“October 2008 had the hottest global temperatures on record.”
- James Hansen, NASA Goddard Institute Space Studies
- James Hansen, NASA Goddard Institute Space Studies
FACT: No, it wasn’t. In 2007, NASA was forced to correct a serious mathematical error, and "1934 is now known as the warmest year on record, with 1921 the third warmest year instead of 2006 as was also previously claimed. Moreover, NASA now also has to admit that three of the five warmest years on record occurred before 1940-it has up until now held that all five of them occurred after 1980."
JAMES HANSEN: “Damn! Damn! Damn! How did I make that mistake? I truly, truly, truly promise that I didn’t mean to use corrupted Russian data from September."
“1998 was the hottest year in over a century.”
- James Hansen, NASA Goddard Institute Space Studies
HANSEN: “Slap upside my head! Slap upside my head! I really, really, really am telling you the truth when I say that I didn’t intentionally hide the decline and overlook the fact that 5 of the top ten hottest years in the last century -- 1921, 1931, 1934, 1938, and 1939 – before jets, SUVs, mass air conditioning, etc. I swear. Would I lie to you?"
“Global temperatures have continued to rise every year.”
- James Hansen, NASA Goddard Institute Space Studies
FACT: No, they haven’t.
HANSEN & GORE: “Well, we didn’t mean continuously. Global warming means that there will also be periods of prolonged global cooling.”
“The West Side Highway [which runs along the Hudson River] will be under water.”
- James Hansen, NASA Goddard Institute Space Studies, 1988
FACT: I can see it. It’s not. And, if you really did mean 40 years, that water had better start rising because it actually hasn't changed at all.
HANSEN: “Um, is anyone else warm? I’m getting a little warm. Can someone turn the air down?”
"Under the greenhouse effect, extreme weather increases. Depending on where you are in terms of the hydrological cycle, you get more of whatever you’re prone to get. New York can get droughts, the droughts can get more severe and you’ll have signs in restaurants saying “Water by request only.”
- James Hansen, NASA Goddard Institute Space Studies
FACT: No, there's still plenty of water available....tap, fizzy, or specially-made sparkling tap water....prices for the latter two available upon request.
HANSEN: "Um, I am really, really beginning to feel uncomfortable. May I get a glass of water, please?"
"The glaciers in the Himalayas are receding quicker than those in other parts of the world and could disappear altogether by 2035.”
- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2007 report
FACT: No, they aren’t. The "prestigious" IPCC cribbed that hysterical charge from a World Wildlife Fund 2005 report on panda bears (see p.11), which it had palmed from an article titled "Flooded Out" in the New Scientist magazine (not a journal, but a sort of Popular Mechanics for the DIY science community). The original article quoted Professor Syed Hasnain, then Chairman of the International Commission for Snow and Ice's (ICSI) Working Group on Himalayan Glaciology, who said most of the glaciers in the Himalayan region "will vanish within 40 years as a result of global warming." The fact that Hasnain, of Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, has never repeated the prediction in a peer-reviewed journal was disregarded, overlooked, obscured, undisclosed, secreted, sequestered, shrouded, and suppressed by the “consensus” of the IPCC.
Professor Syed Hasnain later said the comment was "speculative" and blamed the IPCC for misusing a remark he made to a journalist and is on the record saying, "the magic number of 2035 has not [been] mentioned in any research papers written by me, as no peer-reviewed journal will accept speculative figures" and "it is not proper for IPCC to include references from popular magazines or newspapers."
GAIAN CULTISTS: “OK, well, Chairman Pachauri was really, really busy trying to get Harlequin Romances to publish his enviro, smutty bodice-ripper, shag fest, GaianPussyGalore book, “Return to Almora,” so it was just an accident. OF COURSE, it is correct in spirit, even if it is off by hundreds, if not thousands or millions of years.”
“55% of the Netherlands is underwater.”
- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2007 report
FACT: Not exactly. Only 26% is and that land is largely protected by the most sophisticated lock and levee system in the world.
GAIAN CULTISTS: “Stop being a flat –earther, denier, anti-science, Christian, Fascist hater!”
"Up to 40% of the Amazonian forests could react drastically to even a slight reduction in precipitation; this means that the tropical vegetation, hydrology and climate system in South America could change very rapidly to another steady state, not necessarily producing gradual changes between the current and the future situation.…”
- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2007 report
FACT: Lie. Claim based on fraudulent information from the WWF and based upon non-peer-reviewed article written by one green activist and one journalist - neither of which is a scientist - that has been exposed as a fraud.
