Twenty Two Climate Truths & One Rant (Updated)

From WUWT, a particularly good summary of the gaping holes in Anthropogenic Global Warming theory (hereinafter, "AGW"):

The 22 Inconvenient Truths

1. The Mean Global Temperature has been stable since 1997, despite a continuous increase of the CO2 content of the air: how could one say that the increase of the CO2 content of the air is the cause of the increase of the temperature? (discussion: p. 4)

2. 57% of the cumulative anthropic emissions since the beginning of the Industrial revolution have been emitted since 1997, but the temperature has been stable. How to uphold that anthropic CO2 emissions (or anthropic cumulative emissions) cause an increase of the Mean Global Temperature?

[Note 1: since 1880 the only one period where Global Mean Temperature and CO2 content of the air increased simultaneously has been 1978-1997. From 1910 to 1940, the Global Mean Temperature increased at about the same rate as over 1978-1997, while CO2 anthropic emissions were almost negligible. Over 1950-1978 while CO2 anthropic emissions increased rapidly the Global Mean Temperature dropped. From Vostok and other ice cores we know that it’s the increase of the temperature that drives the subsequent increase of the CO2 content of the air, thanks to ocean out-gassing, and not the opposite. The same process is still at work nowadays] (discussion: p. 7)

3. The amount of CO2 of the air from anthropic emissions is today no more than 6% of the total CO2 in the air (as shown by the isotopic ratios 13C/12C) instead of the 25% to 30% said by IPCC. (discussion: p. 9)

4. The lifetime of CO2 molecules in the atmosphere is about 5 years instead of the 100 years said by IPCC. (discussion: p. 10)

5. The changes of the Mean Global Temperature are more or less sinusoidal with a well defined 60 year period. We are at a maximum of the sinusoid(s) and hence the next years should be cooler as has been observed after 1950. (discussion: p. 12)

6. The absorption of the radiation from the surface by the CO2 of the air is nearly saturated. Measuring with a spectrometer what is left from the radiation of a broadband infrared source (say a black body heated at 1000°C) after crossing the equivalent of some tens or hundreds of meters of the air, shows that the main CO2 bands (4.3 µm and 15 µm) have been replaced by the emission spectrum of the CO2 which is radiated at the temperature of the trace-gas. (discussion: p. 14)

7. In some geological periods the CO2 content of the air has been up to 20 times today’s content, and there has been no runaway temperature increase! Why would our CO2 emissions have a cataclysmic impact? The laws of Nature are the same whatever the place and the time. (discussion: p. 17)

8. The sea level is increasing by about 1.3 mm/year according to the data of the tide-gauges (after correction of the emergence or subsidence of the rock to which the tide gauge is attached, nowadays precisely known thanks to high precision GPS instrumentation); no acceleration has been observed during the last decades; the raw measurements at Brest since 1846 and at Marseille since the 1880s are slightly less than 1.3 mm/year. (discussion: p. 18)

9. The “hot spot” in the inter-tropical high troposphere is, according to all “models” and to the IPCC reports, the indubitable proof of the water vapour feedback amplification of the warming: it has not been observed and does not exist. (discussion: p. 20)

10. The water vapour content of the air has been roughly constant since more than 50 years but the humidity of the upper layers of the troposphere has been decreasing: the IPCC foretold the opposite to assert its “positive water vapour feedback” with increasing CO2. The observed “feedback” is negative. (discussion: p.22)

11. The maximum surface of the Antarctic ice-pack has been increasing every year since we have satellite observations. (discussion: p. 24)

12. The sum of the surfaces of the Arctic and Antarctic icepacks is about constant, their trends are phase-opposite; hence their total albedo is about constant. (discussion: p. 25)

13. The measurements from the 3000 oceanic ARGO buoys since 2003 may suggest a slight decrease of the oceanic heat content between the surface and a depth 700 m with very significant regional differences. (discussion: p. 27)

14. The observed outgoing longwave emission (or thermal infrared) of the globe is increasing, contrary to what models say on a would-be “radiative imbalance”; the “blanket” effect of CO2 or CH4 “greenhouse gases” is not seen. (discussion:p. 29)

15. The Stefan Boltzmann formula does not apply to gases, as they are neither black bodies, nor grey bodies: why does the IPCC community use it for gases ? (discussion: p. 30)

16. The trace gases absorb the radiation of the surface and radiate at the temperature of the air which is, at some height, most of the time slightly lower that of the surface. The trace-gases cannot “heat the surface“, according to the second principle of thermodynamics which prohibits heat transfer from a cooler body to a warmer body. (discussion: p. 32)

17. The temperatures have always driven the CO2 content of the air, never the reverse. Nowadays the net increment of the CO2 content of the air follows very closely the inter-tropical temperature anomaly. (discussion: p. 33)

18. The CLOUD project at the European Center for Nuclear Research is probing the Svensmark-Shaviv hypothesis on the role of cosmic rays modulated by the solar magnetic field on the low cloud coverage; the first and encouraging results have been published in Nature. (discussion: p. 36)

19. Numerical “Climate models” are not consistent regarding cloud coverage which is the main driver of the surface temperatures. Project Earthshine (Earthshine is the ghostly glow of the dark side of the Moon) has been measuring changes of the terrestrial albedo in relation to cloud coverage data; according to cloud coverage data available since 1983, the albedo of the Earth has decreased from 1984 to 1998, then increased up to 2004 in sync with the Mean Global Temperature. (discussion: p. 37)

20. The forecasts of the “climate models” are diverging more and more from the observations. A model is not a scientific proof of a fact and if proven false by observations (or falsified) it must be discarded, or audited and corrected. We are still waiting for the IPCC models to be discarded or revised; but alas IPCC uses the models financed by the taxpayers both to “prove” attributions to greenhouse gas and to support forecasts of doom. (discussion: p. 40)

21. As said by IPCC in its TAR (2001) “we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.” Has this state of affairs changed since 2001? Surely not for scientific reasons. (discussion: p. 43)

22. Last but not least the IPCC is neither a scientific organization nor an independent organization: the summary for policy makers, the only part of the report read by international organizations, politicians and media is written under the very close supervision of the representative of the countries and of the non-governmental pressure groups.

The governing body of the IPCC is made of a minority of scientists almost all of them promoters of the environmentalist ideology, and a majority of state representatives and of non-governmental green organizations. (discussion: p. 46)

Do read the entire post along with the explanatory appendix. This is as good a summary as I've seen in some time. The first two facts noted by the author are really the meat of it all. The foundational theory of AGW is that, as more CO2 is pumped into our atmosphere, temperatures will rise proportionately. There is no support for this theory in the historical record predating modern temperature records, nor does the theory find any empirical support in the modern records, given that we have been pumping large amounts of CO2 into the air since 1997 with NO corresponding rise in temperature.

I am always amazed when the left, most of whom seem to embrace the AGW theory, accuse the right of being "anti-science" or "science deniers." It stands reality on its head. In a sane world, the gaping holes in AGW theory would lead scientists to discard the theory and start anew. The reality is that, as more facts show the fatal flaws with AGW theory, the left just becomes more strident in trying to shut down debate and in their claims that "the science is settled."

