Micky's Muses...from the Antipodes

...making Kyoto an irrelevance, and an embarrassment...Canada will announce next month that it will formally withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol, CTV News has learned. The Harper government has tentatively planned an announcement for a few days before Christmas, CTV's Roger Smith reported Sunday evening. The developments come as Environment Minister Peter Kent prepares for a climate conference in Durban, South Africa that opens on Monday, with delegates from 190 countries seeking a new international agreement for cutting emissions... More here...

...as we wake to the first day of a new electoral cycle here in NZ, we look to PM John Key's centre right government to address the herd of elephants that clutter up our living space. The king of the herd is the ETS. My last posts have mentioned the collapsing international carbon trading market and the recognition that the Durban environmental summit will be a waste of time. It is therefore inconceivable that an incoming government in NZ will continue to commit its citizens to hefty tax and commodity price rises to appease our masters within the UN. In Europe and in the UK in particular, the tide against carbon trading and climate alarmism is overwhelming. This, from the Telegraph's Christopher Booker...

...is underway, and with it the hopes of the idealists and swindlers who hoped to change the world. This, from Reuters, spotted by sharp eyed commenter anon. is, as he describes "a game changer..."

LONDON, Nov 18 (Reuters) - European Union carbon prices could shed some 70 percent from current levels, as the bloc struggles with a mounting debt crisis and a glut of supply in the carbon market is unlikely to disappear until 2025, analysts at UBS said.
The investment bank also said the EU emissions trading scheme (ETS), the 27-nation bloc's main policy tool to fight global warming, "isn't working" because carbon prices are "already too low to have any significant environmental impact."
"We expect the recent carbon-price decline to escalate into a 'crash' as carbon market supply should double over the coming months," UBS analysts wrote in a Thursday statement to clients...More here...
...and to finish, more re Green Party "baseless scaremongering" from The UK Guardian's George Monbiot...The Green party adviser's theories on the Fukushima nuclear disaster and a 'leukaemia cluster' in north Wales are baseless scaremongering... When I phoned Busby to ask him some questions about these issues, his responses were less than enlightening. He began as follows: "You can fuck off frankly." More here...

...while the media have given every possible encouragement to governments to commit national economic suicide, and while they have parrotted every greenpeace sob and scare story, many scientists, politicians and members of the public have remained unimpressed. A few politicians such as Julia Gillard and Bob Brown in Australia have written their names in the great book of lunacy by committing their governments to (short term) economic ruin in the name of saving the planet... Bad idea, bad politics and exquisitely bad timing...

...Courtesy of eco-warrior Bishop Hill... The text of the Angus Millar Memorial Lecture. Delivered by Matt Ridley (author of The Rational Optimist) in Edinburgh 31st October 2011.

...My topic today is scientific heresy. When are scientific heretics right and when are they mad? How do you tell the difference between science and pseudoscience?
Let us run through some issues, starting with the easy ones...

...this man being our greatest cartoonist - Tom Scott. The cartoon appeared in the Wellington Dominion the day before the final. And what a game. The stat's aren't out yet, but it's a safe bet that cardiac arrests were widespread during the last 40 minutes as the horror of a loss dawned upon us after years of hope and hype... Of course we won the game - thanks to a Stephen Donald "easy kick" ! Such is the power of prayer...

...is the catchcry in the USA; a present day "Aux barricades !" to lefties and the disillusioned everywhere. While media interest is sustained the protestors have a cause and a forum. When attention wanes the left will have to fan the flames a little brighter to maintain interest . What is the aim of this protest though ? and why now ? Could it be that the sands have at last run out for the greens of the last 4 decades, and with those running out sands the green glue that holds the left together is gone ? And could this absurd street theatre be all the left has got left ? AGW or climate change is certainly an international dead duck. In the UK, the lefty Guardian simply says Climate Change - off the Boil. Closer to home, Julia Gillard's Labor Party with green help have passed the carbon tax. Leader of the opposition and next PM; Tony Abbott, has pledged it will go. In the USA President Barack Obama is despised by the green left for back pedalling on his green jobs promise and diluting his carbon tax proposals...and in Europe - in the throes of an economic death spiral, international carbon trading is a joke. More >> So where else for the left to go but take to the streets ? Street party/protest is the order of the day. How long before the left have a young martyr or two to galvanise themselves into further self indulgent hysteria ?

