A cooling ardour

Shaun Pilkington

Ever noticed how people arguing in favour of the Man Made Global Warming Theory always seem to have a totalitarian, prescriptive measure for how we should live our lives? Its almost as if they wanted to tell us how to live all along and have latched on to this cunning wheeze to provide cover for their aspirations...

Oh, incidentally, if you are ever talking to any species of green, ask them what they think the ideal global population of humans should be. You'll find it's about 5.8bn lower than our current population. Which begs the question: where would they like these people to go?

Straydingo

When is the MSM going to turn on these charlatans and start exposing the lies they have continued to weave when all the evidence, either new or previously ignored, is now starting to expose the gaping holes in their debate.
Those that continue to promote AGW theories without any serious factual debate are only interested in protecting their own personal equity they have invested in promoting these lies.

Jenny

And the recycling isn't, er, recycled. On and on it goes.

Does anyone remember the advert jingle for Green Giant? Whenever I see one of these goons on TV banging on about non-existent global warming I just think of that jingle, but with a twist: "Green Liar".

No wonder Bunkum Obama is so closely associating himself with these people.

Oliwagino Alefava Yihiri

Thank you Melanie for bring this up, one time a left wing liberal English lady who is crazy about "Greening" the world gave me a light Bulbs to use for my apartment, she gave me this so I can safe the environment, she told me that people are doing bad things to the environment for example not wearing organic clothes and eating organic food, she mentioned if people don't eat a 5 fresh fruits and vegetables a day we will have environmental disaster like the tsunami again, we will have less polar bears and the Thames River will flood, Holly Cow! that scare me too much, if I eat organic food, the world will be a better place, some of the organic food she had in her hand made organic non plastic bag was brown sugar from the himalayas, beans from guatemala and things like that, I am not stupid I mention countries like Saudi Arabia who use there street lights during the day should be the ones to worry about, when I ask her where she is heading after? she says she was going to the pub to binge drink some organic wine and smoke some organic hanky panky things,

I give her light bulbs back and told her good luck saving the environment! and that was the end of the story

Marc O'Polo

I have studied the issues surrounding "Global Warming" to a quite profound degree (and I used to pretty much buy it, a good few years ago); but I reckon there's a heck of alot more to it than the Global Warming Hysterics would have us believe. The politicians have woken up to it being a good tax revenue-stream. It's become an orthodoxy that's almost impossible to gainsay - like Unquestioning Headlong Multiculturalism, or dumbing-down in State education.

Dee Ranged

BBC AND SKY news please note.

Richard

What really puzzles me about Melanie's writing on this subject is the certainty she seems to feel. Look at the tone, the angry, punishing overstatement; 'no-one should take seriously what they say about anything at all ever again'.

I know that this tone is Melanie's stock in trade. She isn't generally a writer who proceeds cautiously, conceding points and trying to see the strengths in viewpoints different from her own, and I sometimes find that tone quite invigorating.

But on this subject the stakes are so very high. If what the large majority of established climate scientists say is true, humanity, collectively, faces terrible dangers. Is that tone of sweeping dismissal really helpful? Most of us are not experts. We can't really judge the scientific controversies around this complex subject. I don't understand how any lay person, such as Melanie, feels entitled to dismiss these scientific warnings so contemptuously. It just isn't responsible. How does she feel so able to pick which scientists to believe, dismissing the majority?

I am the father of young children, and I am terribly troubled by what may be in store for their generation if the preponderance of scientific opinion on this subject is right, or even partly right. Why doesn't Melanie pause to think that they MAY be right, and that we should at least take the possibility seriously?

cuffleyburgers

I have always been highly sceptical about all this AGW stuff, and Gore was obviously an opportunist, in fact a hypocritical opportunist.

However there is a good case to made to explore renewable energy and to recycle raw materials where this can be done cost effectively, and even for some government action to help these processes - house insulation, high speed rail links etc are plain common sense.

So some good may yet come of bit is this hysteria

Steerforth

If my doctor told me that I would definitely have cancer in 20 years unless I ate brocolli every day, would it matter if his diagnosis was completely false. I'd still be healthier.

Similarly, if we adopt the practices recommended by environmentalists, we will have cleaner air, cheaper fuel and a better quality of life. It's a win-win situation.

Regardless of whether global warming's happening or not (and I'm open-minded), we will benefit from moving to a hi-tech, post-industrial society in which our lives aren't blighted by pollution, noise and an over-reliance on imports.

Re: population - if population growth continues, then it will be checked by famine and war. It would be better to encourage the conditions that led to people in developed countries having fewer children as the last century progressed. This would lead to a slow rate of depopulation that wouldn't destabilise the economy.

EDDIE

The ice is melting ,glaciers are shrinking., rain forests are shrinking. There are more and worse hurricanes. Weather patterns are altering. The ice age is coming?

Meh

Are you not getting bored of getting spanked every time you say something about science? You clearly don't understand the subject.

Tell you what, next time link directly to papers and quote us the bits that support your interpetation of things.

Until then, we're going to continue laughing at you.

Jenny

"What really puzzles me about Melanie's writing on this subject is the certainty she seems to feel. Look at the tone, the angry, punishing overstatement; 'no-one should take seriously what they say about anything at all ever again'. I know that this tone is Melanie's stock in trade."

Richard, please, look at how this subject has been used to bully everyone and everything under the sun. The people who were driving this agenda knew this. They were less interested in global warming than in where this sanctimonious rubbish could get them. For eight years this nonsense was endlessly peddled not because these people knew what they were talking about but because it was an excuse to bash George Bush with. They pretend to be harmless hippies when they are Machiavellian schemers.

Maximilian

You quote Theon as saying, “Hansen thus embarrassed NASA by coming out with his claims of global warming in 1988 in his testimony before Congress.”

Did Theon speak out at the time, or did he refrain from making his views known to his fellow scientists? Has he really at long last broken a twenty-year silence on the subject? Did nobody ever ask him his opinion on the subject in all those years and, if so, what answer did he give? Has he offered any explanation as to why he never spoke out until now?

Rachey Roo

Meh, January 29th, 2009 11:59am, Ms Phillips has provided over 10 hyperlinks in this column alone on this subject and yet you scream that she's making things up out of thin air.

How typical of the general behaviour of the global warming nuts: never mind reading what's there - let's just pretend global warming exists no matter how many facts are thrown at us.

Pathetic.

Cam

Richard and Meh,
Didn't you click on the links Melanie gave when reporting satellite data? I think you'll find evidence that she's not talking through her hat. I guess it depends on how much you care to know the truth.

Doug

Cam - have you read the links? Only one of them is anything near credible. The rest are just recyclers of nonsense.

Frank P

Richard says: "Why doesn't Melanie pause to think that they MAY be right, and that we should at least take the possibility seriously?"

I wonder if it's because the Moores, Gores and whores galore from other pressure groups have persistently, balefully and vigorously lied, lied, lied and lied again and again for reasons of partisan interest or straightforward graft; whereas she has researched and garned evidence fron myriad sources that none of this shits will touch with a bargepole because it is 'inconvenient'. Once the science community is for sale it is a whore. A whore is a whore, part time, or full time.

As GBS said (and I paraphrase), "We've settled the question of whether you are a whore Madam, now we're just haggling over the price."

And if I remember correctly, ideologically, he was a bit of hooker himself, so he knew what he was talking about.

MartinW

Some correspondents are clearly more concerned to berate Melanie Phillips, than to engage with the science. They should follow up the links and should try, for example, 'Greenie Watch' and 'Watts Up With That' for further links to current science.
There is a huge and increasing body of evidence that shows that so-called anthropogenic global warming has no basis in science, but is the product of scandalously flawed mathematical modelling based on selective data (one could say mendaciously manipulated data).
One appalling aspect is that the BBC applies a total censorship on all voices that question the gospel of global warming, and denies any debate. Totalitarian, I'd call

Cam

Doug,
I have read the links and sorry, but they appear to be from authentic scientific authorities. What's more, they come from separate independent sources, which means that they aren't part of a united conspiracy to fight global warming scams.
Just what to you mean by 'recyclers of nonsense'? What sources are these findings recycled from? Please elucidate.

Michael D Smith - IL USA

Richard sayeth:
I am the father of young children, and I am terribly troubled by what may be in store for their generation if the preponderance of scientific opinion on this subject is right, or even partly right.

It looks like what you will leave your children is economic disaster. What your children will wonder is, "you threw away a perfectly functioning wealth generating machine in exchange for high energy prices, taxes, government control, wealth destruction and debt for us, all on the basis of this now disproven junk-science rubbish? Thanks a lot Dad. Why didn't you speak up? Brilliant.

Ed

The satekkite evidence is indeed true, but one blip year in a continuing trend of warming does not disprove, or indeed prove anything.
Data has shown that we now have on the whole warmer summers - this is the issue. It may well be that we have colder winters as well, especially in the UK if the gulf stream stops!
I admit the ceasing of the gulf stream is a stretch but theory says it could happen.

Then there is the second issue - the ice caps may not melt, but global warming MAY still lead to lower rainfall in areas already under strain of water shortage. This will mean lower crop yields and mass movement of people across the globe.

Once again this is all theory- but if correct the threat is so huge, and the consquence so great we cannot leave it for 50 years and tell Al Gore (and the global warming brigade) they were right. We will already have reached the tipping point.

My final point - oil, gas and coal are finite resources. We need to address the fact that one day they will run out. Seeking alternative power sources is the right thing to do.

In summary, we need to look at global warming from all angles - not just the ice packs but Afirca, Asia and parts of South America. We need to find alternative power as well - we cannot be greedy in the west and limit what other countries can do in terms of growth.

EC

The charlatans who perpetrated this whopper couldn't have done it without credulous and/or self interested within the MSM.

In the UK the venal crooks of the NuLab Quango State were an easy mark for the long con.

In the UK the legacy of all this nonsence is likely to be a landscape littered with thousands of expensive, uneconomical, subsidised, unreliable and useless wind turbines.

Eco-mentalists: The unspeakable in pursuit of the unheatable.

Susan Hill

@Richard. Don`t worry. If my parents had worried what might happen to the world in the lifetime of their unborn child they would not have conceived me in 1941. I lived through the years when it was a very real possibility that the world as we knew it would vanish not because of putative global warming but because of a nuclear war. The chances of that happening were far far stronger than the chances that your children will fry on a hot planet... The planet has warmed and cooled, warmed and cooled since time began... it happens, it`s a natural phenomenon and the idea that anything we do or do not do controls or influences this is hubris. But man did invent nuclear weapons and did control them- still does.
You have just as much reason, according to climatologists, to worry about your children freezing to death in a new ice age ..and there is really nothing you or I can do about either. Worry about Iran or Pakistan obtaining nuclear weapons and pray God someone stops them and other unstable countries in the Middle East using them, before you worry about GW. As Melanie says, the overhwelming scientific evidence is now that there has been COOLING for the whole of this decade. And that at a time when carbon emissions have never been higher.
And even if GW started up again tomorrow, what precisely do you think would happen to your children as a result ? What, precisely ? Quite.
My younger daughter was a tiny child when US bombers droned over our house in Oxfordshire on their way to Libya. I remember wondering if our cupboard under the stairs would give us any protection against a nuclear strike and someone told me not to catastrophise. We now know that we were in fact within 8 minutes of a nuclear war over Libya so I had good reason to worry. But I`m still here, so is the now adult daughter.
Our globe has been a desert parched by a burning sun, and iy has been almost entirely covered in ice. Climate changes. Always has, always will and unlike possible nuclear war, there is precious little any of us can do about it. Read a good history of the earth`s climate and you`ll get a good sense of perspective on it all.
Just enjoy your children.

Ian C

There are some extraordinary comments here, not all silly:-

Marco Polo – totally agree. It is like speed cameras, a seemingly honourable excuse for more taxation.

Richard @ 11.10: if they are right, which is the best way to deal with it? Tax the f**k out of the productive world and pretend that will solve the problem as gov’ts pour the money into some irrelevant abyss or let enterprise sort it out? The sceptics argument has nothing to do with who is right or wrong.

cuffleyburgers: right; we need alternative sources of energy but at competitive costs. Wind and wave is currently 3-4 times the cost with still uncertain initial capital costs.

Steerforth: A thoughtless set of thoughts if I may so. What is win-win about the regulations and costs imposed on the world if AGW sooner or later proves to be the myth that an increasing amount of scientists believe it to be?

EDDIE: you have swallowed the green propaganda hook line and sinker. Check your facts. There is a thing called Google that enables this. For every story that proclaims one thing in your list there are at least three that do the opposite.

Forlornehope

I've got it. Melanie must be an agent of the Iranian-Saudi-Russian conspiracy. Her strong support for Israel is the perfect cover. On every economic and geo-political level it makes sense for the Democracies to get off their dependence on fossil fuels. This of course will stuff the exporting countries far more effectively than any military action. Putting the argument from a right wing position is actually damned cunning - that's the Iranians for you (5000 years of history must be good for something).

Interestingly there is an amusing symbiosis of the deep greens and the "no such thing as.." postions. The deep greens are using this as a Trojan Horse for all sorts of collectivist positions. This gives a good target for the guys whose SUVs will only be prised out of their cold (or globally warmed) dead hands. Actually, any familiarity with the science and engineering of the subject shows that with the right investment we can carry on much as we are but without depending on exports from some rather unpleasant regimes. That would seem to be good for freedom and democracy.

Most of the nonsense on climate change is covered by these two articles. Life is too short to debate the science here:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11462

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4585

Bill M

The Gore bulbs are loaded with poisonous mercury that, unless discarded properly as hazardous waste, will leach into the water tables at some point. Once contaminated, and since mercury is not biodegradable, we can look forward to all sorts of nasty physical results on generations yet to be born. Why doesn't Big Al mention this?

The Germans are now dumping all sorts of stuff into the Atlantic to see if it can absorb CO2. Did they ask the rest of us who border the Atlantic if we'd mind? Forget the fact that this stuff can wipe out fish populations and sensitive little microorganisms that make the world go 'round.

Scientists who are ardent global warming junkies are being exposed as hardly scientists, on a payroll, outright liars and frauds, or wimps who have been intimidated or are threatened with being ostracized from their peer community.