The truth is that there is much more than science at stake for the AGW crowd. For a very significant number of players, there are hundreds of billions of dollars at play in this scam, whether from carbon credits, renewable energy scams, cushy jobs at foundations, or even outright transfers of wealth from wealthy countries to third world nations (all to be administered by the UN, of course). And there seem to be more than a few watermelons (green on the outside, red on the inside) pushing this AGW canard for whom the thought of saving Gaia comes with an underlying motivation to do away with capitalism and democracy. Then there are the scientists riding the gravy train of grants and recognition who have, in some cases, falsified or presented deeply misleading research, as well as attempted to severely restrict the voices of any who would raise questions about AGW. And lastly, there are the useful idiots at the bottom who unthinkingly embrace AGW and go to bed thinking themselves not only morally superior for doing so, but as they are constantly told by AGW cheerleaders, much smarter than those on the right who object to AGW on the basis of unreliable and contrary data.

No area of science is more bastardized than "climate science." I have no problems following science experiments wherever they might lead, so long as the scientific method is practiced. But all too often in climate science, there is a complete failure in this regards. It is criminal the number of climate scientists who fail to adhere to the scientific method, trying to claim peer review as the gold standard of reliability rather than a complete posting of their experiment in such detail as to allow for reproduction and verification by other scientists. Even as I write this, the EPA is preparing to issue regulations that will cost our economy tens of billions of dollars, and which regulations are based on "secret science" that has never been made public so as to subject it to reproduction or verification. It is a mockery to call it "science." It is faith being sold as science.

Yet another significant concern I have is with the numerous unexplained changes to the historical record of our temperature data, something that Jim Hansen, then at NASA, started doing in the late 90's and which continues to this day. As it stands, I have no faith whatsoever in the historical temperature record relied upon by the UN IPCC. Though, it should be noted, those records only begin about the 1880's, with the first relatively reliable efforts to collect data from thermometers.

This is not an academic debate about AGW. People's lives across the world are being effected by this scam. Hundreds of billions of dollars that could be used productively are being wasted in this fraud. Economies are being strangled by regulations designed to drive out a trace gas necessary for life on this planet. It is a travesty and, indeed, criminal. A very large number of people need to be jailed over this fraud.

Update: A perfect illustration of why such green energy scams are unforgivable in their impacts on people's lives comes from Germany:

According to EU data, Germany’s average residential electricity rate is 29.8 cents per kilowatt hour. This is approximately double the 14.2 cents and 15.9 cents per kWh paid by residents of Germany’s neighbors Poland and France, respectively, and almost two and a half times the U.S. average of 12 cents per kWh. Germany’s industrial electricity rate of 16 cents per kWh is also much higher than France’s 9.6 cents or Poland’s 8.3 cents. The average German per capita electricity consumption is 0.8 kilowatts. At a composite rate of 24 cents per kWh, this works out to a yearly bill of $1,700 per person, experienced either directly in utility bills or indirectly through increased costs of goods and services. The median household income in Germany is $33,000, so if we assume an average of two people per household, the electricity cost would amount to more than 10 percent of available income. And that is for the median-income household. The amount of electricity that people need does not scale in proportion to their paychecks. For the rich, $1,700 per year in electric bills might be a pittance, or at most a nuisance. But for the poor who are just scraping by, such a burden is simply brutal.

HT: Instapundit

While here at home, we are but a half step behind Germany:

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is preparing to finalize its Clean Power Plan, which aims to reduce power plant carbon dioxide emissions by 30% from 2005 levels over the next 15 years. Looking at some of the best-case scenarios for CO2 reductions, the plan could potentially cut roughly 300 million tons of CO2 annually. Because global man-made CO2 emissions reach roughly 30 billion tons annually, it’s estimated that the EPA plan could result in a possible 1% reduction in annual man-made CO2. Overall, man-made CO2 accounts for only 4% of total atmospheric CO2. So the true atmospheric reduction in CO2 from the EPA plan would be approximately 0.04%. The cost for this plan is estimated at $50 billion annually, with the loss of roughly 15,000 U.S. jobs each year. Increases in household utility bills could reach $100 billion annually.

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Un-Reason-able Science

Reason magazine has published the first anti-Republican science based hit piece of the 2016 campaign season, taking the Republicans to task for being "anti-science." Let's take a look at the seven areas Reason examines and their criteria for grading Republicans in those areas.

Three of the areas Reason uses and their criteria for grading are unobjectionable: whether a candidate has shown support for storage of nuclear waste at Yucca mountain, whether he has shown support for vaccinations, and whether he has shown support for GMO crops. I take no issue with looking at those areas or the criteria Reason applies.

The next four issues are problematic indeed.

1. Did the Republican support either quarantine for people, especially medical practitioners, returning from Ebola stricken countries or a temporary ban on travel with those countries. If so, than Reasons gives a failing grade.

Reasons Explanation: [An article predicted that there would only be a small outbreak of Ebola in the U.S., and that is what happened. Regardless,] panicked politicians began ordering quarantines of U.S. health care workers who returned from treating Ebola cases in West Africa. Some pols demanded a ban on commercial air travel from the region. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention opposed such a travel ban, cogently arguing that it would be counterproductive to efforts to stamp out the epidemic.

Comment: Nothing has been more devastating to humanity than epidemics. The most recent major pandemic, the Spanish Flu of 1918, took the lives of upwards of an estimated one hundred million people. Ebola, for which there is no cure, has in some strains a mortality rate several times that of the Spanish Flu and double that of the Black Plague that carried off half the population of Europe in the 14th century. Ebola was and still is raging out of control in several African nations, according to a Feb. 11, 2015 WHO Report. According to a December, 2014 NBC Report, healthcare workers in the country seeing the greatest outbreak of Ebola are at a 100% increased risk of contacting the disease as compared to the general population. Ebola has on average a 21 day gestation period and tests are negative until several days after a person becomes symptomatic and contagious. And, despite initial claims that Ebola could not be transmitted through the air, those claims subsequently were proven false.

Those are the science facts. Whether to quarantine under those conditions and the efficacy of restricting travel were and are political questions. Reason is conflating political decisions of the left with science.

2. Does the Republican contest climate change? If so, than Reasons gives a failing grade.

Reason's Explanation: "On the issue of climate change, all temperature data sets agree that the last decade has been the warmest one in the instrumental temperature record. All the records agree that the planet has warmed since 1979 at a rate of somewhere between +0.16 and +0.13 degrees Celsius per decade. Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) reports temperature trends derived from satellite measurements and concludes that "climate models cannot explain this warming if human-caused increases in greenhouse gases are not included as input to the model simulation."

Comment: According to the temperature records, and indeed, according to the single best record that we have, satellite data, our planet has not experienced any statistically significant warming in the past 18 years. Given that the theory of man made global warming is predicated on the simple belief, written into computer models, that our temperatures will go up in direct proportion to the amount of carbon dioxide we pump into the air, and given that there has been a lot of carbon dioxide released in the past eighteen years, that ought to lead everyone to at least question the validity of the theory of global warming.

There is little about the global warming theory that should give one any confidence, including the repeated tampering with the land based temperature records. The "instrumental temperature record" only exists since 1880. Whether our planet is warming in an unusual fashion requires observations going back several millennia before 1880. And indeed, by all accounts, the Medieval Warm Period was warmer planet wide than our current warming -- and that was clearly not due to increases in carbon dioxide output by man. Nor is the fact that we have been warming in any way surprising, since the planet is recovering from a Little Ice Age. And lastly, it is interesting, is it not, that Reason would pick the year 1979, 36 years ago, from which to calculate a ten year average until today for increases in ten year average temperatures. They couldn't possibly be gaming the system by cherry picking a particular year with an unusually low temperature as a start point, could they. What disingenuous people.