GAIAN CULTISTS: "Well, it COULD happen…Besides, you just hate the poor, oppressed minorities of the world!!!"
“The polar bears are becoming extinct.”
- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2007 report
FACT: No, they aren’t. The population has increased. Hint: Next time that you see a polar bear on a small piece of ice, remember that polar bears can swim and like to sun themselves.
VAN JONES & CHARLES MONNETT : “You are just a racist! If we were talking about the Black Bear or the Brown Bear, you would be singing a different tune. Oh, wait…”
“Sea levels are rising and will cause islands to disappear (if they don’t capsize first because of the American military).”
- South Pacific Regional Environment Programme, 1999
FACT: Sea levels have fallen between 2004 and 2010.
JAMES, MICHAEL, IPCC: “You lie! La-la-la-la-la-I-can't-hear-you!”
“Children just aren’t going to know what snow is...within a few years, winter snowfall will become “a very rare and exciting event."
- Dr David Viner, Senior Research Scientist and the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, 2000
FACT: No. This statement was made before one of the worst winters in 100 years, which was followed by the second coldest winter (2010-11) since records began in 1659. The chilliest on record was 1683/84, when the average was -1.17C and the River Thames froze over for two months. In Europe, the 2010-11 winter was predicted to have been the worst in 1,000 years.
GAIAN CULTISTS: “Liars, Damn Deniers, and Statistics!”
“Global warming means no snow or cold weather in DC.”
- Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., September 2008
RFK: “But, global warming means MORE snow, not less, silly! By the way, dude, do you know where I can score some really good smack? Did I ever tell you about how I used to grow eco-friendly poppies out on The Compound?”
"We have less than 100 months to stop climate change disaster."
- Prince Charles, March 2009
FACT: The imagined catastrophe he hopes to avoid is otherwise due in July 2017 and he obviously didn't realise what a disaster that President Barack Obama would turn out to be. If Obama is reelected, the world won't have to wait until July 2017 for Armageddon.
LOONY PRINCE CHARLIE: "I happily talk to the plants and the trees, and listen to them. I think it's absolutely crucial."
"In Britain we face the prospect of more frequent droughts and a rising wave of floods... If we do not reach a deal at this time, let us be in no doubt: once the damage from unchecked emissions growth is done, no retrospective global agreement, in some future period, can undo that choice...There is no 'Plan B.'"
- Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown before the Major Economies Forum in London, which brings together 17 of the world's biggest greenhouse gas-emitting countries, 2009
FACT: LOL, Henny Penny! But all humour aside, of course there was a Plan B, Gordo! It was called "Pressuring the Scottish Parliament To Release Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi On 'Compassion Grounds' So That BP Could Get An Oil Concession From Moammar Qaddaffi." Guess what? There was ALSO a "Plan C"! It was called the "Sarkozy-Cameron-Obama 'Let's Bomb Qaddaffi And Help Create A Islamist Paradise In The Hope That Europe Can Keep Getting Libyan Oil.'"
GORDO: "Keep it up and you won't have me to kick around anymore!"
Fantastic!
Fantastic!
“People think about geothermal energy - when they think about it at all - in terms of the hot water bubbling up in some places, but two kilometers or so down in most places there are these incredibly hot rocks, 'cause the interior of the earth is extremely hot, several million degrees, and the crust of the earth is hot ...”
- Nobel Laureate Al Gore, 2011
FACT: The average temperature of the Inner Mantle of the Earth is 5400°F and the core of the Earth is about 7000°F.
GOREACLE: “Yeah, sure. Who are you going to believe? Who do you think people are going to believe - a law school dropout and divinity school flunkie, who invented the internet, or yourself?"
In 2007, a British High Court ruled that, in order for Al Gore's shockumentary, "An Inconvenient Truth,"to be shown in schools, "the Government must first amend their Guidance Notes to Teachers to make clear that 1.) The Film is a political work and promotes only one side of the argument. 2.) If teachers present the Film without making this plain they may be in breach of section 406 of the Education Act 1996 and guilty of political indoctrination. 3.) Nine inaccuracies have to be specifically drawn to the attention of school children."
FACT: Dear Goreacle: A High Court judge ruled that there were nine scientific errors in your movie, 'An Inconvenient Truth', called it "science fiction", and ordered you to provide a listed document explaining those nine scientific errors when distributing your "politically biased" (the court’s words) film to schools. You have never responded in any way, shape or form.