This whole thing is the biggest dupe and waste of money, which, by the way, not many of us have much of these days, ever foisted upon gullible masses.

Vote these liars and opportunists out. This is crazy.

Original Tony

I have said all along that it was just about another tax and I feel I will be proved right.
In addition to this, pro-global warming scientists get HUGE (tens of millions) budgets to prove their point and if they can't prove their point their funding is cut and they will be out of work.
Now, if you ran a government or university department that had to prove that square tyres were better than round tyres, you would start shrieking louder and louder as evidence came out that round tyres actually work better....just what these pro-global-warming nutters are doing...shrieking...they are simply scared of losing their funding and their jobs!!
It is SOLAR cycles that determines our earth's temperature and if it's only CO2 (sounds SO simplistic) then lets kill all the cows as they produce 60 million tonnes of greenhouses gases out their backsides, which is where all this pro-warming is coming from anyway.

John Thomas

It has been said before - rightly, in my view - that environmentalism/ecologism is in every way a religion, or rather, a substitute religion for those who don't have a real one. It has human guilt (what we have done to the earth, mea culpa), redemption (how we can save the planet for our children) and an End Times scenario (destruction of everything, caused by wicked humans). It is in fact the religion-substitute of the secularist age - and it really is, despite its claims, materialist, since it concerns itself with the purely-this-worldly. Fear for our childrens' future? In 60 years' time, AGW-ism will just be a memory, a footnote in history books.

Stephen Fox

Meh: I don't see how Melanie has been 'spanked' as you put it. She has lniked to documentation of the points she has made. The debate is less 'over' now than ever.

Eddie: which part of 'Global sea ice levels now equal those seen 29 years ago' do you not understand?

Richard, I sympathize with your concern for your children, but even assuming the IPCC projections come true, I would suggest you pay more attention to the likely consequences for them of prolonged economic damage to countries which hobble themselves with carbon taxes and yet more regulations. It is bad enough already. Other European countries (Germany, Poland) are already breaking ranks on Green targets. So must we. Stern’s report was widely criticised by statisticians and economists for cherry-picking data, and and assuming that we would not be able to adapt to new conditions.
For reasons of energy security, I also favour reducing our dependence on oil from the Middle East, and gas from Russia. However, we should work lucidly towards that in ways that suit us, not with some silly panicky idea of ‘saving the earth’, whose climate has always changed cyclically, and which simply won’t respond to unilateral efforts in a small country like ours.

As a layman, with a considerable interest in this debate, I would say that currently the AGW position is not being validated, either by the weather itself, although that could change of course, or more importantly, by the science. A large, and growing number of climate scientists do NOT agree that humanity faces terrible dangers from CO2.

Steerforth, if all you ate for 20 years was broccoli, you would not be healthier. And what ‘cheaper’ fuel are you talking about? I’m all for hydrogen power, but at present, hydrogen is very expensive to produce. I agree with putting money into research, if it will lead to energy independence. I disagree with punishing ourselves on the basis of ‘the earth is weeping’ bollocks.

ed

Stephen Fox
I assume the bit in your post:
"Eddie: which part of 'Global sea ice levels now equal those seen 29 years ago' do you not understand?"
was directed at me?
I understand it perfectly my friend.
Read the rest of my post - we may get colder winters but its the warmer summers that pose a greater threat to water supplies globally. Which part dont you understand?
How long has the earth been here? 29 years is but a blink of an eye - probably much much much less....

Rather than becoming abusiveto those who disagree with you please try and structure your argument more thoughtfully.

Meh

Rachey Roo.

What I said was, "link directly to academic papers." This is different from linking to blog/print reporting of what papers say.

As a case study, take her link about the rise in sea levels slowing down. The blog in question makes this claim, "Efforts to sell climate policy based on ever more scary scenarios of apocalypse cannot be sustained." Which is completely different from Mel's wacko stance that it isn't happening.

The paper itself is something Mel couldn't situate in a debate herself if an error-bar jumped up and bit her.

Original Tony

John Thomas 3.13pm...well said, you hit the nail on the head there!

Augustus

Satellite readings of temperatures in the lower troposphere (an area scientists predicted would immediately reflect any global warming) show no warming since readings began 23 years ago. These readings are accurate to within 0.01 deg.C, and are consistent with data from weather balloons. Only land-based temperature stations show a minimal warming trend, and these stations do not cover the entire globe and are often contaminated by heat generated by nearby urban development, as well as human error.

There is also the fact that models used by doomsayers are biased to show how increased levels of atmospheric CO2(exaggerated on purpose) are driven by water vapour to create a greenhouse effect and a dangerous depletion of the ozone layer, when if fact paleogeological studies have revealed that during the period 500-600 million years ago levels of atmospheric CO2 were some six times higher that the period 1 million years ago to the present.

All in all I would say a convenient lie. Pull the other one!

Richard

Cam,

Yes, I did click on the links; some of them, anyway. On the one about sea levels I found this:

'..systems that exhibit a large amount of variability or are simply poorly understood (...) are not very useful props..'

It seems to be saying that the complexity of the climate science on this particular pint means that no sweeping conclusions either way are warranted by it.

The one about the rate of melting in the arctic icecap seemed to be saying that an unexpectedly reduced amount of snow cover on the thinner ice was slowing the melting. That is, a negative feedback effect was delaying an overall trend.

These are cautious contributions to the data and debate. For about a year, now, there has been scientific debate about the relationship between a short term cooling effect due to La Nina cycles and a long term warming effect. Many scientists are saying that the former does not negate the latter, though it may mask it, and mitigate its effects for a time. In that case, it may actually be dangerous, in that it will obscure the evidence that might prompt us to take action.

Of course there should be debate. It seems clear that among climate change scientists there is a very large majority warning us of the potentially catastrophic effects of human-induced climate change, and a small number of sceptics. The sceptics should certainly be listened to; I've no quarrel with that. In fact, I hope that they are right; more than I can say. But the preponderance of expert opinion says that they are probably not right. What are we to do with that preponderance? Write it off as a conspiracy? Again, I dearly hope that's all it is, but I can't see any reason to bank on it.

So I'm back with my original question. What makes the people who sneer 'nonsense' and call all the scientists 'liars', 'charlatans' and 'whores', so sure that they are right? It's a terrible gamble.

Susan and Michael,

I worry about those things too. It comes with being a parent.

Jenny,

If environmentalism sometimes takes a bullying tone, that isn't helpful either. These are very difficult questions. Most environmentalists do no better on the carbon footprint front that the sceptics; sometimes they do worse. No society seems to be making much progress in dealing with this. No one can afford to be self-righteous. If you honestly, and with intellectual scrupulousness, believe that the evidence points to something terrible coming, it's hard to avoid a certain urgency of tone. And, of course, the comments from this blog I've quoted above seem pretty bullying.

Anyway, thanks all of you for answering, even the rude ones.

F.R. Duplantier

Global warming limericks by F.R. Duplantier of Politickles.com:

HOTHEAD
Has Al Gore taken too many tokes
On that strange cigarette that he smokes?
Still, the burden of proof
Is on every green goof
Who espouses the climate-change hoax.
(2007)

AN INCONSISTENT BOOB, CONT.
"If superior beings ignore
Certain limits and use a bit more,
Then the peons, I guess,
Will just have to use less,"
Sniffed a gluttonous, glutinous Gore.
(2007)

HOT HEADS
They defend climate change willy-nilly,
And lately they've gotten plain silly:
Saying snow, ice, and sleet
Must be caused by the heat --
And that's why the weather's so chilly.
(2007)

SNOW DOUBT
As a theory it’s cheesily charming,
Except when the neighborhood’s swarming
With snow, sleet, and ice
From unfair Fahrenheits,
And we’re longing for real global warming.
(2006)

MOWER LESS
While it has been unreasonably hot,
And I do tend to wish it were not,
I am glad to save gas
By not cutting the grass,
’Cause there’s none on my shriveled-up lot.
(2006)

AN INCONSISTENT BOOB
Al Gore worries the world’s getting hot,
And all over the globe he will trot,
Warmly warning the masses
About grave greenhouse gases
Caused by people who travel a lot.
(2006)

HEAT RASHNESS
Every Spring they start their swarming
And fantastical alarming,
Fearing and oh-dearing
That the end is nearing,
’Cause it’s April and it’s warming.
(2006)

WARM MONGERS
Alarmists like to heighten
Anxieties and frighten —
Their aim’s made clear
In State of Fear
By author Michael Crichton.
(2005)

ABATED BREATH
Whether sickly or healthy and hale,
We object when the air gets too stale,
But what shall we do
When they ban CO2
And deny us the right to exhale?
(2001)

TRUTH IN THE BALANCE
The temperature’s not getting higher.
Our environmental future’s not dire.
With the best yet to come,
There’s no need to be glum:
Al Gore, you’re an ozone liar!
(2000)

CHICKEN LITTLE
Doomsday deadlines bear recalling
When they've passed and we're not sprawling:
If dreaded fate
Is running late,
Then perhaps the sky's not falling.
(2000)

EMISSION IMPOSSIBLE
We're faced with a problem that's prickly.
We'd better do something, and quickly.
Forget the suspicions
About greenhouse emissions:
It's the wind from the White House that's sickly.
(1999)

VICTIMLESS CLIME
The penguin complained, “It’s too hot!”
The hippo replied, “No, it’s not!”
The gator, when polled,
Insisted, “Too cold!”
And the polar bear grumbled, “What rot!”
(1998)

THINK GULLIBLY, ACT LOCO-LY
The temperature rose in July
Compared to December, quite high.
It’s really alarming
This “seasonal warming.”
Oh, lordy, we’re all gonna fry!
(1997)

Cam

Richard,
From the link on the U.S. Senate Minority Report:

'The over 650 dissenting scientists are more than 12 times the number of UN scientists (52) who authored the media-hyped IPCC 2007 Summary for Policymakers.'

'The chorus of skeptical scientific voices grow louder in 2008 as a steady stream of peer-reviewed studies, analyses, real world data and inconvenient developments challenged the UN’s and former Vice President Al Gore's claims that the "science is settled" and there is a "consensus."'

'Developments further secured 2008 as the year the “consensus” [regarding global warming] collapsed.'

L Jones

I agree with the sentiment that we should be as green as economically feasible. But if the extremists and alarmists have their way they will have us living back in the stone age, crapping in the wood without toilet paper. This is nothing more than a scheme for increased taxation and greater gov't oversight of every aspect of our lives. It has virtually nothing to do with what is actually happening within our atmosphere.

Loren Jones

Q: So I'm back with my original question. What makes the people who sneer 'nonsense' and call all the scientists 'liars', 'charlatans' and 'whores', so sure that they are right? It's a terrible gamble.

A: We're taking the time to actually look at the science instead of just believing the alarmists. The more you learn, the less you believe. It's as simple as that. For most of North America, we've been able to walk outside and recognize this is a bunch of bunk.

The true gamble is heading down the road of economic ruin proposed by the Greenies, and the ultimate expense of the poorest in our world. The hard, cold fact is being green is a luxury of weath. If they destroy the west's wealth they will NOT like the world they end up living in 50 years from now. It'll look more like the backwaters of India and Africa than the lovely cities and countryside built on western captialism and its resulting weath.

William Portland

It seems to me that Meh may well be justified in complaining of the lack of linking to original sources.

I followed the link for “global sea ice levels” and up came Michael Asher’s blog which started with the comforting news that: “Thanks to a rapid rebound in recent months, global sea ice levels now equal those seen 29 years ago, when the year 1979 also drew to a close.” Alongside was a graph showing the variation in global sea ice since 1979 and a reassuring statement that this was from data provided by the Arctic Research Centre, University of Illinois.

That’s better, an original sources which can be googled! So, off to Illinois and:

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/.

One of the first links on this web site is to a statement on the Asher’s blog entry, for the researchers are not altogether happy with his interpretation of their data. They point out that the nearly unchanged area of global sea ice in the relevant period masks a decrease in the Arctic ice cover and an increase in Antarctic ice. The summer Arctic ice cover has nearly halved in area since 1950.

I for one, resident in the UK, can take no comfort from the compensating increase in the Antarctic sea ice. On the above excellent web site is a link to an explanation as to why global warming might cause different effects in the two polar regions:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/06/050630064726.htm

Bickers

By the way do Al Gore and the AGW alarmists have the inside track on what the optimum temperature of the World should be? A little warmer or a little cooler - please explain Al.

The reality is that CO2 has been 'framed' by the eco mentalists to explain (i) why the World warmed towards the end of the last ceutury & (ii) their cover to introduce socialism by the back door. As usual the vested interest groups (including politicians and so called academics) have spotted a gravy train - they're do anything they can to prolong the scam however Mother Nature is proving them wrong - parts of the Nortehrn Hemisphere have had their lowest temperatures for 100 years - however in the loopy world of the AGW alarmists warming causes cooling, in fact it causes anything they want it to, so ensuring they have a win win situation whatever happens - no doubt including the next Ice Age which will come round regardless

Dan

I am a climate scientist. I will explain to you the dirty little secret of these climate models. These models are only considered accurate "on average" over a long time period. They are not accurate in predicting, say, the mean temperature in Chicago next year, or even averaged across N America. They can't be used to accurately predict any of the major natural climate cycles (like El Nino) more than a few months in advance. Nor can they be used to predict the interaction of all these cycles with "anthropogenic global warming". For example, we scientists still do not know if AGW will cause more El Ninos, or more of its opposite, La Nina. In other words, the climate simulated in these models is not accurate over any time scales that we could conceivably test, whether its over 1, 5, 10, or 50 years. So why should we belive the 100-yr simulations?

The counter argument is that these models are the best we have and maybe they are accurate in some average sense.

Margaret Muller-Johansson

I am worried about the wind, not the snow or rain, the wind in Britain was heavy last winter
and it is true some parts of the world are getting dryer specially southern Europe and some parts of Africa, this year we have a cold winter in America and northern Europe it is good sign because it is less windy and rainy then last year, there was also mild earthquake I think the beginning of last year in Britain, whenever we have cold winter in Europe it is because north America has a freezing weather and all those countries had less rain will benefit of that, those countries wich was dry last year is going more cooler and greener this year, it is good for the farmers

let's all take care of the environment and each other

Meh

Bickers,

I desperately hope you're joking. But just in case you're not, here's a slapping.

