Hugo, Jim and the rest………………….

stabledoor

All very good points - the people who once camped at Greenham Common are now all on climate change marches. what will be the next target of their righteous anger?

Wily Trout

It's a religion. It's based on belief in an unproven and probably unprovable myth; predicated on puritanism, mainly inflicted on others by fanatics; it has been pounced upon by the political class as a tool of control; non-believers are viciously persecuted, if only verbally at present. As Christianity turns inward-looking and self-absorbed and its power over people wanes, this new religion has risen. Science has got nothing to do with it, which is why data has to be manipulated and original data 'discarded'.

James Murphy

Enough already! Change the record, you're boring us all to death with your oh-so-reasonable level-head scepticism about AGW! - Fact is, far from striking the noble attitude you intend, your noble doubt simply pours fuel on the AGW fire. Doubt is oxygen to the AGW brigade, they use it to fan the flames of fear in the hearts of the gullible. Neither, in truth, are you half as scientific as you like to think, being driven by unconscious prejudices yourself: you say, in regard to the global mean temperature, 'Most of the evidence suggests that it is, in the medium to long term, heading upwards..' But what determines which evidence you give most weight to? And what about the evidence, implicit in your statement, that does not support your theory, why hasn't that gone into the particular pipe you smoke? Maybe because, like most AGW folk, you don't you like the tabacco? AGW ain't happening, it never has happened, and it never will. The sun controls all. - whether you and your co-religionist AGW flat-earthers like it or not.

jon ryan

"...I think it is a scandal that we are so ill-informed about science"
Here bloody here!

And:
"...The AGW lobby is disinclined to rail about what must, by definition, be the most critical factor in AGW – the tripling of the earth’s population in 50 years. They never, ever, urge birth control measures upon the third world (or indeed upon us), because it does not fit into their political lexicon."
Here triple bloody here!

If only people would learn to think, to challenge, to doubt, to accept that "hey, I could be wrong!"

But as long as we tolerate an education system that discourages free thinking and debate ("I know what's right, boy! Put down what I tell you and you'll pass!") and allow religions -all of'em - that encourage belief in transubstantiation, Your Holiness, and the mutilation of childrens' genitals (practices carried out by Jews and Muslims in `the name of god` - nice one, god!) how can we expect the next generation to believe anything ?

Regardless of what is causing climate change(I blame the pixies myself),this is dodging the biggie - population. Until we get that one sorted, it hardly matters what the sun, or the pixies, get up to.

(Nice to see some decent debate, by the way. More please.)

ed hall

Let's be honest, AGW is bollocks, but anything that might force us to wean ourselves off the oil and whims of the undeserving religious lunatics in the middle east is fine by me.

Ken

One point which certainly concerns me (direct hit on pocket) is the vast cost of the measures governments gathering at Copenhagen intend to impose on us using the (fraudulent?) theories of flagellating AGW "scientists" and co-dogmatists.

This, of course, is not to set aside the host of other issues to take with the College of Warmist Cardinals.

Taipei Exile

Was hoping for something on the Swiss referendum from you today Rod.

M Morris

Great article.

However the major reason i am a sceptic is that climate is a chaotic system and anyone who has even an inkling about the physics of chaotic systems knows that they become totally unpredictable, which means that fundmentally it is a flawed premise that these computer models can predict anything accurately other than their own bullshit.

Raffles

Spot On Rod. The arrogance in particular portrayed by the BBC towards this issue is breathtaking. Forget the old claims of left wing or liberal bias, its this AGW bias that its now most guilty of.

ee seacole

jon rynan. so you're not circumcised. learn to embrace the shame of having an ugly willie.

Tom Forrester-Paton

Brilliant - as you say this is not "hard" data about warmists, but it is good "proxy" data as they would (rather not) have it. At least you admit that it is hard to know what weight to assign to it!

I wrote the following song a couple of years ago to try to encapsulate precisely this line of thought - has it's time come?

First verse and refrain:

"Global Warming"
To the tune of “Plastic Jesus”
Well I don’t care if it fries or freezes,
Cos I’m quite sure I know the reason’s
You, your kids, you wife and your damn car,
Me and my kind can’t be to blame,
‘Cause we all agree and we think the same,
It’s you, your wife, your kids and your damn car.

Refrain:
Global warming, Global warming,
It’s the best fun we’ve all had since Y2K,
It makes us feel important,
To listen to Al Gore and chant,
And hope to hell it never goes away.
I have many more verses, but I'll spare you...

jon ryan

@ ee seacole:
1/ How do you know I'm not circumcised?
2/How do you know I have a willie, ugly or otherwise?

Perhaps I should withdraw my previous comment about `decent debate.` I just wonder how long it'll be before one of the usual knuckledraggers tries to suggest that climate change is all down to immigrants.

Hugh Janus

Rod, you're not making sense. It sounds very much like you are refusing to take a position on AGW either for or against so that presumably far off in the future you can cover yourself if AGW does indeed exist. That's not very brave of you Rod. You say that the climate is changing and the data suggests an upwards trend. Ha ha ha ha based on which statistics the CRU's? And you suspect We have something to do with it - a gut feeling? Ha ha ha.
Sorry but you can't write articles like this unless you have something to base them on and not mere "gut feelings".
I'm not suggesting that you should indeed believe in the theory or not but if you do give your opinions on it at least qualify them in some way.

Hugo Rifkind

Rod

I'm finding this all really weird and baffling, although that's probably just me being all magnificently stupid and fatuous again. I sort of expect to be on the other side of any given argument from Melanie Phillips, but I normally expect to agree with you and Mr D*. But this time, I just can't figure out what you are up to. I don't understand why all these unqualified people, yourself included, are faffing on about the science at all. Never mind whether or not you have the right to. I don't even see why you'd want to.

Complain about pious Moonbat eco-preaching, and you have me all the way. But why does everybody get so carried away? You don't need to deny the science in order to believe that Cameron is full of shit with his Arctic sledging, or that Copenhagen is nonsense, or that CO2 trading is expensive and unworkable, or that recycling does nothing, or that the right lightbulbs won't save the planet.

You don't even need to deny the science in order to say that the green lobby is primarily motivated by a weird, hair-shirt sort of totalitarian socialism. You can make these arguments anyway. They're good arguments. They're powerful. Personally, I agree with them. Point 6 is a killer.

But no, for some reason people have to go the whole hog. They have to say "not only are the proposed solutions politically motivated rubbish, but THERE ISN'T EVEN A PROBLEM IN THE FIRST PLACE".

It's weird and extreme and crankish, and I don't get the point. I know that you are personally hedging your bets, but why do you even have to? Why does the one position have to lead to the other? Doesn't the convenience of it bother anybody, at all? It's such a colossal over-reach. It's like arguing against compulsory seatbelts, and feeling that in order to do so you first have to deny the very existence of car crashes.

It's just such an enormous waste of everybody's time. Its trashing the real, sensible debate by contaminating it with web-based hearsay and lunacy. All the debate on here is about entirely the wrong thing.

H.

*although to be honest, I never really grasped the caroline flint thing either. She looks like one of the corrs after a ukranian poisoning.

rod liddle

Hugh, read the piece again mate. I'm saying that there are good non-scientific reasons to doubt AGW and that I'll come to the scientific ones in time. Of course I'm bloody sceptical; I have an open mind.

Rhoda Klapp

Rod has come a long way from the certainty of his liberal mates. It's a leeeetle churlish to criticise him for not taking that final step. His six points are well stated.

David Ossitt

jon ryan.

“I just wonder how long it'll be before one of the usual knuckledraggers tries to suggest that climate change is all down to immigrants.”

Hey; come on jon ryan you are just trying to be controversial, everybody knows that we did not have climate change before we had these floods of immigrants, therefore it must be them that are the root cause of the problem.

Before someone tries to have me hung drawn and quartered; let me first point out that my crass stupid comments above are just as wrong, silly and unbelievable as most of the claims made to substantiate the preaching’s of the ‘Mankind is the cause of global warming lobby’.

