Green totalitarianism

wolf

Bloody hell! According to Philips,Lawson et.al its cosmic rays(the hand of God?) So, rest in peace and keep on plundering the earth’s recourses for the benefits of the few.
Exploiting the only resource we have to destruction and yes we are changing the natural balance of our little, insignificant planet, isn’t it time for reflection, a time to realise that we are only a part of life!God doesn’t seem to be green and there is no evidence that HE has intervened in our endeavours in Iraq and Afghanistan nor in climate change.
Do you rather have history judge our actions (If there is a history) .

Oflife

@Wolf: Spot on, although I think there are biblical references to taking care of the planet. Something along the lines of "Look after it, and it will look after you!" (Eco karma?) ;) - I tend to concure with much of what M has to say about the situation in the Muddle East, but on this one, not at all. We need to get away from oil - period - and go solar. No other energy source makes sense or is so clean and politically safe.

Just how many animals consume or use carbon to keep warm or travel?

Zero. Nada. Zilch. 2 minus 2. Naught. Nothing. 0.

Cuthwulf

Quite lost the plot havent you wolf!
What is this 'ONLY' resource we have?
It is one thing to argue a point with valid information quite another to manipulate that information to fit your argument. Ultimatly such actions will always come out and weaken your position.
I would rather people argue that the human population has grown so vast that we have to consider our future resources, consider the damage caused by urban sprawl on the natural environment and other such arguments that are valid (and in the uk all too evident).
Creating a climate of fear will produce a climate of contempt once that which caused said fear is proven false

cmp

'wolf' - Your rant shows perfectly that AGW is about ideology not science.

Sergey

Never underestimate power of ideology. If it could, as we all know, compel people to murder other people by millions, it certainly can compel them to fabricate scientific data. While it is debatable if environmentalism is a religion, it is undeniable that it is an ideology with vast political ambitions. Ideology trumps up science at every turn.

C. Gee

The essentially gnostic nature of the warmist science is now revealed. Who is "closed-minded" in the debate?

wolf: to what level of simplicity do you wish humanity to return in order to save the planet from plunder?

JohnBUK

Wolf No-one is saying "carry on as we were". The fact is the GW lobby have cried "wolf" (apt) and at the same time tried to stop all discussion on the matter. Given this also happened with immigration, EU, Multiculturalism et al then people have rightly become fed up with being told what to think and do with no discussion. If we can have an open and reasoned discussion of this issue then I'm sure whoever's case is the stronger the public will fall in behind it. Just don't expect us to be railroaded anymore.

Tel

wolf, stop trying to change the subject. They've been caught red-handed.

On Channel 4 News we had cross-examination lite of some professor sticking up for Phil Jones. The defence for the word 'trick' is that it is colloquial. Of course. 'Hide the decline' - misinterpreted too.

Then this defender of Jones had the gall to say that the risk to reputation was so great that no scientist would do such a thing!

Yes, and the risk of being imprisoned for murder is so great that no person would ever...

Oh, members of the jury, I rest my case.

Dag_T

There are other files besides the emails in this material: Computer code, with the scientist's honest and unfiltered comments on how the programs work or don't work.

The emails are bad, but the other files may be worse, from the CRU's point of view. The established temperature history (HadCRUT3) of the last 150 years is at stake.

Augustus

The whole Kyoto approach to Global warming is unravelling in time for Copenhagen. It is now obvious how much climate alarmists have exaggerated the man-made effects of global warming. In so doing they have trampled on human rights, democracy, and even prosperity itself. Growing numbers of scientists now affirm that human activity has but a very limited impact on the world's climate. Human activity accounts for barely 4% of total CO2 emissions, natural processes and volcanoes account for all the rest.The greenhouse
effect of water vapour is even 900 times larger than carbon dioxide. And it is because human reduction is so difficult, and the human proportion of CO2 in the greenhouse effect so low, that a universal climate plan can produce only minimal effects
at such a very high cost. A cost
that can only be explained as a new idolatry. A Golden Calf to be sacrificed on the alter of the 21st Century.

Roger K

Wolf typifies the fanatical zealot who thinks that the end justifies the means whatever the casualties of truth.
I don't know what the reportage is like else where but here in New Zealand all the news media with the exception of Newstalk ZB, have clamped an embargo on the story of the emails.
This is because our government is in the process of making race based deals on forests and emissiond with the Maori Party! It will leave the nation paying through the nose for decades.
Will someone please help break this news black out!

Vern

I note that you don't actually address anything in Melanie's article, Mr. Wolf.

Watt Tyler

Putting the straw argument and attempt to smear aside, I think wolfs post reveals a lot about the proponents of AGW.

S/he doesn't like the idea of "the few" benifiting at the expense of everyone else - just as you would expect from a good Socialist.

And isn't what this is all about? A means to implement an Anti-Western, anti-capitalist, anti-democratic system of slavery upon mankind.

If it was just about who is wrong or right about a matter of science, then they wouldn't be as shrill as they are.

Baron Pipin II

wolf @ 6.52:

wuff, wuff, wuff...

Straydingo

Wolf, you are having a laugh arnt you?

Or are you having a meltdown (excuse the pun) as the bubble bursts?

prm

I wouldn't assume hacking btw. It could easily be a whistleblower after the FOI was refused. However, Watts up With That's opinion is that it's more cock-up than hack. Because there was a possibility of the FOI request going through it looks like they may have had a zip file ready. The emails stop the day before the request was denied (hehe). And as often happens with work colleagues collaborating on files, it may well have been simpler to have it somewhere accessible to them all. And to any half-awake surfer-by who happened to peruse their server, it seems...

St Bruno

How can we ever trust such a collection of politicians and climate change scientists, surely, CO2 is not the problem. The problem is more the grab for money and how to do it and get re-elected, or in the case of the British PM, how to get elected to the post in the first place.
The whole of the British parliamentary tribe better watch out because your average Brit is getting fed up to the back teeth with the untruths that pour from them day in day out. One more silly Tax might do the trick. Don’t they ever learn from history anymore, taxes are the root of most revolutions. Push the plebs too far and bread and circuses will not be enough to shut them up, it will be blood on the streets, metaphorically of course, where have I heard that before?

Dixon

"Totalitarianism": DDT was the spearhead of the WHO campaign to eradicate Malaria. Violet Carsons book "Silent Spring" , triggering the Environmentalist movement, lead to DDT being banned. The first big "Green" victory. Malaria remains endemic throughout much of the world. Since DDT was banned it has killed at least 100 million people. Ergo, Environmentalism has been responsible for more deaths than Hitler and Stalin together. Truly, it deserves a place alongside the worst totalitarian dogmas in Human history.

Dixon

"wolf
November 23rd, 2009 6:52pm
Bloody hell! According to Philips,Lawson et.al its cosmic rays(the hand of God?) "

Obviously Wolf doesnt know the first thing about the subject. Sun spot activity is not "cosmic rays". Which, by the way, are not the "hand of God" but a very real force that would make life on Earth untenable but for the protective effects of our atmosphere and magnetic field. For Wolfs information, which you might refer to NASA or Greenwich Observatory to confirm, it has been known for over a century that the Earths climate fluctuates in direct response to sun-spot activity, the so called "Maunder Cycle". At the moment, there is a pronounced absence of the usual increase in sun-spot activity expected at this point in the cycle, which is expected to correlate with a cessation of warming driven by the increase in sun-spot activity prior to this. It is singularly ironic that whereas warm-mongers try to ridicule sun-spot cycles as an influence on temperature increase, now that the upwards trend in temperature has ceased, they are turning to the unusual absence of such sun-spot activity as an excuse for the fact that global warming has indeed ceased.

Obviously, the spots themselves are not the basis for this effect but the processes within the sun that their cycle of appearance indicates.

Dixon

"Oflife
November 23rd, 2009 7:12pm
@Wolf: Spot on, although I think there are biblical references to taking care of the planet. Something along the lines of "Look after it, and it will look after you!" (Eco karma?) ;) - I tend to concure with much of what M has to say about the situation in the Muddle East, but on this one, not at all. We need to get away from oil - period - and go solar. No other energy source makes sense or is so clean and politically safe.

Just how many animals consume or use carbon to keep warm or travel?

Zero. Nada. Zilch. 2 minus 2. Naught. Nothing. 0."

Oh, how "spiritual", how ecclectic ( Katma in The Bible, man ). But for your information, ALL life on Earth consumes carbon, whether its plant life that breathes it or the animal life that feeds upon the plant-life. WHEREAS, civilisation DOESNT "consume" ANY carbon...it only releases it as a bi-product of its consumption. DOH!

gary ashton

there's nothing wrong with care-taking the planet and living harmoniously with it but the political manipulation of the truth to milk the population and keep them in fear is a scam.

Watt Tyler

Over at Devils Kitchen
they are getting to grips with the HARRY_READ_ME text file which reveal what a muddle the CRU researchers were making of the code. It makes entertaining reading. Laugh out loud as the wheels come off the Global Warming Scam!

Also news that "the TPA are reporting Prof Phil Jones and colleagues to the Information Commissioner for what appears to be a deliberate attempt to breach the Freedom of Information Act".

I am afraid any news outlet that now continues to report Global Warming with a straight face will look extremely silly indeed.

daniel maris

I believe deletion of files with the intention of evading the provisions of the FOI Act, as proposed by one of the scientists, is actually a criminal offence. Can anyone elucidate? If so, that's quite a serious matter, is it not?

By the way - anyone see the Newsnight programme? Generally, not a bad report, but what was all that stuff about black pebbles and white pebbles. Were we really supposed to take that as a serious argument? Sometimes the urge of TV types to infantalise us beggars belief!

Baron Pipin II

George Monbiot apologizes and calls for prof. Jones resignation, but doesn't drop out altogether from the AGW bandwagon. When the ship's sinking...

Lee Jakeman

Yes, "wolf". Those who criticise the dishonesty of climate change fanatics, like me, are all planet-hating nutters who want us to become extinct. Bring on the Apocolypse! Death and Destruction! Armageddon!

Terry from Oz

Should this deceit not be investigated criminally? If scientists are deliberately misleading us to a totalitarian nighmare for purely ideological reasons, how does this differ from a Nigerian email scammer? I cannot see any difference in the morality of the two, except that the Nigerian email scammer is possibly more small time than the pretend scientists.

John Levett

Watt Tyler:

"And isn't what this is all about? A means to implement an Anti-Western, anti-capitalist, anti-democratic system of slavery upon mankind."

Agreed, but what Wolf and his Pavlovian greenie friends don't seem to realise is that their idealism has been conscripted and exploited by the very forces they're kicking against. What we will end up with is a western, capitalist anti-democratic system of slavery upon mankind where a handful of the very rich - Al Gore, for example - will continue to freely use the resources that Wolf holds so dear while obliging the rest of us to live the lives of serfs.

Control is power, control is money. Control of our energy use will curb individual freedom - even now, you can bet that somebody is finessing the argument to limit our access to the net, all made possible by the greenwash 'science' invented to support misplaced Gaia idealism.

As the bankers have already shown, capital is not beyond wrecking economies and even nations in its pursuit of wealth: the prospect of making us pay for life itself has been the holy grail now kindly delivered by well-meaning but naive greens.

Wake up Wolfy boy - you're not saving the planet, you're just cannon-fodder.