Reason has it backwards. To embrace man-made global warming theory at this point is an act of blind faith. It is a rejection of science, which requires the constant reevaluation of assumptions in light of new data.

3. Does the Republican support further restrictions on abortion? If so, than Reasons gives a failing grade.

Reason's Explanation: "Pro-life activist groups like the Family Research Council claim that fetuses feel pain after 20 weeks of gestation. This claim has been used by such anti-abortion proponents as a justification for declaring that states have a "compelling interest" in limiting abortions after that period. The Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, for example, was introduced in Congress most recently in January, 2015; it would impose such a limit nationally. The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists reviewed the scientific evidence and determined that fetal perception of pain is unlikely before the third trimester (24 weeks). Ultimately, the controversy over fetal pain isn't about the scientific debate as much as it's about how people feel about the morality of abortion."

Comment: Reason doesn't even try to hide the ball here. They take the fact that it is groups who are opposed to abortion who have highlighted the science showing fetal pain at and after 20 weeks, then dismissed the findings by concentrating solely on the moral stand of the anti-abortion groups. Leaving aside that the methods used to conduct late term abortions are so horrendous that they could not possibly, in any way, survive an 8th Amendment challenge if used as methods to execute adults, and even accepting that the science suggesting fetal pain is contested, to dismiss the science and claim that anyone who believes that fetal pain is felt after 20 weeks is anti-science, that's just a disingenuous non-sequitur.

4. And then the old leftie favorite, has the Republican embraced creationism? If so, than Reasons gives a failing grade

Reason's Explanation: "Many object that candidates' views about evolution are irrelevant, since they will not be making public policy about it. Nevertheless, how a candidate thinks about evolution provides an indication of their overall level of respect for scientific reasoning and evidence. Or else it shows that they are willing to set aside what they believe to be true in order to pander to voter ignorance and prejudice. That tells you something about a candidate too."

Comment: Is there evidence in any of the 'tested' candidates individual backgrounds to make such an extrapolation valid? This is indeed irrelevant, but since it allows the left to assume an air of intellectual superiority, it is inevitably going to make it into every science based hit piece on Republican candidates from now until . . .

So the seven Republicans tested under Reason's suspect criteria were the potential presidential candidates Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, Chris Christie, and Jeb Bush. How did they fare? According to Reason:

Ted Cruz - 3 Cruz failed their tests on Ebola, climate change, abortion and creationism. Actual score: 6 of 6

Rand Paul - 3 Paul failed their tests on Ebola, vaccinations and abortion. He passed their test on climate change. Actual score: 5 of 6

Marco Rubio - 3 Rubio failed their tests on Ebola, climate change, abortion and creationism. Actual score: 6 of 6

Jeb Bush - 2 Bush failed their tests on Ebola, climate change, Yucca Mtn., abortion and creationism. Actual score: 5 of 6

Scott Walker - 2 Walker failed their tests on Ebola, climate change and abortion. No answer on Yucca or creationism. Actual score: 4 of 4

Chris Christie - 2 Christie failed their tests on Ebola and creationism. He passed on climate change and has not stated a position on the other. Actual score: 2 of 4

So, other than Chris Christie's and Rand Paul's stances on climate change, Republican presidential hopefuls look quite strong in respect to their standing on science . . . actual science, at least, not Reason's unreasonable tests.

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Wolf Bytes - The Please Wear Underwear Edition

Blue Moon Over Cambodia: If you are First Lady of the United States, for the love of God, WEAR UNDERWEAR!!!

This is an atrocity: US Declassifies Document Revealing Israel's Nuclear Program

The solution, barring regime change, is simple: To Stop Iran's Bomb, Bomb Iran

Tell us something we didn't know: We're Losing The War Against Radical Islam

And the solution to that problem is: Islam Needs To Go Through A Reformation

From the Daily Beast, no less: Everything The White House Told You About Bowe Bergdahl Was Wrong

George Will: A new and mind-opening book on economics shows that it’s anything but “the dismal science.”

A rather damning indictment - "NYT's science articles take a pro-fearmongering, anti-technology viewpoint:" The New York Times Should Seriously Consider Not Writing About Science Anymore

Follow the money: ISIS's Backdoor Financing

Lanny Davis says that Hillary's E-Mail Scandal is meaningless because -- "LOOK, SQUIRREL!!!:" The Scandal Machine - Will We Ever Learn

Science Fiction comes closer to reality: Developing A "Cloaking Device" To Shield Against Shock Waves

The faith of our fathers: Franklin, Jefferson and what was deism?

From China: Wrath of Dancing Grandmothers

Fascinating: Two Sentence Horror Stories

& Finally, A True Treat: Itzhak Perlman Plays Klezmer

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Arrogance, AGW, Achenbach & Science

In the debate over climate change, the central allegation of the skeptics is that the science saying it’s real and a serious threat is politically tinged, driven by environmental activism and not hard data. That’s not true, and it slanders honest scientists. But the claim becomes more likely to be seen as plausible if scientists go beyond their professional expertise and begin advocating specific policies.

Joel Achenbach, Why science is so hard to believe. Washington Post, Feb. 12, 2015

Joel Achenbach has written an article in the Post aimed at marginalizing those who question the canard of man-made global warming. This is, in many ways, a left / right issue. The vast numbers of those who fully support AGW are on the left. Alarmingly, they intend to use the supposedly settled science in support of AGW to rework the world's economy and impose a sort of green communism on the world.

Those opposed to this radical plan do not contest "climate change," but fall along an entire spectrum from those who question whether carbon dioxide is the culprit to those who believe that the vastly overblown threat of devestation -- based on failed computer modeling -- do not justify the radical left wing plans.

Ignoring the varied concerns of all who oppose the left, Achenbach sets up a straw man who is irrational and being led astray by a small number of science prostitutes being paid by dark money for their advocacy. Achenbach compares his strawman to a litany of other irrational people in a list that bears some scrutiny:

1. People of Portland who refuse to floridate their water. Achenbach fails to note that Portland is the bluest of blue left wing cities.
2. Anti-vaxxers. Achenbach fails to note that this is largely a movement of the left.
3. Anti-GMO. Achenbach fails to note that this is almost entirely a movement of the left.
4. People who contested that the earth revolves around the sun in the 16th century.
5. Those who were concerned that ebola might be spread by airborne transmission.

That last one is particularly of note. Achenbach writes:

The world crackles with real and imaginary hazards, and distinguishing the former from the latter isn’t easy. Should we be afraid that the Ebola virus, which is spread only by direct contact with bodily fluids, will mutate into an airborne super-plague? The scientific consensus says that’s extremely unlikely: No virus has ever been observed to completely change its mode of transmission in humans, and there’s zero evidence that the latest strain of Ebola is any different. But Google “airborne Ebola” and you’ll enter a dystopia where this virus has almost supernatural powers, including the power to kill us all.

Considering that ebola mortality can range from 20% to 90% -- figures on par with the mortality rate for the Black Plague that killed half of Europe in the 14th century -- only a fool would not be concerned. Thankfully, according to Achenbach, we are saved by the scientific consensus . . . . Or at least we were until, on Feb. 19, when the Washington Post ran a story, "Limited airborne transmission of Ebola is ‘very likely,’ new analysis says."