"...do Al Gore and the AGW alarmists have the inside track on what the optimum temperature of the World should be?"

Well, it would be nice for the oceans not to flood every single capital city on the planet. And, if you care little about those, Norfolk.

As for the rest of your mind spurt; I actually can't find a way of connecting up all the different bits of nonsense. But the Mother Nature bit; really nice.

An American

Maybe Americans aren't quite as stupid as I thought. The latest US poll ranked global warming dead last in a 20 question poll.

Oh, wait...I take my first comment back. Apparently 50% Americans in another poll voted for Obama and his socialist congress spending 1,000,000,000,000-trillion dollars on sod and such was a really great idea...to get the economy up and going...yeah, that 5 billion to Obama's ACORN will do the job.

Cam

thanks, William Portland, for helping clarify the global ice level proportions.

There's no need to panic--this earth has a built-in system that helps it adjust and balance itself out. We might experience climate change, but we can adjust to it, as generations before us have. We definitely won't disappear as a race because of it.

Richard

Cam,

Well, here's a page, admittedly a couple of years old, that cites, amongst a lot of other evidence, a statement signed by 11,855.

http://logicalscience.com/consensus/consensus.htm#individuals

And this one cites a survey of 928 peer-reviewed scientific papers on the topic. None dissented from the broad proposition.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686

Still, 650 is quite a lot: about the size of one large academic conference. I'm not denying that there are scientists who dissent, and I'm not saying they shouldn't be heard. Everyone must hope that they are right. It's the idea that we should take no measures at all, gambling everything on that minority eventually being proved right, that puzzles me - along with the aggressive sneering and name-calling (thanks for the limericks).

And, no, I don't believe we should dismantle the whole modern industrial economy in response. But I think we should probably put that economy on an emergency footing, giving high priority to new technological solutions and energy-saving measures.

Lizzie

Some of the posters, like Richard and Meh, seem to think that Melanie Phillips is not allowed to precis scientific papers because she is not a scientist. What sort of nonsense is this? Can she not digest crime figures without being a police woman? Of course not.

Yes there are two sides to the argument, but the point is that the global warming bunch have been able to activate their argument and use it for everything from putting microchips in bins to fining businesses (this trash affects the way people claim tax now on things like company cars) to smearing the leader of the free world. It's not just a theory they're floating and discussing, it has been used to bullying effect on almost every part of our lives. I can't even buy a decent bulb in the shops any more. Now I have to have buy bulbs that contain mercury, are too dim to see by and that have a history of eye medical complaints about them. I'm typing this under a rubbish light because of non-existent global warming.

Some jerk got the Nobel Prize for this rubbish. Do you think they would give someone the Nobel Prize for presenting the opposite theory - no matter how sound? No. Because this has proven the most amazing political tool ever for exercising control over the public.

If you do earn a living as a full-time science commentator and you don't believe in global warming, the story of David Bellamy reveals just what lies in store for you at places like the BBC:

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/69623/BBC-shunned-me-for-denying-climate-change

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/73486/David-Bellamy-Global-warming-is-nonsense-

It's an absolute disgrace.

AlanB

Maximilian
January 29th, 2009 1:02pm

You ask whether Theon said any of this before he retired.

Sorry if this has been told before but there is a story told about Kruschev speaking in the Russian parliament about the terrible things done by Stalin.
A voice called out, "You were there. Why didn't you say anything?"
Kruschev shouted, "Who said that?"
No reply.
Kruschev then said, more gently, "That is why!"
Whether or not this is true it paints a picture of a time when good people feel they cannot speak out for fear of the consequences.
You will note that many of the skeptics are retired, or emeritus professors, or in other roles (such as the House of Lords) that is, they no longer need to fear for jobs, tenure, research grants etc. In the current atmosphere with Dr Hanson wanting to prosecute oil company executives and others wanting to prosecute any skeptics for high crimes against humanity, it is not surprising that many people are afraid of speaking out.

Neil Turner

I hope the Conservative Party takes note of Melanie's article.

Does anyone out there know of any opinion polls on this subject ? What does the great British Public think about Global Warming ?

Rob-NY

Don't you see. The earth is cooling because the gods are pleased with the election of Obama....Praise his name!!!

Suffolkbor

why are my posts not getting through . What technical problems are specific to indivdual posters only ?

Dave

Dan: If your models could predict the short term you'd be a damn good weather forecaster rather than a climate scientist. So I'm surprised you're trying to predict a "few months in advance" at all. It's not terribly useful when studying the climate.
More than that while I appreciate it's hard to time travel 100 years into the future to test how well our models do we can load them up with data from the past and see how they perform.
Indeed I believe that's what scientists do.
What sort of climate change scientist are you?

As for the rest of Mel's post... *facepalm*

hadrian

Even those of us who take stewardship of the enviroment and our flora and fauna seriously are sick to the back teeth of this load of bullshit from the largely atheistic left. Dissident voices in the scientific community about the global warming patterns have never been absent- just drowned out. If other planets are 'suffering' the same effects as we are then it seems obvious mankind is not the source of the observed phenomena.
Governments who refuse to protect their citizens from criminals and terrorists and all sorts of delinquents nevertheless are relentless in pursuing pointless fads that only succeed in fleecing us with higher taxes. The most annoying and risible evidence of this fad is having to shell out for carrier bags and made to feel guilt over using them.
Our generation must be one of the filthiest and most slovenly to have disgraced our land for years- all their green propagand notwithstanding. Litter louts should be given a good cuff around their ears.

Spike

Merci beaucoup - Monsieur F. Deplantier. Vous etre gentil!

And Mel - ta, encore.

Kay Buccola

Glad to see sense coming out of Britain. I live on the "Left" Coast of the U.S. where we have "taxation without representation" and the greens are going nuts with economy and freedom-destroying legislation.

Marty Spencer

For those that complain that there is no evidence that global warming doesn't exist ... LOL ... way to turn science on its head. Global warming is the theory that needs to be proved.

Anyways here is a very succinct arcticle with some of the main points why global warming is unlikely (you can never disprove it). If you can read this and not see that Global Warming is bunk, well its because you don't want to.

http://www.ianschumacher.com/global_warming.html

Straydingo

Breaking news for those AGW believers that attack Melanie the person vs. debating the opinions that she puts out into the ether...you are correct in your assertion that she is not a scientists....but wait...more breaking news...neither are Nicholas Stern or “Nobel Prize” winner Al Gore and yet that does not stop you and your fellow worshipers bowing down at their alters.

Straydingo

Maximilian,

Dude, any scientist or public official that has tried to challenge the consensus view on AGW over the last 15 years has seen their careers quickly evaporate – that is until now.

See, the reason you are starting to see ‘Knowledgeable’ individuals speak out now is because it has become a lot safer to do so now that there is a every growing body of evidence (from all the corners of the science disciplines) that is quickly unfolding and showing that AGW was a theory that become politicised, then became a religion and then become very commercially profitable for governments (Green Taxes & trendy votes) and private businesses (Carbon Trading and Government subsidies).

For those AGW believers I offer a simple message and that is don’t worry - you are not the only people to be sucked into a belief system that has shattered their view of the world – just ask any old die-hard communists, socialists or fascistic believers and they will hopefully offer their shoulders to you to cry on.

Richard

Lizzie says:

Some of the posters, like Richard and Meh, seem to think that Melanie Phillips is not allowed to precis scientific papers because she is not a scientist.

Where did I say or suggest that?

My point was that the tone of Melanie's commentary was so strangely aggressive and overstated. She was asserting that these fears shouldn't be taken seriously at all. I just don't know what to do with that. But unless we have specialist expertise, we are all trying to see how to respond emotionally and practically to what a big mass of scientists tell us, and to a bewildering range of possibilities. All we can do is precis the science and try to be honest and open in doing so.

Frank P

EC

'Eco-mentalists: The unspeakable in pursuit of the unheatable .'

On previous form I would have said that was an original and excellent corruption of the old Wilde jibe at those hunting toffs (though he was quite capable of pursuit of smelly pursuits himself, methinks).

However my hopes for you were dashed. No doubt just an oversight on your part not add parentheses and acknowledge the author:

http://ezinearticles.com/?

The-Unspeakable-In-Pursuit-Of-The-Uneatable&id=422474

... Or perhaps great minds think alike? Anyway thanks for bringing it to a wider audience, I would have missed it otherwise.

Shaun Pilkington

"Which begs the question: where would they like these people to go?"
To Switzerland for assisted euthanasia, perhaps?

Hope you're feeling in a more positive frame of mind and keeping the Reaper at bay.

Dave M

"But on this subject the stakes are so very high. If what the large majority of established climate scientists say is true, humanity, collectively, faces terrible dangers."

It's simple logic. We live in an eco system and humans have been abusing that eco system for decades. Wildlife and the natural environment are being damaged by human activity in such as way as I believe Mother Nature will stop it happening. That's how nature works. Animals and wildlife have a purpose, so to live and prosper we have to respect that concept. Now, imagine all the nuclear tests, wars, bombs, pollution and greed that swallows up wildlife and you will see why there's a problem. Where I do agree with Melanie is, yes, there has been a lot of hype over global warming but what we are really seeing is overpopulation. Why on earth are we recyling rubbish when all we need to do is reduce rubbish? What's up with a motor car so long as the roads aren't jam packed? It's the scale of the situation that's causing the problem. At any rate, it's odd to see Obama and Arnold apparently agreeing on this issue.

Dixon

As someone once said, even a clock that doesnt work is right twice a day.

Even if climate change occurs, the Anthropogenic hypothesis is still unscientific. Because it is unfalsifyable.

Pace Karl Popper.

Dixon

Lizzie, use high power halogen lamps ( say 500 watts apiece ), they are very bright, warm the room as well and have the added asset of peeing off the Greens.

I dont use them often, but I shall be if my tungsten lamps run out.

Adams

Dan,

I am not a climate scientist but a computer scientist. To me it is absolutely obvious that the most sophisticated super computers x 10, with an order of magnitude increase of modelling complexity, could not even start to make sense of a chaotic system as complex as Earth's climate. The knowledge of relevant input parameters and their significance is so poorly understood that you have hardly scratched the surface. Some significant influences are completely omitted and others are modelled on a prejudiced belief. Based on limited spatial resolution, some slip through the grid cell size and inadequate temporal resolution accumulates error.

The so called scientists working on GCMs must know this! The fact that they parameterize and tweak to get them to produce a non-comical scenario has to mean that they know they are fudging. These are not just dumb greenie PhDs, they now enough to model on a super computer. They just have to know that they are lying, or could even these glaring anomalies by concealed by delusion? I would really like to know.

Raised Eyebrows

An Inconvenient Truth doesn't predict 'the imminent end of the world through frying and drowning caused by man-made global warming'.

I assume that Melanie must not have seen the film in question - so why does she even comment on it?

Conservative Cabbie

Steerforth

"Similarly, if we adopt the practices recommended by environmentalists, we will have cleaner air, cheaper fuel and a better quality of life. It's a win-win situation."

We will also have massive debt (just check out the number of AGW measures in the Democrats latest porkfest 'stimulus' plan), we will have significantly less freedom and the poor in particular will suffer much worse than the rich. Do you remember Labour's attempt to tax old MPV's, a measure that hit the poorer members of society who can't buy a new car every couple of years. Similarly, the people who will be hardest hit by a global approach to AGW are the developing nations who will be hit by not being able to develop the type of cheaper energy needed to kickstart the economy. They will be forced to use expensive inefficient energy sources (solar etc), use very expensive energy sources (nuclear) or import their energy. The people who will be hardest hit of course will again the poorer elements within these developing nations.

It is most definitely not a win-win situation.

A Lovell

We lay people don't really need to bother with the 'science'. Just go to www.green-agenda.com. I was ASTONISHED!

Robert Williams

All governments are on notice that the rationale for attempting to control climate change, by reducing carbon dioxide emissions, might substantially collapse in the near future, if the research results outlined in either of two recent reports prove to be valid. Both are based on observations, not models or theory. Both might well be valid.

Dr Roy Spencer, of the University of Alabama at Huntsville, who heads the science team that runs the instruments on one of NASA's satellites, testified to the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on 22 July last year. The full text can be found by searching "'Roy Spencer' testimony". He said "regarding the popular theory that mankind is responsible for global warming, I am pleased to deliver good news from the front line of climate research". In summary, he said that we now have new satellite evidence which strongly suggests that the climate system is much less sensitive to increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels than is claimed by the IPCC, i.e. the real climate system appears to be dominated by "negative feedbacks" instead of the "positive feedbacks" which are displayed by all twenty computerised models utilised by the IPCC. He referred to other recently published research that also concludes that the real climate system does not exhibit nett positive feedback.

He went on to say that, if true, it would mean that we have little to worry about from manmade global warming, and that the warming experienced in the last 100 years is mostly natural, and is out of our control. He referred to the need for other researchers to explore and validate his claims.

Referring to a published paper he said that a (named) IPCC lead author and a leading expert on the estimation of climate sensitivity admitted in his review of the paper that other climate modellers need to be made aware of the research results.

On 19/20 October, Spencer released a simplified version of the paper for U.S.policy makers, in which what he calls an "apples to apples" comparison between satellite-based and IPCC model-based feedbacks, the projected warming by 2100 from a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide would be a little over half a degree, adding that if the sensitivity of the climate system is as low as some of these observational results suggest, then the IPCC models are grossly in error. This report can also be easily found.

Given the implications, one would have thought that governments and the IPCC would be urgently having his team's research replicated to either confirm or rebut what he said. For those who want to rely on the IPCC's models, a sword of Damocles hangsover them.

If ignored, Spencer's report will ultimately be probably confirmed or probably rebutted by satellite observations of the earth's temperature progressively over the next few years, the more so with each year.

Professor Don Easterbrook, of Western Washington University, released a report on 2 November, which can be found by searching "'Don Easterbrook' '2 November'". In summary, he says that his research shows that the earth's temperature has been naturally steadily rising since the end of the Little Ice Age in about the 1700s, superimposed on which are alternating warming and cooling periods of about 30 years, driven by the the cyclic change in the Pacific Ocean from its warm to its cool mode (the "Pacific Decadal Oscillation"). Within each phase, sunspot activity influences the intensity of warming or cooling. He says that carbon dioxide concentrations have little to do with it.

