Ny undersøgelse afdækker overraskende sammenhæng: Etiske forbrugere er mere asociale og tyvagtige end folk er flest.

Og fortsætter med et velkendt eksempel

Da Al Gore blev grebet i at oparbejde enorme energiregninger i sit hjemlige palæ, imens han gladelig formanede andre om at spare på elektriciteten, udviste han en dobbeltmoralsk adfærd, som er skoleeksemplet på ’den grønne mennesketype’.

Således konkluderes der højst overraskende i en ny videnskabelig under søgelse, der påviser, at når mennesker føler, at de selv har udvist god moral – og f.eks. når de tror, de bidrager til at redde planeten igennem køb af økologisk babymad – så fører dette til, at de i andre henseender smider hæmningerne til fordel for »en egoistisk og moralsk tvivlsom adfærd«. Fænomenet kendes som ’moralsk afbalancering’ eller ’kompenserende etik’.

Eller også køber tyvagtige og asociale mennesker aflad. Læs endelig den hele for sammenfaldet er ganske morsomt og der gives videnskablige eksempler på det tyvagtige og asociale. Begreber, som “kompenserende etik” og “moralsk afbalancering” er virkeligt noget at gemme på sammen med den engelske satireserie Yes Ministers ditto, som “moralsk fleksibilitet”, der anses for et absolut gode, hvis man skal have succes i politik.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSBBc5E49aE

The rapid increase in grain and oilseed prices due to biofuels expansion has been a shock to consumers worldwide, especially during 2008 and early 2009. From 2005 to January 2008, the global price of wheat increased 143 percent, corn by 105 percent, rice by 154 percent, sugar by 118 percent, and oilseeds by 197 percent. In 2006-2007, this rate of increase accelerated, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, “due to continued demand for biofuels and drought in major producing countries.” The price increases have since moderated, but many believe only temporarily, given tight stocks-to-use ratios.

It is in poor countries that these price increases pose direct threats to disposable income and food security. There, the run-up in food prices has been ominous for the more than one billion of the world’s poor who are chronically food-insecure. Poor farmers in countries such as Bangladesh can barely support a household on a subsistence basis, and have little if any surplus production to sell, which means they do not benefit from higher prices for corn or wheat. And poor slum-dwellers in Lagos, Calcutta, Manila, or Mexico City produce no food at all, and spend as much as 90 percent of their meager household incomes just to eat.

But the most worrisome of recent criticisms of biofuels relate to their impacts on the natural environment. In the U.S., water shortages due to the huge volumes necessary to process grains or sugar into ethanol are not uncommon, and are amplified if these crops are irrigated. Growing corn to produce ethanol, according to a 2007 study by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, consumes 200 times more water than the water used to process corn into ethanol.

Og artiklen konkluderer ironisk at “biofuels made the slow fade from green to brown“. Det kan jo være lige meget for de selvgode, som hellere ser folke sulte ihjel end at lide druknedøden, men der er et andet problem ifølge American Institute of Biological Science

In the March 2010 issue of BioScience, researchers present a sophisticated new analysis of the effects of boosting use of maize-derived ethanol on greenhouse gas emissions. The study, conducted by Thomas W. Hertel of Purdue University and five co-authors, focuses on how mandated increases in production of the biofuel in the United States will trigger land-use changes domestically and elsewhere. In response to the increased demand for maize, farmers convert additional land to crops, and this conversion can boost carbon dioxide emissions.

Så kan de fattige 3. verdensborgere ovenkøbet komme til at opleve at drukne på tom mave. Artiklen er set via Watts Up With That, som ganske sobert henlægger den til afdelingen for “damned if you do, damned if you don’t”.

Nordamerikanske fugle bliver mindre og lettere.

Det viser en ny undersøgelse foretaget af forskere fra USA og Schweiz. De har undersøgt næsten en halv million fugle af mere end 100 forskellige arter, skriver BBC.

Konklusionen lyder, at fuglene skrumper ind. Klimaforandringer mistænkes som synderen.

Prøv at forestille dem, hvor stor en struds ville blive fandt den  nogensinde sin vej fra Australien til Lapland?

Dansk PEN blev dannet i 1930erne og havde en storhedstid, da det (i Niels Barfoeds formandsperiode i 1990erne) kompromisløst forsvarede den fatwa-ramte, dødsdømte britiske forfatter Salman Rushdie.

Men Dansk PEN blev efterhånden så optaget af at bekæmpe forskellige former for »krænkende ytringer« over for især muslimer, at foreningens forsvar for ytringsfriheden ifølge både interne og eksterne kritikere druknede i politisk korrekthed.

