go after dissenters with extreme violence, and the rest of the population will be frightened into compliance. They will say anything, and agree to anything, as long as they are not next. Hitler used it; Stalin used it; Pol Pot used it. Is that how you want us to think of the climate change movement? Seriously?

I don't think for one moment that you wish to exterminate all those who disagree with you, and it is unfair of you to characterise anyone who disagrees with you as unimaginative, or not 'getting the joke'. But the film did reveal a very nasty subtext to the climate change movement's attitude, and I suspect that you have done more harm to your movement then you realise.

We shall see.

Suck on this, Greenies

Too windy for those nice, neat little piles of leaves on the edge of the garden, all smouldering gently like a scene from Thomas Hardy, so the old incinerator has been brought in to action. In the stiff breeze, it's going like a bloody furnace.

Totally carbon-neutral too, but I'm sure they will find some objection.

Young Turks

In response to my recent post on the second 10:10 apology, Voyager wrote...

"10:10 is a young and creative team"

There is the problem. They may have first class degrees from top universities but they actually know nothing. The same problem exists all over 'commercial' media, politics and (to a lesser extent perhaps) commerce. They hire thrusting young turks who have little understanding of history and context.

Useless tossers.

I think he's hit the nail on the head. It used to be the case that all enterprises, whether banks or bus companies, schools or sausage factories, had a mixture of young and old on their staff. The young were vital for their energy and ideas, but perhaps lacked judgement. The older staff were wiser and more experienced, but were perhaps running low on creativity and drive. As long as each group respected the contribution of the other, things went along very well. Crucially, anything proposed by the younger employees would be checked by the older ones, who would have the final say on whether it would go ahead. Experience, and mature judgement, would temper the wilder ideas and make sure that what happened would be likely to work in the real world. It seemed to work well as a system.

But we don't do that any more. 'Youth' itself is the justification - edginess and pushing the boundaries and occasionally getting it wrong are considered to be good in themselves. "10:10 is a young and creative team" - and we are invited to see that remark as a justification for the film, not an excuse for why it went so badly wrong.

All organisations need an old git - someone with experience of the business, open-minded but steady - to act as a gatekeeper. Commercial operations tend to work like this, as getting the market badly wrong is suicidal. Organisations that work on 'other people's money' don't. When they get it wrong, they are faced with merely making an apology, rather than a visit to the Job Centre.

Another 10:10 Apology

Eugenie Harvey, the UK Director of 10:10, has issued a further apology for the catastrophic 'No Pressure' film. You can read it in full here. An extract:

We are also sorry to our corporate sponsors, delivery partners and board members, who have been implicated in this situation despite having no involvement in the film’s production or release.

I am very sorry for our mistake and want to reassure you that we will do everything in our power to ensure it does not happen again.

10:10 is a young and creative team but we will learn lessons from this. We are going to investigate what happened, review our processes and procedures, and share the results with our partners. Responsibility for this process is being taken by the 10:10 board of directors.

This media coverage for this film was not the kind of publicity we wanted for the cause of saving the climate, nor for 10:10, and we certainly didn’t mean to do anything to distract from all the efforts of those in other organisations who are working so hard to secure effective action on climate change.

If you have been in touch with us personally about the film, we will be replying to individual emails over the next few days.

To all those who are saying that the whole thing, including the outcry, the withdrawal and the first 'apology' were planned from the start, I think this puts the lid on that. It sounds genuine, and painfully embarrassed, to me.

Good. It needs to be. If I were Eugenie Harvey, I would be asking for the heads of the team that thought this would be a good idea - on a plate, with mayonnaise and a sprinkling of hundreds and thousands. In a private business, anyone who brought this amount of bad publicity on the organisation would be asked to clear their desk and get off the premises within ten minutes. And if she doesn't, the big blue-chip sponsors like Sony and O2 should be demanding it. The big guys know that brand damage is expensive.

I await my personal email from Eugenie with interest.

Sony withdraw support from 10:10

Looks like Sony were as repelled by the 10:10 thing as anyone.

Over at k2p:

Sony has supported the 10:10 climate change campaign because we share its objective to reduce carbon emissions. However, we strongly condemn the “No Pressure” video which was conceived, produced and released by 10:10 entirely without the knowledge or involvement of Sony. The company considers the video to be ill-conceived and in extremely bad taste.

