A true scientist in government? Quel scandale!

Jeremy

I think the etching is charming.

Richard

Melanie,

By all means let's be open to both sides of this argument, but isn't it a bit cheap to call him a 'true scientist' just because he lends support to your own views and wishes? You thereby imply that the numerous scientists whose findings on this subject you don't like are fake scientists. It's trivialising.

Geoff B-W

Age of Reason -> Terror -> Guillotine -> Napoleon -> Unstable republics -> WW1 -> WW2 -> Vichy -> EU and lastly Sarkozy. A second French Age of Reason? God save us!
The French did produce Pascal, but he was a Christian.

Starting with William the Bastard (and the origins of our class system), why is it that that most of France's 'great' leaders have always been a problem for us?

If the Freanch are into avoiding the Global-Warming scam, it is because their sole concern is 'La France' and not because of reason.

David

"the warmist inquisition"

You mean scientists.

Just because you don't agree with them, doesn't make them any less so.

Fritz

The Finkelstein of ecology

Kevin McCandless

This is our anti AL GORE, plainly put. Now try to debate him.

Terry

Wouldn't it be ironic if the Earth is actually heading towards a new Ice Age?

Ronnie

Our climate is changing, you just have to look around you and keep up to date with events around the world. In the final analysis it doesn't matter why and it doesn't matter if it's anyone's fault, it is simply happening.

The questions are, what does it mean for us and how do we deal with it.

Grow up!

Terry

The warmist inquisition have been determined to censor so called skeptics, be they scientists (especially so, if they are scientists!) or anyone else.

The fact is that if MMGW is only intellectually supportable by censorship of those who disagree with it, then MMGW petend scientists deserve derision. Don't accuse Melanie of being rude to those who have acted appallingly themselves and have sought to avoid debate of their hairbrain theories. If stalin were to emerge into the political dialogue of today, we would treat him as an outcast whose right to democratic tolerance has been negated by history - so it is with the MMGW scam merchants. They have sought to censor my views, and now I don't care what they think because I have more admiration for the true scientists who are every day debunking this cruel myth.

Arthur LEMAY

Here we have a group of so-called scientists engaged in personal attacks on those world-class climate scientists who dare to be skeptical of global warming claims because 1) The world has not warmed in 10 years, 2) There is no evidence whatsoever that CO2 controls the climate and the models which are based on this theory have never predicted anything correctly 3) The solar variation theorists' model do have predictive value, but those pushing the CO2 theory just refuse to face the facts.

Unfortunately for the CO2 theorists, more and more qualified scientists are saying that reducing man's CO2 emissions will do nothing for the climate and will cause economic devastation.

Indeed the argument is close to being settled, but the CO2 theory is disproved. But as Al Gore says "it's a moral issue." What he really means is he has invested to much in selling this theory to let a bunch of scientists contradict him -- even if he is wrong.

Mailman

Was watching a doco on the Sun the other day when they started talking about the lack of sun spots and the drop in world temps...but perhaps what was more alarming was their claim that the next sun spot peak is expected in 2012!

Doesnt take a rocket scientist to work out where Im going with this one.

Ian C

There is supposed to be a 'real scientist' in the US cabinet - Dr Choo (Spelling?) who has been in London at a conference for Nobel Prize winners, few of whom seem to have any specialist climate knowledge.

I thought it strange for a believer like him to propose as one of his solutions for AGW, that we should paint/colour roof and road surfaces a white/light colour so that heat would be reflected back into the atmosphere and thence to space.

This would seem to be a contradictory piece of advice: -

a) if excess CO2 is causing a greenhouse effect then refelcting it back into the atmosphere would be of little use and

b) it rather confrms the non-believers' understanding that the urbanisation of the planet is skewing the temperature readings and thus giving a false impression of warming.

Perhaps our Gallic scientist can wade in on this. It certainly seems to be an admission that CO2 is not the cause and that urban heat islands are a significant part of the problem!

