Carbon Junk Bonds

Carbon is universally ubiquitous. It is the fourth most abundant element in the cosmos and the fifteenth most common on this planet. It's the basis of all life as we know it. Yet it seems that this elegant combination of abundance and vital significance will not stop human beings, in their endless pursuit of ever greater levels of folly, from basing an entire new economic model on "trading" the stuff. It reminds me of the Golgafrinchans in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, where, having crash-landed on a primeval Planet Earth, decide to use tree leaves as currency, only to discover soon afterwards that they had a serious inflation problem. Their solution? Why, burn down the trees, of course.

So you would think that this comedy science fiction is just that, comedy science fiction. It could never happen in real life, could it? Well, yes, it could. Anthropogenic climate change hysteria (it was anthropogenic global warming, but since the warming abruptly ground to a halt a decade ago, the goalposts were conveniently moved) drummed-up by discredited, numbskull scientists and then exploited mercilessly by leftwing misanthropists and 'financial engineers' alike in pursut of their own agendas, is producing its own version of leaf-trading. Both groups have something in common: while their ultimate goals might be different, they both really don't give a toss about the environment. All the traders really care about is money and all the loony Trots really care about is power. About people in general, they both care nothing.

Leaving the Trots to their own devices for a moment, in Private Eye's latest edition is an interesting article on the father of derivatives trading (junk bonds to you and me), Richard Sander. For those that don't know, derivatives, in their many various forms, are the things that brought the global economy crashing down a couple of years ago, (beginning, interestingly, with Northern Rock in Britain (it didn't 'start in America', as such, you see)). Just to put things in some kind of perspective, the entire market, if memory serves, was worth an wapping $500Tn in 2007, while the real villain of the piece, the CDS (Credit Default Swap), which was a trading invention that effectively rewarded the trader who held them with a payout should there be a default over a set period of time on a 'bundle' of mortgages, which were sold as a package, was $50Tn dollars before the sub-prime crisis went off like a nuclear bomb and plunged half the world into depression.

Well, Sander's at it again. This expert in magicking money out of thin air by trading in worthless assets is the main mover behind all the new bit of 'financial engineering' currently known as 'carbon trading'. Private Eye has done what passes in that magazine for an expose on him, though its typically MSM-style, schizoid editorial stance on all-things climate change means that it doesn't seem to be able to reach any solid conclusions about where this latest global financial scam will take us. Anyway, click on the image to read the article, or on the link above:

Whatever the ins and outs of how this thing's mechanisms are expected to work, a few things stand out in particular. First, the usual suspects are involved (RBS etc). Second, it stinks. What CNBC's Federal Reserve expert, Steve Leisman, called in late 2008, at the height of the crisis, a decade of 'fake growth' amounting to $40Tn, is about to happen all over again. A worthless commodity, in this case a commodity that doesn't actually exist - these are bets designed to offset the 'production' of carbon, or, more accurately, carbon dioxide - (at least with sub-prime, there was a real house lying somewhere at the bottom of it all), will be traded furiously in a market that some are saying will be worth $100Tn (Christopher Booker for instance) before this decade is out. And they are not wrong: one decade was all it took in the case of sub-prime junk bonds, once Alan Greenspan and Bill Clinton (and Gordon Brown in Britain, of course) had created the CDS bonanza for their banking buddies. Lehman et al over there; Royal Bank of Scotland, Bank of Scotland, Northern Rock et al over here. So long as the tax rolled in, no one in government cared. They certainly did not have clue-one about the forces they had unleashed with their vandalism of carefully created regulatory systems. Brown certainly didn't, hence the biggest exposure was in Britain. Within a decade, that market had jumped from a few hundred million in the mid-nineties to trillions by the time of what I consequently like to call 'Brown's bust'.

It's happening all over again, beginning this year. And there is nothing anyone with any political power will do to stop it. Why? Because of the propaganda that is fuelling the scheme's growth and the amount of egg on collective faces there would be should someone decide to hold his hand up and simply say, "Hang on a minute, do we really want to go down this road again?" So it isn't carbon capture we should be worrying about, it's media capture. It isn't money men like Sander we should be worrying about - he's just doing what he does best. It's the crooks in our own government.

It isn't climate change we should be worried about, it's the vast scale of the next bust, which will be inevitable if (or when) these immoral, undemocratic and economically retarded transnational carbon trading schemes are permitted to gain a grip on the world.

We do need alternative energy production systems, of course, and we must work harder to conserve and preserve the planet's ecosystem and protect it from humanity's impact (some would say that that is a human duty). What we certainly don't need is, first, insane, pseudo-scientific thought diseases that will result in real envoronmental damage (as has been seen already), and second, to pour hundreds of billions of pounds of wealth into the stratosphere based on that lie, wealth that could and should be used to modernise the world's infrastructure today.

It is time for people the world over, the vast majority of whom don't believe the climate lies any more in any case, to start shouting out loud: not in my name!