Based on this cycle, in the 1990s, he predicted that the earth would start a cooling phase in the early 2000s, which all of the satellites monitoring the earth's temperature observe that it has, since 2001/2. He also says that we are virtually assured of 30 years of cooling mode, then similar periods of warming and cooling, with a temperature rise of a fraction of a degree or so by 2100, depending on the intensity of cooling, profoundly different from the IPCC's projections based on its models. Referring to the relatively quiet sunspot activity, he, and other scientists suggest that the current cooling period could be quite severe.

In "The Australian" newspaper, (www.theaustralian.com.au) on 20 January, Professor Robert Carter of James Cook University, Queensland, summarised reports by seven researchers (3 Russian, 1 American, 2 Chinese, 1 Italian), all based on observations, who "using several fundamentally different mathematical techniques and many different data sets ... all forecast that climate cooling will occur during the first decades of the 21st century. Temperature records confirm that cooling is under way, the length and intensity of which remain unknown."

All of this is in the public arena

Whether they are probably right or probably wrong will be determined by satellite observations of the earth's temperature over the coming years, not by the numbers of critics or supporters, or anything governments do or do not do.

Givernments that have decided to shackle their economies, with consequent results, relying on the IPCC models, which unrebutted research suggests are grossly in error, have condemned themselves to day by day, week by week, year by year, looking for a sign, any sign, that the cooling has ceased, and a rising trend resumed.

Frank

Computer models are games not science. Most pro warmists are merely "nutzliche Idioten".

A Lovell

Just to be sure, if looking up green-agenda.com, be sure to include the dash.

Valentinus

Yes. The tipping of Melanie's once admirable polemical style into a kind of menopausal hysteria has now become tediously dogmatic. She's lost my respect completely. Melanie has decided that climate change is a cynically engineered myth. Melanie has decided that there are health risks attached to the MMR vaccine. Melanie has decided that Israel was right to eviscerate Gaza to stop Hamas (and the international BBC conspiracy, too, it seems). In all cases, it would appear, the debate is now closed. All of these positions share the same frozen rhetorical posture: an absolute unwillingness to accept that there are powerful arguments against the view being promoted, even where an overwhelming scientific consensus underpins those arguments (climate change, mmr). Everyone else is lying, deluded, scheming or stupid. Ironically, Melanie's essay appears on the award-winning website climatedaily, which assembles essays and presentations on both sides of the global warming question with scrupulous impartiality. I wonder if this annoys her.

What about the existence of God, Melanie? Maybe you can pronounce on that one for us as well.

Dan

Dave:

Here's an example. Predicting the temperature in Miami tomorrow is weather forecasting. Predicting the sea surface temperature in the eastern tropical Pacific for next winter season is climate forecasting. Climate forecasting ranges from these time scales up to multi-decadal and beyond. We cannot predict El Nino or any of the major climatic cycles (NAO, PDO, etc.) with any accuracy. Period. Now, I didn't say I wasn't worried about AGW. I think that if we keep pumping CO2 into the atmosphere, something will happen. (Just look at Venus whose atmosphere is mostly CO2.) I just don't think todays models are useful in predicting any details of the timing or distribution of the changes.

(In faireness to my colleagues, it is assumed that over century time scales natural climate cycles are "averaged out" in the models and that the long-term average temperature trends in the models are realistic.)

Adams: As you know it is a common error for scientists using computers to model reality to believe the models *are* reality.

Many of us know this, but we also know that with a few exceptions of very senior scientists, we would put our careers on the line if we publically questioned these AGW scenarios.

Frank Pulley

"Melanie has decided that climate change is a cynically engineered myth".

Perhaps you dislike Melanie for all the many reasons you elicit and nobody would deny you that prerogative; whether or not it's justified is another matter. But sticking to climate change for a moment, which was the general theme of this thread, I don't recall anything that Melanie has ever said that amounts to your summation, which is therefore another lie.

She, and I hope all of us, realise that every time a cow in Argentina, or indeed you (where ever you are) passes wind, then the environment in the near vicinity is both heated and polluted (or perhaps yours is so pure and doesn't smell). Nature deals with that in due course. In your case, if the vitriol oozing from your fingertips is any guide, it perhaps takes a little longer than usual. But does that cause MMGW or even the emended buzz phrase 'climate change'? Whenever has the climate not changed - since the earth formed from the Universal elements?.

Nothing that the environutters in conjunction with Gore, Moore and their rabble has said is worthy of consideration, because they have been shown, time and time again to be deluded, ideologically motivated, venal or permutations thereof. In other words they are well known as being inveterate liars. Prognostications, with or without computers, are always tenuous and sane governments are right not to be bulldozed into precipitate further debt and the ceding of prosperity of their own nations in order to satisfy the Utopian aims of the Leftist loons who are hell bent on destroying American global hegemony. If the replacement of the latter in their minds is the USSR - EUSSR alliance they are even more deluded. Islamic jihad won’t go a lot on that either, even though the lefties do seem to feel that 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend , but only pro-tem' - a sentiment echoed by the jihadists, no doubt.

The Engineer

3 simple questions which explain the background for why I don't believe in man-made (CO2) warming.
A) Why is the present era called "INTERGLACIAL"?
B) At what level of CO2 in a closed enviroment is a mask required ?
C) If there was NO CO2 increase during the last 100 years, exactly what would the correct global middle temperature be today ?

In b) the present level of CO2 is 0,038%. A mask is required in working enviroments at 0,5% or 5000 ppm. CO2 is essential for all living organisms.
In c) no-one, not even the IPCC computer models can tell you that.

Frank P

Valentinius

Just one more thought: from your last sentence I deduce that you have missed Melanie's many essays on the subject of theism/atheism and the polemical tributaries than lead into the Great Watershed. I have found them very interesting and not in the least dogmatic. Her support of our ally Israel also seems rational, particularly as she is Anglo-Jewish (or t'other way round, whichever she prefers). I have already discussed what's up your fundament, so I won't belabour it further and ask which particular bug it is, but I can guess.

Superscot

To Ed

"we have warmer summers" - I assume you live in England - have you checked? Take a look at the CET (Central England Temperature)record which has been recording English temps since 1659. Guess what? The average summer temperature for the entire 18th century was warmer than the average for the entire 20th century. Summer temps have barely moved in 350 years. How can this be since carbon dioxide levels have been rocketing? A few years' personal experience is of no value. You have to have the data and then you have to look at it. How many people partaking in all this argy bargy know where to find the vast array of temperature data that is available?

Dixon

We seem here to be mostly in agreement, broadly ( wheres Carl then ).

But a couple of things I want folks to share as broadly as possible:

1). Energy efficiency can never reduce CO2 emissions. None other than Green Bandwagon "New Scientist" magazine years ago pointed out the blindingly obvious in an editorial: Energy efficiency saves money, that money is spent on other, additional goods and services. The CO 2 emissions associated with these are AT LEAST as much as saved by energy efficiency.

Its obvious. PLEASE folks, pass that message on.

2). The other thing is about "scientific consensus". For a start, this has been blindingly wrong many times even in the recent past. Take the BSE scare. The problem is that people think of "science" as being what "scientists" ( people who work in "the sciences" ) say it is. But the nature of scientific truth is a philosophical arena in itself. Most people who qualify as "scientists" havent the foggiest notion about those issues. In fact, most of them are very unscientific in their thought processes.

The benchmark of true scientific "proof" ( which is anyway contingent ) is in the ability of the theory to predict outcomes. The validity of the theory depends upon whether the predictions are correct and if they are not, it is considered falsified. This is the difference between proper science and all other areas of knowledge. It is very easy to prove a thing wrong.

ON THE OTHER HAND we have "Climate Science". The predictions of climate models have never panned out. When the modellers get the next generation of data, they then revise the model so that it WOULD HAVE predicted that outcome had they done that to begin with. This isnt science, it is rationalisation. It is a continuous moving of the goalposts so that WHEREVER the ball of data goes, the modelllers can ALWAYS claim they scored a goal.

As I say in earlier comment, the core philosopher in this debate was Karl Popper. His main work on it "Logik Der Forschung" ( 1933 I believe, without checking ).

"Being scientific" is so often a matter of style, not of substance. Most scientists confuse "peer review" with reality. It isnt.

EC

Frank P,

Wilde's old hunting quote has become somewhat of an anachronism under New Labour.

To fulfill the recycling norms of the local politburo I thought that inserting an 'H' into the old quote might widen the circle of its acquaintance. Surely Wilde would have approved of that.

Returning to the Great Global Warming Scam - apropos tilting at windmills on white elephants etc. ... er when finally the SHTF all that will remain is Wind Turdbines.

Dave

Dan. No I understand that. But I don't understand why you think modelling isn't a useful approach to take. And since we can use historical data to check just how well they work I think they're pretty useful.
I do disagree that scientists think models are somehow perfect. I think we're well aware of the limitations. Much more so than most environmentalists or Al Gore.
What's frustrating with Mel is rather than focus on the debate about what to do with the science and engage with that she has the tedious certaintly of so many on the right that the science is somehow wrong.
And you really don't want to hear what she says about MMR

Straydingo

Valentinus, please go somewhere else as your personal attacks on MP are nothing more than cowardice - you are adding now value to the debate - I will finish with a couple of quotes:

Unless we announce disasters no one will listen." - Sir John Houghton,
first chairman of IPCC
"It doesn't matter what is true,
it only matters what people believe is true." - Paul Watson, co-founder of Greenpeace

"No matter if the science of global warming is all phony...
climate change provides the greatest opportunity to
bring about justice and equality in the world." - Christine Stewart,
fmr Canadian Minister of the Environment

And my personal favourite:

"Democracy is not a panacea. It cannot organize everything and
it is unaware of its own limits. These facts must be faced squarely.
Sacrilegious though this may sound, democracy is no longer well
suited for the tasks ahead. The complexity and the technical nature
of many of today’s problems do not always allow elected
representatives to make competent decisions at the right time."
- Club of Rome,
The First Global Revolution

AisA

To all the posters on this thread:

Listen to yourselves!! Every one of you has an opinion based on something you read from a 'science' source, or heard by mouth. And it's ALL up in the air as to whether 'global warming' is happening or not. NO ONE KNOWS.

The only sense I can see spoken here was by Steerforth, way back, when he said that if we try to live as if climate change were DEFINITELY true, then that can only be a good thing, even if it's not happening. We can have no idea whatsoever whether the trends we are seeing in the climate across the globe are "just a blip" or an "unstoppable global catastrophe". And even if it IS true, we may, or we may not, see the 'inevitable' results in our lifetime. Geological time is bigger than all of us! Only future generations, sooner - or later, will have the answer. In the meantime, we are spitting in the (ever-strengthening) wind.

This is a great subject for debate, but none of us has any idea what we are talking about, including all the so-called experts, the opportunists and the band-wagon jumpers! Every one of them has an agenda.

Live as if the planet is precious and worth saving, however, and we might just do the right thing.

Richard

Thanks for a lot of instructive comment in this thread. I can appreciate that the difficulty and uncertainty of climate-modelling should make us all, whatever our views, express ourselves cautiously. It's odd, of course, that some of the very people who make this point then go on to be blithely and sweepingly dismissive of the side of the argument they reject. I'm new to blogging, so perhaps I'm simply not used to what is common across the blogosphere, but I wonder at the way the arguments in this thread have so often, and so quickly, degenerated into facile abuse. Both sides have been guilty of this: Valentinus's comments above about Melanie are cheap and horrible, while Frank P seems mainly to want to call people 'nutters' and the like. Why is there so much nervous rudeness, and lack of respect for people who happen to disagree with you about a hugely serious subject? Sneering at the other side isn't usually a sign that one really feels confident, is it? Is it something about the subject itself? Does it make us all jumpy and intolerant, because of the element of fear?

I'm not that thin-skinned, honestly. I like knockabout debate, but this is becoming so mean-spirited that the debate itself gets pushed out.

One more point: it's wrong to attribute environmentalism exclusively to 'the atheistic Left', or the non-atheistic Left for that matter. Generally, the socialist Left has a very poor environmental record. Countries in the old Soviet bloc were among the worst polluters ever known. There are some Marxist environmentalists, certainly, but many Christian environmentalists too. I suppose it is because environmentalism is seen as broadly anti-capitalist, or at least anti-consumerist, but the paradox is that the modern environmental movement is a product of the globalized free market in many ways, and of the new technologies that have made globalization possible.

John Galt

Steerforth,

No, we won't be better off, because environmentalist can't deliver on what they promise. If you're looking for new energy sources, you need to talk to real scientists (physics) not environmentalists who majored in Journalism.

Who was it who said, "Some people will do anything to save the world, except take a science course?"

Frank P

EC

You win! Your puns are much more outrageous than mine. If I could append pictures, I'd show the white flag. In fact I'm beginning to think you're furriskey in disguise.

StrayDingo (8.12pm)

Some fine examples!

Alexandrovich

Frank Pulley: what is it with your unhealthy preoccupation with backsides?

It's the Sun Stupid!

Greetings from Australia Melanie! The following was a comment on this Blog - of which I think you'll approve. The Blog, that is!

I should preface al of this by saying that in the south-eastern corner of Australia we are experiencing a heatwave. So, what's new? http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/wong_wrong_to_pick_that_cherry/P40/
So, the current hot spell is surely evidence of Global Warming? It’s not that it’s summer and January running into February that has anything to do with it is it? And, goodness me! It’s cool in all those other places! That will never do!
Unfortunately the sensationalist ‘Warmists’ (and the general mainstream media that report this nonsense) seem to think that any period extending beyond last Tuesday is ‘a long time’ and therefore statistics and conclusions drawn from such a period - even if it extends to 100+ years must surely be proof of whatever it is that they are trying to promote. (100 years - such a long time in the history of the Earth!)
Try this then: Russian ‘Vostok’ Antarctic Base ice core data. This covers only a mere 400,000 years, give or take a few thousand years - a mere ‘blip’ in the history of Earth!
It a funny thing, but it looks surprisingly regular - a bit like a heartbeat really! And do you know one fascinating thing that it reveals? It’s that the incidence of CO2 in the atmosphere trails behind any warming trend by about 800 years. Warming first, CO2 later!