“Efterhånden” er tiden, hvor Klaus Rothstein bl.a var formand og under hvis formandsskab balladen om Lars Hedegaards eventuelle medlemskab brød ud, en ballade, som resulterede i Hedegaards og andres stiftelse af Trykkefrihedsselskabet.

At Rothstein ikke har tænkt så synderligt dybt over implikationerne i ytringsfrihedsdebatten, som hans medlemskaber og formandsposter ellers lægger op til blev understreget da Ole Birk Olesen kort efter Fri Debats stiftelsesannoncering spurgte diverse medlemmer her i blandt Rothstein om deres syn på kommerciel ytringsfrihed

[OBO; Drokles] Der står i jeres teser, at ”forsvaret for ytringsfriheden må aldrig ofres for eller kapres af politiske eller ideologiske hensyn, men skal forsvares, uanset hvis rettigheder der krænkes, og hvem der krænker dem”. Men hvis man har noget imod kommercielle interesser, så må man altså gerne angribe ytringsfriheden?

[Klaus Rothstein; Drokles] -Du skal ikke lægge mig ord i munden. Jeg siger til dig, at jeg har aldrig skænket den kommercielle ytringsfrihed særlig meget opmærksomhed, og det er heller ikke det, der optager netværket,,,,

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[OBO; Drokles] Er ytringsfrihed ikke ytringsfrihed, uanset hvem der benytter sig af den? Og du beskæftiger dig vel med ytringsfrihed, når du skriver sådan en kronik?

[Klaus Rothstein; Drokles]”Ytringsfrihed er ytringsfrihed, det er fuldstændig rigtigt, men man kan godt have lov til at være mere optaget af et aspekt end af et andet,,,

Morsomt i sig selv Fri Debats elitære opbygning taget i betragtning og Zonka pointerede da gså dengang sylespidst til Rothsteins »Ytringsfrihed er ytringsfrihed, det er fuldstændig rigtigt, men man kan godt have lov til at være mere optaget af et aspekt end af et andet…«

Jamen, Herre Jemini, var det netop ikke Kardinalanklagepunktet mod Trykkefrihedsselskabet, at de netop var mere optaget af et Aspekt end af andre?

Men man må undre sig lidt dybere over Rothsteins svar især i lyset af hans “det talte ord gælder“ regel. Den tidligere formand for PEN har altså aldrig skænket den kommercielle ytringsfrihed særlig megen opmærksomhed. Åbenbart heller ikke da han forrige år på vegne af Weekendavisen interviewede ingen ringere end professor Henning Koch (som siden har doceret den professoralt rette forståelse af ytringsfriheden overfor b.la. Jacob McHamgama ved Fri Debats første symposium, så meget så McHamgama så helt flegmatisk* ud ifølge Weekendavisens Jesper Vind Jensen) under den belærende overskrift “Nu er det jura, min herre“, et interview Rothstein var stolt nok af til ikke at lade ligge hengemt i Weekendavisens garderobe, men tog med hjem og hængte det berammet op på sin personlige blog. Underoverskriften på artiklen slog en umiskendeligt selvindlysende tone an

Juraprofessor Henning Koch undrer sig over, hvorfor man gerne må trykke tegninger af Muhammed med en bombe i turbanen, når man ikke må trykke reklamer med halvnøgne sygeplejersker, der snuser til underbukser.

Men tydeligvis har det ikke undret Rothstein synderligt, der overraskende ellers troligt og maskinelt referede fra professorens forelæsning

Henning Koch har netop deltaget i bedømmelsen af Caroline Heide-Jørgensens disputats om den kommercielle ytringsfrihed. Hun forsvarede sin afhandling succesfuldt samtidig med, at Forbrugerombudsmanden afsagde en dom imod de omdiskuterede reklamer for JBS-underbukser, hvor letpåklædte kvinder, bl.a. i sygeplejerskeuniform, snuser erotisk til herreunderbukser. Men hvorfor må man ikke lave seksualiserende reklamer, når vi netop har lært, at ”hån, spot og latterliggørelse” er en vigtig del af ytringsfriheden? Hvad siger det om den kommercielle ytringsfriheds status i Danmark?