It gets worse by the day; those who truly believe in this latter-day religion now refer to those of us who do not, as unbelievers or even worse, global warming deniers, when in truth we are believers too, but we believe in a different argument.

What these bullies never acknowledge and in fact attempt to hide, is the fact that most of us who do not believe that the actions of mankind is the cause of climate change, nevertheless still believe that the climate is changing just as it always has, it is a totally natural phenomena.

Phil

Point 1 is an interesting one. I have had similar thoughts although i think the apocolyptic event that you identify has more to do with a desire to extend ones life or conversely the fear of death. If they ban the bomb i might live longer. If i save the planet i might live longer.

It really would be ironic if the reason scientists warned us about climate change turned out to be the genetic imperative- pro create, live longer. Science but leading to irrationality?

Maggie

How does Noah's flood that covered the whole earth in 2000BC fit in with manmade global warming?

Chris

'Urging birth control measures on the third world' is a fatuous idea; it seems bleeding obvious, but it's a non-starter. People limit their families when an extra child becomes a economic cost (having to be fed, schooled and housed for 18 years) rather than an economic opportunity (to be put to work in the fields, sweatshops, or wherever to produce additional income.) The ONLY way - and one that works every time - to limit population growth is to make people wealthy. The anti-trade and growth policies of AGW wankers, Fairtrade and other Green dickheads, and protectionists of all stripes, are not going to achieve this. Free trade is the answer to population problems.

hiro

"It gets worse by the day; those who truly believe in this latter-day religion now refer to those of us who do not, as unbelievers or even worse, global warming deniers, when in truth we are believers too, but we believe in a different argument.

What these bullies never acknowledge and in fact attempt to hide, is the fact that most of us who do not believe that the actions of mankind is the cause of climate change, nevertheless still believe that the climate is changing just as it always has, it is a totally natural phenomena."

Read all the studies then, huh?

David Williamson

To Mr Liddle's excellent list, I would add that the Earth is as it is, now, having endured far greater shocks to it's system - so there must be some inherent stability in the system (even though it is chaotic). The AGW models need a huge amount of positive feedback between CO2 and water vapor, for which there is no evidence (what evidence there is, Linzen, Spencer, et al. suggests that there is, indeed, negative feedback (stability)).

This is even before we get to the Junk Science of East Anglia and the Politics of International Socialism (but I repeat myself).

David Ossitt

Hugo Rifkind.

“Never mind whether or not you have the right to. I don't even see why you'd want to.”

What?

Are you saying that we who do not believe, DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT to an opinion?

rod liddle

Hugo, if I am unqualified to talk about it, how come you are qualified to decide I am unqualified to talk about? And you're talking about it too. And what level of expertise do you require in order to be able to take a view? And in what discipline? If you have a degree in climate change will that do? And if you do doesn't that beg the question, well wasn't your degree a bit parti pris? They have those degrees now: that's one of the problems.

The other problem is the arguments for and against climate change come from an enormous array of disciplines, which no single person could possibly master. But it doesn't mean we do not have right to study both the data and the arguments and attempt to reach a conclusion. Plenty of meteorologists don't agree with AGW (although a minority); what do we do about them? Ignore them?

I've listed a few non-scientific reasons why I think its right to keep an open mind and be endlessly inquiring.

And as for Caroline Flint, I'd heat uper climate until its so hot her ice sheets slip arat and her polar bears start to howl.

rod seacole liddle

In fact, Hugo, I don't think we're very far apart except on that issue of qualification....

JD incidentally, who is pioneering the Christopher Monckton kill all the greens stuff got 1.8m hits on his climategate piece; people are interested in the issues, even if you think they're too dumb to understand them.

Hugo Rifkind

David Ossitt - personally I consider it a bit like having an "opinion" about whether 2+2=4. Ie: you can have one, but unless you actually know what you are talking about there is no earthly reason for anybody else to pay any attention to it.

roy - i did read it. As I said, whether you are skeptical or not, I just don't get why the science is suddenly the issue.

Stephen Grant

Hugo
You propose that we take the AGW arguments on trust. We did that on Y2K.

jon ryan

@Chris: "The ONLY way - and one that works every time - to limit population growth is to make people wealthy."

Substitute `educated` for wealthy and you're spot on. Specifically, educate the women. Lots of studies, mostly agreeing with each other, say that family size is directly proportional to female education. Try this one: http://www.prb.org/pdf/IsEducat-Contracept_Eng.pdf

But whatever the cause, population is a far bigger danger than climate in the near term. Trouble is, while goverments will take on the science people, they're terrified to confront the churchs/mosques/synagogues

Hugo Rifkind

Rod, I think people are interested in the delingpod stance because they understand it. It's not impenetrable and dull like the other side, but exciting and brief and easy to work up a semi-informed view about. But just because one side is easier to understand than the other, that doesn't make it right.

oh whatever. I'm boring myself. off to take the recycling out and then pedal to the organic pub. have fun.

Moxon

Nice points on the non-scientific side Rod. But - to change the subject a bit:

Climate change science - for or against - cannot be 'tested', it can only run against self-serving computer models.Is it still science, any more than the theory of evolution by natural selection is science?

The climate change lobby is not so much a case of post hoc ergo propter hoc as cum hoc ergo propter hoc. To say that the weather is what we would expect if AGW is true - if it is what we would expect - is not quite to say that AGW is causing the weather - is it?

Coeur de Lion

I have this silly little credo that says whatever is supported by the Left is bound to be wrong. I suppose I could be wrong, too.

patrickinken

You would enjoy the four articles on Climate McCarthyism from the Breakthrough Institute at http://thebreakthrough.org/index.shtml

Jim Ryan

Rod, your writing skills do you credit and the general tone of scepticism is one I agree with (as any half decent scientist would) as a principled position to hold on any issue, let alone a scientific one. However, (yes, you knew there would be one of those) scepticism itself warrants justification. For example, and to exaggerate the point, if you were to hold a sceptical position regarding the germ theory of disease or the theory of thermodynamics, it could not be concluded that your position was one of rational scepticism. Frankly I would think you were barking. This is not to suggest that the theory of AGW is as solid as those two theories but it not far off. Room for a little doubt. I have addressed your points further below but first if you would grant a brief and final aside for the delectation of the contributors to your blog.

When pouring over the postings from the previous thread it is evident that the driver for scepticism from many of the contributors is political, not scientific. These people refuse to engage with the science! Conspiracy, big government, increased taxes are the watchwords of a paranoid right-wing lunatic fringe – well, it is the Spectator after all – who seem keen to muddy the waters of scientific discourse but are not prepared to challenge the scientists themselves. This phenomenon is strikingly similar to the creationist brigade in the US who are exposed to a wealth of evidence underpinning the theory of evolution and then have the temerity to proclaim ‘where’s the evidence for evolution’. Clearly they have no interest in the science as it is fundamental Christianity which informs their belief system. Their kindred spirits are to be found on these pages. We are asked to believe that the entire climate scientist community, numbering in the thousands, is cheating based on the tenuous extrapolations from illegally hacked e-mails between a handful of climate scientists. Curiously the same community is only too happy to reference the work from the very few climate scientists who happen to be sceptics. The existence of a very small number of climate scientists who are AGW sceptics is no more controversial than the existence of a small number of biologists who contest evolution. What a perverse inversion of the reality, one which witnesses a sceptical community prepared to distort, quote mine, parade its scientific illiteracy and spread downright lies at every opportunity. Nor does it have the intellectual ‘balls’ to challenge the climate scientists – You’ve been provided with the links to climate scientists, I haven’t seen any activity yet. You may also use your 'expertise' to review the data and submit your own papers. The same tired old criticisms are repeated over and over again eventhough said criticisms have been comprehensively rebutted over and over again by the climate scientists.

