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RIP Chris Carter, Investigate columnist

 

It's an odd thing, finding out on the radio news that your magazine's longest serving opinion columnist has passed away. What turns out to be his last column only hit the newsstands yesterday in the latest Investigate magazine:

 

Chris Carter and I first worked together at Radio Pacific back in 1985/86, and he joined Investigate magazine as a columnist ten years ago upon leaving Newstalk ZB, where he'd been ensconced since 1987.

He never missed an issue, and although his labyrinthine copy was often testing to edit, his columns were always a great read.

Chris' last words to me were on Friday when I was checking his address for a Christmas gift box. Sadly, his sudden death Saturday morning means Heather and family will now be receiving a delivery we'd not intended to make in this Christmas season.

Rest in peace mate. You've earned it.

Chris was 69.

 

Climate scientists go feral, begin wearing cammo gear

Utah survivalists infiltrate climate science community. Whodathunkit?:

It might surprise, and hopefully disturb you, to hear that in my short time at AGU, I discovered four scientists who are already creating some form of survival retreat for their family, and they told me there are many more. But they are all too scared of being ostracized in the scientific community if they speak of it. It struck me that they aren’t even “in the closet” yet. They still think they are isolated freaks of nature, ashamed to share what they truly feel.
...I am filled with despair.   As a result of my time at AGU, I’ve decided to retire completely from continuing to pursue making a difference in the debate, and for my family’s sake I will focus instead on building our own lifeboat. And leave the debate to others.

Of course, if it's cooler climes he's after he could do worse than emigrate to Britain.

Admission: climate science IS stalking horse for global governance agenda

Slate magazine calls it:

For 20 years, evidence about global warming has been directly and explicitly linked to a set of policy responses demanding international governance regimes, large-scale social engineering, and the redistribution of wealth. These are the sort of things that most Democrats welcome, and most Republicans hate. No wonder the Republicans are suspicious of the science.

Think about it: The results of climate science, delivered by scientists who are overwhelmingly Democratic, are used over a period of decades to advance a political agenda that happens to align precisely with the ideological preferences of Democrats. Coincidence—or causation? Now this would be a good case for Mythbusters.

During the Bush administration, Democrats discovered that they could score political points by accusing Bush of being anti-science. In the process, they seem to have convinced themselves that they are the keepers of the Enlightenment spirit, and that those who disagree with them on issues like climate change are fundamentally irrational. Meanwhile, many Republicans have come to believe that mainstream science is corrupted by ideology and amounts to no more than politics by another name.

BREAKING: Hottest year ever claims based on fake data

You hear it trotted out so often it's tiresome, but for those who still believe the climate scientists who claim 2010 is "the hottest year ever", here's a wake-up call: the data is fake. (another perspective here)

It's a similar stunt I pinged New Zealand's NIWA for a year ago. It seems anyone with access to a cereal packet is licensed to be a UN endorsed climate scientist these days.

You cannot extrapolate temperatures on a global level from areas where there are no accurate temp readings for hundreds of kilometres. It's guess work, not science.

And just to pre-empt any timewasting by Ken Perrott, who has consistently tried to defend NIWA, may I remind Ken he has offered no coherent explanation for his flawed logic exposed here:

Meanwhile, some good news.

Air Con Climategate 2010 edition has finally gone on sale in NZ bookshops after we arranged for the US files to be printed locally in Wellington.

Whitcoulls and Paperplus are the best places to try first.

 

Britain buried under coldest dump of "global warming" in a century

From Benny Peiser's clmate newsletter, some highlights:

 

The Met Office, using data generated by a £33million supercomputer, claims Britain can stop worrying about a big freeze this year because we could be in for a milder winter than in past years. --Daily Express, 28 October 2010

 

The Army was called in today to help clear away ice and snow as Britain headed towards its coldest December for 100 years. As temperatures plunged to -15c (5f) David Cameron ordered the military to step in and help the UK's beleaguered local councils.—Paul Sims, Daily Mail, 9 December 2010

 

UK household energy bills could double to £2,500 a year in an “unstoppable” rise driven by the £200 billion fight against climate change, a market expert warned yesterday.—John Ingham, Daily Express, 8 December 2010

CFL light bulbs dangerous to health - fail German govt tests

Classic:

The energy saving bulbs show mercury levels 20 times higher than regulations allow in the air surrounding them for up to five hours after they are broken, according to tests released Thursday by the Federal Environment Agency (UBA

Remember, you read it here first, three years ago.

TGIF Edition latest issue

Try these links...the second one may work better to open the page first, then click on the TGIF link in the middle of that page to bring up the PDF:

http://www.investigatemagazine.co.nz/Investigate/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/tgif3dec10.pdf

http://www.investigatemagazine.co.nz/Investigate/?attachment_id=1405

Breaking: Air Con premise endorsed by Journal of Climate

In the 2009 release of Air Con (and again in the latest 2010 Climategate edition about to go on sale in bookshops across NZ), one of the points I argued is that Antarctica overall is not warming uncontrollably or significantly.

Earnest Chicken Littles tried to take me to task, quoting the controversial Steig et al study from Nature that I'd already cited and debunked in the book.

Good to see then, that the Journal of Climate has accepted a peer reviewed study that also debunks Steig et al's Antarctic warming myths.