Criticisms of MBH98 by McIntyre and McKitrick

In 1998 Michael Mann, Raymond Bradley and Malcolm Hughes published a study that presented Earth’s temperature record over the previous 600 years. This document included the ‘Hockey Stick graph’ that showed a projection of Earth’s temperatures escalating rapidly in the near future. This document became known as ‘MBH98’. A graph based on MBH98 and it successor, MBH99, was used in several parts of the IPCC’s ‘Third Assessment Report’ (2001).

Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick produced a critique of MBH98 in 2005. This blog piece presents excerpts from their 32 page investigation of the techniques used by Mann, Bradley & Hughes that led to the conclusions presented in MBH98.

First, here is some info about Steve McIntyre from Wikipedia:

In 2002, McIntyre became interested in climate science after a leaflet from the Canadian government warning of the dangers of global warming was delivered to his residence. McIntyre states that he noticed discrepancies in climate science papers that reminded him of the false prospectus that had duped investors involved in the Bre-X gold mining scandal.

The Canadian government pamphlets were based on the IPCC Third Assessment Report section, which prominently displayed the hockey stick graph based on the 1999 reconstruction by Mann, Bradley and Hughes (MBH99). McIntyre began studying Mann’s research, which had produced the graph, and met Ross McKitrick. McIntyre has remarked on how his suspicions of this graph were aroused: “In financial circles, we talk about a hockey stick curve when some investor presents you with a nice, steep curve in the hope of palming something off on you.”

And some background on McKitrick:

Ross McKitrick (born 1965) is a Canadian economist specializing in environmental economics and policy analysis. He is a professor of economics at the University of Guelph, and a senior fellow of the Fraser Institute.

The following is my summary of the 32 page critique of Mann’s document known as ‘MBH98’. MBH98 was the document in which the term ‘Hockey Stick’, in relation to future global temperatures, first appeared. However, the critique is quite long and very technical so here is a easily-digestible summary of the main issues as stated by Ross McKitrick:

https://www.rossmckitrick.com/uploads/4/8/0/8/4808045/hockey-stick-retrospective.pdf

A very brief summary of the problems of the hockey stick would go like this. Mann’s algorithm, applied to a large proxy data set, extracted the shape associated with one small and controversial subset of the tree rings records, namely the bristlecone pine cores from high and arid mountains in the US Southwest. The trees are extremely long-lived, but grow in highly contorted shapes as bark dies back to a single twisted strip. The scientists who published the data (Graybill and Idso 1993) had specifically warned that the ring widths should not be used for temperature reconstruction, and in particular their 20th century portion is unlike the climatic history of the region, and is probably biased by other factors.

Mann’s method exaggerated the significance of the bristlecones so as to make their chronology out to be the dominant global climatic pattern rather than a minor (and likely inaccurate) regional one; Mann then understated the uncertainties of the final climate reconstruction, leading to the claim that 1998 was the warmest year of the last millennium, a claim that was not, in reality, supportable in the data. Furthermore, Mann put obstacles in place for subsequent researchers wanting to obtain his data and replicate his methodologies, most of which were only resolved by the interventions of US Congressional investigators and the editors of Nature magazine, both of whom demanded full release of his data and methodologies some six years after publication of his original Nature paper.

Mann had re-done his hockey stick graph at some point during its preparation with the dubious bristlecone records excluded and saw that the result lost the hockey stick shape altogether, collapsing into a heap of trendless noise. However he never pointed this out to readers…

Mann’s PC [principal components] step was programmed incorrectly and created two weird effects in how it handled data. First, if the underlying data set was mostly random noise, but there was one hockey stick-shaped series in the group, the flawed PC step would isolate it out, generate a hockey stick composite and call it the dominant pattern, even if it was just a minor background fluctuation. Second, if the underlying data consisted of a particular type of randomness called “red noise”—basically randomness operating on a slow, cyclical scale—then the PC step would rearrange the red noise into a hockey stick-shaped composite. Either way, the resulting composites would have a hockey stick shape for the LS [least squares] setup to glom onto and produce the famous final result.

The 32 page critique was produced by Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick and can be accessed here:

https://climateaudit.org/multiproxy-pdfs

The PDF I am referring to is the one highlighted in red on this screenshot

Here are Steve and Ross’s words:

Page 2:

‘Unfortunately Mann et al. have refused to provide the source code used to generate their results, other than the limited (but essential) programs used for tree ring principal components (PCs). They have also refused to provide supporting calculations for the individual calculation steps in MBH98, especially the controversial step from 1400-1450 (the “AD1400 step”). Mann used trickery to obtain the results he wanted.’

Here is extract from page 4:

Once again, MBH98 contained a misrepresentation, this time about their PC method. After the University of Virginia FTP site was made publicly available following MM03, by examining PC series archived there and, by examining source code for PC calculations, we were able to determine that MBH98 had not carried out a “conventional” PC calculation, but had modified the PC algorithm, by, among other things, subtracting the 1902-1980 mean, rather than the 1400-1980 column mean, prior to PC calculations, so that the columns were no longer centered on a zero mean in the 1400–1980 step. By this procedure, series are more decentered, and their variance more inflated, the larger is the difference between the series mean and the mean of the 20th century subset. The effect of this transformation would have been mitigated if they had carried out a singular value decomposition on the covariance matrix, but they carried it out on the de-centered data matrix. We have shown elsewhere that this method re-allocates variance so that the PC algorithm then strongly over-weights hockey stick-shaped proxies and that it is so efficient in mining a hockey stick shape that it nearly always produces a hockey-stick shaped PC1 even from persistent red noise [McIntyre and McKitrick, 2005; discussed in Muller, 2004].

Page 5:

We have reported that this algorithm nearly always yields hockey-stick shaped series from persistent red noise networks

Page 7:

In the MBH98 de-centered PC calculation, a small group of 20 primarily bristlecone pine sites, all but one of which were collected by Donald Graybill and which exhibit an unexplained 20th century growth spurt (see Section 5 below), dominate the PC1. Only 14 such chronologies account for over 93% of the variance in the PC1,4 effectively omitting the influence of the other 56 proxies in the network.

Page 10:

The sensitivity of 15th century results to such slight variations of method and data show a fundamental instability in MBH98 results, related especially to the presence or absence of bristlecone pines and Gaspé cedars. This flatly contradicts some claims by Mann et al. about the robustness of MBH98 results.

Page 14:

Despite the reliance of MBH98 on the North American PC1, the validity of this series as a temperature proxy was not independently established in peer-reviewed literature…The strong difference between the Briffa re-construction, comprised of many species, and the MBH98 PC1 (representing only bristlecone pines) should also have raised questions about whether there may be species-particular effects related to any of the numerous unusual features of bristlecone pines.

Page 16:

Mann et al. [1999] purported to adjust the NOAMER PC1 for CO fertilization, by 2

coercing the shape of the NOAMER PC1 to the Jacoby northern treeline reconstruction in the 1750–1980 period, arguing that the northern treeline series would not be affected by CO levels. Once one gets into such ad hoc adjustments, many new questions need to be answered about the validity of the adjustment procedure

Page 23

Mann et al. [2003, 2004a, 2004b] argued that their results are similar to those of “independent” studies, such as Jones, Briffa et al. [1998], Crowley and Lowery [2000], Briffa, Jones et al [2001], Mann and Jones [2003] and Jones and Mann [2004], calculated with different proxies and different methods. This “similarity” is typically shown by “spaghetti” diagrams supposedly illustrating the similarity, rather than through detailed analysis.

Page 24:

These studies are hardly “independent”. If all the authors in the multiproxy articles are listed, one sees much overlapping. Mann himself was a co-author of two supposedly “independent” studies; his sometime co-author (as well as Bradley’s sometime co-author) Jones was co-author of two of the others. Even Crowley and Lowery [2000], where there is no apparent overlap, stated that they used data supplied by Jones. This hardly amounts to “independence” in any conventional use of the term. Many proxies are re-used in these studies, a point which Briffa and Osborn [1999] acknowledged Page 24: the prominent reliance on MBH98/99 in the Third Assessment Report is a matter of public record and cannot now be undone.

