Saturday, September 28, 2019

Global Climate Intelligence Group Formed

     The Global Climate Intelligence Group has attracted some 500 signatures from scientists, professionals and researchers from many nations for what began life scant weeks ago as the European Climate Declaration. Its objective is to put the science back into climate science.

     The group was initiated by Professor Guus Berkhout, who is emeritus professor of Geophysics in the Delft University of Technology and a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

     He is joined by Professor Václav Klaus, former President of the Czech Republic, Professor Richard Lindzen, the world’s foremost climate scientist, Professors Reynald du Berger, Jeffrey Foss, Ingemar Nordin, Alberto Prestinzini, Benoît Rittaud and Fritz Vahrenholt from Canada,  Sweden, Italy, France and Germany respectively.


Monday, September 23, 2019

Climate Projections 30 Years Later

Scan the internet for status report on Climate 30 years after James Hansen's report to Congress essentially kick-off the Climate Change hysteria and nearly ALL left-leaning reports are "Hansen got it Right."  An example of the claims can be found here.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2018/06/30-years-after-hansens-testimony/

Read the report in the Wall Street Journal, "Hansen got it wrong."
https://www.wsj.com/articles/thirty-years-on-how-well-do-global-warming-predictions-stand-up-1529623442

Kind of confusing.  So what really happened?  We ALSO found the following video in the RealClimate.org comment section.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2018/06/30-years-after-hansens-testimony/



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2u_TIWPupw&feature=youtu.be

From the Real Climate article, one thing is certain -  there is a whole lot of 'cherry picking" going on. Hansen's report offers a little something for everybody.

Running our usual check of the reliability of RealClimate.org, we found
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/realclimate/ which addresses the accuracy of their reporting, but says nothing as to their bias.

As one reads the RealClimate.org report on Hansen's testimony, it appears quite accurate.  However, when one listens to the two sides in this debate, both sides seem to cling to Hansen's scenario A.  The alarmists use it to show how bad future climate will be, while the deniers show how bad the projections have been.  

What it does show is - how bad each side's claims are.

Sunday, September 22, 2019

FREE MONEY

The following video came to us via that sedulous source of information - FACEBOOK.  It addresses the current topic of the cost of higher education.



We traced it to https://reason.com/video/remy-all-my-loving-beatles-parody/ 

Media Bias Fact Check rates this source as follows:
Overall, we rate Reason Magazine Right-Center biased based on story selection that favors Libertarian positions and High for factual reporting due to mostly proper sourcing and a clean fact check record.
It nicely treats in this parody the likely feelings of American voters on one of the suggested give-aways of the Democratic 2020 candidates for President.

Prevagen - Brain function

Prevagen (Quincy Bioscience) has been running an aggressive TV campaign claiming one can "experience improved memory, a sharper mind, and clearer thinking.  Is any of this true?  

Short answer is NO!

A review of the evidence indicates that these effects are not well substantiated. Likewise, the FDA has warned Quincy against claiming Prevagen could treat conditions such as head injuries and Alzheimer's disease and for failing to report adverse reactions. 

The FDA has also claimed that the key ingredient, apoaequorin, a synthetic protein, is not an acceptable ingredient in a dietary supplement. 

The FTC is also pursuing a lawsuit against the company regarding its promotion of Prevagen.

Friday, September 20, 2019

Climate Marches

The title of the article reporting on these marches says, 
"We're Young, but we're not dumb."
https://www.npr.org/2019/09/20/762629200/mass-protests-in-australia-kick-off-global-climate-strike-ahead-of-u-n-summit?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=news&mc_cid=519aa5d349&mc_eid=04c0268f4c

Actually, they are dumb. Most of these protesters have been led to believe it is just a matter of changing energy sources.

No easy solution exists, especially the misguided assumption that it is just a matter of adopting renewable energy.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/09/17/why-todays-renewables-cannot-power-modern-civilization/

The greatest challenge to the climate change is human population. That is the fix.

Misleading TV Ads - Surprise Medical Bills

Had a recent hospital stay.  Went to a hospital within your insurance network or accepts your insurance as billed.  Paid your deductible and fees charged by the hospital and the medical staff with whom you had direct interaction.  THEN after you think all bills have been paid, you receive a BIG bill from some medical provider, not in your network, who claims to have been involved in your care.  