Philo

Dixon,
"Philosophy as an epistemology is the use of logic to determine fundamental truths..." I can only suggest you read a recent text on philosophy and on the philosophy of science before holding forth. I am surprised at the confidence with which contributors here adjudicate between scientists. I am also surprised at how confident some are in their philosphical prowess. Since we are all lay people in these questions, we should be less absolute in asserting our opinions.

tommy

For those interested
"The fall of the Republic" full HQ version is now viewable on You tube
The "architecture" of the new world order

http://tinyurl.com/yz22got

cici

edhardy intimates
www.lookedhardy.com

cufleyburgers

Dixon - I think the point about cosmic rays is that in the theory to which you are referring, it is the variation of sunspot activity which affects the amount of cosmic rays reaching earth which in turn affects cloud formation which in turn affects the amount of energy absorbed.

Still Wolff is clearly a dangerous and ignorant socialist nutter... I can even agree that it makes sense to reduce waste, reduce oil and gas consumption, explore alternatives, but let's do it on a sensible market based timescale. the idea of torpedoing the word economy for this now-discredited AGW stuff is insane

Ray

Stalin would have been proud of them.

Frank P

Cry wolf

Keith

Notwithstanding the current controversy [which I expect to play out for some time yet] there is surely the fact that our fossil fuels are indeed a finite resource as are the rainforests around the world. Add to that the expanding world population and it seems reasonable to conclude that a speedy development of alternative energies is the least we owe our children.AGW or not. The scientists with their massaged data do us no favours. When found out this leads many to conclude a conspiracy or at best the elite recognising a bandwagon that they can soak us with further. Science, like Democracy is dead in the UK

Baron Pipin II

Frank P at 10.25:

Witty, you clever chap, but lost on him.

Neil Craig

There is also the fact that Professor jones got £13.7 million worth of grants for this rubbish whereas the "great & good" have been calling for the imprisonment of Exxon executives because they gave a few hundred thousand for balanced research.

With the best will in the world we humans convince ourselves of what it is in our interests to believe & the fact that politicians have been giving our money exclusively to construct this scare story, making us more tractable, not to balanced research is why it has happened. He who pays the piper calls the tune & this tune has originated with government.

tom

Monday night truly is becoming comedy night.

Last week it was Oborne and last night Channel 4 News just regurgitating Phil Jones' defence with blacmange questions to some other spod and then - the piece de resistance - came Newsnight.

I know the BBC is biased, but this took the biscuit. First came a silly film from science editor Susan Watts. Don't worry about the discrepancies between global warming computer models we were told.

Eh? What next? When Paxman says ‘jump’ we say ‘how high?’

We weren’t done yet.

Then we had the ‘interviews’. Mr Paxman questioned on the basis that what all this revealed was that the public were ‘naive’ - I kid you not. That was the word he used.

Mr Paxman continued that words had been taken out of context and that it looked bad - but no-one had done anything wrong.

Who are we to question why the BBC has spent the past decade supporting all this guff? They couldn’t possibly have got it wrong.

So wrong they could never admit it, even when the whole shebang is exposed for what it is?

Ruth

I asume that the electricity that Wolf used to power his computer on which he typed his comments was entirely generated by wind or solar power. Also that he doesn't have a car, doesn't heat his house up, and also stops breathing several times a day in order to reduce his carbon emissions.

Linda Smith

Philo, in another of your false assertions, you posted: “since we are all lay people in these questions”.

Speak for yourself. You may be a lay person in these questions – I’m not. I’m qualified to teach “these questions” to lay people like you.

Ian C

Amen to AGW. This means that sceptics must now be heard, at a minimum. And I don't think it likley it will stop there.

In the nick of time and surely the work of a whistle blower?

Cheeta Watch

So what can we expect next?

Well one thing we need not expect is an apology - it will not come despite the acidity of allegations of ignoring the 'consensus', including against Melanie.

Rather I suspect we will now gradually see a shifting of the argument (see wolf for a poorly articulated example) and a general side step from AGW to something like "we knew all along that there were alternate views" and "look, there are differences of opinion, but do you want a better world or not?" and "despite the latest emails - they were only emails for goodness sake - calm down...the facts remain..." etc etc.

But where will all this leave the hard up taxpayer? Still paying for Kyoto/Durban II/Dublin Conference et al?

If we thought the UK Parliament expenses scandal was shocking, we hadn't seen nothing!

Dixon

"Linda Smith
November 24th, 2009 12:28pm
Philo, in another of your false assertions, you posted: “since we are all lay people in these questions”.

Speak for yourself. You may be a lay person in these questions – I’m not. I’m qualified to teach “these questions” to lay people like you."

Linda Smith, I second that. Although I am not qualified to teach these subjects, as far as the philosophy of science is concerned I have studied it academically on and off since 1976! Probably before "Philo" was born. But in any case, if you look at his comments on an earlier thread ( "Smoking iceberg" ) you'll see that he actually has neither knowledge of the basics in the topic nor comprehension of things he has had explained to him.

That said, at least he isnt "Wolfie". What an apt moniker for a caricature of "Citizrn Smith".

Dixon

Keith...Like others here, I draw a distinction between what might be called "realistic" environmentalism and the ideological, quasi-religious "Neo-Environmentalism" that has tied its colours to the mast of CO2. Its a cheap jibe of the latter to label their critics as blind to all the issues that they only raise as an aspect of their determination to express self-loathing and misanthropy.

In fact, I go as far as to believe that AGW hysteria actually sucks resources from campaigning on much more palpable, real and immediate environmental issues. In fact AGW doctruine has forced us into adopting some policies that are tangibly bad for the environment. Particularly forcing people to use the "low energy" light bulbs that all contain a dmall anmount of mercury. Most of the millions of these being sold now will end up in the regular household rubbish, in land-fill. Noone has cared to explain where the thousands of tonnes of mercury thereby released into the environment are going to go. In fact, whilst New Scientist revealed that manufacturers are struggling to invent a packaging material that will absorb mercury vapour released from bulbs cracked in shipping and retail, that this hazard exists has been kept remarkably quiet during the build up to the recent uncandescent bulb ban.

To put this cover-up and lop-sided legislation in perspective, consider the fact that any OTHER products containing any, miniscule amount of mercury in their electrical components were banned throughout the EU years ago. Among other things, ending production of the popular Hasselblad Xpan camera, which was a modern, environmentally frienfly product that had only entered production a few years earlier.

This inconsistency supports the view that AGW "warm-mongering" is not really about the environment at all.

Dave

Hmmm;

"For me, one of the most telling emails was this one from Phil Jones on the Medieval Warm Period (MWP):

Bottom line - their is no way the MWP (whenever it was) was as warm globally as the last 20 years. There is also no way a whole decade in the LIA period was more than 1 deg C on a global basis cooler than the 1961-90 mean. This is all gut feeling, no science, but years of experience of dealing with global scales and varaibility"

Given this is a direct copy and paste from the stolen/leaked emails you might expect it to come up straight away in the searchable archive.

http://www.eastangliaemails.com/search.php

But no results. It's not at the link you give either. The "most telling emails" are those that don't actually exist apparently.

Perhaps someone else has a link?

Jeff Peirce

The problem is, the global warming fraud will go on, no matter what. It has become a religon, led by the Prophet Al Gore, and and his many minions.
Facts do not bother the members of the global warming religion.
It is all feelings, and an incredible greed for control of money. Nothing will shame the movement, nothing will stop it.

Baron Pipin II

Since humans as a species appeared on this planet, the climate has swung between high and low CO2 air density, and we are still here. The many a generation of humans must have adapted to the climatic swings, they didn’t possess the capacity to reverse them. That’s what we should do, too.

Ian C

Have a wry smile when you read that millions in funding has been granted to these people by the green business lobby - wind farmers and heat panel manufacturers etc. And they shout "foul!" should any skeptic be funded by the carbon lobby! Staggering.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/cru_files_betray_climate_alarm.html

Ian C

Monbiot has called for Director of CRU's head and said the science has to be reviewed in the light of this. He also says that he should have been more skeptical!!

Sounds like a hard blown retreat horn is stuck to his lips!

oh and enjy the link to a spot on Glen Beck piece.

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/even_monbiot_says_the_science_now_needs_reanalyising/

David Lindsay

Those of us who have had to deal with Biblical criticism are no strangers to academic fields defined by predetermined, highly politicised conclusions which the fields are then constructed specifically in order to "prove", to the exclusion of anything and anyone who might, by adopting a method which does not presuppose the approved conclusion, arrive at a different conclusion entirely.

At least more broadly, Marxists are the past masters of this. But they are very far from unique. "Free" market economics is another example. So is the thinking underlying the racist, misogynistic and class-oppressive population control movement. And so is that currently associated with the theory of anthropogenic global warming (although that is only the latest problem to which the same old solution is proposed), with its attack on proper jobs, on access to a full diet, on mass opportunities for travel, on the right of the poor or the non-white to procreate, and on economic development in the poorer parts of the world.

Of course, all of these are closely connected. And they are all as closed and as fundamentally fake as Marxist historiography or Biblical criticism, which are also, when put into practice, vicious enemies of the poor, the non-white and the female.

Philo

Linda Smith,
Don't be coy. Your philosophical remarks do not have the imprint of the autodidact quite so clearly as Dixon's, but nor are they such as would be expected from a qualified teacher. So are you a teacher of one of the sciences? If you are indeed qualified to teach us ignorant lay people, please do: If there are 99% of the scientific community advocates of climate change caused by humans and 1% sceptics, how do you, as one qualified to judge, adjudicate between them? I have received a variety of snorts of derision, but as yet no answer.

Hysteria

so in the face of what appears to be the smoking gun that lays bare finally the whole AGW myth - and prior to all the politicos rushing off to Copenhagen - where is the MSM?.

This could be the largest single issue affecting the economy, ever......

Where is the outrage? Apart from Lawson - where are the calls for investigation?

Maurice, MD

Re Dave on MWP --

The Medieal Warming Period was from about 800-1100 AD. During that time wine-grapes were grown in England, and citrus fruits were grown in Scandanavia. And Greenland was settled and farmed.

It would take more than a few degrees rise in temperature to allow that.

Then the Warming ended, the climate grew colder, and the Europeans in Greenland could not return to Scandanavia because the seas were frozen, and they all died out.

But civilization in general got into and out of that Warming Period with no dire consequences.

And those climate changes, like all climate changes, were caused by variations in solar radiation.

The AGW set cannot control the sun, and the rest is bunkum.

Roger K

This is great, even my comments to this blog and even though they carry no abuse and only deal in facts are not getting through. I have posted two reports which have disappeared!
The news black out is complete certainly here in New Zealand.

Dixon

"Philo
November 24th, 2009 7:05pm
Linda Smith,
Don't be coy. Your philosophical remarks do not have the imprint of the autodidact quite so clearly as Dixon's, but nor are they such as would be expected from a qualified teacher. So are you a teacher of one of the sciences? If you are indeed qualified to teach us ignorant lay people, please do: If there are 99% of the scientific community advocates of climate change caused by humans and 1% sceptics, how do you, as one qualified to judge, adjudicate between them? I have received a variety of snorts of derision, but as yet no answer."

Lets explain it very simply. We take turns to point out the many ways in which Philo exposes his ignorance. He goes on to repeat same "tells". Thus some here end up snorting in derision. Philo, yoiuve only yourself to blame!

And, no, Im not an "auto-didact" but was taught by other people. Not that the method of acquisition of knowledge has any bearing upon its substance. Only my possessing that knowledge whilst obviously you do not.

Dixon

Amidst all the sneering at Gore, though he rightly deserves it, if for nothing else than claiming on US television that the centre of the Earth is "millions of degrees"...lets remember which politician was first to give legitimacy to talk of "global warming" disaster. It was about twenty five years ago. It was Margaret Thatcher.

