United Nations running a poll

NEWSFLASH! Action on climate change voted bottom of world’s priority heap

Hilary Ostrov has a mighty strange report about the United Nations using an on-line public survey.

Be no spin there would there? The story is double take variety, I don’t know what to make of it.

Item at “The View From Here” linked here.

h/t to Donna Laframboise at NoFrakkingConsensus

Quote of the week: Pachauri on Planes

Rajendra Pachauri, head of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (UN IPCC) doesn’t think efforts implemented by the European Union (EU) to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in European airspace should apply to Indian jet airliners:

This from the Indian business standard website via Tom Nelson:

Under the Emission Trading Scheme (ETS), the EU has threatened to fine Air India and Jet Airways (India) for not sharing their emission data. The two Indian airlines were staring at a fine of  30,000 Euro (Rs 22.60 lakh on Sunday) after the ETS.ETS, which came into effect in 2012, requires airlines to report emission data on an annual basis for flights within and to/from Europe and purchase credits in case the emission exceeds capped limits.

“We are taking up the issue first with the UNFCC, followed by ICAO rather than the other way round,” said V Rajagopalan, secretary in the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF).

Asked whether the ministry was in favour of domestic aviation emission norms for airlines, Rajagopalan said, “There are a lot of discussions going on. It’s too early to say anything.” Natarajan had even termed the EU step as a deal-breaker as far as global efforts for climate changes were concerned. However, experts are not in favour of any domestic actions.

Ed Davey plays the 97% consensus trick on BBC R4 in front of Lawson

At about 22:30 BST, 4th June 2013 on BBC Radio 4, Davey and Lawson were together with the subject, well, you can guess.

Steve Milloy: EPA still hiding junk-science raw data after 20 years

Here we go again. Expensive statutes and rules based on unavailable data.

President Obama’s nominee to head up the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Gina McCarthy, is awaiting a confirmation vote. Senate Republicans may still filibuster. The agency’s reliance on “secret science,” long a concern for the role it has played in EPA’s decisions, is finally emerging.

She almost didn’t make it out of the Environment and Public Works committee. Wisconsin Republican Sen. John Barrasso spoke on behalf of the Senate GOP regarding why they were boycotting her nomination, saying “What we’re simply requesting is access to the scientific data and reasoning behind the justification for expensive new rules…”

Another victory for sceptic lobbyists : Europe’s politicians start to wake up from the Green Energy Dream

From EUractiv:

Europe’s plan to decarbonise its economy by 2050 could be turned on its head at a summit today (22 May) if EU heads of state and government sign off on measures prioritising industrial competitiveness over climate change in draft conclusions seen by EurActiv.

The draft text says that EU policy must ensure “competitive” energy prices, and declares it “crucial” that Europe diversify its energy supply and develop “indigenous energy resources” – a reference to renewable energies, but also coal, nuclear power and shale gas.

One high-profile German MEP Holger Krahmer (ALDE), hailed the end of “climate hysteria” in a jubilant press statement.

“For the first time, rising energy costs and the declining competitiveness of the European economy will be rated higher than obviously unenforceable global climate change ambitions,” he said.

“The economic and social consequences of collective hysteria can no longer be ignored, as the governments of the EU member states admit in this paper,” Krahmer added, saying that it was right to give more attention to energy sources such as gas and coal.

Ben Pile: Lewandowsky, Institutional Science, and Politics

Ben Pile has posted a long and well written piece about l’affaire Lewandowsky at his blog. It will soon be published on Spiked, but I thought a preview to be in order. The paragraphs below are from the concluding section, since most here are familiar with the story so far. If not, you should read the whole thing.

Extract from: The Lewandowsky Papers
Posted by Ben Pile on May 21, 2013

Scientists such as Lewandowsky are better at self-justification than scientific research. Rather than being an investigation into the workings of the material world, Lewandosky’s ‘research’ — a poorly executed and error-prone online survey, seen through dodgy statistical methods and bogus categories — is a naked attempt to explain why people dare challenge scientific authority. But there are good reasons for challenging it. Science has turned its gaze on the public as politicians have sought to remedy their diminishing public support by recruiting the academy. It is not a coincidence that the scientific agenda increasingly reflects the prejudices and problems of elite politics.

Prof. Roger Pielke Jr: A Handy Bullshit Button on Disasters and Climate Change

Reposted in full (I hope Roger P doesn’t mind) from his excellent blog, a brief synopsis of the SREX section of the new IPCC report, which confirms that there is no proven link between extreme weather events and longer term temperature trends or co2 levels.

The full IPCC Special Report on Extremes is out today, and I have just gone through the sections in Chapter 4 that deal with disasters and climate change. Kudos to the IPCC — they have gotten the issue just about right, where “right” means that the report accurately reflects the academic literature on this topic. Over time good science will win out over the rest — sometimes it just takes a little while.

European Commissars: Bankrolling Pro-EU and Pro-Green Energy Groups

Guy Bentley at backbencher.co.uk explains how the EC is investing millions in pro-EU groups.

On Wednesday the Institute of Economic Affairs released a new report authored by Christopher Snowdon titled ‘Euro Puppets: The European Commission’s remaking of civil society’.

This report exposes the vast scale to which the European Commission uses taxpayers money to fund charities, think tanks and other lobby groups which campaign not only for closer European integration but a vast array of regulations and spending programs.

The groups the Commission decides to fund skew heavily to the left and a significant proportion of these groups would fail to exist if it were not for the taxpayer money the European Commission so freely hands out to its favoured groups.

The Delphi Technique: How to manipulate the manipulators

By Albert V. Burns

More and more, we are seeing citizens being invited to “participate” in various forms of meetings, councils, or boards to “help determine” public policy in one field or another. They are supposedly being included to get ”input” from the public to help officials make final decisions on taxes, education, community growth or whatever the particular subject matter might be.

Sounds great, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, surface appearances are often deceiving.

You, Mr. or Mrs. Citizen, decide to take part in one of these meetings.

Generally, you will find that there is already someone designated to lead or “facilitate” the meeting. Supposedly, the job of the facilitator is to be a neutral, non-directing helper to see that the meeting flows smoothly.

Actually, he or she is there for exactly the opposite reason: to see that the conclusions reached during the meeting are in accord with a plan already decided upon by those who called the meeting.

Michael Mann: Look! Their bad stats support my bad stats!

Still hiding the decline there Mikey. PAGES uses a different ‘Nature Trick’ (Science Trick actually – Nature rejected the paper)

Michael E. Mann ‏@MichaelEMann7h

Original MBH99 #HockeyStick (blue) vs. recent PAGES 2k temp reconstruction (green) & instrumental record (red) #HSCW pic.twitter.com/9X00ffq2gx

 Retweeted by Steve Bloom