As a result we have taken the decision to disassociate ourselves from 10:10 at this time.

Nick Sharples
Director of Corporate Communications
Sony Europe
(edited)

Press release expected tomorrow.

UPDATE: Any mention of 10:10 has now been removed from Sony's Wikipedia entry here. A Google search brought up the following:

In 2010, Sony became a sponsor of the 10:10 global warming mitigation group and funded the making of the No Pressure film.

But it had been removed from the Wiki page.

Oops.

Angry Comments

I've just been over to the 10:10 website to look at the comments. Some of them are vicious. Here is a sample:

Your video was utterly satanic. You love the earth. You just hate people. What's your next project? A nice little film about Jews, Gypsies, and homosexuals?

'Oh well, we live and learn'? How arrogant.

You may live and learn, but thanks to you my family and I have been branded 'eco terrorists' , 'nazis' and people to fear. I have had abuse from members of the publc, needless to say the event I was organising for 10:10 has been cancelled as I fear for my personal safety and that of my two young sons.

I, unlike you, live on a working class housing estate where change is desperately needed, I, unlike you, do not have the money for additional security, or a convenient bolt-hole where I can feel secure. I have to face these people every day, and I hang my head in shame that I was ever associated with the organisation.

You are welcome to come and walk in my shoes for a few days, if you dare, you arrogant, condescending, bourgeoise idiots. Money, fame and notority cannot buy you out of this mess. Sadly, the World is now MORE at risk from the climate change deniers and their ilk - all because of your valiant attempts to push our cause back 30 years.

I hope you sleep well tonight. I won't.

Resign. All of you. With immediate effect. Before you do more damage.

I also take this as a direct threat to me and mine, well we'll see. Your message is quite straightforward...agree with us or we'll kill your kids. Enjoy flying around the World and using your multiple houses do you? Hypocrites!

I have taken your video as a direct threat to me and my family, I am undecided as yet what to do about it. I assure you that I will do doing something.

Over the last 18 months my belief in the efficacy of the the evidence for AGW has been severely tested as more and more untruths and exaggerations come to light. This video was the final straw. You are completely out of control and order. No more donations from me

Why have we not heard any more from the perpetrators of this extremely stupid video with its rather infantile humour. I am sure that the great many who have seen or are involved with those who have recently lost limbs and lives to explosions - whether in the UK or Iraq or Afghanistan or Spain - are not very amused. Disgraceful.

In common with a rapidly increasing number of people I have severe doubts over the AGW alarmism. Your film does nothing to promote your cause. Reasoned argument and sound scientific evidence will win out not the promotion of extremism. You have damaged your cause and should be ashamed of peddling such violence.

It is awful! Not funny either. I do care about the planet and try to ‘do my part’ but certainly ‘wouldn’t care’ to join the people who made those films. Convincing, persuading and educating is ok, blackmailing, bulling and blowing up, IS NOT!

I know people who spend some time every day checking the MOD website for the details of which brave serviceman/woman has died 'for Queen & country' that day.They do this in order to pray for them and for their poor families. Most of the fatalities in Afghanistan in recent months have died from IEDs. In other words they have been blown to smithereens. I mention this just in case" Franny, Lizzie, Eugenie and the whole 10:10 team" don't know. However, I fear they do know...but don't give a tinker's curse. "Oh well, we live and learn." Is that it? Does none of you care about the pain of others'? I would never have thought such a totally outrageous and despicable film could have been conceived of, let alone been approved and released.

people culling! brilliant idea!

The mini-movie campaign indicates a total lack of sensitivity. Further, whatever the intended message might have been, it does implicitly suggest that those who disagree with you should be blown up. If this had been aimed at people who are of a different race, religion, sexuality, etc, it would have been evidently grossly unacceptable.

Saw your video. Understood exactly what you were trying to convey, and what haters like you will do if you ever gain power.

In addition to the comments here and in the Guardian, and the very negative reaction from Bill McKibben, there are the charities who supported 10:10 in making the film but were horrified and "absolutely appalled" when they actually saw it. In the words from a spokesperson from ActionAid, "the moment this film was seen it was clear it was inappropriate." Fake outrage? I do not think so.