Perhaps the most offensive part of Achenbach's article is when he explains the scientific method, implying that the science of AGW is based on legitimate studies that can be reproduced by other scientists. Reproducability is the sina que non of science. The problem with so very much of AGW "science" is that the scientists do not put out sufficient information to allow their results to be analyzed by others. Steve MacIntrye has made a cottage industry out of trying to get AGW researchers to actually conform to the scientific method. The most recent glaring example of grad student Mike Wallace who wanted to analyze a study by two NOAA scientists that, they claimed before Congress, showed that the oceans were acidifying and in significant danger because of excessive carbon dioxide. When Wallace contacted the study's authors because their underlying data wasn't archived -- per the scientific method -- the authors gave Wallace the run around and then threatened his career for pursuing the matter further. It turns out that the study ignored all of the historic data that showed the oceans are not acidifying. The study was a fraud.

Wallace's experience is not an anamoly. As I pointed out in The Not So Settled Science of AGW, the scientists pushing anthropogenic global warming, as long ago as Michael Mann's hockey stick, stopped adhering to the scientific method and tried to substitute peer review in its place as the standard for reliability. It's a fraud and a travesty. Indeed, the greatest change needed in relation to government funding of science is an absolute requirement that any funded research requires the authors to post all information necessary for their experiment to be analyzed and reproduced. Anything less is not science.

After reading Achenbach's article, I am pretty sure that his target audience were those who blindly accept AGW. Achenbach is trying to reassure them of their intellectual superiority in comparison to the irrationality of the skeptics on the right. His problem is, like the science of AGW itself, his arguments do not withstand the least bit of scrutiny. As to the right, the science of AGW is so hard to believe because there are huge questions regarding the validity of the studies and computer models. As to the left and their problems with floridation, vaccines and the like, well, it would appear that they are irrational deniers of largely settled science.

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Obama & The Anti-Science Of EPA's War On Coal

. . . The public must be able to trust the science and scientific process informing public policy decisions. Political officials should not suppress or alter scientific or technological findings and conclusions. If scientific and technological information is developed and used by the Federal Government, it should ordinarily be made available to the public. To the extent permitted by law, there should be transparency in the preparation, identification, and use of scientific and technological information in policymaking. . . .

President Barack Obama, Memorandum, Subject: Scientific Integrity, 9 March 2009

Ah, remember those idealistic days of 2009, when our Moralizer In Chief Barack Obama promised to "restore" scientific integrity to our government. Well, those days are long gone.

Obama is using the EPA to conduct a war on coal, promoting new guidelines under the Clean Air Act that will stop the creation of any new coal fired power plants and force the shut down of many existing plants as they reach a point of needing to upgrade. Since coal is the primary source for our nation's electricity needs, this will end up costing our nation dearly - with the poor and middle class being the hardest hit.

The justification for these new guidelines is that they will save lives. The EPA is basing this assertion on two longitudinal, observational scientific studies, the Harvard Six Cities Study (HSCS) and the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Prevention Study II (CPS II):

Both studies showed that exposure to fine particle air pollution (that is, particles with a diameter of less than 2.5 microns, or PM2.5) was linked with increased mortality. Their results provide the basis for most EPA regulations targeting air quality because, the EPA claims, such regulations will save a large numbers of lives.

There are some real questions about the reliability of the conclusions reached by the researchers. For Instance:

The association of PM2.5 with mortality shows geographic heterogeneity – no such association is seen in the western US, where the climate is dry and PM2.5 make-up differs from that in the eastern US.

Second, the results of the studies have been presented in a way that focuses narrowly on PM2.5 and precludes putting the association in perspective relative to other predictors of mortality, including cigarette smoking, income, and other factors.

Third, reports from these two studies tend to cite only supporting studies and to ignore studies that have not found an association of PM2.5 with mortality."

But here is the kicker. Those two studies are . . . wait for it . . . secret.

What what what?

Yes, the EPA is claiming that the data, meta-data, computations - in short, everything about the "scientific studies" that would allow the studies to be subject to vetting and reproduction (i.e., the scientific method) - are secret and cannot be released.

This is the polar opposite of scientific integrity.

And, believe it or not, it gets worse, the same people who "carried out the studies used by the EPA as the basis for regulation and are also involved in the implementation of EPA policy."

The ostensible reason given for not releasing the information regarding these studies is the claim that to do so would violate third party confidentiality rules:

[I]f third parties are given access to the data, the identity of study participants could become public, in violation of the researchers’ guarantee of confidentiality. The lead researcher on the CPS II study has made this argument. Supporters of the subpoena argue that the dataset could be stripped of personal identifiers.

In fact, the issue of confidentiality appears to be a dodge since large datasets of this type are routinely stripped of personal identifiers to protect subject confidentiality and enable use by researchers.

The EPA should be shut down over this. Republicans have been trying to have the EPA provide this data for over two years. The EPA has steadfastly refused. Republicans have now filed a subpoena to which Democrats have objected - their grounds:

The ranking Democratic member Eddie Bernice Johnson (D – TX) characterized Chairman Smith’s action as an attempt to make the data available to “industry hacks” in order to discredit the research and weaken clean air regulation.

The scientific method - the ability to pour over another's experiment line by line and either prove it or disprove it - is the sina que non of scientific integrity. Rep. Johnson either doesn't seem to know that or otherwise puts it in a back seat to politics. This, from Obama's EPA, is just politicized science at its very worst.

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One Small Step For Warmies, One Giant Leap For Science

Although the warmies fought off total devastation from Climategate, at least some, including notably the MET and CRU, have gotten the message that they need to be practicing real science - not political science - if they value their future. You will recall that, in January, the MET and the Climate Research Unit (CRU) of beleaguered East Anglia Univ. released their latest temperature data showing that there had been no warming for the past 15 years. Now the MET and CRU have announced:

Given the importance of the CRUTEM land temperature analysis for monitoring climate change (e.g. Trenberth et al. 2007), our preference is that the underlying station data, and software to produce the gridded data, be made openly available. This will enhance transparency, and also allow more rapid identification of possible errors or improvements that might be necessary (see e.g. the earlier discussion of homogeneity adjustments in the SH). . . .

As a result of these efforts, we are able to make the station data for all the series in the CRUTEM4 network freely available, together with software to produce the gridded data (http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/ and http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/).

Hallelujah. My biggest beef with the warmies has always been that their data, having never gone through the "scientific method," had not an ounce of trustworthiness. What MET and CRU are doing is how science in our modern era should be practiced. My hats off to them. This is a huge step forward for climate science. My faith in the MET / CRU data has taken a giant leap forward. I now await a similar act from NASA'a odious uber-warmie, Jim Hansen. I shall begin holding my breath in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .

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Warmie Angst & The AGW Theory Hanging By A Single Untested Hypothesis

The warmies are experiencing some epic angst over the letter published several days ago in the WSJ from sixteen distinguished scientists, addressed to our political leaders, stating that global warming is not an issue with which they needed to be concerned. The warmies have responded at the WSJ with a letter from Kevin Trenberth that is jaw dropping in its arrogance and utterly revealing about the state of the anthropogenic global warming theory.

Trenberth's first argument is that the only people that can make judgements about the validity of global warming are "climate scientists." As he puts it, "[d]o you consult your dentist about your heart problem?" But the reality is that "climate science" overlaps significantly with other disciplines, such as physics, meteorology, oceanography, statistics and computer programming to name but a few.  Trenberth gives us no reason whatsoever to discount the opinions of experts in these areas when making assessments of global warming. And as Jo Nova responds with tongue in cheek:

If my dentist tells me that my heart surgeon was caught emailing other surgeons about how to use tricks to hide declines, that he broke laws of reason, that his predictions are basically all wrong, or that his model of understanding is demonstrably wrong, then I’m listening to the dentist.