Forlornehope

True scientists in government, try Margaret Thatcher (chemist) and Angela Merkel (physicist). Good examples of the observable fact that the only women in politics who can be relied upon to be rational have a scientific education!

David

Um, you are aware that the reason for the white paint is to reduce reliance on artifical methods of cooling, such as air conditioners, thereby reducing CO2 emmissions and the use of limited resources?

And given that urban environments are part of the ecosystem, if they are warmer, than the eco-system will be warmer and will be consequently affected. There is no "false" reading from it.

Sheesh.

Forlornehope

"I thought it strange for a believer like him to propose as one of his solutions for AGW, that we should paint/colour roof and road surfaces a white/light colour so that heat would be reflected back into the atmosphere and thence to space."

Then perhaps a course in elementary physics would be a good idea before commenting on this subject! This advice also applies to Melanie!

Dave

Ian C: Reflecting solar energy back by painting your roof white would of course work. CO2 traps radiated heat which has a different wavelength. A simple back of the envelope calculation shows in theory this would make a difference. In theory of course, but never the less he is right.
As a rule of thumb unless you also have a Nobel prize in Physics... Chu probably knows more about this than you.

Original Tony

A lot of those 1500 scientists have now changed their tune like our French colleague has.

I am no expert but I believe the Earth receives 6000 times more energy per day from the sun than all of humanity's power generation put together.

It stands to reason therefore that the sun is the main cause of our planet heating or cooling and graphs correlating the sun's activity with resulatnt temperature changes is well recorded.

People as old as I am will remember reporters shrieking with fear in the early 1970s that another ice age is on the way. Go to newspapers of the day and read it for yourself.

Ironically, Co2 production reached its zenith then, with coal power stations and factories churning out massive amounts of pollution; with a cold atmosphere to boot.

My conclusion therefore, is that a lot of 'professionals', governments and interest groups are making a lot of money and taxes out of this scam.

Now they want to ban beef and lamb beacuse of the huge carbon footprint that these animals leave to make a lb of meat.

If they do that I will go ballistic!

Bickers

David, 11.34 - you missing Ian C's point:

If we need to paint roofs white to reflect sunlight and cool houses/cities then it's an admission on one level that cities are warmer not because of CO2 but because of the urban heat island effect.

We need more sceptics in Government because we are being constantly misled by the media and public institutions who realsie their money and power in creating 'scares', the latest one being Swine Flu - 13,000 deaths Worldwide, whilst regrettable is hardly an epidemic

David

"it's an admission on one level that cities are warmer not because of CO2 but because of the urban heat island effect"

It's nothing of the sort. All it states is that this is one way to help reduce the problem. As an idea and statement it bears no impact on anything else.

David Bouvier

Original Tony - again I am afraid you are making an error.

Of course most of the heat comes from the sun. So 'Greenhouse effect' is so called because like a greenhouse, light gets in but when re-radiated as infrared cannot get out so easily. Leading to a net temperature rise until the increase heat radiated again matches the incident heat.

The power generation is not material - it is claimed to be the gas released that is having the effect.

I an something of an fence sitter on this issue, but really people do need to have a basic understanding of the mechanisms being discussed.

And unfortunately, that the boy cries wolf when there was no wolf, does not prove that there is no wolf this time.

Forlornehope

Original Tony,

The idea that during the 1970's there was a serious expectation of an imminent ice age is a bit of a myth. Follow up this link to get the real story of what was being reported at the time.

http://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/131047.pdf

The story is much like the kind of "science writing" that Christopher Booker provides in the Telegraph.

Suki

Vive le common sense!

EL

Quel scandale!Mon Dieu!

John Levett

Forlornehope - presumably, you were not around at the time but however the alarmists seek to re-write history, I can assure you that the MSM of the 60s and 70s heavily promoted the notion of a coming ice age.