Borisov

Hysteria @ 7.17:

That’s the thing, nothing will really change, far to many important people would have to take a lot of an egg from their faces, and soon the brave Monbiot will repent for overstating the importance of the data fiddle, that good prof. Jones will keep on telling us that we are to fry next year at the latest, the Nobelised American Pinocchio will get richer on charging us for breathing, green taxes will kick in in a big way…

That’s the way we live, now.

De Rigueur

Dear Dixon,

Carbon is good. It's just a bi-product of burning. Something every creature on earth does, whether breathing out or flying to Rio, or just wandering through the swamp. Stop worrying and relax about us humans. Most of us care and love the rest of you.

Bob

It gets worse,the data and software applications are now being examined and by many accounts they are total garbage.

Jennifer H

Jeremy Paxman must be given a role in a pantomime so he has a full time platform for his hamming on Newsnight on Monday evening. Here's the transcript.

Jezmond: (Sombre look) "I suppose the thing to emerge from all this (huge pause - because the thing to emerge is that the government and the state-subsidised broadcasting corporation have been exposed as dupes of the silliest kind over decades and they know it) is that the public are naive about language like this (language like 'trick' and 'hiding the decline')."

Somehow he delivered it with a straight face. Like The Koran, words no longer mean what they say they mean but what liberal leftist dupes say they mean (it's clearly habit forming).

Let Mr Paxman play Jack and at the close of the pantomime say: "I suppose the thing to emerge from all this (long pause) is that if you're going to grow a giant beanstalk, you should know what meat dishes to cook it with."

John.

Oflife: Virtually ALL living things use carbon in one form or another to keep alive and, in may cases, to keep warm. Plants are largely made of carbonates, and eating carbohydrates gives animals , including human animals, energy and keeps them warm.
Wolf: try a bit of reading,logic and reasoning: solar energy will never be more than a tiny palliative to the general and gigantic human thirst for energy. There is NO substantive evidence that the minuscule amount of man-produced carbon dioxide, (and monoxide) in the atmosphere has even the slightest effect on the climate. The climate is altered by changes in the balance between the amount of cosmic radiation reaching the Earth from outside the solar systemand the amount of magnetic radiation reaching us from the sun. The amount of, and presence of, sun-spots is the crucial factor. If you believe, (and belief is quite different from knowledge), that 0.00 something of a gas in the atmosphere is going to change the climate, I suggest you consult a psychiatrist. Warming and cooling graphs co-incide EXACTLY with changes in the above-mentioned balance.

Dixon

"De Rigueur
November 24th, 2009 9:30pm
Dear Dixon,

Carbon is good. It's just a bi-product of burning. Something every creature on earth does, whether breathing out or flying to Rio, or just wandering through the swamp. Stop worrying and relax about us humans. Most of us care and love the rest of you."

Crikey mate, your obviously new here, havent read my postings. Hence you are repeating only what I said near the top of this thread, as though I hadnt said it already!

The last thing I will ever worry about is "the environment". Irrespective of whether there is or is not AGW or whatever its effects may be. I give not an iota about anything save myself and my immediate circle of friends and community. Ive never met a polar bear, they serve no function in my world and I challenge anyone to show how I would be any poorer were polar bears never to have existed.
The same goes for many Human societies. The material comfort of my community comes before any other consideration. Nothing in the AGW play-book poses the least threat to me, personally.

David Alcock

The backsliding has begun. Nothing on the BBC tonight. Nothing in (my copy) the Times today. A bit in the DT but not by their usual Polar Bearist, Louise Gray.

As one of the other contributors suggested, well oiled post rationalisations are being prepared and new armageddon scenarios being developed.

Unless serious media clout gets hold of this it will slip below the horizon on skids lubricated by fair trade bananas supplied by Al Gore and the other investees.

Major Plonquer

Sirs,

There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with the 'hockey stick' curve that underpins the entire global warming argument. There are, however some very slight inaccuracies:

1. On the Y-axis the label should not read 'Degrees Centigrade', it should read '$ Billion'.
2. The Main Title should not read 'Global Warming Predictions'. It should read 'Al Gore's Bank Account'.

Other than these two minor anomalies the graph is entirely accurate.

sceptic

See, told you so.
Climate change was a con after all.
Now we can all just carry on pretending the planet is fine, use it's resources as we wish and not worry about what we leave for the people who come after us.
Our future generations will be so proud of the most intelligent species on the planet.
Maybe the parents of today will understand the future of man does not start and end with them and they will teach their children that every time they leave things on they are using resources that they may well need when they are older.
At the rate we use things today, what will be left in two or three hundred years time?

Pete

I am struggling to come to terms with this strange feeling of admiration for "Our George" over at the Guardian! In between the comments he actually give an apology for not being a better journalist! I did not think he had it in him!

I wonder if he will KEEP banging on the drum and demanding a full inquiry?

By the way Philo, keep posting, you do make me laugh so!

Sergey

Climate is a statistc (by definition). Almost everything we can know about driving forces behind it variation is derived from this statistical evaluations of the past observational data, since we can not resolve radiation balance equiations for real atmosphere (this crucial fact is almoust uknown to the public). And this ststistical evaluation is really hard and can be easily manipulated by flawed methodology. There are many precautions and nuances which need to be considered to make valid ststistical inference. And there are many ways how this process can be derailed by sloppiness or deliberate manipulation. The whole rationale behind climate scare is now compromissed and put at doubt because of demonstrable dishonesty of a small clique that collected these data and witheld it from other specialists who wanted to cross-examine the data and methods, but were denied this right. And Mann, one of the main figures in this group, already was caught with data fudging several years ago ("hockey stick graph") and had to retract. And again he refused to give his raw data to the same statistician who exposed him then - to Steave McIntiure. Such behavior is simply criminal.

Sergey

"At the rate we use things today, what will be left in two or three hundred years time?"
So, by this logic, these Paleolith men should care how much stones they left us to make tools? But we do not make stone tools anymore. And Stone Age terminated not because they run short of stones.
All human history is changing one unsustainable technology to another, also insustainable. In one brilliant short story by Issac Asimov a populist politician, leader of Conservationist party, advocated shutting up a colony on Mars because of shortage of fresh water on Mother Earth and huge consumption of resources to supply the colony. And colonists responded by tugging a huge ice asteroid from the Belt to Mars and proposed to give to Earth dwellers as much water as they need - for free.

daniel maris

Maurice MD -

What you say is quite right (well, except the bit about the Greenlanders not being able to get home because of the frozen seas - they weren't frozen most, if indeed any, of the time, so they could have got home).

However, I am agnostic on the Armageddon scenario.

If - and it is a very big if - the AGW hypothesis was correct, various runaway scenarios are quite plausible, including ironically diversion of the Gulf Stream. The point is that the greenhouse effect would continue to intensify.

I am not convinced there is any such thing as AGW. There has certainly be global warming over say the last 200 years, but the causes are poorly understood. However, I think we do have to take a precautionary approach, on the basis that it is best not to muck about too much with the atmosphere.

However, what we don't yet know is whethere there is indeed continued global warming, because the last five years have certainly been cooler than than the previous five, at least in Europe.

Philo

Dixon,
It was the manner in which you made the claim to knowledge led me to the erroneous conclusion that you are an autodidact. Anyone who can start an explanation de haut en bas with, "Philosophy as an epistemology is the use of logic to determine fundamental truths..." is deserving of more red ink than you apparently received. I urge you to return to your studies.

Linda Smith, on the other hand, has told us that she is qualified to teach the ignorant like me about the sciences that contribute to the study of climate and climate change. It is to be regretted that she declines to do so: I might finally have received a proper answer to the question with which I started (in genuine puzzlement) - How do the contributors here arrive at their confident, not to say chokingly indignant, conclusions about climate change when so much science is implicated from so many different disciplines?

Neil Craig

Philo said "How do the contributors here arrive at their confident, not to say chokingly indignant, conclusions about climate change when so much science is implicated from so many different disciplines?"

Well basically because it isn't. There is no actual factual evidence supporting catastrophic global warming There is a hypothesis & to be fair to Thatcher, back then there cwas a trend of several years warming which was not inconsistent with the theory. That is no longer the case & there are a number of other things, like the failure of air in the troposphere to warm, which ARE inconsistent with the theory.

The theory itself is simply false computer models made by people who aren't particularly good with computers (as the examination of the data leaked is showing). For years we have been told that nobody is allowed to criticise unless they are a "climate scientist" (redefined as a climate computer modeller) & now these quacks are trying to hide behind real scientists.

Sergey

"How do the contributors here arrive at their confident, not to say chokingly indignant, conclusions about climate change when so much science is implicated from so many different disciplines?"
That is the main part of the problem why climatology is an article of faith to almost everybody: it is so interdisciplinary that nobody can be expected to know more than a tiny part of it at expert level. In everything else, one have to rely on experts in many very narrow specialized disciplines. And this fact only makes it utmost important that data and procedures were transparent and accessible to everybody. Exactly this is missing in IPCC approach and CRU practices and makes their conclusions so doubtful and unreliable. I can assess only statistics, basic physics, thermodynamics and hydrodynamics. There are also general problems of applicability of deterministic models to a system which can possess chaotic dynamical behavior. From my broad scientific education background I can see many gaping holes in this "settled science", but there sure are many more, of which I am not aware.

Richard

I have to support Philo here. Normally I try to avoid using the word 'denial' for climate change scepticism. With its derivation from 'Holocaust-denial' and its implication of refusal of all argument, it seems emotive and unfair. But I can't see what other word applies to many of the comments on this blog.

Philo is basically making a simple request for open-midedness and a modicum of respect for expertise. That shouldn't be controversial. We can argue about whether there is a 'consensus', but it is undeniable that a very large number of experts in the field have advanced very substantial arguments suggesting that the AGW hypothesis is worryingly probable. It therefore deserves at very least to be taken seriously. Yet correspondents here seem only interested in finding reasons to discount it. They only respect evidence that confirms what they already think, and sneer at everything else.

As so far reported, the emails do not come anywhere near disproving the AGW hypothesis. On the most damning interpretation, disregarding the more innocent possibilities, all they seem to show is that a few scientists were cavalier, or let's even say unscupulous, in their presentation of a few bits of evidence, and that they wanted to deny a hearing to some other arguments. I don't want to excuse this, if it is really what happened. But how can it possibly invalidate the work of all the other scientists who support the AGW theory, at all the other research centres? Why is it pounced on with such gloating eagerness? Again, this suggests correspondents only interested in confirmation of what they already feel they know.

Please think about what may be at stake here. A great many experts are saying that there are very strong indications that catastrophic climate change is coming about because of human activity. Perhaps these scientists are all members of a great conspiracy. Perhaps their methods are so flawed as to produce results nowhere near the truth. Perhaps they are utterly wrong. We must all hope so. But what if they are not?

If those who warn of catastrophic climate change turn out to be right, it will be a terrible tragedy if our chances of averting it are damaged by the impression given by these emails. That this would in part be the scientists' own fault would be an irony worthy of Camus, but the consequences would be tragic beyond his imagining.

I don't know what to say to the correspondent who says he never worries about the environment because he only cares about himself, but I'd ask the others this. How should we, in principle, respond to a terrible danger for which there is a lot of evidence but not conclusive evidence? Should we wait for absolute proof before doing anything?