Rod, I won’t respond to all your points comprehensively as much of it seems to be of a socio-political nature but at the same time I acknowledge your important caveat that some of ‘this stuff proves nothing’ as well as your implicit if unstated ajoinder ‘but it does give one pause for thought’. Important stuff but my agenda is narrower, the actual science itself and understanding of it, ultimately the likelihood that AGW is actually happening. Please know that I am painfully aware that science and scientists are embedded in their respective communities and are not impervious to the myriad cultural mores of society at large. You say that scientifically ‘there is plenty of room for doubting AGW’. I await your justification of this position with interest, but for the moment if I may pre-empt your response by saying that in my opinion the phrase ‘plenty of room for doubt’ is not a rational conclusion based on the evidence.

2. I agree that the status afforded to scientists has improved somewhat, although some of the postings here might give lie to that, but generally I think this is true. I’m not aware of many scientists within the power structures of our society which seems disproportionate to the enormous improvements (and risks) bestowed to society by science. Yes, transparently self-interested on my part but true nonetheless.
I’m unsure that this modest status improvement, delivered by and large by the great popularisers of science, has induced in society at large a credulous attitude as opposed to, unfortunately, a disinterested and ignorant attitude, often driven by religious or political stupidity. I say this in sadness, not arrogance. One might also usefully compare the salaries of scientists with other professions such as legal, medical, business. Trust me it’s not very flattering and it suggests that the status of scientists is not as elevated as you might think

3. The central tenet of Popperian science is that for a hypothesis to be valid it must be falsifiable. Incidentally this is where string theory and the multiverse theory have a problem. On this AGW, or aspects there of, could be rebutted by demonstrating any of the following.
Long-term trend of global average temps below 1980 level.
Increased deposits of ice in Greenland and Antartica and subsidence and reversal of glacier retreats.
Sea level begins to drop
Models unable to retrofit past climates with any degree of accuracy
Previously undiscovered climate forcing discovered
Global temp continue to rise as CO2 falls or vice versa
Demonstrate that CO2 rise in due to changing dynamic and/or capacity of ocean and terrestrial sinks, rather than being attributable to man made CO2.

4. Too many of the scientists at the forefront of the AGW/evolution/germ theory debate have a vested interest in advancing the case for AGW/evolution/germ theory, for reasons of hubris, status and of course remuneration. You could apply this line of reasoning to all scientific theories, not terribly convincing I think. Are you saying that scientists should avoid agreeing on theories least they be accused of perpetuating their own vested interests. In my experience the number of scientists agreeing with a particular theory tends to be proportional to the evidence for that theory.

5. Agree that some deep greens manifest this kind of attitude, I’m not aware that climate scientists do. Important to separate the sometimes alarmist puritanical traits of the green movement from the climate science. AGW can be addressed without seriously challenging quality of life. As ever technology will be the saving grace but only of there is social and political will.

6. The detached observations that CO2 levels are rising due to anthropogenic activties and average global temperature has been increasing are independent of the socio-political posturings of the scientists or the public. Unless you believe a cheating conspiracy nonsense involving thousands of scientists, in which case you might as well consign all science to the flames.
I agree that overpopulation is probably a relevant if contentious issue which should be taken seriously in terms of overall sustainability. It’s not difficult to grasp, finite resources = finite population. Difficult to know what is the actual population limit as it is dependent on so many variables but at some time it is a nettle that will have to be grasped. But be careful what you wish for; some misanthropic deep greens are very keen on population control and would gladly reduce the Earth’s population to 100 million at most. I hope you will agree that the best way to ‘control’ population in the developing world and elsewhere is the education and economic liberalisation of women coupled necessarily to the retreat of fundamentalist religion.
Two of climate scientists greatest stalwarts, James Lovelock and Jim Hansen, are strong advocates of nuclear fission. Without doubt it’s part of the answer unless we crack nuclear fusion – energy nirvana, if only. Again it’s the green movement, not climate scientists, which take issue with fission but even they are beginning to come around as they decouple energy needs from the bomb.

Finally, as you all sigh with relief, it would appear that some of the contributors here are a little irked over our civilised discussion so let me put their paranoid little brains to rest by counter-offering to buy you 20 pints! That will do for one night.

jon ryan

Coeur de Lion: "I have this silly little credo that says whatever is supported by the Left is bound to be wrong. I suppose I could be wrong, too."

WOW! Breakthrough!

Now, if we could just get the Left to say the same then Rod Liddle's blog will have SAVED THE WORLD!!!

Anyone got the number for the Nobel Foundation?

James Murphy

Coeur de Lion - have the courage of your convictions! You're dead right. The Left are intrinsically thick. And deeply cruel with it. Consider: all the 20th century's moral calamities occurred under Leftist regimes. Germany, (yes, the Nazis were National Socialists!) Russia, Cambodia, etc. What further proof does one need of the inherently degenerate tendency of a political dogma. Indeed, what was the name 'New Labour' if not a tragically obvious attempt to re-brand the party away from its socialist roots?

Rhoda Klapp

Leaving the politics aside for a moment, what Hugo and those who stand with him need to ask scientists is: The CO2 effect alone will not cause catastrophic warming. CAGW theory requires positive feedback from water vapour. How is this feedback quantified in theory? How is that figure suported by observation?

I predict the answer will be a lot of handwaving, but that's just me. The trick is to see whether you get an answer at all, or just the usual appeal to authority.

While you're asking, ask them to explain the radiation budget effects, predicted vs observed by satellite.

Accept no arguments based on the historical record, which pro-AGW people have hijacked, or climate models, which are basically not reliable or validated.

James Murphy

"That’ll do for now' says Rod about his noble list, - " (although there’s much more and each of these points could be a decent book in themselves)..." - Indeed, if your aim was to bore your readership to death by a thousand chapter headings! What have we done to deserve your ruthless and ridiculously tardy punctiliousness in the AGW battle, Rod? Surely it's a bit absurd for your cavalry to arrive on the AGW scene now, when all the real and bloody intellectual warfare has already been bravely waged and won by Melanie Phillips several years before you? yes, there was a time when you could have helped. Take, the period when you were Editor of the Today programme touting all its perfervidly pro-AGW propaganda? Not quit so quick to man the defences then were we? No, indeed, principally because you were on the other side....

Baron Pipin II

Hard for me to say it, but Hugo may have a point. The AGW blogging has reached a saturation point. Most of us keep repeating the same arguments, and jon ryan keeps barging in. May be best to give it a rest for a week or two.

On the point of science, I rather treasure a definition by Sir Thomas Huxley: ‘Science is common sense at its best. Rigid accuracy in observance, and merciless to fallacy in logic.’

jon ryan @ 2.21: it's the postmen, and their bloody rubber bands.

rod liddle

James - your position, and for that matter Mel's, is one hundred times more stupid, rooted in bitterness and divorced from science than anything that's emanated from Hugo, Mr Ryan, or Monbiot. It's the sort of thing you would expect from someone who believes Hitler was left wing. I'm writing about it because people are interested in it. If you're not, then don't read it.

Jon - I'll be back after I;ve cooked family supper, which is toad in the hole. In the meantime, worry about the ice at the Antarctic, because I seem to recall...........

rod liddle

And you are so wrong about my time at the Today programme. You are a closed mind, suffused with bitterness, incapable of attempting to be objective in your assessment of anything.

David Ossitt

hiro.

"Read all the studies then, huh?"

You confirm my point.

Dixon

You miss the very basic questions that the AGW hysterics never address themselves. The most basic of all being "why should I give a damn?"

The whole apparatus of the global AGW based New World Order, cap and trade, prohibitions, rationing, taxation etc is based on the presupposition that those populations who will be paying, heavily in the long run, many with their jobs,some with our lives, owe something to those populations who are predicted to be the eventual "victims" of climate change. Typically some community of no consequence living in an already untenable environment where, frankly, their ancestors were idiots to set up in the first place, who will have decades to migrate elsewhere and who already are in huge numbers anyway. For example Bangladesh.

