Now that I’m nearly finished with our move, I will have some time to get back to updating the Blog.
With Houston’s loss to Southern Miss today, the Boise State Broncos are in a little better position for an “at-large” bid for a BCS Bowl game.
Not just Boise!
Discounts for us 50+
VERY handy list, and who doesn’t want to pay less and get a deal. We boomers need to share such info these days.
IF YOU GET THIS AND YOU are NOT A SENIOR….YOU WILL BE….PASS IT ON…….
Gone are the days of your grandmother’s “early bird special” at the local diner. As our baby boomers reach retirement age, hundreds of retailers are featuring new and improved discounts exclusively for the 60 and older crowd. We have composed a list of senior savings that will help you keep more cash in your pocket. Whoever said getting older was a bad thing, obviously didn’t know about these fantastic senior discounts!
Restaurants
Retail and Apparel
Grocery
Travel
Activities & Entertainment
Cell Phone Discounts
*Check out our Secret Cell Phone Discounts to view all cell phone discounts available to you!
Miscellaneous
Since many senior discounts are not advertised to the public, our advice to men and women over 55 is to ALWAYS ask a sales associate if that store provides a senior discount.
That way, you can be sure to get the most bang for your buck
First, let me say that the violence done in Tucson on January 8, 2011 is uncalled for and un-American. I offer my prayer for the recovery of Congresswoman Gifford and for the families of those murdered.
What I find equally abhorrent is the mainstream media’s attempt to place blame for this shooting on Sarah Palin. The rhetoric they are crying to stop is being fueled by their inadulterated liberal bias. So far, NBC, ABC and CBS are pointing fingers and asking for the rhetoric to stop, yet they continue to fuel the same rhetoric with their socialistic and anti-American bias in their reporting and the way they form their questions in interviews does no less than divide the nation. At one time, news outlets were exempt from ratings and they actually reported unbiased news with equal exposure from all sides on issues. Once William Paley, the CBS head, required the news department to compete for ratings the same as the entertainment divisions, the quality of reporting has spiraled downward. No longer is there any sense of journalism because every personality has an agenda, generally liberal in bent.
Grow up media personalities. The Tucson shooting is the act of a deranged individual. The Democrats have used crosshair icons for years as icons to indicate political districts that are “targeted” for defeat. So quit blaming Sarah Palin for using the same icon in democratic districts that are targeted for challenge. Violence doesn’t solve anything. If the majority of the voters in this country don’t like the direction the current ruling party is taking this nation, it shows up in the ballot box. Last November the people spoke: They don’t like what is happening in this country. Those who caused the problems were removed from office. If the new Congress doesn’t act to correct the issues the people don’t want, they too, will be removed from office.
The Constitution of the United States puts the power of government in the hands of the people, not the media, not the elite, THE PEOPLE. The people have exercised their voices and will continue to exercise their collective voice. GET OVER IT!
As I sit in my easy chair looking at 10 inches of snow, I think that the 2010 Fire Season is over! I was fortunate to have a good year with 67 days of activation. I started out in Alaska on the Gilles Creek Fire in May. I returned home in June and went for six weeks with nothing happening. Early in August I was called to the Bull Fire near Jackson, Wyoming, but that only lasted one day. A week later I went to Selma, Oregon for the Oak Flat Fire and that one was good for nearly a month. In mid-September, after a week off, I was deployed to Elsinore, Utah for the Twitchell Canyon Fire.
There were a lot of challenges this year that led to some great experience and training. One of the greatest things about working Public Information on wildfires is the incredible people that I’m so lucky to work with. Team dynamics can be a challenging issue with some Incident Management Teams, but this year I was blessed by getting to work with two of the greatest teams in the Northwest.
At Twitchell, I met a research scientist who was working in Ground Support. He took the time to educate me on fire history in the forest for the last almost 1000 years. His wedges and research papers were fascinating! Through the history of the forest, fire has gone through every 15 to 18 years. Those were all low intensity fires that kept the forest floor clean and allowed the mature trees to flourish. The growth rings on the trees indicated that 100 years ago, fire stopped going through the forest. That was when the USFS was started and for 100 years fire policy was to extinguish fires in less than 24 hours.