Page 26:

The ability of later researchers to carry out independent due diligence in The M&M critique of the MBH98 Northern Hemisphere Climate Index 93 paleoclimate is severely limited by the lack of journal policies or traditions requiring contributors to promptly archive data and methods. King [1995] has excellent comments on replication. In this respect, paleoclimate journal editors should consider changes taking place at some prominent economics journals. For example the American Economic Review now requires, as a precondition of publication, archiving data and computational code at the journal. This is a response to the critique of McCullough and Vinod [2003], and earlier work by Dewald et al. [1986]. The files associated with paleoclimate studies are trivial to archive. In our view, if the public archive does not permit the replication of a multiproxy study, then it should be proscribed for use in policy formation [McCullough and Vinod, 2003]. In addition, we are struck by the lack of policy both in paleoclimate publications and in climate policy reports (e.g. IPCC, ACIA) regarding the reporting of results adverse to their claims. While it may be assumed that results adverse to their claims would be generally disclosed, we are unaware of any paleoclimate journal which explicitly articulates this as a requirement to authors. In contrast, for a prospectus offering securities to the public, officers and directors are required to affirm that the prospectus contains “full, true and plain disclosure”, which requires the disclosure of material adverse results. In MBH98, there are a number of examples, where results adverse to their claims were not reported (and in some cases, actual misrepresentations)

The Differences Between The Left and The Right

My children are reaching the age when they need to gain a deeper understanding of the world in which they live. They certainly need to know about politics. An understanding of politics leads to a better understanding of the self since knowing how you stand on political issues will highlight those issues that are important to you.

I’ve been thinking how I could best explain the differences between The Left and The Right. As always, I knew that writing a blog on the subject would help me clarify my own understanding.

Firstly, however, I need to lay out some groundrules: This blog will describe the differences between Left and Right as they exhibit themselves today. I am not referring to the Tories of the 18th century. Nor am I referring to the Left at the start of the Labour movement in the 20th century. Furthermore, some people say that ‘left’ and ‘right’ are meaningless terms these days. They say “well, I am right wing on some things and left wing on other things”. I would respond that you are just trying to make yourself sound interesting. Either that or you’re too embarrassed to admit you’re right wing. There are fundamental differences between how those from the left and right think. Michael Malice asks a single question to determine if someone is left or right wing:
‘Do you think that some people are better than others?’

If you answer ‘Yes’, you are right wing.
If you answer with a speech, you are left wing.

I thought that was a great way of getting to the heart of the matter. All the rest is just chaff.

Here we go:

Government:

The Right believes in small government, i.e. a government that doesn’t put its nose into all aspects of our lives. We believe everyone should be free to live their lives with the minimum of intervention from the government. The Right will shy away from rules and regulations. The Right believe in personal responsibility.

The Left wants Big Government. The Left like to be told what to do. As such, Leftists will always look to The State to solve the big problems of the day. An example of this was evident during the 2020 Covid19 calamity: the Left wanted the government to step in and impose restrictions. The Left supported firmer restrictions at every step of the process. The Left put a great deal of trust in governments to fix things because the Left believe that everything that is wrong with society can be corrected by government regulation. This is why Socialism is so appealing to Leftists because it is a system of total government control that can be designed to create utopia. However, I am reminded of something I heard Bret Weinstein say during a podcast:

“The future cannot be designed, it must be discovered”.

The Left also have controlling tendencies which they satisfy by having a government that sticks its nose into everyone’s business. The Left love regulation: it’s their way of imposing conformity.

An example of the Left’s belief that the State us the answer to all our problems is this: the Blair / Brown government of 1997 – 2010 employed 950,000 more public sector workers in 2010 than it inherited in 1997. How else were the many rules and regulations introduced by this Government to be overseen?

Insecurity is a common theme with Leftists which is one of the reasons why young people are Leftists but are likely to become Rightists with age (as they become more confident dealing with the world around them).

Under a Liberal governnent vs. a Conservative government

The Poor:

The Right believes that the rising tide lifts all boats. This translates into giving a free hand to the wealth creators to create wealth. Increasing wealth leads to increased jobs and increased standards of living for everyone. Also, the Right realise there are optimal tax rates that maximise tax revenue. Once taxes increase beyond certain rates, the tax revenue declines. See ‘Laffer Curve’. The Right also believe that reward should be earned, that people shouldn’t be given something for nothing, that people should be motivated to strive for a better life and that welfare payments destroy such motivation. In effect, I like to believe that all Rightists believe in ‘equality of opportunity’.

The Left go further than supporting ‘equality of opportunity’. They largely support ‘equality of outcome’. To that end, The Left believes that the rich should be clobbered financially to fund the poor, preferably through the Welfare State. A free market economy creates large wealth inequalities. Leftists don’t like this because their philosophy is that everyone should be equal. The Left would always prefer a lower average standard of living with less wealth ineqality than a higher standard of living allied to greater wealth inequality. The lower standard of living is always the result because the Left’s tax policies are a disincentive to wealth creation: the rich move to other countries and the future entrepreneurs are not as successful at creating new products due to the combination of the punishing tax regime and the increased rules and regulations implemented by Leftist governments that increase costs and make profits hard to come by.

However, the Left used to support the white working class. They no longer care about the white working class. In fact they now dislike this demographic because this group do not buy into the identity politics that the Left has embraced.

The Blank Slate:

The Right believe that people are different: differing intelligence; differing conscientiousness; differing levels of ambition; differing levels of imagination; differing physical abilities. These differences cause the different levels of success amongst people. The Right recognise that inequalities of human aptitude exist and those with more aptitude should be allowed to benefit from those qualities. It is fair and correct that people should be able to benefit if they have good ideas or they want to work harder etc. Recognition and reward of talent allows more successful products and services to be produced which raises the standard of living for everyone.

The Left start with the premise that everyone is the same and that it is only life experiences that create differences. The Left believe that we all have the same potential. They believe that nurture, not nature, is responsible for any and all differences. This is the ‘Blank Slate’ philosophy. Steven Pinker destroyed the ‘Blank Slate’ philosophy in his eponymous book.

The Left believes that certain people do less well at life because they have not had the same opportunities as other people. The Left also believe that structural biases mean that women and minority groups suffer from prejudices that hold them back. The Left believe that the poor are held back by growing up in poverty. Or blacks are disadvantaged because they have to deal with racism. Using this philosophy, leftists can excuse any group that isn’t successful and blame it on ‘structural’ issues. The Left avoids discussing why East Asians and Jews aren’t affected by racism.

Personal Responsibility:

The Right take responsibility for their actions.

The Left do not take responsibility for their actions because they believe in the Blank Slate (see above). Since they believe they absorb and are moulded by societal pressures, Leftists blame those societal pressures when they do something wrong. Nothing is ever their fault. There’s always something they try to hang their bad behaviour on. My wife just angrily told me that major Hollywood libtard Ben Affleck has just blamed his recent months-long period of alcohol fuelled debauchery and degeneracy on feeling trapped as a husband and father. You see, it wasn’t his fault: it was his family’s fault. And with one leap he was free. Check it out with other celebrity lefties: they always play the blame game.

Inequality:

The Right accepts that Successful people will – and should – earn more money than unsuccessful people. The Right adjusts for this by claiming more tax from successful people. This is the basis of progressive tax rates. This is why in UK, 29% of ALL income tax is paid by the top 1% of earners. However, the Right accepts that successful people deserve to have a better quality of life than less successful people because they are the income generators. Successful people run the businesses that employ people and so grow the economy. This is the carrot offered by the Right: work hard and do well and you can enjoy a good lifestyle.

The Left is inclined towards imposing equality on everyone because they believe that is ‘fair’. What they don’t appreciate is that people are not equal and never will be. If you make everyone the same, then there are no longer incentives for working harder or for having good ideas. So people will stop doing this. This is why Eastern Europe fared so badly, economically, under Socialism: incentive had been removed. This is a refusal to accept innate differences among humans.

Moral Codes

Jonathan Haidt, in his book ‘The Righteous Mind’, described how he had discovered 6 moral foundations that guide people’s political beliefs:

1. Care/ harm foundation

2. Liberty/ oppression foundation

3. Fairness / cheating foundation

4. Loyalty / betrayal foundation

5. Authority / subversion foundation

6. Sanctity / degradation foundation

Haidt showed that liberals, i.e. The Left, only use 3 of the 6 moral foundations in their morality (Care, Liberty and Fairness) whereas conservatives have a morality built on all 6 moral foundations. In effect, The Left abide by a narrower moral code than The Right.

Haidt further concludes that this means that conservatives can understand the political positions of liberals much better than liberals are able to understand the positions adopted by conservatives.

The Family:

The Right believe the family is the basic social unit. The family is a strong, stable unit that supports everyone in it and that members of a family can look out for each other. The strength of families mean that The Right do not look to the Government as their primary means of support.