Its not enough to wheel out the "ethical" chestnut that "we" caused their plight, because that in itself presupposes the existence of some manner of religious or utilitarian metaphusical link between their welfare and ours in a great big lovely "brotherhood of man". Well, unless you are a believer in Gods law or a die-hard Nineteenth-Century style utilitarian moralist, such notions mean nothing. Nada. Zilch.

In summary, there is no "Brotherhood of Man", there is no rational basis by which to assume that anyone who will not themselves be personally, materially affected should give an s-h-one-t about those who might be.

Climate change is, ultimately, just change. Some good, some bad. Change is part of life. The real message put out by the Great and Good should be, It MAY happen, face up to it. Not parading on the political beach proclaimimg to the tides "go back, go back".

Dixon

On the matter of scientists, their arrogance and their being held in awe by non-scientists you would like my eldest brother. He illustrates these things splendidly. I havent spoken to him since 1985 but had accumulated enough observations of him and others awe of him by then to totally substantiate your basic argument. Let me explain.

Whilst some people use the expression "he wrote the book on it" my eldest brother, exalted in his narrow field, REALLY DID "write the book on it", the book which has for decades been required stock in every academic library covering that topic. He also knew a fair bit about a couple of other topics, mainly music, being an acomplished classical pianist. However, armed with these narrow basese of authority he felt himself entitled to declare with absolute authority a final opinion on any subject under the sun. "Final", because if anyone dared to disagree with what were, in fact, often ridiculous statements based on complete ignorance of a topic, he would keep repeating what he had said as though it were fact, until the other party gave in. Actually, I only saw this once. Because the other fact about him was that everyone in his family, in awe of his professional stature in one narrow field, accepted everything he said on anything as the final word in any case.

That one exception, the one time, probably in his entire life, that anyone contradicted him was when he and I, his wife and our parents were watching a travelogue which showed the practitioners of West Coast Latino car-hacking who were fond of replacing their rear wheels with smaller ones and, in extreme cases, furniture castors. He scoffed, authoritatively ( on the mere basis of his being a US citizen ) "you see them driving around like that because they cannot afford new shock-absorbers". That this was in itself a preposterous statement was neither here nor there, for I had recently read an article on the topic in a social science magazine ( the long gone New Society, in fact ) and corrected him to the effect that, no, that look was deliberate, even to the extent of replacing rear wheels with castors. As though my superior knowledge of the topic was the irritating buzz of a mosquito he batted it aside with an exact, word for word repeat of his daft conjecture. No change in inflexion, exactly as though saying it for the first time. So I repeated my correction, based as it was on actual information as opposed to cocky rumination. and he repeated his statement a third time, again, exactly as though saying it for the first time.

Not only was this arrogant SOB in a sense an absurdity in his constant spouting of authoritive assertions based on nothing, but he also exhibited the weird lack of proportion and maniacal unbalanced evaluation of things that today we see all around in the demands being made by environmental campaigners. You know the sort of thing, replacing toilets with earth boxes, rationing us to one flight per year, etc, etc, etc. His embodiment of this mind-set, thirty years ago, was exhibited in an incident on a mountain in Colorado in 1973. He discovered that his step-daughter had kept a tiny stone as a souvenir ( she was twelve ). He became incandescent with rage. She said it was only a little stone. True. He then came out with this ridiculous lecture about the foot of a statue of the Virgin Mary being eroded away by pilgrims kissing it, striking a preposterous analogy between that and this godawful enormous, 12,000 foot high mass of upthrusted Earths crust...snatched the stone and hurled it out of the car window. My neice, a year my junior, was in tears. I can tell you, I still loathe the bitch of a "man" for that, three and a half decades later!

These are the sort of people who constitute the bulk of the "scientific community" ( trust me, its not all of them, but I have seen the character traits in plenty of others ). Over-weening, arrogant, hubristic yet small-minded, heedless of the feelings or needs of those around them, valuing abstract notions ( "the environment" ) over real people, yet , as Rod says, regarded with awe by family and community. An awe that, outside their narrow fields, is entirely undeserved, for they are so often such very defective specimens of "humanity".

Yet we are allowing such specimens to dictate to the rest of us!

Seacole Rock

TO Hugo Rifkind, who said:
" Rod, I think people are interested in the delingpod stance because they understand it. It's not impenetrable and dull like the other side, but exciting and brief and easy to work up a semi-informed view about. But just because one side is easier to understand than the other, that doesn't make it right".

Can you turn it up a little, Rifkind -- we didn't hear you in the back row. Yep, us stump-toothed mouth-breathers in the peanut gallery didn't *quite* catch the drift of your remarks. Do you think you can be just a touch more withering, just a bit more patronizing and dismissive so we can really get the idea? We have such tiny brains, of course. Thanks so much.

Baron

Jim Ryan @ 6.10:

you waiting for a justification of Rod’s claim that ‘there’s plenty of room for doubting AGW’, are you? Have you downloaded Prof. Richard Lindzer’s paper to which you responded earlier on another blog? Doesn’t the paper furnish some scientific evidence to maintain the ‘room for doubt?’ Do you ever read anything that may contradict your belief system, or just keep on ranting ? What informs your belief system in the first place?

the paper appears to falsify the AGW theory on at least two of its aspects. You read the extracts, or the paper, and figure which ones, please.

scientists do get entrenched for a number of reasons e.g. Richard Dawkins versus Behe, Denton.

absolute pap to suggest that population control provides the answer. If and when the world ceases to provide enough sustenance the population growth will switch to self-control. Always has, always will.

unquestionably, the data furnished by the East Anglian set-up was tempered with. On top of it, the raw data went missing. Two facts that are well established, and should at least raise doubts about the validity of the theory based upon this data.

We are asked to accept as given a theory that appears to be at least in part derived from data the validity of which is questionable. Further, we are asked to accept the inevitable policy consequences that the theory demands. We are the ones who will have to fund these policies. Snow from the Channel4 News during his visit to Brazil talks to the Brazilian President and says: ‘Britain will have to pay for the Industrial Revolution’ implying that Britain was the ‘primary mover’ in the AGW. You are welcomed to join him, and pay.

Nature, or He if anyone prefers, endowed us humans with the ability to think and the ability to feel. Science occupies the realm of the former, the latter provides a check on it. If we’ve only followed the rational science, the chances are we may all be dead.

Rob M

Dixon,

Blimey. Just ... blimey. A very revealing anecdote.

Rod, just to check: is this in fact a good illustration of what you were meaning?

Chris

Jon Ryan, thanks for your addendum to my comment. You are quite right.

Rod, Hitler was left-wing. This is so blindingly obvious as to be obscure only to a former BBC employee. Apart from the existence of an oft-pointed out 'S' in NSDAP, perhaps you'd care to take up Evelyn Waugh's challenge: 'Name one thing the Nazis wanted to conserve.' If that's too hard, try reading Jonah Goldberg's 'Liberal Fascism'.

Sean

Rod, I think your arguments are well made, but there's another point which you hint at rather than make explicitly. And this is to do with the claims to scientific status of climate science itself. That is to say ontologically: what is the climate; and epistemologically what constitutes knowledge of it. I'd suggest it's problematic on both accounts.

We can't even define what the climate is in empirical terms, only conceptually. Which is why climate 'science' (in some ways it's more an art than a science) is nothing other than an amalgamation of empirical sciences, physics, biology, chemistry, geology, meteorology, amongst a bewildering array of disciplines. And why we can't predict the climate. And why we use computer models to pretend we can. But if we knew all the variables to put into the models then there would be a climate science. That's to say a clearly delimited field of enquiry called the climate. But there isn't, so we can't, and therefore climate science, such as it is, must rely on combining data from other sources, and making some kind of judgement based on our existing knowledge, which is scant enough as it is, and which by definition is non-demonstrable, testable, or repeatable, since the climate or the world or the environment, choose your own term, must forever be in flux, however we may discern trends in it, there being no other world or climate to compare it with.