With 100 years of undergrowth, fire intensity now reaches high severity, which will wipe out everything in its path. Now we’re seeing an attitude change in fire policy that allows for resource management during wildfires. Evaluating the costs of prescribed fire, and the cost of allowing a lightning-caused fire to burn shows that prescribed fire can cost up to $2000 per acre. The cost of allowing the Twitchell to burn and keeping it herded in appropriate areas, the cost was only $281 per acre! A great savings! The resource benefit is amazing because it will allow the aspens to regenerate in areas where brush and juniper and subalpine fir once dominated. We watched the fire front die way down in aspen sands, which tended to act as a natural firebreak. By the time I left the fire area, grass and aspen sprouts were about a foot high. The elk habitat will allow great herd propagation over the next five years.
All-in-all, this was a fabulous season and I appreciate getting to participate.
The season started out in May with an assignment to Delta Junction, Alaska. I was mobilized with the ORCA Incident Management Team from Southern Oregon. We originally deployed on May 27 to be staged at Fairbanks and were assigned enroute to the Gilles Creek Fire at Delta Junction.
Fire quickly moves through a stand of Black Spruce
The team arrived in Fairbanks in 85˚ heat and 13% humidity, making fire conditions extreme. We in-briefed with Alaska Forestry Administrators then picked up rental cars and headed out for Delta Junction, 100 miles to the southeast. Alaska was alive with fires during our time there, being listed as number one priority in the United States for most of the first half of June. There were more than 30 fires being manned during our tenure in Alaska.
Arriving in Delta Junction on a Saturday evening, we began setting up an Incident Command Post (ICP) at the Delta Elementary School. This is a huge undertaking and the Logistics Section is to be commended for the HARD work they accomplished in getting office space organized, providing meals for 600+ people, setting up showers and providing camping space for all to set up tents. They faced many challenges and overcame them all.
Our first five or six days were warm and pleasant. We did have to acclimate to the sun not setting and getting dark at night. The sun would get about treetop level then circle around the north horizon and start rising in the east. I could have read a book inside my tent all night without a flashlight!
Then the rain started! Over the next 11 days, we got four inches of rain in the ICP, and about the same over the fire. About that same time four more fires were added to our management team, making up the Delta Complex. The firefighters got containment lines around the fire and we turned the fire back to the local unit on June 14.
I had no assignments for the next six weeks, then on August 2, I was called up to be the Public Information Officer for the Bull Fire in Wyoming. I arrived at the base camp about 3:00 P.M. Monday afternoon and started to set up shop. About 4:00 A.M. Tuesday morning a thunderstorm dropped about a half inch of rain over the camp and fire (and lots of lightning). The Incident Commander shut down the operation and I checked out and drove back home on Wednesday.
Wind washing the tree branches
Rolling over rocks and rills
Ever present, never seeing
Will the line hold?
Driving flames quickly over hills
The smell of burning pine
Smoke blocking the sun
Never slowing, never ceasing
Hot enough to melt everything in its path
Trees explode like gunpowder
Grass combusts an acre at a time
Shovels digging, Pulaski’s scratching
Chainsaws screaming
And they expect us to stop this thing
This thing called Wildfire.
Forty boots plodding, dirt and dust flying
Yellow shirts strung out on the trail
Helicopters beating the air overhead
Watching snags that make the dead
Radio chatter fills the air
Directing crews and tankers along the flanks
Chugging toward the fire’s head
Cut the head off the animal
Cool the flame with water
Build a fire line and burn it out
Protect the assets in its path
Herd it around a mountain
The mighty firefighters tame the beast
This thing called Wildfire.
By Ken Malgren
© 2010
THIS MAY SURPRISE YOU
snopes.com
For the past few years www.snopes.com has positioned itself, or others have labeled it as the ‘tell-all, final word’ on any comment, claim and e-mail..
