When it comes to global warming, rational debate is what we need
Fraser Nelson 3:37pm
We had a sell-out debate on global warming at The Spectator on Tuesday and, as I found
out this morning, the debate is still going on. The teams were led by Nigel Lawson and Sir David King, and I was in the audience. I tweeted my praise of Simon Singh’s argument as he made it: it was a brilliant variation on the theme of "don’t think
– trust the experts". He seems to have discovered the tweet this morning, and responded with a volley of five
questions for me. Then David Aaronovitch weighed in, followed by Simon Mayo. At 8.35am!
I had the choice between replying, or carrying on with my gourmet porridge. I chose the latter, and promised to blog my response later on to Simon Mayo and the Breakfast Crew. So here goes. Simon Singh tweeted me five questions:
1. Do you agree that increases in CO2 and other greenhouse gases lead to an increase in the global temperature?
2. Do you agree CO2 levels in the atmosphere have increased from 280ppmv to 380ppmv (35%) during period of industrialisation?
3. Do you agree that the Earth’s climate has warmed by 0.6 degrees in the last 50 years?
4. Do you agree human contribution to greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is major factor in the warming over the last century?
5. Do you agree best scientific predictions estimate further rise of 1.1 to 6 C over 100 yrs based on good (not perfect) models?
Simon may be disappointed to know that I don’t have a problem with any of the above. But this is not the whole argument. As far as I see it, there are four stages of the global warming orthodoxy:
1. That the planet is warming
2. That manmade activity is, in some part, responsible
3. That decarbonisation is the only effective solution
4. There is a degree of urgency to it. Some will disagree with all of the above.
Many people agree with all four. Personally, I am persuaded by the first two: that the planet is warming and human activity is contributing to the problem. Simon’s five questions fit into these categories. But thereafter, I’m not yet persuaded. How much is man’s activity contributing to global warming? Is it 20 percent? 80 percent? I haven’t seen a proper paper that attempts to quantify it — perhaps Simon can find me one. If any CoffeeHousers can point me to a paper on this, I’d be grateful.
Also, why the urgency? Every energy summit that comes up is billed as a last chance saloon, with a Flash Gordon-style “we only have 14 hours to save the earth” warning. As Nigel Lawson said in the debate, Cancun was supposedly the last chance saloon — so which saloon are we drinking in now? For example: I may be persuaded that my house is subsiding. But if I was charged £thousands to put golden matchsticks under my house, I would not agree. What good would that do? I’d want to know that the expensive solution would actually solve the problem. Same with global warming. You know that green taxes will put up energy prices, make the poor poorer — and in a country where at least 20,000 pensioners die from the cold each winter.
But what good will it do to the overall problem? The Stern Review outlined a problem: that global warming will cost 10 percent of GDP each year. It outlined a solution, that would cost 2 percent of GDP. But suspiciously, it does not say to what extent the solution would address the problem. Would the 2 percent eliminate the problem that was going to cost 10 percent? Or halve it to 5 percent? It didn’t say. This 700-page report suspiciously did not include a cost-benefit analysis.
Singh was brilliant in our debate, and I’m sorry that he took my tweet as a criticism. Climate science is hideously complicated, he said, so what is the average bloke to think in such circumstances? You look at who is saying what, and judge how credible they are. Singh then displayed a grid. On the X-axis he had sceptics and orthodox believers, and the y-axis was their level of credibility. So the IPCC had maximum credibility, and is really worried about global warming. Singh found no one of maximum credibility who was not worried about global warming. Think tankers (on both sides of the debate) were given less credibility, politicians even less, journalists and bloggers even less. Even Geri Halliwell featured.
It was a powerful way of making the case. There’s plenty to be said for the "trust the expert" case. Cancer is the classic example. Those diagnosed normally do what oncologists recommend. We do so knowing that mankind’s understanding of cancer is in its infancy, and the treatments are brutal, blunt instruments. But they’re the best we have available at this time. There is debate about the merits of chemotherapy, there are dissenting oncologists. But if you’re diagnosed, you’d be pretty likely to go with the mainstream. But in most other examples, you want these experts to be prodded and questioned. If they stand up to scrutiny, then fine. But the argument "trust the experts" is becoming less persuasive as the information revolution progresses. Hierarchies are being flattened in every walk of life, and this includes intellectual hierarchies. As Mark Penn says, elites are more impressionable than the masses — so more likely to be persuaded by a scientific consensus. The public want to be persuaded, not told that they should believe the Clever People.
In science and medicine, there is all too little of that. That’s why I think that the solution is rational debate. We held one last week, and it is what The Spectator does as a magazine. We have given space to minority voices — because we believe that one voice in a thousand can often be right. Going back to Simon’s grid: I’m more than prepared to believe that all the clever people are capable of being wrong, and the dotty dissenting scientist can be right. From Newton onwards, the history of science is studded with examples of the minority voice proving right.
Finally, what is The Spectator’s position? We seek to be nothing more than the still, small voice of calm in the middle of a hysterical debate. Simon Mayo tweeted that he stopped buying us because of what he saw as an anti-science bias: I was heartbroken by that, and not just because I admire him so much as a broadcaster. When we ran our global warming special we had pieces written by people whom Singh would rank as high in credibility: scientists, academics, statisticians. We’re very pro-science, but real science invites refutation. As Sir David King said on the night, with science debate never stops.
The Spectator has a bias towards robust debate: on stage, and in the magazine. And if we’re one of the few publications that gives space to those who dissent from the climate orthodoxy, it fits a long tradition. The Spectator, alone in Britain, supported the north of America against the slave-owning south. We called for the legalisation of homosexuality in 1957, ten years before it happened. We alone opposed Britain’s entry into the ERM. The Spectator is a magazine that gives space to well-made, minority arguments. As a Gershwin once put it, they all laughed at Christopher Columbus:
UPDATE: My colleague James Delingpole - a far closer follower of the climate debate - has responded to Singh's five points here, and finished off with a splendid quotation from Karl Popper which I'd like to reproduce.
‘Today, the appeal to the authority of experts is sometimes excused by the immensity of our specialised knowledge. And it is sometimes defended by philosophical theories that speak of science and rationality in terms of specializations, experts, and authority. But in my view, the appeal to the authority of experts should be neither excused nor defended. It should, on the contrary, be recognized for what it is – an intellectual fashion – and it should be attacked by a frank acknowledgement of how little we know, and how much that little is due to people who have worked in many fields at the same time. And it should also be attacked by the recognition that the orthodoxy produced by intellectual fashions, specialization, and the appeal to authorities is the death of knowledge, and that the growth of knowledge depends entirely upon disagreement.’
Karl Popper, Author’s Note, 1993, The Myth of the Framework.
PPS: Simon Singh replies here. He seems to be anxious to have a ding-dong with someone who doesn't think the planet is warming and that mankind is, at least in part, responsible. I'm afraid I can't help. My problem is with the political response to the science. I fear that Simon and I are talking at cross-purposes, so I won't continue our joust (it is, after all, a lovely Sunday) but his post is certainly worth reading.
