Curry repeats Muller’s smear that paleoclimate reconstructions were ‘dishonest’, and NASA’s Schmidt eviscerates her (again)

BEST is now a joke, officially, thanks to Dr. Judith Curry.  Sure, B.E.S.T.  seemed laughable from the start — see “Richard Muller, Charles Koch, Judith Curry and the implosion of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Study (BEST).”

How could an effort to restore  the supposedly lost credibility of the global temperature record be run by one climate confusionist (Muller),  have as its sole ‘climate expert’ perhaps the leading confusionist (see “Curry abandons science“), and be funded in part by the world’s  biggest funder of climate disinformation!  And  I haven’t even blogged on the head-exploding conflict of interest of having Muller, who runs a for-profit climate consulting business, installing his daughter as B.E.S.T. project manager when she is the CEO of that business!

But that’s not funny.  What’s funny is that Curry had been advertising herself as some sort of a peace-making, I’m-ok-you’re-ok, why-can’t-we-all-just-get-along bridge builder among scientists — a reconciler, as it were (see “Fred Pearce jumps the shark“).

Now, however, she has devoted an entire post at her blog Climate etc. — judithcurry.com — to defending Muller’s claim (in this youtube clip) that “hide the decline” means the paleoclimate re-constructors of the Hockey Stick were “dishonest.”  For the record, the House of Commons vindication of climate scientists involved in the stolen emails  explicitly stated:

… insofar as we have been able to consider accusations of dishonesty””for example, Professor Jones’s alleged attempt to “hide the decline”"”we consider that there is no case to answer.

Similarly, Michael Mann has  been through multiple vindications that specifically looked at all of these e-mails.  See also RealClimate (here).

NASA’s Gavin Schmidt  showed up on Curry’s blog to make some incisive comments, and, with Curry’s help, demonstrated that, using her standard, her own work is “dishonest.”  Curry also made clear that her days of reconciliation are over.  She has gone native — or, rather, gone tribal — the full disinformer, as they say.

WattsUpWithThat has, typically, tried to make Schmidt look bad with one piece of not-terribly-damning quote mining, but  I will endeavor to pull out all of the relevant comments (including some by Curry and others).  The whole post and comment chain  is only worth reading if you like unintentional humor and ‘credibility seppuku’:

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Our guest blogger is JW Randolph, Appalachian Voices legislative associate.

Late Friday night and into the wee hours of Saturday morning, the long-anticipated assault on clean air and clean water laws began in the House of Representatives. At 4:39AM on Saturday morning, Republicans passed their bill with zero Democratic support, and only three Republican dissenters (Jones (NC), Flake (AZ), Campbell (CA)).

The House approved a number of amendments to the budget bill (H.R. 1) that would prevent the EPA from updating rules on mountaintop removal permitting, coal ash storage, emissions of coarse particulate matter, and a variety of other clean air and clean water safeguards. Those amendments that were attached included the coal lobby wishlist of #109, #216, #217 (previously labeled as #10), and #498 (previously labeled as #219/220). These were revenue-neutral amendments, meaning they weren’t aimed at reducing the federal budget deficit, but were designed solely to prevent the EPA and other government agencies from updating and enforcing clean air and clean water laws. In short, it was Christmas for polluters.

Three of these amendments were aimed specifically at reversing the actions of the Obama Administration to strengthen permitting requirements for mountaintop removal mines (and thus would reinstate the polluter-friendly rules set up by the Bush Administration). Appalachian Voices supported a “NO” vote on each of the following three amendments. Most Republicans voted “AYE,”and most Democrats voted “NO,” with variations noted below each vote.

#109 Griffith (Defunding EPA’s mountaintop removal guidance)

Ds voting Aye: Altmire (PA), Boren (OK), Critz, Donnelly, Holden, Matheson (UT), Rahall (WV), Ross (AR)

Rs voting Nay: Bass (NH), Fitzpatrick, Hayworth (NY), Johnson (IL), Lance (NJ), LoBiondo (NJ), Reichert, Smith (NJ), Webster (FL), Wolf (VA)

216 McKinley (Defunding EPA’s 404c veto authority)

Ds voting Aye: Altmire, Boren, Cardoza, Carson, Costa, Costello, Critz, Donnelly, Gutierrez, Holden, Kissell, Matheson, McIntyre, Olver, Peterson, Rahall, Ross

Rs voting Nay: Amash, Bass (NH), Cravaak, Fitzpatrick, Forbes, Gerlach, Johnson (IL), LaTourette, LoBiondo, Paulsen, Reichert, Smith (NJ), Wittman, Wolf

498 Johnson (Defunding Dep. of Interior’s Stream Protection Rule)

Ds voting Aye: Altmire, Boren, Costello, Critz, Donnelly, Holden, Matheson, McIntyre, Peterson, Rahall, Ross
Rs voting Nay: Bass (NH), Fitzpatrick, Hayworth, Johnson (IL), Lance, McCaul, Reichert, Smith (NJ), Wolf

Appalachian Voices also joined many of our national partners in opposing #217, which limits EPA’s ability to regulate toxic coal ash. Compared to the mountaintop removal amendments, #217 passed with much greater Republican support, but also lost many more Democrats.

Though these votes didn’t go the way we would have liked, we have now seen 206 members of Congress take an anti-MTR action by either cosponsoring the Clean Water Protection Act, or voting “NO” on #109, #216, or #498 — enough to uphold a presidential veto. It does allow us a clearer picture of where many in Congress stand regarding mountaintop removal, and presents a more clear of who we can work with.