...and further to the RWC, the excitement is building, with this semi-final weekend. My hope is for an AB v Wales final. Cymru am byth !

...this cup; The Webb Ellis Trophy, will dominate our consciousness for 6 weeks, and the panic and the passion of it all will mean very little blogging from me during that time. Panic ? why's that ? Because yikes, we might not win ! never mind, we here in NZ are going to have a GREAT TIME and forget about life for a while...Here's some UK comment about the tournament, and I couldn't have put it better myself... a pleasing, recognisable rhythm develops. Rugby fans know what to expect from their World Cup because rugby’s world is a small one. The organisers may bang on about the event’s universality, with 20 teams spread across all five continents, but, essentially, it is a bruising reunion of old mates, the familiarity of the opposition somehow adding to its comfortable allure. Rugby folk know that the Australians and South Africans, the two teams to have won twice, will be implacable. They expect to see the New Zealanders choke, hilariously, on suffocating national expectation; to see the French being magnifique one second and merde the next; and to see the English flirting dangerously with antidotes to the usual under-performance of their football counterparts...and through it all, many lefties here in NZ remain a little aloof, seeing rugby as a bit infra dig, legalised thuggery if you like, and an AB victory as more votes for John Key so they try to pretend it's not happening. For the rest of us though, it's game on ! To all my UK cousins and friends (some of whom are in NZ in camper vans following Wales) and to all bemused observers elsewhere a small hint. Here in NZ, a RUCK is when the ball is lost from sight but on the ground. A MAUL is when the ball is elsewhere, perhaps lost for good, somehow being moved back or held by (one of our) players under his jersey. But don't worry about it at all, or get pedantic about the game ... enjoy the action and Party On ! More UK comment here... And, pour moi ? preferences ? with cloth cap on now...I were born upp noorth in Preston, so c'mon the Poms ! Me Mum were Welsh, so Cmryu am byth, c'mon the Taffies ! I lived as a single man in Sydney and love the place and its inhabitants, so Go Aussie ! but of course when push comes to shove, in the ruck or the maul or anywhere else it's AB's to win !

...and a sanctimonious twit. Think this'll impress him ?

...Of all the unknown factors regarding our weather and climate, the role of clouds and their relationship and interaction with cosmic rays from the sun remains the most significant. While the red/greens and the IPPC state the science is settled, scientists at heart know there is much to learn. What is known for sure however, is that clouds contain water vapour, and water vapour constitutes an essential blanket around the planet and is largely responsible for the now maligned greenhouse effect - an effect which preserves life on earth rendering Earth our climate temperate. Many who doubt greenpeace's grasp of scientific reality have theorised that clouds, water vapour and cosmic rays from the sun constitute an essential and perhaps even a primary driver of our climate, and that CO2 occupies a back seat, rather than a major role in global warming. I've blogged before on this, and reported on the CLOUD experiment underway at CERN - the home of the large HADRON collider. The CLOUD experiment alone has the potential to be the final nail in the AGW coffin. While this report from CLOUD may not constitute that nail, it is possibly the decisive start of the endgame. Ian Sample, the science correspondent for the UK Guardian writes...

...Some media commentators with a special interest in science think they detect a palpable lack of trust within the community for science and scientists. As is often the case, such a lack of trust is over-stated. Its existence however, is real, and may be growing. It is seen in limited areas, particularly healthcare (and the billion dollar alternative medicine industry is responsible for this. Think iridology, homeopathy, reflexology, etc, etc.) Within climate science the distrust has arisen from the unholy alliance between climate scientists and politicians, inside and outside of Government, and the reluctance and inability of many within the climate science community to question political distortion of their findings. This comment below is unashamedly pinched from Australian Climate Madness and sums up the situation well...In reality... there isn't a lack of respect for scientists as a whole, there is a lack of respect for CLIMATE scientists and their associated advocates and public figures. We still trust doctors to make the right diagnoses, trust our engineers to build safe buildings and bridges, trust the particle physicists when they tell us that a multi-billion dollar circle of magnets kilometres across is required to find a new sub-atomic particle. No-one questions any of that. The problem with climate scientists and their hangers-on is the result of the actions of a small but visible minority, who are guilty of:

politicising science by advocating particular responses to climate change (most of which will damage our standards of living for no benefit)
claiming that the IPCC is an impartial review of climate science,
passing off greenpeace and WWF propaganda as credible science,
making catastrophist predictions about future climate,
conflicting themselves by accepting research grants from a government that itself advocates AGW alarmist policies,
playing down uncertainty in their results and claiming the science is settled,
fudging data in order to make it fit with their pre-conceived conclusions,
silencing dissent and skewing the peer-review process (so that it essentially becomes "pal-review")
refusing to share methods and calculations for independent confirmation of their results,
hypocritical do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do attitudes (eg. Al Gore and Flannery, above)
abusing and smearing (dare I say, disrespecting) anyone that dares mention any of the above.Those are the simple reasons why climate science as a discipline has lost respect. The public is not stupid, and it can see when it is being misled. More openness, more debate, more honesty and less divisive language would help reverse the trend. Read the full article here...

...which are spreading across England will of course be seen by the left as a symptom of inequality and by the right as a symptom of judicial weakness and political correctness. Both are probably partially correct. Like any complex issue, there are many facets and causes. Whatever the cause though, we here in NZ are likely to see the same anarchy in due course simply because our social environment is so similar. For enlightened comment see this from Cranmer...It is quite moving to read of Sikhs in Southall guarding their gurdwara, and of those three Muslims in Birmingham who died trying to protect their property and community. It is reported that some of those involved in the violence are as young as 10 or 11, and that it is principally being perpetrated by those in their late teens - early 20s. This is the price we pay for moral relativism. Parents and teachers can no longer instruct their children in the difference between right and wrong, and so there is no distinguishing between good and evil. If it feels right and good, do it: the moral course of action is what the individual determines. The truth is what you make it, for there is no universal view of morality; no absolute standard by which all may be judged. And so we must tolerate the beliefs and actions of others even when they impinge upon the rights and liberties of others. Our politicians have spent decades dismantling the foundations of our moral order; fracturing and fragmenting the culture that made England cohesive and the United Kingdom coherent. They have created a culture of rootless individualism, for which we are now paying the price. May God forgive them...more here...

Global warming proponents can catch up on the sleep they lost worrying about the planet getting hotter with each passing day. (And polar bear fetishists can relax too,"The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that the polar bear population is currently at 20,000 to 25,000 bears, up from as low as 5,000-10,000 bears in the 1950s and 1960s.)

..AND WHATEVER IT IS, if you don't get it, blame ex-President George W. Bush. He is responsible, check it out here... Ask the German greens, and greens worldwide who have been barking mad and nuclearphobic since their conception. Their fear of nuclear energy arises from the fact that nuclear energy represents the spectre of cheap electricity, and cheap electricity represents unbridled and unrestricted capitalism. They have a similar aversion to oil and the private car (for everyone except themselves of course) which has given billions of people the freedom the green left detest, a freedom to do as they wish - even to travel to their corporate capitalist workplace. Now, German greens have been granted their anti-nuclear wish - a nuclear free future. The German people have been told that a conversion to alternative energy sources, ie solar and wind power, will cost the average German consumer no more than the price of one latte per month... Surprise ! the truth may be a tiny bit different, and with the truth it may well be that the voting public, in Germany and around the world, will at last see the hypocritical greens for what they really are, the last faintly glowing embers of their red beginning...Chancellor Angela Merkel's government insists that electricity bills will only grow modestly as a result of the nuclear energy phase-out. Experts, however, disagree, with many pointing to Berlin's massive subsidies for solar power as the culprit...According to an assessment by the Rhenish-Westphalian Institute for Economic Research (RWI), the politicians' estimate of the costs of expanding renewable sources of energy is far too low, while the environmental benefits have been systematically overstated. RWI experts estimate that the cost of electricity could increase by as much as five times the government's estimate of one cent per kilowatt hour. In an internal prognosis, the semi-governmental German Energy Agency anticipates an increase of four to five cents. According to the Federation of German Consumer Organizations, the additional cost could easily amount to "five cents or more per kilowatt hour." An internal estimate making the rounds at the Economics Ministry also exceeds the official announcements. It concludes that an average three-person household will pay an additional 0.5 to 1.5 cents per kilowatt hour, and up to five cents more in the mid-term. This would come to an additional cost of €175 ($250) a year. "Not exactly the price of a latte," says Manuel Frondel of the RWI. The problem is the federal government's outlandish subsidies policy. Electricity customers are already paying more than €13 billion this year to subsidize renewable energy. The largest subsidies go to solar plants, which contribute relatively little to overall power generation, as well as offshore wind farms in the north, which are far away from the countries largest electricity consumers in Germany's deep south..."We are dumping billions into the least effective technology," says Fritz Vahrenholt, the former environment minister for the city-state of Hamburg and now the head of utility RWE's renewable electricity subsidy Innogy. In its most recent report, the expert council on environmental issues assembled by the federal government advocates sharply reducing subsidies for solar power... "From the standpoint of the climate, every solar plant is a bad investment," says Joachim Weimann, an environmental economist at the University of Magdeburg. He has calculated that it costs about €500 to save a ton of CO2 emissions with solar power. In the case of wind energy, it costs only €150. In combination with building upgrades, the cost plummets to only €15 per ton of CO2 emissions savings. Environment Minister Röttgen did in fact intend to significantly reduce solar subsidies through the Renewable Energy Act. But then came the nuclear accident at the Fukushima plant in Japan, which lead to Germany's radical change of course. Now, in order to phase out nuclear energy as quickly as possible, every kilowatt hour of electricity is badly needed , no matter what the cost...The electricity that was once generated by those German nuclear power plants now comes primarily from the Czech Republic and France -- and is, of course, more expensive. The demand for electricity is expected to increase in the coming years, particularly with growing numbers of electric cars being connected to the grid as they charge their batteries.
Experts can only shake their heads in disbelief at the notion that solar roof panels could satisfy demand in the foreseeable future..read the full article from der Spiegel online here...