The Left believe in individualism and, therefore are often found trying to undermine the family unit. The Left realise that single people are much more likely to look to The State for security. The Left want individuals to be reliant on the State for support, rather than each other. As such, the Left make divorce ever easier to encourage families to break down, and increase welfare so that the government can fulfill the role of ‘husband’ for single mothers. They also try to prevent families occurring by encouraging women to work so they are not dependent on a man. Once in work The Left will give women the message that if they give up work to have a baby they will be missing out on their career. The Left also makes abortion ever easier. It is no coincidence that Marxist organisations like Black Lives Matter declare their intention to destroy the nuclear family as per this text that appears on the BLM website:

‘We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable’

Tradition:

The Right has a strong attachment to tradition and history. Rightists agree with the sentiment that

‘Unless we learn the lessons from history, we are condemned to repeat its mistakes’.

Everything that Western culture has achieved has been built upon the efforts of previous generations.

The traditions that have passed to us are the connection we have to our ancestors. Those traditions ground us. Those traditions are part of our shared history. Those traditions encapsulate the culture of the country.

The Left hates tradition because tradition acts as a brake on the change they want to instill on society. The Left is always trying to re-interprete history for political gain. Leftists always try to destroy statues and call for changes to the way history is taught in order to break those connections to our past and facilitate the process of change that they promise will make everything better, but never does. We saw this during the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020 where protesters immediately turned to pulling down or defacing statues and other historical monuments.

The left is for everything that divides us — multiculturalism, critical race theory, sexual indoctrination in the schools and unisex bathrooms — and against everything that unites us.

Change:

The Right support slow, gradual changes that are carefully considered and will deliver benefits for the greater good. The changes that are introduced by the Right build on what came before.

The Left are very dissatisfied with the institutations and traditions that, they believe, act as a brake on the radical change that, they believe is needed. You see, the only type of change the Left believe in is radical change. The Left want to destroy everything in order to rebuild everything in the progressive manner that will finally deliver Leftist heaven here on Earth. This is why Leftists have no respect for any of the institutions and traditions that define the country: in their view it all needs to go.

Immigration:

The Right believe that immigration must be controlled to ensure that only people that can make a positve contribution to the country are allowed to move here. Also, the Right is interested in protecting the cultural traditions of the indigenous population. As such, the Right believe that immigrants should assimilate the culture of their adopted country. Commonality of culture in a country ensures high levels of social cohesion and social trust. Hence, Rightists support the concept of a multi-ethnic society but not a multi-cultural one.

The Left believe that everyone who wants to move here should be allowed because that is ‘fair’ . Also the Left are petrified of being thought racist. As such, they feel that allowing all race and cultures to move to UK proves how not racist they are. Also, the Left knows that immigrants from 2nd and 3rd world countries are more likely to vote for Leftist parties. The Left also appreciates that mass immigration gives them a chance to portray national history and traditions as racist and so downplay these cultural markers. The Left can use immigration to change the national culture in the name of ‘inclusiveness’ and, thereby, implement their progressive agenda. Leftists love to promote foreign cultures but rarely their own culture because they dislike their own culture.

Multiculturalism:

The Right recognises that multiculturalism leads to tensions: differences between groups of people – religion, food, language, colour – lead to wars. Look at the wars over the last 500 years between Catholics and Protestants: a small difference of religious doctrine leading to confrontation and persecution on a massive scale. That is just one small example of the trouble caused by different cultures. Now what’s going to happen if we force lots of different cultures to live side by side within the same country? Even Angela Merkel said, in 2010, that multiculturalism had failed.

The Left don’t study history very much so they don’t understand the reasons for most wars. Leftists believe that wars are caused by ignorance and so if people of different cultures could live side by side, tensions would reduce as people saw that different cultures are nothing to be fearful of. It’s a nice idea but, as usual with Leftist philosophy, detached from reality. The fact that social cohesion is very low in multicultural regions is evidence that people do not trust people from different cultures. That lack of trust causes tensions. Humans have evolved to want to be around like-minded people.

Meritocracy:

The Right believe that everyone should be free to reach their potential and that opportunities should be offered to the best person based on work and qualifications.

The Left believe that meritocracy cannot be left to its own devices. Instead, the normal processes must be engineered to take account of the struggles that certain victim groups have had to overcome. Therefore, we see the Left impose targets and ‘Diversity and Inclusion’ officers to ensure that all groups are proportionally represented. The Left would not necessarily want the right person to get the job, or university place or research grant etc but the right type of person to keep things ‘fair’. This is typical Leftism: The belief that more rules and regulations can correct for the defects of human behaviour. This belief also requires the huge government infrastructure, so beloved by Leftists, to manage. Ultimately, The Left doesn’t trust people. People need to be managed. That’s why socialist states are so joyless: the people know they are not trusted by the governing class.

Work:

The Right believe that people need to work in order to provide for themselves. Work is very important for the Right, as it is in Christiantity whereby a man finds satisfaction in his work and also a sense of purpose. The Right believes that without the sense of purpose provided by work, man becomes listless. We are, in effect, Beasts of Burden: the more we work, the more capable of work we become. But do not overlook the need for people to work in order to provide for their families and the satisfaction that comes with that: man providing for his family is an instinct that goes back to the earliest primates.

The Left feel that work is a burden and that if people were freed of this burden, people would then have the opportunity to reach their utmost potential. This is why the Left are always looking at UBI and welfare and other ways whereby a minority of taxpayers can pay for the rest of us to sit around working on our pottery. Or our baking. Or becoming actors. The Left believes that, freed from the constraints of work, everyone will become an artist. They also believe that the world needs a 1000 fold increase in the numbers of artists. As I’ve written before, the 80 year history of the welfare state shows us that freed from the inconvenience of work, people do not perfect their lace-making: instead they choose to spend all day watching TV and eating too much processed food.

Tolerence:

The Right have a ‘live and let live’ attitude to other people. Keep out of my way and I’ll keep out of yours.

The Left believe only their view is the correct one and are unbelievably intolerant of anyone with different views. We only have to remember the reaction to the Brexit vote for evidence of the infamous tolerence of the left. Or the reaction to Trump’s election victory in 2016. Or the efforts to ruin the careers of anyone that does not adhere to Leftist orthodoxy. Leftists do like diversity of opinions because, as we saw in the section on moral codes, they often can’t relate to the thinking that underpins different opinions. As such, they are driven to destroy what they don’t understand.

Human Nature:

The Right: The Right realises that human nature is a complex thing. People are very different and have very different motivations in life. The best thing that can be done is to let people be who they want to be, as long as their actions do not have a detrimental impact on anyone else.

The Left: The Left have an idealised view of human behaviour. Leftists feel that human behaviour can be moulded to fit with their vision of ideal human behaviour. They think that if you subject people to enough propaganda and scream at them if they don’t behave the way they want you to behave, that they will eventually come round to Leftist thinking. This is why Leftists want to control children as they feel that children can be moulded to accept Leftist ideas. As mentioned previously, Leftists cannot accept opinions and moral codes that are different from theirs so they try to force their cookie-cutter view of human behaviour on everyone.

Childhood Sexuality:

The Right: The Right do not like to expose children to sexuality. The innocence of chidren needs to be protected. Adult sexuality can be frightening to children.

The Left: The Left are always angling to expose children to adult sexuality and to encourage sexuality in children. It’s always Leftists that want to lower the age of sexual consent. It’s always Leftists that protect and support paedophiles. It’s always Leftists that are overjoyed to see toddlers twerking or pre-pubescent boys becoming drag queens.

It’s always the Left that think its healthy for children to be exposed to adult sexuality:

In the article referenced in the tweet above, the author writes:

‘Children who witness kink culture are reassured that alternative experiences of sexuality and expression are valid—no matter who they become as they mature, helping them recognize that their personal experiences aren’t bad or wrong’.

‘Kink visibility is a reminder that any person can and should shamelessly explore what brings joy and excitement,” the writer added. “We don’t talk to our children enough about pursuing sex to fulfill carnal needs that delight and captivate us in the moment.’

Leftist politicians regularly try to test the boundaries of the public’s attitude to paedophilia. In the UK, there was an organisation called the ‘Paedophilia Information Exchange’ (PIE). This group had affiliations with the National Council on Civil Liberties (NCCL), later known as ‘Liberty’. Two women who later become Cabinet members of the Labour Party – Harriet Harman and Patricia Hewitt – both had senior roles in NCCL during the affiliation with PIE.

Not every Leftist is a paedophile but every paedophile is a Leftist.