And after you’ve looked at that, try this: Sunspot Cycles. This is a record of solar changes dating back to the 19th Century. (If you care to look you will see records going back well into the 18th Century that show exactly the same pattern!)
And guess what happens at the end of each cycle? The magnetic polarity of the Sun ‘flips so that its North Pole becomes its South Pole, and vice versa. This happens about every 11 years. The last ‘flip’ was in February 2001 which means the next one will be likely to occur in 2012.
Now, in view of the fact that the Sun is only a mere 1.3 million times the volume of the Earth, and that the Sun’s Magnetosphere interacts with the Earth’s magnetic field, what do you think the chances are that this has just a small effect on our weather? No amount of political posturing will have the slightest effect on this gigantic force! So how are we to expect that waffling politicians can somehow ‘control’ climate change? Any more than the professional alarmists who happen to be pushing ‘global warming’ in order to further a Carbon Emission Trading agenda in which they have a large financial interest. (The is the real ‘Inconvenient Truth’ as promoted by Al Gore! Check it out on the Internet folks!)
And by the way: can you guess where it seems the IPCC gets much of its ‘CO2 in the atmosphere’ data? From the observatory on top of Mauna Loa in Hawaii. And what’s interesting about that? Mauna Loa happens to be the world’s biggest active volcano with the Kilauea caldera right ‘next door’! And what do volcanoes release in large quantities?
You guessed it: CO2!
It's the Sun Stupid! of Burwood (Reply)
Fri 30 Jan 09 (11:19am)

(There are all these nut cases that are on the Internet you know, especially ‘It’s the Sun Stupid!’! As the punch-line for the end of ‘The Goon Show’ had it: ‘It’s all in the mind, you know!’)

Conservative Cabbie

Dave

"What's frustrating with Mel is rather than focus on the debate about what to do with the science and engage with that she has the tedious certaintly of so many on the right that the science is somehow wrong."

Why don't you target similar criticisms at the left? It isn't the right who compare those of us sceptical about AGW with holocaust deniers. It isn't the right seeking to impose draconian legal and fiscal measures because they have a similar certainty that the science is right. I hope you aren't asserting that the science is right on AGW because there is an increasing amount of dissent and scepticism from the scientific community.

The right have every reason to be sceptical because it seems that any measure designed to combat AGW is a liberal's dream. It is neo-socialism by the back door. Science should exist in a domain of reasoned and moderate debate. However, the world is being railroaded by apocalyptic assertions that generate resentment and doubt. More worringly, science is becoming increasingly politicised as a leftist agenda.

Robert

And 'Engineer', your explanation leaves a lot of questions. Surely the danger levels for CO2 in an enclosed space are to do with the amount you should be breathing in. I don't think that anyone's saying that CO2 in the atmosphere is going to make us all pass out.

Straydingo

AisA,
With all due respect your argument is based on fluff - anyone who has been paying attention knows that the Financial costs to retooling WHOLE industries is going to be HUGE and as direct result will impact the poor of world the hardest.

My observation on this whole debate has shown me that the loudest voices when it comes to championing the AGW cause are those that stand the least to lose i.e. the middle & upper-class, media hacks, politicians or academics types whose day-to-day occupations will be least effected – additionally, these same individuals will still be able to afford to maintain their quality of life while the poor have yet more obstacle thrown down in front of them and consequently will struggle.

Dave

Conservative Cabbie: Hang on! I slagged Al Gore off in the previous sentence. Goodness me that's what makes this blog so tedious sometimes. If I had to point out every time I think the Hamas leadership are murderous thugs or that certain eco-loonies misuse GW research every post would be twice as long.

As people often point this is Mel's blog and she's part of the problem and that's why I take issue with her. She could always take an interest in the science and use it to tackle the excessess of the green movement.
But she doesn't. She makes her mind up and cherry picks and twists the parts of the science that suits her agenda.

The reason it appalls me is this approach is the very antithesis of what made science great which in turn made the West great. And Mel demands she is the last stuanch defender of our way of life.

Not only is she actually undermining it, she even ends up costing lives. Her similar approach to the MMR scandal was morally reprehensible.

So that's why I'm focusing on Mel. Her approach is dangerous. And frankly if she acts like this on subject I do know a lot about then it casts doubt on everything else she says.

Mike

" Coldest Winter, in nearly 14 years ", And I like it........ Is it time for Al Gore to start dumpimg his investments in GREEN technology?

Suffolkbor

There are many theories relating to the Earths fluctuating weather patterns .
One such is Axial Tilt whereupon the planet wobbles on it,s Axis over long periods of time .
Imagine bringing that up in a television debate now .
Security guards would be called and you may be forcibly ejected onto the street .
Police prosecution to follow .

Donna Gardier

Aahh so much refreshing common sense on here to read thanks: Orig Tony, Augustus, Frank P, Susan Hill, Shaun Pilkington, Loren, Dixon, Con Cabbie, et al

I happened on an article a year or so ago that told of a scientist who had recently turned one of the cornerstone theories of Physics on its head when he discovered that he could produce thousands times more energy with a thousand times less “work” to get it out of whichever particle he was using. (That’ll teach me to read scientific articles when I am totally non-scientific). I would love to be more specific but try as I might I cannot find the article and a Google search doesn’t provide anything about it any more! The upshot as I remember it was that brilliant scientists (providing THEY were getting enough funding and it seems they have to rely on philanthropic donations) were almost onto a solution and were incredibly excited. I haven’t really ever seen anything about it on MSM who are concentrating far more on fearmongering or contrastingly providing us moments of such absolutely side-splittingly hilarity like when Gordon Brown’s mobile goes off twice and things like that. Yay!

Anyway, we only started harnessing and providing electricity properly to all homes in the late 1940’s not so very long ago. That led to massively cleaner production waste than was billowing during the industrial revolution. Very soon then this microcircuitry evolved and we got the invention of the silicone wafer ONLY in the 60’s and look where we all are now with our computers n’ all. Don’t worry they’ll have it sorted soon and there’ll be plenty of other things for us and the next generation to fret about.

Come on Richard lighten up a bit FrankP doesn’t ALWAYS talk about nutters - and Alexandrovich he doesn’t ALWAYS talk about bottoms, he touched on whores today too, anyone for whores! From what I’ve seen he talks boatloads of sense when he is not trying to bait people! Well put again ;) Oliwagino Alefava Yihiri (d’ya mind being called Oli?) hope you got new digs!

Slioch

After all the words, here is some data:

Five year global temperature anomalies (from HADCRUT3 see: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/gtc2007.csv

Years Anomaly (1961-1990 = 0deg.C).
1978-1982 +0.039C
1983-1987 +0.065C
1988-1992 +0.162C
1993-1997 +0.208C
1998-2002 +0.397C
2003-2007 +0.445C

If you want to see similar figures in graphical form see here:
http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/5yr.jpg?w=489&h=361

As Melanie Philips said in her article: "The generally accepted prediction has been that as carbon dioxide levels continue to go through the roof ... the climate would continue to warm as a result."

Yep, Melanie. You've got it in a one-er.

Frank Pulley

Alexandrovich

‘Preoccupation with backsides' -healthy or otherwise? If you have noted one, it might be provoked by the fact that so many anti-Semites and Leftist ideologues who infest this site to harangue our compére seem to talk out of theirs; that is if their written comments are any guide. Not only that, but some boast of them being multifunctional too. Rest assured, Alexandrovich, there is no interest whatsoever here in breaching theirs - or yours! You must live in a very sheltered world if the occasional fundamental allusion here and there is regarded as an ‘unhealthy’ preoccupation. Not naice, I know, but sometimes politeness can stifle healthy contempt.

Dave

Donna: The reason you haven't seen aything about your "discovery" in the msm is that you can't get more energy out of something than you put in. Why not sit down and study the laws of thermodynamics?
Mel doesn't understand statistics. Mobile Phone Mast campaigners don't understand the inverse square law. Yet these people are typical of the sort of noisey fools who somehow know more than scientists because they "feel" it.
And Donna, "common sense" is just the label you give your own prejudices. "Commonsense" is the reason we need science in the first place.

Straydingo

Slioch, I am not sure what you think you have achieved by selecting from a data set that only goes back 1850?

159 years is a pebble...no...a grain a sand in terms of the earths history.

Slioch

Straydingo

What I have posted above goes back to just 1978.

What it shows is that global temperatures have been increasing since that time.

Since many people, Melanie Philips included, state or imply that that is not happening, then what is achieved is showing that their statements and implications are false.

Slioch

Straydigo

As far as palaeoclimatology is concerned, (ie. going back beyond 1850): certainly it is a useful, indeed essential, tool in trying to understand the present. But remember that we only have reasonably accurate data with respect to temperature, CO2, Methane, sulphates, dust etc for about 800,000 years, from polar ice cores. This covers several glaciations, so is relevant to present possibilities, since we are still in an interglacial.

Three very important lessons can be learned from those records of past climates and atmospheric composition:

1. There have been many violent climatic convulsions during those 800,000 years that would, were they to occur in the near future, be catastrophic for human civilisation. For example, 125,000 years ago, in the last (Eemian) interglacial, temperatures were a degree or two warmer than at present and sea levels were 4-6 metres HIGHER than today.

2. In the last ten thousand years, since the end of the last glaciation, the climate has been UNUSUALLY BENIGN, with no large changes in climate. That is, unusual in the context of what has been normal for those previous 800,000 years. Human civilisation and agriculture arose during those benign 10,000 years.

3. During all of those 800,000 years, CO2 levels were less than 300ppmv. They are now about 387ppmv and rising at a rate about sixty times faster than at any time in those 800,000 years. That is destabilising the climate and that 10,000 years of benign climate is likely to come to an end.

Donna Gardier

Dave:

Again it is difficult on a blog to convey things sometimes without inflection of speech body language etc. Be assured I have no predjudices against reputable science and its pioneers who obviously add enormous value to the world. I thought that my faith and respect was apparent by mention of the scientific discoveries which have changed the world so beneficially and dramatically in only a few recent decades.

I've tried to rack my brains and come up with any kind of reasonable description of the article I saw. It was in the realms of particle physics and manipulating carbon molecules I think. I'm regretting mentioning it but I was trying to give Richard some hope!

Surely though, you don't like seeing the reputation of science being sullied by the likes of Al Gore and others making a fortune from jumping on the old bandwagon of fear uncertainty and doubt?

Richard

All right, I'll try to lighten up.

This is how the position seems to me. I'm trying to be as fair as I can.

A large majority - I won't use the loaded term 'consensus' -of climate scientists has been telling us for some time that unless we reduce global CO2 emissions substantially and quickly we face the probability of global warming of two degrees or more, which would produce positive feedback effects that would make further rises likely - up to five or six degrees. The likely effects of this would include the desertification of many parts of the world that currently sustain large populations, plus collapse of food supplies in those areas, plus rising sea levels indundating heavily populated coastal areas, plus the collapse of fish stocks, plus millions of refugees from the affected areas.

A minority of scientists dispute these projections, pointing to the complexity of climate patterns and the unreliability of climate modelling. Despite a certain amount of wishful thinking evident in this thread, there is no clear evidence that this is a growing number of scientists, but it does constitute a serious dissenting minority.

Some on the political Right are suspicious of the warnings because they see them as emanating from the Left, and as an excuse for introducing socialist policies.

Some on the political Left are suspicious of the warnings because they see them as middle-class concerns and as a ruse by the rich nations to retain their economic privilege by restraining the industrial development of poor nations.

Some see environmentalism as a form of atheistic materialism; some see it as a call to return to Christian charity and spirituality, as opposed to insatiable consumerism.

Melanie, a columnist who in the past has been outstandingly brave in challenging the liberal consensus, especially in pointing out the harm done to children by family breakdown, declares proudly that she will never again listen to any point of view on this subject that does not agree with her own.

It is quite true that, as several people on the blog have pointed out, that the costs of reducing C02 emissions would be high, and that unless there is an astonishing change of heart on the part of the global rich, those costs would be borne disproportionately by the global poor.

It is not true, though, that this would mean the end of industrial capitalism. The technological innovations generated by the emergency and by real emergency restructuring might well produce a new surge of capitalist innovation and prosperity. Something that no one has yet mentioned is that at present the unregulated market economy has done a pretty good job of wrecking our prosperity, so it's a bit rich to be accusing environmentalists of risking just that by calling for regulation.

Or, we could do nothing. Like Melanie, we could declare that we aren't going to listen any more. We could gamble on the sceptics being right.

A grim dilemma, not like anything in history that I can think of.

Straydingo

Slioch,

Have you lost your mind - you included within your post a URL that lead to a webpage showing a data set that goes back to 1850 - see unlike many of your fellow ideological believers I do try to consider all sides to a debate as I am only interested in the truth.
Additionally, I think you will find the majority of us skeptics do acknowledge that the earths temperature did increase during the course of the last century – we simply have yet to be convinced that this was a result of AGW as there is a HUGE body of work now coming to light that is now exposing HUGE holes in the AGW theory.
Now, all you have managed to achieve is to demonstrate how those that are arguing the AGW cause are doing so blindly - I personal do not want to waste any more keystrokes on this response.

Sheryl

If the problem is “manmade” CO2, the solution has been staring Al Gore in the face all the time: Global Warming is the answer to the energy and “manmade” CO2 problem and I’ll prove it - consider:

Has Al Gore ever considered what would happen if it didn’t snow? Think of all the CO2 those snow plows and snow blowers create. The government would have fewer expenditures without snow plows; there would be less insurance needed and fewer government employees or at least fewer overtime hours. Think of all the money we would save on sand, salt and storage. How many accidents could be eliminated if it didn’t snow? Imagine no more CO2 due to people needing to be towed out of ditches or drifts due to ice and snow.
Now consider that it takes far less energy to cool down to 78 degrees from 90-100 than it does to heat up from the low temperatures of winter, which need raising 50-70 degrees (and sometimes as much as 90-100 or more in Alaska or the Northern States). How much “manmade” CO2 is created by the necessity of having to heat our homes? I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt that we burn far less fossil fuels when it’s warmer; so we create far less “manmade” CO2. Hence, Global Warming is the perfect solution to the “manmade” CO2 problem.