Stephen Fox

Philo

Whilst some people are certainly more qualified than the rest of us to speculate about the climate, it is a perfectly proper to be sceptical about their predictions.
The most damaging of the revelations in the CRU emails is that Phil Jones and his colleagues colluded to prevent anyone sceptical of their beliefs from participating in the debate. This corresponds precisely with the smell of groupthink which the AGW campaign has exuded from the start.
In purely scientific terms, the assertion that 'the science is settled' on a subject as chaotic as global weather is specious when it is made on the basis of computer programs purporting to predict the future and flimsy proxy tree ring data which produce a version of the past which is contradicted by our historical knowledge (Vikings farming Greenland during the Medieval Warm Period which Mann, Jones and Briffa have sought to 'lose'). In fact, http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html provides a list of 450 peer reviewed papers which support scepticism of man-made global warming.
The wider question of course is why an obsessive level of attention should have been paid by the liberal media to the AGW camp, and almost none at all to those (apparently very well qualified) scientists who are sceptical. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that this is indeed a political campaign, waged by people who have failed to get what they want on a purely political platform, and who now resort to a catastrophe proxy.

Stephen Fox

Dear Dixon
I much enjoyed your reference to Violet Carson writing Silent Spring. Actually she played Ena Sharples in Corrie.
You're thinking of Rachel...

Philo

Neil Craig,
This is not remotely plausible.
Sergey,
This is more what I had expected to find. Thank you. You talk of gaps in the "basic physics, thermodynamics and hydrodynamics". Have you gone back to the work of other physicists who may have plugged these gaps, or considered pointing the gaps out in a scientific forum? I am as I say an ignorant agnostic, but even I was startled by the "faith in deterministic models" applied "to a system which can possess chaotic dynamical behavior". Again, surely there is a cottage industry addressing precisely this point?
richard,
Thank you for posing my question rather more eloquently than I have.
Stephen Fox,
It is of course reasonable to be sceptical of the predictions of models. The e-mails that have been published are indeed a disgrace. There is indeed "groupthink" here as in any scientific endeavour, indeed virtually any human endeavour. I don't racall saying the science is settled. Scientists I have heard making something like such a claim have tended to say that the science is as settled as science is ever likely to be at any given time in the sense that the vast majority of qualified opinion is all one way with sufficient confidence for the scientific community to advise the politicians that the prudent thing to do is to take action. For scientists to give this advice and for politicians to consider acting on it is indeed and self-evidently political. Tree huggers and such are of course likely to become passionate advocates. It is a stretch to get from this to a global conspiracy (presumably by lefties, given the tenor of the blog) to subvert the global political system in general and the liberal capitalist democratic political system in particular.. This is plain sily, but perhaps the source of some of the choking indignation and unreasoning conviction on the science.

Charlie

Could someone please explain exactly what those involved in this conspiracy to deceive the human race are trying to achieve?

Is MP really arguing that this is a totalitarian/socialist plot by thousands of scientists to rule the world or something?

Monbiot has a spoof e-mail that shows what would be needed to perpetrate such a scam.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2009/nov/23/global-warming-leaked-email-climate-scientists?showallcomments=true#CommentKey:ec106fea-3008-4b59-ba57-dbc1aaddeff4

brulaw

Why does no media group see this as a Watergate. Get a competent IT person to work on the leaked file HARRY_READ_ME.txt and you will see that this lot (Jones/EUA/CRU) would have trouble using a pocket calculator...'Harry' spent an awful long time trying to make the absolutely apalling 'data' fit for analysis and says so repeatedly. And yet... Jones/UEA/CRU are the "world authority" on surface temperatures and have huge input into IPCC reports... hence carbon taxes and other goodies to come.

Sergey

Philo: Recently I took part in preparation of exactly such paper, by a leading Russian astrophysicist from Landau Institute of Physical Problems. It addressed a well-known gap in Milankovitch theory of orbitally-forced Pleistocene glaciation cycles: it has mechanisms for glaciation through enchanced albedo when glaciers grow, but has not mechanisms for starting de-glaciation. The author has taken the vast published data from "Nature" on these periods and made their statistical analysis. While this procedure is standard and can be expected to performed by authors of "Nature" publication, the results of such analysis never were published. The reason is that the results are confusing and incomprehensible for everybody who believes that CO2 is the main climate driver. In all 9 deglaciation events the succession of changes is such: first, methane atmospheric concentrations rise, second, they are followed by rising temperatures, and at last CO2 concentations rise. So the trigger of change is methane, temperature reacts to it rather fast, and rise in CO2 is the consequence of methane oxidation in the atmosphere. Where from all these huge amounts of methane released? From solid deposits of methane hydrate on the shelf and ocean bottom. Why they are released? Because drop of sea level (up to 130 m) lowered the pressure of water column and made these cryslallo-hydrates unstable. And the ocean, which was stagnant and unmoving at the peak of glaciation, began to circulate. During Ice Age it became warmer than atmosphere, and the circulation pumps a lot of heat from ocean to atmosphere. So we observe a rapid temperature rise and thaw of glaciers. This was a missing link in climatology: ability of the ocean to accumulate vast amounts of heat and release it into atmosphere in dependence on variation of ocean circulation patterns. Most of the natural climate variability is the result of such changes in termohaline circulation. It is really powerful heat source, much more potent than all greenhouse emissions. While my role in the paper preparation was rather technical - literature search, translation, text editing and preparation, I was impressed by a lot of new insights in climate dynamic.

Dixon

I see I was wrong about Philo, hes obviously just another troll. Im not wasting any more time on his fame.

What do others think?

Dixon

...and by "fame" I meant "game", he'll never have the former without using his actual identity.

Sergey

"Monbiot has a spoof e-mail that shows what would be needed to perpetrate such a scam."
Monbiot is idiot and does not understand that ideology, not concpiracies, are behind the most disastrous episodes in human history. Were Bolshevics "conspirators" in Monbiot's sense? Was Hitler a conspirator? No, they were ideologues. And ideology can corrupt science absolutely. Was Lysenko just a con artist? Yes, in sense. But first of all he was a useful idiot (of Monbiot type, due his utmost ignorance and sky-high ambitions) used by Stalin to strengthen his dictatorship.

Dixon

"Charlie
November 25th, 2009 1:55pm
Could someone please explain exactly what those involved in this conspiracy to deceive the human race are trying to achieve?

Is MP really arguing that this is a totalitarian/socialist plot by thousands of scientists to rule the world or something?"

The ancient argument of "I had no need to commit the crime therefore I am innocent".

Its Human nature to make errors, and then, to try to cover it up. Like Philo here.

On the other hand, every scientist who disagrees with the "consensus" is accused of being part of an actual worl-wide conspiracy by oil companies. Or, indeed, part of an ancient conspiracy of "zionists". So the loony conspiracy theorists are among the rank and file believers, not their critics.

Dixon

"Stephen Fox
November 25th, 2009 12:29pm
Dear Dixon
I much enjoyed your reference to Violet Carson writing Silent Spring. Actually she played Ena Sharples in Corrie.
You're thinking of Rachel..."

Thanks mate. She used to terrify me as a kid. There was a clip on TV recently and she struck me as,,,almost attractive! Jupiter, how the accumulation of years afflict me!

I also recently said to someone that Jacky Brown was played by Bonnie Greer! At least I didnt say Pam Grier played Jacqui Smith. That's for another day.

Dixon

Richard: "Please think about what may be at stake here. A great many experts are saying that there are very strong indications that catastrophic climate change is coming about because of human activity. Perhaps these scientists are all members of a great conspiracy. Perhaps their methods are so flawed as to produce results nowhere near the truth. Perhaps they are utterly wrong. We must all hope so. But what if they are not? "

Indeed, what if they are right? Even their worst nightmares pale into insignificance compared to events which human societies have survived in the past. In fact, the "horrors" presented by climate change alarmists are all simply that - changes, not in themselves good or bad. Just a disruption of the status quo, occurring over a period of centuries. Less rain here, more rain there. Desertification here, but a reversal of it there. Even the image of rising sea levels is ludicrously inconsequential. So, Tuvavo might dissappear beneath the waves ( although that event is already running years behind predictions ) but so what, 4000 people live there. They can go live somewhere else. Even if it was 40,000, 400,000 or even 4 million displaced, thats a figure dwarfed by the migrations that occurr world-wide anyway. Crikey, we have a million arriving in the UK from abroad every few years now.

So WHAT exactly IS so bad about the worst that can happen? NOTHING!

But theres a more fundamental question for you, one that I recently asked in New Scientist magazine: "Why the hell should I give a damn". Although they edited it to "Why should I care", the gist remains and remains unanswered. Why the hell should I make sacrifices of lifestyle or materially for the benefit of people I do not know, in another part of the world that has no relevance to me. There is absolutely no rational reason why I, or anyone else, should.

You might say that makes me a selfish person. But thats a moral judgement, not an objective reason as to why I should give a damn. Just for the record, I am a selfish person. EVERYONE is, ultimately. When confronted by the notional dilemma, "We will cause you extreme pain unless you press that button to kill a million unseen strangers", almost EVERYONE will ultimately press that button. Most people deny it, but thats only a self-deception. In fact, ample scientific research demonstrates that it takes far less to get people to commit acts harmful to strangers. Knowing this, I prefer to be honest. I would press the button every time.

So why the hell should I give a damn about climate change?

Which is all beside the matter of whether AGW is legitimate science. I maintain that it isnt. I do so with no axe to grind, because, as I have declared, I dont give a damn either way.

Keith

Dixon I take your points well and too would recognise in myself one who thinks that realism has been forgotten in the global AGW debate. Indeed for me Neo environmentalism is a symptom of the self loathing perpetuated by the left who hate that which allowed them to flourish. Namely vibrant advanced western democracy.

Dixon

"sceptic
November 25th...
At the rate we use things today, what will be left in two or three hundred years time?"

When an oil well ceases to be economically viable ( in present circumstances ) and extraction ceases, roughly 60% of the oil remains untapped. Therefore, we have yet to extract even 40% of the oil in established wells. Known oil fields are likely to be dwarfed by unknown ( although currently not economically viable ) resrrves.

Meanwhile, coal reserves are utterly gigantic. At this rate we can go on using it for thousands of years. Moreover, using Fischer-Tropsch type processes, powered by nuclear, coal can even be turned into a liquid substitute for petrol and jet-fuel. As a matter of fact, the USAF is well into a programme of rating every aircraft they operate to run on coal-sourced jet-A substitute. Already such well-known aircraft as the B52 are being flown on a hybrid mix of synthetic fuels.

But really, its the old Malthusian short-sightedness here. According to Malthus, the Human race would have run out of sustenance centuries ago. He didnt anticipate changes in agriculture, etc. Similarly, in the 19th Century, "scientists", without computers but using computational models, predicted that as the population of Manhatten kept growing, the horses needed by those people would eventually produce so much manure that there would literally be a point at which it was being accumulated faster than it could be removed and
would make life there impossible. And indeed it might have, but for such inventions as the internal combustion engine, which made horses and their s-h-one-t unnescessary.

The same absurdity applies to climate hysteria and resource obsessionalism. The predictions necessarily ommit all unknown future technologies or changes in lifestyle.

BTW, although it is a bit too far away to be of any use on Earth, the largest known "reserves" of hydrocarbons are on Titan. Indeed, the Moon and asteroids are so rich in resources that, assuming they are ever mined, they would certainly out-last the Human race.

Perhaps of no use on Earth. But under the oceans and at the Antarctic doubtless exist immense resources as yet un-touched.

All in all, the Human race is probably going to be wiped out by an asteroid-impact, a proximal Gamma Ray burster, a super-large-scale-eruption or some other major event, long before we run out of resources.