Articles I Love

Some articles are so good, they cannot be quoted. Rather, they must be read in their entirety. Herein are such articles….
1) How the Left lost all purpose – UnHerd:
https://unherd.com/2019/10/how-the-left-lost-all-purpose/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups[0]=18743&tl_period_type=3
2) Great article here by Roger Scruton, written way back in 2000 would you believe:
https://www.city-journal.org/html/bring-back-stigma-11807.html
3) This one is a great summary of everything we already know: the left blame social media for the rise of nationalist populism despite the fact that the Left dominate social media. When is the penny going to drop that it is the Lefts’ sudden support of unhinged policies – like transgenderism; identity politics; intersectionalism; gender and racial quotas; anti-male; open borders; anti-whiteness; militant feminism etc etc – that has led to a reaction from the Right:
https://unherd.com/2018/10/left-reinforcing-intolerance/?=refinnar
4) The Luxury Belief Class: This is a great article by Rob Henderson that heavily references the work of Thorstein Veblen from the late c19. In essence, the elites like to adopt weird and wonderful ideas and opinions because to hold such beliefs differentiates them from the hoi-polloi:
https://quillette.com/2019/11/16/thorstein-veblens-theory-of-the-leisure-class-a-status-update/
5) I realised as recently as 2018, the detrimental impact of women in politics. This article, assesses the negative impact of women in academia:
http://www.unz.com/article/are-women-destroying-academia-probably/
6) Article explaining racial differences by F. Roger Devlin:
https://www.unz.com/article/the-intelligent-persons-guide-to-race-racial-differences/
7) Here is a great article by Ed West pointing out how revolutions are triggered by the middle classes, not the working class:
https://unherd.com/2020/06/why-the-rich-are-revolting/
8) This article explains how children are raised these days has lead directly to their activism. It gave me a huge jolt of recognition of a truth revealed:
https://unherd.com/2020/07/whats-to-blame-for-such-anguished-activism/
9) A description of post-modern Anywheres vs Somewheres
https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/10/02/why-its-fashionable-to-hate-your-own-country/
10) A great article here by Brendan O’Neill exposing the class hatred and hypocrisy of middle class leftists:
https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/10/08/owen-jones-vs-the-working-class/
11) Michael Collins talks about the increasing demonisation of the white working class in Britain in recent years
https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/10/23/the-working-class-is-smarter-than-labour-thinks/
12) Frank Furedi describes how the intellectual left disdain democracy
https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/10/30/democracy-besieged/
13) An anonymous author in Takimag describes something he calls ‘Gyno-fascism’ which is the type of authoritarianism implemented by women
https://www.takimag.com/article/the-rise-of-gyno-fascism/
14) This article introduced me to the concept of ‘Purity Spirals’:
https://unherd.com/2020/12/how-knitters-got-knotted-in-a-purity-spiral/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups[0]=18743&tl_period_type=3
15) This article refers to the emergence of an intellectual ‘clerisy’ in the West that see themselves as better qualified to mould the thinking of the other 98%. Here is a quote:
The modern clerisy tend to believe themselves more enlightened than the average person — on attitudes about the family, for example — and seek to impose their own standards through the media, the education system, and various arenas of cultural production. Their judgments about such issues as race relations and “white privilege” can be even more unforgiving than traditional religious teaching on homosexuality, divorce, or birth control.
https://thecritic.co.uk/neofeudalism-and-its-new-legitimisers/
16) An interesting article that argues that mankind’s wars over ideology have always been more vicious than its wars over land/ resources
The hard lesson America is about to learn is one that the Europeans never seemed to learn, despite plenty of opportunities. That is, diversity plus proximity must always end in violence. The internet age has brought every American into close contact with every other American. No one likes what they see in the other camps and increasingly no one thinks they can live near the other camp. The result is predictable
https://www.takimag.com/article/the-ideological-battlefield/
17) This article takes a lot of points I’ve read about in different articles and brings it all together : technocracy; end of democracy; worsening economic outcomes; social credit systems; surveillence and control – it’s all here
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/welcome-to-the-end-of-democracy
18) This article explains how the Russia – Ukraine war will be used as an opportunity to bring about The Great Reset.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/10-signs-war-ukraine-part-great-reset
19) The Globalist plan to destroy the West and then seize control
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/whitney-plan-wreck-america

The Unrequited Love of the White Working Class

Isn’t it strange that the white working class are the most patriotic of people when, it could be argued, their country has done very little for them. Yet it is the middle class, specifically the liberal middle class, who have benefitted so much that hate the UK the most.

I used to find a lot of fault with the white working class. I stood in judgement of their unhealthy lifestyles, general ignorance, their abundance of children, their propensity towards teenage pregnancy and their failure to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. [My Dad Left school at 14 in 1950 before attending night school for 7 years during his 20s en route to becoming a design engineer and sending his son to private school so I do know something about bootstrap pulling].

However, the Brexit vote showed me another side of the white working class and I realised that I have more in common with them than I realised.

In short, the working class are socially conservative. They are deeply patriotic. They value the history and traditions of the UK and they don’t want to see that wiped away in the name of progress. Also, they don’t embrace the latest political causes in order to show how modern they are.

They don’t care that liberals have decided that such attitudes are unfashionable. They reject the fashionable lunecies of the liberals such as a man being a woman if he decides he is a woman.

As a result, the liberal middle classes have turned on the white working class. Until the last couple of years I spent my whole life hearing the liberal middle classes demand that more be done to help the poor. However, since the EU referendum, they are now openly scornful of the working class. The referendum revealed that the working class are no longer the pet monkeys of the liberal middle class: they won’t do what they’re told and they don’t know what’s best for them. Since then the divide has continued to grow: the working class have shunned the cultural Marxism that has been embraced by the liberals, such as believing that unlimited immigration is a good thing for the country, and they have even started voting Tory as the best way to prevent young children being given hormone treatments to change their gender.

For their part, the liberal middle classes no longer need the working classes in order to indulge their saviour complexes. Thanks to multiculturalism there are now lots of other niche causes the liberal middle classes can rally around such as Islamophobia; BLM; cultural appropriation and white supremacy. (Unfortunately, anti-semitism cannot be added to that list.)

The vitriol the middle class unleashed on the working class after the referendum was truly eye-opening: people were ‘gammons’; they didn’t understand what they were voting for; they had fallen for the lies of populist politicians; they were racist; they were manipulated; they were small-minded Little Englanders etc etc.

So, as a result of such disloyalty, the middle class have cut their ties to the working class. They’re not even pretending anymore. They have progressed from denigrating their country to denigrating the people in the country. White people in the UK can now be attacked and insulted without recrimination. Most commonly these attacks are falling on the white working class. Liberals rail against the concept of ‘punching down’ yet because their perverse ideology of ‘identity politics’ places all white people at the top of the tree of unearned privilege, they can justify attacking the white working class as a form of revolt against their oppressors. So, really, they are punching up not down, do you see?

Now we have a situation where the working classes are an underclass in the UK and no one cares. White working class boys have the worst educational performance in the UK. This group does not recieve as much attention in the classroom as other groups. No one fights for the working class. This bothers me a lot. I deeply believe in ‘equality of opportunity’ yet white working class boys are not receiving the same opportunities as everyone else.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/12926677/white-working-class-boys-fall-behind-white-privilege/amp/

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8969651/working-class-kids-are-half-as-likely-to-end-up-getting-a-good-job-damning-report-reveals/

However, you don’t see the white working class destroying statues, or defacing war memorials or rioting or going on stabbing sprees. No, that’s the privilege of the liberal middle classes.

The working class continue to love their country even though their love is unrequited.

Update 16th March 2021:

This article provides a good history of the Left’s attitude to the white working class over the last 35 years…

https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/03/16/the-lefts-demonisation-of-the-working-class/

Welcome to the Matriarchy

Many women in the West believe – or pretend to believe – they are being oppressed by a system of Patriarchy

Such women believe that the world would be a better place if the patriarchy were destroyed. However, what does ‘destroying Patriarchy’ mean? We’ll come to that later

In the meantime, it is hard to determine what Western institutions are oppressing women. Women have access to every field of endeavour that exists. There are no legal impediments that would stop a woman achieving whatever they wish to achieve. The only hurdles to their success lie with their abilities and their motivations.

Yet, because women haven’t reached 50% of all top jobs in all industries, this is held as evidence that there is a secret network operated by men – The Patriarchy – that somehow organises to ‘keep women in their place’.

True, all Western institutions were created by men. That was the split of responsibilities agreed upon back in the day: women would look after the kids and the home and men would provide economic and protective security.