Eye Smear: Lord Monckton

This extraordinarily bad article appeared in the latest edition of Private Eye:

Former chancellor Lord Lawson may lead Britain's climate change sceptics but the movement's John the Baptist, its bearded mystic who has long preached in the wilderness, is former Thatcher aide Christopher Monckton. "Mad Monck" (whose sister Rosa married Lawson's son Dominic) is actuall ythe Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, although given that most hereditary peers have been removed from the House of Lords, Westminster is deprived of the Mad
Monk's iconoclastic, right-wing views.

But hark! Having quit the Tory party, Monckton has joined UKIP and he popped up the other day at that party's campaign offices in SW to present UKIP's "climate change statement". The meeting was held in a small room which, paradoxically, soon became unbearably hot.

The event attracted a small crowd of reporters and UKIP supporters. A fat man in a bow tie parked his buttocks in the front row. Another fellow was dressed in a dinner jacket (the meeting began at 3pm) with torn trousers. Also present was a European aristocrat, an inoffensive flower who was hailed as "Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Oldenburg". She uttered not a word.
UKIP leader Lord Pearson, who was incautiously wearing both a jacket and a sweater, chaired proceedings with the help of one of the party's MEPs, Godfrey Bloom. He sported a florid yellow hanky in his top pocket. The launch was being photographed from the side by a tall man with a ponytail, later identified as UKIP's new campaigns supremo.

Pearson apologised for the fact that adverts for the meeting had stated that "Global Warming Is Crap". He said the last word should have been written "C.R.A.P." – as in "Carbon Really Ain't Pollution". Ho ho!

Bloom now took the floor for a minute or so, placing his hands on the top of his arse, throwing back his head and saying: "I'm not a scientist but it is our job to assess information – yes! assess information!" He called climate change "one of the greatest confidence tricks the world has ever known". And then sat down with violent suddenness.

Now came the main event: the Mad Monck. To call his long speech "swivel-eyed" would be both unkind and inaccurate, for the most prominent thing about this onetime Fleet Street leader writer is the way his eyes do not swivel but bulge. He has the appearance, if not of Marty Fledman, of an indignant raven. He proceeded to peck his beak at the climate change theory and the vast apparat of scientists and lobbyists which has grown up around it.

"My lord, Duchess, ladies and gentlemen," he began, staring at the motley crew of deadbeat hacks and supernumeraries, some of whom were visibly wilting in the heat. Pearson, in
particular, was soon sweating hard. Monckton addressed him as "my noble Friend". Oh, how he grieves for that seat in the Lords he never occupied.

He proceeded to describe how recently he found himself discussing climate change with Tory policy chief Oliver Letwin and Letwin allegedly told him: "We cannot question what the scientists say." Monckton concluded that "you might as well resign and let the men in white coats take the decision for you." Men in white coats? Just to be clear, he was referring to scientists.

Over the course of the next 45 minutes, Monckton spoke crisply, without notes, about his distaste for the EU, the "zitty teenagers the United Nations uses to concoct its climate models", the "clunkers" who believe that biofuels will save mankind, and the plans of Al Gore, Angela Merkel, Jacques Chirac and others for "world government".

There were fluent tales about the Australian curly malice tree, "a strange kind of eucalypt which only grows on Dolomitic rock". Monckton, adding some stuff about calcium and magnesium, used it to make some elusive point about geology in the pre-Cambrian era ("ah yes, I remember it well," he japed) and carbon dioxide. From time to time his talk was peppered by a variety of jokey ringtones from people's mobiles. Pearson, now bright red in the face from the heat, made plain his disapproval.

Monckton laughed off theories that Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035 or that polar bears could be in peril. He called for cheaper beef burgers for the poor of Haiti and, while assailing the "eco-fascist agenda", described how he and a scientist called Herr Ziegler had been denied access from official symposia on "this fantasy, this chimaera, this will o' the wisp" of global warming.
Although Monckton undoubtedly came across as something of a "strange kind of eucalypt" himself, his certitude did have a certain magnificence. Can we not admire his readiness to stand apart from the stampede? The only moment he stalled was when a freelance hackette asked him about an incident in Germany recently when he compared the behaviour of some protesting climate changers, one of whom was Jewish, to that of the Hitler Youth.

Monckton soon recovered his composure, however, and claimed that an unidentified top Tory recently told him "none of us really cares much about climate change". He then launched on a homily about how salt was good for you and how, in his days at Downing Street under Mrs T, he had often had to see off theorists seeking government money for "pseudo scientific boondoggles".
At which point the Eye made its excuses and left, if only to cool down after all that hot air in the room.

This anonymous, snearing, personalised hatchet job can be condemned in so many ways, it's hard to know where to begin. So I'll limit this to just one point (sort of). It's not so much, for instance, the bafflingly high level of contempt the author, calling himself (although it could very well be a her), 'Gavel Basher', apparently harbours for Christopher Monckton that concerns me; there is very little evidence in the piece that might suggest he/she had the faintest idea who Monckton was before s/he put digits to keyboard. Or the fact that any of the bio-background included could be found out in five minutes by a quick search on Wiki - and a skim through any out of a hundred blogs (you know, the form of internet activity the Eye regularly rails against for whatever reason). And it's not the embarrassing, lazy ignorance of the piece on the detail of the climate scandal that Monckton is merely highlighting (no mention, for instance, and perhaps tellingly, of the fact that the IPCC itself has admitted the 2035 glacier annihilation date was out by a factor of ten - that the original document said 2350, not 2035. Even the Guardian got this right). It's also not the scattergun nature of the article's mindless abuse: first the audience, then the head of UKIP, then Monckton, then UKIP again, then the audience again, then back to Monckton, and so on.

