Here is a textbook example of how the media (in this case Reuters, regurgitated verbatim by News Corp) and agenda-driven climate scientists can spin an optimistic story about the state of the climate into hysterical alarmism.

As I reported here, the Arctic sea ice minimum is up by 500,000 square kilometers over 2008, which itself was up by the same amount on 2007. If you are an impartial observer, such a report should be greeted with thoughtful curiosity, since it appears that the late 20th century warming may indeed be slowing or reversing. Furthermore, you might go on to ask, I wonder what the possible cause of such a slowing or reversing of the temperature trend might be. If you were an impartial climate scientist you may think to yourself:

“Hmm, this data doesn’t seem to fit our models. I wonder what is missing from our models that meant we did not predict this increase in sea ice and the cooling of the planet over the last few years? This kind of data is helpful to us because it will allow us to improve our models to better predict the climate in future.”

And if you were reporting this story in a balanced media outlet, you might state “Arctic sea ice rises for second year in a row”.

However, Reuters, like most of the mainstream media, has an agenda of promoting climate alarmism. We’re all going to die unless we slash “carbon” emissions.  So they sit down and think how they can spin this story to fit that agenda. And, after many long hours of consideration, they eventually come up with a headline that screams:

Arctic ice melt third-largest on record

So what does “on record” mean here? That’s right, since 1979, which is utterly meaningless in terms of climate, and which doesn’t include the 1930s, or any of the other less recent warmings, when there was far less arctic sea ice than today.

And instead of open minded curiosity as to why this has happened, the scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in the US, so blinkered by their alarmist agenda, try to explain it away, with caveat after caveat to justify why this growth in sea ice is irrelevant, and that “global warming” is still happening faster than ever. Here are a few examples:

But scientists said they do not consider the slight upward fluctuation again this summer to be a recovery. [Slight upward fluctuation? It’s a huge increase over two years. But they can’t possibly admit that they may not have a perfect understanding of the climate]

The difference was attributed to relatively cooler temperatures this summer compared with the two previous years. [And that is somehow not relevant? Why were temperatures cooler this summer?]

Winds also tended to disperse the ice pack over a larger region, scientists said. [Ah yes, of course, other factors were responsible. But when winds cause ice to retreat, on the other hand, that’s ignored and it’s all attributed to “global warming”. It’s a can’t lose situation!]

“The long-term decline in summer extent is expected to continue in future years,” the report said. [I think they really hope it does, because otherwise they’re going to look pretty foolish]

These so-called scientists have such vested interests that they cannot objectively comment on any data that doesn’t fit their agenda, a cardinal sin which should bar them from ever calling themselves scientists again. I genuinely believe that they are so small minded that they actually want the climate catastrophe that their models predict, and all the disastrous consequences that go with it, simply to be proved right.

The Arctic is the “canary in the coalmine” of climate alarmism, and when it doesn’t play ball, the spin just gets more brazen.

Read it here.

UPDATE: Of course, the ABC here in Australia cannot resist the temptation either:

Walruses die en masse as Arctic ice melts

Hundreds of dead walruses have been found on Alaska’s north-west coast, coinciding with reports that Arctic Sea ice has reached the third lowest level ever recorded.

Some environmentalists in the United States think that is the cause of the deaths. (source)

“Think”? Must be true, then. Quality journalism, as ever, from the ABC.

From The Australian:

The ETS strategy is far from settled and presents the biggest challenges for Turnbull.

The official position of the Coalition, the grounds on which it voted against the government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme the first time in the Senate, is that Australia should not legislate an emissions trading scheme with targets and carbon prices until we know what the position of the world’s three biggest greenhouse gas emitters – China, India and the US – is after the UN conference in Copenhagen in December.

But the reality is, and Turnbull’s preferred position is, that the Coalition should work on amendments to correct a “flawed scheme”, have them accepted and then pass the CPRS bill. Turnbull, who believes in an ETS, would then embrace the scheme, avoid a double-dissolution trigger and try to consign the Coalition’s politically poisonous legacy on climate change to the same dustbin as WorkChoices.

