TBR.cc

IPCC gets a credibility hammering

This alert through from Benny Peiser's newsletter

 

The Daily Telegraph. 31 August 2010

By Stephen Adams and Robert Winnett

An independent investigation into the UN's climate change body has warned it to stop lobbying and to restrict its role to explaining the science behind any changes in global temperature.

Harold Shapiro, a Princeton University professor and chair of the committee that conducted the review, said that a report by an IPCC working group "contains many statements that were assigned high confidence but for which there is little evidence."

Professor Shapiro said the IPCC's response to errors when they were subsequently revealed was "slow and inadequate."

Asked about the Himalayan glaciers error, Professor Shapiro said, "At least in our judgment, it came from just not paying close enough attention to what [peer] reviewers said about that example."

He added that there was concern about the U.N. climate panel's lack of a conflict of interest policy, as is standard in most Government departments and international bodies.

The report called for development of a "rigorous conflict of interest policy" and made detailed suggestions on what should be disclosed. Mr Pachauri has previously acted as an adviser to green energy companies.

"It's hard to see how the United Nations can both follow the advice of this committee and keep Rajendra Pachauri on board as head," said Roger Pielke Jr., a professor at the University of Colorado.

Full story

Editor's Note: The IAC's full report Climate Change Assessments, Review of the Processes & Procedures of the IPCC is available here.

 

And more from Peiser's round-up:

) UN climate experts 'overstated dangers': Keep your noses out of politics, scientists told

Daily Mail, 31 August 2010

Fiona Macrae

UN climate change experts have been accused of making 'imprecise and vague' statements and over-egging the evidence.

A scathing report into the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change called for it to avoid politics and stick instead to predictions based on solid science.

The probe, by representatives of the Royal Society and foreign scientific academies, took a thinly-veiled swipe at Rajendra Pachauri, the panel's chairman for the past eight years.

It recommended a new leader be appointed to bring a 'fresh approach' with the term of office cut from 12 years to six.

The IPCC is important because its reports are used by governments to set environmental policy.

The review, which focused on the day-to-day running of the panel, rather than its science, was commissioned after the UN body was accused of making glaring mistakes.

These included the claim that the Himalayan glaciers would vanish within 25 years - and that 55 per cent of the Netherlands was prone to flooding because it was below sea level.

An email scandal involving experts at the University of East Anglia had already fuelled fears that global warming was being exaggerated.

The report demanded a more rigorous conflict of interest policy and said executives should have formal qualifications.

It said: 'Because the IPCC chair is both the leader and the face of the organisation, he or she must have strong credentials (including high professional standing in an area covered by IPCC assessments), international stature, a broad vision, strong leadership skills, considerable management experience at a senior level, and experience relevant to the assessment task.' [...]

Dr Benny Peiser, Director of The Global Warming Policy Foundation, said: 'I interpret the review as an indirect call for Dr Pachauri to step down. That is what it says between the lines, whether or not he understands it.

'It is clearly a very, very strong criticism of his management and of him personally.

'The problem is that many in the international community regard him as damaged goods.'

The investigation said the IPCC's mandate calls for it to be 'policy relevant' without 'straying into advocacy' which would hurt its credibility.

The scientists charged with writing the IPCC assessments were criticised for saying they were 'highly confident' about statements without having the evidence.

Full story

Editor's Note: More UK media coverage of the IAC Report can be found here:

The Sun: UN 'lacks Solid Evidence' in Climate Warnings

Daily Express: Climate Change Lies Are Exposed

BBC News: Stricter controls urged for the UN's climate body

The Times: Climate chief under pressure to quit after report on glacier blunder

The Guardian: Rajendra Pachauri, head of UN climate change body, under pressure to resign

The Independent: IPCC feels the heat as it is told to get its facts right about global warming

History in colour

We've all seen the black and white photos of yesteryear, a time before the invention of colour photography.

So how's this picture from the days of Imperial Russia, 1909, grab you:

They were taken by a process involving three b&w shots in quick succession, then processed through a combination of primary colour filters to achieve near true tones.

This and many more here, offering a rare glimpse at history through a colour perspective. 

h/t Tim Blair, Andrew Bolt

Arthur Allan Thomas: The Inside Story by Ian Wishart

It's just been brought to my attention that I haven't offered non-subscribers the chance to pre-order the new book on the Crewe murders being released by us next month.

