posted March 25, 2015 09:33 AM            

Describing himself as a “skeptic,” not a denier – “that is a word meant to put me down” – the veteran weather forecaster told CNN’s “Reliable Sources” that the news network was promoting an inaccurate view on the issue.

“CNN has taken a very strong position on global warming, that it is a consensus,” he said. “Well, there is no consensus in science. Science isn’t a vote, science is about facts.”

“And if you get down to the hard, cold facts, there’s no question about it: Climate change is not happening, there is no significant, man-made global warming now, there hasn’t been any in the past, and there’s no reason to expect any in the future. There’s a whole lot of baloney.”

Coleman said climate change has become part of the Democratic Party platform, adding that he regretted that the issue has become “political instead of scientific.”

“But the science is on my side,” he declared.

Challenged on the assertion that “97 percent of climate scientists” are in agreement on the issue, Coleman charged that the figure was “manipulated.”

Since the government only funds scientists who put out results “supporting the global warming hypothesis,” he claimed, “they don’t have any choice.”

“If you’re going to get the money, you’ve got to support their position. Therefore 97 percent of the scientific reports published support global warming. Why? Because those are the ones the government pays for and that’s where the money is.”

Weather Channel CEO David Kenny also appeared on the show, and distanced himself from Coleman’s views.

“We’re grateful that he got it [the channel] started 32 years ago, but he hasn’t been with us in 31 years, so he’s not really speaking for the Weather Channel in any way today,” he said.

“Our position is really clear, it’s scientifically-based and we’ve been unwavering on it for quite some time now.”

Last week the Weather Channel reissued a 2007 statement giving its position on climate change.

“More than a century’s worth of detailed climate observations shows a sharp increase in both carbon dioxide and temperature,” the statement says.

posted March 27, 2015 09:57 AM            

Institute of Physics Accused of Corruption as Climate Change ’97 Percent Consensus’ Claim is Debunked
by Donna Rachel Edmunds
25 Mar 2015

In the nearly two years since John Cook and his colleagues published their ’97 percent’ paper claiming a scientific consensus on climate change, the term ’97 percent’ has become something of a mantra for global warming advocates. President Obama tweeted “Ninety-seven percent of scientists agree: #climate change is real, man-made and dangerous.” The Guardian runs a regular column headed “Climate Consensus – the 97%” (regular contributors include co-authors of the original paper).

The paper, published by the Institute of Physic’s IOPScience has been downloaded over 300,000 times and was voted the best 2013 paper in Environmental Research Letters. But does the 97 percent claim stack up? (h/t Bishop Hill)

Richard Tol, Professor of Economics at the University of Sussex and the Professor of the Economics of Climate Change at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, says no. He has penned a blog, since published in edited form by The Australian, thoroughly debunking Cook’s paper, its methodology, its results, and the way it has been used by climate change advocates.

“Climate research lost its aura of impartiality with the unauthorised release of the email archives of the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia,” Tol says. “Its reputation of competence was shredded by the climate community’s celebration of the flawed works of Michael Mann. Innocence went with the allegations of sexual harassment by Rajendra Pachauri and Peter Gleick’s fake memo.

“Cook’s 97% nonsensus paper shows that the climate community still has a long way to go in weeding out bad research and bad behaviour. If you want to believe that climate researchers are incompetent, biased and secretive, Cook’s paper is an excellent case in point.”

Firstly, Tol points out that science doesn’t depend on consensus. A scientific truth is objective not subjective; that is, it’s true whether one person adheres to it, or everybody adheres to it.

Secondly, Cook’s paper, titled Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature, only claims that 97 percent of the scientific literature that takes a position on climate change (most does not) supports man-made global warming hypotheses. Yet supporters have used it to claim that 97 percent of scientists support global warming theories; they do not.

That aside, Tol highlights problems specific to Cook’s paper, such as the fact that, although Cook and his team sampled over 12,000 papers to reach their conclusion, they “did not check whether their sample is representative for the scientific literature. It isn’t. Their conclusions are about the papers they happened to look at, rather than about the literature. Attempts to replicate their sample failed: A number of papers that should have been analysed were not, for no apparent reason.”

That wasn’t the only sampling issue – further analysis has found that their sample was “padded with irrelevant papers,” such as an article on TV coverage of climate change which has been used as evidence to support climate change. “In fact, about three-quarters of the papers counted as endorsements had nothing to say about the subject matter,” Tol says.

Despite these and other issues, the paper’s editor praised the paper for its “excellent data quality”. Refusal to hand over data for third party analysis breaches the publisher’s policy on validation and reproduction, yet an editorial board member of the journal defended Cook’s obfuscation as “exemplary scientific conduct”.