I like splatter movies and I have sense of black humour. But this was just stupid: CO2 is not absolute fact or science, it's political decision. And if you don't believe our political views you will explode. Disgusting, absolutely disgusting.

You mean that implicitly threatening people with death didn't play well? That's a real shocker! I don't care how "noble" a cause may be, arbitrarily wishing people dead is rarely funny and never morally justified.

Usual sententious rubbish from a single issue group. While tongue in cheek the "no pressure" line gives away the real game.

And so on, and on, for 73 pages. Go and have a read, if you have a spare hour or six.

10:10 - The Collection

Further to my post on the 10:10 spoof, I've been pointed to yet another one:



Yes, that's the Final Solution for the climate change lobby - just get rid of that messy, inconvenient human race. In contrast to the original, this is funny.

H/t to R McGeddon, over at Subrosa.

That Apology

Phil Walker over at The Melangerie has an interesting point to make about 10:10's 'apology' for the 'No Pressure' débacle:

"Many people found the resulting film extremely funny, but unfortunately some didn't and we sincerely apologise to anybody we have offended." (from the 10:10 site, my emphasis)

... the person wants to portray the complainant as part of a minority, a way to set themselves in the majority. I'm hardly a rampant postmodernist, but even I can see that this is a simple play for power using words: 'I have many people on my side; you only have some.'

The 'many … some …' construction is a wonderful way to puff yourself up and to paint your position as more defensible than really it is. In fact, if you find yourself feeling a need to use it in order to locate yourself in the majority, the odds are that you're the one in the wrong. So let me encourage you, when you apologise (yes, when), not to use it. Apologise graciously, rather than attempting to justify your position by the back door.

Well said.

Reactions

Yesterday was a busy day for this blog. I was up early (unusual for me) and spotted something in another blog. I was moderately outraged by what I saw, and wrote this post about the 10:10 'No Pressure' film. I saw that one of my favourite bloggers, Subrosa, had covered it too, and I wrote a comment there, linking back to mine.

After that, the blog became quite busy. I was chasing the story all over the net - firstly to see what others had said about it, and then later, when 10:10 pulled the video from YouTube, trying to find a safe copy. All the while, comments were coming in. I was responding to them, and emailing a protest to 10:10, and writing a letter to my MP (scandalous waste of taxpayers' money, ect ect). It's a good job it rained most of the day, or I would have felt very guilty for not being outside and active.

In all, this blog received 167 visitors yesterday - previous bests were 61 and, before that, 55. Although that is pathetically small compared to some of the big hitters, it's a source of some satisfaction to me. The post received 23 comments (so far), which is almost as many as the 25 on the Cancer Research UK Ride post, which were mainly about the benefits or otherwise of feet-forward motorcycle designs. (And the same commenters too - we're a verstaile bunch.)

Reaction to the film in the press has been interesting.

The BBC are studiously neutral, as are the Daily Telegraph. The latter has two interesting articles, from Vicki Woods and, more aggressively, James Delingpole:

But with this new monstrosity, truly the great Richard Curtis has excelled himself. It’s so bad, it makes his previous shimmering masterpieces of emetica – Love Actually, The Girl In The Cafe, The Boat That Rocked – look like Battleship Potemkin. It makes the Vicar of Dibley look like a collaboration between Oscar Wilde and Shakespeare. It’s so deliciously, unspeakably, magnificently bleeding awful it makes you wish that the man could be given a ticker tape parade in every major capital city, in gratitude for the devastating damage he has (unwittingly) wrought on the eco-fascist cause.

(There's also a link in this article to the thoroughly nasty and misanthropic Greenpeace video of the snarling adolescent in the grey hoodie - if 'No Pressure' made you mad, this one will make your skin crawl.)

The Guardian gave the film a predictably enthusiastic pre-launch fluffing (the reference to "our friends at the 10:10 campaign" is revealing), and later updated the piece with the news that it had been withdrawn, but I couldn't find anything else in the paper about the reaction. That's surprising.

Right - back to the real world.

The Tragedy of Wind Power

I watched the piece on the BBC News the other night about the launch of the 'wonderful' new wind farm off the coast at Thanet. Well, it's certainly better than siting those monstrosities on a lonely hillside and ruining the view for millions of us who like remote and unspoiled landscapes. But I'm still alarmed about the economics.