There's no more reason to have faith in a climate prediction than in my tip for the 2.30 at Doncaster, in fact considerably less so, given the number of variables, knowable and unknowable in the phenomena we rationalise through the concept of climate, which serves as a kind of umbrella concept for what is in essence literally unknowable in itself, at least for a being of our finitude.

Rob

Good article. There's certainly more than a whiff of dogma which is always dangerous to science. I'm not convinced though, on the specific points:

1. There's an element of survivorship bias here, no? Socities and cultures that collapsed and disappeared aren't well represented in the sample.

2. I think the general public and the media scorn science and scientist in an unprecedented and highly dangerous manner. I think Ben Goldacre's work amply demonstrates this (yes, I know he writes for the Guardian but that doesn't make him intrinsically wrong).

3. Climate science is a complex web of interlocking theories many of which individually have the property of falsifiability and are certainly scientific. A cobbled together media patchwork fabricated by scientifically illiterate journalists, which is normally what's discussed, does not.

5. I don't know whether this is true. It's not listed as a common factor in the information I've been able to find.

6. I don't think it's a fair characterisation of the lobby to say zero or negative population growth or nuclear power aren't necessary or desirable solutions. Jared Diamond is particularly compelling on the former. It's the swelling numbers of reasonable pragmatic voices along with the shrill hysterical ones which is more convincing than a first principles review of the science at this point (or indeed at any point).

Baron

Jim Ryan @ 6.10:

and another thing that escaped me reading at some speed your great expose of the anguish of science (some of us have things to do for living).

The last para says it all really, doesn’t it? What could the little paranoid brains of the unwashed contribute to the debate? You float in your own higher world, and what’s left to us, the Dixons, Rhodas and the rest of the skeptic phylum, is to keep shtum, and carry the burden your anointed brains mercifully unload on us.

Any limit to your scientific insolence?

rod liddle

Jim - yes, as I said, my reasons for scepticism are socio-political, largely. But this is one of the problems - that the socio-political cannot be deocupled from the raw science. If the UEA debacle told us anything, it told us that. None of the information we get on this subject is neutral; it is either positively or negatively charged. None of it is free from wishful thinking (on either side).

I won't spend too much time on your obejctions to my points; briefly, I am happy to cede point 5. On point 4 I would concur that I could indeed say the same thing about any scientific endeavour, and indeed do. You cannot separate science or scientists out, no matter how rigorous they might appear to be. But on this issue the danger is far, far more acute, because of the intense and bitter political baggage, and the revenue at stake, than on most areas of research. I think you underestimate that. I also think you underestimate the number of scientists working in the field of what might roughly be described as climate studies and who do not sign up to AGW. Yes, I understand that in this field there is nonetheless a large majority who sign up to AGW. Your comments on my last point seem to me wide of the mark; yes, I'm talking about the AGW lobby rather than "pure" scientists; but the truth is they do not talk about birth control because, historically, that has been an issue for the right rather than the left (for obvious reasons). I should have added the caveat re Lovelock and a few others when talking about nuclear power: half a point conceded!

Which leaves us with the only pseudo- scientific observation of mine; the circular nature of the AGW theory, with its anti-Popperist, quasi Marxist (historic inevitability, anyone?) symptoms. And, more to the point, the Antarctic ice sheets. The following story was quite widely reported both in the spring and earlier this autumn; it does not seem to be contradicted by anyone, not least because it is measurable and tangible. And yet you cite it as one of the pieces of evidence which might lead you to doubt AGW. Well, here it is:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Environment/Global-Warming/Antarctic-ice-growing-not-shrinking-/articleshow/4418558.cms

This isn't some rogue story concocted by a nutter, as I'm sure you know. So I would suggest that if you believe the report - and I haven't read anyone who doubts it - you have three choices. Either withdraw your reference to the antarctic ice sheets as having been made in haste, or concur that it is possible evidence of a flaw in AGW. Or, the third option, insist that the ice sheets are building up in the Antarctic BECAUSE of global warming - which some have done - thus somewhat confirming the implacably circular nature of the whole AGW theory. "Man-made global warming causing earth to cool down shock."
And I would swap twenty pints for a bottle of chablis - on me, as you have been kind enough to respond with such care and both of us have bored quite a few people silly.

Alexandrovich

Take heart Rod. When, shortly after his retirement, George Carey was asked if he had any regrets, he replied
"Just the one - being cursed with the ability to see both sides of an argument."

Seacole Rock

By the way (Chief Orang-Utan of Delingpole's blog here -- hi, Hugo!):

I rather like the name CRUdgate:

http://www.devilskitchen.me.uk/2009/11/crudgate-why-this-cant-be-swept-under.html

Jimmock

Mr Rifkind: Your argument is a classic case of begging the question. It would be true if the science really was settled. But that is exactly what is moot, and especially after the CRU debacle.

The appeal to climate science credentials is a con. You have been had. Climate science is a bastard 'discipline' thrown together out of physics, paleontology, geology, meteorology and other sciences in the last twenty years. Many of 'climate scientist', to whose authority you appeal, are statistians and computer modellers. The concept of peer review has apparently been corrupted by the dominant clique in this field.

Do you not believe society is capable of mass hysteria and groupthink and gravy-training? Hint: Try to remember Y2K.

And by the way, your analogy between scientific fact (induction) and 2+2 equaling 4 (logic) shows your failure to grasp elementary Philosophy of Science.

bit thick... but trying!

Baron

I hear your points about Lindzen, but I'd add that his views seem to have met with detailed rebuttals. For a short-ish and reasonably comprehensible discussion also for non-specialists like myself see

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/02/richard-lindzens-hol-testimony/

(discussion of L.'s 2006 House of Lords testimony)

So clearly the man's views meet with some controversy. I've explained before why I go with the (scientific-) majority opinion on things I can't personally evaluate, so won't repeat myself.

On Rod's very interesting points I'm afraid I don't have the time right now to respond in detail, just a few short points:

1.One might make a distinction between topics one is qualified to comment on, and topics on which one can, well, comment on, but is in no real position to offer any substantive insight. Wisdom then lies in speaking on the former, and not the latter.

In the case of GW, one might say that people without degrees in the relevant disciplines (like me, I’m a social scientist) can very well comment on topics like how society should respond to GW and how one should deal with claims emerging from scientific communities (e.g. on what criteria does one accept a ‘scientific opinion’; on what criteria does one decide whether to accept, however provisionally, the scientific majority opinion on GW and its policy implications; does one in general go with a ‘majority’ scientific opinion or not and why, etc.; are the positions one takes on all these things consistent with one's other views and behaviour, and if not, is that a problem), but are simply in no position to evaluate most or all of the technical scientific analyses themselves. While we may ‘comment’ on these, it is hard to see what value most or all of our comments might have. On the question of arrogance, one might then argue that it is arrogant to presume to be able to comment on what one is not very well qualified to comment on. I don’t presume to comment on the quality of different climatologists’ claims and theories. I have criteria according to which I’ll choose between different views if I so have to (what’s the majority opinion, was it peer-reviewed, how controversial has it proved; is there a fire-insurance-style reason for going with one view rather than another [e.g. moderate definite costs now to avoid unpredictable but potentially disastrous costs in the future]), but I don’t presume to comment on the substantive content of the claims themselves.

2.Many of Rod’s points seem to apply much more to parts of the green movement than to the science green claims are often (selectively) based on.

3.People may or may not have a tendency to alarmism (“the end is nigh”). I think they probably do. But problematically, while many alarmist or (apparently-) hysterical claims have proved misplaced (Y2K?, tales of German attrocities during WWI), other alarmist/apparently-hysterical claims have proved horrifyingly true (e.g. during [!] WWII, stories of mass murders of Jews were apparently widely disregarded in the Allied countries, thought to be no more than replays of WWI atrocity propaganda. Then we found out that the reality was even more horrifying and inconceivable than even those reports had generally suggested). Again other alarmist tales have proved inconvenient half-way houses (e.g. nuclear power. Potentially disastrous if mishandled [Chernobyl], probably pretty safe otherwise, but liable to nasty-ish fuck-ups nonetheless [Dounray?]). So how do you deal with claims of potential disaster ahead? Simply writing them off as ‘alarmist’ as Rod seems to is, to me, unconvincing. One needs some criteria for sorting the apparently really just hysterical from the apparently actually quite bloody serious.