It's none of these things. In fact, anyone reading the piece without the first idea who Monckton was and who doesn't like UKIP one little bit, but who has half a brain and follows a couple of newspapers and websites, will know that it's unpleasant, arrant nonsense from start to finish. So what particular aspect is it that I find the most revealing about just how bad an article this is? Well, I'll tell ya. It's that it is just so very dated! It's like some refugee hack who used to work for some dusty old rag or other has decided to get involved with 'all this climate kerfuffle'. You know, the conversation probably went something like this:

Ed (Arkala Hislop, we presume): What's all this nonsense about climate change lies I've been hearing about? I thought all that stuff was settled: we're destroying the air, or something, aren't we? Everyone says so.
You there, Gavel Basher, get down to that Monckton talk and see what you can find out.
Gavel Basher: Climate what?
Ed: Climate change.
Gavel Basher: Oh, right. I thought all that stuff was off limits. "Scientific consensus" and all that.
Ed: Just what I was saying. But there's a UKIP angle here. And a nutty rightwinger, Tory split one, too. It'll make good copy. Look, just get over there and see what crap this Monckton's spouting, and the kind of people who're listening.
Gavel Basher: Lord Monkey?
Ed: Monckton
Gavel Basher: Never heard of him.
Ed: You know, that science SpAd who used to work for Thatcher. The Viscount, or whatever he is. Just Google him. And check out a few blogs. They usually have some good stuff on this sort of thing.
Gavel Basher: (blank look, pause) Can't you send someone else?
Ed: No, you're supposed to do the fringe stuff.
Gavel Basherb: Bollocks. (picks up handbag and storms off)

You get my drift, I hope.

This hypocritical smear, as with most smears, is badly researched and pathetically prejudiced. But this one also has the dubious distinction of being totally out of touch with the zeitgeist. A bit like Private Eye itself these days, actually - and increasingly. I'll still buy it for the time being because I like Colemanballs and the letters and some of the local government stuff, too. But I have a funny feeling that that choice might be taken out of my hands relatively soon: I'm pretty certain that on the 'strength' of this piece of rubbish, among a lot of other fairly recent evidence of decline, that this once august, satirical, cutting-edge investigative organ will go the way of Punch. It'll be missed, too - for a few minutes. And then it'll become just another fondly remembered artifact of a bygone age: the age of the Mainstream Media establishment to which the Eye so clearly and firmly belongs.

PS: At any rate, I would have thought that this magazine would have been keen to get a bit of mileage out of the perverse corruptions of the brahman former railway engineer currently in charge of the IPCC with highly dubious links with that scourge of British industry (but close friend of this Labour government), Indian megacorp, Tata. Or, perhaps, the various carbon scams that have been going on all over the country for a decade or so now, and which have cost us billions. Curious editorial line, this satirical dinosaur has.

Reasoned Debate and Climate Change

For all those ardent Warministas out there (and by-now avowed sceptics - like me), this is what any future debate about the human impact on our climate should resemble. "Only connect" said Forster. At least these four are willing to try. Unfortunately, for many, mainly of the 'settled science', AGW brigade, (whatever their reasons), even that small step towards a necessary synthesis is a step far too far.

Brook + Readfearn / Monckton + Plimer from Manda Chuva on Vimeo.

Monckton's Australian Mission

Just watching now a tiresomely biased BBC report on Monckton's mission to save Australia from the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on humanity, namely anthropogenic global warming (or 'man made climate change', as it's conveniently been redefined nowadays by the desperate pseudo-scientists pushing this horse manure. Not 'woman made' climate change, though, strangely).

Two things struck me about it, however, both of which actually provide some cause for hope in the titanic battle against this watermelon, millennial, misanthropist thought disease. The first is that Monckton has finally made it on to the supine, notoriously and unquestioningly warmist BBC in the first place. The second is that it's pretty clear now that Monckton's mission Down Under might have actually turned at least one major nation's population to the Good Side.

As Christopher Booker pointed out today, there's a hell of a long way to go before the world is rid of this massive, co-ordinated corruption (and the parasitic Trotskyists, with this, their perfect 'end of the world as we know it' Trojan Horse narrative, could yet prevail), but Monckton, thanks to his now-legendary zeal, wisdom and logic, might finally have at least won the first battle in what has become nothing less than an all out war for truth, good science and humanity.

We are in a very bad way, especially (primarily) in the West. But clearly, thanks to Monckton's successful Australian mission, there's still cause for hope.

Carry On - Regardless

I think, finally, together we've collectively clocked the hopeless strategy of both this crippled Labour government and this rumbled, desperately passe, climate change perversion that normal people are currently trying to shed.