I can completely understand that, once women saw what men had created they wanted to get in on the action. I understand that their side of the deal must have started to look a little underwhelming by comparison. Once upon a time, women knew that they were ahead of the game when their menfolk faced either back-breaking work in the fields or death during encounters with rival tribes / armies. However, ever since men created labour saving devices, and the threat of death from enemies has rescinded, women have realised that the scales of life may have tipped in favour of men. As a result, women felt no shame in emerging from their households to demand a piece of men’s labour.

And men gave it to them. We recognised the equality of women and provided access to what we had built.

And women have been doing very well ever since. In fact, such has been the impact of women in politics and corporate life that I would argue that we now live in a matriarchy. Here is my evidence:

Education: more women than men attend higher education and girls perform much better at schools than boys.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/its-academic-university-women-are-beating-men-at-almost-everything-1693493.html

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/sep/05/gap-in-academic-skills-of-girls-and-boys-widens-show-sats

Feminism: in feminism, women have a movement that is on high alert 24 /7 to protest about anything that may have a negative consequence for women. This movement set its sights on men only spaces and determines to win access to those spaces with the result that the Boy Scouts of America must now accept girls and men’s college fraternities must now accept women. Men do not have such a movement. Women are allowed to have their own spaces, men are not. Consequentally, politicians are aware that they must always act to promote women’s causes rather than men in order to not attract negative attention.

Corporate diversity: Corporations are falling over themselves to ensure the constitutions of their companies reflect society. Hence, women are sought in ever greater numbers so that 50% quotas can be met. In industries that are not attractive to women, this has meant lowering the entry standards expected of men so that sufficient women qualify to hit those diversity quotas. Sexism, much?

Earnings: women under age of 25 earn more, on average, than men of the same age. The gender pay gap only exists as the fever-dream of militant feminists.

Advertising: I doubt you have seen an TV commercial in the last 5 years in which the man shows a woman the error of her ways. Only men – white men – can be shown to make mistakes or to be olympic-standard morons that require patronising behaviour from women to show who is the brightest and the best.

Public visibility: spokespeople for causes; companies; charities etc are nearly all women. So are most news readers. There has been an explosion in the numbers of female presenters and journalists covering males sports recently to the extent that the 50% target must have been met.

Wokeness: the Woke movement is evidence of tbe influence of women in our society. Wokeness is all about being ‘fair’ and pro minorities.

If anyone still believes that men have it easy, let me present the following facts:

1) Men are more likely to be homeless

2) Men are more likely to die from a workplace injury

3) Men are more likely to commit suicide.

4) Retirement age for men is older than for women (even though men die younger).

5) Men are more likely than women to go to jail for the same crime (and serve longer jail time when women are jailed).

6) Men are less likely to win custody of children after separation.

The truth of the matter is that there is no patriarchy. If anything, we live in a matriarchy such is the extent that every aspect of our lives is dominated by females and female thinking. Patriarchy is just a synonym: what people mean by ‘destroy patriarchy’ is that they want to ‘destroy society’, that is they want to destroy the institutions that ensure that society runs successfully: the judicial system, the police force, government, private enterprise and private property etc. Militant social justice groups like BLM and 5th wave feminism are Marxists intent on replacing the free-market with socialism. If you are a woman, don’t think that smashing the patriarchy is going to benefit you: it isn’t. If the Marxists get their way, it’s much more likely that you will be picking potatoes despite – or, maybe, because of – that fancy degree of yours.

The following struck a chord with me:

“This belief that men and women are essentially the same leaves both sexes chronically at risk of misunderstanding human sexuality. A measure of male sexual aggression is neither entirely a social construct nor wholly curable via education. It has a biological substrate. And it’s not even undesirable to women, provided it’s in the right context. But managing it takes a measure of realism, compromise and — sometimes — a willingness to adopt social norms that treat the sexes differently.”

https://unherd.com/2021/06/the-problem-with-male-feminists/

Wokeness as Religion

Wokeness is the new sensation that’s sweeping the nation. Its adherents are young and earnest. They have captured the moral high ground from where they sermonise the rest of us (or throw stones at us). Wokeness has many parallels with religion in these Godless times. It’s probably not a coincidence that the weakening hold of Christianity in Western countries mirrors the progession of Wokeness as the new moral code. It’s also probably not a coincidence that Wokeness appears to particularly appeal to those who have shunned Christianity, i.e. Leftists. Christians are quite happy with their existing moral code, hence why Leftists refer disparagingly to the ‘Christian Right’ as they recognise that a group already in possession of a strong framework of morality and tradition is most resistant to the adoption of Wokeness as the new religion. Wokeness is the new religion of the social activists. Layla F. Saad, author of ‘Me And White Supremacy’ writes in the forward to her book that “I strongly believe that anti-racism practice and social justice work are also spiritual work.”.

Below, I have documented the aspects of Wokeness that have strong religious parallels:

1. The Woke love to spread the idealogy of their new belief system to anyone and everyone. However, they shun cold-calling door-to-door (as per Jehovah’s Witnesses) or preaching on street corners (old-school Christians) in favour of sharing crap memes on social media. Boy, they sure love to spread the word. There used to be a joke that asked how you could determine if someone was a vegan. The punchline was: don’t worry, they’ll tell you. Same principle with The Woke.


2. People who query Christian dogma used to be called ‘heretics’. The Woke prefer the terms ‘bigots’; ‘racists’; ‘fascists’; ”transphobes’ etc etc for those that do not accept their dogma. The principle is exactly the same.


3. Catholicism was the default position in medieval society. There was no opt-out. The Catholic church was always on the look-out for insurgent belief systems that they would immediately beat down. At the height of Catholic paranoia about the growth of Protestantism, various persecutions came about, such as ‘The Inquisition’. Such persecutions usually resulted in death. The Woke also feel that their ideology is the one true ideology. These days the persecution meted out to those that criticise the ideology is called ‘Cancel Culture’ whereby The Woke try to destroy your reputation and career. Oh, and if they can find out where you live, they will protest your house and intimidate your family members. Violence by woke devotees is entirely justified against those that do not yield to the new religion in the same way that death by stoning and honour killings are also permissible in certain religions.


4. There are aspects of Christian theology that are hard to swallow. For example, the Virgin birth bit; or that Jesus was resurrected 3 days after burial; or that the communion wafer and wine are the actual body and blood of Christ. However, that is what the church authorities decided was the truth so that is what you need to believe to be a Christian. For ‘The Woke’, similar far-fetched tenets exist to test the faith. For example, they are told that they must believe that a man with a beard who was raised as a boy / man and has male genitalia who then decides he is a woman, IS a woman in every way and no further discussion is required; and that ‘Institutional Racism’ exists.

Also, we must believe that all races are equal despite all evidence to the contrary. And altogether now – ‘Gender is a social construct’.


5. Each religion must surplant the religion that went before it. That is what The Woke are trying to do. Firstly, by advocating that they have the superior moral code, secondly by painting Christians as bigots etc. Judeo-Christian traditions such as family, and culture need to shown up as out-dated or ‘oppressive’ to make room for new traditions. For example, after the Reformation all signs of Catholicism were destroyed – abbeys, convents, icons etc. Christian history will also need to be attacked. This is why statues are being destroyed: they are the new icons in the sights of the iconoclasts. I predict it won’t be long before The Woke start destroying the churches built by their ancestors. In doing so, they will show how ‘progressive’ they are.


6. There is even the idea of ‘original sin’ as represented by ‘privilege’. In Christianity, all people are guilty of ‘Original sin’. In Wokeness, just white people – the ‘privileged’ – are required to abase themselves as a form of penitance which can lead to absolution. This abasement currently takes the form of kneeling before black people; kissing the feet of black people; or using social media to call for white people to become extinct and whiteness to be abolished. Cis-gendered people are also under attack as are straight people who must abase themselves at the feet of the non-binary, genderqueer folk. In essence, minorities are the ‘oppressed’ and majorities are ‘privileged’. White, straight men are a lost cause.


7. The ‘God’ figure in Wokeness is represented by ‘woke’ whites who are the ‘Saviours’ of minorities. The satan figure is represented by ‘non-woke’ whites, aka ‘bigots’.


8. The Woke cling to echo chambers and safe spaces so they do not have to hear heresies. ‘Safe spaces’ are the churches of the new religion. Since the devil cannot be admitted into the church, anyone with non-woke opinions cannot be admitted into spaces occupied by ‘Woke’ devotees.


9. The priests and bishops of the new religion are comprised of white middle class people. Their congregations are the minorities they are trying to ‘save’. Wokeness will save BAMEs and LBGTQs and the disabled and Muslims and women (but only women that truly believe in the cause).