...is a predictable response from the political left after the Norwegian massacre. Never mind that Christianity's 2 main tenets are to love God, and to love "thy neighbour as thyself"...two principles that the perpetrator Breivik ignored on his rampage. Breivik may think he is a Christian, but he will be remembered as a psychopathic monster... as a response to media stereotyping, this from the irrepresible Cranmer...The subliminal message is inescapable: ‘Left is good; Right is bad’, because right-wing beliefs breed right-wing philosophy which spawns right-wing extremism which is malignant. Ergo, those who tend towards the political Right must be subject to state surveillance.And so we arrive at the unquestionable BBC state orthodoxy and narrative of enlightenment. It is ‘spin’, but of such an Orwellian subliminal manipulation of the vernacular that any contrary utterance strikes a chord of jarring dissonance, and the speaker or writer is cast into political, social or spiritual oblivion. Norman Tebbit, Simon Heffer, Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, Daniel Hannan, Peter Hitchens, John Redwood, Melanie Phillips, The Freedom Association... These are the new ‘fascists’ of the Right; they exist at the periphery of social acceptability, while the fascistic tendencies of those left-wing groups which seek to intimidate and silence any reasoned protest against socially-liberal, ecumenical, europhiliac multiculturalism are completely ignored.It appears now that if you believe in small state, low tax policies; are fiscally conservative; oppose on-tap abortion; support the traditional, nuclear family; seek to limit immigration; support withdrawal from the EU; advocate freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association, freedom of expression, freedom of conscience and freedom of belief, you are without doubt a racist, bigoted zealot, and almost certainly a ‘right-wing extremist’ or a ‘right-wing nutter’. And if it is ‘fascist’ or ‘extremist’ or ‘right-wing’ to say this, then it would appear that His Grace also needs watching. But so do the vast majority of Britons who are proud to stand up for such beliefs and advocate such policies, for there beats yet the Conservative heart of the nation...and from Holland...Dutch politician Geert Wilders called Norwegian suspect Anders Behring Breivik's twin attacks a "slap in the face of the global anti-Islam movement". The leader of the controversial Party for Freedom (PVV) made the statement after he was asked by Dutch media to clarify his own position, being at the forefront of verbal attacks on Islam in the Netherlands. "That the fight against Islamisation can be abused by a psychopath in such a violent way is disgusting and a slap in the face of the global anti-Islamist movement," said Wilders in a statement issued by his party. Wilders, who last month was acquitted by a Dutch court on hate speech and discrimination charges for statements made attacking Islam, said neither he, nor his party was responsible for the actions of the 32-year-old Norwegian, who claimed to be trying to bring about an anti-Muslim revolution.
"Neither the PVV is, nor I am, responsible for the actions of a lonely, ill-adjusted idiot who abused the peace-loving ideals of the anti-Islamist movement in such a violent manner, no matter how much some people would like that to be the case," he said. Wilders said he was "repulsed" by the fact that Behring Breivik referred to him and the PVV in a 1500-page manifesto, which was published immediately before the Norwegian started his bombing and shooting spree, killing 76. "We are democrats at heart and soul. The PVV has never issued a call to violence and will never do so," Wilders said. "We believe in the power of the ballot and the wisdom of the voter. Not bombs and pistols," he added...read the full report from The Australian here...