Previous
alexsandr
March 31st, 2011 3:58pm Report this comment1. Climate change is not the thing that is going to spoil things for us, it is the security of energy supplies. We need to learn not to waste energy because it is becoming an increasingly scarce resource.
2. windmills dont make enough energy and are unreliable. Air is not very dense so you need a big thing to convert moving air into electricity.
But in the UK we have loads of stuff that is moving and is more dense. Water. We should be looking at getting all the old mill leats reopened and made into micro hydro plants like at Gayle Mill near Hawes. We need to look at tidal power like they have done in Strangford Lough in NI
3. We need to have a sustainable and reasonable priced railway so travelling long distance, the train is a viable alternative. And we need to slowly increase the capacity of the network with longer trains (local ones) and grade separated junctions and some 4 tracking, not panacea projects like HS2
Frank P
March 31st, 2011 4:01pm Report this commentMelanie?
Glenn Haldane
March 31st, 2011 4:13pm Report this comment'So the IPCC had maximum credibility' Don't you believe it. The IPCC it was that, for example, promoted Mann's ridiculous hockey stick, that is led by railway engineer Pachauri of glacier 'voodoo science' fame and that featured work by that charlatan Jones at the CRU. There may be respectable scientists working on IPCC matters, but they have a deadweight of scandal and incompetence to overcome.
Catesby
March 31st, 2011 4:15pm Report this commentYou are conceding too much, too easily here, Fraser. Propositions 1 & 2 of the orthodoxy may be true, but frankly the evidence is far from being a slam dunk. A scottish jury would doubtless return a "not proven" verdict.
Ed H
March 31st, 2011 4:22pm Report this commentClimate Change is just another strawman for middle class people to moan about.
The world heats up, it cools down.
So what ?
David
March 31st, 2011 4:28pm Report this commentWell said. I don't know for a fact who is right about climate change, but I would far rather be convinced by open, honest debate than by an alleged consensus.
Charles Martel
March 31st, 2011 4:39pm Report this commentThey have the cheek to call The Spectator "Anti-science"... because according to them 'the science is settled'.
The bitter irony is of course that science is never really settled, every theory should be tested and retested in light of new information - Scientific Method. For when a theory becomes settled, dispite flaws in the science, then it is more akin to a religion than a science.
I'm on the fence with the AGW debate, but there is one thing I am very sure about... we should be spending money on mitigation (sea defences etc) rather than de-industrialise - if they really believe in this stuff.
With China building a coal-powered station a week, whatever we do will be just a spit in the ocean.
Neil Turner
March 31st, 2011 4:49pm Report this commentThree things spring to mind..
1. Simon Mayo shows demonstrates the default BBC position of the state broadcaster (where does he appear on that grid ?)
2. I seem to remember an excellent Channel4 Documentary, entitled "the great global warming scam", where expert after expert demonstrated their sceptiscism for AGW. In addition to this, the "Manhatten Declaration", underwritten by many eminent scientists, was also sceptical
3. Why not ask Anthony Watts "Watts up with that" to provide a guest blog on your 5 questions ?
Let the debate roll.....
mart
March 31st, 2011 4:52pm Report this commentFraser, this is such a good resume of our current state, that I just had to write and say so.
One point: although I see you ceded ground in debate by agreeing to point 2, I don't remember seeing any compelling evidence of a causal link. I wonder if you can supply links, please?
Because, in general, correlation does not imply causation.
Number 7
March 31st, 2011 4:54pm Report this commentI couldn't agree more (with your headline). Unfortunately the proponents of AGW won't engage in rational debate and resort to various stratagems from dodgy data (Bristle cones, UHI, Deleting inconvenient data streams) through corruption of the scientific process (not releasing data and methodology) to Ad Hominem abuse.
If the climate scientists were prepared to debate rationally then there may be fewer sceptics. Unfortunately this does not appear to be the case.
The science is far from settled.
Neil McEvoy
March 31st, 2011 5:00pm Report this commentFraser,
Sorry to be Clintonesque, but the truth (or falsity) of the proposition "the planet is warming" depends on the definition of "is". If "is" refers to the last 30 years, then it is true. If "is" refers to the last 10 years, it is false. If it encompasses a period extendinging into the future, then anyone pretending to be able to determine the issue with any certainty is deluded or a charlatan.
The answer to Singh's first question is a definite "no"; increased CO2 manifestly does not lead inevitably to a warmer world (though it does have a tendency to warmth, that may be cancelled by other factors). The 1.1 to 6 deg range for warming in the next 100 years is a bit of a giveaway - it may as well be 0 to 7 or -1 to 8 (but the upper bound is influenced by a guess at "climate sensitivity" that is not supported by the actual evidence of the relationship between the CO2 concentration and the mean surface temperature.
Frank P
March 31st, 2011 5:09pm Report this commentGlobal warming? Is the Westminster bubble impervious to the light of day? The IPPC greenhouse shattered as the UEA revelations broke last year. It was a gigantic international scam which has already netted billions and contributed greatly to the global economic chaos, not to mention stuffing the bank accounts of those inimical to Western interests and a few other chancers besides. It appears that there are still pockets of noxious gas lingering in SW1. You should get out more. It is sufficiently disturbing to watch our politicians descending into madness; do the commentariat necessarily have go down with them.
Simon Mayo - doesn't he put records on a turntable and prattle in the interstices?
Ian Walker
March 31st, 2011 5:11pm Report this commentI recommend buying the computer game Fate Of The World and playing it.
Frank P
March 31st, 2011 5:14pm Report this commentPS
"Don't think - trust the experts?" Bwaaahahahahahahaha!
Pity Melanie is busy trying to recruit Moslems to come to Israel's assistance (God bless her, she does take on some projects, our Mel; ever the optimist). Was she at the 'debate'?
Owen Morgan
March 31st, 2011 5:16pm Report this commentDonna Laframboise has written a brilliant series of closely argued and well-documented blog posts, in which she has exposed just how little credibility the IPCC actually has. Not least among its flaws is the way a very small coterie of individuals, some with very unimpressive qualifications, have been responsible for a a very large part of the work of the IPCC. The notion that the IPCC comprises the collected thinking of the world's leading scientists is utterly divorced from reality - so I am not at all surprised that Simon Singh subscribes to it.
Catesby
March 31st, 2011 5:23pm Report this commentHas anyone noticed that many of the climate change outfits are funded by reinsurance companies - e.g. Lord Stern's lot are paid for by Munich Re?
I don't understand reinsurance and all the Lloyds names I know are incomprehensible drunks. So can someone please explain why reinsurers would have an interest (in either sense of the word) in funding climate change alarmism?