Thomas T. S. Watson (tomw)

All this is great, but has anyone considered that the Earth heating and cooling cycle has been doing this since it all began? I invite you to look carefully at the "Vostok Ice Core Data' and consider. Is this true, and if so, why is it that science has not shown this in detail before. It shows a graphic period of over four hundred thousand years of natural cyclic information [Like a heart beat] that positively shows that Carbon Dioxide (CO2) follows the natural increaded Earth's temperature rise by 'Eight Hundred Years' and this cycle is at it's peak, NOW. As previously mentioned by many above who are saying that we are nearing another Ice Age, and this I believe is also true. Just look where the graphic is and again ask yourself, "How many more years di we have before this effect will take over the Earth? I would estimate about another three hundred years more or less.

Our input of CO2 will not effect any additional application of Carbon Taxation and will not change anything now or in the future, except that it will give the Federal Government an income that will allow them to have a good payout at the end of their natural term.

Dave

Donna: Thank you for your polite response and I'm sorry if I seemed curt. You know one of the upsides of the politisiation of the science of climate change is that there are those who have challenged the interpretation of data and indeed have found errors and corrected them.
In many ways this is the reappearance of the gentleman scientist! Something we really haven't seen since the Victorians got very excited about moths.
Science is complex and hard but it does reward those who make an effort to understand it.
Both Mel and Mr Gore tend to cherry pick and twist the facts. But from what I've read here Mel goes much further and I'll say it again her "reporting" on MMR was shocking and dangerous.

Conservative Cabbie

Dave

Apologies, didn't see your comment about Al Gore. I think the reason that Melanie speaks on science as she does, and I sympathise with her on this, is that science has become politicised. It has become a political weapon used by the left and has often been found wanting (I'm particularly thinking of social sciences) when tested or examined in detail. However, when the right criticise this reliance on a sometimes failing science, accusations of "redneck", paleoconservative and other ad hominem attacks start flying round.

Yes science has provided the world with wonders and is as you say a reason for the superior development of western society (although I would add democracy and religion as equal reasons). However, let's not get carried away with science as an absolutist solution to world problems.

"Goodness me that's what makes this blog so tedious sometimes"

It's a shame you find debate so tedious. I hope you don't want people just to agree with you, that's not very scientific after all :-)

Slioch

Straydingo

"Have I lost my mind?"

Well, I think if you start your post with a silly insult followed by an incoherent ramble, there is perhaps not much point in trying to continue.

But, to repeat and expand: The fact that the HADCRU dataset goes back to 1850 is irrelevant if one is considering temperature changes since about 1975. Why is that so difficult to understand?

The date of around 1975 is useful for two reasons:

Firstly, a plot of monthly global average temperatures from Hadcru since 1975 shows a linear trend of +0.018 deg Celsius per year, (ie. that is the slope of the linear regression by the method of least squares) and all plots fall within two standard deviations of that line. And they CONTINUE to do so. That is why Melanie's implication, and the countless other claims that "global warming has stopped" is false. Such people merely expose their statistical illiteracy.

Secondly, before 1975 climatic forcing due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions was not so apparent: other factors were greater. For example, in the period c. 1910-1945, when a similar warming occurred, the dominant factors were probably a lack of volcanic activity plus an increase in solar output. So, it is not useful to consider such times when trying to determine if present temperatures are departing from the trend of recent decades.

You end by claiming that there is a "HUGE body of work now coming to light that is now exposing HUGE holes in the AGW theory."

Really? I think you have been duped. But let's see: perhaps you could outline one or two such huge holes?

Dave

Conservative Cabbie: Lol. I can see what you are trying to say about Mel. And indeed I do think you have a point about the politcisation of science. But I'm afraid Mel isn't addressing the problem. She's part of it.

And I promise it's the not discussion I find tedious. It's the fact you end up having to keep stating such obvious facts (like Hamas shouldn't fire rocket as israel) because otherwise people leap to all sorts of conclusions about you. The equivalent of every comment directed at me being "And when did you stop beating your wife?" :-)

Jenny

Christopher Booker has been writing on this subject almost every other week in The Daily Telegraph for the last few months and today he bears out exactly what David Bellamy says of the BBC's bias on 'global warming':
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/4413474/BBC-abandons-impartiality-on-warming.html

Straydingo

Slioch

Question for you: Do you believe that Michael Manns Hockey Stick to be a viable model?

Dave

Straydingo: Tell you what, what not read up on the subject at New Scientist first?
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11646

Slioch

Straydingo

"Do you believe that Michael Manns Hockey Stick to be a viable model?"

Yes, if by that you mean a reasonably accurate representation of average global temperature changes for the last millennium or so.
Because of the controversy surrounding the Mann et al 1998/9 papers the US National Academy of Sciences National Research Council conducted an in-depth study into this matter and published their report in 2006. You can find it here (Summary page 2):
http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11676&page=2

where it shows a graph of eight later reconstructions, which like Mann et al show average global temperatures in recent decades to be at least as warm, if not warmer, than during the MWP.
The NAS NRC state, "Presently available proxy evidence indicates that temperatures at many, but not all, individual locations were higher during the past 25 years than during any period of comparable length since A.D. 900."

I note that Jenny previous to you mentions Christopher Booker's column in The Telegraph. He also mentions "the infamous "hockey stick" temperature graph" and "the expert studies which have made the "hockey stick" one of the most comprehensively discredited artefacts in the history of science."

If you read carefully through the comments following Booker's column you will find that there is not one critical of his article. Yet I, this morning, posted a comment very similar to the above and referring to his misleading statement on the hockey stick.

My comment was not published, nor, I presume were any others critical of Booker published. A similar thing happened last week when I posted a comment pointing out eight errors that Booker had made. It was not published, nor were any others critical of his article. Before Christmas some comments critical of Booker (including some from myself) did appear , but The Telegraph now appears to be censoring any such comments.

Slioch

Another snippet from the US National Academy of Sciences National Research Council report into the Mann et al papers1998/9 (see link above):

"The basic conclusion of Mann et al. (1998, 1999) was that the late 20th century warmth in the Northern Hemisphere was unprecedented during at least the last 1,000 years. This conclusion has subsequently been supported by an array of evidence that includes both additional large-scale surface temperature reconstructions and pronounced changes in a variety of local proxy indicators, such as melting on ice caps and the retreat of glaciers around the world, which in many cases appear to be unprecedented during at least the last 2,000 years."

Straydingo

Nice try, but the fact remains that in his original paper, Mann WEIGHTED data to fit his needs. He lied. Why should we think he hasn’t done the same here?
Everybody else seems to think the data shows that we’ve been progressively cooling off since the Holocene Optimum, with the Roman Warm Period and the Medieval Warm Period also being warmer than now. To the myopic, the warming since the end of the Little Ice Age around 1850 seems to be unusual. It’s not.

Huddo

We've just had 3 extremely hot days in Southern Australia (not unusual for summer in Oz) but this time we had rolling power outages as energy demand exceeded supply and entire suburbs were shutdown for 6 hours when the temperature was at 45C. Media are reporting that as many as 30 elderly people died during this period, but the govt is refusing to release the figures.

The reason we had these blackouts was because the govt has refused for years to build another power plant even though Melbourne's population has grown by 1 million during that time. We are also almost out of water as the govt under pressure from Green groups declared an area that had been specifically set-aside for a new dam, as a national park.
People are dying right now because of this green lunacy and the only good thing about this is in today's paper where there are dozens of letters written by angry voters. Hopefully we will get a change of party at the next election, but with the conservative opposition trying to out green the Greens, I don’t hold out much hope.

Tony Rendell,South Africa

Tony,South Africa.I have checked Green Agenda.This states unequivocaly that man made global warming is a manmade myth for a political agenda that would make Hitler blanche and Stalin's jaw drop.The Club of Rome,which iis not composed of obcure wierdies but internationally known figures,is the most terrifying organisation I have come across in my 78 years.Cameron,Obama (if he is not in their pocket) et al can forget about global warming and concentrate on rounding up the entire membership of theClub of Rome and their associates and immuring thhem in a top security institution for the criminally insane before the kill the lot of us.Except for the five handred million they are keeping for breeding purposes.

EC

Frank P,

Slightly off topic I know but nonetheless chilling - I was sat in a corner caff yesterday watching the snow flurries discussing "42" with a young PhD student. They were bemoaning the fact that they had been forced to re-submit their thesis "with revisions" that they didn't agree with in order to accomodate their examiners' marxist views. This is pretty tough after investing three years of one's life in something!

EC

Alexandrovich @ 2:08am

In consideration of the totally unexpected freak mid-winter weather that we are 'enjoying' this morning I am minded to quote the great Liverpudlian philosopher Jim Royle when I say, "Global Warming - MY AR*E!"

Dave

Straydingo: Have you ever seen QI? I imagine a loud siren and a flashing caption going off every time someone on the other side of the debate mentions the "hockey stick graph" or "Medieval warm perdiod"

EC: Imagine this unexpected freak weather. Snow in February? Take that Green Agenda!

*facepalm*

Richard

EC,

That isn't a serious contribution, is it? Surely you know perfectly well that a spell of cold weather here or there isn't evidence either way when we are talking about trends and projections across decades. I'm trying to lighten up, as advised, but this sort of thing tries one's patience.

What strikes me - from my own perspective, certainly - is that so many of the writers to this blog are not setting out open-mindedly but are frenziedly seeking any scrap of evidence that can cast doubt on what they call the AGW thesis. They are determined to be able to say it is wrong, and when they come up with anything that seems to cast any doubt on it at all, they immediately declare the argument finished (often in sneering terms, like EC's). Why do they want to do this? Why not at least admit that there is evidence pointing the other way as well?

Leslie

We could use a little global warming in Canada this winter.

Straydingo

Richard,
I could easily flip your comments on you. Over the last 20 years when ever there has been a recorded increase in the earth’s temperature or a series of hurricanes batters the US the public is quickly pelted with Fear Mongering “the end is nigh messages” by the fascist Eco Warrior Industry.
Personally I care about the environment and totally support an agenda that is balanced and seeks to provide workable solutions founded on factual evidence, which has considered all sides of the argument. I am not interested in supporting political leftwing ideologies that are window dressed as being concern over the environment.
The fact is the “debate” about AGW is only one part of the overall Environmental topic and I fear that the Green lobby groups stand more to lose by their unwillingness to engage in strong and factually based debate – because when it does come to pass that AGW believers were wrong then they will have lost any personal equity they had with the public in a nanosecond

EC

Richard@11:48am

"That isn't a serious contribution, is it?"
The fact that you have to ask is, in itself, a serious cause for concern.

"Surely you know perfectly well that a spell of cold weather here or there isn't evidence either way when we are talking about trends and projections across decades."
Only decades Richard? You cannot be serious! Surely you must mean millennia Richard. However, selectively used decades worth is all the "evidence" that the climate change scammers are presenting as evidence in conjuntion with their cobbled together computer models.

"I'm trying to lighten up, as advised, but this sort of thing tries one's patience."
If you are anything like most eco-mentalists that I've come into contact with then you're probably a terminal case. However, I am praying for you Richard and I hope that helps you to know that.

"What strikes me - from my own perspective, certainly - is that so many of the writers to this blog are not setting out open-mindedly but are frenziedly seeking any scrap of evidence that can cast doubt on what they call the AGW thesis."
So you are being subjectively objective and certainly open minded Richard? If what you call AGW isn't a hypothesis are you saying it is a fact?

"They are determined to be able to say it is wrong, and when they come up with anything that seems to cast any doubt on it at all, they immediately declare the argument finished (often in sneering terms, like EC's). Why do they want to do this?"
Ah freedom of thought and speech... Blasphemy! Heresy! Quoting: 'The great tragedy of Science—the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.' (Thomas Henry Huxley) - This is even more applicable to junk science propping up a politically inspired cult religion!

Why not at least admit that there is evidence pointing the other way as well?
So much junk, so little evidence!

Alexandrovich

You know Frank, I could almost believe that you are the same Frank Pulley as mentioned in the Kensington News on 4th September 1970 as,

"The most unpopular policeman in London."

EC

Richard@11:46am

I have tried to address your concerns with an appropriate facial expression in a manner
that will finally get past the resident beardie that has been censoring my posts since 2pm.

Well that was the aspiration, but here goes anyway...

"That isn't a serious contribution, is it?"

The fact that you have to ask is, in itself, a serious cause for concern.

"Surely you know perfectly well that a spell of cold weather here or there isn't evidence either way when we are talking about trends and projections across decades."

Only decades Richard? You cannot be serious! Surely you must mean millennia Richard.
However, selectively used decades worth is all the "evidence" that the climate change
scammers are presenting as evidence in conjuntion with their cobbled together computer models.

"I'm trying to lighten up, as advised, but this sort of thing tries one's patience."

If you are anything like most eco-mentalists that I've come into contact with then you're
probably a terminal case. However, I am praying for you Richard and I hope that helps you to know that.

"What strikes me - from my own perspective, certainly - is that so many of the writers to this blog are not setting out open-mindedly but are frenziedly seeking any scrap of evidence that can cast doubt on what they call the AGW thesis."

So you are being subjectively objective and certainly open minded Richard? If what you call AGW isn't a hypothesis are you saying it is a fact?

"They are determined to be able to say it is wrong, and when they come up with anything that seems to cast any doubt on it at all, they immediately declare the argument finished (often in sneering terms, like EC's). Why do they want to do this?"

Ah freedom of thought and speech... Blasphemy! Heresy! Quoting: 'The great tragedy of Science—the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.' (Thomas Henry Huxley) - This is even more applicable to junk science propping up a politically inspired cult
religion!

Why not at least admit that there is evidence pointing the other way as well?

So much junk, so little evidence!

An American

Huddo and Straydingo,
Just interested...what do most Aussies think of your new PM?

I understand he recently made a statement that he believes that we need to have a 'new socialist world order'.

What kind of support does he have? Will he last? How did this come about?

And let me add...good luck.