What is most troubling - and unbelievably arrogant - about Trenberth's argument is that he implies that if you are one of the non-scientists, your only recourse is to blindly trust in the pronouncements of "climate scientists."  What pure and utter bullshit.

What can - and should - we non-scientists do to assess climate science?

Number one, and perhaps most importantly, we can look at the underlying mechanics of a claimed scientific finding to see whether it is based on an experiment that complies with the scientific method - i.e., all the data, methodology, computer programs, etc. are archived and made public so that the results can be analyzed and reproduced by others. If not - and SO MUCH of climate science does not - then we should accord it zero reliability.

We can even take that a step further in evaluating experiments and just take a look at the size of the experimental sample.  If it is large and diverse, then we can mark it down as at least some indication that the results might be trustworthy.  If the sample is extremely small, that is a red flag that the scientist may be cherry picking data to get the result that they want - as happened with the infamous Yamal Tree Ring study.

We can look at how the temperature record itself is compilied - and make common sense judgments about whether the methods used are uniform and reliable.  And if they are not, if there appear to be significant problems with the numbers of temperature stations, their location, and whether they are subject to heat island effect, then we should be very skeptical indeed

We can look at changes to the temperature records to see whether there is any justification for the changes.  And if the changes are to make the older temperatures colder and the later temperatures warmer with no justification given, we can be suspicious that we are being sold a bill of goods.

We can look at the geologic record and see if the claims being made about our modern climate are reasonable within the larger picture.  So if at numerous points in history when there was no human contribution to CO2, the climate was warmer than today, we can legitimately ask why we should believe that increasing temperatures, as we emerge from the Little Ice Age, are in any way unusual, and proof of a human component to climate change.

We can look at the computer models to determine whether they are accurately predicting the heating or cooling of our climate. And if they are not (and all IPCC comuter models fail that test today), then we have no reason to trust the pronouncements of the warmies.

And we can tell whether there are gaping logical disconnects in the warmie arguments. Indeed, Trenberth makes a huge, gigantic, massive, leap in logic in his WSJ article, asking us to take an untested hypothesis as fact.  I'll save that critically important pearl for last.  First, let's deal with the following:

Climate experts know that the long-term warming trend has not abated in the past decade. In fact, it was the warmest decade on record. Observations show unequivocally that our planet is getting hotter.

Wow.  I seem to recall that a week ago, all of those climate scientists at the MET and the University of East Anglia, two warmie institutions at the heart of climate science (not to mention Climategate), just told us 'unequivocally' that our planet had not warmed at all over the past 15 years.  So Trenberth is deliberately ignoring that to make his absolutist claim.  He has obvious problems with veracity.  So why should we trust anything that he says.

Actually, this latest finding from MET and East Anglia stands in direct contradiction to Jim Hansen's NASA GISS temperature record. The GISS records show red hot warming over the past 15 years. GISS and MET data line up through 1998, but diverge thereafter because Hansen claims that there is massive warming going on in the Arctic region. There is minimal coverage of temperature stations in the Arctic, and Hansen's claims are based almost wholly on a number of questionable extrapolations. Indeed, even while Hansen is showing the Arctic on fire over the past 15 years, we are seeing increases in polar ice there - something that wholly undermines Hansen's claims.  So what Trenberth is doing is the time tested climate scientist technique of cherry picking the data he wants. And since the MET data undermines his argument, he is pretending it simply doesn't exist.

And one more note before leaving the above quote. Trenberth writes that the last decade has been the "warmest decade on record." Now, I will bet that most non-scientists reading that will believe that we are experiencing world record temperatures over the course of geologic time.  But in reality, "on record" is shorthand for the period since 1880, when relatively reliable temperature record keeping began.  Warmies rarely seem to explain that when they make their pronouncements.

Trenberth later makes mention of his 2009 e-mail wherein he bemoaned the fact that the world had stopped warming and the warmies couldn't explain it.  So what has changed since 2009?  It's the mother of all logical jumps.

[C]omputer models have recently shown that during periods when there is a smaller increase of surface temperatures, warming is occurring elsewhere in the climate system, typically in the deep ocean. Such periods are a relatively common climate phenomenon, are consistent with our physical understanding of how the climate system works, and certainly do not invalidate our understanding of human-induced warming or the models used to simulate that warming.

Did you catch those two things?  One, Trenberth's e-mail is directly undermining the claim of Hansen's NASA GISS that we have had continued warming of surface temperatures over the past 15 years. Obviously Trenberth didn't believe it when he wrote his 2009 e-mail bemoaning the lack of warming. And today Trenberth is taking the position that the surface temperatures have not warmed, but the deep oceans have. So there is no doubt Trenberth is being less than honest when he now embraces Hansen's surface temperature numbers as definitive. But that is not the big thing.

The huge, gigantic, enormous thing in the above statement is this - Trenberth et. al, when he couldn't explain the flatlining of temperatures over the past 15 years, built a new computer model that has spit out a projection that significant warming is going on in the deep oceans. How that happens without warming the middle layers of the ocean is a mystery, but lets leave that aside for the moment.  What the computer has spit out is AN UNTESTED HYPOTHESIS.  In other words, Trenberth DOES NOT HAVE THE DATA to support his conclusion that global warming has gone deep into the oceans. Deep water temperature testing only began with ARGO in 2003, and there is nowhere near the data at this point to even suggest that the ocean depths have, over the past 15 years, absorbed the massive amount of heat that Trenberth's model projects. So simply put, no one today can validate it.  Warming in the deep ocean is not known to be "common" on the basis of any observed data. So in other words, this scurrilous man is asking us to accept the absolute truth of anthropogenic global warming not on data or proven fact, but ON FAITH THAT HIS LATEST COMPUTER MODEL may be right. That is the antithesis of science.

This is incredibly revealing.  It means that the AGW theory is literally hanging on by an untested hypothesis today. It also means that, for the first time since the global warming canard started, it is, today, capable of being falsified. After the moving of goal post after goal post, we finally might be at the point that there is no more space for the warmies to move it. It is put up or shut up time for Trenberth and the warmies. Show us observed facts, not a computer generated hypothesis..

----------------------------- Update: The addressees of Trenberth's letter have responded at WSJ:

The Trenberth letter tells us that "computer models have recently shown that during periods when there is a smaller increase of surface temperatures, warming is occurring elsewhere in the climate system, typically in the deep ocean." The ARGO system of diving buoys is providing increasingly reliable data on the temperature of the upper layers of the ocean, where much of any heat from global warming must reside. But much like the surface temperature shown in the graph, the heat content of the upper layers of the world's oceans is not increasing nearly as fast as IPCC models predict, perhaps not increasing at all. Why should we now believe exaggerating IPCC models that tell us of "missing heat" hiding in the one place where it cannot yet be reliably measured—the deep ocean?

-----------------------------

Lastly, Trenberth falls back on the tried and true argument that all people should accept the truth of anthropogenic global warming because it is generally accepted by all right thinking scientists whose papers are accepted for peer reviewed publication. Compare that argument with this:

No theory is carved in stone. Science is merciless when it comes to testing all theories over and over, at any time, in any place. Unlike religion or politics, science is ultimately decided by experiments, done repeatedly in every form. There are no sacred cows. In science, 100 authorities count for nothing. Experiment counts for everything.