Ian Walker
March 31st, 2011 5:24pm Report this commentAlso, Columbus knew perfectly well that the world was round, since Aristotle had proved it 1800 years before. He was mistaken about the circumference of the Earth (he thought it was smaller than it actually is) and the size of the Eurasian landmass (he thought it was larger) which is why he thought that a western naval trade route to China was a viable option.
Rhoda Klapp
March 31st, 2011 5:25pm Report this commentyou can give away all Singh's points, but where in that is the catastrophe. If we are going to be a degree or two warmer (which I wouldn't conced that anybody can model or predict with any accuracy) then where is the problem with thaty. Most of us go to warm places on holiday. No disaster ensues. There's a village up the hill where it's always 2 degrees colder. Are those folk in deadly danger when they come here? Or go to London for another five degrees? Sorry, you have to show catastrophic outturns too, and you can't for a degree or two, because it was warmer than that many times in the past.
Greg
March 31st, 2011 5:26pm Report this commentFlash Gordon saved the Earth at the last second. But it was going to be destroyed by the moon colliding into it, a process that was started many hours earlier. So what happened? Did the Earth jump out of the way, or did the moon swerve at the last moment?
John Montague
March 31st, 2011 5:31pm Report this commentThe HIV thing was what cost the Speccie credibility amongst people with some scientific background, Fraser, not so much this global warming issue.
As you say, from Newton onwards, the history of science is studded with examples of the minority voice proving right, but it's actually made up of examples of most minority voices being wrong – of countless beautiful eccentric theories being ruined by a single nasty, obstinate little fact.
Charles
March 31st, 2011 5:35pm Report this commentCatesby
Because if climate change happens, and results in more natural disasters (e.g. flooding) then they are on the hook for the repair bills.
Funding pressure groups costs very little and if it results in change (paid for by someone else) that reduces their exposure to losses from possible climate change that is economically sensible for them.
Verity
March 31st, 2011 5:43pm Report this commentIt's angels dancing on the head of a pin.
It is a total non-issue.
It baffles me that sensible publications are even devoting space and manpower to discussing it. On the other hand, it's indicative of the power of the left that they are able to force a non-issue onto the front pages for well over a year.
oldtimer
March 31st, 2011 6:11pm Report this commentThe metrology behind the global warming hypothesis is weak. It was questioned in a number of ways in evidence put to the UEA Climategate enquiries. The questions were avoided. The underlying science was not tested. This is a serious weakness of the AGW case.
Most of the attention has focussed on temperature. The geological record demonstrates that the temperature of the earth goes up and down even in the absence of man. The causes are imperfectly understood. In historical times it depends on what time period you measure and how you measure. It goes up; it goes down.
So far as CO2 is concerned the IPCC relies on Keeling`s measurements on Moana Loa. It ignored previous measurements of CO2. Beck (50 Years of Continuous Measurement of CO2 on Moana Lua) discusses this at length. He disputes the 289 ppmv figure. His data should be considered before jumping to conclusions about CO2.
The climate system is extremely complex and, many say, is a chaotic system. It is possible that humans may contribute something, but the reality is that volcanic actions, changes in sea temperatures (eg El Nino) and wobbles in the axis of the earth, among other things, are much more important. The computer models do not, and cannot, model such events any more than scientists can predict earthquakes.
The computer models are not only limited and simplistic, they are unreliable - they did not predict the cooling of the past 10 years.
The only urgency needed in this debate is to repeal the Climate Change Act and to disown Carbon Plan which purposts to set out how the Government intends to implement the Act. If you have not already read Carbon Plan I recommend it to ruin your weekend.
Neil McEvoy
March 31st, 2011 6:16pm Report this commentCatesby (and Charles)
Because the more people believe that a catastrophe will befall them, the more they will pay in insurance premiums.
Stepney
March 31st, 2011 6:29pm Report this commentToo many Economists and not enough paleoclimatologists...
If we rid ourselves of the quasi-religious hysteria surrounding the issue then we are left with these unfortunate truths...
The Climate is changing (but then it always has and always will do. It's the very height of human arrogance to think that it's not going to happen on our watch).
Human activity maybe to blame.
If it is, you cannot put the genie back in the bottle - decarbonisation is impractically, dangerously, ridiculous.
The ONLY way ahead is to spend proportion of these insane fortunes on strategies which will prepare mankind to live with the consequences. Trying to stop the event is nothing more than Cnut shouting at the tide.
De-carbonsiation wouldn't have helped much in the Creatceous....or the Miocene....
Simon Stephenson.
March 31st, 2011 6:36pm Report this commentDavid : 4.28pm
"Well said. I don't know for a fact who is right about climate change, but I would far rather be convinced by open, honest debate than by an alleged consensus"
Regrettably, the days of open, honest debates are well and truly over. We live in the age of Marketing Man, where persuasion is all, and openness and honesty don't get a look in.
As examples, just do a basic study of the "debates" over the introduction of the Euro, the invasion of Iraq, and the objectives of UK economic management under Gordon Brown, and tell me of any part of any of these which was conducted in an open and honest way. And then resign yourself to the fact that we're going to have to live in this Orwellian nightmare until, looking positively, a repairable self-induced catastrophe brings us to our senses, or, negatively, that the catastrophe is not repairable.
Verity
March 31st, 2011 6:38pm Report this commentI don't know why you are devoting space this lefty-manufactured scare issue.
There's no threat. No serious scientist thinks there's a threat. Tenth rate scientists and uni lecturers and freelance science writers who are getting free trips and bungs for appearances and articles are irrelevant and there is no reason to read a word of manufactured panic that they produce.
The people behind them ... as ever, the toxic Left, hungry, as ever, for control and elevation... are the ones to go after.
Stop taking this so seriously! It's garbage!
Richard Lawson
March 31st, 2011 6:45pm Report this commentFraser, you ask "How much is man’s activity contributing to global warming? Is it 20 percent? 80 percent?"
I have not seen a proper paper on this either. But working from the graph here: http://bit.ly/byjFnZ, I estimate that it is between 60% (2000) and 70% (1999).
The graphs show the measured temperatures (red line) and modelled predictions (grey fuzzy line).
Graph (a) (Natural) shows that modelling the non-manmade causes (solar activity, volcanoes, El Nino 7c) gives values well cooler than the observations.
Graph (b) (Anthropogenic) which puts in our contribution without natural variation shows the grey modelled line closer to the red observations, but still sagging below, on the cool side.
Graph (c) where natural and manmade are combined shows the best fit.
If you look at 2000 on graph (a) you can count the top of the model, giving 0.3*C increase from the zero line (taken as the temperature in ~1860.
The observed temperature was 0.7*C above the start line. So our contribution is 0.4*C - 4/7ths of the total, nearly 60%. In 1999 the gap is 7/10ths, or 70%.
I hope this helps.