But for several years people tried to find out who exactly was behind snopes.com . Only recently did Wikipedia get to the bottom of it – kind of makes you wonder what they were hiding. Well, finally we know. It is run by a husband and wife team – that’s right, no big office of investigators and researchers, no team of lawyers.. It’s just a mom-and-pop operation that began as a hobby.
David and Barbara Mikkelson in the San Fernando Valley of California started the web site about 13 years ago – and they have no formal background or experience in investigative research. After a few years it gained popularity believing it to be unbiased and neutral, but over
the past couple of years people started asking questions who was behind it and did they have a selfish motivation? The reason for the questions – or
skepticisms – is a result of snopes.com claiming to have the bottom line facts to certain questions or issues, when in fact, they have been proven
wrong. Also, there were criticisms the Mikkelsons were not really investigating and getting to the ‘true’ bottom of various issues.
When I saw that Snopes had falsely claimed that Obama’s Birth Certificate had been properly validated, I realized something was
wrong with either their research and/or their credibility. It seems something is seriously wrong with both.
Then a few months ago, when my State Farm agent Bud Gregg in Mandeville hoisted a political sign referencing Barack Obama and made a big
splash across the Internet. Supposedly the Mikkelsons claim to have researched this issue before posting their findings on snopes.com. In their
statement they claimed the corporate office of State Farm pressured Gregg into taking down the sign, when in fact nothing of the sort ever took place.
I personally contacted David Mikkelson (and he replied back to me) thinking he would want to get to the bottom of this, and I gave him Bud Gregg’s contact phone numbers. Bud was going to give him phone numbers to the big exec’s at State Farm in Illinois who would have been willing to
speak with him about it.. He never called Bud. In fact, I learned from Bud Gregg no one from snopes.com ever contacted anyone with State Farm
as the ‘final factual word’ on the issue as if they did all their homework and got to the bottom of things. Not!
Then it has been learned the Mikkelsons are very Democrat and extremely liberal. As we all now know from this presidential election, liberals have a purpose agenda to discredit anything that appears to be conservative. There has been much criticism lately over the Internet with people pointing out the Mikkelsons liberalism revealing itself in their web site findings.
Gee, what a shock!
So, I say this now to everyone who goes to www.snopes..com to get what they think to be the bottom line facts: Proceed with caution. Take what it says at face value and nothing more. Use it only to lead you to their references where you can link to and read the sources for yourself.
Plus, you can always Google a subject and do the research yourself. It now seems apparent that’s all the Mikkelsons do. After all, I can personally vouch from my own experience for their ‘not’ fully looking into things.
Use www.truthorfiction.com and there are other much better sources.
I didn’t compose this but the material is worth reading and understanding.
Juval Aviv was the Israeli Agent upon whom the movie ‘ Munich ‘ was based. He was Golda Meir’s bodyguard – she appointed him to track down and bring to justice the Palestinian terrorists who took the Israeli athletes hostage and killed them during the Munich Olympic Games.
In a lecture in New York City a few weeks ago, he shared information that every American needs to know — but that our government has not yet shared with us. He predicted the London subway bombing on the Bill O’Reilly show, on Fox News, stating publicly that it would happen within a week. At the time, O’Reilly laughed and mocked him saying that in a week he wanted him back on the show. But, unfortunately, within a week the terrorist attack had occurred.
Juval Aviv gave intelligence (via what he had gathered in Israel and the Middle East) to the Bush Administration about 9/11 a month before it occurred. His report specifically said they would use planes as bombs and target high profile buildings and monuments. Congress has since hired him as a security consultant.
Now for his future predictions. He predicts the next terrorist attack on the U.S. Will occur within the next few months. Forget hijacking airplanes, because he says terrorists will never try and hijack a plane again as they know the people onboard will never go down quietly again. Aviv believes our airport security is a joke — that we have been reactionary rather than proactive in developing strategies that are truly effective. For example:
1) Our airport technology is outdated. We look for metal, and the new explosives are made of plastic.