Since they are not in your network, they are not limited to negotiated fees with your insurance company. You probably don't even remember them, such as an anesthesiologist, a lab, or diagnostician, who offered services not provided by the hospital and/or its directly employed staff.

This is a Surprise Medical Bill and there is a bill in Congress attempting to block this practice loathed by the public..

https://khn.org/news/surprise-fixing-out-of-network-bills-means-someone-must-pay/ 

Naturally, this legislation is disliked by groups responsible for the billing. They have been running misleading TV ads in Tennessee opposing legislation.
https://www.nashvillepublicradio.org/post/tennessee-physician-staffing-firms-are-behind-ads-resisting-surprise-medical-bill-legislation?mc_cid=519aa5d349&mc_eid=04c0268f4c#stream/0 

Thursday, September 19, 2019

FAKE Climate News

      It's that time of the year when all eyes are on the hurricane activity in the Northern Hemisphere.  Dorian was a star performer.  Even contrary to warnings from Petteri Taalas, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization, the climate alarmists are not missing their opportunity to yell "the sky is falling."  NPR announced it is devoting the week on September 22 to discussed what they label as the Climate CRISIS.  But what is REALLY happening, starting with the hurricane picture?

    For the past several years this blog has been monitoring the frequency and strength of hurricanes and found no scary trends in either.  But Dorian has everybody thinking, "better check the statistics again."  We found the following graphs 

by research meteorologist Dr. Ryan N. Maue (website: http://wx.graphics/tropical/) who keeps track of hurricanes and tropical cyclones. His data show, that as earth warmed from the cold spell in the 1970s (when the media were predicting return to another ice age) there has been no increase in frequency nor in the overall trend of energy in these storms.

Even National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) says: 
In summary, neither our model projections for the 21st century nor our analyses of trends in Atlantic hurricane and tropical storm counts over the past 120+ yr support the notion that greenhouse gas-induced warming leads to large increases in either tropical storm or overall hurricane numbers in the Atlantic.  (Source)

Monday, September 16, 2019

WMO Secretary-General Rejects Climate ‘Doomsters and Extremists’

Petteri Taalas, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization says that the alarmist narrative on climate change has gone off the rails and criticized the news media for provoking unjustified anxiety.
The IPCC reports have been read in a similar way to the Bible: You try to find certain pieces or sections from which you try to justify your extreme views. This resembles religious extremism.
Taalas hopes that mainstream media will become more critical and hopes more for a more diverse presentation of views and argues that all sides should be interviewed. 

https://www.thegwpf.com/wmo-boss-says-climate-discussion-has-gone-off-the-rails/ 

Tuesday, September 10, 2019

AP Fact Checks DEM's Climate Science

CNN town hall with Democratic presidential candidates Wednesday 9/4/19

ELIZABETH WARREN: “We’ve got, what, 11 years, maybe, to reach a point where we’ve cut our emissions in half. ... We’d better be willing to put the resources into it because the alternative is unthinkable.” .

AP FACTS: These statements are out of step with science. Climate scientists don’t agree on an approximate time frame, let alone an exact number of years, for how much time we have left to stave off the deadliest extremes of climate change.

PETE BUTTIGIEG : "For me and everybody I know, for the children that we hope to have, for the people who will be alive at the turn of the century, when if we don't change what we're doing, we could lose half the world's oxygen because of what's going on in the oceans. That is unthinkable." 

AP FACTS: This is not sound science.  Climate scientists told The Associated Press that Buttigieg's claim that half of Earth's oxygen is at risk is false. You and your descendants can breathe easy about the planet's oxygen levels. There are other things to worry about from climate change, fossil fuel combustion and Amazon fires."

BETO O'ROURKE, proposing U.S. leadership on climate change: "Convene those other top wealthy economies to make sure that this is our focus, to save the lungs of the planet that produce 6 percent of the oxygen that we breathe and to ensure that we do not trigger a crisis in the Amazon. Once it is set, we will never be able to roll back. " 

AP FACTS: Lands of the Amazon are not "the lungs of the planet." That's a familiar phrase but not an accurate one. Oxygen production comes primarily from ocean sediments, not forests, which indeed generate oxygen but also consume it.

https://apnews.com/9d6adce79a774aa195e9e33b745d9fa0