TGF UKIP
March 31st, 2011 7:07pm Report this commentCareful chaps, this is Never Neather blowing smoke. By holding this Speccie debate, putting up this post and inviting us all to argue the toss on "climate change" the intention is to keep the Speccie well away from the real issue, the one the Speccie will not go near and which Speccie hacks are prohibited from even broaching - the scam being perpetrated on us all by the London Village in general and his Cameron Tory mates in particular.
Cameron & Clique are funded by the City and the City just loves "climate change" for the zillions it makes for them. The overwhelming proportion of the world's carbon trading desks are in the City, The City makes oodles from all the "green" company floats and fund raisings, The City fund management gangs make a mint out of all the "green" funds they flog to the deluded and the City are slavering at all the fees etc they are going to make out of the minimum £200bn that is going to be spent on nuclear and CCS plants and which we are going to be paying for via the Tory electricity poll tax.
As always the question is cui bono and the answer is the City, the large CBI corporations who will get all the contracts for nuclear and CCS builds and of course the unions who get all those entirely unionised jobs. As for the rest of us we simply get plundered but that is not a subject Never Neather will go near.
Simon Stephenson.
March 31st, 2011 7:13pm Report this commentAll very sceptical so far in this comment thread. Who'd dispute, however, that by midnight the AGW rebuttal battalion will be armed and into action, posting thousands upon thousands of words of specualtive, unscientific garbage so that the thread becomes unreadable?
Just like the commies used to do at Trades Union and Constituency Labour Party meetings back in the 70s and 80s. Bore the real people to death, make them feel that their presence is absolutely futile, and they'll give up and stay away in future.
eyesee
March 31st, 2011 7:22pm Report this commentSingh's theme of 'trust the experts' is just a part of 'shut down the debate'. How can you say science is accepted as being about debate and challenge when the Royal Society are of the opinion that debate of AGW should not be allowed? Singh also cleverly includes 'other greenhouse gases' to get your agreement to CO2 being a 'problem' The climate models are not imperfect they are wrong, have been proven to be wrong (by running them retrospectively) and intended to mislead. Just like the 'hockey stick' model; predicated on rising at the end. The planet has been warming. The most likely factors are external and certainly the extremely small output of 'greenhouse gases' by Man (in comparison to other sources) is not involved. Beyond that debate away. Oh and the reason you couldn't find concrete evidence and Stern didn't include a cost-benefit analysis is that the AGW faithful don't do explanation. Their's is the 'wow, I've just found out something amazing, but no you can't see my work' variety. As proven by Jones and his cronies (IPCC) hiding evidence and Mann refusing to give up the code for his model. There is no debate, there are religion-based AGW faithful, money-men (like Al Gore) on the make against people who want things explained before offering belief.
Robert Eve
March 31st, 2011 7:37pm Report this commentFraser - stop droning on about homosexuality.
Nothing to be proud of.
yank
March 31st, 2011 7:44pm Report this commentFinally, what is The Spectator’s position? We seek to be nothing more than the still, small voice of calm in the middle of a hysterical debate.
.
No, you are the stirring voice of frenzied fawning for the Cameroons, and their weird fetish for the church of global warmingism.
But the Cameroons are fast approaching their death spiral, as the stagflation that such as their global warming fetish engenders takes full root, and terminates their governance.
For your nation as a whole, we can only point out that the Royal Society has shamed you all, and the Spectator's yawping silence on that shaming is noted, and even more destructive than its Cameroonian fawning.
The nation that led the world into the industrial age... that put science above all... now lies prostrate in shame.
It's another Megrahi moment, folks. These things begin to pile up.
Frank P
March 31st, 2011 8:06pm Report this commentYou are gonna die! And I'm an expert. Take a look around those patches of green land with white stones dotted around in them every city, borough, town, village and hamlet. There's my evidence! And remember that's just the buggers they've buried: many more have been scattered to the winds or are cooped up in jars on the mantle-pieces of widows and widowers, who are waiting for their turn in the bone yard, or the urn. Now stop fretting about Mother Earth and her temperature and try to keep you own in the region of 37 degrees Celsius. Anything much above that, or much below it, and you're fucked anyway - fluctuations in the climate, and Gadaffi notwithstanding. Good God Nelson! We've done all this shit before here. How about completing your treatise on the Andrew Neather revelations as you once promised you would, instead of jigging up sterile debates about stuff that can't be proven one way or the other anyway, which is why these scamsters keep floating their schemes on it and calling it 'science'. Grow up FFS! Or behave yourself, at least. You are so easily impressed - even by Simon Mayo, it seems. Jimmy Savile one of your University tutors, was he? Or did you manage to cop a "Jim'll Fix It" gig in your youth?
Now Jimmy Young - I'd forgive you if you cited him. He knew a thing or two - probably picked it up when he was Sergeant in the RAF. Dispensed a great deal of wit 'n' wisdom in his day did our Jim, until that c*** Jeremy Whine shafted him and nicked his slot.
mitcheltj
March 31st, 2011 9:08pm Report this commentTrust needs to be earned. I would happily trust experts if they prove themselves trustworthy. In addition, a good expert is prepared to answer questions. I cant help comparing the consultant who treats my wife's cancer - a trustworthy expert if ever there was one, who answers questions in a straightfoward and totally unpatronising way - with, for example, the intellectually shifty and evasive Government's scientific adviser Sir John Beddington who argues that those who question the establishment doctrine on AGW should not be tolerated, and not be given airspace to voice their views. The saintly Brain Cox, and apparently Simon Singh, who both no doubt consider themselves above the hoi polloi intellectually, appear to share Professor Beddington's views. Such intolerance of dissent sounds spookily like Nazism to me...and IPCC and co have demonstrated in spades that they are not to be trusted. And as for Ed Miliband and Chris Huhne.....
daniel maris
March 31st, 2011 9:20pm Report this commentI am afraid you can't be a still small voice of calm if you bang the drum for nuclear like a BFNL ad. The only possible reason for backing nuclear over say gas or coal is the global warming argument.
However events in Japan show just what a catastrophic choice nuclear can be.
I favour a precautionary approach. No one really knows what's happening with the climate which means it is probably wise to try and keep atmospheric constituents within their recent historical range.
So on that basis striving, not too officiously, to reduce carbon output is probably a good idea, erring on the side of caution.
How best to do that? Move at a reasonable pace into green energy, use of electric vehicles and use of biofuel for jet engines.