”Man ved jo ærligt talt ikke, om man skal le eller græde, når dominante repræsentanter for den 4. statsmagt kan belære muslimerne om igen, igen, at vi skam i Danmark har fuld ytringsfrihed samtidig med at Forbrugerombudsmanden bestemmer, at JBS-reklamerne af hensyn til kvinderne er i strid med “almene samfundsinteresser”. Jeg tog disse billeder op som 1. opponent og bedømmelsesformand ved forsvaret af Caroline Heide-Jørgensens afhandling om kommerciel ytringsfrihed. Mon vi nu vil se Jyllands-Posten gå i brechen for nedsættende og ringeagtende ytringer over for kvinder – eller er kvinderne for mange eller for økonomisk betydningsfulde? Da debatten om reklamerne brød ud sidste efterår, valgte JBS en frivillig tilbagetræden, men nu er der tale om en officiel statslig markering af, at disse reklamer udsætter kvinder for hån, spot og latterliggørelse, hvilket kvinderne ikke kan tåle efter Forbrugerombudsmandens mening. Det er jo faktisk først nu, at sagen bliver interessant fra en principiel synsvinkel. I efteråret var der alene tale om selvdømme og moral. Nu er det jura, min herre!,” siger Henning Koch.

Den europæiske menneskerettighedsdomstol har, inspireret af tysk forfatningsret, for længst truffet afgørelser, der principielt sidestiller den kommercielle ytringsfrihed med den traditionelle, almindelige politiske ytringsfrihed, selvom Domstolen ikke giver reklamer helt den samme beskyttelse, bl.a. fordi den overlader et vidt skøn til de nationale medlemsstaters myndigheder til at fastsætte det præcise behov og niveau af beskyttelsen.

”I Danmark har vi ingen domstolsafgørelser, der principielt set tager stilling til spørgsmålet, som eller er væsentligt rent forfatningsretligt. Men vi har en omfattende praksis fra Forbrugerombudsmanden via Markedsføringsloven og fra TV- og Radionævnet via et EF-direktiv i Reklamebekendtgørelsen, der bl.a. rask væk forbyder krænkende reklame af hensyn til køn, race og religion. Hvis reklamer er forfatningsmæssigt beskyttede ytringer, hvilket de må være på grund af vores tilslutning til Den Europæiske Menneskerettighedskonvention, må det klart konstateres, at den kommercielle ytringsfrihed ikke er absolut. Her eksisterer altså en ytringsfrihed efterfulgt af et ”men” – og selvcensur. Af hensyn til ”almene samfundsinteresser” begrænses firmaer i at sælge produkter, fordi kvinderne, og altså ikke en minoritet, skal beskyttes.” siger Henning Koch, der oven i købet noterer, at Forbrugerombudsmandens vejledning ikke kræver, at en konkret kvinde skal føle sig krænket, og derfor stiller han spørgsmålet:

”Hvorfor er statslig beskyttelse af en kønslig majoritet i orden, når en statslig beskyttelse af religiøse minoriteter mod hån, spot og latterliggørelse ikke er?”

Her har den tidligere formand for PEN, en forening til forsvar for ytringsfriheden og senere medlem af en anden og eksklusiv klub ligeledes til forsvar for ytringsfriheden Rothstein altså siddet bænket til en enetime med en af landets førende juridiske eksperter om filosofien bag ytringsfrihed specielt med henblik på den kommercielle del og taget noter og stillet spørgsmål og sammenskrevet og kogt ned og redigeret uden at skænke det  særlig opmærksomhed. Altså, hvis man kan have hovedet oppe i røven så er det virkeligt lykkedes Klaus Rothstein i fin stil.

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Posteringen er efter anmodning fra Jesper Vind Jensen rettet idet han ikke har skrevet at McHamgama så perpleks ud, som jeg oprindeligt havde skrevet men flegmatisk. Jeg undskylder over for hr Jensen og den eventuelle læser.

Det er klogt, at FN nu tager initiativ til at få den store klimarapport gået efter i sømmene på baggrund af, at der er blevet rapporteret om en række fejl og mulige fordrejninger.

(…)

Nu handler videnskab jo i høj grad om at udfordre vante forestillinger og dermed imødegå de påstande, vi holder for selvindlysende. Af samme grund må en sådan diskussion hilses velkommen, hvor forskere kan krydse klinger. En gang imellem fører det så til, at helt grundlæggende viden må forkastes, hvilket videnskabshistorien er rig på; engang troede man jo f.eks. på, at Jorden var flad.

Konsensus min bare røv kunne man sige. Men i forsøget på samtidig ikke at underkende selve ideen om faglig kvalifikation falder Berlingske desværre lidt i gryden når den negligerer betydningen af skandalerne omkring klimapanelets rapporter

[D]er er blevet rapporteret om en række fejl og mulige fordrejninger. Men det ændrer ikke ved, at klimaproblemerne fortsat står til troende, og at vi fortsat må handle ud fra denne vished.

Usikkerheden er opstået, efter at det er kommet frem, at få og mindre enkeltdele af FNs omfattende klimarapport, som flere tusind forskere har bidraget til, er forkerte og fagligt svagt funderede. Kritikerne bruger få fejl til at antyde, at grundlaget for klimaforandringen er højpolitiseret og dermed ugyldigt.