2) He talked about how some idiot tried to light his shoe on fire. Because of that, now everyone has to take off his or her shoes. A group of idiots tried to bring aboard liquid explosives. Now we can’t bring liquids on board. He says he’s waiting for some suicidal maniac to pour liquid explosive on his underwear; at which point, security will have us all traveling naked! Every strategy we have is reactionary.
3) We only focus on security when people are heading to the gates. Aviv says that if a terrorist attack targets airports in the future, they will target busy times on the front end of the airport when/where people are checking in. It would be easy for someone to take two suitcases of explosives, walk up to a busy check-in line, ask a person next to them to watch their bags for a minute while they run to the restroom or get a drink and then detonate the bags before security even gets involved. In Israel, security checks bags BEFORE people can even enter the airport.
Aviv says the next terrorist attack here in America is imminent and will involve suicide bombers and non-suicide bombers in places where large groups of people congregate…
(i.e. Disneyland, Las Vegas casinos, big cities like New York, San Francisco, Chicago, etc.) and that it will also include shopping malls, subways in rush hour, train stations, etc., as well as rural America this time.
The attack will be characterized by simultaneous detonations around the country (terrorists like big impact), involving at least 5-8 cities, including rural areas. Aviv says terrorists won’t need to use suicide bombers in many of the larger cities, because at places like the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, they can simply valet park a car loaded with explosives and walk away.
Aviv says all of the above is well known in intelligence circles, but that our U. S. Government does not want to ‘alarm American citizens’ with the facts. The world is quickly going to become ‘a different place’, and issues like ‘global warming’ and political correctness will become totally irrelevant.
On an encouraging note, he says that Americans don’t have to be concerned about being nuked. Aviv says the terrorists who want to destroy America will not use sophisticated weapons. They like to use suicide as a front-line approach. It’s cheap, it’s easy, it’s effective, and they have an infinite abundance of young militants more than willing to ‘meet their destiny’.
He also says the next level of terrorists, over which America should be most concerned, will not be coming from abroad. But will be, instead, ‘homegrown’ – having attended and been educated in our own schools and universities right here in the U. S. He says to look for ‘students’ who frequently travel back and forth to the Middle East. These young terrorists will be most dangerous because they will know our language and will fully understand the habits of Americans; but that we Americans won’t know/understand a thing about them.
Aviv says that, as a people, Americans are unaware and uneducated about the terrorist threats we will, inevitably, face. America still has only had a handful of Arabic and Farsi speaking people in our intelligence networks and Aviv says it is critical that we change that fact soon.
So, what can America do to protect itself? From an intelligence perspective, Aviv says the U.S. needs to stop relying on satellites and technology for intelligence. We need to, instead, follow Israel, Ireland ‘s and England ‘s hands-on examples of human intelligence, both from an infiltration perspective as well as to trust ‘aware’ citizens to help. We need to engage and educate ourselves as citizens; however, our U. S. government continues to treat us, its citizens, ‘like babies’. Our government thinks we ‘can’t handle the truth’ and are concerned that we’ll panic if we understand the realities of terrorism. Aviv says this is a deadly mistake.
Aviv recently created/executed a security test for our Congress, by placing an empty briefcase in five well-traveled spots in five major cities. The results? Not one person called 911 or sought a policeman to check it out…in fact, in Chicago; someone tried to steal the briefcase!
In comparison, Aviv says that citizens of Israel are so well ‘trained’ that an unattended bag or package would be reported in seconds by citizen(s) who know to publicly shout, ‘Unattended Bag!’ The citizens themselves would quickly & calmly clear the area. But, unfortunately, America hasn’t been yet ‘hurt enough’ by terrorism for their government to fully understand the need to educate its citizens or for the government to understand that it’s their citizens who are, inevitably, the best first-line of defense against terrorism.