Accordingly, here's the gist of the email that went out to our customer database today:

LAST CHANCE TO PRE-ORDER (free shipping, and beat the GST increase)

The book not only clears Arthur Allan Thomas, it also clears Len Demler. So who committed the crimes? Find out the explosive details as the first significant new evidence in 40 years, implicating new suspects, emerges.

This will be the most-talked-about book of 2010. You can also reserve a copy at your nearest bookstore if you prefer.

The order form is attached as a PDF Download ThomasOrderform  and the direct website link is below, so rather than repeat what we've said already, here's how the story begins...

The blades slice across the glass, but they don't cut the blizzard of raindrops exploding ahead of me like golden starbursts in the oncoming headlights. An elderly schoolbus, young faces peering from behind steamy panes, rumbles past and I wonder how many of these Pukekawa schoolkids are aware that – 40 years ago this particular June day – a darkness fell on their town whose shadows linger still. It's a fair bet, I ponder as I throw the Toyota around another tight corner, that the answer to my silent question is 'none'.

The roiling stormclouds from the June frontal system battering the North Island retreat into the rear-view mirror as the car penetrates deeper into this north Waikato heartland and weaves through an interruption of late afternoon winter sunlight, dappling through dank roadside swamps and fens whose now azure pools are starkly punctuated by the reflections of lush cabbage trees and the wispy branches of the occasional native pine. Fantails, regarded in Maori legend as harbingers of death, flitter and dip above the waters, diving into clouds of midges and emerging satiated.

The marshlands are still giving up their 20^th century ghosts to this 21^st century driver; decaying and abandoned farm sheds and homesteads dot the high ground, their ancient, scarred and often bare timbers now exposed to both the elements and the ethereal kiss of sunset.

It seems an oddly haunting moodsetter as the 70km/h speed-limit sign marking the edge of town flashes past. Ahead on the horizon another Everest-sized wall of tempestuous grey is rushing in from the Tasman sea and, behind, the equally squally system I've just confronted. Yet here, in the middle, the tiny hamlet of Pukekawa pauses to draw breath in the stillness that hides between thunder-bands, and a rainbow crests over the village school.

"You're researching the Crewe murders?", the pump attendant ventures, semi-rhetorically, after discovering my interest in his village, but betraying no hint that he knows the significance of the date. I watch as the fuel gauge ticks over at speed, and momentarily marvel that the $106 I've just chalked up for a tank of gas would have filled up seven cars back on June 22, 1970.

"The community's still divided, even now," the attendant adds, clanging the pump handle back into its holster. "It's interesting to watch, see who won't talk to whom, who won't eat in the same room as someone else."

Forty years, and the events of a bitter winter afternoon still ricochet through time finding targets in the souls of villagers – some of whom weren't even born when the shots were fired.  Yet, just as the countryside surrounding it, Pukekawa has changed little in that time. It still has one church, one shop, one hall, and the little, 100-pupil, settlement school established back in 1895  - behind whose wrought iron gates a boy named Arthur Thomas and a younger Jeanette Demler eventually shared a classroom together.

On June 22, 1970, however, those schoolyard connections were not at the forefront of anyone's mind. Instead, just as the clock ticked one in the afternoon, Jeanette's father Len was swinging open the creaky gate leading to the little brick and tile farmhouse Jeanette shared with her husband of four years, Harvey Crewe. Within the hour of that discovery, police cars would swoop and detectives be crawling across the property, as Pukekawa residents came to realise something unspeakable had happened to two of their own...

Click the link below for ordering details

http://www.investigatemagazine.com/newshop/contents/en-us/d21.html#p123

THE BOOK IS UNDER EMBARGO BECAUSE OF WHAT IT CONTAINS, AND IS BEING RELEASED ON SEPTEMBER 27

ClimateDepot locates possibly the world’s dumbest greenie

As an indicator of just how dumbed-down global warming believers are on the science of climate change, Climate Depot's Marc Morano revealed tonight a seminar delegate seriously believed the CO2 from car exhaust fumes would kill him in an enclosed space:

One participant confused carbon dioxide with carbon monoxide. She suggested I kill myself by driving my car into my garage and then closing the doors with the engine running. I twice attempted to explain to the ARDAY conference participant that there was a difference between carbon dioxide -- a harmless trace essential gas we exhale from our mouth-- and toxic carbon monoxide, but to no avail. I sadly shook my head and told the audience: "Wow, what a warm welcome I have gotten here."