Der er i selve kernen af IPCC, der hævder at repræsentere konsensus, som danner reference for megen anden forskning på klimaområdet og på hvis anbefalinger det er meningen at verdens politikere skal træffe deres beslutninger afsløret bevidst manipulation med centrale data. Sagen om forskningsenheden på East Anglia universitetet, der supplerer klimapanelet med temperatur statistik handler om bevidst manipulation med de målte temperaturer, som giver et falsk billede af alarmerende udvikling samt forsøg på at slette viden om det historiske klima, og derved den nødvendige emperi om klimaets udvikling, netop det der skal sætte vores situation i relief, netop det, der gør det muligt overhovedet at tale om en udvikling. Middelalderens varmeperiode, der formentlig var varmere end i dag blev sammen med den Lille Istid slettet i den af IPCC promoverede is-hockeystok graf, der vel mere end noget andet var ikonet for teorien om den globale opvarmning og vel mere end noget andet billede har overbevist det politiske etablissement og den folkelige opinon - og måske også Berlingske leder? Romertidens varmeperiode anses for at have været endnu varmere, end Middelalderens varmeperiode, som antages at have været varmere end i dag og en sådan historisk emperi giver et lidt andet billede af proportioner, udvikling og perspektiver.

Det er altså groteske “fejl” og ikke “få og mindre enkeltdele“, der bemærkelsesværdigt alle peger i samme retning og derved afsløret som motivbåret, som er kritikken. Så langt, som IPCC repræsenterer konsensus, eller blot “forskerne“, som en lidt ældre JP-Explorer artikel (ganske typisk i øvrigt) udtrykker det så er der grund til konspirationsparanoia. Men IPCC udtrykker ikke “forskerne” men kun sig selv. IPCC repræsenterer ikke konsensus blandt “forskerne” længere end anerkendelse af CO2, som drivhusgas og derved et positivt menneskeligt bidrag til Jorden klima så meget, som vi udleder, alt andet lige. IPCC er et politisk organ drevet af aktivisme i en sådan grad at de end ikke skammer sig over at basere deres konklusioner på interessegrupper.

Hvor stor en tiltro kan man så have til en organisation, der ledes af en mand, hvis økonomiske interesser er uløseligt forbundet med IPCCs konklusioner? En mand, som sammenligner kritikere som Bjørn Lomborg med Adolf Hitler og affærdiger Indiens førende glaceologs arbejde som “voo-doo” videnskab fordi det strider imod et afsindigt postulat om at gletchere i mange tusinde kilometers højde, som uanset stigende temperaturer mestendels vil befinde sig under frysepunktet og vil opleve forsat nedbør i form af sne skulle smelte over en trediveårs periode. Som leder af IPCC er Panchauri en grotesk gevækst, et symptom på en grim sygdom, hvis smittefarlighed vi må og skal have afdækket. Berlingskes konklusion er derfor besynderlig

Lad os endelig få afdækket de unøjagtigheder, der måtte være i den store FN-rapport, og så fortsætte med at presse på for politiske beslutninger ved de næste klimakonferencer.

Det minder mig mest af alt om en Lucky Luke historie, hvor en dommer beroliger den anklagede med at han nok skal få en fair retsag før han bliver hængt. Men hvad havde man vente af de, der forlader sig på forsigtighedsprincippet?

Holdningsmæssigt er der dog behov for, at vi agerer med uhyre forsigtighed og moderation, når det gælder klimaet. Er miljøet først ødelagt, kan det være svært at omgøre beslutningerne. Dette handler såre enkelt om kontrakten mellem generationerne, og dermed, som konservatismens fader Edmund Burke engang formulerede det, kontrakten »mellem de nulevende, men også med de afdøde og de kommende slægter«. Vi har såldes overtaget Jorden fra vores forfædre, og vi har et ansvar for, at vores efterkommere kan leve og ånde.

Klimaet er bedst tjent med, at vi anvender et forsigtighedsprincip, når verdenssamfundet skal producere resultater, fremfor at lade halve og hele unøjagtigheder underminere troværdigheden af den 3.000 sider lange rapport, der kalder på handling. Når vi handler, er det således med en ufuldkommen viden, men alternativet er så meget mere skræmmende i form af drastiske klimaforandringer.