Aviv also was concerned about the high number of children here in America who were in preschool and kindergarten after 9/11, who were ‘lost’ without parents being able to pick them up, and about our schools that had no plan in place to best care for the students until parents could get there. (In New York City, this was days, in some cases!)
He stresses the importance of having a plan, that’s agreed upon within your family, to respond to in the event of a terrorist emergency. He urges parents to contact their children’s schools and demand that the schools, too, develop plans of actions, as they do in Israel.
Does your family know what to do if you can’t contact one another by phone? Where would you gather in an emergency? He says we should all have a plan that is easy enough for even our youngest children to remember and follow.
Aviv says that the U. S. government has in force a plan that, in the event of another terrorist attack, will immediately cut-off the ability to use cell phones, blackberries, etc., as this is the preferred communication source used by terrorists and is often the way that their bombs are detonated. How will you communicate with your loved ones in the event you cannot speak? You need to have a plan.
If you believe what you have just read, then you must feel compelled to send to every concerned parent or guardian, grandparents, uncles, aunts, whatever and whomever. Nothing will happen if you choose not to do so, but in the event it does happen, this particular email may haunt you.
The Boise State Broncos defeated the Texas Christian University Horned Frogs to claim the title at the 2010 Fiesta Bowl in Glendale, Arizona on January 4, 2010.Number 6 ranked BSU executed both good offense and good defense against the number one ranked defense in college football, number 4 ranked TCU. Boise State executed a complex punt-fake play from their 33 yard line that resulted in the go-ahead touchdown four plays later. The Broncos are often accused of using “Trick Plays” to win games. I submit that any play that is within the rules of NCAA football is not a trick. They practice complex plays on a daily basis, which other teams don’t and that’s why they work.
The Broncos finished a perfect 14-0 season and will likely improve their ranking to number 2, 3 or 4 nationally depending on the outcome of the National Championship game between Alabama and Texas.
Next year’s preseason rankings will certainly place the Broncos in the top 10 and maybe even the top 5 teams in the nation. What a day it will be if Boise State can crack the BCS system by ending up in the National Champion Ship Game in 2011.
Andrew Bolt
Al Gore’s claim last week that the Climategate emails were insignificant relied on two main defences. Both are so flagrantly wrong that it’s not enough to say Gore is simply mistaken.
No, Al Gore is a liar.
Last week we showed that the first of his Climategate defences was so preposterously wrong that it was doubtful he had even read the leaked emails he tried to dismiss. You see, five times in two interviews he dismissed the emails as dated documents that were at least 10 years old:
I haven’t read all the e-mails, but the most recent one is more than 10 years old.
In fact, most of the controversial emails, as I showed, were from just the past two years - and the most recent from just last month – November 12, to be precise.
So Gore was so wrong on the first count that it was difficult to think of any way an honest man could have made such a mistake. Five times.
But now Steve McIntyre has exploded the second argument Gore made. And now all doubt in my mind is gone. Gore must have simply lied.
Gore’s second argument was that these emails which seemingly showed Climategate scientists trying to silence or sack sceptical scientists were taken out of context, since the two sceptical papers they referred to were in fact published, after all.
Here is the relevant passage in his interview with Slate:
Q: There is a sense in these e-mails, though, that data was hidden and hoarded, which is the opposite of the case you make [in your book] about having an open and fair debate.
A: I think it’s been taken wildly out of context. The discussion you’re referring to was about two papers that two of these scientists felt shouldn’t be accepted as part of the IPCC report. Both of them, in fact, were included, referenced, and discussed. So an e-mail exchange more than 10 years ago including somebody’s opinion that a particular study isn’t any good is one thing, but the fact that the study ended up being included and discussed anyway is a more powerful comment on what the result of the scientific process really is.
That is actually false.
But before I go to McIntyre’s evidence on this, first note Gore’s rhetorical trick – or deceit.
His trick is to ignore the mountain of emails that clearly suggest a collusion against sceptics, and the hiding of data, and to suggest instead that the allegations boil down to just a single email about a single instance of two Climategate scientists allegedly blocking two papers.