Talk about laugh. Read more here. And don't forget Amazon has the newly released update of Air Con: Climategate 2010 edition, on special this week. UPDATE: They've just flicked the price back up.

Sins of Science Media Centre’s Omission

PR hack Peter Griffin is at it again, this time complaining that a Waikato farmer should have been left to die by medical science, rather than allowing his family to administer the unproven Vitamin C therapy now claimed to have saved his life.

Griffin claims there was no evidence to support administering Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) to the farmer, and accused 60 Minutes of "sins of omission".

Perhaps the young Griffin should have done a little more research:

COMMENT

Ascorbic Acid Role in Containment of the World Avian Flu Pandemic

John T. A. Ely1

Radiation Studies, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195

¹ PO Box 1925, Palmerston North, New Zealand. E-mail: ely@u.washington.edu

In this Comment, the ultimate intent is to increase survival of the anticipated global flu pandemic. The apparent failure of "medicine" to provide a completely understood and logically based biochemical prevention and treatment for all influenzas (and many other viral diseases) may be an unavoidable result of the evolving complexity of the H5N1 virus. However, clinical experience cited in all accounts, including the 2003 to 2006 period, suggest that: (i) ascorbic acid is not being administered to humans infected or at risk for influenza, and (ii) ascorbic acid is (mistakenly) believed to be a vitamin ("vitamin C"). Proper use of ascorbic acid as described here could provide effective containment for the flu pandemic.

Keywords: ascorbic acid, avian flu, immunity, hyperglycemia, refined diet

¹ In iv dosing, AA is always sodium ascorbate.

We welcome comments by our readers reflecting agreement or disagreement with the material published in Experimental Biology and Medicine and, at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief, will publish such comments. The statements and opinions contained in the articles of Experimental Biology and Medicine are solely those of the individual authors and contributors and not of the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine.

Or this:

 

Or this:

Bottom of Form

Combined inhalational and oral supplementation of ascorbic acid may prevent influenza pandemic emergency: A hypothesis

Top of Form

Dibyajyoti Banerjee, M.D., Deepak Kaul, Ph.D.

Bottom of Form

Received 9 September 2009; accepted 16 September 2009.

Abstract 

Occurrence of influenza pandemics is a worldwide phenomenon and a significant cause of mortality and morbidity throughout the globe. It is due to mutations in the influenza virus genetic material creating antigenic drift of pathogenic viral proteins resulting in emergence of new influenza virus strains. Therefore, the vaccines available for prevention of influenza offer no protection against influenza pandemics caused by new virus strains. Moreover, the existing drugs used to combat influenza may be ineffective to treat influenza pandemics due to the emergence of drug resistance in the pandemic virus strain. Therefore, a working strategy must be developed to combat influenza pandemics. In this review we have addressed this problem and reviewed the published studies on ascorbic acid in the common cold and influenza and laboratory studies on the effect of ascorbic acid on influenza virus. We have also correlated the clinical and laboratory studies and developed a hypothesis to prevent influenza pandemics.

Keywords: Pandemic, Influenza, Ascorbic acid, Vitamin C, Flu

Department of Experimental Medicine and Biotechnology, Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh, India

Corresponding author. Tel.: +91-172-275-523; fax: +91-172-274-4401.

PII: S0899-9007(09)00407-9

doi:10.1016/j.nut.2009.09.015

© 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Or this:

Biofactors. 2007;31(1):1-15.

Suppression of influenza A virus nuclear antigen production and neuraminidase activity by a nutrient mixture containing ascorbic acid, green tea extract and amino acids.

Jariwalla RJ, Roomi MW, Gangapurkar B, Kalinovsky T, Niedzwiecki A, Rath M.

Dr. Rath Research Institute, Santa Clara, CA, USA.