Paul Hadley
March 31st, 2011 9:21pm Report this commentIf would like to know more about in-depth consideration of 'drivers' of 'climate change' - beyond the IPCC 'vision', then I would draw your attention to the content of the following links:-
http://climaterealists.com/index.php
http://www.weatheraction.com/
and possibly, the best overview I have seen to date :-
http://drtimball.com/2011/generalist/
Baron
March 31st, 2011 9:56pm Report this commentfor what it’s worth am in complete agreement with verity, this AGW creed is nothing but a giant scam, an idiocy of the highest degree, a fallacy that is going to cost us all, cost dearly.
listen please, once more, to just three points I keep repeating, think. Note that I’m using percentages as opposed to ppm (parts per million), the usage of the ppm ratio by the ecochondriacs is in itself indicative of their cunning, it looks more frightening to say the CO2 levels have gone up from 180ppm to 380ppm rather than from 0.018% to 0.038%. Both, of course, are the same.
according to those who believe the AGW nonsense, the CO2 density in the air has gone up from 0.02% to 0.04% (both figures rounded) in the last 200 years or so, or to put it the other way, 200 years ago, around 99.98% of the air was made up of particles other than CO2, today the level is around 99.96%. Nobody, no scientist, no bloody nobody is going to convince me that this infinitesimal increase, hardly qualifying for a marginal change, which itself is highly questionable, will do any harm to anyone or anything.
we, the 7bn humans, contribute some 4% to the total discharge of the gas compound. Did you hear it? Just for bleeding per cent. Nature releases the other 96%. If we all drop dead, stop driving cars, cooking, flying, bashing steel and stuff, but nature belches up some more instead, the CO2 discharge will not drop at all, it may well increase, as it has done in the past in the earth’s long history.
the same scientists who back the insanity also say that between the tenth century and the start of the Industrial Revolution CO density in the air had barely changed moving from 0.014% to 0.018%, yet we have both religious and secular accounts of the world going through two noticeable and distinct periods, one of warming up, the other of cooling down.
for me, am a trained economist, the three points are enough, everything else is noise, obfuscation, pap.
since we can never be certain what the climate may be like in the years, decades, centuries hence, we should pursue policies of accommodation to it, our feeble attempts to stop any climatic changes are most likely to end up in a disaster, just look what one powerful quake engineered by nature did to Japan.
Madness to the power of ten, at least.
David Williamson
March 31st, 2011 9:57pm Report this commentFraser,
Allow me to help with Simon Singh's questions:
1. Possibly, depending on who you read, the effect is somewhere between small and zero - it depends on a detailed knowledge of Thermodynamics.
2. Yep, however only a small part of that, around 17% if I recall, is due to man. It remains a trace gas in the atmosphere, but vital to our being alive.
3. Yep
4. Nope
5. Nope
banjo
March 31st, 2011 10:09pm Report this commentAh,the five questions.
I believe these are the standard five questions catastrophists are encouraged to ask rationalists,i`m sure i`ve heard bbc minions asking the same of others.
Maybe it was sent around the bbc on a memo,or even learned parrot fashion on one of the endless bbc `jollies`that bbc `opinion formers` enjoy so much at our expense.
You`re supposed to concede the argument and repent,not rebut it.
David Bailey
March 31st, 2011 10:13pm Report this commentI presume the debate did not include questions from the audience, otherwise someone would surely have pointed out that the IPCC backed a major claim that the himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035, until eventually it was forced to admit there was NO scientific evidence for the claim! This was called a 'mistake'!
Simon Stephenson.
March 31st, 2011 10:26pm Report this commentYes, yank (7.44pm), that's about the long and the short of it.
There is just one faint, faint sliver of hope for this country, and that is if somehow the political authorities can be persuaded that (a) a properly educated society has more chance of survival than one which pays its professional footballers £150,000 a week, and considers the X Factor to be the height of cultural chic and (b) a society of ill-informed dimwits, however docile and malleable they may be, is far more difficult to govern properly than when the bulk of the population is savvy enough to distinguish between serious thought-out policy and grandstanding, and to insist on the former.
Victor Southern
March 31st, 2011 10:41pm Report this commentWhat a strange piece of logic. Simon Singh firstly gives the IPCC "maximum credibility" on a graph he creates. Then he states that he can find nobody of maximum credibility who does not worry about global warming. I believe that is a tautology.
It would be truly astonishing if those on the IPCC were not those who worry about global warming.
I have asked this question a hundred times or more - absent AGW what caused the termination of the many previous Ice Ages?
David Watkins
March 31st, 2011 10:43pm Report this commentThe 2009 Antarctic ice core survey results, showed that the CO2 proportion of the atmosphere had risen in the previous 10 years by 18.5 parts per million, of which the burning of fossil fuels contributed only 1.5 parts per million of this increase. Annually this is 0.15ppm from fossil fuels and 1.7ppm from unknown unspecified sources.
It now brings the new total to 386 parts per million of which, (according to the UK Government), fossil fuels are responsible for just 19 of those parts. The highest CO2 in this interglacial period, up to the year 1800 was 280ppm, so humans have added 106ppm, yet only 19 are from fossil fuels.
Now just imagine that if we could have performed a miracle and eliminated all 19 parts of fossil fuel CO2 emissions completely, the CO2 in the atmosphere would have still risen by a massive 87 parts per million above the pre industrial maximum of 280ppm, to a high 367ppm. Another way of looking at it is that the increase from these unspecified unnatural sources, are 11 times that from fossil fuels, so the punitive amounts that eliminating fossil fuels can save, will have no effect at all. We need to establish just where this other 87 parts per million have come from and my theory is that it is from human and animal respiration. World population has tripled since 1940, from 2 billion to 6.7 billion, along with the animals that are farmed to feed this quickly expanding population. There will be 9 billion by 2050.
This just proves that CO2 will increase by at least 1.7ppm per year regardless of fossil fuel combustion and any measures taken, such as Carbon emission tax, Carbon trading licences and reducing vehicle emissions, is absolutely futile. It is just another way of making money for Governments and big organisations. If every vehicle in the world was eliminated, it would save only a pitiful total of 2.47 parts per million CO2, which is the last figure for world vehicle emissions,(issued in 2009 by the UK Government).
Spartacusisfree
March 31st, 2011 11:00pm Report this commentThe key assumption in climate science, polluted clouds backscatter more solar energy to space, hiding CO2-AGW, is wrong, an artefact of incorrect physics from Carl Sagan who invented the CAGW scare.
When experiment showed no evidence of the effect, NASA insiders faced a quandary, backtrack or bluff. They chose the latter, substituting the physics of the researcher who had first observed the effect for thin clouds but warned not to extrapolate the science to thick clouds, with a plausible but fake explanation.
So, insiders knew AR4 was wrong when published. Correct the physics and you get another AGW, aerosols increasing light transmission through thicker clouds. This explains what happens at the end of an ice age and the recent cessation of AGW better than CO2.
The upshot is that despite having spent between 3 and 5 times the real cost of the Manhattan project, no climate model can predict climate. As the World cools, climate science and politicians are realising they were conned.
ManicBeancounter
March 31st, 2011 11:33pm Report this commentUnfortuntely I was not at the debate, but from the Fraser Nelson's and Bishophill's accounts this smells suspiciously like the work of Greg Craven. He has some entertaining Youtube videos on his grid, and a easy read book that develops the credibility spectrum.
Problems I have found.
- relies on sceintific societies collective statements more than knowledeable individuals, despite evidence that campaign groups campaign vigorously to for these position statements. I forget what the technical name would be if witness testimony was biased in this way in a court of law.