Neil Craig

Philo thank you for yet again demonstrating how totally uninterested in facts & indeed unequipped to consider them you eco-fascists are. Your response amounts to saying "'snot so there".

Do you have any answer to why the tropospheric measurements confound the warming theory? Do you even know what the troposphere is (no peeking)?

Richard Feynman described people wearing white coats & playing with flashy computers but ignoring the basic scientific principles of experiment & dare I say it, scepticism as not being real scientists but engaged in "cargo cult science". If the entire alarmist community had not been merely cargo cultists this scam would have been discredited long ago. Every last one of them, every last politician who funded them & every last journalist who published their lies without checking is criminal.

Charlie let a real scientist explain cui bono for me:

“Global warmers predict that global warming is coming, and our emissions are to blame. They do that to keep us worried about our role in the whole thing. If we aren't worried and guilty, we might not pay their salaries. It's that simple.”
Kary Mullis
Winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

More quotes from the noble & ignoble http://www.abd.org.uk/resources/quotes/gwt.htm

Linda Smith

Philo does not understand that economics is not a science - and why it is not a science.
Philo, evidently the product of dumbed-down Britain, now thinks s/he can acquire a rigorous degree level academic understanding of the history/sociology/philosophy of science via an on-line comments thread!
I suggest he enrols on an accredited course. One of the things Philo might discover is that there was an overwhelming "consensus" of believers in Newton's clockwork universe until Einstein "falsified" that theory.

David Harrington

I have created a petition on the UK Number 10 web site to gather signatures for an inquiry into this affair. If you are a UK citizen or resident please add your name to this petition.

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/HADLEY-LEAK/

Thanks

Stephen Fox

Philo, you said ‘It is a stretch to get from this to a global conspiracy (presumably by lefties, given the tenor of the blog) to subvert the global political system in general and the liberal capitalist democratic political system in particular.. ‘

My take on that would be that there is a deep well of guilt in the West for the prosperity we enjoy. Our political centre has indeed shifted leftward. I do not argue that those who are eager to believe in AGW are all paid up members of a secret plot. I do think they are overwhelmingly members of an articulate, but feeble-minded liberal middle class, and consider it their duty to educate the ignorant masses about the realities of global warming/pollution/imperialism. It is certainly the case that some among them are absolutely working for the downfall of democratic capitalism. We know that because they say so.

You do not deal with the complete absence in the mainstream media of reference to the scientists who disagree. They are ‘disappeared’ from the scene. That is not the effect merely of these emails. It is the consequence of a media, even a liberal culture which refuses to contemplate the possibility that its fond, cherished beliefs might be wrong. That is really the more charitable interpretation. The less charitable, true I’m afraid of many ‘believers’, is that actually they don’t believe. They recognise AGW as a way of obtaining what they want, and therefore aren’t the least bit interested in open reasoned debate (nor in 'saving the planet'). Hence the lack of interest in technological fixes, nuclear power and so on.

As for subverting the political system, they do not need to. If they can control the public debate, they control politics. What liberals want to subvert is capitalism. Whether we call that a political movement or a conspiracy is much of a muchness.

Stephen Fox

Thanks mate. She used to terrify me as a kid. There was a clip on TV recently and she struck me as,,,almost attractive! Jupiter, how the accumulation of years afflict me!

Dixon, that is so funny, thx. She obiously made a deep impression.

De Rigueur

Dixon,
My apologies. Completely mis-read where you were coming from. I couldn't agree more with you position. Keep up the blog.

Keith,
The self-loathing lot should be left to themselves on an island somewhere, then then they can spend theirs days loathing each other. That should make them happy. But, seriously you've hit on a key point.
I think that this is a subject that the Speccy should devote a whole issue to.

Augustus

There have been some good points made here. I particularly
liked Dixon's 19th Century horse manure in Manhattan. Modeling the future is all very well, but the real test of good
predictions can, only be measured against reality
itself. So, who can know today
what will really happen by the year 2100? When you think of all the equations that drive climate change, even supercomputers must struggle to produce results in a reasonable amount of time. In fact, I would imagine that the closer one looks at climate models, the greater the temptation must be to doubt their accuracy and usefulness. It may be that future geoscientists will discover previously unknown relationships in the Earth's energy balance, or significantly faster computers
will mean that more advanced atmospheric processes can be modelled. If that happens, very different results from today's simulations may well be produced
and everything predicted today may be disproved. But on the other hand, it may not. Therefore, concrete values of a century hence are really useless uncertainties. However, it remains true, that what is not certain may still be possible, even if many believe it not to be probable. as far as climate change is concerned that will probably always be the case.

Philo

Sergey,
Thank you. This is what I take to be the sort of work going on throughout the scientific community all the time, some supportive of orthodoxy, some critical, and some attempting to find a new ways to tackle outstanding problems. The consensus at any time is the only basis scientists have to give advice on practical matters. This does not mean the process of investigation, criticism, and revision stops. Of course, when money is involved, and politics, the pursuit of truth and disinterested advice gets mixed up with murkier motives. This is one reason why whoever published these e-mails did a Good Thing. But it is surely invalid to infer from all this that all the scientific work done under the umbrella of climate science is a wicked conspiracy.

Philo

Dixon,
A few hints to help you broaden the horizons of your solipsistic world:
Anthony O'Hear An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science.
W.H. Newton-Smith The Rationality of Science.
Ian Hacking Representing and Intervening.
C.A. Hooker A Realistic Theory of Science.
Philip Kitcher The Advancement of Science.
Stahis Psillos Scientific Realism.
Samir Okasha Philosophy of Science A Very Short Introduction.
Two brief quotes to get you started: The first is from Psillos, "The inadequacies of Popper's anti-inductivist views have been well thrashed out in the literature..." The second is from Newton-Smith, "Like Popper, Lakatos hopes that there is a link of the appropriate sort between corroboration and verisimilitude, and like Popper he fails to provide any reason for thinking that there is such a link..." At the very least, there is more to it than you appear willing to concede.

Onanicist

To Dixon

That you of all people didn’t suss Philo right from the off on the “smoking iceberg thread” is one of those heart-warming things that makes me a big fan of the regular bloggers on this site! :) Glad you’re back and in full flow again. Love yaz.

Sergey

Even the best supercomputers can not predict future behavior of a system which is inherently unstable. This is known as "butterfly effect": swing of butterfly wing in one hemisphere can cause a hurrican in another hemisphere. Instability of wheather patterns makes impossible long-term weather prediction. The models used in coupled ocean-atmosphere circulation for climate prediction use the same algorithms and data that weather forecasters. Supposedly, smoothing can remove this feature, that is, climate is more predictable than weather, but nobody has proved it so far, and I have grave doubts if this is true. Nothing in my experience with chaotic dynamics supports this common assertion.

daniel maris

THE REASONABLE PERSON'S CREDO

There may be global warming. They're may not.

If there is global warming its causes may be anthropogenic - or they may not.

If there is anthropogenic global warming we should take such measures as are necessary to avoid major negative effects on the environment and humanity, assuming such measures are possible.

If there is global warming but we cannot determine its causes we should adopt a precautionary approach and proceed as though it is caused by anthropogenic factors, unless there is strong evidence to suppose that such factors could not account for the degree of climate change.

At all times there must be complete openness of debate and free discussion with no persecution of those who deny global warming or its alleged anthropogenic nature.

John.

Richard,
I think one of the main reasons people are so fed up with the pro-AGW scientists is that so many of them have knowingly withheld crucial evidence and, above all, have done so because their jobs and fat incomes would be at stake were the truth to emerge. The release of methane from the floor of a much shallower ocean and the cosmic/magnetic radiation balance are the most likely explanations for noticeable climate change, are not difficult to understand or surprising, and do not involve humans in any way. The most improbable reason has been insisted upon because it provides very large research grants to scientists, prevents alternative research being undertaken and provides job security, and long-running political capital to socialist politicians. People don't like being deceived and that is why many in these columns are rather cross about the whole business. Surely this is not hard to understand?

Dixon

Daniel Maris.
The Reasonable persons credo...only applies with regard to reasonable demands. the demands of environmentalists are very far from reasonable. Roughly £500,000,000,000,000 unreasonable in fact.

Please read my earlier comment on the matter to see why "I dont give a damn".

Richard

John,

You make your accusations so sweepingly, suggesting that all 'pro-AGW' scientists are venial and dishonest, and motivated only by funding and prestige. I can be as cynical as the next person, but a point comes at which cynicism turns into a sort of reverse sentimentality: an easy, reductive answer to every complexity. I simply can't see that there is any warrant for your generalisation. And the giveaway is how selectively you make it. Are you saying that 'pro-AGW' scientists are generically dishonest, while opponents are purer than pure? What is the evidence for such a general claim?

You then advance an alternative theory - one I find quite interesting, but I'm not in any position to evaluate whether it is the 'much more likely' explanation. Why do you think so? And why don't more climate scientists agree with you? If your answer is, because they are all conspiratorially suppressing the truth in order to corner all the grants, please give me some evidence beyond a couple of opaque, ambiguous emails. In all fairness, you should at least admit that there are massive incentives and vested interests on the other side as well. Why doesn't your cynicism point in that direction also? If it doesn't, one has to suspect a prejudice.

And I'm a bit puzzled by this oft-asserted link between environmentalism and socialism. The communist regimes were the worst polluters of all, and socialist governments - can one conceivably call New Labour that? - tend to pursue economic growth with as much determination as capitalists. Trade Unions, too, are often hostile to environmentalism, seeing it as a threat to industrial jobs. I can see the reasoning in a way, since environmental protection primarily comes about through government legislation. It's hostility to government, more than to socialism specifically, isn't it?

Correspondents here seem to see environmentalism as some sort of dominant orthodoxy. Environmentalists, on the other hand, feel that they have succeeded in changing almost nothing. At most, a few marginal adjustments have been made; nothing that begins to make a difference on the scale required, if you take the danger seriously. Consumerist values are as powerful as ever. So why do the anti-environmentalists here feel so angry and cheated? Your ideas are the ones entrenched in power.

'Don't give a damn' Dixon,
I'm not sure whether to applaud you for your brutal honesty or suspect you of winding me up. Are you, though, giving yourself a little bit of wiggle-room when you say you only care about yourself, your family and your 'community'? What are the boundaries of that community? Is it the great human family? The country? The village? Does your idea of your family extend to its younger members and their future children? Perhaps you care more than you are letting on.

Anyway, if you have indeed been bleakly honest, I wonder how many of the other sceptics would identify with your credo. Is 'I don't give a damn' the real essence of the sceptical, anti-environmentalist position? If so, you should all really follow Dixon's example and come out and say so; especially as you are so indignant about what you see as duplicity on the other side.

If you don't share his view, why are you not dissociating yourselves from it on the blog here?

David Harrington

have started a petition for Uk residents and expats on the Number 10 web site. If you are a UK resident or national please support it.

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/HADLEY-LEAK/

if we make enough noise we can get a hearing.

C. Gee

Philo:

Epistemology has persuaded itself that the social sciences are science and not political ideology.

It would not be a great leap for it similarly to find that "climate science" is a science and not a political cause.

Epistemology has itself become a political endeavor, providing scientificity to socialism.

Pragmatist

TEN MYTHS of Global Warming

MYTH 1: Global temperatures are rising at a rapid, unprecedented rate.