10. Wokeness creates martyrs to the cause in the same way as Christianity. Early woke martyrs are Michael Brown and George Floyd. But not Daniel Shaver.

11. Christianity has its holy trinity in the form of ‘The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost’. The Woke have created their own Holy Trinity that they chant repeatedly to show they are followers of the one true religion: ‘Diversity, Equity and Inclusion’. However, the inclusion part comes with certain caveats: white men need not apply!

Ever since The Enlightenment, we have sought to place Reason before Spirituality. In doing so, we hollowed out religion. Now Spirituality is re-asserting itself over Reason but Christianity is too compromised to be saved, so a new religion is required.

Wokeness is the new religion for those that have lost their religion. It is the religion for those that prioritise feelings over reason. That is why we shouldn’t be surprised that women are in the vanguard of this new movement.

Wokeness is the new religion better suited to the multicultural era: Christianity was too associated with white people. Wokeness puts all minorities at its centre. Minorities have flocked to Wokeness as it gives them unimaginable attention and power.

However, Wokeness does not share the same Universality as Christianity. In Christianity, all of God’s children are loved equally. Wokeness picks and chooses: if you are white, you are racist. White people can seek absolution by trying to become anti-racist ‘allies’ but they will never be fully trusted. Men are part of the patriarchy so will never be fully trusted, even if they do wear ‘This is what a feminist look like’ T-shirts.

White people love Wokeness because they can indulge their ‘white saviour’ complexes.
The young and the middle class are the most likely to fall under the spell of this new religion: the young because they are always looking for ways to rebel against the belief systems endorsed by their parents and the middle classes because they are always looking for ways to differentiate themselves from the working classes. The middle classes will always be drawn to ideologies that are repellent to the working classes. In this way the middle classes can point to the sophistication of their thinking.
Soon the new religion will have its own special dates: perhaps associated with the deaths of martyrs to the cause.
The new religion is Wokeness.

Update 15th March, 2021:

Here is another article on the subject:

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/meghan-harry-and-the-rise-of-a-new-religion

Update 1st Feb, 2023 on how religions take shape (from 21st Century Wire):

‘Faiths rise from humble gatherings between a number of people with a shared set of beliefs. With a further aim to expand and bring others into the fold. Their collective grows, and the message expands. A process of refining the narrative to make the barrier to entry streamlined and more appealing. The message has to be simple for all to grasp, yet holding enough complexities that there is a compulsion to engross oneself in the details. Those details are ever moulded and reforged by those with the inner knowledge, under their careful instruction and tutelage you too can be instrumental to bringing about the conclusion. Moving through the stages of becoming an initiate, before a disciple and continuing the recruitment cycle ad-infinitum.‘

https://21stcenturywire.com/2023/02/01/covidianity-the-worlds-fastest-growing-religion/

10 Questions for Climate Alarmists

Full disclosure from the outset: I am a sceptic on the question as to whether climate change is a man-made phenomenon. I haven’t always been a sceptic. Until a couple of years ago I was largely a believer. I wasn’t a full on alarmist. I recognised that the earth had always undergone climate change. However, I believed the message I was told that this time it was largely man’s fault. It’s hard not to be a believer. We are hammered with climate alarmism at every turn: extreme weather; more floods; more fires; less ice; less polar bears; melting icebergs; rising sea levels; record temperatures, bleached coral reefs etc etc. We are constantly told that time is running out to save the planet.

However, all that changed rapidly for me a couple of years ago. The catalyst was an article that recommended watching ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle’. Link here. I watched this documentary soon after. It was full of credible arguments by credible people explaining that global warming had nothing to do with humans. Overnight I became a climate change sceptic. Simultaneously, I felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I realised that I had been carrying a low-level anxiety about climate change around with me without being conscious of it. All of a sudden, I had one less (big) thing to worry about. I felt a huge sense of relief. This euphoria stayed with me for a couple of weeks, during which, I was in a really good mood. I really do recommend being a sceptic: not only will you be in possession of a much wider range of information but you will stop feeling the sky is about to fall in on you.

Now, in order to make the world a happier place, I want to create more sceptics.

I have recently started following the climate change science more closely. I know about Michael Mann’s hockey Stick. More recently I have read the criticisms of the Mann’s hockey stick that were levelled at Mann by Steve McIntrye and Ross McKitrick. These criticisms focused on the assumptions and the modelling and the statistical analysis that were used by Mann.

I don’t deny that the climate on earth changes. I just dispute that mankind’s activities are responsible for those changes. Here are 10 questions that should be asked of any Climate Alarmist. If they can’t answer these questions, they really don’t know what they are talking about:

1) How do you explain the previous periods of global warming and cooling?

The cool periods are known as ‘ice ages’. We all know about ice ages. We think of them as occurring hundreds of thousands of years ago whereas, in reality, the last one finished 12000 years ago yet there was a short cold a snap, known as the ‘Little Ice Age’, that followed the Medieval Warm Period and ended in about 1850. Plus which, there were genuine fears as recently as the 1970s that earth was heading for another ice age as temperatures had been cooling for the previous 30 years. Earth’s warm periods are less well known: there was a ‘Medieval Warm Period’ which lasted from about 1000AD to about 1300AD. There was also a warm period during the 1930s/40s (the cooling from which lead to fears of a new ice age in the 1970s). These are just 2 of many present in the temperature record. However, there is much information about the warm periods in this link:

https://www.climatedepot.com/2013/03/08/more-than-700-scientists-from-400-institutions-in-40-countries-have-contributed-peerreviewed-papers-providing-evidence-that-the-medieval-warm-period-was-real-global-warmer-than-the-present/

2) Are you aware that the temperature of the Earth reached its 20th century peak in 1998 and that, since then, there has been a slight cooling?

You almost certainly will not be aware because it is not something the mainstream media (MSM) promotes. The MSM always promotes climate alarmism because the MSM always pushes bad news over good news.

https://newzealandclimatechange.wordpress.com/2013/01/19/the-halt-in-warming/

https://www.climatedepot.com/2014/03/04/updated-global-temperature-no-global-warming-for-17-years-6-months-no-warming-for-210-months/

https://wattsupwiththat.com/list-of-excuses-for-the-pause-in-global-warming/

3) Why have the warmer 21st century temperatures we were warned were coming not arrived?

The computer models created by Climate Change scientists in the 1990s predicted accelerating temperatures after 2000. Yet that hasn’t happened. In fact we’ve seen cooler weather. That tells me the models are wrong which means the assumptions underpinning the models are wrong.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/09/17/how-reliable-are-the-climate-models/

https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change-global-warming-paris-climate-agreement-nature-geoscience-myles-allen-michael-grubb-a7954496.html

https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/global-warming-who-are-the-deniers-now/

4) Have you read any criticisms of Michael Mann’s ‘Hockey Stick’?

The ‘Hockey Stick’ is the single most famous piece of Global Warming propaganda in the public domain. It shows a graph of ever-warmer future temperatures. Yet the Hockey Stick model was produced using bad science and bad mathematics. The ‘Hockey Stick’ model used a distortion of timescales and also removed the Medieval Warm Period in order to achieve its effect.

Below I have included a link to a piece by Ross McKitrock that summarises the criticisms of the Hockey Stick. In summary of that summary, Ross points out flaws in Mann’s statistical analysis and multiple instances of Mann’s obtuseness when questioned about his approach. Some extracts are here…

A very brief summary of the problems of the hockey stick would go like this. Mann’s algorithm, applied to a large proxy data set, extracted the shape associated with one small and controversial subset of the tree rings records, namely the bristlecone pine cores from high and arid mountains in the US Southwest. The trees are extremely long-lived, but grow in highly contorted shapes as bark dies back to a single twisted strip. The scientists who published the data (Graybill and Idso 1993) had specifically warned that the ring widths should not be used for temperature reconstruction, and in particular their 20th century portion is unlike the climatic history of the region, and is probably biased by other factors.

Mann’s method exaggerated the significance of the bristlecones so as to make their chronology out to be the dominant global climatic pattern rather than a minor (and likely inaccurate) regional one; Mann then understated the uncertainties of the final climate reconstruction, leading to the claim that 1998 was the warmest year of the last millennium, a claim that was not, in reality, supportable in the data. Furthermore, Mann put obstacles in place for subsequent researchers wanting to obtain his data and replicate his methodologies, most of which were only resolved by the interventions of US Congressional investigators and the editors of Nature magazine, both of whom demanded full release of his data and methodologies some six years after publication of his original Nature paper.