- Presents it in terms of either the catastrophy, or the magic policy that will cure all. There is no middle ground. Yet the worst case is very low probability, as much of the worst consequences are hugely speculative with no real evidence. The IPCC's case is one of containment at a level below when the climate turns really volatile. But real-world the policy is extremely expensive and highly ineffective in constraining CO2, so if the science is correct in its most extreme form, we could face a climate castrophy whilst deprived of much of the high per capita income levels needed to cope and adapt.
John B
March 31st, 2011 11:38pm Report this commentOne of the most fascinating informative and factual sites I have come across on this subject is here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/
As well as many daily posts from contributors, many of whom are scientists, the site contains a wealth of data including up to date graphical reports of the state of the Earth's ice sheets.
The owner has among other things organised a project to survey and assess the US temperature recording stations which has completed over 1000 sites.
Whatever your position on climate I recommend you visit and take the time to review the material there.
daniel maris
April 1st, 2011 12:26am Report this commentDavid Watkins' post is v. interesting.
I'd like to add my own theory. Irrigation is now something that covers millions of square miles that were previously pretty much bone dry. In these areas water cover evaporates several times a day putting huge, huge amounts of water vapour into the atmosphere that wasn't there 100 years ago. It appears that water vapour is a greenhouse gas.
Of course no one focusses on irrigation because it is "a good thing".
David S
April 1st, 2011 1:11am Report this commentCatesby (5.23pm)
I did some analysis for Christopher Booker on why the reinsurance industry funds alarmism (I am a career Lloyd's underwriter although relatively sober and resolutely sceptical on CAGW). It is too long to post here but perhaps the moderators here can put us in touch.
dcardno
April 1st, 2011 1:54am Report this commentRe Catsbey (Sp?) on why reinsurers are supporting CAGW pressure groups: As noted, it may lead to policy changes that reduce their exposure, but that's a very long-term thing. More importantly (and much more immediately) it gives them (actually the direct writers, but the two groups are in it together) pricing power. If, for example, your insured believes that hurricanes are going to become more frequent and more severe, it is much easier to sell a higher premium policy than if he thinks storm events will remain within historic experience. In convincing the insured of this, it is useful to have several shrill voices in the media and government repeating "Oh my... it's worse than we thought." It is an even happier outcome when the predicted disasters don't materialize - out of such years come Porsches and holiday homes for senior underwriters.
Bruce
April 1st, 2011 2:13am Report this commentDidn't the temperature also rise .6C from 1910 to 1940 wiithout the benefit of a large CO2 rise?
Hatoul
April 1st, 2011 7:41am Report this commentis the world warming up - yes
is man helping it along - yes
I wonder if the scientists think that man was responsible for the last ice age ?
which is what happens after the global warming.
global warming is a natural phenomena, and we are just helping it along... maybe just a little bit quicker.
Nicholas Hallam
April 1st, 2011 8:38am Report this commentIn medicine there may be better reasons to trust the experts: we don't know that they have cheated by subverting peer review or deleting inconvenient data. Even so, they can be wrong, as they were until recently over stomach ulcers and their causes. On the dietary causes of heart disease it would also be wise to maintain a healthy scepticism - the consensus science here has become worryingly politicised, as it has too in climate science.
Simon Singh's (or rather Greg Craven's) Credibility Spectrum approach is really just Argumentum ad Verecundiam for Powerpoint users.
McSweeney
April 1st, 2011 9:27am Report this commentI have no problem with anything being subject to rationale debate although I'd spend more or less of my time on the debate depending on the subject.
But I have a problem with referring to those with little scientific knowledge challenging scientific findings and thinking. That is not a good example of the postive aspects of undermining elitism.
It isn't merely an 'intellectual elite' telling us about climate change, it's trained scientists. A good example of an intellectual elite is the commentariat whose position as 'published commentators' is being challenged by bloggers etc. The same does not apply to the scientific community being challenged by Nigel Lawson.
Heide De Klein
April 1st, 2011 9:31am Report this comment1. Do you agree that the global temperature is affected by land use, clouds, solar irradiance, aerosols, cosmic rays as well as greenhouse gasses?
2. Do you agree that CO2 levels in the atmosphere have risen from 360ppm in 1995 to 390ppm in 2011?
3. Do you agree there has been no warming at all in the last 15 years?
4. Do you agree that there have been many periods in the earth's history where it has warmed by 0.6 degrees in a hundred years?
5. Do you agree that the best scientific models have consistently over-estimated the temperatures of the last 30 years?
Edward
April 1st, 2011 9:35am Report this commentYou forgot 5. Rising temperatures are necessarily a Bad Thing.
oldtimer
April 1st, 2011 10:35am Report this commentThe issue that really counts is the political action that is being taken now here in the UK, namely the implementation of the Climate Change Act. The Coalition intentions are set out in Carbon Plan, personally signed by Cameron, Clegg and Huhne.
Among other absurdities it claims that "there is a huge opportunity...for households and businesses to save money" (para 1.7). This is, of course, an outright lie. The Climate Change Act is estimated to cost an extra £18-20 billion per annum for many years.
Apart from feed in tariffs, the Carbon Plan offers capacity payments (from para 2.5) "targetted payments to encourage security of supply through the construction of flexible reserve plants or demand reduction measures (for instance, contracting with companies to reduce energy usage at times of high demand - so-called `negawatts`). Capacity payments will ensure that an adequate safety cushion of capacity remains as the amount of intermittent and inflexible low carbon generation increases...".
Well at least they recognise that the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine all the time. But that means everyone must pay twice over for generating capacity once for expensive, unreliable low carbon sources and a second time for efficient reliable, fossil fuel based, standby capacity. It would make more sense to settle just for the efficient capacity and save ourselves that £18-20 billion per annum.
But `negawatts` was a new one to me. It just shows how nutty this whole venture has become. I wonder how long it will be before someone in the House of Commons stands up and declares that the Emperors Cameron, Clegg and Huhne (and not forgetting Miliband) have no clothes? The way things are it is unlikely. Time for a new political party?
2trueblue
April 1st, 2011 11:01am Report this commentHonest debate?
Too late mate.
The well of knowledge has been corrupted and poisoned. No one believes anyone else because the 'belief' has become the 'accepted truth'.
So much money wasted whilst we waste our resources and allow governments to tax us and waste the sum collect in the name of 'climate change'. It is all so hysterical. Another neat global scandal.
Justice4Rinka
April 1st, 2011 11:06am Report this commentThe fundamental flaw - deceit, even, perhaps - in Simon Singh's credibility argument is that it is asymmetrical. He failed to include people who are credible and sceptical, and people who are not credible and warmist.
Examples of the former would include Bob Carter, Richard Lindzen, the 700 names mentioned in the US Senate minority report, and the 2,000-odd who signed up to the Manhattan declaration.