Here are just some of the Climategate emails that Gore ignored, which all seem evidence of the very collusion to hide data or censor sceptics that he denies. They include ones like this (from 2005):
At 09:41 AM 2/2/2005, Phil Jones wrote:
Mike, I presume congratulations are in order – so congrats etc !
Just sent loads of station data to Scott. Make sure he documents everything better this time ! And don’t leave stuff lying around on ftp sites – you never know who is trawling them. The two MMs have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone
And this (from last year):
From: Phil Jones
To: santer1@XXXX
Subject: Re: A quick question
Date: Wed Dec 10 10:14:10 2008
Ben,
Haven’t got a reply from the FOI person here at UEA. So I’m not entirely confident the numbers are correct. One way of checking would be to look on CA, but I’m not doing that. I did get an email from the FOI person here early yesterday to tell me I shouldn’t be deleting emails – unless this was ‘normal’ deleting to keep emails manageable! McIntyre hasn’t paid his £10, so nothing looks likely to happen re his Data Protection Act email.
Anyway requests have been of three types – observational data, paleo data and who made IPCC changes and why. Keith has got all the latter – and there have been at least 4. We made Susan aware of these – all came from David Holland. According to the FOI Commissioner’s Office, IPCC is an international organization, so is above any national FOI. Even if UEA holds anything about IPCC, we are not obliged to pass it on, unless it has anything to do with our core business – and it doesn’t! I’m sounding like Sir Humphrey here!
And this (from last year):
From: Phil Jones
To: “Michael E. Mann”
Subject: IPCC & FOI
Date: Thu May 29 11:04:11 2008Mike,
Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4?
Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment – minor family crisis.
Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address.
We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.
And this (from Tom Wigley in 2003, as the Climategate cabal organised the ousting of a sceptic-friendly editor of Climate Scientist):
PS Re CR, I do not know the best way to handle the specifics of the editoring. Hans von Storch is partly to blame—he encourages the publication of crap science ‘in order to stimulate debate’. One approach is to go direct to the publishers and point out the fact that their journal is perceived as being a medium for disseminating misinformation under the guise of refereed work. I use the word ‘perceived’ here, since whether it is true or not is not what the publishers care about—it is how the journal is seen by the community that counts.I think we could get a large group of highly credentialed scientists to sign such a letter—50+ people.Note that I am copying this view only to Mike Hulme and Phil Jones. Mike’s idea to get editorial board members to resign will probably not work—must get rid of von Storch too, otherwise holes will eventually fill up with people like Legates, Balling, Lindzen, Michaels, Singer, etc. I have heard that the publishers are not happy with von Storch, so the above approach might remove that hurdle too.
Note that not one of these emails is, as Gore claimed, “more than 10 years old”. The oldest is from 2003 , and the most recent is from just last December.
But let’s go now to the one email Gore does specifically defend as “out of context”. It is this one, which again is not 10 years old but was sent in 2005 by Climategate scientist Phil Jones, head of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit:
The other paper by MM is just garbage – as you knew. De Freitas again. Pielke is also losing all credibility as well by replying to the mad Finn as well – frequently as I see it. I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. K and I will keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is !
(“K” is Kevin Trenberth, a fellow IPCC author.)
Now to Steve McIntyre (go here for his full explanation):
The [warmist] “community“‘s response to this has been: move along, there’s nothing to see. A typical defence is that of Ronald Prinn of MIT … : that improper peer review activities by CRU and their associates didn’t “matter” because McIntyre and McKitrick were discussed by IPCC after all:
“Five papers by McIntyre and McKitrick were published and then referenced and discussed in the IPCC.”
[This is Gore’s argument, too: “the study (sic) ended up being included and discussed anyway”.]
McIntyre resumes:
I’m going to place the money quote in context, showing that Jones and Trenberth did in fact live up to their threats, breaching other IPCC rules along the way.