But I think I've found the tune that might speak to this transition period. It's pretty ironic (inevitably) - and all the more brilliant for it!



Wonderful :)

Entire Continental United States Sees Snow

Watts Up With That is covering an AP story that's just broken about an extraordinary (possibly unprecedented) event: all 48 contiguous states of the USA (plus Alaska) currently have snow on them! Only Hawaii doesn't.

It is amazing, frankly. And combined with the fact that 1180 new snowfall records have been broken in the past week, (not to mention the catastrophic, statistic-busting winter that's being suffered all over north Asia, too), I simply can't believe the kind of abject, truly denialist, insulting, watermelon claptrap still emanating from the left media.

Now, I can tell you from experience that snow in Denver and its environs is unlike anything you have ever seen, snow-wise (unless you're from Siberia - or Colorado, I suppose), so certainly don't expect that Florida is currently experiencing the ten-foot-deep variety of snowfall that is pretty much the norm for the eastern foothills of the Rocky Mountains. But the very fact that Flordia (Florida!) has had any snow at all is truly remarkable.

Point is, if this is one of those "extreme weather events" we've been told about by the alarmists, then sure, I admit it, the climate is changing.

Yeah, numbskulls: it's getting COLDER. Well, double duh!

The Real Deniers

Bishop Hill has highlighted this extraordinary, extraordinarily complacent and utterly dishonest press conference by someone who I believe is one of the most corrupt individuals on the face of the earth.


I recognise that Bishop Hill's blog is a serious, wonderful, scholarly front line against the industrial level scam that is climate change. But mine isn't. I'm a private blogger who just has his view, and little else.

In this case my view is pretty simple: you can't engage in a serious debate about anything with people who are palpably as dishonest (and that's proved) as Pachauri. That he's still part of the IPCC network is bad enough; that he's still its leader tells you all you need to know about the depth of the corruption associated with that institution.

But it goes further than that. I see this as an emergent behaviour of a political class. We see every day the same kind of casual, habitual, insulting assaults on the rationality of ordinary people by this Labour government. We hear, for instance, the laughable lie that Labour will increase spending this year, at the same time as liars like Mandelson are simultaneously announcing massive public spending cuts this year. We hear, as well, that this disastrous government has wasted untold billions of notional future money trying to curtail housing repossessions. And yet, though the previous Tory government spent nothing (because they wisely knew that such an effort would be futile) to that aim, this government has managed to waste billions and still has seen more people lose their houses than in 1995, the low point of the last recession that was soon followed by extraordinary, and sustainable, sound growth - until the excellent Clarke was replaced by the moron Brown, that is.

The reasoning is hilarious, as well. On the one hand you have a Labour housing minister suggesting that a family losing its home is a 'good thing' (but which shouldn't have happened with the billions spent, should it?) - and in that displaying a level of high-handed, out-of-touch complacent incompetence Ken Clarke never could have been (and never has been, even by Brown) accused of. And on the other, you have this extraordinary, angels-on-a-pinhead, nonsensical Labour counterfactual - "If we hadn't spent all your money - and your children's money - then it would have been twice as bad as it was in 1995." Oh yeah? Who says!

With the former, minor housing minister dumbness, you can put that down to the old "don't really give a shit" factor. But with the latter - with the Brown/Mandelson mixed, though equally dumb, messages, you are faced with a level of economic, political and basic dishonesty that will delay any recovery in this nation almost as long as a continuing Labour government would. Two things: first, spending all that money has achieved nothing on the issue of repossessions, and second, all that meaningless expenditure has guaranteed a double-dip recession - with all the further attendant pain for mortgage-holders and savers alike.

Brown caused this recession and Brown's utter incompetence and dishonesty is prolonging it. On inheriting Ken Clarke's golden legacy he was heard to comment, as well everyone knows:" You want me to write a fucking thank-you note?"

Like Pachauri, another Labour creation, his lies have finally caught up with him, but he's still in total denial about it (again, like Pachauri).

Tell you what, where Brown failed to send Clarke a thank-you note for leaving him with a Golden Legacy (achieved by hard work, honesty and wisdom), when Brown is finally ejected from the office he never earned, Clarke should send him a note of his own - and it should be polite. Something like: "thank God you're out of all our lives. Thanks for the double dip recession (you moron). Don't expect a peerage."

I think Ken Clarke would be pretty justified in sending a note almost identical to that one, but with a little more swearing.

Monckton: IPCC Chief Is Going To Jail

Not "should be going" you will note (when you look at the video below), but "is going". The modal and tense choices are very telling and, I can guarantee, deliberate. Railway engineer and non-climate scientist, but very dodgy chief of the IPCC scam-mongers, Rajendra Pachauri "is going" to jail, says Lord Monckton. A philosopher and logician as precise and vigilant when it comes to language as Christopher Monckton would never have said, publicly or privately, that in this way unless he already knew there was strong enough evidence to permit him to say it without inviting some type of legal challenge.