That is from physicist Micho Kaku's article, Has A Speeding Neutrino Really Overturned Einstein, in the WSJ last year. It would seem that Mr. Kaku has a very different opinion than Mr. Trenberth as to what constitutes actual  "science" and how much trust should be placed in the weight of authorities.  Indeed, it would seem that Trenberth is doing anything but making valid scientific arguments.

At the end of the day, there needs to be a reckoning.  The "climate scientists" who have sold us on the canard of global warming cannot escape with their careers intact.  And to the extent that they have committed knowing fraud, they need to be punished criminally.  Those organizations that have told us the sicience is settled need to lose access to all federal funding.  And the entire system of federal grants for research needs to be thoroughly overhauled.  And lastly, we as a nation ought to demand that any scientist who receives federal funding to conduct an experiment must completely comply with the scientific method, making every bit of data, methodology, and computer programs immediately available so that their work can be validated or falsified.  This global warming scam, so costly to our world, cannot be allowed to simply fade into the night as the theory is disproven. They have caused too much damage to entire economies and they have grossly eroded the faith of the average person in the trustworthiness of our scientific community. Examples need to be made.

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Science, Anti-Science & Education

But in the end, this is a victory for science. No theory is carved in stone. Science is merciless when it comes to testing all theories over and over, at any time, in any place. Unlike religion or politics, science is ultimately decided by experiments, done repeatedly in every form. There are no sacred cows. In science, 100 authorities count for nothing. Experiment counts for everything.

Micho Kaku, Has A Speeding Neutrino Really Overturned Einstein, WSJ, 26 Sep. 2011

The above quote of Michio Kaku came as part of his discussion of the CERN finding that neutrinos might travel faster than the speed of light, thus defying Einstein's theory of relativity and falsifying virtually the entire foundation of modern physics. As Mr. Kaku, himself a physicist, makes crystal clear, what separates science from religion is reproducability. Asking the world to take the finding of an experiment on faith - or peer review, for that matter - is not science. Experiments must be archived and all data and methodology made public as the first immutable step in the scientific method. Moreover, if the results are not capable of being falsified, then it falls outside the definition of science and enters into the theological realm of faith.

Why do I bring all of this up? I for one firmly believe in the scientific method. I believe that science, properly done through the scientific method, will tell me the "how" of our world, wherever it may lead. There is no tension between my respect for science and my faith in religion to tell me the "why." And yet, according to our modern Orwellian left, I am "anti-science."

What the left means by that charge is that I refuse to accept, on the basis of peer review alone, the many warmie assertions about anthropogenic global warming (AGW). The IPCC and the modern left have, when it comes to global warming, tried to substitute peer review as the gold standard for reliability as opposed to making their methodology and data fully available for testing by other scientists. They use computer models to forecast global warming, yet they don't release the programming code so that it can be analyzed and either validated or falsified. Jim Hansen - a fraud who should be behind bars - doesn't just massage our temperature record, he blatantly alters it behind closed doors. The warmies top all of this off with the claim that the science surrounding global warming is settled. It is the antithesis of actual science as posited by Micho Kaku. It truly is anti-science.

What rattled my cage on this issue today were two posts. The first is by Rand Simberg, discussing how the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) has "announced that it's going to take on climate change denial" in k-12 education:

. . . [A]fter hearing an increasing number of anecdotes about K-12 teachers being challenged about how they taught climate science to their students, she says she began to see "parallels" between the two debates --namely, an ideological drive from pressure groups to "teach the controversy" where no scientific controversy exists. . . .

“There’s a climate of confusion in this country around climate science,” says McCaffrey, and NCSE’s goal will be to ensure that “teachers have the tools they need if they get pushback and feel intimidated.” Recent surveys, such as one done among K-12 teachers in September by the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), suggest that attacks on climate education are far from rare. NSTA found that over half of the respondents reported having encountered global warming scepticism from parents, and 26% had encountered it from administrators. And a December survey from the National Earth Science Teachers’ Association found that 36% of its 555 K-12 teachers who currently teach climate science had been “influenced” to “teach the controversy.”

As a threshold matter, if only 36% of science teachers in the U.S. are teaching both sides of the AGW debate, than our science education is in deep, deep trouble. Parent's need to be checking their children's science curriculum and raising holy hell if their children are part of the 64% who are being indoctrinated by the warmies. Indeed, to go one further, any global warming curriculum that does not include at least a class on Henrick Svensmark's theory - that solar activity and its effect on cloud formation is the primary determinant of our warming and cooling - is not a balanced curriculum.

As to the NCSE, they embrace the position that the "science is settled" and that the mountain of contravening theories and evidence are to ignored. The fact that warming has stopped for the past fifteen years despite steadily increasing human contributions of CO2, the fact that the geologic record shows that there has been nothing unusual about the recent warming of our planet, the fact that all of the computer models predicting global warming have proven utterly worthless, the fact that much of the "science" upon which AGW rests has never been subject to the type of analysis, criticism and reproduction that define the scientific method - all of these are to be ignored? Where in hell do people like the NCSE come from? What they seek is indoctrination, not the teaching of science as a method of acquiring knowledge. It is the very definition of anti-science.

The second post that caught my eye was an article at Space.com entitled "The Crackpot Theory of Everything Reveals The Dark Side of Peer Review." It is about an article that passed peer review yet had obvious defects in methodology and findings. Peer review is, at the very best, nothing more than a tool by which scientific publications can be reasonably sure that an article has been reviewed and found plausible by other experts - not that the findings themselves are accurate or have been reproduced. Peer review is not, and never will be, a substitute for the scientific method. It is those who would have it so that are "anti-science."

At any rate, my suggestion is this. The next time a warmie puts a bull horn up to your ear and yells "anti-science," look him square in the eye, tell him global warming is anti-science, and proceed to repetitively kick him square in the crotch until he experiences an epiphany. It seems the only way we will ever get through to these little Orwellian nightmares.

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Apocalypse Now: Life Imitates Bad Science Fiction

The plot is familiar to all readers of science fiction and horror. A mad scientist - or the U.S. military - creates a deadly virus that can destroy a substantial portion of the world's population. The bug is released, accidentally or purposefully, and the few survivors face life in a post-apocalyptic world.

Life, it seems, imitates art - or at least bad science fiction.

The H5N1 Bird Flu virus is deadly to humans. To date, 566 humans are known to have contracted the virus, of whom 332 died from it - a mortality rate of 60%. To put that number in perspective, the Black Death of 1348, which killed off half the population of Europe and led to massive societal breakdown, resulted from bubonic plague with a mortality rate of 50%. The Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918, which killed upwards of 100 million people, had a mortality rate estimated between 10% and 20%.

Fortunately for humanity, because of the method of transmission, H5N1 has only infected a small number of people. The H5N1 is not passed by airborne transmission. And while it is a virus that requires contact with an infected host, it has never been passed by human to human contact. It has only been passed to humans by contact with infected birds or animals. The fear has always been that it would mutate into an airborne form transmissible between humans, but it has never happened.

Except, that is, until now.

The National Institutes of Health funded two studies of the H5N1, one in Wisconsin and, it is important to note, one outside of the U.S., in the Netherlands. The purpose was to see whether the H5N1 could be altered to mutate into an airborne virus. Let me just ask at this point, why? What possible need was there to experiment with this particular potentially apocalyptic virus to make it airborne? Did they stop to consider for one second the ramifications if they succeeded? Is there anything approaching adult supervision - let alone common sense and sanity - at the NIH?