Valentinus

It's always funny dealing with the self-appointed expert global-warming prophets or debunkers on sites like this. I have at no time indicated a view. I am an expert on several things, believe me, but not global warming. I am surrounded by colleagues and associates who are, however. I am largely neutral on the topic. I suspect that temperatures definitely are rising and that industrial civilization is implicated in that. I am sceptical of the doom-mongers and see no merit whatsoever in Kyoto etc. IF there is global warming and if it is a threat to us we shall have have to resolve by applying our quite remarkable technological capabilities to it (a view shared with the Institute of Ideas). Nothing else will suffice.

But hey...I have to take account of one salient fact when I express these sentiments. The overwhelming majority of associates of mine who are properly qualified––climatologitsts, meteorologists, geographers, marine biologists, etc etc––do believe firmly in anthropgenic global warming and its likely catastrophic consequences. (and, incidentally, I am aware of very few who would be 'green' in any broader political sense). Now they may be fools and knaves. That is always possible. They may be well-intentioned but utterly mistaken members of the liberal conspiracy. Possible too. There are a small minority of them, indeed, who dissent from the consensus. But is any right-thinking person wise simply to dismiss with scorn the scholarship with which they present us? To discount professional expertise in favour of the rants of a few bloggers and comment-box addicts whose own 'expertise' is uninspectable (and often derived from internet searches)? At least try out a free trial subscription to Nature while you're browsing the pages of the Cato Institute.

What is the rational response in this situation? This is my wider point––about how reasonable debate is to be conducted. I have seen the same rhetorical position recently adopted by Melanie taken up by 9/11 deniers and Diana conspiracy theorists: it doesn't matter what the experts say, we know the truth. Therein lies my deep sense of disappointment and my awareness of a dispiriting pattern to journalism of this kind reaching well beyond the topic in question––a style which which does little service to the education of informed opinion.

Frank P

EC (9.09Am) Nothing is off-topic on this blog that exposes more of the machinations of the Gramscian guerillas in academia (imho) because from what I can gather it is a major plank in Melanie's platform. But careful though when addressing Alexandrovich in basic scatology (quoting Jim Royle 9.52) as that amounts to 'an unhealthy preoccupation with bottoms' apparently; if Alex spends too much time here he'll run out of smelling salts. :-) Nice fisking of Richard btw. All grist to the mill and good stuff.

Dave

Frank P: Oh for goodness sake. That was no "Fisking". Richard makes a series of thoughtful and useful contributions and EC produces the usual familiar "arguments" that don't even have the slim status of rhetoric.
The debate to be had here is what to do when confronted with what science tells us about climate change.
But to "debate" the itself is pointless. You don't know enough. You don't understand how science works. I can't imagine you trying to "debate" the science of antibiotic resistance, evolution, mobile phones or MMR and autism.
Although actually that's just the sort of anti-science madness taking over our society. With a distrust of "experts" and a credulous belief in real people who "feel" they know the truth.
It's a new dark ages.

Richard

Straydingo,

Are we getting somewhere at last? Yes, I can see that you could flip my comments. Can we agree that neither side should act as if the argument is over? The sceptics aren't the only ones who do that, I agree. And can you agree that your final sentence would be fairer, and would reflect more accurately the actual state of your knowledge, if it read 'IF it does come to pass..', not 'when'?

It's interesting that so many of the sceptics here feel that they are being bullied by a powerful consensus. If you can bear to imagine yourself for a moment in the position of an environmentalist who believes the AGW thesis is probably true, can you see that they feel more or less the same? After all, the recent US government refused to take these arguments seriously, and did a lot to weaken even the existing environmental protection legislation. In Britain, both political parties pay lip service to the need to prevent climate change, but do nothing serious about it (as the recent Heathrow decision shows). No government has yet dared do anything remotely risky in the environmental direction. If there is a Left conspiracy, as some here allege, it's a pretty ineffectual one (the Marxist Left is generally hostile to environmentalism anyway). Environmentalist have just as strong a sense of beating at a closed door as you do.

That still leaves us with the predicament. Most professional climate scientists - as Valentinus points out - are saying that catastrophic climate change, with the consequences I mentioned a few posts back, will probably happen if drastic action on CO2 emissions and deforestation is not taken in the next eight or ten years. Some say it's already too late. These are the people who should know better than anyone else. If the AGW thesis has become their professional orthodoxy, yes, there may be some dangers in that, but it didn't become their orthodoxy for no reason.

Last month Adair Turner submitted a report to the government that broadly supports the thesis, on the basis of scientific advice. He is a banker and former CBI general secretary. Is he part of a Leftist conspiracy?

What exactly is the rational, prudent and moral thing to do in response to these warnings? As you say, if (you say 'when' but let's say 'if') the warnings turn out to be wrong, the credibility of the environmental movement will take a big hit (and I believe you that you would regret that). What happens, then, if they don't turn out to be wrong? And what would count as proof either way, anyway? The arrival or non-arrival of these catastrophic consequences? It would be a bit late then for either side to crow.

What do you do if there is good reason to fear a terrible catastrophe, which can only be averted by acting soon, but you don't feel certain, and have some suspicions? Stepping away from the particular case, what should one do, generally, in those circumstances?

Apocalyptic warnings are always bullying; they always say that the emergency is too great, and time too short, for every doubt to be exhaustively explored.

Unfortunately, this doesn't mean that they are always wrong.

Richard

Frank P:

'Nice fisking of Richard btw'.

What does 'fisking' mean?

Nothing to do with bottoms, I hope.

EC

Valentinus@4:40pm

"I suspect that temperatures definitely are rising and that industrial civilization is implicated in that."

Suspicion?

"The overwhelming majority of associates of mine who are properly qualified––climatologitsts, meteorologists, geographers, marine biologists, etc etc––do believe firmly in anthropgenic global warming and its likely catastrophic consequences."

Belief?

You want a reasonable debate with informed opinion and you come at it with "suspicion" and "belief?" You use the same language as the conspiracy theorists that you decry. Don't you demand proof?

I'm all for good planet housekeeping and the conservation of non-renewable resources where possible but to give up all the benefits and abandon centuries of progress to a dubious hypothesis that is unproven, if not already proven false, seems complete madness.

Give me proof and I promise you that I will change my mind. Now there's an offer!

Frank P

Alexandrovich (3.22pm) ... you never know with these blog sobriquets, do you? Impostors abound! Perhaps if you supply us with your proper moniker we could find a doppelganger for you too? I do remember reading about a copper by that name who was very unpopular among gangsters - he insisted on disrupting their rackets, but who knows, or who cares, come to that?! This thread is about so-called 'AGW'.

Valentinius (4.40pm)

Your comment is not even good old fashioned name-dropping, but implied name-dropping, which is even worse. Self-appointed pressure groups arrogate unto themselves a patina of rectitude, which is mostly utterly undeserved. Institute of Ideas indeed! Of course the proles never have ideas, do they? Thus they are never entitled to have an opinion either?!

The 'catastrophic consequences' that we coarse bloggers are concerned with emanate from the anthropomorphist phenomenon of recycled bovine excrement being regurgitated from the mouths of lobbyists for further ingestion by the credulous; to influence them into supporting the vested interests of some very wicked ideologues. Do you really think we'll be impressed by your claims of being a confidante of wise friends and scientists among the great and the good? If you deduce that from the general tenor of the commentariat of this blog, then you're even more deluded and pompous than you sound from your posts. Not all the contributors here are, like yours truly, simple country boys (ar-ee-ar-ee-arrrgh - 'scuse me while I take the straw from my ears), with an earthy suspicion of didactic 'experts' copping backhanders off politicians or environ-mental con persons: some are worldly iconoclasts with an eye for the cant and propaganda spewed forth from a ubiquitous army of trolls recruited from the baleful brigades of agitprop. It's Melanie's message that is important here: it's her blog. It is a necessary counterweight against the bloated liberal-left MSM that is riddled with counter-culture warriors and Jew haters. If you don't like it here, why waste your time? Do you really think you can blunt Melanie's sword? She adduces evidence and makes her case extremely well. Foxtrot Oscar and out.

Straydingo

An American,
I currently live in London and have been on this great island for the last 10years. However, in my time here i have watched New Labour destroy this great country. The whole time I was watching this nose dive I kept thinking “don’t worry you can always move back to God’s Country” where taxes were reduced and the Federal Government ran the country on a Surplus – and then the Rudd Factor happened.
I am truly horrified at the fact my fellow Australians managed to put this twit into government who managed to blow $10b in one foul swoop of the check book with no real clear benefits being delivered.
If you are interested in Australia though I highly recommend this article:

http://tinyurl.com/d3pp8q

EC

Dave:

"The debate to be had here is what to do when confronted with what science tells us about climate change."

Dave, if only "science" could speak for itself! Unfortunately it has to rely upon humans. Scientific method is pure but unfortunatley many of the humans that profess to adhere to and practice it are flawed. The purity of research for its own sake has been subverted by conditional funding bordering on that of soviet science.

You are very dismissive of others but you have yet to establish your credentials which I'm afraid aren't readily apparent.

"But to "debate" the itself is pointless. You don't know enough. You don't understand how science works."

This statement is pure arrogance. Sounds familiar enough though. "Do and think as I say, pay your taxes, don't ask questions and keep your mouth shut!" It's the likes of you that will guarrantee a return to the dark ages - however the length of the stopover at the 14th century is at present a moot point!

Dave

Frank P: No she doesn't. People must continue to fight what Mel says about climate change because she is wrong in her conclusions and methods. And when she applies her similar thought processes to MMR the result is positively wicked.

Straydingo

EC,

Its a lost cause - don't waste any more key strokes and just enjoy the fact you can make a snowman outside - I am thinking about buying some ice skates for when the Thames starts to freeze over :)

Slioch

EC - "Don't you demand proof?"

No. And neither should you.

Science is based on falsification, not proof.
Do you believe in evolution? I assume the answer is yes, but I defy you to prove its veracity. Yet, as Huxley remarked, a single fossil rabbit in the Cambrian would bring that theory crashing to the ground. Like all complex theories it is the accumulation of environmental evidence and a foundation in basic physics AND the absence of falsification that makes the case for AGW compelling. But such matters are not susceptible to proof (could you even conceive of the structure for such a proof?). No, if you wish for proofs then stick to geometry. Or continue to demand proof in the knowledge that you ask for that which cannot be delivered: like a child that demands of its parents some impossible reward in order that it be good.

Or you could remember Obama's recent quotation: it is time to put away childish things.

So, I asked of Straydingo, when he claimed there were "HUGE holes in the AGW theory" (they would be such falsification) to outline one or two. Since when there has been silence on the matter. People have been trying to falsify AGW for years, and have failed.

Valentinus

Lol, as my sons might write. I neither seek nor care for anyone's approval or admiration on a board like this, FP. I'm content to earn that from, as you imply, my peers––among whom you are not, I'm afraid, numbered. I have tried to give an honest account of why I believe the tone taken in this article is irrational. My 'wise friends' are distinguished academics alongside whom I have worked for some considerable time. Of course, yes, it is theoretically possible that they are the misguided pawns of mendacious ideological forces. Of course it is. I have, however, found little evidence to support this hypothesis about them. This may indicate nothing more than my possession by the same forces. But follow this line of unfalsifiable supposition and you end up not just with Melanie Phillips, but David Ike: where all possible counterfactual evidence serves not to refute the theory but simply to deepen the conspiracy. By which reasoning, of course, FP could be a comments-board plant of Big Oil (I appreciate that the evidence of the posts counts heavily against this in other ways...)

My wise friends are, in general, experimental scientists who have spent much of their careers out in the field, working for industry and conducting scientific experiments on behalf of a range of agencies, some public, some private. If their apparent integrity in fact disguises either stupidity or something more venal, then they have so far beguiled not only me but also their professional associations, royal societies, fellow academics and (in at least one case of which I’m aware) the Nobel Academy.

No matter. I am all in favour of scepticism. Though forgive me if the tedious affirmation of the virtues of ignorance from the 'university of life' brigade, rural or urban, fails to impress me (they usually don't turn a place down at Cambridge for their kids). It always has. Hence I do not resile from 'suspect' (because that's as far as my knowledge of the subject goes) and 'belief'––which, of course, raises questions about the truth conditions of scientific claims, but which serves in this case to acknowledge my view that the theory of AGW is certainly not proven. I concur entirely with that. Some climate scientists do believe the causal relationship is proven to the satisfaction of standard scientific criteria, others do not. This is also beside the point, however. I suggest only that this confusing article and others like it ought to give due respect to the scholarly merit of the other side of the case. If the only riposte to this is to despise all academics (except, of course, the ones who endorse our own views) and delegitimize academic authority in the name of a specious populism, then there really is not much more to be said.

Straydingo

Richard
You posted on February 2nd, 2009 6:26pm, the following:

“If there is a Left conspiracy, as some here allege, it's a pretty ineffectual one”

Personally I believe one that injects the word conspiracy into a response is trying to debase the individual(s) he is parrying with.
As I am sure you are aware the word conspiracy implies that there is “A secret plan to achieve an evil or illegal end”

However, I honestly don’t believe there is a conspiracy as there has never been any real attempt by the green puppeteers in keeping their ideological beliefs behind closed doors – someone with access to the internet and a few spare hours can quickly build a rough outline of the political motivations or belief systems of any organisation, cult or religious group – that’s the power of the internet for you.
I offer up to you the honourable Jonathon Porritt who as you would no doubt know is a Knight of the Green Order and is quite open about his views:

“The Optimum Population Trust, a campaign group of which Mr Porritt is a patron, estimates that a baby born in Britain will burn carbon equivalent to around two-and-a-half acres of oak woodland during their lifetime. Mr Porritt said he wanted environmental activists to campaign on population issues” http://tinyurl.com/b2uelm.

What a wonderful world people like Jonathon have envisioned for us all – where my baby boy of six months is viewed in the context of his carbon footprint.

Richard

Straydingo

Several writers to the thread have suggested that behind environmentalism there is a semi-disguised Left agenda. That's why I used the word 'conspiracy'. But perhaps you're right. 'Plot' might be a better word. Whatever one calls it, the idea is very problematical, since environmentalism asks some hard questions of the Left as well (assuming we define Left in the usual way, and don't include Adair Turner, for example).