Turnbull accepts there will be revolts along the way, with Coalition MPs and senators – including all the Nationals and up to four or five Liberals – crossing the floor, but believes he will prevail. If he doesn’t, his leadership will be in the same category as Nelson’s was and will face the same fate.

Read it here.

I wonder where this came from? The students being presented with a balanced and objective view of the climate change debate, or from Marxist teachers brainwashing them about the evils of CO2 (and capitalism, and globalisation etc etc) and spouting quotes from climate crackpot James Hansen at them?

BISHOP Druitt College has issued a challenge to other high schools on the Coffs Coast to join them in becoming a part of the 350 movement for climate change to reduce global carbon dioxide levels to 350 parts per million.

The 350 ppm CO2 target is the objective proposed by the NASA chief scientist James Hansen and his colleagues to limit the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million.

The goal is to avoid global climate change with potentially very large and irreversible effects on human society and the natural environment.

Year 11 BDC student Miriam Adams-Schimminger said students at her school would be planting 350 trees and would be sending a petition to Canberra as well as forming the number 350 on the school oval.

And here’s the dead give-away:

“We will be learning about it in science so everyone knows about it and why, and we want to challenge other schools to take part,” Miriam said.

Science? Don’t make me laugh. More like political propaganda. I’d love to be a fly on the wall in those lessons. Just be thankful you don’t send your kids to any of these schools.

Read it here.

More pointless talks about talks, hyped up by AFP as usual:

REPRESENTATIVES of the world’s 17 biggest carbon polluters have kicked off a week of high-stakes talks on climate change with a discussion at the US State Department.

The main aim of the week of meetings is to bridge differences ahead of the UN December 7-18 climate change conference in Copenhagen, where a pact for curbing global warming beyond 2012 – when Kyoto Protocol obligations on cutting emissions expire – is to be crafted [I’ll believe it when I see it – Ed].

Negotiators will meet for two days at the State Department in Washington, then move to New York next week and then on to Pittsburgh [I guess they’re all travelling around by bicycle? – Ed].

The meetings come as Washington tries to resume a leadership role on climate change, and follow a warning from UN chief Ban Ki-moon [-bat] that world leaders need to “get moving” on climate change.

Read it here.

Here at ACM headquarters I am proud to announce that I have replaced virtually every CFL with a traditional tungsten filament bulb. The result?

• I can see properly in my study for the first time in 18 months (60W equivalent? Like hell) – I actually started thinking my eyesight was giving out!
• I don’t have to switch on my desk lamp and go and make a cup of tea while waiting for it to “warm up”
• The dimmers work again.
• I’m no longer at risk of triggering an epileptic fit thanks to the incessant flickering.
• Spares are $2 and not $20 (and don’t mention the $5 Chinese rubbish you get in Woolworths)
• Disposal does not mean releasing highly toxic mercury into the environment (remember how the EU went to such lengths to ban mercury barometers? Talk about hypocrisy).

Thanks to Rudd’s crazy climate hysteria (mirrored around the world), traditional tungsten filament bulbs are being phased out to “save the planet”. Already, you cannot buy the traditional shaped bulbs in certain wattages. But for now, you can still buy candle bulbs and “fancy round” bulbs in both clear and pearl. I intend to stock up on these to last me until I don’t care any more.  The CFLs, on the other hand, will gently rot away in a box in the garage, unwanted and forgotten.

Just so you know what you have to look forward to when Rudd’s ETS becomes law. It looks like the US agencies have been “economical with the truth” about the cost of the US climate bill to households. Why would that be? Maybe because if they were honest about it, it wouldn’t have a chance of being passed [Sounds like the ETS – Ed]:

Documents (link to PDF) obtained from the U.S. Treasury under the Freedom of Information Act by the free-market Competitive Enterprise Institute were released on Tuesday.

The U.S. Treasury Department admits that a “cap and trade” system for regulating greenhouse gas emissions could cost every household $1,761 a year. According to the CBS News story, “the equivalent of hiking personal income taxes by about 15 percent”.

This comes in way over claims that the EIA says:

The Climate Bill Will Cost You Just 23¢ a Day, EIA Analysis Shows. This works out to $83.95 per year. Big difference.

Big difference? That’s a humongous difference. I wonder how big the gap between Rudd’s spin and reality is here in Australia? Hopefully, if the ETS sinks, we will never have to find out.