The NIH research bore fruit. It appears that the researchers in Wisconsin and the Netherlands did in fact manage to genetically alter the virus to make it airborne and, indeed, transmissible between human like mammals. This from Boing-Boing:

Nobody knows a lot about this research, but, at Slate.com, Carl Zimmer explains what is known:

They’ve carried out their experiments on ferrets, which respond to flu viruses much like humans do. What few details we know of the unpublished research comes from a talk Dutch virologist Ron Fouchier gave in August at a virology conference, along with subsequent news reports. Fouchier began the experiment by altering the H5N1 virus’s genes in two spots. Then he passed the virus from one ferret to another, allowing the virus to mutate and evolve on its own inside the animals. After several rounds, Fouchier ended up with an H5N1 virus that could spread through the air from one ferret to the other. If unleashed—and if proven capable of spreading from human to human with the same high mortality rate—it could make the deadly 1918 pandemic look like a pesky cold.

This is sheer insanity. But wait - it gets much worse.

Evidently, the scientific process of making this virus airborne was comparatively easy, at least given a full working lab. And now . . . the scientists want to publish their methods, data and results. In other words, they want to put a blue print for how to make the H5N1 airborne and likely transmissible between humans into the public domain where any Tom, Dick or Mohammed can access it.

The NIH passed the papers proposed for publication to the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity.

On December 20, the NSABB recommended that Fouchier's study, and a similar one conducted by the University of Wisconsin's Yoshihiro Kawaoka, only be published once key data and details are removed, effectively rendering the studies un-reproducible. The board can't technically force this. But the board is also a big deal and so Science, Nature, the NIH, and the paper's authors are all listening. That's why the papers haven't actually been published yet. The people involved are still figuring out how to handle them.

So NIH paid for this research and now our government cannot definitively stop publication of the apocalyptic blue print. Moreover, by funding one of the experiments in the Netherlands, the NIH utterly assured that we would not have the ability to exercise government power over the results. Really, Darrell Issa needs to be giving the NIH a Congressional high colonic. Heads need to roll at the NIH, literally.

And on top of that, the parties are "still figuring out how to handle" the proposed papers? You've got to be kidding. How could there possibly be any thought of publishing the blueprints?

The answer comes from Peter Christian Hall writing for Reuters:

[No one in the history of biological weapons] ever tried to weaponize a flu strain—for good reason. Influenza in general is an equal-opportunity menace, particularly dangerous when a strain is so unfamiliar that humanity lacks immunity to it.

This would put at great risk anyone trying to assemble a pandemic H5N1 to launch at “target” populations. Indeed, such an attack would unleash global contagion that would swiftly and inevitably incapacitate an aggressor’s own people. Influenza doesn’t respect borders.

 Oh, well that's comforting. Human nature being what it is, it's not like anyone ever goes postal and tries to take as many people as possible with them. Nor is it like we've had any problems with, say, weapons grade anthrax sent around the country. And of course, of greatest importance, there is no billion person religion in the world that glories in martyrdom and death.  There is no theocracy in charge of a country for whom it is even questionable whether the thought of mutually assured destruction (MADD) would keep them from unleashing, say, a nuke attack. What could possibly go wrong?  Hell, just publish the results in Arabic and Farsi and write Allah Akbar at the end. What suicidal idiocy.

You really might want to call your Congressman and Senator on this one - like yesterday. I suggest you do it right before you begin building your air-tight bunker and start stocking up on bullets and MRE's.

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Science & Religion

My study of history long ago led me to conclude that Christianity and Western Civilization are inseparably intertwined. One particular aspect of that is the relationship between science and the Catholic Church. One of the long-standing myths about the Church, practically set in stone since the Church's missteps with Galileo, is that the Church has been "anti-science." That actually was the exception to the rule, both in history and today - as Pope Benedict XVI made clear last year in his discussion of the big bang theory. The Church has long been a driving force in education and science throughout history. That point is reinforced by Thomas Woods, writing at the Free Lance - Star:

The first person to measure the rate of acceleration of a freely falling body was Father Giambattista Riccioli. The man who has been called the father of Egyptology was Father Athanasius Kircher. Father Roger Boscovich, who has been described as "the greatest genius that Yugoslavia ever produced," has often been called the father of modern atomic theory. In the sciences it was the Jesuits in particular who distinguished themselves; some 35 craters on the moon, in fact, are named after Jesuit scientists and mathematicians.

By the 18th century, writes historian Jonathan Wright, the Jesuits "had contributed to the development of pendulum clocks, pantographs, barometers, reflecting telescopes, and microscopes, to scientific fields as various as magnetism, optics, and electricity. They observed, in some cases before anyone else, the colored bands on Jupiter's surface, the Andromeda nebula, and Saturn's rings. They theorized about the circulation of the blood (independently of Harvey), the theoretical possibility of flight, the way the moon affected the tides, and the wave-like nature of light."

Their achievements likewise included "star maps of the southern hemisphere, symbolic logic, flood-control measures on the Po and Adige rivers, introducing plus and minus signs into Italian mathematics."

These were the great opponents of human progress?

Seismology, the study of earthquakes, has been so dominated by Jesuits that it has become known as "the Jesuit science." It was a Jesuit, Father J.B. Macelwane, who wrote the first seismology textbook in America in 1936. To this day, the American Geophysical Union, which Macelwane once headed, gives an annual medal named after this brilliant priest to a promising young geophysicist.

The Jesuits were also the first to introduce Western science into such far-off places as China and India. In 17th-century China in particular, Jesuits introduced a substantial body of scientific knowledge and a vast array of mental tools for understanding the physical universe, including the Euclidean geometry that made planetary motion comprehensible.

Jesuits made important contributions to the scientific knowledge and infrastructure of other less developed nations not only in Asia but also in Africa and Central and South America. Beginning in the 19th century, these continents saw the opening of Jesuit observatories that studied such fields as astronomy, geomagnetism, meteorology, seismology and solar physics. Such observatories provided these places with accurate time keeping, weather forecasts (particularly important in the cases of hurricanes and typhoons), earthquake risk assessments and cartography.

The early church also institutionalized the care of widows, orphans, the sick and the poor in ways unseen in classical Greece or Rome. Even her harshest critics, from the fourth-century emperor Julian the Apostate all the way to Martin Luther and Voltaire, conceded the church's enormous contributions to the relief of human misery.

The spirit of Catholic charity — that we help those in need not out of any expectation of reciprocity, but as a pure gift, and that we even help those who might not like us — finds no analogue in classical Greece and Rome, but it is this idea of charity that we continue to embrace today.

The university was an utterly new phenomenon in European history. Nothing like it had existed in ancient Greece or Rome. The institution that we recognize today, with its faculties, courses of study, examinations and degrees, as well as the familiar distinction between undergraduate and graduate study, come to us directly from the medieval world.

By the time of the Reformation, no secular government had chartered more universities than the church. Edward Grant, who has written on medieval science for Cambridge University Press, points out that intellectual life was robust and debate was vigorous at these universities — the very opposite of the popular presumption.

It is no surprise that the church should have done so much to foster and protect the nascent university system, since the church, according to historian Lowrie Daly, "was the only institution in Europe that showed consistent interest in the preservation and cultivation of knowledge."