That it is so important for the alarmists to seek to deny this piece of history is a good indication of the fragility of their case as well as an example of how willing they are to lie to support the increasingly farcical AGW cause.

I sincerely hope that Allegre is appointed and that he will introduce some instability to the cosy EU consensus that, unchecked, will destroy what little there is left of the UK economy.

James Murphy

I don't wish to be gratuitously ad hominem (or perhaps I do), but why is it that all global warmers sound so inherently priggish? Is moral sanctimony itself a greenhouse gas that inflates the ego as it warms one's sense of self-righteousness, thus doing alarming damage to the psychological environment...

Forlornehope

John, I was around in the 60's; I went to University in '69. Checking back on the relevant articles helped my memory. One or two popular articles do not make a considered scientific viewpoint.

I have been following up links posted to contrarians by Coffee Housers (and Melanie). There is not a single one that does not contain either a basic error in maths or physics or, either deliberately or inadvertently, misapplies data. For a good example of the latter follow this link:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/30/lindzen-on-negative-climate-feedback/

By the way, his opening remarks give a very clear explanation of the problem of climate change. It's just the second part that is based on dodgy data. If you have the relevant research skills, follow up the citations.

Sergey

Chu actually understands that the best approach to curb CO2 emmissions is energy saving, of which coloring roofs and roads are only few examples. Energy economy strategy is better than so-called "green energy", and less expensive. Better heat insulation of houses can save 30% of energy spent on heating and cooling, and makes real difference. The second reasonable policy of Chu is expansion of nuclear energy. He may be wrong about causes of global warming, but as competent physicist he understands which technical measures will work and which are pipe dreams of ignorant greens.

Suki

James, you're right.

In a secular society people will always replace God with something. If only for the sake of advertising their (bogus) moral authority and convincing themselves they believe in something.

Everywhere you go you see the surrogates for religion: global warming, Backtrack Obama...

Augustus

The great irony about the theory
which the effects of global warming will have in the later part of the 21st Century is that it is based on 19th Century misconceptions about how glass grenhouses actually work. It was believed that glass blocked the passage of 'dark radiation'
(infrared) and kept storing energetic photons inside it. Once those photons had accumulated enough power to overcome the glass barrier, radiative equilibrium was said to have been achieved. Therefore: Sunlight enters, heat is generated, and dark light is emitted. This dark light is amplified because of the blockage, and it finally exits at the same magnitude as the entering sunlight, but only after the light 'trapped' inside
has raised the greenhouse's temperature. Since this barrier will keep raising the temperature until the barrier is broken, increasing the barrier's strength will get you any amount of internal heat you want.(if only that were true...)
Although still believed today by many reputable establishments
it is in fact 19th Century poppycock. Nothing is further from the truth.

In reality, greenhouses merely suppress convective heat loss, preventing the heated air from dissipating. It is the air that is trapped, not radiation; because glass's response to IR has nothing to do with it. clear plastic bags will do just as well, or even panes of polished salt crystals which don't absorb IR at all. also, any infrared radiation which is absorbed by the glass is immediately re-radiated (scattered) by that glass. There is no radiative barrier. This can be proven by a thermal IR image of a house which shows that IR radiation passes straight through the glass windows. So, what started as a misconception nearly 200 years ago, and what is so often depicted today as the
'greenhouse effect', is based on a myth, and an equally imaginary law of physics called
radiative equilibrium: the misconception that energy out must equal energy in. Plausible to the Victorians, but misguided. They would have depicted a layer of greenhouse gases overhead in illustrations when in fact these molecules are at their densest concentration nearest the ground.

Dixon

Sergey
May 28th, 2009 9:30pm
"Chu actually understands that the best approach to curb CO2 emmissions is energy saving, of which coloring roofs and roads are only few examples. Energy economy strategy is better than so-called "green energy", and less expensive. Better heat insulation of houses can save 30% of energy spent on heating and cooling, and makes real difference. The second reasonable policy of Chu is expansion of nuclear energy. He may be wrong about causes of global warming, but as competent physicist he understands which technical measures will work and which are pipe dreams of ignorant greens."