4. (A)GW is non-Popperian. I think someone else already dealt with this: Observations of contemporary and paleo climate accumulate that cannot be explained by the current theories and models. Finally, models and theories have to be ditched/extensively revised. Seems pretty falsifiable to me, if in a somewhat more rough and ready way than a pure lab experiment. I'm comfortable with that, but then I guess I'm a social scientist.

5. When would I accept that GW is not happening/is not caused by humans/is not a problem? When the majority scientific opinion tells me so. When would you accept that it is for the very largest part caused by humans/is a problem, Rod? What would you need to see? I think we still await an answer on that.

Thanks for taking the trouble to respond and engage with all these postings!

merlyn

The left hand, male side of the brain is about logic and organized linear thinking. The right hand female side is about imagination,intuition and creativity.
The balance of the two creates genius such as Da Vinci, Einstein etc.
I would say we have excluded the feminine intuitive, imaginative side too long and at our peril and followed the linear left for too long because we dont believe what we don't see in a test tube.
Lets go for genius.

Sean

bitthick"When would I accept that GW is not happening/is not caused by humans/is not a problem? When the majority scientific opinion tells me so."

There's nothing scientific about a majority opinion? And if by scientific we mean repeatable, testable, demonstrable, there's nothing scientific about any climate prediction, which is contingent on computer modelling and therefore on what data is selected by a human and how it is processed, both of which are bound to be questionable quantatively and qualitatively, in terms of the accuracy of measurements and the calculations. Any climate prediction relies on faith in computer modelling, which even in relatively simple engineering projects is very difficult to do accurately, let alone something with as many variables, known and unknown, as the climate.

In any case there's no means of pinning any weather event on a single ultimate cause, not least the meagre human contribution to the CO2 total, which is said to be under 4%, CO2 itself constituting 4% of the totality of greenhouse gases, so that's 4% of 4% i.e. 0.0016% of all greenhouse gases.

Even if every human and therefore every computer model suggests that any event is attributable to CO2 alone rather than fluctuations in solar radiation, there is no more means of proving it definitively one way or the other than there is of refuting it. Though I don't doubt that the evidence generally suggests that a certain amount of warming is caused by CO2 and therefore our contribution to it is bound to be a factor.

But it's a leap of faith to believe that therfore any warming is caused by humans rather than the solar system, when the one thing we can be sure about is that the earth has warmed and cooled many times long before we ever set foot on it.

Cool

Do you remember last year in Autumn, some "Cambridge expert" predicted because of GW there would be a "green Christmas"? That the trees would not drop their leaves? Even at that time, I thought it was a daft thing to say, that trees would morph from being deciduous to evergreen. Anyway, last winter was the coldest in decades. No-one in the BBC (who first broke the news) followed up on this.

Rhoda Klapp

A link to Lindzen writing in the WSJ. This encapsulates the most important part of the debate to me. It is well worth reading, especially for those who have not got mixed up in the detail up to now.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703939404574567423917025400.html

EyeSee

I think Rod's reasoning here is sound and acceptable. Jim R replies and gets close to being able to suggest science should seek proof and balance and then can't quite hold back from saying AGW is so nearly proven it's not worth worrying about. So back to the start. Yes it isn't all about science which is why I allow myself to have a view. Crossing the road is about vectors and speed/distance calculations etc, but I allow myself to do it anyway, without the relevant Degree. But when someone wants to DO something, based on science and what they say it menas, I would rather the science be allowed to be debated, tested and proven. The emails, hopefully prove to the useful idiots that it is far from settled and is in fact mainly politics. As Rod says, self-flagellation. Post religion ('cos religion is stoopid, innit') religion.

AGW comes from the same mindset ad Dawkins. The Theory of Evolution is undeniable. Well don't call it a theory then.

The reason that twelve good men and true, can help deprive a man of his liberty is because we evolved a system of justice that trusted the consensus of a group of ordinary people, with serious intent. Not because they had relevant Degrees, or some other badge of assent.

If a man was able to go back in time and explain a few things to Mr Hitler Senior, would that gentleman then be persuaded to shoot his son? He might be sympathetic, but he might want, you know, proof. He might think the action you are suggesting would justify such a request and not 'trust me'. (Though of course for the analogy to work in our case, the AGW time-traveller would be trying to persuade Hitler's neighbour to shoot his daughter.)

James

Very interesting debates! Particularly Rod, Jim and Hugo.

I started reading Rod's blogs due to my cynacism of GW However, although I am still fairly cynical, I have been incredibly, incredibly impressed with the level headed and constructive nature of Jim Ryan's arguments.

Jim Ryan

Rod, in stark contrast to many of the people here I’m delighted that you continue to engage your brain and respond to points that have been made and your acceptance that global warming is indeed happening. The socio-political context of AGW and science in general is very important and I certainly wouldn’t want to disavow this as an underpinning for your degree of doubt. My only contention is that doubt is good but it should be proportional to the evidence. In matter of fact these genuine reflections from the sidelines so to speak are a welcome rejoinder and can only enhance the scientific process, with the important caveat that the science itself must not be distorted or misunderstood, wilfully or not . They’ll probably shoot you for being in possession of an open mind. The political nature of some of the comments is exotic to put it politely and I have long ago put to rest any hope of reaching them.

If I may quickly focus on the media article you referenced. It’s important to bear in mind that AGW does not imply that the earth is warming uniformly in all regions. The point about the average global temperature is the just that, it is an average. For example, some regions, particularly the poles are warming to a greater degree than the tropics. Some local regions may even cool but the overall global temperature is increasing – this is an indisputable fact! The crux of the matter is whether this warming will continue indefinitely and whether it is largely attributable to man’s activities or is of natural origin. My point about falsifiability in the context of retreating ice is that if the artic, Antarctic and glacier ice was shown to be retreating that would create a serious doubt over AGW. Overall ice melt in the artic, Greenland, and glaciers is significant. Antarctic is somewhat more complicated and is reviewed in the link below for your delectation.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/antarctica-gaining-ice.htm

This science stuff is hard work, try reading the literature and you may discover why non-scientists or even scientists from a different discipline such as I might begin to struggle. This is why I urge all to address their issues with the climate scientists. I’ll leave you to judge why the contributors here don’t do so.
The article you present is uncontroversial but it is important that you go to source when reading newspaper articles. Dr Ian Allison is a well known lead author of the IPCC fourth report. The gain of ice in the Antarctic interior (east) is a well known phenomenon and there is a comprehensive literature –see layperson review (by a physicist, so he’s not a climate scientist per se and he is not CRU, as if ultimately that should matter) below with links to published literature. At the sametime you may want to contrast this particular level of careful debate, argument and science with some of the responses on your blog. If you contact Allison I think you’ll find he is a proponent of AGW. BTW check out Today BBC 4 this morning about British Antarctic Survey (who are referenced in your media article) on the increasing sea level predictions. The data gets stronger and stronger and is pointing in only one direction………………..
On our substantive issue of our argument which to my reading is around the levels of confidence over AGW. My confidence level is that AGW is very likely, in the language used by the IPCC report and it is a cautionary scientific language. In layperson’s terms very likely means almost a certainty. Science always leaves roon for a little doubt. You may be interested to know that many climate scientists believe that the IPCC was far too balanced in giving appreciable weight to competing theories of global warming such as solar influence. Politically the IPCC were forced to reduce 100 % confidence levels to 90 %.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/antarctica-gaining-ice.htm

In the meantime I think we should be even more generous to each other in drinking terms. A bottle of Chablis for you and a bottle of Bushmills black label for me (or Middleton rare if you can afford it). Of course you can you’re a journalist, unlike scientists in general you are well paid!