Until the mid-20th century, the history of economic thought started, more or less, with the 18th century and Adam Smith. But beginning with Joseph Schumpeter, the great economist and historian of his field, scholars have begun to point instead to the 16th-century Catholic theologians at Spain's University of Salamanca as the originators of modern economics.

And the list goes on. . . .

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On The First Day, God Created The Heavens & The Earth . . .

The Pope, Benedict XVI, used his sermon on this, the Day of the Epiphany, to address, among other things, the Big Bang theory, stating that it explains how the universe was created, but it does not explain the why. He stated that God was behind the big bang and that the creation of the universe was not an accident.

The Vatican has long been viewed as anti-science, at least since 1632 with the Church persecution of Galileo for heresy. But the reality is that, since the 19th, the Church became far more receptive and supportive of science, and indeed, engaging in cutting edge science itself in some areas. That said, the Church had retained a sort of ambiguous silence on the big bang theory up until today. This takes the Vatican firmly out of the camp of those who demand that the Bible be read literally, and with all the ramifications that has for teasing lessons from the Bible.

I have always thought that the Bible itself told us, in the opening sections of Genesis, that it could not be taken literally, and that the words therein had to be read with both an unterstanding of the time and place of their writing as well as knowledge of the audience to which they were directed. The Bible opens with two seperate stories of Creation that, when read literally, are in fatal contradiction.

At any rate, to finish with a quote in Live Science from a Cardinal given at the conclusion of his visit to CERN last year:

"The Church never fears the truth of science, because we are convinced that all truth comes from God," Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo, Vatican City's governor, said last year . . . according to USA Today. "Science will help our faith to purify itself. And faith at the same time will be able to broaden the horizons of man, who cannot just enclose himself in the horizons of science."

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Politicizing Science At U.C. Berkley

If this isn't politicized science, then I don't know what is. Dr. James Enstrom, a research scientist at U.C. Berkley, has been fired after serving over 36 years with the university. His sin - taking positions at odds with the latest act of economic suicide by the state of California, the proposed ban on trucks in the state that do not meet new, strict environmental standards. The new standards are based on decades old research and, in large part, on a study by a person who faked his academic credentials. The nominal reason given by U.C. Berkley for firing Dr. Enstrom is because his "research is not aligned with the academic mission of the Department." See if you can spot in the story where his research has gone awry.

This from Fox News:

. . . Enstrom says his studies show no causal link between diesel soot and death in California – findings that once again set him far apart from the pack and put him in direct conflict with the California Air Resources Board, which says its new standards on diesel emissions will save 9,400 lives between 2011 and 2025 and will reduce health care costs by as much as $68 billion in the state.

The expected benefits of the new standards have been used to justify their estimated $5.5 billion price tag, which opponents say will cripple the California trucking industry at a time when the state can least afford it. The new standards, the critics warn, also could set the stage for national regulations.

Enstrom questions the science behind the new emissions standards, and he has raised concerns about the two key reports on which they were based – exposing the author of one study as having faked his credentials and the panel that issued the other study as having violated its term limits.

He says his views are what have gotten him fired, raising serious concerns not only about the diesel regulations but about academic freedom and scientific research as a whole.

"It's quite unfortunate that it's come to this, considering I've been in this school 36 and three-quarter years," Enstrom said. "… but the reason I'm so passionate about this is because the careers of thousands of California businessmen are on the line."

Enstrom says he is committed to exposing flaws in the science and procedures by which the California Air Resources Board (CARB) passed a series of regulations on diesel exhaust, the last phase of which will require trucks and buses that enter the state either to be retrofitted or replaced entirely to meet new emission standards.

"The Scientific Review Panel of Toxic Air Contaminates in 1998 declared diesel exhaust a toxic substance based on studying truckers and railroaders from back in the '50s, '60s and '70s, when emissions were much higher," Enstrom told FoxNews.com. "They never factored in, for example, that a very high percentage of truckers are also smokers when evaluating heath issues they may have had, yet they were using this research to declare that all diesel exhaust is a toxic substance." . . .

Enstrom also blew the whistle on a CARB staffer, Hien Tran, who authored a report that was central to the legislation – after faking his credentials.

"He said he had a Ph.D. from UC Davis. Turns out he had bought his Ph.D. online for $1,000," Enstrom said.

Tran was demoted, but his report was still used to "set the context for the health benefits of reducing diesel emissions" when the board voted on the trucking regulations, CARB spokesman Stanley Young told FoxNews.com.

What the board didn't take into consideration, Enstrom says, were the many studies, including his own, that contradict its conclusion that diesel soot has caused premature deaths in California.

So in February, he and other scientists presented the board with some of their findings, and in June he co-authored an op-ed for Forbes.com in which he voiced his concerns with the regulations.

Less than a month later he received a letter from UCLA saying his contract would not be renewed . . .

Next time you hear a greenie - or anyone on the left - complain about politicized science during the Bush years or in opposition to anything green, kick them. Kick them in the groin with extreme force. Then repeat as necessary until they have undergone an epiphany. Politicized science does not mean disagreeing with an outcome. It means attempting to silence opposing views.

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NASA - No More Manned Space Exploration, Now Muslim Outreach

This is beyond belief.

Obama has taken us out of the manned space exploration game. With NASA on the verge of being superfulous, he has given them new orders. Priority one - engage in Muslim outreach to make them feel good about their contributions to science and mathematics. Priority two, as Mr. Bolden makes clear in the al Jazeera interview below, is apparently to downplay America's role in America's achievements.

As an aside, the reality is that "contributions" to science and math emenating out of Muslim countries virtually all occurred a millenium ago. A bankrupt Islamic culture since then has generated very few "contributions" to science. But we do want them to feel good about themselves.

Could there be a greater misuse of taxpayer funds?

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Climate Scientists "Scared Shitless"

When the words "scared shitless" appear in the journal, Nature, you know that the panic in the global warming community must be severe indeed. And well it should be, given all the revelations that have occured in the wake of Climategate. This from an editorial in Nature:

Climate scientists are on the defensive, knocked off balance by a re-energized community of global-warming deniers who, by dominating the media agenda, are sowing doubts about the fundamental science. Most researchers find themselves completely out of their league in this kind of battle because it's only superficially about the science. The real goal is to stoke the angry fires of talk radio, cable news, the blogosphere and the like, all of which feed off of contrarian story lines and seldom make the time to assess facts and weigh evidence. Civility, honesty, fact and perspective are irrelevant.

Worse, the onslaught seems to be working: some polls in the United States and abroad suggest that it is eroding public confidence in climate science at a time when the fundamental understanding of the climate system, although far from complete, is stronger than ever. Ecologist Paul Ehrlich at Stanford University in California says that his climate colleagues are at a loss about how to counter the attacks. “Everyone is scared shitless, but they don't know what to do,” he says.

As to the Nature editors, if they actually believe that this is not about the science, I would imagine that their days as major journal are numbered indeed. Beyond that, though, I have several helpful suggestions for the "scared shitless" climate scientists:

1. Start acting like actual scientists.

2. Make all of your data, methodology and code available to the public upon publication of any article.

3. Stop avoiding arguments on the merits of your studies with collateral attacks on anyone who challenges your findings.

4. Stop trying to use a corrupt peer review process as a substitute for the scientific method.

5. Stop manipulating data to support your findings; and

6. Should you ever again feel the urge to say "the science is settled," by all means, go take a deep, long swig of Draino and wait until the urge passes.

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