FACT: Accurate satellite, balloon and mountain top observations made over the last three decades have not shown any significant change in the long term rate of increase in global temperatures. Average ground station readings do show a mild warming of 0.6 to 0.8Cover the last 100 years, which is well within the natural variations recorded in the last millennium. The ground station network suffers from an uneven distribution across the globe; the stations are preferentially located in growing urban and industrial areas ("heat islands"), which show substantially higher readings than adjacent rural areas ("land use effects").

There has been no catastrophic warming recorded.

MYTH 2: The "hockey stick" graph proves that the earth has experienced a steady, very gradual temperature increase for 1000 years, then recently began a sudden increase.

FACT: Significant changes in climate have continually occurred throughout geologic time. For instance, the Medieval Warm Period, from around 1000 to1200 AD (when the Vikings farmed on Greenland) was followed by a period known as the Little Ice Age. Since the end of the 17th Century the "average global temperature" has been rising at the low steady rate mentioned above; although from 1940 – 1970 temperatures actually dropped, leading to a Global Cooling scare.

The "hockey stick", a poster boy of both the UN's IPCC and Canada's Environment Department, ignores historical recorded climatic swings, and has now also been proven to be flawed and statistically unreliable as well. It is a computer construct and a faulty one at that.

MYTH 3: Human produced carbon dioxide has increased over the last 100 years, adding to the Greenhouse effect, thus warming the earth.

FACT: Carbon dioxide levels have indeed changed for various reasons, human and otherwise, just as they have throughout geologic time. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, the CO2 content of the atmosphere has increased. The RATE of growth during this period has also increased from about 0.2% per year to the present rate of about 0.4% per year,which growth rate has now been constant for the past 25 years. However, there is no proof that CO2 is the main driver of global warming. As measured in ice cores dated over many thousands of years, CO2 levels move up and down AFTER the temperature has done so, and thus are the RESULT OF, NOT THE CAUSE of warming. Geological field work in recent sediments confirms this causal relationship. There is solid evidence that, as temperatures move up and down naturally and cyclically through solar radiation, orbital and galactic influences, the warming surface layers of the earth's oceans expel more CO2 as a result.

MYTH 4: CO2 is the most common greenhouse gas.
FACT: Greenhouse gases form about 3 % of the atmosphere by volume. They consist of varying amounts, (about 97%) of water vapour and clouds, with the remainder being gases like CO2, CH4, Ozone and N2O, of which carbon dioxide is the largest amount. Hence, CO2 constitutes about 0.037% of the atmosphere. While the minor gases are more effective as "greenhouse agents" than water vapour and clouds, the latter are overwhelming the effect by their sheer volume and – in the end – are thought to be responsible for 60% of the "Greenhouse effect".

Those attributing climate change to CO2 rarely mention this important fact.

MYTH 5: Computer models verify that CO2 increases will cause significant global warming.

FACT: Computer models can be made to "verify" anything by changing some of the 5 million input parameters or any of a multitude of negative and positive feedbacks in the program used.. They do not "prove" anything. Also, computer models predicting global warming are incapable of properly including the effects of the sun, cosmic rays and the clouds. The sun is a major cause of temperature variation on the earth surface as its received radiation changes all the time, This happens largely in cyclical fashion. The number and the lengths in time of sunspots can be correlated very closely with average temperatures on earth, e.g. the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period. Varying intensity of solar heat radiation affects the surface temperature of the oceans and the currents. Warmer ocean water expels gases, some of which are CO2. Solar radiation interferes with the cosmic ray flux, thus influencing the amount ionized nuclei which control cloud cover.

MYTH 6: The UN proved that man–made CO2 causes global warming.

FACT: In a 1996 report by the UN on global warming, two statements were deleted from the final draft. Here they are:
1) “None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed climate changes to increases in greenhouse gases.”
2) “No study to date has positively attributed all or part of the climate change to man–made causes”

To the present day there is still no scientific proof that man-made CO2 causes significant global warming.

MYTH 7: CO2 is a pollutant.
FACT: This is absolutely not true. Nitrogen forms 80% of our atmosphere. We could not live in 100% nitrogen either. Carbon dioxide is no more a pollutant than nitrogen is. CO2 is essential to life on earth. It is necessary for plant growth since increased CO2 intake as a result of increased atmospheric concentration causes many trees and other plants to grow more vigorously. Unfortunately, the Canadian Government has included CO2 with a number of truly toxic and noxious substances listed by the Environmental Protection Act, only as their means to politically control it.

MYTH 8: Global warming will cause more storms and other weather extremes.

FACT: There is no scientific or statistical evidence whatsoever that supports such claims on a global scale. Regional variations may occur. Growing insurance and infrastructure repair costs, particularly in coastal areas, are sometimes claimed to be the result of increasing frequency and severity of storms, whereas in reality they are a function of increasing population density, escalating development value, and ever more media reporting.

MYTH 9: Receding glaciers and the calving of ice shelves are proof of global warming.

FACT: Glaciers have been receding and growing cyclically for hundreds of years. Recent glacier melting is a consequence of coming out of the very cool period of the Little Ice Age. Ice shelves have been breaking off for centuries. Scientists know of at least 33 periods of glaciers growing and then retreating. It’s normal. Besides, glacier's health is dependent as much on precipitation as on temperature.

MYTH 10: The earth’s poles are warming; polar ice caps are breaking up and melting and the sea level rising.

FACT: The earth is variable. The western Arctic may be getting somewhat warmer, due to unrelated cyclic events in the Pacific Ocean, but the Eastern Arctic and Greenland are getting colder. The small Palmer Peninsula of Antarctica is getting warmer, while the main Antarctic continent is actually cooling. Ice thicknesses are increasing both on Greenland and in Antarctica.

Sea level monitoring in the Pacific (Tuvalu) and Indian Oceans (Maldives) has shown no sign of any sea level rise.

Source: Friends of Science website.

Philo

The discussion briefly strayed from the ethics of science to ethics more generally: The primitive egoist and solipsist is not to be reasoned with. He is utterly dependent on others for his food and shelter, for his safety and comfort. He is a freeloader or parasite. But he is not to be reasoned with. The rest of us must simply be grateful that such creatures are so rare.

Sergey

IPCC 2007 claimed that "with 90% probability the current rise of global temperature is caused by anthropogenic CO2 emissions". Everybody familiar with scientific literature in probability and statistics knows (or should know) how telling this number is. There are two different measures used in these fields: probability and likelihood, or confidence level. But probability can take any positive value between 0 and 1 (or 0 and 100%), so it rarely equals to some round number like 90%. On the other hand, confidence levels used in statistics (in assessment of statistical parameters) always take standard values 0.95, 0.97 or 0.99, but never so low values as 0.9 (90%). So what this figure 90% means? Probability or confidence level? Neither. This is a wild guess from a thin air. They can not say how they derived it, because they didn't. There is no robust calculation or probabilistic model behind it. Of course, in a commercial advertisment or a political speech you can see such "90% probability", but not in a scientific or engineering paper, because such statements are, strictly speaking, meaningless and can not be verified (proved or disproved). They are metaphors, expressions of subjective belief and only look "scientific". If modern science really could quantify human contribution to greenhouse effect or simply CO2 contribution to it, we will be given real numbers, with confidence limits and confidence levels, not such phoney "measures". But it can not do this. Q.E.D.

Sergey

Richard: Since you challenged me, too, "come out" about my moral position, I can not ignore this challenge. It is simple: know limits of your responsibilities, limits of your knowlege and limits of your jurisdiction. They exist and are rather narrow, much more narrow than most star-eyed do-gooders imagine. I must care about my wife and my children; to care about my cousins is not my responsibility, just as about my grandchildren: this is a responsibility of my children. I can not know what invention and innovation will emerge in next 30 years; so it is not my jurisdiction to judge what course of development is better for future generation - except what already contained in God's commandments and moral instructions based on Bible and ecclesiastical tradition. Well-being of New Guinea cannibals is not my legal or moral responsibility, too, unless I am a missionary or administrator appointed to manage their affairs. In short: Do not play God, be humble in your assessment of your capabilities and your place in the grand scheme of things. Do your own business and leave planet stewardship to our Lord: He is better equipped for that task than you.

PHIL

Jennifer H
November 24th, 2009 10:00pm----- Paxman has one objective when he spoils our screens every night at 10.30(ok too many nights)and that is to show what a smartass he is and to put down other brighter people .He precludes us from obtaining the truth in his pathetic pursuit of ratings regardless of the cost to us poor viewers .I am confident he knows very little on the subject of climate change or even hizb ut tareer as do I ,but I admit it and will keep my mouth shut and hope he will allow those that do know to tell us -Last night he managed to make an idiot of himself whilst insulting both the aptly named Ed Balls and Paul Goodman AND AS USUAL STOPPED US FROM FINDING OUT WHAT REALLY WAS GOING ON -

gosh now I feel better :)

phil

I said I would not comment on this subject and I will keep to that but my tea is not ready and so I will waste some of my time too by plagiarising the late great Tony Hancock by using part of his famous line "shut your cakeholes and let those that do know tell us "-I am fairly certain that most of you just like me have not a clue on this subject ,but I would rather listen to the career scientists who may know a little more .I feel it will be a little late when we are being consumed by the fires to hear Mel and her no CC followers say" sorry phil,we wuz wrong."

Please shut all your cakeholes and let the scientists argue it out -TA :):)
Dixon I exclude you from this,you usually do know what you are talking about.

john.

Richard: a brief answer to your queries re my "opaque and ambiguous e.mails" - (which I had tried to make as concise and to the point as possible). 1. I don't think that an argument based on impartial facts can be termed "cynical" 2. I base my argument on what I have read in Lord Lawson's "An Appeal to Reason - A Cool Look At Global Warming", Henrik Svensmark and Nigel Calder's "The Chilling Stars" and Christopher Booker's "Scared To Death - From B.S.E. to Global Warming". Also articles read here and there from time to time. If you can find articles on this subject by Professor Lindzen, an American climatologist, or Paul Reiter, a specialist in tropical diseases you may find them enlightening. 3. There is in fact far less vested interest on the side of the opponents of AGW. This is because it is difficult to get tenure in universities if you embrace these unpopular ideas and even more difficult to get nice fat research grants - these plums almost always go to AGW proponents. 4. The ideas I presented are far from being "entrenched in power" - quite the reverse. The discredited IPCC is entrenched in power and its pronouncements are the ONLY ones taken seriously by our government, and indeed other governments. 5. Many climatologists do indeed agree with the ideas put forward by me in my letter but are gagged and even threatened by AGW proponents. You can easily check all these FACTS in the above-mentioned books and articles. 6. The socialists want votes. To get these they support the current orthodoxy so as curry favour with the vast majority who neither think nor read. That IS a private unprovable opinion! I hope that this answers your queries satisfactorily.

John.

Richard: A short P.S. - read what "Pragmatist" has to say below.

john.

Phil: You presume too much: some correspondents here DO know what they're talking about and, in any case, no-one is obliging you to read what you disapprove of.

Richard

John,

The 'opaque and ambiguous emails' I meant were the hacked ones, not yours. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

You say:

1. I don't think that an argument based on impartial facts can be termed "cynical" 2. I base my argument on what I have read in Lord Lawson's "An Appeal to Reason - A Cool Look At Global Warming", Henrik Svensmark and Nigel Calder's "The Chilling Stars" and Christopher Booker's "Scared To Death - From B.S.E. to Global Warming".

The cynicism I referred to was your readiness to attribute dishonest and venial motives to everyone on the other side of this argument.

Impartial? Can you really be suggesting that these authors are impartial? They are all leading sceptics. Impartiality would mean citing arguments and sources from both sides, and giving all a fair hearing. It's a bit like the other contributor here who thinks you make a statement more convincing by writing FACT on top of it.