...whoever he is, who leaked the emails from the UEA Climate Research Unit. He deserves accolades and our thanks. If Al Gore was thought fit to receive the Nobel Prize, Mr/Ms Anon should be similarly honoured. His actions precipitated ClimateGate, and for the alarmist greens life has never been the same. We now have a level of public debate and satire that is succeeding in turning public opinion away from fear, social control and economic disaster. This morning's NZ Herald carried a full page feature, aptly headlined "The great climate debate" between Chris de Freitas (Nature is the key) and Keith Hunter (The human component.) The verdict ? The science behind climate change is definitely not settled, the alarmist claims are not warranted, and the main drivers of climate change are natural. Similarly in Australia, the state funded ABC no less have announced a new comedy series At Home with Julia (Gillard) featuring the PM and her hairdresser partner. The blurb explains...They're just like any other busy modern couple, trying to balance their relationship with critical tasks like introducing taxes no one voted for...

...is at hand. Fossils of the environmental movement are on their knees, stunned by the influence of neo-liberal thinkers who see that decades of Malthusian doom gloom and catastrophe have failed. This reformation is profound and universal and will eventually see remants of the discredited green watermelons seek their political vehicle elsewhere. In NZ we think of relics such as Sue Bradford, John Minto and their newly formed Mana Party. Green navel gazing and regrouping is producing startling treats such as recantation from the likes of the Guardian's George Moonbeam Monbiot (I was wrong about nuclear energy)and the Daily Mail's Mark Lynas. This particular summation is excellent, and would of course please Denis Dutton, smiling above, and the late Petr Beckmann who tirelessly edited the pink monthly newsletter Access to Energy and the late, great Julian Simon, who saw it all coming in 1981 when he wrote "The Ultimate Resource" ...

...my poor old fashoned baby...sang the Rolling Stones (and the Ramones) in the 70's. If Mick, Keith or anyone else chose to re-launch the song these days, they could dedicate it to a carbon or emissions trading scheme. Any Western political enthusiast for such a dingbat scheme has to sell the fact that it will cost billions or trillions and it will have a negligible impact on the global environment. They also have to explain - very patiently to a cynical and fed-up and over-taxed electorate - that their country must be seen to be pulling its weight internationally. Not leading the international pack of course, but not shirking from an international obligation to inflict severe economic pain on themselves.

...over nuclear energy seems to be delivering a surprise or two. Germany of course is to phase out its nuclear energy industry in the wake of the Fukushima "meltdown". (A catastrophe that killed no-one, unlike the European mung bean massacre recently where up to 30 deaths were reported...a single organic farm in Germany has recently killed more people than have all the nuclear power plants Germany is rushing to shut down.) To replace electricity generated from nuclear energy it has been assumed that Germany would build 20 million windmills, and cover all its rooftops with solar panels. No way. Believe it or not... Germany is going to burn more coal...The German government wants to encourage the construction of new coal and gas power plants with millions of euros from a fund for promoting clean energy and combating climate change.The plan has come under stiff criticism, but the Ministry of Economics and Technology defended the idea. A spokeswoman said it was necessary as the government switches from nuclear to other renewable energy sources and added that the money would promote the most efficient plants possible. Funding for the initiative is limited to five percent of the energy and climate change fund’s annual expenditure between 2013 and 2016.Annual funding for the new plants could total more than €160 million per year between 2013 and 2014 alone, the Berliner Zeitung newspaper reported on Wednesday.The fund was first established to encourage nuclear plant operators to develop new, renewable forms of energy production. Now that nuclear power is to be phased out by 2022, the fund will pay for research into reducing carbon dioxide emissions from buildings, developing renewable energy sources and storage technologies for them.Opposition politicians and environmental groups said the plan was wrong because it would promote what they argued were climate-damaging plants. They also worried that money earmarked for other valuable projects could be reduced as a result.Oliver Krischer, a member in the Bundestag of the Green party, told the Berliner Zeitung that the country would do better to encourage more investment in energy efficiencyAnd the environmental pressure group Friends of the Earth Germany (BUND) said additional coal-fired plants were entirely unnecessary...read more from Colonel Klink and Private Schultz here...
UPDATE...Germany's energy agency is warning that one of the German reactors mothballed in the wake of Fukushima may have to be restarted to make up for possible power shortages this winter and next. Berlin is also using money earmarked for energy efficiency to subsidize coal-fired power plants...MORE from Der Spiegel online here...
...and simply because it's a treasure, the late Denis Dutton's review of Bjorn Lomborg's "The Skeptical Environmentalist" here...