Abstract

Influenza, one of the oldest and most common infections, poses a serious health problem causing significant morbidity and mortality, and imposing substantial economic costs. The efficacy of current drugs is limited and improved therapies are needed. A unique nutrient mixture (NM), containing ascorbic acid, green tea extract, lysine, proline, N-acetyl cysteine, selenium among other micronutrients, has been shown to exert anti-carcinogenic and anti-atherogenic activity both in vitro and in vivo. Many of the constituents of NM have been shown to have an inhibitory effect on replication of influenza virus and HIV. This prompted us to study the effect of NM on influenza A virus multiplication in infected cells and neuraminidase activity (NA) in virus particles. Addition of NM to Vero or MDCK cells post infection resulted in dose-dependent inhibition of viral nucleoprotein (NP) production in infected cells. NM-mediated inhibition of viral NP was selective and not due to cytotoxicity towards host cells. This antiviral effect was enhanced by pretreatment of virus with the nutrient mixture. Individual components of NM, namely ascorbic acid and green tea extract, also blocked viral NP production, conferring enhanced inhibition when tested in combination. Incubation of cell-free virus with NM resulted in dose-dependent inhibition of associated NA enzyme activity. In conclusion, the nutrient mixture exerts an antiviral effect against influenza A virus by lowering viral protein production in infected cells and diminishing viral enzymatic activity in cell-free particles.

PMID: 18806304 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Griffin went to the trouble of assembling "experts" to debunk 60 Minutes, by suggesting there was no peer reviewed research supporting the use of Vitamin C to treat pneumonia. Really? Here's a peer reviewed study that says otherwise, and concludes:

"it is reasonable to use ascorbic acid to treat these patients."

Here's another one:

This randomized, prospective study was conducted to compare outcomes in patients receiving antioxidant supplementation (α-tocopherol and ascorbate) versus those receiving standard care. The primary endpoint for analysis was pulmonary morbidity (a composite measure of ARDS and nosocomial pneumonia). Secondary endpoints included the development of multiple organ failure, duration of mechanical ventilation, length of ICU stay, and mortality.

Results

Five hundred ninety-five patients were enrolled and analyzed, 91% of whom were victims of trauma. The relative risk of pulmonary morbidity was 0.81 (95% confidence interval 0.60–1.1) in patients receiving antioxidant supplementation. Multiple organ failure was significantly less likely to occur in patients receiving antioxidants than in patients receiving standard care, with a relative risk of 0.43 (95% confidence interval 0.19–0.96). Patients randomized to antioxidant supplementation also had a shorter duration of mechanical ventilation and length of ICU stay.

Conclusions

The early administration of antioxidant supplementation using α-tocopherol and ascorbic acid reduces the incidence of organ failure and shortens ICU length of stay in this cohort of critically ill surgical patients.

Peter Griffin is a chump, in my view. Sadly, in his chumpiness he is encouraging otherwise sensible New Zealand scientists to veer towards stupidity in their public statements.

    

Free TGIF Edition just out

We're making TGIF available free for now...you can either click on the flash version below, or click the link below it to download the pdf:

Open publication - Free publishing - More sport

http://www.investigatemagazine.co.nz/Investigate/?attachment_id=975

Brits to get hit with 4% income tax hike to pay for windmills

From Benny Peiser's heads-up:

 

Climate Taxes May Treble By 2020, Costing Taxpayers More Than £16 Billion A Year

Gary Peev, Daily Mail, 17 August 2010

Taxes to pay for contentious climate change policies are set to treble over the next decade, soaring to more than £16billion a year.

The hike is the equivalent of 4p on the current rate of income tax, a report from think tank Policy Exchange claimed.

By 2020 the tax take from green levies will be roughly equivalent to total public spending in England on both the police and fire services, the figures show.

Householders will pay £4.3billion in taxes on their energy bills by 2015 – more than double the £2billion they will pay this year. This will soar to £6.4billion by 2020, or around £280 for every household.

Firms will also be hit hard, with energy prices rising from £3.7billion to £9.9billion in the next decade.

The think tank warned that poorer households tended to spend more on energy so would have more of their meagre income swallowed up by taxes levied on household bills.

The policies which are driving up tax are intended to support either carbon emissions reduction or the promotion of renewable energy.

But the report argues many of them do little to curb global warming because they pay householders to produce power uneconomically through technologies such as solar panels.

Full story

Amazon puts Air Con Climategate on special

The most difficult thing about marketing titles on Amazon is breaking through the price barriers. The cheaper your book, the better it sells, but it's Amazon that decides on retail price, not the publisher.

Despite my best efforts I couldn't get the original Air Con priced lower than $16.93, even thought it was the #1 climate bestseller for a month last year.

Which is why, if you are wanting to get hold of the new, updated and extended Air Con Climategate 2010 Edition, there is currently no cheaper price on the planet than Amazon US, who've just decided to promote the title at a jaw-dropping 64% discount off retail - only US$9.71. That's around NZ$14, and gives Amazon a razor thin margin which presumably they'll recoup on volume.

