thank you for following us. The attention around both our site and other activities has indeed grown over the past years. The only regret is that there has not been time to answer all comments properly. Let me take the opportunity however, to compliment on the Durban Poem, submitted by one of our friends.

At the same time, it’s worth noticing that the hysteria in the climate debate has decreased simultaneusly. Remember December of Copenhagen. What remains now is basically the fancy, regular meetings and the fuzz over quite too much tax money for the delegates to play with.

But environmental – and political – problems remain. Pollution, starvation and misery prevail, wherever common decency and private property is replaced by reshuffling of tax money, expropriation and hasty legislation.

CFACT Europe remains devoted to sound science and decency, not only in the climate debate. During the year, we have been represented at joyful events, such as the Annual Liberty Ball in Brussels, and more solemn occasions such as the the funeral of the late Dr Otto von Habsburg, in Vienna.

In the year to come, you might excpect some chanches and improvements to the web site. This is a work in progress, but if anyone of you run a blog or web site related to our task, please link to us and get in contact for cross linking.

Happy New Year

Einar Du Rietz, Associate Editor, CFACT Europe

Wiser from the Copenhagen hysteria, all sides – except President Zuma, who is forced to show some enthusiasm, and in a way The Holy Father, who wants a “credible” outcome (nothing wrong with credibility) - seem to agree that COP17 in Durban wont accomplish anything. As for me, I’m content with that, but it’s still fun to watch the show, including side appaerances from all places. Guess we can look forward to a lot of that.

In the UK, PM Cameron’s “Green Guru”, Steve Hilton suddenly comes out as a realist, saying he doubts the entire Global Warming idea.

Reports the Daily Mail:

‘I’m not sure I believe in it,’ he announced at a meeting of the Energy Department, prompting one aide to blurt out: ‘Did I just hear that correctly?’

Meanwhile, Canada seems to abandon ship as far as Kyoto goes.

“[Environment Minister, Peter] Kent said in the House of Commons on Nov. 22 he won’t sign a document at the Durban conference that extends the Kyoto targets.

‘Canada goes to Durban with a number of countries sharing the same objective, and that is to put Kyoto behind us,’ Kent said.” according to CTV News.

And this is just the beginning. Roughly, on the table is: Kyoto, expiring next year. The EU, not having any problems with the obligations, are for an extension, and the big players never joined. A global binding treaty that was hoped for in Copenhagen and now, if ever, might appear at least as a draft resolution in three years.

Remains the 100 billions, pledged, but still unclear how, to be spread over the earth. This is COP17. Guess the by now professional summit globerotters find that a fair sum for others to pay, in order to continue the circus.

On Friday and Saturday, November 25^th & 26^th, as the UN prepared to kick off COP17, the UN Conference on Climate Change, in Durban, South Africa, CFACT, the European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE) and others co-sponsored a climate conference of our own in beautiful Munich, Germany. EIKE was launched in 2007 in Berlin. CFACT is a proud founding member.

Interview with
EIKE President Dr. Holger Thuss

CFACT: What has been the public mood in Germany about global warming?

For years, large parts of the population were buying into the IPCC’s position without question. Others had some doubt, but could not find any reliable source in their own language to educate themselves about anything about climate that did not favor the Green’s narrative. It was terribly one-sided.

Are things changing?

The media, while still often hostile, now takes serious interest in our activities and today is willing to openly question whether the IPCC and climate campaigners are always right. Today, more and more people in Germany realize they have been misinformed and I can say without exaggerating that our work played an important part in this. We see a real change, not just among ordinary citizens, but also business leaders, lawmakers, media executives and the consulting industry (which is very influential in Germany). People from every sector of society are giving positive feedback, attending events, buying our publications and are now not shy about giving us advice. People read the newspaper and decided for themselves that something didn’t smell right. EIKE with the help from CFACT gave them the facts and a way to meet one another, organize and communicate.

What was it like organizing the first real organization in Germany to question climate orthodoxy?

We had resistance from all sides. We needed 1 1/2 years to register and organize – it took that long to overcome bureaucratic resistance. It was even worse to deal with the hostile media which didn’t hesitate to tell outright lies about our funding, research and the qualifications of our experts – who are distinguished academics from prestigious universities! Some climate radicals tried to make a big deal about the relationship between EIKE and CFACT and just can’t seem to grasp that organizations can be friends too and cooperate together to do great work. Today EIKE is proud to welcome cooperation and support from many diverse and talented people and organizations. The momentum is on our side.

Tell us about the climate conference program.