It's fair to say, therefore, that things are about to get a lot better for us, the long-abused, stolen-from taxpayer - and much worse for Pachauri and his crew. That would, of course, also implicate this Labour government. What a surprise.

If in doubt, vote them out!



Hat tip: Climategate

Astonishing

James Delingpole, citing Bishop Hill, is as gobsmacked as the latter by a professional analysis of the Fourth IPCC Assessment Report (you know, the one with all the "Gates" in it) by a scientist named Andrew Lacis, a colleague of arch warmist James Hansen at GISS, and someone who in no way whatsoever could be branded a "sceptic." Here's an astonishing bit:

There is no scientific merit to be found in the Executive Summary. The presentation sounds like something put together by Greenpeace activists and their legal department. The points being made are made arbitrarily with legal sounding caveats without having established any foundation or basis in fact. The Executive Summary seems to be a political statement that is only designed to annoy greenhouse skeptics. Wasn’t the IPCC Assessment Report intended to be a scientific document that would merit solid backing from the climate science community – instead of forcing many climate scientists into having to agree with greenhouse skeptic criticisms that this is indeed a report with a clear and obvious political agenda. Attribution can not happen until understanding has been clearly demonstrated. Once the facts of climate change have been established and understood, attribution will become self-evident to all. The Executive Summary as it stands is beyond redemption and should simply be deleted.

The entire thing, naturally, was buried by the IPCC thus:

Rejected. [Executive Summary] summarizes Ch 9, which is based on the peer reviewed literature.

It is quite difficult to frame in one's mind the kind of mentalities and egos at work here. Suffice to say, their levels of by now well-documented obscene corruption, which has already led to the starvation of millions (thanks mainly to the cultivation of subsidised biofuel crops on good agricultural land instead of food), means that we can safely conclude that they will stoop to anything to keep their hideous misanthropic ideology alive - and their own pathetic 'careers' - for as long as they possibly can. This is going to be one hell of a battle - but it is one that common sense, reason and good science cannot afford to lose.

Remember, also, that this Labour government has been, and remains, one of the major villains of this piece. We can start to correct the world's current rational imbalance by ejecting it when we are finally given the opportunity. But once the Tories are in power, if they don't immediately reassess their ridiculous commitment to this unhinged - and now unravelling - politically-motivated (it's mainly inspired by anti-capitalist people-haters) dogma, then they should be next. Better they correct their policies now, then, in a timely and honest fashion.

But first things first. First, we must deal with Labour. I'm utterly confident that the British people will do just that, and good on them for it.

Massive Rise in AGW Scepticism - BBC Poll

The poll is pretty darned conclusive in that it clearly demonstrates one thing, people are certainly not as stupid as the AGW fanatics, many of whom inhabit the government (surprise surprise), seem to believe. But they are all, government, Opposition and alarmist scientists and their minority of sheeple supporters, in denial about the scale of the collapse of their propaganda campaign and their ongoing and increasingly desperate attempts to mislead people over the impact of human activity on the giant, chaotic, barely comprehended system that is what is (perhaps inaccurately) branded "global" climate.

To that end, and as anyone who watches a few hours of TV a day will know, government spending on AGW propaganda has been increased massively, with ridiculous claims about virtually every aspect of our lives' impact on the environment pushed down our throats, at our own expense, during virtually every commercial break. That they cite as their source on each of the stupid, expensive adverts "UK government" hardly fills anyone with confidence - quite the opposite, in fact, if this poll is anything to go by. The Climategate liars work for the UK government, and people know that. But this doesn't seem to be getting through to the government, or its tame, politicised geeks:

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs' (Defra) chief scientific adviser, Professor Bob Watson, called the findings "very disappointing".

"The fact that there has been a very significant drop in the number of people that believe that we humans are changing the Earth's climate is serious," he told BBC News.

"Action is urgently needed," Professor Watson warned.

"We need the public to understand that climate change is serious so they will change their habits and help us move towards a low carbon economy."

That the vast majority of us (about 74%, by implication) don't believe the alarmist line peddled by people like blobby-voiced Miliband Minor and this Bob Watson twit is "disappointing" to them is a sign of how arrogant and patronising these agenda-driven loudmouth politicians and pseudo-scientists really are. But, remember, there's also a sinister, underlying anti-democratic tone here which can only mean trouble.

So keep on "disappointing" them, folks; keep on exercising your right to demand the truth.

Hat tip: Plato Says

Angry Trees

This just in from the Daily Mash:

TREES WILL NOT BECOME UNSTOPPABLE KILLING MACHINES, ADMIT CLIMATE SCIENTISTS

TREES will not uproot themselves and embark on blood-soaked killing sprees by 2035, global warming experts have admitted.

The IPCC headquarters in Geneva

The International Panel on Climate Change confirmed the evidence had not been peer-reviewed and will now amend the section of its 2007 report devoted to 'killer trees'.

A spokesman said: "It appears the claim was not based on new data or field research but on that bit with the angry, talking trees in Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.

"We're reviewing our procedures to determine how it made it into the final draft, though someone should probably have noticed the vivid description of the attack on Saruman's underground orc factory.