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Have we warmed as much as expected?

This is a repost from Skeptical Science.

Previously, in A Case Study in Climate Science Integrity, we qualitatively examined two errors which led the Universal Ecological Fund (Fundaci­on Ecol³gical Universal [FEU-US]) and Dr. Richard Lindzen to arrive at diametrically opposed, but equally wrong conclusions.  Here is Lindzen’s (emphasis added):

“According to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the greenhouse forcing from man made greenhouse gases is already about 86% of what one expects from a doubling of CO2 (with about half coming from methane, nitrous oxide, freons and ozone), and alarming predictions depend on models for which the sensitivity to a doubling for CO2 is greater than 2C which implies that we should already have seen much more warming than we have seen thus far“

In both publications, thermal inertia and negative forcings were neglected.  Both performed calculations which accounted for the positive anthropogenic forcings (carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gases), but neglected these two factors.  The difference is that while the FEU-US completely ignored them, Lindzen did mention each factor in a halfhearted effort to justify neglecting them.  But before we get into the details, it’s worthwhile to examine the history of Lindzen’s “we should already have seen much more warming” claim. Read more

EU climate target: Less CO2-emissions could trigger more economic growth,

Increasing the EU’s 2020 greenhouse gas reduction target from 20% to 30% could help boosting European investments from 18% to 22% of GDP, leading to a GDP increase of up to ‚¬620bn ($840bn) and the creation of up to 6 millions additional jobs. These are the key findings of a report launched today.

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One of America’s largest grassroots climate organizations is readying a national campaign against the lobbying efforts of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber, described by 350.org founder Bill McKibben as the “power plant” of “money pollution” in Washington, DC, has led lobbying efforts to block action on climate change for decades.

Because of its pro-pollution, anti-science stance, the Chamber is threatening American prosperity — its supposed mission. Several companies, including Apple, Exelon, and Pacific Gas & Energy, have quit the lobbying group over its climate denial. In the Tom Dispatch, McKibben explains how 350.org plans to expose the split between real American businesses and the multinational polluters that fund the “U.S.” Chamber of Commerce, with the simple message, “The U.S. Chamber Doesn’t Speak For Me“:

Still, the rest of us can stand up and be counted. We can tell the Congressional representatives taking their money that they don’t speak for us. We can urge more big companies to act like Apple and Microsoft, which publicly denounced the chamber. (It’s good to hear Levi Strauss, General Electric, and Best Buy making similar noises.) We need to hear from more dissenting chambers of commerce. It cheered me to find that the CEO of the Greater New York Chamber said, “They don’t represent me,” or to discover that just a few weeks ago the Seattle chamber cut its ties.

But it’s even more important to hear from small businesspeople, the very contingent the U.S. Chamber of Commerce draws on for its credibility. Across America in the coming months, volunteers from the climate change organization I helped to found, 350.org, will be fanning out to canvass local businesses — all those bakeries and beauty salons, colleges and chiropractors, pharmacies and fitness centers that belong to local chambers of commerce.

The volunteers will be asking for signatures on a statement announcing that “the U.S. Chamber doesn’t speak for me,” and offering businesspeople the chance to post videos expressing just how differently they do think when it comes to global warming, energy, and the environment. It’s a chance to emphasize that American business should be about nimbleness, creativity, and adaptation — that it’s prepared to cope with changing circumstances, instead of using political cash to ensure that yesterday’s technologies remain on artificial life support.

“With my colleagues at 350.org, I’ll do what I can to help undermine the chamber’s claim to represent American business,” McKibben writes. “I don’t know if we can win this fight against money pollution, but we’re going to do what we can to clear the air.”

Goldstein and Cavanagh join in the debunking of the Breakthrough Institute, which “fails to back up its accusations with facts”

Energy efficiency saves energy, increases electric reliability, avoids the need to build new power plants, and saves Americans money. It’s really that simple.

Some of the nation’s top energy experts have debunked the Breakthrough Institute’s false assertions and misleading statements about energy efficiency.  Now two more leading experts, David Goldstein and Ralph Cavanagh, weigh in with their analysis.  They are co-directors of NRDC’s energy program, and each has been working to implement energy efficiency at the national and state level since the 1970s.  Their piece is repoted below, followed by Goldstein’s discussion of California’s experience.

Throughout almost four decades of societal progress in getting more work out of less energy, those who deny the promise of energy efficiency have persisted in a bizarre claim:  Any energy savings from efficiency are offset by activities that demand additional energy consumption.

Meteorologist Dr. Jeff Masters, in a WunderBlog repost.

A significant shift is occurring in the Equatorial waters of the Eastern Pacific off the coast of South America, where the tell-tale signs of the end to the current La Ni±a event are beginning to show up.

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A cross-post by CAP Energy VP Kate Gordon.

Newly elected Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker held an event called “Wisconsin is Open for Business” the day he was inaugurated. But every move the governor makes shows him to be an anti-business, anti-innovation politician intent on running the state into the ground.

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This is a TP cross-post.

Last Thursday, ThinkProgress revealed that lawyers representing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, one of the most powerful trade associations for large corporations like ExxonMobil and CitiGroup, had solicited a proposal from a set of military contractors to develop a surreptitious campaign to attack the Chamber’s political opponents, including ThinkProgress, the Change to Win labor coalition, SEIU, StopTheChamber.com, MoveOn.org, U.S. Chamber Watch and others. The lawyers from the Chamber’s longtime law firm Hunton and Williams had been compiling their own data set on some of these targets. However, the lawyers sought the military contractors for assistance.

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