Energy efficiency will never reduce energy consumption. For a very simple reason. Energy efficiency reduces your energy bill. That leaves more monbey in your pocket to spend on OTHER goods and services that then use MORE energy!

When he appeared on Newsnight this week, Chu actually stated the first part of this economic principle as a benefit...that he chose not to observe the obvious corrollary in the latter part of the quation is very intriguing. Maybe its about his wanting to distract attention from the very definite need for nuclear power.

M. Sarkozy

That's a damnably stupid headline, precisely because of the word "True".

gary ashton

the climate on earth is changing, yes that is true but it is changing on mars and venus, jupiter and saturn etc. this is because the sun is influencing the solar system not because of human activity.

Archie

Well, I didn't expect a sort of Warmist Inquisition!
AND Geoff B-W: the problem, as John Cleese has stated, is that all the problems in history have been caused by short men!

Ian C

Dave & David

If reflecting heat into the atmosphere was good for cooling it, the upper atmosphere would be heating. It is not - satellite data is clear.

Nobody I have heard of air-conditions the road network, so no fuel savings there! So what's the point if it's not heat island preventive?

The urban heat island is accused by sceptics of distorting measurements with, it seems, implied justification arising from Dr Chu's recommendations.

Augustus, This sounds like the progress of science got overlooked in development of greenhouse theories. How can it be as simple as this? It would be consistent with my belief in the 'cock-up' theory of life. It would be ironic. Can you expand with references?

All should see a (very poor in its delivery but not its content) presentation that claims that CO2 is positively benefiting the planet, among the other usual data presented by the scientists who are not part of the self-proclaimed consensus (from which it seems that 31,478 scientists in the USA have recently excluded themselves).

http://www.discovery.org/v/30

Marin

Recently, I traveled abroad and learned, casualy, that France has 350 energy producing nuclear power stations which provide 80% of the country's electricity needs. I wonder if how many people in this country are aware of this fact.

Bill M

Assuming the CO2 theory is true, then all politicians, opportunists, politically-motivated scientists, exploiters, sappy do-gooders, UN lackies, and all the rest need to do is to stop talking and f*rting. We would experience a decades long cooling trend, save the earth, and solve this problem once for all. It's time for them to do their part and not just leave it to the poor cows and sheep.

Margaret Muller-Johansson

gary ashton, the climate on earth is changing "not human activity" Pourquoi pas?

John Thomas

It's not that the pro-AGW scientists are fake scientists (as Richard, etc) it's just that they are people who are part of ideology-led / politically-determined science (science comes from government grants comes from politicians, get it?); all we need to know about Gore is that he's a politician, and one whose personal fortune has swollen as a result of his activities (we doubt politicians are venal? I don't think so!).

David Lindsay

Well, of course he used to be Leader of the Socialist Party. Who better to reject hysteria over climate change, and to see that hysteria as really an excuse to destroy (or prevent the restoration of) high-wage, high-skilled and high-status jobs for the working class; an excuse to retard or reverse economic development in the poorer parts of the world; and an excuse to restrict travel to the rich?

boxermk

Climate computer models are not science. Reducing the entire climate to what is a truly miniscule variable, CO2 emissions, is not science. Ignoring the cosmos, the sun, geolgical evidence of the earth's climate for the past thousands of years, during which the temperature has been much, much, much hotter, is not science.

And most of all, actually believing that painting your roofs white and thinking that will "help" with climate change is not only not science, it is proof just how political and anti-science this entire hysteria is.

Mark Adrian Solomon

Geoff B-W, the Age of Reason aka The Englightenment also produced Newton, Darwin, Adam Smith, Burke and the American Revolution. Like all ages there was some good, some bad. A France that had developed along lines wished by Voltaire or Diderot, both Enlightenment thinkers, would have been very different from the one produced by Rousseau, the Revolution and Robespierre!