Et problem med forsigtighedsprincippet er at det er afhængigt af sit fokus. Hvis man drejer fokus ændrer konklusionerne sig. Den globale økonomis fremgang hviler væsentligt på fossile brændstoffer og det fri marked, begge dele noget man vil begrænse, hæmme eller afskaffe. Det opstillede økonomiske alternativ har ikke været prøvet, men ingen økonomisk model har nogensinde klaret sig, som den eksisterende og alt tyder på at den globale vækst kan lide et knæk og en mulig recession (når naboen mister sit job) eller endda depression (når man selv mister sit job) er et sandsynligt udkomme (jeg har computermodeller der beviser dette). Udover de umiddelbare følger for verdens fattigste og de enorme masser, der netop havde entreret middelklassen især i Indien og Kina, så kan en deraf følgende social uro bane vejen for politiske omvæltninger, der destabiliserer den politiske orden, der forværrer krisen, der medfører krav om drastisk handling osv. Forlægget for krig med andre ord, som 2. Verdenskrig bl.a. er et monument over. Global krise - global krig? - Endda i en verden med enorme enheder, som Indien, Kina, USA, Europa, Ruslan Japan - i en verden med atomvåben! Et er sikkert, i en sådan krig kører hærerne ikke på grøn energi - hvilket i sidste ende kan betyde en forværring af klimaets tilstand.

Mellem disse to katastrofescenarier af global opvarmning og Verdenskrig må menneskeheden gøre op med sig selv om man vil kæmpe i sammenhold mod de brændende vandmasser, som Glen Beck udtrykker det eller kæmpe imod hinanden til døden. Forsigtighedsprincippet byder os at holde fast i de fossile brændstoffer indtil et alternativ er fundet, som det byder os at droppe dem her og nu og lade nød lære nøgen kvinde at spinde. Så for at omskrive Piet Hein så skal man altså være forsigtig, selv med forsigtighedsprincippet.

The Himalayan retraction has touched off a cascade of further retractions and corrections, though the IPCC and other organs of climate alarmism are issuing their corrections sotto voce, hoping the media won’t take notice. The IPCC’s assessment that 40 percent of the Amazonian rain forest was at risk of destruction from climate change was also revealed to be without scientific foundation; the WWF was again the source. The Daily Telegraph identified 20 more claims of ruin in the IPCC’s 2007 report that are based on reports from advocacy groups such as Greenpeace rather than peer-reviewed research, including claims that African agricultural production would be cut in half, estimates of coral reef degradation, and the scale of glacier melt in the Alps and the Andes. Numerous other claims were sourced to unpublished student papers and dissertations, or to misstated or distorted research. 

Peer reviewers in the formal IPCC process had flagged many of these errors and distortions during the writing of the 2007 report but were ignored. For example, the IPCC claimed that the world is experiencing rapidly rising costs due to extreme weather related events brought on by climate change. But the underlying paper, when finally published in 2008, expressly contradicted this, saying, “We find insufficient evidence to claim a statistical relationship between global temperature increase and catastrophe losses.” Perhaps the most embarrassing walkback was the claim that 55 percent of the Netherlands was below sea level, and therefore gravely threatened by rising sea levels. The correct number is 26 percent, which Dutch scientists say they tried to tell the IPCC before the 2007 report was published, to no avail. And in any case, a paper published last year in Nature Geoscience predicting a 21st-century sea level rise of up to 32 inches has been withdrawn, with the authors acknowledging mistaken methodology and admitting “we can no longer draw firm conclusions regarding 21st century sea level rise from this study without further work.” The IPCC ignored several published studies casting doubt on its sea level rise estimates.

The IPCC isn’t the only important node of the climate campaign having its reputation run through the shredder. The 2006 Stern Review, a British report on the economics of climate change named for its lead author, Lord Nicholas Stern, was revealed to have quietly watered down some of its headline-grabbing claims in its final published report because, as the Telegraph put it, “the scientific evidence on which they were based could not be verified.” Like rats deserting a sinking ship, scientists and economists cited in the Stern Review have disavowed the misuse of their work. Two weeks ago the World Meteorological Association pulled the rug out from under one of Gore’s favorite talking points—that climate change will mean more tropical storms. A new study by the top scientists in the field concluded that although warmer oceans might make for stronger tropical storms in the future, there has been no climate-related trend in tropical storm activity over recent decades and, further, there will likely be significantly fewer tropical storms in a warmer world. “We have come to substantially different conclusions from the IPCC,” said lead author Chris Landsea, a scientist at the National Hurricane Center in Florida. (Landsea, who does not consider himself a climate skeptic, resigned from the IPCC in 2005 on account of its increasingly blatant politicization.)