Mann had re-done his hockey stick graph at some point during its preparation with the dubious bristlecone records excluded and saw that the result lost the hockey stick shape altogether, collapsing into a heap of trendless noise. However he never pointed this out to readers.

And…

Mann’s PC [principal components] step was programmed incorrectly and created two weird effects in how it handled data. First, if the underlying data set was mostly random noise, but there was one hockey stick-shaped series in the group, the flawed PC step would isolate it out, generate a hockey stick composite and call it the dominant pattern, even if it was just a minor background fluctuation. Second, if the underlying data consisted of a particular type of randomness called “red noise”—basically randomness operating on a slow, cyclical scale—then the PC step would rearrange the red noise into a hockey stick-shaped composite. Either way, the resulting composites would have a hockey stick shape for the LS [least squares] setup to glom onto and produce the famous final result.

https://www.rossmckitrick.com/uploads/4/8/0/8/4808045/hockey-stick-retrospective.pdf

5) Are you aware that Climate Change scientists such as Mann, Bradley & Hughes refused to release their computer models for independent scrutiny?

As such, no one is allowed to know what assumptions they have made and whether those assumptions are valid:

Of 105 freedom of information requests to the university concerning the Climatic Research Unit up to December 2009, the university refused 77, accepted six in part, had 11 outstanding, and had only 10 were released in full. One was withdrawn.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/feb/03/climate-scientists-freedom-information-act

This is not how scientists should be behaving. The scientific method requires scientists to document their findings and make all their data available. Other scientists are then invited to analyse the approach for possible flaws in either the approach or the conclusions drawn. The scientific method requires that findings should be repeatable. This is how the body of scientific knowledge is built: through a continuous process of criticism, refinement and validation. For Mann and his colleagues to keep their data and assumptions secret is a red flag.

Some information was released following a campaign and Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrock criticised what they discovered upon their reviews of the work.

I did intend to include a number of those criticisms in this post. However, they become pretty technical pretty quickly.

As such, I have summarised McIntyre and McKitrick’s criticisms in a separate blog piece, found here

For the best context it is best if you read the document in its entirety.

Here is a link to that document:

https:r//climateaudit.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/mcintyre-ee-2005.pdf

6) Are you aware that inferred temp data from tree rings does not match real world temp records since reliable temp recording has been in place?

Climate Change scientists use proxy data in place of temperature data for periods where there are no temperature records, I.e most of history. However, they seem to pick and choose which proxies they use in order to give them the temperature record they want. The reliability of the proxies is questionable. For example, tree ring analysis has been used as the primary temperature proxy. Yet, during the last 60 years where real temp data has been available, the inferred temp from the tree rings does not match the observed temps: the tree data indicated temperatures cooler than the actual temperature records. This tells us that temp inferences from tree rings is very unreliable. Yet, the IPCC report of 2001 did not point this out. The IPCC report showed a composite temperature graph comprised of models submitted by Mann, Bradley and Hughes (1998-9), Jones’ modelling and Briffa modelling of tree records (2000). The Composite graph suggested that ALL models showed recent temperature increases. The decline in the Briffa series was removed and replaced with actual temperature records so that all models appeared in agreement. There was no footnote in the IPCC report that highlighted this manoeuvre.

Mann’s ‘Nature Trick’ represented in cartoon form

More details here:

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/28/how-the-trick-was-pulled-off/

7) Are you aware that current levels of CO2 are not high in the context of the Earth’s entire history?

We know from our fossil record that CO2 levels throughout Earth’s history have averaged more than six times our modern concentrations. We also know that nuclear submarines submerged beneath the ocean for weeks at a time, average 5000 ppm CO2, with no health problem ever reported.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/01/06/climate-alarmists-winning-the-war-of-words-despite-evidence-that-nothing-unusual-is-happening/

8) Are you aware there is no link between CO2 levels having an affect on global temperatures?

Antarctica has had the longest continuous accumulation of ice. It has provided data going back 800,000 years, while data from Greenland in the Northern Hemisphere gives CO2 data going back into the last interglacial period 128,000 years ago. Temperature and CO2 levels have varied during this long period, and importantly, temperature changes preceded changes in CO2. In other words, carbon dioxide has NOT driven temperatures for the last 800,000 years.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/01/06/climate-alarmists-winning-the-war-of-words-despite-evidence-that-nothing-unusual-is-happening/

9) Are you aware that the much quoted ‘97% of Climate Change Scientists agree that Climate Change is real and that man’s impact is to blame’ is not true?

In 2013, U.S. President Barack Obama sent out a tweet claiming 97 per cent of climate experts believe global warming is “real, man-made and dangerous.” As it turns out, the survey he was referring to didn’t ask that question, so he was basically making it up.

https://www.fraserinstitute.org/article/putting-the-con-in-consensus-not-only-is-there-no-97-per-cent-consensus-among-climate-scientists-many-misunderstand-core-issues

https://youtu.be/SSrjAXK5pGw

https://business.financialpost.com/opinion/climate-change-consensus-among-the-misinformed-is-not-worth-much

10) Have you heard of ClimateGate?

No? That’s a shame.

ClimateGate revealed lots of information about the skulduggery perpetuated by a group of leading climate scientists:

Hacked emails reveal systematic attempts to block FoI requests from sceptics — and deep frustration at anti-warming agenda…The emails reveal repeated and systematic attempts by him [Dr. Phil Jones] and his colleagues to block FoI requests from climate sceptics who wanted access to emails, documents and data.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/feb/03/climate-scientists-freedom-information-act

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/19/breaking-news-story-hadley-cru-has-apparently-been-hacked-hundreds-of-files-released/

These 10 questions should be enough to make people question their understanding of climate change. If people want to read more, I recommend these links…

Links:

Since watching the documentary, I have investigated further. I have read a great many articles about climate change written by climate realists.

Here are links to the climate realism websites that I have been reading:

This is Steve McIntyre’s website: https://climateaudit.org/

This is Ross McKitrick’s website: https://www.rossmckitrick.com/paleoclimatehockey-stick.html

This is Antony Watts’ website: https://wattsupwiththat.com/

This is Tom Nelson’s website: http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/

Other websites:

https://www.technocracy.news/extensive-anthology-refutes-man-made-global-warming/

https://newzealandclimatechange.wordpress.com/

https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/

https://notrickszone.com/about-pierre-gosselin/

https://www.climatedepot.com/

https://co2islife.wordpress.com/author/co2islife/

A Robust Defence of Western Culture

Immigration is the battleground for Western Culture. Leftists say there’s no such thing as white culture. Therefore, there’s nothing to protect from mass immigration. They feel we need to import culture.

I can’t decide whether such Leftists are ignorant or lying to further their own warped ideology. A lot of both, probably.

However, to counter such bone-headedness, I have created a list of cultural achievements of the West. My definition of ‘The West’ is Europe and places of European descent such as North America, Australia and New Zealand.

Fashion – there is no doubt that Western Couture, both High and Low, is the dominant fashion style in the World. The world has adopted Western modes of dress.

Fine dining – Michelin restaurants, cook books, cooking programmes. The West has taken cooking to the next level.

Science – The West has been more successful at understanding the world around them than any other civilisation in the history of the world. We identified the elements in the periodic table. We took man’s understanding of physics, chemistry, maths and biology to new levels. Europeans have dominated the scientific Nobel prizes.

Exploration – The inquisitiveness of the West lead us to navigate the globe. As such, we colonised the New World and Australia and New Zealand. We charted the Arctic and the Antarctic. We mapped the world. Oh, and we put men on the moon. Then we explored the solar system.

Inventions – We invented airplanes. And cars. And computers. And steam engines. We harnessed electricity. And nuclear power. We put man on the moon. Some more: touch screen devices, the internet, telescopes, the internal combustion engine, the light-bulb. There are quite a few. Pretty much every device that constitutes the modern world was invented by the West. Telephones, radar, radio, television…there are just so many.

Christianity – we have our own religion in the West that has underpinned our success for almost 2,000 years. Christianity provided us with a moral framework that we stuck to fairly rigidly. This framework gave us a unity of purpose and behaviour that kept us on track and nurtured social cohesion. The decline of Christianity has led to the splintering of our moral code and the destruction of social cohesion.

Art – The West, starting with the Greeks, took art to new highs in many mediums – sculpture, painting, metal-work etc

Architecture – Again, it started with the Greeks, with Classical Architecture, and has progressed to Romanesque, Gothic, Early English, Decorated, Perpendicular, Renaissance, Baroque, Modernism, Post-Modernism. The West leads the way with architecture.