...you mustn't believe green zealots - and I should know, I was one says the confession in this morning's UK Daily Mail. This is from Mark Lynas, who sadly escaped a broken nose after throwing a pie in Bjorn Lomborg's face. Perhaps his hooter may yet receive attention from his angry lefty ex-friends ... However, we must be charitable, and recognise his penitence. He now joins George Monbiot who acknowledges the shameful history of green lies over nuclear energy. How long will it be before green activists such as Monbiot and Lynas face up to green perfidy over AGW, GM crops, DDT, coral bleaching, acid rain... ? No matter, enjoy this now...
... I used to passionately oppose not only nuclear power but GM crops. I once even threw a pie in the face of a Danish scientist who dared to question the orthodox environmental line. So what changed? Through research, (oh yeah ?) I found that much of what I believed about environmental issues had little, if any, basis in science. Put simply, though my concerns were right, my solutions were wrong. In my new book, I propose that Campaigning groups such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth insist climate change is the greatest threat humanity has ever faced, while doggedly refusing to reconsider their opposition to atomic power stations, which already provide massive amounts of zero-carbon electricity and could yield much more...had the green movement of the Seventies and Eighties supported nuclear power — instead of violently opposing plans for greater use of atomic energy, a move that led to more coal power plants being built — we would not be facing the climate crisis we are ...One of the reasons the Green movement is failing to attract support is that it has too much cultural baggage and is too ideologically rigid. Any reconsideration of the orthodox position — even for the sake of the environment — is seen as a betrayal. Politically speaking, the Green Party is trapped in the irrelevance of the Far Left...read more hand wringing from this climate alarmist here...
...AND from Spiked...The attempt to locate planetary boundaries is equally an attempt to locate boundaries for humanity – to put it in its place within a supposed natural order. And within that order is a design for political institutions that are not legitimised by the public contest of values and ideas, but by the claim that they are necessary for ‘saving the planet’ and ourselves. Environmentalism is an ugly political experiment. That experiment failed, but not simply because its material science was flawed. Just as it was environmentalism’s political failure that preceded Lynas’s revision of its scientific basis, environmentalism’s political idea - its ideology - precedes the science. Rewriting the science won’t make the experiment any more successful for Lynas than it was for Ehrlich...more here...
An apology to the courageous Bjorn Lomborg might be in order Mr Lynas...

...from the UK Guardian comes news that the University of East Anglia
has been forced to release up to 4million individual thermometer readings taken from 4,000 weather stations over the past 160 years, data that is the life's work of the head of the UEA's Climatic Research Unit, Phil (Hide the Decline) Jones. The same Phil who wrote ... "Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?" UEA resisted the requests to disclose the data, but this week it was compelled to do so.

...An Oxford academic has won the right to read previously secret data on climate change held by the University of East Anglia (UEA). The decision, by the government'sinformation commisioner, Christopher Graham, is being hailed as a landmark ruling that will mean that thousands of British researchers are required to share their data with the public. The ruling also marks a victory for critics of the UEA and itsClimatic Research Unit in the "climategate" affair. It comes at the end of a two-year rearguard action by UEA climate scientists to prevent publication of their "crown jewels", an archive of world temperature records collected jointly with the Met Office. Jonathan Jones, physics professor at Oxford University and self-confessed "climate change agnostic", used freedom of information law to demand the data that is the life's work of the head of the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit, Phil Jones. UEA resisted the requests to disclose the data, but this week it was compelled to do so...Under the 2000 Freedom of Information Act, public bodies such as universities have to share their data unless there are good reasons not to. But when Jonathan Jones and others asked for the data in the summer of 2009, the UEA said legal exemptions applied. It said variously that the temperature data were the property of foreign meteorological offices; were intellectual property that might be valuable if sold to other researchers; and were in any case often publicly available. But in a damning verdict, Graham said suggestions that international relations could be upset by disclosure were "highly speculative", and "it is not clear how UEA might have planned to commercially exploit the information requested...more here...