GOREACLE: “Racist!”
No, Fat Al, THAT would have been your Daddy.
“The threat of a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery for mankind.”
- Nigel Calder, first Earth Day, 1969
FACT: Calder is a long-standing skeptic of manmade global warming. As early as 1980, he predicted that within 20 years "the much-advertised heating of the earth by the man-made carbon-dioxide ‘greenhouse’ [will fail] to occur; instead, there [will be] renewed concern about cooling and an impending ice age".
Two words for you nuts: “CERN” & “CLOUD.”
WITH A SPECIAL THANKS TO JASON BRADLEY, BONUS MATERIAL!
Doomsday predictions from Earth Day 1970.
“We have about five more years at the outside to do something.”
• Kenneth Watt, ecologist
“Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.”
• George Wald, Harvard Biologist
“We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation.”
• Barry Commoner, Washington University biologist
“Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from intolerable deterioration and possible extinction.”
• New York Times editorial, the day after the first Earth Day
“Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.”
• Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist
“By…[1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s.”
• Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist
“It is already too late to avoid mass starvation.”
• Denis Hayes, chief organizer for Earth Day
“Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions….By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.”
• Peter Gunter, professor, North Texas State University
“Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support…the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution…by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half….”
• Life Magazine, January 1970
“At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it’s only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable.”
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist
Stanford’s Paul Ehrlich announces that the sky is falling.
“Air pollution…is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone.”
• Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist
“We are prospecting for the very last of our resources and using up the nonrenewable things many times faster than we are finding new ones.”
• Martin Litton, Sierra Club director
“By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate…that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, `Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, `I am very sorry, there isn’t any.’”
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist
“Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.”
• Sen. Gaylord Nelson
“The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.”
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist
_______________________________________________________________
So on Friday the Obama administration stopped
fighting a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and released
documents showing that Hansen was paid $250 an hour by a Canadian law
firm for testimony against developing Alberta's oil sands; income, which
(Dr James of GISS fame) Hansen does not appear to have disclosed.
American Tradition Institute director of
litigation Chris Horner first filed a FOIA request with NASA for records
on Hansen's outside employment in February, but the Obama
administration initially fought the request, even litigating the matter
in court.
Then, all of a sudden last Friday, the Justice Department sent Horner the documents he had requested.
A January 20, 2009, document shows that the
Canadian law firm Ackroyd LLP retained Hansen to prepare a report
"regarding the anticipated greenhouse gas emissions from the Joslyn Oil
Sand Mine."
Ackroyd represents the Oil Sand Environmental
Coalition (OSEC), a group fighting to stop oil sand development. Federal
government employees are not allowed to accept money for expert
testimony in proceedings before a court or agency of the United States.
But Hansen was testifying before a Candian court, so as long as he
disclosed the payments, the agreement should have been legal.
It is still unclear how much money Hansen
received from Ackroyd, however, since his 2010 financial disclosure form
did not list them as a source of income. Neither does his 2009 form.
There is also no record of his disclosing any travel expenses related to
his 2010 oil sands testimony in Canada.
If approved by the State Department, Keystone
would bring about 700,000 barrels of oil a day -- 255.5 million barrels a
year -- from Alberta, Canada, across the U.S. border, and then south to
the Gulf Coast at Houston and Port Arthur.
Activists like Hansen oppose the pipeline
because, while hundreds of pipelines already cover much of the same
ground, the Alberta oil will come from tar sands whose production,
according to critics, emits three times more greenhouse gas than the
average barrel of oil consumed in the United States.
The Keystone XL pipeline has become a
political headache for Obama. At a time when Obama is demonizing
corporations for sitting on profits, and is pushing for more
infrastructure spending to create construction jobs, the Keystone XL
project would have injected $7 billion in infrastructure spending into
the economy.
Unions like the AFL-CIO are firmly in favor of
the project, while environmental activists like Hansen, Friends of the
Earth, and the Natural Resources Defense Council are against it.
Obama would prefer the issue would simply
disappear. While he told a Nebraska TV station last week that he would
personally make the final call on the project, it now seems likely the
decision won't come until after the 2012 election. We'll see if Hansen
stays silent until then.
Conn Carroll is a senior editorial writer for The Washington Examiner. He can be reached at ccarroll@washingtonexaminer.com.