James

Interesting story about the Antarctic sea ice Rod, it might require some withdrawl from Jim, interested to see.

Admittedly though, a more impressive rebuttal would have to show global ice levels increasing over an extended period, which I guess might be the track Jim will follow if he responds.

Jim Ryan

AGW comes from the same mindset ad Dawkins. The Theory of Evolution is undeniable. Well don't call it a theory then. Eyesee @ 10.29

In science absolute proof is the preserve of mathematics. ALL other bodies of work in the sciences are formulated by theory which is underpinned to greater or lesser degrees by data, observations and science. So we have a theory of germ disease, a theory of gravity, quantum theory etc etc. Theory is not fixed, it constantly been refined and re-evaluated. If a majot observation is in contradiction to thery then the theory has to be reformulated in line with the new observation. If this is not possible the theory is abandoned and you have a paradigm shift.

Are you a creationist by any chance? You confusion of 'theory' is redolent of the creationist constant misunderstanding of the process of science. Science, thank goodness is decided on the basis of what people intuitively believe otherwise we might conclude that we live on a flat stationary planet orbited by the sun in a small geocentric universe.
How we decide how to act and what to do on the basis of the science is of course a socio-political question.

Jim Ryan

More on Antarctic ice!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/01/ozone-antarctica

rod liddle

James - you spoke too soon, or too late, one of the two, mate.

Jim - this is the problem, isn't it? Yes, the science is complex and perhaps more ephemeral than many who sign up unconditionally to AGW will allow. You stated that one of the things which might at least give you pause for thought in signing up to AGW would be the building up of ice sheets in the Antarctic. Well, according to pretty much everyone, they are building up. And Antarctica holds 80 per cent of the world's ice. So while we might agree - and worry about - melting ice at the north pole, down below ice, in Macmillan's words, has never had it so good. There's enough to fill our evening G+Ts for a trillion years or so, and it is expanding. That at least should give you pause for thought; and indeed, you said that it would. But no. This is the circular, closed nature of the AGW argument; nothing can gainsay it. Still, I'll check out the people you recommend to me.

Incidentally, I don't believe the massive build up of the Antarctic ice sheets necessarily disproves AGW - although it undoubtedly disproves the unilateralist apocalyptic shamanic approach of its most voluble advocates. I just think it might offer some evidence to the contrary.

Rhoda Klapp

My experience looking at ice data is you can find or refute anything you like. BUT, we only really have about 30 years of data. Not enough to sort the signal from the noise. However, you cannot link ice to CO2, without facing the sensitivity/feedback issue, or the radiation budget. It's also not too easy to explain how retreating glaciers reveal trees, or viking graves, in Greenland, if we haven't had warmer periods before.

Sean

Jim, the theorise you refer to are testable or demonstrable, even evolutionary theory, with fruit flies, for instance. But climate science is very much sui generis, a one off.

Climate science is predicated on computer models. What climatologists refer to as 'science' and 'evidence' are computer models, which are themselves interpretations of actual measurements and observations.

Below is a link showing contrasts of opinion between climatologists on the one hand and scientists on the other (by scientists is meant those with clearly delimited fields of investigation upon whose findings the study of the climate relies.)

This is a quote from a physicist, for example:

"There is of course much more wrong with state-of-the-art global circulation models (climate models) than the assumption and implementation of CO2-H2O feedback. Although these models are among the most elaborate predictive models of complex non-linear phenomena, they are nonetheless sweeping oversimplifications of the global climate system and its mechanistic intricacies."

http://www.takeonit.com/question/69.aspx

Hugo

This is turning into a great thread. Bravo all.

Jimmock - I actually have a degree in philosophy so please spare me your Fisher Price epistemology. Induction isn't what you think it is. (Even if it always has been in the past.*)

*joke

Frank S

As someone who has studied meteorology and climate, albeit not for many years now, I suspect we are a long way from being able to resolve the AGW hypothesis using theory and/or computer models. Both are very feeble in the face of the daunting complexity of the system under study, with variation on a huge range of space and time. So, we shall have to lean heavily on observations. As far as I can see, there have been none yet which indicate anything at all unusual about recent climate. There is no justification at all for massive expenditures, nor for crippling our economic lives with expensive energy. This also means that your 'non-scientific' arguments have greater weight than some might think.

Rob

Rod @ 1:16am

Another problem is that surely social-political arguments are intrinsically much less reliable than scientific ones on your own grounds? Is there any authority or evidence thatīd make YOU admit you were wrong? Or are you just looking for confirming cases. Lifting one idea from Popper and ignoring the rest is hardly fair.

Incidentally, this ("Seven Answers to Climate Contrarian Nonsense") from that suspicious leftist eco-warrior rag "Scientific American" is worth a read, particularly for the nutter free comment that follows:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=seven-answers-to-climate-contrarian-nonsense

Baron

Bit thick… but @ 4.24:

The site has been in my boomarks for awhile, and I’m aware of the detailed rebuttals. If I had enough time, I would get engaged. The point of contention is this. None of the rebuttals, and in particular on the value linkage between CO2 and temperature get referenced. I guess trawling through the referencing wouldn’t get me very far either what with the peer reviews being ‘fixed’.

In my years as an economist I had designed and implemented more models that many people had dinners, and I know that many of the assumptions one picks do have a bearing on what results one aims to obtain because it doesn’t require a nuclear brain to figure which of the variables push the result in what direction.

If only I could find the ‘joke’ in my filing system I would gladly post it for you. A simple model that correlated the cases of dysentery in Scotland with the UK inflation. Fantastic for a while, if run on a monthly basis, legged by a month or two, somewhere in the 50’ or 60s (I forget the details). The point being that one can not only get hooked on a spurious correlation and skew results one way or another, but also that the correlation may not be just simply say, CO2-temperature change, but CO2-something- something….-temperature change.

Still, I’ve had enough of AGW for a while. None of it seems to have impacted the top echelons of the policy-making elite anyway.

Baron

Jim Ryan @ 12.13:

‘…your (Rod’s) acceptance that global warming is indeed happening. The socio-political context of AGW…’

GW and AGW ain’t the same. Many people, myself included, are less skeptical about GW, and far more reluctant to accept AGW.

‘Science itself must not be distorted…’

The peer reviews by like minded scientists, the destruction of e-mails, the loss of data, the refusal to share data etc. doesn’t come anywhere near the distortion of science, then?

… some regions warm more, others less….

as for the very distant past: you take three trees from Yamal, a dozen from California, and few ice cores from a locality somewhere near he poles, and presto: an average temperature for the world 5,000 years ago emerges. Right?

On evolution:

Every fossil ever found points to nature being discontinuous and to the absence of sequence. One doesn’t have to be a creationist to draw conclusions from it.

Sean

Frank, "So, we shall have to lean heavily on observations."

Good point. It's worth quoting the physicist Freeman Dyson in this contest. This is from a long feature article on Dyson in the New York Times magazine, well worth reading in its entirety:

'Climate models, he says, take into account atmospheric motion and water levels but have no feeling for the chemistry and biology of sky, soil and trees. "The biologists have essentially been pushed aside," he continues. "Al Gore's just an opportunist. The person who is really responsible for this overestimate of global warming is Jim Hansen. He consistently exaggerates all the dangers."