And have you any evidence to support this melodramatic talk of people being 'threatened' and 'gagged'? Threatened with what, exactly? The sceptic authors you cite haven't exactly had any problem getting their message out. Again, there is this weird sense of victimhood.

There are many other vested interests beside academic ones - many richer ones too. Dare I mention the oil companies? Would you be willing to accept that there has been some underhand behaviour on both sides of this argument? That would be more like impartiality. Does anyone honestly think that hacked emails from the opposing organisations would make terribly edifying reading either?

More ruefully, I have to say that the most pervasive vested interest against the AGW theory isn't the oil companies and such like; it's all of us, me included. I don't want to make these sacrifices any more than Dixon does - well, maybe a bit more, but not much. Part of me believes, when I'm optimistic, that a less consumerist life might actually be a more satisfying life. There is some evidence suggesting this - Richard Layard et al. But more often I'm very daunted, and dismayed at my own abject failure to make changes.

Sergey - in peace, as rival fans say when they talk on the football blogs -

Thank you for responding to my 'challenge'. Your principle of humility, and knowing the limits of one's own expertise, commands respect. I hope it applies to environmentalist and sceptic alike - that has been the main thrust of Philo's contributions, I think, and Phil's too. Since you ground your position in a religious faith I cannot really share - though I have my moments - I can't say very much in response. Of course, there are many Christian environmentalists who would differ from you in their interpretation of Christian obligation, and many other Christians who would interpret 'love thy neighbour' more widely, even as far as New Guinea. But, beyond saying that, I should leave it to them.

DaveP

As in all matters, money is at the root of it all. European governments and the EU as a whole, including the main opposition, must have outlines of their budgets for at least the next five years. All these budgets are predicated on the assumption that there is a bonanza to be had from Anthropogenic Global Warming/Climate Change. After all they have spent an enormous amount of capital, both political and monetary, for this outcome. They cannot now afford to accept that AGW/CC is a scam. For one, there is suspicion that they were privy to the scam. For another, each and every government in Europe, plus the EU, would go bust without this AGW/CC money.

Joshua Currie

May I also say that rising sea levels is NOT a direct result of melting ice caps. At the Triple Point of water, 0.01 Degrees Celsius, ice displaces the same amount of water as its volume would were it in liquid form. Rising sea levels are a result of the oceans warming up and therefore expanding - childhood science tells us that particles that are warmer have higher energy, and take up more space (to use a terribly unscientific phrase) comparatively. Therefore the sea essentially has more volume, and so rises - it has nowhere else to go.

paul leach

On this subject I trust the opinion of James Lovelock, an independent, brilliant and recalcitrant maverick; because from his broadcasts, books and lectures, I have adjudged his warmth, humanity and honest character as reliable. He puts it very simply: The sea level is a perfect planetary thermometer; as they warm, ice melts and water expands. The global sea level is rising continuously! Unless you believe the AGW conspiracy extends to falsifying those data as well, that part of the AGW argument is true.
Now if there is a conspiracy promoting the anthropogenic cause, what is the motive? Who would benefit from decreasing economic activity, less flying, less manufacturing, lower oil consumption, lower profits? The pressure is all the other way isnt it?
Uncomfortable it may be, and well we might rebel against the moral fervour with which AGW "zealots" impugn our lifestyle, but my bet is that the AGW theories are more or less correct.
So is it less or is it more? Lovelock thinks it's more- that the IPPC has badly underestimated!
One last thing: cataclysms CAN happen, can't they? There really were dinosaurs once?

phil

john.
November 26th, 2009 10:29pm

Phil:" You presume too much:" --what did I presume John ? If you are not a climate scientist may I suggest you take my advice as above and start eating cake because I do not wish to be consumed by climate change due to the opinions of those that know nothing but wish to say a lot .You will note if you read carefully that I have offered no opinion , as I know nothing about this subject and assume you and many others here also know nothing .It is well known that professionals who give good advice to clients who then ignore it have fools for clients and I have no intention of being one . This-silly discussion only arose because a few careless people wrote thoughtless emails and the media as usual has latched upon another way to sell papers .

You may well make sound comments on other threads ,but on this one the reading of a few books cannot equip anyone to give a valid opinion .Scientists spend their whole careers studying their subjects and here we read so much from those who wish to downplay their findings without any education in the subject .it is both foolish and very dangerous to all of us .
May I suggest you read Dixon whilst eating your cake :) -yes if you want to hand it out just be ready for a little to come back your way

maddy

Lawson was the only modest voice of reason howling "Wolf" like in the wilderness. I did not read in his book any mention of leaving it to God like presumably all our muslims in the UK. believe!

Sergey

Joshua Curie: Technically, you are not right. At freezing point ice takes more volume than water, that is why icebergs float. But floating ice displace exactly the same volume as its water content due Archimedian law. Even if all floating ice will melt, the sea level will not rise a bit. Land ice is another story, and melting of land ice sheets after termination of ice ages produced 130 m rise of the ocean. Now there are pretty little land ice that can melt, since Antarctic temperature is well below melting point: -50 C, so no expecting warming can melt it. Theoretically, the main reason of ocean rise is, indeed, thermal expansion of water. But the salient fact is that ocean does not warm: most (99%) of present warming occured at the land. As I already mentioned, ocean is not in thermal equilibrium with atmosphere, it is 13 degrees cooler. And it maintains this non-equilibrium state quite well. So forget ocean rise, this is non-problem from physical point of view. At worst case, we are talking about 1.5 mm/year, which is 10 times less than annual tectonic uprise in many places.

Sergey

James Lovelock is not just a maverick: he is clinically insane. Only such pompous ignoramuses like Obama and Gore can take this fantasist's fears about rising seas seriously.

Stephen Fox

'Please shut all your cakeholes and let the scientists argue it out'

The reason many of us are so angry about this is that a balanced debate is precisely what is NOT occurring, either within the scientific community or outside it. This is what is demonstrated by the CRU emails.
I wrote to Philo above: 'http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html provides a list of 450 papers which support scepticism of man-made global warming.
The wider question of course is why an obsessive level of attention should have been paid by the liberal media to the AGW camp, and almost none at all to those (apparently very well qualified) scientists who are sceptical. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that this is indeed a political campaign, waged by people who have failed to get what they want on a purely political platform, and who now resort to a catastrophe proxy.'
I repeat: whether we call it a conspiracy, a political campaign or a millennial guilt complex, there has been no debate. A relatively small number of committed climate scientists (working largely with computer prediction models) have succeeded in controlling the science, and their view has been eagerly taken up by the media and political world. Please note too, Richard, that the academic and state based funding of research hugely outweighs that of Big Oil - $billions to $millions. Many younger scientists know that they risk their very careers if they express sceptical views.

I take no pleasure in saying all this. It is stunningly awful that such a complete dislocation should occur in our societies. I accept that many of those who believe in AGW are honest and sincere people, but scepticism is the basis of all enquiry. At the very least, the CRU emails reveal that the databases which are the foundation of the assertions of catastrophic warming are chaotic and flawed. At worst they may be simply wrong. As a basis for moves which will place throttling constrictions on our capacity to manufacture goods, move around and keep warm in winter, they may themselves be the catastrophe.

Kate

How does the American public react to the biggest scientific fraud in history?

Gore Flees in Panic from Chicago Book Signing

Snake Oil Salesman Run Out of Town

November 25, 2009 (LPAC)â”Not since Henry Kissinger fled a team of LaRouche organizers, in the back of a delivery truck in New York City's Central Park in the early 1980s, has an obese fascist moved so fast to escape an angry crowd, as Al Gore did today in Chicago. Appearing at a bookstore in the downtown Loop, Gore was confronted by a team of demonstrators from a grass roots group called "We Are Change," as he was signing his latest fascist screed on the global warming swindle. Gore bolted from the bookstore, raced down an alley, jumped into a waiting car, and tried to speed off, with protesters chasing after him and banging on the car. Midwest LYM organizers, who were also on the scene to confront the global warming swindler, provided an eyewitness account of Fat Albert's flight of fear.

Make no mistake about it. This little encounter is typical of the kinds of things going on all over the country, as the fascists who brought you the near-destruction of the United States and an onrushing global Dark Age, are no longer walking the streets, smug in the belief that they are literally getting away with murder. The mass strike dynamic is playing out in thousands of ways, every day, and the recent revelations about the "smoking gun" emails from the East Anglia University global warming propaganda center, have made Al Gore's life a little more miserable.

As Percy Shelley wrote in "The Mask of Anarchy," "We are many, they are few."

The writing is on the wall for the "Global Warming" fraud.

John Levett

Paul Leach -

"Now if there is a conspiracy promoting the anthropogenic cause, what is the motive? Who would benefit from decreasing economic activity, less flying, less manufacturing, lower oil consumption, lower profits? The pressure is all the other way isnt it?"

You don't really believe that these are the objectives do you? They're certainly green objectives but they've long since been hijacked by government and corporate interests. The 'saving the rainforest' clause was quietly dropped from the draft Copenhagen treaty: the unaccountable, tax-raising global governance measures were always the main focus and we thought the EU federalist stitch-up was bad!

john.

Richard: "The Sceptical Environmentalist" and Bjorn's other books give another slant on this subject, but I'll keep to what we're discussing. Now, I have never said that I attribute dishonest and venal motives to ALL on the other side - just to the vociferous members of the IPCC and their "scientific" comrades. Most advocates of AGW are the crowds of people who just go along with the prevailing orthodoxy without it ever occuring to them that it may not only be wrong but also that its proponents actually know it to be wrong. So, the vast majority of AGW supporters are unenquiring dupes. When this AGW theory was first publicised it seemed a reasonable thesis to me, but, on considering what the other available specialists had to say, I was very quickly disabused. Both sides have been considered. Obviously life is too short for me to train as a qualified climatologist so what can an interested person (in any subject) do but read around the subject to find out what the experts in the field have to say and, if possible, discuss it with informed people? This is how one "knows" something about it Phil, by the way - how ever else do you yourself inforn yourself before addressing the manifold subjects I see you confidently pronouncing upon? The authors I have cited DO give the counter arguments - which they then proceed to disprove and demolish in a totally convincing way. Full chapter and verse of death threats being sent to climatologists, who are keen to publish the results of their counter AGW findings, are given by Christopher Booker in the book I mention. Attempts to stifle or fix anti-AGW findings are also given by Lord Lawson in his book. I very much doubt that either Christopher Booker or Lord Lawson would stoop to telling lies. Very few anti-AGW specialists manage to be heard. The authors I mention and a few others I haven't mentioned, managed to get a hearing bacause no-one knows what an author is about to publish till it's published. Only then does hell break loose. Look at the case of "The Satanic Verses" for example. It may well be true that there are other vested interests concerned - and the main ones are the governments who have backed the AGW theory so as to reap enormous tax revenues from putting the fear of God into people. But, surely the only thing that counts is the truth regardless of who it favours or threatens? And how are we to discover the truth if not by sifting the evidence through reading and discussion?

Sergey

John Levett is absolutely right. Remember H.L. Mencken:
"“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”"

David Price

Wolf - no one is advocating trashing the earth; but just because we need to take care of our environment doesn't mean we need to 'buy' this AGW myth hook, line and sinker, with all the implications it has for the poor, developing nations and indeed us too. Your 'one wrong warrants another' argument could be used to justify Hitler's existence in WW2, keeping as he did Stalin at bay. Obviously, it's bad logic. We need to care for the planet, but that doesn't mean allowing ourselves to 'believe' (for that's what it is) this threadbare 'made up' science.
The warmists need to take a reality check; the trouble is they see this as their 'passport' to changing the world in the way they want; that's why they're so vitriolic about anyone who dares question their 'faith' (for that's what it is)...