First of all, contrary to the statement by Prinn (and others), the paper being threatened was not a McIntyre and McKitrick paper; it was Michaels and McKitrick (Climate Research 2004)… The Michaels and McKitrick paper was originally submitted to International Journal of Climatology in May 2004 and was then assigned to Andrew Comrie of the University of Arizona. Comrie sought a review from the omnipresent Phil Jones (and apparently two others). The submission was rejected…Contrary to the spin of Prinn and others, it is a matter of fact that Trenberth and Jones kept Michaels and McKitrick (2004) out of the AR4 First Draft. (I searched and confirmed this.) As an IPCC peer reviewer, McKitrick and another reviewer (Vincent Grey) vigorously objected to the exclusion.
Trenberth and Jones flatly rejected their comments. The following is one example. Consult the AR4 First Order Draft Review Comments for others.
References are plentiful. Those of value are cited Rejected. The locations of socioeconomic development happen to have coincided with maximum warming, not for the reason given by McKitrick and Michaels (2004) but because of the strengthening of the Arctic Oscillation and the greater sensitivity of land than ocean to greenhouse forcing owing to the smaller thermal capacity of land.
Ross tells me that there was no peer reviewed literature at the time (or to this day) specifically supporting the Trenberth and Jones attribution of the effect to the “strengthening of the Arctic Oscillation”.
In the Second Order Draft, Trenberth and Jones were once again successful in keeping Michaels and McKitrick (2004) out of the IPCC Draft. Once again, as IPCC peer reviewers, McKitrick and Grey objected and once again, the Trenberth and Jones Author Responses were dismissive…
However, there was a complication for Jones and Trenberth, who had thus far been successful in carrying out their threat. This time, there was a second article (de Laat and Maurelis. IJC 2006) making very similar arguments to Michaels and McKitrick…
This time, Trenberth and Jones grudgingly agreed to mention the two articles in the IPCC report. However, they accompanied the mention with an extremely dismissive characterization – a characterization which (1) was made without any citation to peer reviewed literature and (2) that had not itself been submitted to external IPCC peer reviewers; and (3) to which Michaels and McKitrick had no previous opportunity to reply…
McKitrick and Michaels (2004) and De Laat and Maurellis (2006) attempted to demonstrate that geographical patterns of warming trends over land are strongly correlated with geographical patterns of industrial and socioeconomic development, implying that urbanisation and related land surface changes have caused much of the observed warming. However, the locations of greatest socioeconomic development are also those that have been most warmed by atmospheric circulation changes (Sections 3.2.2.7 and 3.6.4), which exhibit large-scale coherence. Hence, the correlation of warming with industrial and socioeconomic development ceases to be statistically significant. In addition, observed warming has been, and transient greenhouse-induced warming is expected to be, greater over land than over the oceans (Chapter 10), owing to the smaller thermal capacity of the land.
Despite the IPCC (Jones and Trenberth) claim that the results “cease to be statistically significant”, Ross tells me that this is not the case and that there is no peer reviewed literature supporting this claim…
Jones and Trenberth clearly lived up to the threat to keep Michaels and McKitrick 2004 out of the IPCC AR4 First and Second Drafts, and when that effort foundered somewhat with the addition of de Laat and Maurelis 2006, they inserted a dismissive editorial comment that was not supported by any reference to peer reviewed literature and which had not been itself subjected to the formal IPCC process.
While there are other cases of comments being added in the Final Draft to deal with review comments to the Second Draft, there was no reason for the distortion of the IPCC procedure in this particular case, other than the prior deliberate effort to keep the Michaels and McKitrick article out of the IPCC report.
So Gore’s defence of the Climategate emails is wrong in almost every detail, and spectacularly so. The emails are not at least 10 years old, the evidence of collusion to hide data is not limited to just two sceptics’ papers, and the papers were indeed kept out of two drafts, and then criticised in the report without any peer-reviewed literature to support those attacks.
Gore lied. And he lied because Climategate is a scandal so big that he had to.
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