According to Christopher Booker in the Telegraph,

Over the coming years we will be giving the wind farm's Swedish owners a total of £1.2 billion in subsidies. That same sum, invested now in a single nuclear power station, could yield a staggering 13 times more electricity, with much greater reliability.

Wind farm enthusiasts tend to quote the manufacturers' figures for output unquestioningly, and this one is claimed to have the 'capacity' to power 200,000 homes. Well, that would be so if the winds at Thanet could be guaranteed to blow at exactly the right speed all the time, night and day, winter and summer. Too little wind, and the turbines don't turn fast enough. Too much, and they have to shut down for safety reasons. But just right, and they will produce what is claimed. Probably. The 'load factor' of British wind turbines (the amount they actually produce compared to the amount they could produce in ideal conditions) is around 25%. But this is never mentioned by government ministers wetting their pants over the latest project. Compared with investing the same money in nuclear, which could provide 13 times the power, reliably and whatever the weather conditions, the money is being pissed away.

So, not only do we have a hugely inefficient and unreliable source of energy (remember that each turbine needs 100% of idle, inefficient fossil-based backup for when the weather is calm), but we are paying massive amounts of subsidy to have it. Over the life of the project, the Swedish manufacturers will pocket an amazing £1.2bn in subsidy. And where does that come from? Your electricity bills and mine. Let's be clear: in a time of serious recession, our energy bills are being artificially inflated to support a technology that is unreliable and unsightly, and won't even solve the problem, if there is a problem. Remember that energy costs are a bigger proportion of expenditure for the poor than the rich, so the burden of all this environmental grandstanding falls on the least wealthy. And the money doesn't even stay within the British economy - it disappears to Sweden.

In a related story, James Delingpole has something on the Bilderberg Group which is more than a little alarming:

Bilderberg. Whether you believe it’s part of a sinister conspiracy which will lead inexorably to one world government or whether you think it’s just an innocent high-level talking shop, there’s one thing that can’t be denied: it knows which way the wind is blowing.

He has seen the 2010 agenda:

Which is what makes one particular item on the group’s discussion agenda so tremendously significant. See if you can spot the one I mean:

The 58th Bilderberg Meeting will be held in Sitges, Spain 3 – 6 June 2010. The Conference will deal mainly with Financial Reform, Security, Cyber Technology, Energy, Pakistan, Afghanistan, World Food Problem, Global Cooling, Social Networking, Medical Science, EU-US relations.

Yep, that’s right. Global Cooling.

Which means one of two things.

Either it was a printing error.

Or the global elite is perfectly well aware that global cooling represents a far more serious and imminent threat to the world than global warming, but is so far unwilling to admit it except behind closed doors.

Global Cooling. This is no surprise at all.

In the 70s, we had fears of a new Ice Age (all driven by 'unquestionable' scientific research). But then we had a few warmer years - the 80s were full of the nuclear winter hypothesis, which would at least have been unquestionably man-made - so in the 90s we had the emergence of Global Warming, on which we were repeatedly told the 'the science is settled'. But the weather refused to co-operate, and the climate record showed, to those not blinded by research grants and vested interests, that temperatures have been going up and down for millennia. 'Global Warming' became a little unsustainable in the public eye, so they started referring to 'Climate Change' and, more recently, 'Climate Chaos'.

Well, FFS! If you wanted a definition of a truly chaotic system, then the world's climate is about the best there is. Of course climate is chaotic. It couldn't be anything else. But the phrase 'Climate Chaos' has one great advantage: any significant climatic event - and there are always plenty of those - can be adduced as 'evidence' to the argument that 'the world's climate is getting chaotic - and it's all our fault'. Baking summer, freezing winters, massive flooding, widespread drought, all things which have happened since the beginning of recorded history and beyond, will go into the mix. Even tsunamis and earthquakes will provide supporting evidence for that in the eye of the unthinking public, although any fule kno that earthquakes and tsunamis have nothing whatsoever to do with the weather. Remember Danny Glover? People are easily fooled.

And the next big thing, if Delingpole is to be believed, will be Global Cooling. We are being prepared for yet another about-turn on the future of the planet. One thing you can be sure of - it will cost you.

And we will have raped all our lonely places for nothing.

I fucking despair; I really do.