We have now conducted two workshops and four major conferences. Every one has been a success and each was larger than the one before. There is real excitement. We just completed our first conference in Munich, which was timed to take place at the start of the UN climate conference in Durban. I was very pleased to realize that 90 percent of the people attending were new. They heard we were going to be in their region, wanted to be with us and were willing to reach into their own pockets to support the conference financially. They came not only from Southern Germany, but from Austria, Switzerland and even South Korea and Paraguay.  We are rather proud to be able to offer attendees simultaneous German and English translations throughout the conference.

What were some highlights of this weekend’s conference?

Almost every presentation was a highlight because we heard state of the art science from such distinguished researchers as Henrik Svensmark from Denmark, Nir Shaiviv from Israel, Gernot Patzelt from Austria and Jan Veizer from Canada. We also covered policy and legal aspects related to the downsides of renewable energy and of course the Climategate scandal parts one and two from fascinating speakers such as Donna Lafromboise from Canada and Chris Horner from the U.S. We had so many more truly brilliant presenters that I hesitate to mention any names at all, because each is worthy and we are extremely grateful to them all.

What message can CFACT carry from Munich to the UN’s COP17 in Durban?

We want the UN and everyone reading this to know that the IPCC reports have been proclaiming their conclusions as unquestionable scientific facts, when actually their science is faulty and Climategate shows the UN has placed its trust in the wrong people. We call for open minds and vigorous debate without fear. The IPCC should be replaced by a more credible institution, perhaps one uniting research institutions from around the world, free from bias and advocacy.

Prof. Nir Shaviv at the 2010 International Climate and Energy Conference

For the 4th time, the European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE), the Berlin Manhattan Institute, CFACT and a few others host an International Climate and Energy Conference, this time in in the Bavarian capital Munich, Nov. 25.-26 (program below).

Renowned scientists such as Professors Svensmark, Shaviv, Veizer and Patzelt, as well as bestselling authors such as Donna Laframboise, Andrew Montford and Christopher Horner confirmed their participation. As in previous years, the event is going to be Europe’s no.1 meeting and debating point for climate and energy realists, bloggers, and their friends from all over Europe and beyond.

Registration works through the EIKE-page, www.eike-klima-energie.eu, or by mail, info@eike-klima-energie.eu, or by fax: +49-2641-32 79 858. Regular participation fee for this 2-day-event is 140 Euro (including 3 meals, 4 coffee breaks, 1 evening reception, conference materials, and simultaneous translation English/German and German/English). More technical details below the program.

Program (updated 10th November)

Friday – November 25

08:00 a.m. Registration

 09:00 a.m.

Welcome

Wolfgang Müller

Berlin Manhattan Institute (BMI), European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE)

 09:10 a.m.

The IPCC – Almost nothing you’ve been told about this organization is actually true

Donna Laframboise

Blog nofrakkingconsensus.com

 09:45 a.m.- 12:30 p.m.

Panel: Measuring vs. Modelling

Real temperature measurements vs. climate alarmism

Prof. em. Dr. Horst-Joachim Lüdecke

Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft des Saarlandes

 Glaciers- and forest development in high altitude alpine areas during the last 10,000 years

Prof. em. Dr. Gernot Patzelt

University of Insbruck

 Anthropogenic sea level rise: from scenario to panic

Dipl. Meteorologe Klaus-Eckart Puls

Press spokesperson EIKE

 11:30 a.m. – 12.00 a.m. Break

 Mission impossible – geological facts of carbon capture and storage in Germany

Prof. em. Dr. Friedrich-Karl Ewert

Universität Paderborn

12:30 p.m.  – 2:00 p.m. Lunch – conference venue

 2:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.

Panel: Cosmic Rays, CO₂ and Climate

 Climate, water, CO₂ and the sun

Prof. Dr. Jan Veizer  

Department of Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa

The cosmic ray climate link – evidence and implications to the understanding of climate change

Prof. Dr. Nir Shaviv

Racah Institute of Physics – The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

 The impact of solar activities and cosmic rays on the world climate

Prof. Dr. Henrik Svensmark  

Centre for Sun-Climate Research des Danish National Space Centre

4:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. Break

 4:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.

Panel: Update on the CERN Study Cosmic Rays and Climate Change

Prof. Dr. Jan Veizer, Prof. Dr. Nir Shaviv, Prof. Dr. Henrik Svensmark  

 5:30 p.m. – 19:00 p.m.

Panel: How scientists and project developers deal with truth

 Climategate – The story of a cover up

Andrew Montfort

Bishop Hill Blog

Not at face value – tricky contracts in wind power investments
Tilman Kluge
Bad Sonden am Taunus

 Followed by dinner

Saturday – November 26

 9:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.