Elsewhere he says cloud formations are impossible to model in any event. This is a man who was studying the climate long before there was such a thing as climate science, or computer models. "My interest has always been in what is actually happening in the real world, as opposed to in computer models", he says. He adds that millions of dollars are now being spent on computer models rather than actual observations! But even with observations he's sceptical of our ability not only to predict the climate but even to record it accurately. And therefore he says even the concept of global warming is a mathematical fiction. at the same time he does believe that there is a small measure of warming that can be attributed to human emissions, though he says it's nothing to be concerned over and may even be beneficial. In the NYT piece he also makes the case for coal:

'Dyson has great affection for coal and for one big reason: It is so inexpensive that most of the world can afford it. “There’s a lot of truth to the statement Greens are people who never had to worry about their grocery bills,” he says. (“Many of these people are my friends,” he will also tell you.) To Dyson, “the move of the populations of China and India from poverty to middle-class prosperity should be the great historic achievement of the century. Without coal it cannot happen.” That said, Dyson sees coal as the interim kindling of progress. In “roughly 50 years,” he predicts, solar energy will become cheap and abundant, and “there are many good reasons for preferring it to coal.” '

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/magazine/29Dyson-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=3

Jim Ryan

You stated that one of the things which might at least give you pause for thought in signing up to AGW would be the building up of ice sheets in the Antarctic. Well, according to pretty much everyone, they are building up. And Antarctica holds 80 per cent of the world's ice.
Rod @ 1.02.

Come on Rod, please go back and read my e-mail again, I didn't say the above, I said 'My point about falsifiability in the context of retreating ice is that if the artic, Antarctic and glacier ice was shown to be expanding (typo error in previous post, sorry) that would create a serious doubt over AGW'. In other words a consistent and global loading of ice around the planet would be consistent with global cooling and would have serious consequences for AGW.
More especially read the link. After all it is the climate scientists who are revealing the ice build up on the Antarctic Eastern shelf. The waters surrounding the antarctic are warming faster than anywhere else and yet there is ice build up on the Eastern shelf. Climate scientists reveal and deal with anomalies all the time - hardly a principle of cheating and cover up is it. An anomaly,Why? Stratospheric temperature over the Antartic are colder than expected due to the hole in Ozone layer and it is anticipated when the ozone hole closes global warming will exert its inevitable influence. You presented your media article as if it was a triumph for AGW scepticism but when I inform you that the phenomenon described - build up of ice in Antarctica - was well known to climate scientists and there are good explanations why it is the local exception to ice melt everywhere else, you conclude that AGW is circular. The problem here is that you have inferred from a short article in an Australian newspaper that ice loading in one particular part of the globe is a problem for AGW when patently it is not.
Read the link, read the SCAR review published in the Guardian. This is why I expressed caution that the science is very complex and is therefore subject to misinterpretation and false inference by non-specialists or contrarians. At least I'm glad you added the caveat that the ice build up does not necessarily disprove AGW - It doesn't and there is nothing circular about it. The ice build up, in spite of warming seas, has been known for years and did give the climate scientists pause for thought. And like all good scientists they addressed this anomaly by doing good science the result of which........
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/01/ozone-antarctica

EyeSee

Jim. I agree with your summation that science is not fixed but consider how these things look; Dawkins thinks anyone who disagrees with the Theory of Evolution is an idiot. Where is the flow in that? Dogmatic I think. And your own point (which I know may have been simply put for economy, so I may misread it) that I may be a Creationist, because that is the only other option available. You see how pernicious the mindset angle that worries me can be? I don't know evolution is wrong though I think there has to be a feedback mechanism that affects next generations, I merely challenge the certainty that some insist exists, when clearly it doesn't. It makes you question motives. Maybe it is because they are not asking me to fundamentally change my life, but I don't hear this sort of thing from physicists. They say there is a real problem with quantum physics. We have theories that work for the very small and others for the very large, but they contradict each other. Something is wrong then. And they agree, rather than doing the AGW Option; stand in front of the blackboard with your arms out and say 'what problem?'

On evolution and the 'other' option creationism; it doesn't strike me as odd that a God of omnipotence would create Man and the creatures of the Earth and then see what happens. And anyway, how priceless would it be if moments after he breathes his last (hopefully many years hence) Dawkins hears a voice, 'Hello Richard, my name is Beelzebub...'

Rhoda Klapp

Now the ozone hole is keeping us cool? OK, we know how to make that bigger! Or do we, why isn't it going away since we fixed the hairspray problem? Or is it not in fact true that we didn't really watch thwe hole for very long, and we don't really know what it does. Just like warming and ice melt. When there are cycles lasting hundreds of years, a couple of decades of observation tells us..not much.

Oh, did I mention ice isn't linked to CO2, except by theory, and that actual observation could prove it, but has not, so far.

Again, sensitivity, radiation budget. Prove them, and you've got something. Ignore them, and it's all just handwaving.

Dixon

Jim Ryan:"Antartic are colder than expected due to the hole in Ozone layer and it is anticipated when the ozone hole closes global warming will exert its inevitable influence. You presented your media article as if it was a triumph for AGW scepticism but when I inform you that the phenomenon described - build up of ice in Antarctica - was well known to climate scientists and there are good explanations why it is the local exception to ice melt everywhere else, you conclude that AGW is circular...."

...and the above staement proves his point, for any counter evidence there is "ah but...ozone hole/volcani eruptions/el nino...etc,etc,etc" What Popper called "immunisations" of the theory.

Dixon

"merlyn
December 1st, 2009 8:11am
The left hand, male side of the brain is about logic and organized linear thinking. The right hand female side is about imagination,intuition and creativity.
The balance of the two creates genius such as Da Vinci, Einstein etc.
I would say we have excluded the feminine intuitive, imaginative side too long and at our peril and followed the linear left for too long because we dont believe what we don't see in a test tube.
Lets go for genius."

Well id say thats pop-psych new-age twaddle from anybody, let alone yet another "Merlin" ( By Arthur, the New age fad seems to spawn Merlins by the second ). But more to the point, its got the basic premise utterly wrong. Study of the bi-lateralisation of brain function that began with Sperry and then developed through his student Gazzanaga indicates the EXACT OPPOSITE of whats said above. The LEFT hemisphere and associated verbal skills tend to be MORE developed in FEMALES whilst the RIGHT hemispheric spatial and visual skills tend to be MORE devrloped in MALES. I repeat, the EXACT OPPOSITE of what "Merlin" says!

Dixon

Whilst I have never had any trouble understanding evolution in terms of Darwinian paradigms and "creationism" I find abhorrent, opposition to Dawkins or even Darwin doesnt make someone necessarily a "creationist". For a start, they might be Lamarckian!

p kempson

Number 6 is the real cause of it all. No natural disasters or all out wars, together with advances in medicine has caused the explosion. When this happens in the "animal" world there is normally some predator to reduce the numbers

Lungfish

Point 6. should be point 1.

Baron

Lungfish, my freshwater friend, what kept you, and why on earth did you have to make this crucial point when the thread has almost finished.

Jimmock

Well Mr Riffkind. congratulations on you degree in Philosophy. Perhaps you could expand on why the catastrophic AGW theory is as compelling as 2+2=4.
Nice joke though.
Here's one of mine:
2+2+positive feedback=$79bn (the amount spent on AGW alarmist research by some estimates)

PaulG

Lets begin with your first assertion that the AGW cabal of people are ‘scientists’, for a start stern and Al Gore are most definitely not whilst the IPCC scientists are made up of meteorologists.

Which means you would have too assume weathermen are scientists, however, as we all know their numbers are draw mainly from geography students who gain a third.

Meteorology is not a science, as it does not conform to the rigorous methodology of falsification that Karl Popper et al pioneered. Hence they start from a premise… ‘There is AGW, then try to made the evidence fit’. Thats thereason why they did not share the data with scientists from other disciplines and only submits to peer scrutiny.

No one doubts the weather is changing but, study after study from scientists who use scientific methods provide a much more compelling argument for global warming than these hunch based ‘scientists’.

Dave

Brilliant Rod! Being in general agreement with you brings benefits for us lazy types who can cut and paste your arguments to send in emauls (sic) to the green meanies (friends who peddle AGW and with whom I'm having an ongoing (two years and counting) debate). Keep it up!

Lupus Lungfish

I am expecting a book out for next Crimbo entitled: Rod Liddle - An Answer to Point 6.