I’m told the UK Telegraph is a conservative-right newspaper, which explains why they’re covering this. It’s an astroturf “shadow conference” going on in Copenhagen:
Professor Henrik Svensmark, a physicist at the Danish National Space Center in Copenhagen, said the recent warming period was caused by solar activity.He said the last time the world experienced such high temperatures, during the medieval warming period, the Sun and the Earth were in a similar cycle.
Svensmark is a longtime denialist. Solar radiation does indeed affect climate, but Earth is currently at a century-long low point in the solar cycle. In other words, if solar radiation affects global temperature a lot, then we are in for some new record high temperatures. Which makes denialists the equivalent of the special-needs kid who won’t take off his sweater and coat even in a sweltering room.
Professor Nils-Axel Morner, a geologist from Stockholm University, said sea level rise has also been exaggerated by the “climate alarmists” using computer models.
He said observational data from lake sediments, coast lines and trees show sea levels have remained stable.
The Telegraph fails to report that Morner also claims to be an expert in dowsing. Kinda like this guy. Credible!
Professor Cliff Ollier, another geologist from the University of Western Australia, also said the environmental lobby have got it wrong on ice caps. He said the melting of ice sheets is caused by geothermal activity rather than global surface temperatures.
Geothermal activity, eh? Odd that no one can find the geothermal vents that are responsible, or point to a new upwelling of geothermal vents. But here’s what I find interesting about Ollier: I can’t find a lot of good references on the ‘net, though I can see his tracks in the astroturf “dissident” movement. One source said he was “retired,” which is probably another way of saying he works for the oil industry.
Professor Ian Plimer, from the University of Adelaide, claimed carbon dioxide from volcanoes rather than humans is driving warming as part of a natural process.
That would the Ian Plimer who refuses to debate Monbiot. He’s a “scientist” who’s afraid to debate a writer. As for his claim about volcanoes, it’s true they affect climate — eruptions cool the planet. They also emit CO2, but:
(A)lthough volcanoes release some CO2 into the atmosphere, this is completely negligible compared to anthropogenic emissions (about 0.15 Gt/year of carbon, compared to about 7 Gt/year of human related sources) . However, over very long times scales (millions of years), variations in vulcanism are important for the eventual balance of the carbon cycle, and may have helped kick the planet out of a ‘Snowball Earth’ state in the Neo-proterozoic 750 million years ago.
And now the pattern is complete:
The meeting was organised by Danish group Climate Sense and the lobby group Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT).
As revealed in Climate Cover-Up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming, the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow
owns and operates ClimateDepot.com, which has been a main clearinghouse for the right-wing climategate echo chamber. ClimateDepot.com is managed by Marc Morano, former aide to Republican Senator James Inhofe. CFACT has received grants from Exxon Mobil, Chevron, and well-known right-wing foundations like the Carthage Foundation and the Sarah Scaife Foundation.
The Usual Suspects. Which brings me back to this item, now verified:
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA–(Marketwire – Dec. 5, 2009) – On the heels of the controversial story about emails and data stolen by hackers from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, it has now been revealed that individuals posing as network technicians attempted to infiltrate another climate data center operated by the Government of Canada.
According to sources at the University of Victoria, two people claiming to be network computer technicians presented themselves at the headquarters of the Canadian Centre for Climate Modeling and Analysis and tried to gain access to the data servers. When challenged by an employee, the two individuals hastily left. The timing of this attempted break-in is very suspicious given that it occurred so closely on the heels of the release of hacked emails and data from a similar facility housed at the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in the UK. (Emphasis Mine)
There has apparently been more than one attempt, but the story today is climate science on the defensive instead of “desperate oil and gas conglomerates pay for Watergate-style break in.” SwiftHack is a story Teh Librul Media™ won’t do on their own, but climategate just shot through their stovepipe like cabbage through a rabbit. Some “liberal” media.