Panel: Forecasts vs. Scenarios

 Climate change between statistics, models and substitute religion

Prof. Dr. Werner Kirstein

Institute of Geography, Leipzig University

 Accurate long term weather forecasts are possible

Piers Corbyn

Weather Action, London

 11:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. Break

 11:30 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.

The urban legend of the Hockey Stick

Andrew Montfort

Bishop Hill Blog

 12:15 p.m. – 13:00 p.m.

Investing wisely– opportunities and dangers in alternative energy   

 13:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. Lunch – at conference venue

 2:30 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.

Panel: Climate- and Energy Policy – Wish and Reality

 The green economy: Crony capitalism’s newest big idea

Dr. Christopher C. Horner

Center for Energy and Environment – Competitive Enterprise Institute, Washington, DC

The costs of Germany’s green energy agenda – plan vs. reality

Prof. Dr. Gerd Ganteför

University of Konstanz

4:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. Break

 4:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m. Covering their tracks: the IPCC and transparency

Dr. Christopher C. Horner

Center for Energy and Environment – Competitive Enterprise Institute, Washington, DC

 5:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.

Climate policies – a threat to liberty

Prof. Dr. Gerd Habermann

Universität Potsdam, Hayek Society

 6:30 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.

Closing remarks

Dr. Holger Thuss

President Europäisches Institut für Klima und Energie (EIKE)

7:00 p.m. Reception and end of conference

7:00 p.m. Reception and end of conference

Venue: Maritim Hotel München, Goethestr. 7, 80336 München, Germany

Registration Fees:

80 € Day Tickets

140 € Private Individuals (2 days)

290 € Company Representatives (2 days)

Registrations after November 18, 2011 are subject to a surcharge of 30 € per Ticket.

All prices include VAT.

The registration fees include the conference materials, meals and coffee breaks.

Registration

Via the EIKE Website or with your full name, address and institution via fax or email.

Email: info@berlinmanhattan.org

Fax: +49(0)30 69 20 800 39

or via mail:

Registration EIKE

P.O. Box 110111

07722 Jena

Germany

Please make your registration payment payable to EIKE e.V.

Bank: Volksbank Saaletal Rudolstadt

Account: 42 42 92 01

BLZ: 830 944 54

IBAN: DE34 8309 4454 0042 4292 01

BIC: GENODEF1RUJ

The Mobility Week is on again. The sort of expansion of the Green Week/In Town Without my Car Week, sponsored by the EU and participating cities, in other words tax money to make life harder for people.

This has been a yearly event for ten years now, making lives more difficult.

I don’t mind any of the suggested alternatives to cars. I walk. I bike. I use public transportation.

What I don’t like is people walking into me, crazy bikers or waiting for public transportation for an hour.

And I tend to care for those who can’t do any of this. This morning, I once again met my neighbour. I simply can’t resist being impressed by the way she gets out of her wheelchair, gets it into the vehicle and drives off. Once, she asked me for help. Normally, never.

I’d like to meet the cop who will tell her – or the ambulance driver for that matter – that she should take the bus.

What is it about? Whether global warming is natural or manmade is of crucial importance for both climate science and climate policy. Hence the the update on this issue. Besides, the author, an expert in atmospheric and space physics and founding director of the US Weather Satellite Service, discusses chaotic uncertainties of climate models and how to overcome them, Climategate and the Hockeystick graph – and shows “what we can say about the absence of post-1979 warming in the temperature data of the 20th century.”

The brochure has been/is presented by Prof. Singer during his (ongoing) lecture tour in Europe. Editions in German, French, Spanish and other languages are in preparation (German will be next). The book has been published with the support of the European Institute for Climate and Energy.

NIPCC vs. IPCC, Addressing the Disparity between Climate Models and Observations: Testing the Hypothesis of Anthropogenic Global Warming, Interim Science Update, Presented at Majorana Conference in Erice, Sicily, August 2011, ISBN 978-3-940431-28-8, TvR 2011, 28 p. (29×21,5 cm). 27 illustrations and graphs (19 in color). 10,00 EUR.

Last Tuesday, University of Leipzig science faculty dean Prof. Dr. Jürgen Haase barred a climate seminar organized by (his own) geography professor Werner Kirstein, as well as the use of an auditorium of his own institute (!) and participation by European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE) Vice President Michael Limburg as one of the the main speakers. Fortunately the ban was later relaxed and the seminar was allowed to go ahead.