The conduct of the Institute of Physics as the publishers of the report, and the University of Queensland, Cook’s employer, in protecting him has led the blogger Andrew Montford to accuse them of corruption.

“As an indictment of the corruption of climate science it’s hard to beat. That the Institute of Physics and the University of Queensland would stand behind such a blatant piece of politicking and deceit is almost beyond belief.

posted March 27, 2015 10:08 AM            

Who knew bullshiiite could be piled this high?

Lefty lawmaker warns: Climate change makes women prostitutes

“Democrats: Global warming means more hookers.”

posted March 27, 2015 12:57 PM            

The usual suspects and O'Bomber Kool-Aid drinkers are the only ones dense enough to believe a word of it.

posted March 27, 2015 10:53 PM            

March 27, 2015
Major peer-review scandal causes withdrawal of 43 published scientific papers
Thomas Lifson

There’s a lot of unsettled science going on these days. The peer-review system, which is supposed to serve as a quality assurance system, allowing credentialed experts to pass judgment on new research before it is published, is breaking down. The latest in a series of scandals involves 43 papers, but more are expected to follow.

Fred Barbash of the Washington Post reports:

A major publisher of scholarly medical and science articles has retracted 43 papers because of “fabricated” peer reviews amid signs of a broader fake peer review racket affecting many more publications.

The publisher is BioMed Central, based in the United Kingdom, which puts out 277 peer-reviewed journals. A partial list of the retracted articles suggests most of them were written by scholars at universities in China, including China Medical University, Sichuan University, Shandong University and Jiaotong University Medical School. But Jigisha Patel, associate editorial director for research integrity at BioMed Central, said it’s not “a China problem. We get a lot of robust research of China. We see this as a broader problem of how scientists are judged.”

Meanwhile, the Committee on Publication Ethics, a multidisciplinary group that includes more than 9000 journal editors, issued a statement suggesting a much broader potential problem. The committee, it said, “has become aware of systematic, inappropriate attempts to manipulate the peer review processes of several journals across different publishers.” Those journals are now reviewing manuscripts to determine how many may need to be retracted, it said.

Science has become a major industry, with the billions of dollars of government funding available not just in the US bit worldwide providing incentives for cheating. Promotion in universities depends on publication in peer-reviewed journals, so desperate academics seek it, no matter how trivial or even phony the results. In addition, in medicine, climate science, and many other fields, huge financial stakes exist for non-scientists, leading to pressure on the peers who do the reviewing. As the Clmategate emails revealed, conspiracies among the peers who review can lead to suppression of research contrary to the interests of the conspirators.

posted March 27, 2015 11:24 PM            

Similar conclusions can be drawn on the influence of big oil/coal on the climate "debate" as you are making on the other side.

posted March 28, 2015 09:28 AM            

The topic IS..."Global Warming is Baloney"!

To all the other absurd claims made by High Priests of Man Made Global Warming, here's another laughably absurd claim made by our resident idiot at the US State Department, John Traitor Kerry.

March 27, 2015
Kerry warns of 'climate refugees' in not-distant future.
Thomas Lifson

Revealing profound ignorance,

Secretary of State John Kerry warns U.S. ambassadors that they will be dealing with “climate refugees” in the not-too-distant future.

Hey, John. They exist right now. They’re called “snowbirds,” and can be found in large numbers in Florida, South Texas, Arizona, and Southern California.

But of course, Kerry is scaremongering, reflecting the increasing desperation of warmists, who tend to blame everything on CO2.

“It is a national security threat, it is a health threat, it’s an environmental threat, it’s an economic threat,” Kerry said. “We’re spending billions upon billions — $110 billion last year on the damages that occurred because of the increased level of major weather events around the world; droughts that are 500-year droughts, not 100-year droughts; places that have less and less water; food that is less produced where it used to be.”

Somehow, he forgot to name Hurricanes. Increased hurricane levels used to be cited as certain due to global warming. Then, hurricane levels declines and have stayed low for several years. Those predictions are consigned to the memory hole, and now hurricanes are one bad thing completely unrelated to CO2, evidently.

posted March 28, 2015 12:39 PM            

Weather men are not climate scientists, just as snow in Florida doesn't mean there is no global warming.

Weather men however, are famous for being wrong a large percentage of the time, just as you claim climatologists are wrong.

THIS weather man claims all climatologists are bought idiots/liars. Starting a channel is not the same as working on it or being better at anything besides pitching to media producers.