The party season has started. In about a month, Rio will be crowded by politicians and hooligans for the mega environmental gathering, but allready next week, good old Hotel Maritim in Bonn will fill up with the usual bunch for yet another climate conference.

Nothing wrong with Bonn, or Maritim for that matter, but don’t people get bored? From the UNFCCC invitation:

“The 36th sessions of the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) and of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA), the fifteenth session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action…”.

That’s just for starters, but it seems like the same show again. 36th session! And over the past decade, when these meeting have intentsified, there has been no significant global warming, and certainly not any man made climate change. Should be pointed out, to avoid misunderstandings, that we have indeed seen tradegies that could fit into the environment chategory, Tsunamis, earthquaqes, starvation and war, but none of these are adressed neither under the roof of Maritim. Or by the usual Tibetan vegans traditionally entertaining visitors outside.

And you easily start getting the feeling that even the organizers are feeling that this is just business as usual. After all, some years have passed since the global hysteria in Copenhagen, a bunch of climate gates for example (though the first erupted right before the meeting), and things that people in general really do care about. Some wars, economic crisis in Europe, a couple of elections, to mention a few.

But Bonn is nice, and though even the lunch burger at Maritim is rather tasty, I would rather recommend some really nice restaurants to enjoy after a stroll along the Rhine.

Might appreciate some real support - not corruption and stupidity

The heroic boy scouts collected money, went to a village in deepest Africa and helped develop a well. A few month later, excessive use had dried it up and the final result was an extension of the desert.

Examples of unintended consequences (and sometimes plain stupidity) in development aid are numerous, some probably myths by now. Distributing loads of pork to Muslim countries. Rushing factory building until the installation collapse on top of people. The literature is also quite extensive. A useful introduction, or summary may be this.

Important to remember is that humanitarian catastrophes are seldom, if ever, caused by real villains in these cases, hence the words unintended and aid. Wars, planned famine and genocides are indeed orchestrated by evil, but they are never intended by the do-gooders.

The problems occur both with voluntary help and government programs, though the latter, for natural reason, tend to be more dangerous. As a matter of fact, lot’s of people working with government aid are smart, caring people, but often trapped in the system. One such hazard is the idea, launched some decades ago, and implemented in some countries, to legislate allocation of a minimum level of GDP to the foreign aid budget. Both the government, and the associated authorities are then forced to spend the annual funds.

Some countries try to make the best of the situation, for example by allocating funds to emergency help rather than budget support. Pouring money into a corrupt countries state budget most often leads to, in the less evil scenario, the money going straight into a Swiss bank account, or, which is worse, into buying weaponry used against neighbours or the country’s own population. On the other hand, budget support can also be the only way to boost investments in infrastructure. An alternative to building governmental roads and airports is of course to let private companies both develop, build and own. Such investments tend, if they are even allowed, however to be quite risky for the entrepreneur, facing the constant threat of both war and plain nationalization. The only simple solution, if not sufficient, seems to be to, to the extent possible, minimize governmental aid and let the not so small private, international networks do the job.

CFACT did have some other activities in Copenhagen as well

At the COP 15 in Copenhagen, remember, when the whole world was in hysteria over global warming and the last chance to halt it, one of the things that came out of the – otherwise generally considered catastrophic – meeting, was a pledge by developed countries to help third world countries, that somehow would be hurt the worst by weather changes. And not aloud to burn fossil fuels to develop, you might add. The discussion then moved to a hassle over if this, quite substantial sum, could be included in the budgets for foreign aid, or if it should be earmarked on top of these.

I spent most of the time in on of the cafeterias in the middle f it all. A great place both to write, go through collected material and listen in on the neighbours. Working was out of the question when a quite substantial African delegation nicked most of our chairs (luckily not the one I was sitting in) and started a loud meeting. It was in French, but I can tell you that it was not about global warming, or about the environment at all. It was about how to get as much money as possible from the naive tax payers up North.

Realist or Alarmist?

During my years in the climate debate, I’ve been called all sorts of things. Climate Hater, Weather Denier, to mention a few. Apparently all climate realists are now also “Anti-Science”, and according to Robin McKie, writing for the Observer, though this article  was found in our fanzine The Guardian, people are getting scared.

“Most scientists, on achieving high office, keep their public remarks to the bland and reassuring. Last week Nina Fedoroff, the president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), broke ranks in a spectacular manner.

She confessed that she was now “scared to death” by the anti-science movement that was spreading, uncontrolled, across the US and the rest of the western world.”

 If they had asked me, I could have delivered quite a few speakers, not very hateful, and certainly scientists. As a matter of fact, this service is constantly offered and provided by CFACT and our vast network of scholars.

To my disappointment though, CFACT Europe is not even mentioned by name, but the theme seems to have been that this plague is spreading into Europe too.

According to the article, the conference does not seem to have been a lot about science, just about being scared, so probably my services would not have been of great use. Never mind Climategate. Never mind the lack of significant global warming. Never mind that man can’t control the sun. We are here to share the horror stories. But my offer stands, and until we meet, feel free to browse our web site, quite full of not so hateful science and reflections.

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.

All the players are gearing up for the Durban festivities in a month. Though only accounting for about 11 percent of the worlds carbon emissions, the European Union, not surprisingly wants to play a major role.

Euractiv gives an update:

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

CFACT is proud to partner with the Heartland Institute to bring you the 6th International Conference on Climate Change. Heartland continues to do a real service to science with these conferences which we all should appreciate.

 It doesn’t help that the view is awesome or that the food is great, and that you are surrounded by great historic monuments, if you attend a 2-week-mega-meeting, and nothing happens. That is just boring. And that is in fact what you see if you come to the conference hotel of the UNFCCC Climate Conference in Bonn these days: bored delegates, sipping coffee with a sour face, sleeping somewhere in the corner on one of these red silk sofas, or surfing in the Internet. Delegates are so busy looking at their computer screens, any uniformed visitor of the conference would think he witnesses some kind of game convention. And – I repeat myself – close to nothing has been achieved so far.