Examples of the latter - disreputable/disgusting people who support the consensus - would include the Mafia (massive wind farm fraudsters), VAT carousel fraudsters, Enron (who actually thought up carbon trading), cybercriminals (who phish for and steal the permits), Osama bin Laden, and Tony Blair.
If you replot Singh's graph with all those data points added in you find that actually the sceptical side of the debate is rather better supported and the fearmonger side of it rather worse supported than he'd have you believe.
Furthermore, with fiascos like the hockey stick and the Himalayan glaciers, the credibility if Singh's faction is markedly on the wane.
This, of course, is a decline he's keen to hide.
Simon Stephenson.
April 1st, 2011 11:39am Report this comment"Who'd dispute, however, that by midnight the AGW rebuttal battalion will be armed and into action, posting thousands upon thousands of words of specualtive, unscientific garbage so that the thread becomes unreadable?"
I wish I could claim to be smarter than the average bear for having made this prediction at 7.13 yesterday evening. But, in reality, it's all become so predictable that any bear born with eyes could have foreseen it.
Cogito Ergosum
April 1st, 2011 11:41am Report this comment"Global warming is natural".
See http://homepage.ntlworld.com/m.gorman
or google for "trifling by planetary standards".
See also my comments of 31/3/11 on the coffeehouse wall.
For most of the last 500 million years the world has been far warmer then today, for reasons of geophysics that have nothing to do with homo sap.
The real question is whether the world is really retuning to "normal" or whether we are in a blip that precedes the next ice age. Nobody on Tuesday began to consider that.
There is nothing like a study of geology to give a long term historical perspective.
Ian C
April 1st, 2011 11:47am Report this commentI cannot read such a long post when the premises you accept are not only far from proven but are widely accepted as becoming increasingly dubious.
We are talking about warming within the margin of error over the pst 150 years,; that scientists have had to fiddle these figures to get anywhere and there is a massive warming bias in the records that "adjusted" by statistically highly-questionable means.
As for the '"trust me I'm a doctor" routine attempted by Singh is the one thing that should not impress anyone of any intelligence. That is precisely the problem. These (witch) doctors have such a massive vested interest in AGW, but it is only a hypothesis on their gameboys.
THERE IS NO EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FOR ANY OF IT being caused by man, other than the Urban Heat Island effect, which it is looking more and more likely the source of the scare.
Jenny
April 1st, 2011 11:56am Report this commentSorry but your responses are weak. There has been no recent warming and trends correlate with sun cycles not CO2 levels. See Dr Vincent Courtillot. Expose the fraud.
Ian C
April 1st, 2011 12:02pm Report this commentOld Timer and others of similar disposition SIGN HERE
www.repealtheact.co.uk
coolaid
April 1st, 2011 12:02pm Report this commentYou say - "I’m more than prepared to believe that all the clever people are capable of being wrong, and the dotty dissenting scientist can be right."
If so, then why didn't you ask any scientists to support your motion? Or did you think two fossil-fuel lobbyists (GWPF) and an MP would be better sources of scientific analysis?
michael
April 1st, 2011 12:11pm Report this commenteh-up
Remittance Man
April 1st, 2011 12:12pm Report this commentThis 700-page report suspiciously did not include a cost-benefit analysis.
So what makes Stern's report any different from any other government proposal in the last 60 years? In any country?
As someone who has to conduct a cost benefit analysis on virtually every spending request it really offends me that politicians somehow think they are immune from such things.
They blithely commit the country to billions of spending* without the slightest idea of whether the money will actually do what they say it will let alone whether the benefit of that expenditure outweighs the cost.
"Trust me. You voted for me and I've thought about this really really hard," isn't a proper feasibility study.
Peter Jackson
April 1st, 2011 1:02pm Report this comment"the Earth’s climate has warmed by 0.6 degrees in the last 50 years?''
So it has stayed more or less the same then.
oldtimer
April 1st, 2011 1:31pm Report this comment@ Ian C
Thanks for the link.
andy
April 1st, 2011 1:36pm Report this commentThere is a book called 'Future Babble@ which shows that experts always get it wrong.
Much like Mr Singh.
Trafalgar
April 1st, 2011 2:43pm Report this comment70 comments and not one has mentioned the biggest problem of all - the unfettered increase in the world's population. Whether you agree with debate on the causes of global warming or not, we surely have to limit the population explosion (growing by 125000 people per day).
Then we wouldn't need as much oil and gas, as many nuclear power stations, and there would be more space, clean water and food for everyone.
John Bowman
April 1st, 2011 3:46pm Report this commentSimon Singh's first question reveals the problem with those who push the claim.
It was a "Have you stopped beating your wife' question designed to sucker you in Mr Nelson - the answer, no, would open you to ridicule, the answer traps you into agreeing with the assertion.
"CO2 and other greenhouse gases' - he starts with the greenhouse gas that has one of the least effects and includes in passing but unspecified the one - water vapour - which has by far the most, 95%.
Given that you must answer yes even if you disagree about CO2 - do you see?
The question properly should have been 'Do you agree increases of a trace gas CO2 with a small greenhouse effect is entirely responsible for significant increase in global temperature?'
The answer would be no. Even Mr Singh would not claim that knowing as he must the effect of increased CO2 is logarithmic, passed its peak some time ago and on its own could not explain the reported rises in temperature.
The key is water vapour one of the anonymous 'other' in Mr Singh's carefully crafted question.
The small incremental increase in temperature caused by CO2 is, he and others like him claim, sufficient to cause an increase in atmospheric water vapour content which causes a feed-back loop, leading to more warming, more water vapour, more warming, etc.
Mr Singh must also know that there is no agreement (consensus) whether this effect is positive, negative or neutral. Observation indicates it is not positive.
You have to watch these guys and their carefully posed questions Mr Nelson, because once you have accepted the first premise unchallenged, you are obliged to accept the other four or look like an idiot - which is of course what Mr Singh is trying to do to you if you do not agree with him.
Philip Foster
April 1st, 2011 4:57pm Report this commentAnswers to Simon Sngh's five questions are, in order:
1. No, not proven
2. probably
3. possibly
4. No
5. There is no such thing as a 'good model' of climate - period. As scientists know, "all models are wrong, but they are sometimes useful." In this case they are not even that.
Frank P
April 1st, 2011 5:08pm Report this commentTrafalgar
"70 comments and not one has mentioned the biggest problem of all - the unfettered increase in the world's population."
Don't fret; the current geopolitical incompetence, stupidity and bellicose blustering will, ere long, lead to substantial culling by armed strife, including a nuclear adventure, or three, never mind the starvation and disease that will follow.
But these things have a way of sorting the men from the boys - and the spooks from the double-agents and flip-flops.
The best times ever for homo sapiens are already history, albeit poorly recorded.
Best to take a back seat now for a bit and observe the denouement. Stock up on durable provisions, bury any treasure somewhere safe and don't believe a thing you read in the newspapers or see-hear on TV.