"There is a supplementary source, and yes it is that bit with the angry, talking trees in The Wizard of Oz.

"We still think there's a strong chance that trees will become sentient and take revenge on man for chopping down all their friends and turning them into spatulas, we're just not sure when."

The killer tree scandal is the latest embarrassment for the IPCC which has also been forced to withdraw claims that global warming will cause elephants to grow to more than 200ft tall and develop an extra pair of massive tusks after sceptics pointed out it was obviously from Lord of The Rings: The Return of the King.

The spokesman added: "You have to understand that for committed environmentalists, The Lord of the Rings is very, very special.

"Many of them think it's a documentary and one of them - I'm not mentioning any names but it's George Monbiot - actually thinks he's Samwise Gamgee."

Lord Monckton Bulldozing a Green Green, Episode 74

These young scientist/fanatics, with a PhD in AGW orthodoxy (and nothing else) really need to stop trying to take on a man as eminent as Christopher Monckton. It's almost painful to watch - in a delicious sort of way. In the area of the red herring, so-called "precautionary principle", Monckton is particularly devastating (but, for some reason, it's vanished from my ripped YouTube upload). But I enjoy the way he simply rises above the playground ad hominems. I was fairly impressed by the Aussie interviewer, too.

It's clear that the dam, as Andrew Neil has recently said, is definitely cracking. As for this poor little Aussie twit, I suspect he'll need to go back to school when the dust settles from the collapse of his entire discredited belief system. Poor thing.



Read James Delingpole for the latest news about discredited climate change alarmists and fanatics, in the wake of Climategate (and Glaciergate and Amazongate and so on and so forth).

As for little old me, I'm looking forward to the return to normality - and the spring sunshine that this morning's wonderful dogwalking duties down the beach suggested is now just around the corner. Marvellous.

Andrew Neil Turns Up Heat On Hirst

Andrew Neil, who has recently come out on his blog on the side of reason, gave John Hirst an absolute grilling on the Daily Politics this morning. More please! Hat tip to Climategate.com, which provided the clip and comments:

Oh this is good, really good. We did a story two days ago, UK Met Office’s enormously wrong weather predictions earn department big pay increases, and it turns out now even the BBC is questioning The Met Office’s weather forecasting record, and record salaries. And questioning surprisingly hard.

In this clip, Andrew Neal grills Met Office chief John Hirst.

The best line (4:08) of the video and perhaps of the year: “Since you can’t the summer or the winter right in your forecasts, why should we give any credence to your forecast to what the temperature will be in the 2050 or 2020, which is what you do.”

This is the BBC? Sound more like Fox News, and we love it!

It's good that finally - finally - these guys are starting to be held to account for their lies. No sign of Hirst's bonus being taken away from him, though. And how long, I wonder, before Neil is silenced by the warmists at the BBC? It's possible.

Incidentally, Climategate.com is an American blog, in case you were wondering (no reason why you should be, of course).

Anyway, here's the vid.:



Marvellous.

[By the way, you'll have noticed Hirst's slip at 3.56-9. He says the science of meteorology (and therefore, presumably, climatology) is still a 'developmental science'. Oh really? Then we can take it that the science is far from 'settled' then. Curious.]

Climategate.com

Hat tip to James Delingpole for flagging up in his latest blog post (about how the warmists and alarmists have just taken one step closer to prosecution for their deceptions and frauds, at least in the USA) an excellent new AGW debunking blog called, with refreshing bluntness, simply "Climategate." It does exactly what it says on the tin. If you are a fan of the truth, then check it out - you'll find the links in the sidebar. If you prefer the lies, however, then you are already well catered for (try 'realclimate' or the BBC, for instance).

"Climategate's" subtitle, by the way,"Anthropogenic global warming, history's biggest scam," fits in very nicely with Christopher Booker's latest superb remarks on the subject of the Met Office's role in "history's biggest scam." You can find it in today's Sunday Telegraph, here.

As for me, I'm sitting in front of my computer right now trying desperately to warm up after having walked my dog in sub zero temperatures down by the seaside. It's bloody freezing where I am - on the south coast of Wales. (What, in January? Never!)

"Science Is Not A Belief System"

This, the core message of Monckton's typically impressive - and devastating - recent Berlin lecture, resonates more now than ever before, especially in the shadow of the Copenhagen travesty and the light of the Climategate scandal.

Lord Monckton on Climategate at the 2nd International Climate Conference from CFACT on Vimeo.

Hat tip: The Red Rag

Clearer Heads: Monckton Vs. "Greenpeace"

She's from Norway, so naturally she's an expert on all things icy. He (Christopher Monckton) is a logician and philosopher who knows precisely what he's talking about, given the depth of his many years of research, which has been a hell of a lot more rigorous than, say, a hoon like Monbiot's and this apparently rather friendly woman's. Sadly for her, she is comprehensively defeated in this interview, although that fact does not seem to shake her core belief system one iota, predictably. And there you have the problem in a YouTube nutshell.

Have faith, though, readers. Clearer heads, like Monckton's, might yet prevail. God help us all if they don't!