Nicolas Sarkozy is a really great and enlightened President who appreciates unconventional thinkers and promotes them (see some of his ministerial appointments). We in Britain can only envy the French for having a politician of such stature!

Jeff Vincent

Forlornhope: You say that Lindzen's 'sceptic' article contains basic errors. What are they, please? As to the Ice Age scare; my completely uneducated mother had heard about it in the 70s, which suggests that the few scientific articles on the subject must have been seized on by the media.

Augustus

Ian C - Re: Greenhouse effect is a myth.

Yes, you can read a press release, dated 22nd May, 2009 from a Dutch scientist who lives in East Anglia. You can get the link on the Climate Realists home page at:
http://climaterealists.com/
index.php

Dave

Ian C. No I think you don't understand. It's not reflecting the heat into the atmosphere that "cools it"
Sunlight falls on the earth. It is absorbed by the ground and re-radiated at a DIFFERENT wavelength (that's key). It's this energy which is trapped by the greenhouse effect. And obviously the point of greenhouse gases is they make it worse.
Without getting too technical if you increase the refelctive properties of our towns and cities you end up reflecting enough of the sun's energy back out into space to pretty much cancel out the predicted impact of the greenhouse effect.
But it's back of the envelope, you have to assume various unlikely bits and bobs.
Anyway, the upshot is yes it could have an impact. And if you live in a house that's hot or uses AC then a white roof will help.

Bill M

Frank P, Where are you?

Barry Larking

I have recently returned from the Scottish Highlands where once again on remote hills in exposures of deep peat I found the whitened trunks and stumps of pine trees. These grew in the warm period following the end of the last Ice Age. Trees would struggle to grow to any size in these locations today. It is generally accepted (the evidence, saturated plant remains is all around) that what killed these trees off at altitude was climate change; cooler wetter weather, some 6.000 - 5,000 years B.C. Actually, not an unusual event. The earth's climate does change and until recently the speed has been unknown.

We should be aware of climate change and what it means for our lives. Some of the "projections" are fantastic and defeatist, reflective more of what attracts certain personalities to the issue of climate change rather than the issue itself.

We all should be preapred to change the way we live and these changes can be mostly positive. For example, one consequence of making ourselves more energy efficient would be to reduce the sums of money currently going in petro-dollars to unsavoury regimes which use this wealth to suppress populations and support international terrorism. Climate change, if not it's cause, is a known fact of climatology in an otherwise challenging scientific endeavour. By insisting the cause of climate change is both somehow recent in origin and uniquely the result of human activity is to short circuit the pursuit of knowledge.

Forlornehope

Jeff, follow up the citations for the radiation data on Lindzen's article, then check for the currency of the data he uses against the author's publications. You'll get an interesting result. I put in a rather more elaborate explanation of some of these points yesterday, but it seems to have been blocked.

Tom Durkin

this has to be the worst comment thread ever on one of melanie's column.

the keystone of MMGW being wrong is that 'believers' are in cahoots with one another and all getting rich off government grants.
Assumptions:
1. that a consensus of government has been reached contradicting scientific findings?!? when you think of the number of people that have to be required in this conspiracy, with little dissension surely that is impossible?
2. that MMGW believers don't know as much as people who read up in their spare time (which is a noble thing - i am not advocating ignorance and apathy) - again i see people writing 'they don't account for this, or that etc.' Clearly crap, because...
3. you assume that when people are competing for prevalence in their academic field, they don't actually compete - as though MMGW 'believers' do not try to debunk rivals theories. this is dynamic across science, as evidenced by the scientists melanie puts on a pedestal, is also working within either camp. 'believers' compete with one another for respect and the right to be 'top-dog'. much as govts compete in negotiations to do as little as possible so as to free ride and benefit from solutions as much as possible.

i have no concerns that there is a global scientific conspiracy involving all world governments that is going to force me to be vegetarian and not fly. say the counter statement out loud to yourself. would you be happy to stand up in public and say you believe that the entire politico-scientific institutional structure is conspiring 'against us'.....