John.

Phil: To try to gag people from talking about a matter of such great consequence as the rightness or wrongness of the AGW theory, on the grounds that they are not qualified to speak does not seem commendable to me. How do you think that would have gone down with the citizens assembled in the Athenian agora in the time of Pericles? It seems that your argument is that no-one discussing this "knows" anything. But how, in the name of God, do you propose that anyone could "know" anything? No one on Earth has the time to become an expert on every subject under the sun, so people resort to the shortcut of finding out what the actual experts themselves say by reading and by talking with informed people. This is a matter of some moment and NEEDS to be fully and intelligently discussed by people who have done their homework - and I maintain that such people are to be found in these columns. Of course, I am perfectly prepared and willing to accept any "cake" that comes back to me! I would be a fool indeed to embark upon any discussion if I were not ready to defend myself! When governments intend beggaring nations for generations to come on the grounds of what some crackpot and, apparently somewhat dishonest, scientists, say, then, I would say, that the time to speak out very loudly indeed has come.

Girma

Thanks Melanie for a good article.

Based on their own data, there is disagreement between the IPCC projections for the mean global temperature and the actual observations

Kevin Trenberth is right to say, “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t”

Ctesibius

Possibly the most ignorant question of all in this thread is the one articulated by Oflife, the second commentator: "Just how many animals consume or use carbon to keep warm or travel?"

The answer, of course, is that they ALL do. This is why animals exhale carbon dioxide.

phil

John I have no wish to gag anyone ,questioning is fine and necessary but assertions are not ,unless backed by sound scientific research and knowledge .I am happy to discuss this with you with cake at my expense and listen to more Hancock pronouncements anytime :)

PHIL

Stephen Fox
November 27th, 2009 12:07pm -STEPHEN If you read into what I have said you will find that I agree ,but I want to see the debate between those who have some knowledge of the subject and not those who just want to make a noise in order that we can see how clever they are ..This is a critical moment in the history of this planet and it is the best minds who need to be applied to the problem not the windbags like many in the QT audience last night -

We did not hear from one scientist last night so why should I believe either what Melanie says or any of the others .I am sick of all the conspiracy theories ,here is a new one, I think from me :).--the neocons (whatever they might be )want to rid the world of oil and promote their own new form of energy in order to totally control the world .only problem is they do not have one .-AH WELL :)

Anyhow I have written a lot again today ,can,t shed the feelings of responsibility.,so to keep Wilhelm happy I am going to a boxing match where at least I can understand the swopping of blows ,have good weekend .

POSTED YESTERDAY BUT LOST IN THE ETHER

Sergey

I know from my own experience how misleading statistical indicators can be and why a free access to raw data is crucial for assessment and checking of all statistics-based research. Different procedures of averaging, smoothing and pooling of data can lead to very different conclusions. There are lots of arbitrariness in it, and the fact that for many years CRU team refused to share their raw data to leading statisticians and climatologists should raise many red flags long ago. I do not trust any IPCC graphs exactly because of this lack of transparency about methodology of data processing.

John.

Phil; If one thinbks about it there are only two kinds of knowledge - first-hand personal experience,(it is "known" that an egg is being eaten, a blackbird heard, a rose smelt, a beloved touched, a newspaper read and so on), and the reported experience of others, (it is "known" that the Classical Greeks thrashed the Persians, that water contains two hydrogen atoms and one of oxygen, that New Zealand is about as far away on Earth as you can get and so on. This "knowledge", not being first-hand, is always a matter of trust and belief. Life is not long enough to do all the research first-hand. Whether it is to be trusted or not depends to a large degree on the reliability of the reporters and witnesses and to some degree on the ease with which one may verify the reported "facts" oneself. Travelling to New Zealand, while expensive, is not too difficult: analysing the composition of the H2O molecule would however be beyond the easy capacity of most people, and travelling back in time to prove the facts about the Persian Wars impossible. So, re AGW, we are dealing with scientific research, for which most of us will depend upon the reports of researchers other than ourselves and the reliability and trustworthiness of both the researchers and the reporters of the research results. As in any other similar case we have to discriminate and judge between those who appear on the available evidence to be trustworthy and those who don't. I would not put such a task beyond the abilities of most normal, sane people. On the evidence - which is considerable and easily available - there can be no doubt whatsoever that evidence has been tampered with, suppressed and even falsified by the climatological specialists in the IPCC and their colleagues. It is also clearly apparent that not only has it been extremely difficult for anti-AGW research results to be publicised but also that the climatoligists concerned have been threatened, even with death!, if they intended to publish their results. It seems to me that we can confidently trust Nigel Calder, Lord Lawson 6 Co. to tell the truth. Likewise, it has become increasingly apparent that we cannot trust much of what most pro-AGW researchers say. The only way most people can legitimately address this question is, as I have said previously, by reading reputable authors and talking with informed people. I do not think that leaving it to the scientists is a good plan at all, as some of them have a declared interest and some of them are manifestly dishonest. In any case this is too serious a matter not to be put into the publc arena - it directly concerns all of us because of the massive tax burden we and our children and grandchildren will have to shoulder if the bogus claims of the pro-AGW lobby become the only accepted orthodoxy. Of course popular television programmes will trivialise the issue and present the bias of the presenter(s), but surely, in these columns we have a chance to be a bit more serious? We have as much right to pronounce upon this matter as upon any other "second-hand knowledge". I would much enjoy accepting your kind offer of free cake and a face-to-face discussion but as we don't know how to find each other and as I spend much of my life in Latin Anerica, I fear that that would be less than easy.

john.

Phil: P.S. That this is by far the most visited of Melanie's recent blog sites shows that this is a topic that deeply concerns a great many people. Restricting the discussion to a narrow élite seems, therefore, to be less than commendable to me.

phil

john.
November 28th, 2009 6:21pm -thank you for the sensible way you have approached this subject and a lot of it I agree with as I am sure you know ,,although I believe Lord Lawson has said something similar to what I have said .I will not bore you with repetition but I will emphasise that what I want is informed discussion and not so many making unnecessary noise -of course I do not include you .One day I hope we can eat our cake together ,at least I speak Spanish :) hasta luego y recuerdos

George Steiner

Seeing how keen you fellows are to debate global warming, why dont you pick on something with a little more meat. How does this strike you?

The hypothesis that the planet and its atmosphere is a gereenhouse is false.

kiwi

Actually, John (November 28th, 2009 6:05pm), New Zealand is not that far away. I just need to look out my window . . . and there it is! Except that it's dark right now (and as I live in a rural area, really dark) and I can't actually see it. But it'll be there in the morning, I'm sure.

Thanks anyway for mentioning "sane and normal people" in the same paragraph as New Zealand — it doesn't always happen. Also, we have plenty of H2O hereabouts but I'm not sure that we had anything to do with the Persians copping a hiding from the Greeks — you might be thinking of Australia; lotsa Greeks in Melbourne.

Speaking of Australia, our transtasman cousins have saddled themselves with a PM who is consumed with a messiah complex. The Aussies have long had delusions of grandeur (annoyed at not being in the G20, having an aircraft carrier in their navy, believing themselves equal partners in everything with the US, and so on) and Kevin Rudd is its apotheosis (not sure if that's the right word but it looks impressive). He's all set to front up at Copenhagen with a Grand Plan, something to stun the world (and save it), something that will elevate himself and his country to the forefront of . . . et cetera, et cetera, leading to himself being cited alongside Gandhi, Churchill and Roosevelt as a Giant of Mankind. Unfortunately, backbenchers in the federal opposition parties seem to have scuttled his ship before it could get up a head of steam (non coal burning, of course).

My fellow Kiwi Roger K seemed almost in tears at the lack of media coverage of the leaked emails story. It is annoying but at least we have a more down-to-earth fella as PM in the shaky isles. John Key, currently being pressured by all sorts of despots at CHOGM, Brown included (also, incredibly, Sarkosy — what's he doing there?), has described Copenhagen as likely to provide great photo opportunities but nothing of substance. He puts his chances of attending at five to ten percent.

The Australasian dichotomy pretty much sums up the whole climate debate . . . a planet-saving messiah PM on one side of the ditch, a pragmatic businessman on the other. And for the cherry on top, New Zealand's Minister for the Environment has a degree in civil engineering; Australia's is the ex-leader of a rock band. Dinkum.

Henry Martin

It's Lysenkoism.

john.

Another point of view is that of Bjorn Lomberg, author of "The Skeptical Environmentalist" and "Cool It". He says that even were the AGW thesis to be true, all the collosal expense of countering the effects of GW would simply delay the inevitable by a mere 5 years over a century! Secondly, he suggests that if governments are determined to tax their citizens to near bankruptcy, then the money would be far better spent on eliminating malaria, TB and other curable world-wide scourges of humanity and, furthermore making it possible for every child in the world to have a decent education, instead of on the futile schemes put forward by the AGW lobby. I would add, addressing myself to the doubting Thomases, that they should try imagining for a moment that the anti-AGW climatologists and writers are actually right and telling the truth about the deceit and lies propounded by the AGW people and about the real factors involved in climate change. How do you think that they would set about informing the public about this, if not in the precise way that they are setting about it?
Kiwi:thanks for the message - I should have qualified it by adding "from GB".
Phil. thank you too - !ojalá pudieramos encontrarnos algún día!

Steve T.

Having watched the scam unfold for years, it is with some relief that I see it starting to unravel.

But is it in time to save the huge cost to civilisation that the zealots have enacted? Let's hope so.

Sergey

"On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but - which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we'd like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broadbased support, to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This 'double ethical bind' we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both." (Quoted in Discover, pp. 45-48, Oct. 1989, see also American Physical Society, APS News August/September 1996)
http://www.economicexpert.com/a/Stephen:Schneider.html"
Lysenkoism, indeed.

phil

john.
November 29th, 2009 6:04pm dacuerdo pero sin la tarta -es terrible en ESPANA ,una copa de Protos reserva ,muchas mejor :)

bartimeus

I can't argue the science , I'm not a scientist.

So how can I argue the case.

Well , the majority of the AGW theory worldwide is based on data from the CRU.

The CRU will only release data in its modified form, not as raw data.

When the CRU is hacked and asked to release the raw data to support its case and to allow scrutiny , that raw data has mysteriously gone missing, Sorry only the modified data is available.

This , in my mind , is simply what it appears to be , a smoking gun.

Further more , if this is simply a matter of Co2 emissions and is "planet threatening", ban the activities that create the emissions, the answer is not to charge people more money (in the form of tax) so they can carry on doing what they did before.

The thought occurs to me that the "Holy Grail" of governments has always been to charge people for breathing, a more cycnical person than I may just conclude that they have achieved their goal.

The cynical old polititcian in me notes that the party of tax and spend here in the UK wants a third runway at Heathrow and also wants to reduce global Co2 emissions. So the UK is guilty of creating the smoking gun , and has followed it up with a blatant attempt to have its cake and to eat it.

Perhaps I AM too cynical, surely this cannot be....

John Holland

Ive just been reading all this drivel and I have to say, bless you ,Richard, for your calm,lucid, rational and polite comments. I dont know how you stay so reasonable when these characters so consistently miss the point. More than anything, why is it so difficult for fervent "deniers" to admit there are vested interests on BOTH sides? It makes them impossible to take seriously.