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The rout has opened up serious divisions within the formerly closed ranks of the climate campaign. Before Climategate, expressing skepticism about catastrophic global warming typically got the hefty IPCC report thrown in your face along with the mantra that “2,500 of the world’s top scientists all agree” about climate change. Now the IPCC is being disavowed like a Mission Impossible team with its cover blown. Senate Environment and Public Works chairman Barbara Boxer insisted on February 23 that she relied solely on U.S. scientific research and not the IPCC to support the EPA’s greenhouse gas “endangerment finding.” In her opening statement at a hearing, Boxer said, “I didn’t quote one international scientist or IPCC report. .??.??. We are quoting the American scientific community here.” The U.N. has announced that it will launch an “independent review” of the IPCC, though like the British investigation of the CRU, the U.N. review will probably be staffed by “settled science” camp followers who will obligingly produce a whitewash. But Pachauri’s days as IPCC chairman are likely numbered; there are mounting calls from within the IPCC for Pachauri to resign, amid charges of potential conflicts of interest (like Gore, Pachauri is closely involved with commercial energy schemes that benefit from greenhouse gas regulation) but also in part because Pachauri chose this delicate moment to publish a soft-core pornographic novel. (The main character is an aging environmentalist and engineer engaged in a “spiritual journey” that includes meeting Shirley MacLaine, detailed explorations of the Kama Sutra, and group sex.)

Hayward bemærker syrligt at “The climate campaign is a movement unable to hide its decline.”

The climate campaign camp followers are exhausting their invective against skeptics. Harvard’s Jeffrey Sachs wrote in the Guardian that climate skeptics are akin to tobacco scientists—some of the same people, in fact, though he gave no names and offered no facts to establish such a claim. In the Los Angeles Times Bill McKibben compared climate skeptics to O.J. Simpson’s “dream team” of defense attorneys able to twist incontrovertible scientific evidence. Not to be outdone, Senator Bernie Sanders (Socialist-VT) compared climate skeptics to appeasers of Hitler in the 1930s, a comparison, to be sure, that Al Gore has been making since the early 1990s, but Sanders delivered it with his patented popping-neck-veins style that makes you worry for his health. 

For til slut at bryde processen ned i en række stadier

The unraveling of the climate campaign was entirely predictable, though not the dramatic swiftness with which it arrived. The long trajectory of the climate change controversy conforms exactly to the “issue-attention cycle” that political scientist Anthony Downs explained in the Public Interest almost 40 years ago. Downs laid out a five-stage cycle through which political issues of all kinds typically pass. A group of experts and interest groups begin promoting a problem or crisis, which is soon followed by the alarmed discovery of the problem by the news media and broader political class. This second stage typically includes a large amount of euphoric enthusiasm—you might call this the dopamine stage—as activists conceive the issue in terms of global salvation and redemption. One of the largest debilities of the climate campaign from the beginning was their having conceived the issue not as a practical problem, like traditional air pollution, but as an expression, in Gore’s view, of deeper spiritual and even metaphysical problems arising from our “dysfunctional civilization.” Gore is still thinking about the issue in these terms, grasping for another dopamine rush. In his February 28 New York Times article, he claimed that an international climate treaty would be “an instrument of human redemption.”

The third stage is the hinge. As Downs explains, there comes “a gradually spreading realization that the cost of ‘solving’ the problem is very high indeed.” This is where we have been since the Kyoto process proposed completely implausible near-term reductions in fossil fuel energy—a fanatical monomania the climate campaign has been unable to shake. In retrospect it is now possible to grasp the irony that President George W. Bush’s open refusal to embrace the Kyoto framework kept the climate campaign alive by providing an all-purpose excuse for the lack of “progress” toward a binding treaty. With Bush gone, the intrinsic weakness of the carbon-cutting charade is impossible to hide, though Gore and the climate campaigners are now trying to blame the U.S. Senate for the lack of international agreement.

“The previous stage,” Downs continued, “becomes almost imperceptibly transformed into the fourth stage: a gradual decline in the intensity of public interest in the problem.” Despite the relentless media drumbeat, Gore’s Academy Award and Nobel Prize twofer, and millions of dollars in paid advertising, public concern for climate change has been steadily waning for several years. In the latest Pew survey of public priorities released in January, climate change came in dead last, ranked 21st out of 21 issues of concern, with just 28 percent saying the issue should be a top priority for Congress and President Obama. That’s down 10 points over the last three years. 

(…)

“In the final [post-problem] stage,” Downs concluded, “an issue that has been replaced at the center of public concern moves into a prolonged limbo—a twilight realm of lesser attention or spasmodic recurrences of interest.” The death rattle of the climate campaign will be deafening. It has too much political momentum and fanatical devotion to go quietly. The climate campaigners have been fond of warning of catastrophic “tipping points” for years. Well, a tipping point has indeed arrived?—just not the one the climate campaigners expected. 

Læs hele den lange artikel i sin helhed.