David

"By insisting the cause of climate change is both somehow recent in origin and uniquely the result of human activity"

No one has done this though, so that's a straw man that can be dispensed with.

Gert

With the title of Mrs Phillips latest piece comes also the unavoidable desire to dismiss it out of hand. Only scientists that adhere to Mrs Phillips non-expert opinion (that man-made Global Warming doesn't exist) are to be considered REAL scientists, as opposed to the others who clearly are quacks, incompetents or in the pocket of anti-BIG OIL!

Ridiculous...

London Calling

Evidence is the question from two points of view...for if one gathers all scientific evidence past and present globally the data should provide two areas that coincide within our present
climate.

Firstly natural cycles of the earth, (heating and cooling) and also manmade pollution and its effects on the environment and how our environment responds
to manmade pollution.

To dismiss both without consideration is evidence of lack of true knowledge for which is evidently available.

Scepticism is not an option... debate is …

:)...

Forlornehope

Tom, don't be a killjoy. There is a lot of innocent fun to be had here. We have comments from people who are very clever and can see through the "global warming scam". It matters not a jot that they clearly don't understand the most basic concepts of the physics involved, cannot distinguish a theory from a metaphor and cannot demonstrate the research skills required to make a critical analysis of a scientific report. I stand in awe!

Johanna Louw

Interesting article but 'scandale' is actually masculine, so it should read 'Quel scandale!' The gratuitous use of French in newspaper articles adds nothing to the overall impact, especially when the French is grammatically incorrect.

Augustus

Ms Louw - OK, but don't forget that France is the last bastion of unshaved legs and armpit hair in women. Quelle horreur!

Dr Martin Meenagh

Forlonehope--I think that I am right in saying that the article you cite was one of thousands on Wattsupwiththat.com and it got a bit of a kicking in the comments. Why just focus on that? The planets of the solar system seem to have been warming, as this one was, until around the late 1990s; then the warming reversed. In global warming 'theories', no account is taken of the oceans, cloud cover, urbanisation, or the heating and cooling of the past; and the question of the chemistry of the upper atmosphere and how it interacts with radiation seems to be moot. The satellite and earth station figures for heat disagree.

So, rather than asking people why they don't study the physics in one article, I would ask why so many scientists whose pay or professional advancement now depends on global warming ideas should be allowed to ignore what appear to be facts?

Noah Aaron Bashi

Augustus, what is wrong with that c'est bien et naturelle n'est-ce pas????
Maybe you British if you would leave the nature the way it is the world could of be cooler place

stanley Jerusalem

'Horreur' is obviously feminine [like unshaved armpits].

benjamin

I am a scientist living in France. Important first point - French women remove leg and armpit hair, I don't have statistically significant data for other areas - yet.
Claude Allegre wrote a provocative article in Le Monde basically saying that when the whole scientific community agrees on something he is instinctively sceptical - he gave a few rare examples of the whole scientific community being wrong e.g. plate tectonics was rejected when it was first proposed. However, Allegre is not a climatologist, he appears regularly on television chat shows meaning he is not an active scientist - he is a media phenomenon. Allegre is not even anti-MMGW as far as I know.... if Sarkozy names him Minister its just to annoy the socialists.

stanley Jerusalem

benjamin
June 4th, 2009 10:30pm
"I am a scientist living in France. Important first point - French women remove leg and armpit hair, I don't have statistically significant data for other areas - yet."
[1] Are you French?
[2]When you say other areas, do you mean the rest of Europe, the UK or something entirely different?
[3] Why do the French women where you live remove a leg?
[4]What statistically insignificant data have you garnered to date?
[5] Most of those making pronouncements on GW are neither climatologists not yet scientists and that doesn't prevent their exercising their tonsils [if their French women haven't removed them].