Hat tip: Plato Says

Climategate - The Scale of the International Stitch-Up

Ah, life. So much to do, so little time to do it. But I can always find time to flag up another emerging revelation in the increasingly appalling (is that possible?) Climategate saga.

This time, we find that former railwayman, "Dr" (of diesel locomotive engineering, lest we forget) Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has about as deep a conflict of personal business interest as it is possible to have, while chairing what is meant to be an independent and objective scientific oversight committee, without being laughed out of the job. The reason, apparently, why he hasn't been laughed out of the job, however, is that his conflict of interest is merely the tip of the proverbial - and truly vast - iceberg, when it comes to the whole nefarious and really rather sinister new industry known as carbon trading.

James Delingpole, naturally, has the story. Read it here - and weep (some more).

Meanwhile, winter storms are hammering much of North America (what, in winter!) and we ourselves are about to experience a pretty significant cold snap (no, you mean in winter! In Britain!! Surely some mistake). There's a multi-meter deep, rich covering of snow all over the ski resorts of Europe, as always (never, in the skiing season!!); glaciers at the poles stubbornly keep on growing and the sea has risen not one millimeter anywhere around this vast globe of ours (as far as we know - it's just about impossible to measure it to that degree of accuracy, remember, in spite of what MMCC, nee AGW, scientists claim).

And yet, the schitzoid media and utterly dishonest government keep on pushing the warmist, Copenhagen, stitch-up agenda, with, for example, Sky News's prepackaged (all the graphics were done long before Climategate but they've stuck with them nonetheless - they were jolly expensive, after all) "Turning Up the Heat" nonsense, complete with big red thermometer and reports from their man going live every night from the dwindling Brazilian rain forest (huh?); and making stuff up about "sunken" villages on tropical islands (the one in question was wiped out by a tropical storm many years back, folks - as they tend to be when they are, er, built along the coast in tropical storm zones) and generally trumpeting as much alarmist propaganda as is humanly possible for one rolling news outlet to churn out. Well, hey, it's all about the ratings, after all.

I could go on, I guess, but what's the point? I'm sure you get the idea, and what an hysterical one it is too. Just please read the Delingpole piece and make your own mind up. Suffice to say, my own view is pretty straightforward by now: climate change alarmism and what is now emerging as "Carbongate" are a global travesty on a scale never before seen. Conspiracy? Not really. Just an unfortunate combination of a basic contempt for the human race and an unhappy convergence of several vested interests, many of them fanatically motivated, all able to rally around the same myth of imminent human destruction (or was that planetary destruction - it's so hard to tell with these clowns). But, as is always the case, the biggest motivation of all for continuing to peddle and push this utter nonsense is, as it turns out, also the oldest one of all: simple greed.

As someone once said, always follow the money.

Delingpole For PM

No, not Prime Minister (yet), but "Proven Massive" (in the Ali G vernacular, naturally). In case you can't be arsed to click through to the original post, (and why should you?), here it is in Gloriously Ripped Technicolor (GRT).

Truth to left-liberals is like garlic to vampires, so I suppose it’s no wonder the world’s watermelons (green on the outside, red on the inside) have been reacting so badly to Climategate.

A few days ago we had the hugely entertaining spectacle of climate activist Ed Begley Jr losing the plot completely on Fox news. (aka Tofu-crazed Vegan Goes Postal).

Yesterday, I understand, decrepit Politburo chief Gordon Brown decided that climate change sceptics – Does he mean me? He surely does! – were “flat-earthers.” I consider this perhaps the greatest badge of honour of my entire career. It’s like being called a “gibbering lunatic” by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, “a dangerous nutcase” by Charles Manson, “a sinister, slippery snake” by Lord Mandelson, “an utter bastard” by Joe Stalin.

And now, in case you missed it, I offer some delightful Newsnight footage of a very frustrated Professor Watson from UEA being goaded to the point of rude-wordery by the japesome Marc Morano. These climate fear promoters: they just don’t like it up ‘em!

There's a film, too:

It's official, folks: only "assholes" care about reality and humanity.

I, for one, am therefore a proud asshole.

Are you?

Rex Murphy: A Clear Assessment of Climategate

A big tip of the hat to the increasingly dangerous Barking Spider (a superior species of Independent Blogger) for putting me in the way of this wonderful commentary on the real implications of Climategate by someone who can hardly be described as a 'flat earther' (see Brown's front page slurs in tomorrow's Graun), namely, highly respected Canadian political commentator, Rex Murphy.



Who, in their right mind, can argue with that?

The MSB

One thing that has struck me over the past few weeks is that an as-yet little recognised media phenomenon has been thrown into stark relief by the Climategate scandal, and it's not the MSM, of course. We always knew that they would follow on in the jet stream of this ever-growing story, pressured by the veritable torrent of people lending their support to the 'new realism' over so-called man made climate change (a sexist term in itself, if you want to be picky - ie: politically correct). The legacy media has once more been shown up for what it is: hopelessly old hat and out of touch with public opinion, preferring instead to peddle the alarmist lies, for the sake of ratings in ITV's case (you should have seen that channel's coverage on their 10 o'clock bulletin last night) or for the sake of politics in the case of the BBC. The newspapers have been fairly predictable, as one might imagine. Left wing rags have followed the left-green ideological armageddon scenario to the letter (naturally), while the rest of them have hedged themselves even deeper into a kind of editorial schitzophrenia.