If we are going to be moral and responsible, I'm afraid we have to think about everyone's carbon footprint, sad as that is, I agree. I wish it weren't so, but I don't think it displaces any of our love and wonder. What's the alternative - not thinking about it? Your baby boy, like my young children, needs an ecologically sustainable world to live a full life in. Climate change really is a horribly 'inconvenient' thing.

Will anyone tell me what 'fisking' means?

EC

Valentinus: "Lol, as my sons might write. I neither seek nor care for anyone's approval or admiration on a board like this ..."

... and have you enquired of your wise friends whether this attachment to ego and smugness is genetically inherited or whether it is acquired behaviour? That's some flock of preening popinjays!

Trust is the problem. The scientific community will not win the trust of the public with arrogance and while a small but highly publicised section of it is dabbling in spin, politics and peddling junk science for its own pecuniary interests.

Dave

Look at the track record of Climate Audit. Investigating and exposing problems with the data. It may be born of a political agenda but they understand the science and I believe make a positive contribution to the sum of our knowledge.
So why not sit down and read up on data sets, measurements and errors? The data (most of it) is out there. Contribute.
And if you can't. If you're not up to it then fine. Your views still count on what we do with all this information. If you don't want some solar-powered, socialist utopia shout even louder.
But joining in with Mel's approach, which is about at the level of "Look at this snow! Global warming? I don't think so" is just asinine.
And I say it again, it leads directly to Mel's "coverage" of the MMR rumpus. Which was wrong on many, many levels.

Straydingo

Dave,
I don't agree with your analysis of MP approach - I think that her posts on this topic provide a very concise view of HER opinion which is based on her own independent research.
The individuals she often references within her posts carry street credentials within their domain of knowledge and who, until now, have been either marginalised or silenced by the Green PC brigades.

You say “But joining in with Mel's approach, which is about at the level of "Look at this snow! Global warming? I don't think so" is just asinine.”

Personally I have never seen Mel use this approach – however, as I have already pointed out on a previous post you are entering incredibly shaky ground by trying to debase MP using this line of attack. Over the course of the last 20 years ever time the earth’s temperature has recorded an increase or we have seen hurricanes tear across the Caribbean/US the global public has been quickly pelted with fear mongering the end is nigh messages by the Eco Warrior Industry.

Here are a few examples of this type of approach being used:
"Unless we announce disasters no one will listen." - Sir John Houghton, first chairman of IPCC
“Nobody is interested in solutions if they don’t think there’s a problem. Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous (global warming) is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are, and how hopeful it is that we are going to solve this crisis.” Al Gore May 9, 2006 Grist interview

"Christianity is our foe. If animal rights is to succeed, we must destroy the Judeo-Christian Religious tradition." - Peter Singer, founder of Animal Rights

"Nature is my god. To me, nature is sacred; trees are my temples and forests are my cathedrals." - Mikhail Gorbachev, Green Cross International

"Childbearing should be a punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a government license. All potential parents should be required to use contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen for childbearing." - David Brower,
first Executive Director of the Sierra Club

Frank P

Valentinius

Thank you for a very comprehensive, but somewhat surprising response - as those beavers, like you, who are so busy rubbing shoulders with academic or scientific giants usually have little time to hang around blogs to pick off 'deluded' or 'uneducated' dissenters and are too busy saving the world to bother with such triviality. You make some good points, but sitting here today in East Anglia, under perfectly blue skies, not a snowflake in sight, all yesterday's evidence of the white stuff already disappeared, (having been warned yesterday by the experts that we would be buried in it today in these parts, and not believing a word of it becauseafter a long lifelong observation of the natural indicators of weather I 'felt' that the weather gurus were once again panicking the populace unnecessarily) I find that once again my pig ignorance and smug complacency turned out to augur a more accurate outcome than theirs. But then as I'm not anti-Israel or anti-Amerikkka, I'm not looking for every conceivable excuse possible for blaming all man-made or natural inconvenience on Melanie Phillips or George Bush. So that does put me (and my stubborn peers) at a disadvantage. But I am none the less grateful for your efforts to wise me up. Unfortunately I remain as sceptical as I was before you tried. Perhaps if you wiseacres try to avoid making so many hasty prognostications that turn out to be rubbish, one day we'll all believe you - should you ever get on to something rally important. My excuse for being here, apart from the obvious and oft stated one of having a high regard for the opinions of our bloghost, is that I’m old, bored and need exercise for my fingers. What’s yours?

Valentinus

Lol. It's a predictable, if threadbare, ploy of those occupying intellectually vulnerable positions to denounce academic claims as smug or egotistical. But these sorts of ad hominem attacks are neither here nor there. What? The whole scientific community untrustworthy? All of it? Every area? Mysteriously, this scepticism seems inexplicably focused on global warming. I'm surprised you can take a flight, EC, all that dodgy aviation theory pedaled by the spin doctors of aeronautics! As Lewis Wolpert has observed, only a scientific civilization, every micromovement of which is dependent upon science, can afford to be anti-scientific. Are some scientists bad people? No doubt. Are some scientists unduly political? Most certainly. Are some scientists in the pay of big business, the interests of which are menaced by environmentalism? Manifestly. Do scientists routinely make up results and draw conclusions to make money for themselves? Hmmm. That's a big claim. As a scientist might say: furnish us with the evidence please.

Frank P

Dave

And your obsession with MMR on every thread that Melanie posts is a little suspect to say the least. Give it a rest FFS. She has asked many valid questions on that score that the politicised medical fraternity in this field have failed to answer satisfactorily. Forgive me if, like her, I suspect the motives of a government faced with the ire of bereaved parents or parents with children in the grip of autism, not mention the crippling financial penalties of class actions should they be found to have encouraged a procedure, to cut costs, that turned out to be so baneful or even fatal for children. If you think that this mob in power wouldn't orchestrate everyone willing politically or venally motivated quack to toe the line to save their asses with promises as to the future in regard to the research facilities and personal fortunes, then you need to study history more closely. In the meantime forgive me if I wait for 'further and better particulars' (as the bewigged NuLab luvvies among the legal beagles are apt to demand to extend their fees and enhance their counter-culture aspirations - when it suits their purpose! Without solid scepticism there will be less proof and more mistakes.

Frank Pulley

Richard

Fisking? Google it FGS! I did offer a definition but the moderator censored it for some reason. I think he/she must be an admirer of Robert Fisk. Uggghh!

Slioch

Well, here I am, still waiting for Straydingo to outline one or two of his "HUGE holes in the AGW theory".

Mind, no one else has managed to do so, so I'm not really surprised at the no-show.

Straydingo

Slioch,

I have not bothered responding to you as clearly you have your mind set firmly shut on the topic.

Out of interest are you a scientist?

If so what is your discipline and have you been published?

phil

What a useless thread this has been apart from the unholy interest frank p and his mate alexandrovich had in each others backsides -some may have noticed I have not commented here and that is because I have no idea what is the truth of this matter and nor have any of you -the best comment was by Aisa jan 30-apologies to those that normally write common sense -I haven,t read them all .too boring -its cold and wet here so I could do with a little warmth :)

EC

Valentinus,

Predictable II. Everything, it would appear, except the climate.

Once upon a time I attended a talk by Lewis Wolpert. Unfortunately he spent most of the time talking about his depression.

Frank P

Valentinius

Intellectually vulnerable?! You're the one who has to hang on the coat-tails of the academic arseholes who demand that we believe every pet doomsday theory they jig up to please their sponsors. Geddahterhere! :-)

As for 'evidence please': evidence of the future can only be presented when it becomes the past - as the charlatans know only too well. And if they are found to be wrong by Old Father Time, they just jig up more excuses based on their academic credentials rather than 'evidence'. In other words, the more letters after their names the more bullshit potential.

Personally, I am a great believer in engineers and bricklayers. They demonstrate their theories with concrete, metal and substance you can see. Their future is the one I believe in. They put their money where their mouth is (with the help of the proles and their shovels and muscle of course).

Gordon Rattray Taylor, Herb Kahn, and numerous other prognosticators: all great entertainers, but all turned our to be bullshitters.

Now Eric Blair wasn't bad, though. Just ten years or so too early. But boy! Are we right in the middle of his perspicacious predictions now!

You're entitled to your twopenn'orth of stabbing a guess at the future along with the rest of us; what I object to with you Val, old cock, is that you barge into someone's front room because the door is open and a party is in progress; slag off the hostess because you don't like the decor of the parlour and expect the guests who do to salaam at your opinions because your have some influential friends in the halls of academe. I suggest you use a tissue on that snotty nose and wipe your feet as you leave! The Grungiad blog is the place for you on your showing here so far.

I've got the National Encyclopaedia (circa 1877 if I remember correctly) on the bookshelf in my den. What the Academics who wrote the contents didn't know, but thought they did, would fill several more enyclopaedias which in turn would suffer the same fate in due course. I've kept the Speccy magazine for a few years too, and enjoy reading past soothsayers/own-words-eaters. Plus ca change ....

EC

Phil, Praise Be!

You're always there at the end - like the great prophet Zarquon!

Over to you ..........

Dave

MMR is important. Because it's the issue on which you can point at Mel's work and say "You were wrong and you didn't understand the science". And because of this people will have may choices, choices that will have lead to the deaths of children. How many won't be clear for a few years yet.
So I agree there's no reason to throw around wild allegations over what will happen in the future when it comes to climate changed. We should focus on the science.
But with MMR the science is that there is no proof the jab causes or is linked to autism. And what Mel wrote at the time was foolish and wrong.
To date, no apology either.
Which is why it's important to mention MMR when Mel covers other scientific topics.

Richie Craze

"no-one should take seriously what they say about anything at all ever again."

This would be a much more suitable quote for Ms "evolution is merely a theory" and "MMR controversy" (for which, as Dave mentions, she's never apologized) Phillips; who once again ably demonstrates that she fails to understand science. How this article can impress or convince anyone is beyond me.

The plain fact is if we burn all the fossil fuels we'll replace most of the oxygen in the atmosphere with carbon dioxide, which is how the atmosphere used to be before plant life. This would not be a good thing, and we need to safeguards the future of life on this planet by lowering emissions of CO2.

And this sort of thing: "with 2008 the coldest for ten years", is just ridiculous. Phillips is clearly unable to differentiate minor fluctuations over a short space of time with a general pattern of evidence accumulated over a long period. She then contradicts herself in the same paragraph with: "CO2 levels in the air rose 500 to 600 years after the climate warmed up. Therefore, higher concentrations of greenhouse gases were the result, not the cause, of global warming". So which is it, is there no global warming and the planet's in fact cooling (if so, please explain why)? Or is she accepting global warming but reluctant to lay the blame with increased levels of CO2?

Slioch

Straydingo "I have not bothered responding to you as clearly you have your mind set firmly shut on the topic."

No, Straydingo, you merely reveal yourself to have nothing to offer. You talk of "huge holes" in AGW theory, but can provide no example of such. Your assertions are empty.

Straydingo

Siloch,

It does not matter what I say the fact is you are really not interested in my point of view and all I will be doing is disappearing down a rabbit hole with you if I continue posting response. Clearly you have an unwavering belief in the AGW theory. Any points I raise will lead to you quoting material that that is based on models that rationalizes results to fit any and all scenarios. To the modellers and their believers, their results are consistent with. . . well, everything. Whether warmer or colder, flood or drought, more storms or less -- it's all proof that global warming is real and happening now.

You did not mention if you were a scientist or not?

phil

EC:)"for zark's sake."was I being insulted or praised ?:):)-I have just lit a nice fire, having printed all the stuff frank p has been bombarding us with -lasted for hours -he couldnt be there as he was attending a backside convention with alexandrovitch -just a couple of old bums enjoying the sites and weather -btw any explanations from those more knowledgeable than me on the snow ?

I do seem to remember sleds and snowballs when I was kid and then they disappeared for years ,are they back? very strange !

Seriously though why are so many commenting and insulting one another on a topic none of you know much about -We are doing many things to improve our planet whether or not it was necessary ,surely that has to be a good thing .

EC

Phil,

If you were Zarquon then Frank P was Slartibartfast with the anagram putting Alexandrovich in need of the smelling salts.

When you materialised at the very last moment, being a cynical s*d, I half suspected that you were Valentinius and that you had been on a wind up mission. V's style was almost but not quite like that of an academic. True there was plenty of ego and smarm sandwich but far too much LOL-ling about. The classic elements of misquoting, hyperbolic paraphrasing were present - useful blogging techniques, but there again none of your trademark CAPITAL LETTERS. BTW my observation here is not intended as an insult - you have admitted in the past that you do have plenty of time... However I doubt whether you would have been desperate enough to deploy Lewis Wolpert.

Why the insults? It really wasn't that bad Phil. I was accused of an ad hominem attack which really was more of a well founded observation drawn from Valentinitus's own words. I wonder why some people cannot accept that at the root of insults can be genuine dislike, disgust and contempt rather than "intellectual vulnerability."

Specialist knowledge? The GGWS enthusiasts and "experts" on here expect the rest of us to swallow their bovine ordure without dissent. It is enough to make anyone turn ugly and unpleasant. One day I hope to be as ugly and as unpleasant (and informed!) as Frank P - he's really good at this blogging lark ....

Straydingo,

Truly sorry about Rudd. If you ever go back FFS please will you take Patricia Hewitt back with you!

An American

Straydingo,

Thank you for your reply.

We visited Australia and Tazmainia for a month some five years ago and found Aussies to be independent and hardy sorts like many Americans...that's why I was so shocked to see Aussies vote in a left-leaning socialist...but, look who the US elected...it's all so bazaar, I can't quite take it all in.
We've said that if things become intolerable here, we could always move to Tazmania...but now, even that prospect doesn't look very inviting. It seems we are now looking at the new socialist world order...Independent thinkers like us are all up s...-creek. I'll be fortunate to live another 20 years and frankly, I'll be happy to not see where my country and this world is heading.

Sam

Can I just point out that one of the references in this article relates to the views of some so-called Russian scientists - “There were periods in the history of the Earth when CO2 levels were a million times higher than today, and life continued to evolve quite successfully,” agrees Vladimir Arutyunov of the Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Chemical Physics."

Well Melanie, that would be 387 million parts per million.

Now I suggest you seek out slightly more robust and scientific references to back up your arguments.