Violent attacks are estimated to be 44 per cent higher than they were in 1998 after research on the way police record them allowed comparisons for the first time.

The study, by the independent House of Commons Library, shows violence against the person increased from 618,417 to 887,942 last year.

The devastating review comes despite repeated claims by the Government that violent crime has come down substantially since it took power.

It is the first time such a trend in police recorded crime can be made because a change was made in counting rules in 2002 which ministers have always insisted meant figures before that date were not, therefore, comparable.

Instead, they have always used a separate the separate British Crime Survey which suggests violence has dropped by more than 40 per cent since 1998.

The Tories, who requested the new research, said the findings make a mockery of such claims and reinforce the public’s fear that violence is in fact rising.

Statiticians in the Commons Library have used a previous Home Office estimate on the effect of the change in counting rules to estimate the impact on previous figures, had those rules been in place then.

Just last week, Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, said violent crime had dropped by 1.5 million offences under Labour before attempting to blame a growing fear of crime on the Tories for “ramping up” public panic.

Samfundet er en kontrakt mellem mennesker. Denne kontrakt skal gennem loven beskyttes konsekvent mod de, der ikke kan indfinde sig. Den engelske blanding af socialpædagogiske tiltag og udsøgte manerer lider fallit og svigter sine borgere.

The greatest scandal connected to global warming is not exaggeration, fraud or destruction of data to conceal the weakness of the argument. It is those who are personally profiting from promoting this fantasy at the expense of the rest of us.

Al Gore is the most visible beneficiary. The world’s greatest climate-change fear-monger has amassed millions in book sales and speaking fees. His science-fiction movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” won an Academy Award for best documentary and 21 other film awards. He was co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his “efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Gore was laying his own foundations. As he was whipping up hysteria over climate change, he cannily invested in “green” firms that stood to profit in the hundreds of millions of dollars (if not more) from increased government regulations and sweetheart deals from connected politicians and bureaucrats. The multimillionaire climate dilettante was given a free pass by reporters, who refused to ask him hard questions about the degree to which he was profiting from the panic he was causing.

Og mens Phil Jones, der ledede det forskningsteam, der leverede afgørende temperaturkurver til IPCC har indrømmet at temperaturen ikke er steget (men faldet omend ubetydeligt for alt andet end selve debatten) siden 2000, at stigningen siden midten af halvfjerserne ligner de stigninger man har målt siden industrialiseringens begyndelse og således ikke er markant, hvad CO2 teorien ellers hævder og at Middelalderens varmeperiode efter alt at dømme var reel og sikkert også varmere end i dag, hvilket betyder at temperaturen ingenlunde er markant, hvad CO2 teorien ellers hævder og slutteligt at beviset for CO2 teorien for ham grundlæggende hviler på at man ud fra to andre teorier, stadig under udvikling ikke kan forklare klimaets udvikling så kan vi andre more os lidt over en veloplagt Glenn Beck der ikke frygter at “We all going to drown in a fiery flood!”

De fleste kender til mistanken fra deres skoletid om at en opgave i dansk eller samfundsfag måske i en hvis udstrækning er blevet bedømt ud fra lærerens egen moralske eller politiske forståelse. Men de færreste kender den vel fra fysik og matematik. Frank Furedi skriver i Spiked Online om peer-review processens indbyggede problemer, hvor den politiske aktivisme eller blot uerkendte overbevisning kan sløre den videnskabelige lødighed.

Peer review is a system that subjects scientific and scholarly work to the scrutiny of other experts in the field. Ideally it ensures that research is only approved or published when it meets the standards of scientific rigour and its findings are sound. At its best, peer review guarantees that it is disinterested science which informs public discussion and debate. When established through peer review, the authority of science helps to clarify disputes and injects into public discussion the latest findings and research. Peer reviewing depends on a community of experts who are competent and committed to impartiality. It depends on the commitment and collaboration of scientists and scholars in a given field.

However, the individuals who constitute a ‘community of experts’ also tend to be preoccupied with their own personal position and status. Often, the colleagues they are reviewing and refereeing are their competitors and sometimes even their bitter rivals. The contradiction between working as a member of an expert community and one’s own personal interests cannot always be satisfactorily resolved.

Unfortunately, even with the best will in the world, peer reviewing is rarely an entirely disinterested process. All too often the system of peer review is infused with vested interests. As many of my colleagues in academia know, peer reviewing is frequently carried out through a kind of mates’ club, between friends and acquaintances, and all too often the question of who gets published and who gets rejected is determined by who you know and where you stand in a particular academic debate.