...speaks for many deluded "progressives" who had hoped to use fear of climatastrophe to advance their cause. This poor soul sees that his "progressive and environmentalist" cause has been mortally wounded, and calls for a refocus towards "system change not climate change"...

...is a lie that may be necessary or excusable to advance a greater cause. Thus, Phil Jones of Climategate infamy felt obligated to use a "good lie" to "hide the decline". History abounds with thousands of other examples. A storm of controversy is brewing on Twitter and elsewhere about the professional conduct of Johann Hari, the Left-wing Independent columnist and winner of the Orwell Prize for journalism. (A paradox, as Orwell saw the truth when most of his literary colleagues colluded with lies. See masthead above.) Hari has been using printed excerpts as verbatim oral quotes - a "cut and paste" journalism that has aroused his critics ...Now Hari says it doesn’t matter it he invents a conversation because it helps to express a “vital message” in the “clearest possible words”. The idea of a “good lie” is a dramatically Orwellian device, designed to deceive and to patronise. A lie is a lie, whether your intention is to convince people that Saddam is evil and must be bombed or that Gideon Levy is a brainy and decent bloke. Lying to communicate a “vital message”, a liberal and profound “truth”, is no better than lying in order to justify a war or a law’n'order crackdown or whatever. That more journalists cannot see this, that many of them have instead allowed their personal friendship with Hari to cloud what they think of this affair, is depressing. Why would anyone take seriously the reporting or commentary of people who believe it is acceptable to massage and refashion the facts in the name of telling “The Truth”?...why indeed ? And we surely see this every day with unquestioning media acceptance of the green political movement and its bedrock foundation of green lies. Are greenpeace and green politicians really "pro-environment" ? Or shouldn't they more accurately be termed anti-capitalist ? How grotesque it appears then, that the Orwell prize for journalism ( "During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act” ) may have been so mis-directed.

...The science is settled (1) : US liberals really are the dumbest creatures on the planet... guess what these liberals believe the problem with Climate Change is? Go on: think of the most stupid, reality-denying, fact-ignoring, evidence-torturing tosh anyone involved in the media could possibly have to say on the subject... H/T Climate Depot...They think that the naughty yellow pixies who pull the special, magic Climat-O-Levers which control the weather have been paid by evil capitalists with fat cigars in their mouth and $ signs on their pinstripe suits to make the world’s climate all horrid so that poor, underprivileged and disabled people and endangered creatures suffer – and that the reason we don’t know about it is because the media is run by evil Conservatives who want to keep this truth a secret.
Well, almost. What these liberal opinion-formers actually think – and you’ve really got to hand it to them: not even a lobotomised amoeba could beat them in a competition for dumbest creature on the planet, these three are absolute champs – is as follows.
They think the main reasons for the public’s growing scepticism on Climate Change are 1. The media has been far too balanced on the subject and is not pushing the eco-message hard enough. 2. Big business is funding Climate Denialism. 3. Evil Conservatives – led by Evil Talk Show Hosts Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck – are deliberately telling lies about Climate Change. 4. The Republican party is “anti-science”...more from James Delingpole of the UK Telegraph here...

The Science is Settled (2)...from The US Supreme Court, "The court, we caution, endorses no particular view of the complicated issues related to carbon-dioxide emissions and climate change,” reads the 8-0 decision, delivered by the court’s acclaimed liberal, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

But the Supreme Court judges would say that, wouldn't they? They all work for big oil...More here...
...and another Headline of the Week...Vote for Change...link here