The reason for originally having banned the seminar was a dissertation authored by Michael Limburg, which was critical of climate-science and was submitted to the faculty in March 2010. Two reviewers rejected the dissertation claiming, among other points, that it was inadequate. This is why Limburg was not welcome as a speaker, according to a letter from the Dean. The fact that the same dissertation had been recommended for acceptance by 4 other renowned professors went unmentioned by Haase. Limburg immediately challenged the ban.

What was so inconvenient about Limburg’s dissertation?

Under the supervision of Prof. Werner Kirstein, Limburg had written a dissertation that examined the quality of historical global temperature and sea level data in detail. His conclusions were damning. Using accepted rules for science and measurement, Limburg’s results showed that the datasets did not allow sea level and temperature change over the last 120-150 years to be determined anywhere near the alleged accuracies of millimetres or tenths of a degree Celsius respectively as claimed by the IPCC. The range of uncertainty, in both global mean temperature and sea level, is considerably greater than the total respective changes given by the IPCC. Every factor in attributing the possible causes of the changes was, at best, scientifically questionable.

Naturally, the faculty searched – and found – the “right” reviewers for assessing Limburg’s dissertation. In his decision to ban Limburg from speaking, Haase quoted only the objectively unfair and negative assessments. The fact that four other university professors had recommended the dissertation be accepted got no mention by Haase. Limburg officially contested the assessment delivered by the two reviewers, but they have taken their time to respond. Up to today there is still no response. Now a legal battle appears inevitable. Science has again been cast aside.

The high point of the whole affair is the open attempt by the University of Leipzig to silence Lim¬burg – even though he had been officially invited by a full professor. The Leipzig University faculty appears to be completely oblivious to this unworthy conduct.

Open debate is essential for the progress of science

This brings up Voltaire, the most famous philosopher of our time, and his words to his harshest opponent: ‘Sir, I do not agree with your opinion and I fully oppose you. But I would give up my life to assure that you will always be allowed to publicly express your opinion’. At the University of Leipzig, there has to be some colleagues among the philosophy faculty who are familiar with those words. But it looks as if the University leadership is not among them.

Sources: Press release by EIKE, www.eike-klima-energie.eu, originally translated from German by Pierre Gosselin, http://notrickszone.com

Climate science is anything but settled.

For years, physicist Henrik Svensmark of the Danish National Space Institute (who has presented at conferences organized by CFACT and EIKE) has been asking inconvenient questions about the relationship between the sun, clouds and climate.  He demonstrated in the lab that cosmic rays from the sun affect cloud

Henrik Svensmark

formation.  Cosmic rays are a factor not meaningfully considered in the computer climate models which global warming proponents have declared to be so robust that they are beyond discussion.

To the vexation of true climate believers, Svensmark’s work has been confirmed at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research.  CERN is home to the Hadron super conducting super collider near Geneva.  CERN simulated the effect of cosmic rays in the earth’s atmosphere and found that it does indeed influence cloud formation.

This is very inconvenient science for the global warming campaigners, researchers and myriad carbon carpetbaggers, all of whose incomes have come to depend on government willingness to accept the authority of climate models as gospel.  The more people know about computer climate models, the less they are willing to curtail the freedom and prosperity of the developed world.

Can European scientists like Svensmark and the researchers at CERN restore rigorous scientific questioning to climate science?  Will scientists again research, question, write and speak without fear of political reprisal?  Is this the beginning of a new enlightenment?  Europe’s done it before.

Soon Enough

Reading weather forecasts this season has been like reading horoscopes in tabloids; you can be certain that it will be the reverse.

The only time so far, when the prediction really was correct was when CFACT Europe President Holger Thuss and I visited the Imperial Funeral in Vienna. The papers said it should be 30 plus Celsius. It was. The event became memorable in more than one way, considering the funeral attires we were wearing.

Now, in the high season, apart from the obvious focus on the tragedy in Norway and the US economy, the occasional, but usual comment surfaces in the media, pointing out that it’s – aha - global warming.

Meteorology is apparently not a science to be trusted for what to wear tomorrow, and we all know that. But for the general discussion, this also shows that the long term historic perspective is essential if we want to grasp the climate change debate.

The general summer plague of algae blooming is on again in the Baltic. Say some experts. According to others, it’s a lot better than earlier

Your memory from last summer is probably as clouded as mine. Either you remember the water temperature, the sun, the rain, because you were by the water, or even sailing. Or maybe you had a love affair and remember everything as sunny. Or was stuck in your office, with AC and mineral water as your only postcard.

For mor information on both the Vienna Funeral and historic research visit the same site you are on: cfact.eu.