(…)

Second, there is the damaging influence of nepotism and professional jealousy. Academics and researchers are all too conscious of how their prestige and career opportunities can be enhanced by getting their work published in a major journal. Sometimes, reviewers regard the research they are refereeing as the work of a competitor and adopt the tactic of either delaying or preventing its publication. This is the accusation made by 14 stem cell researchers in a letter to several major journals in their field. The researchers claim that the peer-review process was corrupted by reviewers who deliberately stalled, and even prevented, the publication of new results so that they or their associates could publish the breakthrough first. They also accused the journals of not doing enough to prevent this stalling from taking place.

The third, and in recent years the most disturbing, threat to the integrity of the peer-review system has been the growing influence of advocacy science. In numerous areas, most notably in climate science, research has become a cause and is increasingly both politicised and moralised. Consequently, in climate research, peer review is sometimes looked upon as a moral project, where decisions are influenced not simply by science but by a higher cause. The scandal surrounding ‘Climategate’ is as much about the abuse of the system of peer review as it is about the rights and wrongs of the various claims made by advocacy researchers in and around the IPCC and the UEA.

I toppen af den videnskabelig konsensus tronede FNs klimapanel IPCC, som praler med at tusindvis af videnskabsmænd har bidraget til og læst korrektur på deres rapporter. Men hvad hjælper det når kun få træffer konklusionerne.

While the IPCC insists that its critics should be judged by the most rigorous standards of peer review, it has a more relaxed attitude towards its own publications. In recent weeks there have been a series of damaging revelations about how conclusions drawn by the IPCC’s 2007 report were based on speculation and anecdotes. So claims made about disappearing mountain ice were cobbled together from information drawn from a student’s dissertation and an article published in a mountaineering magazine. Other claims were based on information from newsletters, press releases and reports produced by environmentalist advocacy groups.

There is a powerful double standard at work here: the IPCC attacks its critics for relying on ‘grey literature’ – that is, non-peer-reviewed literature – and yet it has relied on anecdotes and speculation in its reports. We shouldn’t be too surprised about this double standard, because, fundamentally, the IPCC is not simply concerned with presenting the facts but with interpreting them, giving them meaning, giving them momentum.

Det seneste eksempel på det skriver Chip Knappenberger om på MasterResource (set via Watts Up With That)

Another error in the influential reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports has been identified. This one concerns the rate of expansion of sea ice around Antarctica.

While not an issue for estimates of future sea level rise (sea ice is floating ice which does not influence sea level), a significant expansion of Antarctic sea ice runs counter to climate model projections. As the errors in the climate change “assessment” reports from the IPCC mount, its aura of scientific authority erodes, and with it, the justification for using their findings to underpin national and international efforts to regulate greenhouse gases.

(…)

Another error in the influential reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports has been identified. This one concerns the rate of expansion of sea ice around Antarctica.

While not an issue for estimates of future sea level rise (sea ice is floating ice which does not influence sea level), a significant expansion of Antarctic sea ice runs counter to climate model projections. As the errors in the climate change “assessment” reports from the IPCC mount, its aura of scientific authority erodes, and with it, the justification for using their findings to underpin national and international efforts to regulate greenhouse gases.

(…)

Yet, for some reason, the accompanying text claims that the trend in Figure 4.4.1b is insignificant (AR4 First Order Draft, page 4-14, lines 9-10):

The Antarctic results show a slight but insignificant positive trend of 0.7 ± 0.2% per decade.

This inconsistency was brought to the IPCC Chapter 4 authors’ attention by several IPCC commenters. Commentor John Church wrote “I do not understand why this trend is insignificant – it is more than three times the quoted error estimates” and Stefan Rahmstorf wrote “How can a trend of 0.7 +/- 0.2 be ‘insignificant’? Is not 0.2 the confidence interval, so it is significantly positive?” The IPCC responded to both in the same manner “Taken into account in revised text.”

(…)

On the topic of Antarctic sea ice trends, the “consensus of scientists”—as the IPCC likes to call itself—was wrong, led astray by the extremely poor “assessment” of the scientific knowledge-base made by a very few people who were directly involved in preparing that section—people who were either being territorial in defending and promoting their own work, were being guided by higher-ups to produce a specific IPCC point-of-view, or both.

From all I have been able to find out about this so far (including enlightenment gained from the Climategate emails into how other sections of the AR4 were carefully constructed), I would rate it “extremely unlikely” (in IPCC parlance, less than 5% chance) that what transpired was dumb luck, born of the IPCC authors’ unfamiliarity with the peer-reviewed literature—the very thing they were supposed to be assessing.

I am not sure which case is the most embarrassing.

Pinligt? Foruroligende ville jeg mene. De seneste målinger fra Antarktis ser også positive ud for de, der hellere vil have istid ifølge Watts Up With That.