Separation of Church and State – The West led the way in separating government from the church. This is critical to creating a government and a legal system that isn’t hide-bound by religious dogma. It allows, in theory, government to make practical decisions.

Law – Because of the separation of church and state, the West has been able to develop robust, equitable legal systems. For example, we developed jury trials where a man’s guilt is determined by 12 of his peers rather than by a politician or a religious leader. Other non-Western countries, such as Japan and India, have subsequently adopted jury trials.

Democracy – The word itself is Greek in origin. European Democracy is a thing of rare beauty in the history of mankind.

Gardening – Think of the formal gardens of French, Italian and English stately homes. Think of the progress in horticulture made in the West. My non-Western neighbour doesn’t give a shit about gardening : his entire garden is laid to lawn – no flowerbeds, no shrubs, no trees – and he pays someone to mow his lawn. Westerners have made gardening their own.

Liberalism – Does this exist anywhere else?

That is Western Culture. And if some snivelling Social Justice Warrior tells you that whites appropriated everything from other cultures, tell them that just proves our superiority: we can make better use of things other cultures don’t know what to do with.

The Left and Islam: A Civil Ceremony Made in Pragmatism

The Left and Islam have formed an informal coalition. The deal is that Muslims will vote ‘Labour’ while the Labour Party has agreed to introduce blasphemy protections for Islam that are not afforded to any other religion:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/mar/20/labour-formally-adopts-definition-islamophobia

In some ways this alliance makes perfect sense: the nativity of Leftists fits perfectly with the machiavellianism of Islam: Muslims know that Labour is prepared to provide the UK’s Islamic community with whole-hearted support as Labour unquestioningly supports all minority groups.

William Kilpatrick explained the Left’s attitude to Islam as:

‘It looks upon Muslims as a victim class which has been held back by capitalism, colonialism, racism, and, of course, “Islamophobia.” Left-liberals may even believe that Islam is a religion of peace which has gotten a bad press. A poll of Democrat voters taken a few years ago revealed that they believed Islam to be no more violent than Christianity. Leftists do, however, understand that Islam is no friend of Christianity. So they believe that they can work together with Islamic groups to achieve mutual goals.’

And the muslim’s view of Leftists:

‘For their part, radical Muslims tend to see leftists as useful idiots. They are willing to play the oppressed victim role that leftists have assigned to them if it will further their own interests.’

However, there will always be natural fault lines in any alliance between a group of progressives and a group of fundamental conservatives. Hence, the alliance looks ever more unstable as Labour has lurched to the far Left over the last 10 years. The Uber-progressive policies endorsed by Labour seem increasingly at odds with the doctrines of Islam.

First, let’s look at the areas of similarity:

Totalitarian – The default tendancy of the Left is very authoritarian in nature. The Left likes Big Government because Big Governments tell everyone how to behave. The Left only pays pays lip service to democracy. The Left have shown time and time again that they would accept a Totalitarian regime so long as it was a Leftist regime. This has many parallels with Islam – muslims like Totalitarian regimes, so long as they are Islamic regimes. Religions are totalitarian in nature.

Against womens rights – This seems bizarre when one thinks of all the Leftist Feminists out there. However, for the Left, ideology always trumps principle. Hence, the Left do not care about women’s sport being destroyed by trans-women with their size, strength and hormone advantages. Nor does the Left care about the treatment of Muslim women by muslim men. Leftists certainly don’t care about the treatment of white, under-age girls by Muslims. The only women’s rights Leftists give a damn about are white middle class women: The Left screams blue-murder if a white man touches a women without her explicit consent. Yet they give a free pass to muslims to subjugate all women: muslim women via FGM, and sharia law and western women via gang rape.

Open borders – Muslims know that Labour are in favour of unlimited immigration which gives them more chance to fill the UK with as many Muslims as want to come here. The Left need lots more voters. As such, they are delighted to welcome unlimited numbers of muslims to the UK. Muslims want to come to the UK. Win-win.

Public money – Labour love to spend tax-payer money and so do muslims. Muslims know that Labour will always support greater expansion of the welfare state which guarantees homes for all those new Muslim arrivals and means that in future ever fewer UK Muslims will need to work:

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/4411913/just-one-in-five-muslims-are-in-work-as-report-finds-they-are-held-back-by-racism/

Overthrow of society – the Left are desperate for total equality right now. They dream of the socialist utopia they will build. Of course, they will have to dismantle all institutions that support inequality. Everything must be rebuilt from scratch to ensure it does not perpetuate white patriarchy. Muslims would love to help The Left with destroying western civilisation. Muslims may have a slightly different view of what replaces it but all that can be ironed out when the time comes…

Hating the UK – Both hate the British. The modern Left spends most its time calling everyone that disagrees with them ‘Racist’. The rest of the time is spent criticising British history and defacing statues. Islam shows its dislike by raping our girls and murdering some of us from time to time.

Anti-Semitism – Leftists are not keen on Jews. They pretend that their animus is solely anti-Zion but the counterfuge is so wafer thin that we can all see through it. It has become so obvious that the Equality and Human Rights Commission had to take a look. It just so happens that Muslims are not terribly keen on Jews either. What are great opportunity for some candid conversations between the two groups!

It can be seen that there are many similarities between the Left and Islam. This is why they have become allies. Also, it suits them both: Islam needs a political force that will provide unquestioning support while simultaneously turning a blind eye to the many negative aspects of their culture – treatment of women, jihadism, Hyper-sensitivity to criticism, Power displays, religious fundamentalism etc and the Left need the increasing numbers of votes that Islam delivers them.

However, there are also many sources of tension: the Left is obsessed with the destruction of the family, with sexual permissiveness, with LGBT agenda, with women’s rights (white, middle class women only), with trans rights and with secularism. These issues could cause tensions between the two groups in the future. We have already seen evidence of this at Anderson Park School in Birmingham:

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/protests-over-lgbt-equality-restart-16904018

However, until they can win power, they will continue to overlook these differences. Leftists see Muslims as a permanent ally. I suspect that Muslims’ view of Leftists is based much more on short term expediency. Once Labour has created the islamophobia legislation, Muslims will have much more leeway to express themselves.

Your Labels Are Wrong. Here Are Your New, Ideologically Correct Labels…

Social Justice Warriors, specifically, and The Left, generally, no longer want us to refer to places as terms of reference. You should not describe yourself as an Englishman. This label is not inclusive because only people born in England have the right to use that term. As such, the term is racist because Englishmen are, historically, white. The term is also racist because it is a nationalist term and nationalism is racist. We are also told the term is a white supremacist term because, the act of referring to yourself by your nationality is to suggest that your nationality is superior to other nationalities which, if you’re white, is oppressive to brown people. It’s all very ‘problematic’.

The Left don’t like nationalism. Unless, it’s Scottish nationalism which is ok because the Scots have been oppressed by the English for centuries. Brown people can also be nationalistic because they have almost certainly been oppressed by white people for centuries. Basically, anyone is allowed to be a nationalist except for anyone from a white country that ever won a war.

The Left would prefer us to define ourselves by our gender and race and sexuality and religion. However, only brown people can reference their religion. It can become a bit complicated. Here are some examples that should clarify things:

1. ‘I am a non-binary, Asian woman’ = This is good. This Asian woman is acknowledging that we are all on the spectrum of sexuality

2. ‘I am a differently-abled, muslim Iranian man’ = As an oppressed man from an oppressed country, this man is correct to define himself in this way.

3. ‘I am a transgender, black woman’ = We feel you pain, sister. Have you considered entering the Olympics?

4. ‘I am a heterosexual, white, Christian woman’

The 4th one is clearly not correct – Christianity and whiteness are both oppresive identities. Hearing both of these terms in the same sentence will be very threatening to many different groups. Also, heterosexuality oppresses sexual minority groups. This would have read better as:

‘I am a woman’ = This is good. Even better would be…

‘I am a cis-woman’.

My point is that our cultural overlords are simply replacing the old labels with new labels. The old labels related to places (and sometimes to class). The new labels relate to identity groups. All in the name of inclusivity. However, the new labels are much more divisive then the old labels. Before, we could all state we were English. Now there are hundreds of identity groups, all agitating against other. Where once there was social cohesion, now there is none. Now there are just endless identity groups, each group worrying that other identity groups receive more sympathy or advantages (either financial or social) or publicity than they are. Social trust has been replaced with social tension.

A cynic would suggest that dividing us into identity groups makes us much easier to control because it limits our ability to unite behind a common goal. Divide and conquer, anyone?

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