There's a slow train a-comin' round the bend.
Kevin Cunliffe
April 1st, 2011 7:22pm Report this commentGet off your knees Fraser, it doesn't suit you. You are dealing with a branch of science that cannot accurately predict the weather in 3 days time and yet these zealots expect that their postulations are unquestioningly accepted by us, the great unwashed, as the absolute word of God. Warmist scientists and their useful idiot commentators ( Simon Mayo! Oh please....... ) need a continuous stream of doom laden scenarios in order to keep the gravy train running ( turkeys, christmas etc ), hence their depiction of any contrary view as heresy. This is merely the hectoring left's latest hobby horse, a wonderful excuse to enlighten the little people and show us the error of our ways - if we're very lucky we might see the light and fashion ourselves anew, so that we can be just like them. Having lost the great post war political argument ( surprise, surprise, communism and it's dismal socialist cousin inevitably lead to despotism in the case of the former and bankruptsy in the latter ) the left seek solace in telling us all how to live. Except that we've been here before - the hectoring classes were predictably wrong about all of their previous crusades to enlighten and improve us; nuclear disarmourment, comprehensive education, political correctness, multiculturalism and welfareism to name but a few.
I don't doubt that a rise in temperature of 0.6 degrees since the start of the industrial era in 1850 is at least in partly man-made - but I do doubt that it will all end in tears. After all the earth warmed and cooled itself without any assistance from man by a greater degree that this during the medieval warm period and little ice age, but I suppose this is merely another inconvenient truth.
Climate Scepticism is Natural
April 1st, 2011 10:36pm Report this commentFraser,
Please find attached a link to a range of scientific peer reviewed papers where you may find more of the information that you are looking for :
http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html
In particular, you may want to look at the papers of world renowned Atmospheric Physicist, Professor Richard Lindzen, particular in his critique of the Stern review.
David Lilley
April 1st, 2011 11:37pm Report this commentMay I be permitted to reply to Simon Singh.
1. Yes but by how much. A doubling of CO2 on its own only raises the global temperature about 1 C. The models assume that positive feedbacks from water vapour raise this to a central estimate of 3.3 C. But empirical evidence shows water vapour feedbacks are negative, damping the warming down to no more than 0.6 C. The evidence includes weather balloon measurements of atmospheric humidity, the absence of the tropospheric hotspot, correlation of surface temperatures with satellite measurements of outgoing radiation, measurements of the atmosphere's optical depth, etc.
2. No. The scientific archive contains over 90,000 contemporary direct measurements of atmospheric CO2 dating back to the early 1900s using chemical methods known to be highly accurate. These measurements show CO2 levels varied up and down and generally were much higher than 280 ppm. This finding is supported by studies of leaf stomata - a completely independent proxy indicator of CO2 levels. The 280 ppm figure comes from ice core measurements. These measurements understate CO2. The ice contains pockets of supercool water and CO2 is significantly more soluble in supercool water than other gases. Thus the CO2 is seriously under-represented in the remaining gases. Also, as pressures in the ice mount, gases can be crushed into crystals called clathrates. When the ice cores are removed and the pressure is released the clathrates rupture and the gas is lost. CO2 forms clathrates at lower pressures than other gases.
3. It's hard to say because the surface temperature record has been corrupted by the closing down of weather stations in colder locations, failure to properly allow for the urban heat island effect, the siting of a majority of stations near artificial heat sources, homogenisation and other unexplained "adjustments".
4. No. See (1)-(3).
5. There are no computer models with any predictive skill. Doesn't this tell you something? Table 2.11 of the IPCC report 2007 groups factors affecting the climate under 16 headings and offers an opinion on the current level of scientific understanding of each. For no less than 11 of the 16 headings they admit their understanding is low or very low. Enough said !
Junkk Male
April 2nd, 2011 8:44am Report this comment'Simon Mayo tweeted that he stopped buying us because of what he saw as an anti-science bias'
There's an interesting precedent in media funding terms there, especially unique ones, upon which I'd be interested in the views of Mr. Mayo and his employers.
Frank P
April 2nd, 2011 11:54am Report this commentKevin Cunliffe
The political and philosophical credentials implicit in your post at 7.22pm indicate that you would make a far better editor of this once conservative magazine than its current incumbent. Moreover, you seem possessed of common sense, a quality that has been sadly lacking in the tenor of its ed op since the magazine moved to Old Queen Street. The cachet, or perhaps the proximity, of SW1 seems to have had a deeply deleterious effect on hacks, it apparently dulls the nose to the easily detected stench of complex scams and concomitant official corruption.
Simon Stephenson.
April 2nd, 2011 12:30pm Report this commentDavid Lilley : 11.37
It strikes me that you are not the sort of person to whom the likes of Simon Singh would direct their questions. They are really not looking to discuss the assertions that are loaded into the questions - they already know the "correct" response to these. What they're doing in framing their questions is to make it as difficult as possible for a layman to say "no" and still retain the acceptance of an audience of fellow-laymen. Rather like President Dubya's "Well, you're either with us or you're with the terrorists, which is it?", there is really only one answer that can comfortably be given to a room full of uninformed and naturally tunnel-visioned people.
So they're not really after people who may pick out their fallacies of construction, what they want is people who are going to answer "yes" if asked "will you roar if I say something that mekes you feel like you want to roar?"
Simon Stephenson.
April 2nd, 2011 12:34pm Report this commentKevin Cunliffe : 7.22pm and Frank P : 11.54am
Spot on!
Hexhamgeezer
April 2nd, 2011 6:22pm Report this commentI note that comments which rationally conclude that IPCC and Met Office headline claims (polar bears, glaciers, barbecue summers, shirt sleeve winters) and S Singh's methodology (drawing a graph explaining credibility -!!)are bullshit are not allowed on this thread.
Stacey
April 4th, 2011 6:15pm Report this comment3. Do you agree that the Earth’s climate has warmed by 0.6 degrees in the last 50 years?
4. Do you agree human contribution to greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is major factor in the warming over the last century?
The above two questions are so easy to answer.
3 Assuming the degree of warming as measured (estimated between stations 600 k apart) then the answer is that the increase in temperature is not unusual on a century wide.
http://members.iinet.net.au/~glrmc/2007%2005-03%20AusIMM%20corrected.pdf
See attached document by Professor Carter pages 63,67 and 69
4 It is likely that humans have contributed to this warming however given the ratio of water vapours contribution to the green house effect and the relatively small proportion of man made CO2 to naturally released CO2 the increase in temperature due to man made CO2 is probably less than 0.1 degree.
Hockey Sttick or Fiddle Sticks
Neil Craig
June 8th, 2011 2:42pm Report this commentI assume that Simon Mayo and the BBC being honest upright folk genuinely seeking information rather than government funded ecofascit propagandists, having asked such questions on air, read out you answer.
Or not as the case may be.
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