...from the redoubtable Cranmer...it is not a criminal offence to offend a group of people about their theology.And not just theology, but political theology...Either one is free or one is not. And it is no freedom at all which may not criticise or offend. All that Geert Wilders did is tell it as he sees it. And that isn’t so very far from how thousands if not millions of others see it. Ignorant of the nuances of Islamic theology they may be. Unaware of Islamic scholarship and the plethora of schools of thought they undoubtedly are. But all Geert Wilders did was to point out the fact that the Qur’an contains offensive passages and that some imams still preach it – and they are free to do so. His Grace is sometimes called a bigot. The Pope is occasionally called the Antichrist. The Holy Bible is frequently defiled, Christians are mocked and reviled, and the name of Jesus is dragged through the mud. And we all have to live with it. There should be no special protection for Allah, Mohammed, the Qur’an or Muslim sensitivities. For that would be to treat people unequally and elevate Islam to that place in law once occupied by Christianity.Geert Wilders has fought to defend the liberties of us all, and he won. Rejoice! This is a marvellous day for democracy and for liberty. When a politician sounds the trumpet to warn a continent of the incursion of an antithetical ideology and an oppressive power, it is ironic indeed that he should have been silenced not by that alien ideology or foreign power, but by the very agencies of government he seeks to guard and of which he is part. But Geert Wilders has been vindicated. He will now be exalted, and his Party for Freedom poll rating will go stratospheric. Doubtless millions of Europeans will only be sorry that the Presidency of the European Council is not subject to the popular will. And the ruling class will breathe a sigh of relief...more here... and from the UK Telegraph...a historical Dutchman who went on trial for saying such things about Christianity would be lauded across Europe. Wilders says things about a more conservative religion and he is accused of a hate crime. Where is the liberal outrage at this trial? Where are the BBC radio plays? When’s George Clooney going to make a film about Europe’s Islamophobia McCarthyite witch-hunts? Unlikely – the Oscars in 2005 didn’t even mention Theo Van Gogh on their annual slide show of movie people who died in the previous year. Freedom, if anything, means defending the rights of people you profoundly disagree with, even find offensive. Half a century ago the idea that a major European politician could go on trial for insulting a religion, in the Netherlands of all places, would have been fitting only for a dystopian parody. Yet this is really happening, as western Europe adopts Singapore-style multicultural authoritarianism...more here...

...with thanks to Slattsnews...Part 3. Part 2 was written by the late, great doomslayer Julian Simon, who argued that human ingenuity would guarantee increasing prosperity and development (as long as totalitarian control kept its hand off the tiller.) Taking up this theme is Matt Ridley of The Australian...

...are FLUSH TOILETS. Flush toilets ? You better believe it. They are apparently responsible for the deaths of untold numbers of goldfish. No, no, no, so sorry got that wrong. It's GOLDFISH that are to be banned. No kidding. Their lives as pets swimming round in dirty little bowls, psychotic with boredom and so intolerably overfed they explode has been deemed cruel. So cruel that their purchase as pets is to cease. So says The San Francisco Animal Control and Welfare Commission anyway. Puppies, guppies, hamsters and kittens (and pythons pining for the fjords) are likely to be next.

Global warming and ecosystems ya see... Read all about it here..

..and from the UK Guardian...

...Leaving climate change out of the curriculum would allow sceptical teachers not to teach their pupils about climate change. “It would be like a creationist teacher not teaching about evolution," said Bob Ward.
Climate change should not be included in the national curriculum, the government adviser in charge of overhauling the school syllabus in England has said. Tim Oates, whose wide-ranging review of the curriculum for five- to 16-year-olds will be published later this year, said it should be up to schools to decide whether – and how – to teach climate change, and other topics about the effect scientific processes have on our lives. In an interview with the Guardian, Oates called for the national curriculum "to get back to the science in science". "We have believed that we need to keep the national curriculum up to date with topical issues, but oxidation and gravity don't date," he said. "We are not taking it back 100 years; we are taking it back to the core stuff. The curriculum has become narrowly instrumentalist...more here...

from an Anonymous commentator yesterday...this deserves further exposure...
When all the WATERMELON WARMERS admit their LIE
We will raise a MONUMENT into the SKY
A monument of SOLID Carbon
To commemorate their BOGUS BARGAIN.

...how very nice to know that the green movement is consuming itself - as left wing movements tend to do - over nuclear energy. In the 80's and 90's, the green debate in Germany was between the Realo's and the Fundi's. Judging by German Chancellor Angela Merkel's anti-nuclear lunacy the Fundi's must have won. This seems to put Europe's powerhouse economy at odds with its neighbours. This from the UK Guardian...