 

  

New study: sea levels NOT rising rapidly

The Hockey Schtick has alerted the world to new peer reviewed research showing sea levels are not rising at an accelerated level, despite what NIWA's Andy Reisinger and Massey's Ralph Sims would have the world believe:

 

JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 115, C08013, 15 PP., 2010: Reconstruction of regional mean sea level anomalies from tide gauges using neural networks

Authors: Manfred Wenzel, Jens Schröter

The 20th century regional and global sea level variations are estimated based on long-term tide gauge records. For this the neural network technique is utilized that connects the coastal sea level with the regional and global mean via a nonlinear empirical relationship. Two major difficulties are overcome this way: the vertical movement of tide gauges over time and the problem of what weighting function to choose for each individual tide gauge record. Neural networks are also used to fill data gaps in the tide gauge records, which is a prerequisite for our analysis technique. A suite of different gap-filling strategies is tested which provides information about stability and variance of the results. The global mean sea level for the period January 1900 to December 2006 is estimated to rise at a rate of 1.56 ± 0.25 mm/yr which is reasonably consistent with earlier estimates, but we do not find significant acceleration. The regional mean sea level of the single ocean basins show mixed long-term behavior. While most of the basins show a sea level rise of varying strength there is an indication for a mean sea level fall in the southern Indian Ocean. Also for the the tropical Indian and the South Atlantic no significant trend can be detected. Nevertheless, the South Atlantic as well as the tropical Atlantic are the only basins that show significant acceleration. On shorter timescales, but longer than the annual cycle, the basins sea level are dominated by oscillations with periods of about 50–75 years and of about 25 years. Consequently, we find high (lagged) correlations between the single basins.

Note: The 1.56 mm/yr non-accelerating rate of sea level rise would result in sea levels 6 incheshigher than the present in100 years. The oscillations noted in this study correspond to the typical full and half-cycle lengths of the natural Pacific Decadal Oscillation and the natural 60-yearclimate cycle. The Pacific Decadal Oscillation warm phase has been shown to produce a marked temporary rise in global mean sea levels.

Read more here

Have you read this, Nick Smith?

Looks like the world is bailing on ETS schemes faster than Nick Smith can say "sustainable".

This from Terence Corcoran in The Financial Post:

From Washington to Cancun to British Columbia, the climate issue is heading for the deep freeze.

And now for the climate weather: It may be hot outside, but the political environment for climate science is in a deep freeze. In Washington, plans for a national carbon-trading system are colder than the ice in the mint juleps at the Round Robin Bar. The economy comes first in the U.S. Senate, where a new climate bill ran into a brick wall, putting an end to environmentalists' hopes for a national cap-and-trade system any time in the next few years. "We fell victim to much broader politics that were beyond our control," said a leading green activist.

In Bonn last weekend, climate politics got so cold that negotiators working on a new global climate treaty to replace the soon-to-expire Kyoto Protocol walked away from the talks, saying that the policy direction was going backward rather than forward. As part of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Control, the Bonn talks were aiming at recovering from last year's Cop-out in Copenhagen. "These negotiations have if anything gone backwards," said Connie Hedegaard, the EU's climate action commissioner. The world is still divided over — among other issues — carbon-emission reduction targets, without which any convention would be useless. Another attempt to regroup will take place in China in October in preparation for a grand Meeting of the Parties in Cancun, Mexico, in December.

Forecast for sunny Cancun in December: Pack a parka.

Meanwhile, across parts of the United States and Canada, the Western Climate Initiative is struggling to keep its agenda alive. Made up of California, Arizona, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, Oregon, Washington, Manitoba, Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia, the WCI recently produced a formal "design" for a market-based system that would cap carbon emissions in member states and provinces. The caps would be based on emissions allowances issued in each jurisdiction, but which could be applied through the WCI group and freely traded on open markets.

The design agreement looks dense and is filled with regulatory proposals and enough busy work to keep bureaucrats in each member state and province fully occupied for years to come. Fortunately, the WCI initiative hasn't a chance of coming into existence. Many of the member states, notably California, are in the midst of gubernatorial elections and the climate issue isn't exactly top of mind among voters. Arizona and Nevada are already reported to be opting out of the WCI, with Montana possibly set to follow. New Mexico's continued adherence to the initiative is also doubtful following the coming November elections.

Read the rest here