Read it here.

A slew of articles in the press about the ETS, brought on by the party room shenanigans earlier in the week, and also by Brendan Nelson’s speech to parliament. Tony Abbott has rejected Nelson’s call to reject the ETS:

Former Opposition leader Brendan Nelson urged Parliament to not support a carbon pollution reduction program before the world’s three major emitters had declared their position.

But Mr Abbott said the constituency opposing action on climate change was not wide enough.

“Yes, in the end politicians do have to be people of conviction but we also have to win elections,” he told ABC Television last night.

“There’s always a tension between those two objectives.”

Business people who wanted the coalition to “oppose the legislation to the death” needed to make their view “absolutely, crystal clear”, he added.

“People like myself feel very, very unhappy with the Government’s legislation but I’m not sure that’s the message we’re uniformly getting from the wider constituency.”

So in other words, we’re voting for the ETS because we don’t want to force an election? Sounds like bad politics to me. It’s bad legislation and should be opposed outright. At the same time, however, there are signs that the future for Turnbull will be very tricky:

Turnbull retains strong support in the shadow cabinet and the backing of the partyroom for his strategy of proposing amendments to the government’s laws when they are returned to the Senate in November.

His spokesman on emissions trading, Andrew Robb, has sought detailed submissions from business groups about changes they would support.

But the dissent within the Coalition is increasing: not just from the Nationals who are now almost certain to go their own way on the issue, but from many Liberals as well, who argue that by opposing the scheme the Liberals would be “standing for something”.

And just to finish off: Greenland ‘could melt faster than thought’ – I wonder when we’ll see the story “Greenland ‘could melt slower than thought’? Never, because studies like that never make the media.

Read it here and here.

It certainly is if you have to read all The Age’s hysterical alarmism every day. We predicted that the alarmists would get even more desperate as the planet continued to ignore the flaky climate models on which the whole AGW agenda is based, and we weren’t wrong. Now it’s the medical profession which has appeared to abandon its scientific objectivity (surely an essential component of medical research?), and has climbed aboard the global warming bandwagon:

FAILURE by world leaders to reach a strong treaty to cut greenhouse gas emissions this year could be catastrophic for world health, doctors from six continents have warned.

In a letter published in two leading British journals, the Royal Australasian College of Physicians and 17 sister associations described climate change as the ”biggest global health threat of the 21st century” [yeah, right, let’s just ignore, say, cancer, or poverty, or unclean drinking water, etc, etc … Ed] and called on doctors to pressure politicians to adopt more aggressive policies.

”There is a real danger that politicians will be indecisive, especially in such turbulent economic times,” the letter, published in The Lancet and British Medical Journal, said.

”As leaders of physicians across many countries, we call on doctors to demand that their politicians listen to the clear facts [what “clear facts” would they be? – Ed]… and act now to implement strategies that will benefit the health of communities worldwide.”

Hook, line and sinker.

Read it here.

The outgoing member for Bradfield, Brendan Nelson, former Opposition leader, has used his farewell speech to warn the Coalition against voting for an ETS:

Debate is raging within the Coalition over whether it should consider voting for an amended emissions trading scheme by the end of the year.

Dr Nelson has told Parliament it should not vote for the scheme until next year.

“An emissions trading scheme in a country responsible for 1.4 per cent of global emissions – before knowing what the three major emitters will do – defies not only logic, it also violates Australia’s best interests,” he said.

Right on the money.

Read it here.

It looks like Arctic sea ice extent has bottomed out for 2009, and it’s about half a million square kilometres up on 2008, which itself was about half a million square kilometres up on 2007. But don’t wait up to read about it in the mainstream media, because it doesn’t fit the alarmist agenda too well:

Read it at Watts Up With That.

UPDATE: And of course, right on cue, the ABC publishes a story about precisely the opposite:

The Northeast Passage, which for the most part follows Russia’s Arctic coastline, had seemed impenetrable to international commercial shipping.

Yet with rising temperatures melting the ice cover at a record rate, an opportunity literally opened for the ships this summer.

There’s no other word for it, I’m afraid: lies.

Read it here.