Today, at a meeting of the “Subsidiary Body for Implementation” – one of the many sub-groups of the UNFCCC – a lot of dissatisfaction has been expressed. Even the representative of the over-optimistic European Union expressed concerns. The EU expected a road-map or something similar to enable the upcoming COP/MOP – another big climate conference foreseen for Durban, South Africa, for December this year – to adopt another Kyoto-styled agreement. But she had to admit, that the one and only result of many and endless “informal meetings” since Monday was the adoption of the agenda. Yes, that’s correct. The only item adopted too far in four days is the agenda! Which is neither sustainable nor eco-efficient? Another concern, this time expressed by a delegate for the “G77 plus China” group from Argentina was funding. His wording was very diplomatic, but the bottom line was, richer countries should enable developing countries to send large delegations to UN-meetings. Because only this would secure their participation. And yes, including “Palestine”.

Another concern was how to secure the financial and technical means of governments of developing countries to participate even before the UN-meetings – which they can better prepare themselves. But that was not all: The delegate also emphasized the importance the “Special Climate Change Fund”, the “Adaptation Fund” and quite a few other “financial mechanisms” allegedly needed to stop climate from changing, and last but not least, of having even more climate conferences before the end of the year. In 2001, some of the “financial means” allocated to the UNFCCC were used to set up an Executive Board supervising CDM-projects (clean development mechanisms). The objective is industrialized countries financing projects in developing countries of which the UN believes they would help to prevent carbon emissions. In return, they get “emission reduction units” helping them to achieve their own carbon reduction goals. But how, one wonders, do they find out how much CO2 was saved? The magic word is “baseline scenario”. In other words, the prevented CO2 emissions are hypothetical emissions, based on the imagination of green NGOs. Nobody knows if a coal fired power plant was really prevented by a wind park, or if it was just an idea of a smart government to get some project money.

At a presentation of CDM projects the audience was informed of thousands of such CDM projects supervised by the UN in 71 countries that helped saving 620 mio tons of CO2 (which were not there before either, but which were in the making, somehow…). The only observer organization skeptical of the entire agenda of the UNFCCC present at the Bonn Climate Conference was once more CFACT. At a press conference hosted by CFACT on Wednesday in Bonn, German scientists Prof. Friedrich Karl Ewert and Dr. Horst Borchert presented their latest research on the true driving forces of climate change, the sun and solar radiation. This research was after all not based on computer models and “baseline scenarios”, but long term measurements and thorough evaluation of data. During the press conference as well the updated NIPCCC report compiled by Prof. Fred Singer (Univ of Virginia) was presented as well, confirming that human activities can’t be the reason for climate change and that there is no effect that can be traced to greenhouse gases, such as CO2. In other words, any of the 3000 or so delegates and of the journalists at the UN-meeting eventually had the chance to listen to serious science. Unfortunately, few did, while many others preferred to sip coffee in the lobby of the hotel or to surf around in the World Wide Web.

A picture tells more than a thousand words, people say. And if you have something to say affecting scientific or political debates, a movie is even better. Thus, the European CFACT team believed it is a good idea to invite delegates, observers and media at the UN Climate Change Conference in Bonn, Germany, to a movie night on Saturday, June 11, 2011. The prior aim of this official UN side event was presenting the true driving forces behind climate change and our whether: solar and cosmic radiation.

 The movie presented by CFACT at was a documentary by Lars Oxfeldt Mortensen from Denmark titled “The Cloud Mystery”, telling the story of Danish Professor Henrik Svensmark. The physicist is the actual discoverer of the true forces changing the world’s climate. Further more he was able to deliver experimental evidence for is findings – in a ten years effort, sometimes without any funding. By this, he helped solving one of the most important questions of the climate debate, the mystery of cloud formation. The documentary also demonstrates that science is a rough place to be if you are in opposition to the established “truth”. During the research process, Svensmark started a collaboration with other distinguished scientists such as Prof. Jan Veizer (Ottawa, Canada) and Prof. Nir Shaviv (Haifa, Israel), delivering the empirical evidence for his theories.

Since then, non of these scientists has been spared of unsubstantiated criticism and ad hominem attacks by alarmists. Svensmarks findings – that the galaxy and the sun are the main driver of the world’s climate – is still ignored by large parts of the UN elites, even though the evidence is overwhelming and other researchers meanwhile support his conclusions. Already on June 8, at the CFACT press briefing during this year’s Bonn climate talks, German scientists Dr. Borchert and Prof. Ewert presented their research showing the significance of Svensmarks revolutionary approach. And in the last years, other scientists from Denmark, Israel, Canada, the USA, and Norway spoke out in favor of Svensmark. The movie was preceded by an introduction by Dr. Holger Thuss, Executive Director of CFACT Europe and followed by a reception. Again, CFACT provided an opportunity to learn and to discuss by hosting an UN side event. However, most of the UN crowd preferred to go to stay away – it was the night of the UNFCCC staff party (food and drinks!). But they can no longer say they haven’t had the opportunity to know the truth.

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This morning CFACT & EIKE presented a scientific briefing at the UN conference on climate change in Bonn, Germany.  The briefing was introduced by Wolfgang Müller of EIKE and Berlin’s Manhattan Institut and featured Professor em. Friedrich Karl Ewert a geologist from Paderborn University and Dr. Horst Borchert of the Johannes-Gutenberg Universität in Mainz.  The presentations build upon the analysis of Professor S. Fred Singer and provide information on the geological record, solar activity and the big question — is our climate governed by man or nature?