So that's them, then. But what about the blogs? Well, something has now emerged that seems to me quite interesting, what you might call the "Main Stream Blogosphere." These would include established, high-traffic ones like Dale, Guido, Spectator, the Telegraph (especially Hannan and Delingpole, increasingly) and others I can't think of off the top of my head. What they have done, Guido included (but less so, to his credit), is played a similar game to the non-left media, they've set themselves up as some kind of adjudicators of the debate, thus providing themselves with protection for what they clearly view is their "credibility" among their high-powered political sources and buddies. By pretending to be outside the debate looking in (or down), they don't need to get off the fence. Thus they can avoid rocking the political boat and risk losing access to their MSM and lobby sources - and maintain what they regard as a principled editorial position which enables them to pass judgment on the great mass of genuinely independent, and genuinely (justifiably, given the nature of the revelations) critical, rational anti-MMCC blogs that make up the vast majority of the IB (the Independent Blogosphere). A political predilection has no bearing on these terms, only a willingness to speak one's mind when one feels moved to, and not to stand on the fence for any other reason than genuine agnosticism.

Take this recent Spectator post by David Blackburn, coming as it does hot on the heels of Fraser Nelson's editorial policy statement on Climategate for the paper edition:

Lord Lawson is Andrew Neil’s guest on this week’s BBC Straight Talk and, among other topics, the former chancellor rebuffs Ed Miliband’s accusation of climate change heresy. Lawson said:

“I hope that all parties…take a good hard look at this, we don’t want a sort of Stalinist monolithic line in everything. But I do think, because of the damage that will be done to the economy, that is why, and for very little good, if any, that is why we have got to take a good hard look at the fact that we can’t get a global agreement on this anyway, as will be seen in Copenhagen…So, I think you have got to go back to the drawing board and have a fresh approach. And that is why my think tank is the Global Warming Policy Foundation, it’s not the Global Warming Foundation, it’s the Global Warming Policy Foundation, because it is policy which is so damaging at the present time and threatening so much, and it doesn’t work and it can’t work, and that’s why we’ve got to think of another approach.”

Lawson’s comments are aimed at Cameron as much as anyone else, but he is not ‘denying’ the science, though I am sure he’s sceptical, and rightly so. Like David Davis, Lawson challenges the political approach inspired by the Prophet Stern, which will endanger global growth and condemn billions in the developing world to a slow and grinding death in poverty. Ed Miliband’s “saboteur” jibe proves what Fraser says in this week’s magazine: climate change has morphed from debate to catechism. It is now an issue bereft of rationality. A debate on policy, not science, is an immediate necessity - I fear all Copenhagen will amount to is a joyless shindig.

Rod Liddle was doing the same thing last week, as I wrote at the time, namely, calling for some sort of reasoned debate without actually saying which side of that debate he would feel moved to support. And here we have it again. Ordinarily, you might think that that's all fine and dandy: people are right to keep an open mind, you might think, and that would be true - if that was what was really going on here. Only, it's not. What you are seeing is confusion as the MSB has to face up to something it had hitherto taken for granted. The people who run these uber-news sites (they're not really blogs) had swallowed the whole AGW thing hook, line and sinker, at least publicly. It was the way the wind was blowing, after all. However, they've been left in something of a quandary by the fact that almost their entire readership is taking a much, much harder line on the issue: the traffic is moving!

People who read the MSB avidly, like me, never really thought of it that way before - up until now, that is. They previously regarded it as some form of blessed, independent news source free from the traditional forms of bias and/or strong-arm editorialism. Not any more. I'm afraid that one thing Climategate has done, in polarising the debate so completely, whether MSB hacks such as Nelson or Blackburn or Liddle - (the list goes on and on - you know who you are) - like it or not, and encouraging people to stand up and be counted on this great fraud, is smoke out the MSB from its comfort zone. And what a nuisance that must be for them. It's certainly a source of irritation if Liddle is anything to go by. That's a good thing because they need to get off the damn fence, show some backbone and call it as they really see it, because I strongly suspect that is exactly what they are not doing, for the reasons I've noted. (I actually - kind of - respect Will Heaven of the DT blogs for doing just that, though much good it did him! Mainly because he's wrong.)

My point is that the last thing we need is another "Main Stream" anything, much less an MSB, especially when mainstream thinking on this (and many other issues, lest we forget - NHS anyone?) is so compromised and ideological. But it looks like that's just what we have got. Ah well, maybe it was inevitable. It's just another emergent phenomenon in the cultural continuum - and could be just another sign that New Media really has come of age and truly eclipsed the old. So it's not all bad and besides, all of us little people can always vote with our blogrolls - and our mouses - if we're really that unhappy.