Apr 012011

Since the Christmas and New Year holidays, I’ve only put up a couple of posts at Harmless Sky, rather than my usual one a week. There’s is a reason or two or three  for this happening.

At the time when I started Harmless Sky, three years ago, I had already amassed and indexed quite a large quantity of research material concerning climate change and other related subjects. Being a bit of a traditionalist who likes the look and feel of sheets of printed-paper and who also finds underlining and scribbling in margins useful this task was not undertaken altogether in the spirit of the new information age; in other words digitally. Looking back it is easy to see that this was a mistake, but on the other hand the technology was rather different when I started. Document management systems were expensive and OCR, on which effective electronic searching of documents depends, was chancy, to say the least.

Over the last three years I have continued to download and print out whatever catches my eye, but the time spent running Harmless Sky has left little opportunity for routine and tedious tasks like indexing.  The result is a ‘piling’ system, which by the end of last year had covered every surface in my workroom to a significant depth and was beginning to occupy a steadily increasing area of the floor.

As it happens, I’ve never been too concerned about untidiness; in fact it’s my natural habitat, only mitigated by the influence of an extremely tidy wife. Fortunately for domestic peace and harmony she rarely visits my workroom, and when she does, wisely ignores what she sees.  But even I acknowledge that there is a point at which untidiness becomes squalor, and an impenetrable information storage system becomes a handicap.

In recent months, digging up references has become a major problem that a good memory born of a lifetime’s chaotic work practices is not entirely equal too. The volume of material is now just too great and the number and altitude of the ‘piles’ ever growing. But there is another issue that has become almost as unavoidable, and this has to do with the content that I post on this blog and the way in which I use my time.

When I set up Harmless Sky, I thought that the ideal length for a blog post was about 350-700 words. The immediacy and ephemeral nature of the new media, together with the short attention span this encourages, seems to require short punchy posts. This may explain why some blogs can seem curt and assertive if one is not used to the style. Where bloggers are concerned with being first with breaking news, of course, this is perfectly acceptable. The good Bishop Hill has become a master of this style, and in his hands it is supremely successful. However Harmless Sky has never really done news, or been that kind of blog.  I far prefer to stand back and wait awhile, and then take a more considered look at what lies behind the stories that appear in the MSM and blogoshere.  Of course both approaches have their place.

Really exploring the kind of complex issues raised by the climate change debate can seldom be satisfactorily accomplished in short pieces. So I haven’t often managed to wind up a post in less than 1200 words, and very often they have been considerably longer. Such posts take a good deal of time to write, or at least that is the way it is in my case.

Looking back over the three years I find that I have written well over  200 post; a total, probably, of about a quarter of a million words. That is enough to fill one rather long book or a couple of fairly short ones. Combine this with the fact that I write slowly, and like to worry away at an idea or an augment until it yields some kind of conclusion, this represents an enormous amount of time invested in a medium that is by nature ephemeral.

Around Christmas, I began to think about these statistics and the mighty piles of paper in my workroom, much of which relates to topics that I find fascinating but have never got round to blogging about.  The time had surely come to try and put two-and-two together.

There has to be at least one book in the research material that I have and the only hindrance to starting work is finding sufficient time and, crucially, being able to retrieve references quickly as and when I want them. In other words I have to tame the ‘piling system’, which now amounts to thousands of documents, some of them long and complex. This means finding a lot of time, and the obvious way to do this is to write fewer or less time-consuming blog posts.

On the other hand, I have no wish that activity at Harmless Sky should dry up altogether. I still have quite a few irons in the fire in the form of FOIA requests and a possible inquiry by the Parliamentary Ombudsman, and if any of these become interesting I want a forum in which to report what is happening.

Then there is something else that has been on my mind since the end of last year.

At the moment, I’m not too sure where the climate debate is going. The heady ‘back-against-the-wall’ days for sceptics seem to be well and truly over, but if there is to be a victory for rational inquiry into climate change over the dogmatic assertions of politicians , activists, and the climate science machine they rely on, then we still seem to be some way off this happening. Although the weight of evidence, and public opinion, is clearly piling up in the sceptics favour, there still appears to be a furtive, and very determined, finger on the scales that is preventing the balance shifting.

So how to combine keeping Harmless Sky going with making enough time to research and write a book? As the next two or three months are likely to be spent organising my material so that I can find what I want in significantly less than a lifetime, there has to be a change in the way that this blog is run. In order to keep the kettle boiling, this is what I intend to do.

As I sift through, digitise, and classify the teetering escarpments of paper that greet me each morning, I’ll post links to some of the material that seems most interesting. Inevitably, as I’m dealing with archive material, not much of this is likely to be recent but, as a talented amateur historian is supposed to have said:

 

The further backward you can look,

                                   the further forward you are likely to see

And perhaps the most intriguing question in the climate debate today is not where are we headed, but rather how the hell did we get to where we are at the moment?

By the way, the talented amateur historian’s name was Winston Spencer Churchill, and I found this quote scribbled on a scrap of paper among a pile of stuff to do with palaeoclimatology.

16 Responses to “Back to blogging, but with a difference”

  1. Tonyn

    As you know I never subscribed to the idea prevalent last year that the climate establishment was tottering and all it required for them to become history was one final push. It will be a long slow grind with many bit players.

    I wonder if you have thought about a ‘theme’ for a book?

    With me it would be relatively easy as most of my pieces tend to be rooted in historic examples of climate change and how they compare with today.

    However, your posts tend to be wide ranging, eclectic, and don’t always have a convenient narrative that has a clear beginning, middle and an end.

    I suspect that much of the stuff piled up on your table will reflect this wide range of interests.

    You tend to ‘worry’ at a subject, teasing out the answers (if there is one) and it might well be that a compendium of unrelated material might be interesting, but the older it is and the less ‘resolved’ it is, the less likely it is to hold the interest, except amongst die hard sceptics.

    On the other hand a collection of related material might hold the interest better in the way that something like ‘the Hockey stick illusion’ has a central theme that drives it forward.

    Your comment here is fascinating;

    “Although the weight of evidence, and public opinion, is clearly piling up in the sceptics favour, there still appears to be a furtive, and very determined, finger on the scales that is preventing the balance shifting.”

    Here we are into whodunnit area which could be the glue to hold your narrative together and drive it forward. Identify the finger(s) and you have the plot.

    tonyb

  2. TonyN, I’d agree with all that tonyb has written – there is a detective story to unravel here, of a different sort to the story told in The Hockey Stick Illusion but just as fascinating. And like any good police procedural, the dogged unearthing of facts is key, along with the skilled construction of a solid case. Whatever book emerges from all that material will be well worth reading, I’m sure, and am looking forward to it. In the meantime, I’ll keep HarmlessSky bookmarked, as there’s much that is excellent here and bears revisiting. And will watch out for updates, of course.

  3. TonyN

    You summarized the current situation very well with:

    The heady ‘back-against-the-wall’ days for sceptics seem to be well and truly over, but if there is to be a victory for rational inquiry into climate change over the dogmatic assertions of politicians , activists, and the climate science machine they rely on, then we still seem to be some way off this happening. Although the weight of evidence, and public opinion, is clearly piling up in the sceptics favour, there still appears to be a furtive, and very determined, finger on the scales that is preventing the balance shifting.

    The balance is shifting, and this is at least partially attributable to blog sites, such as yours, which have encouraged people to think for themselves about the issues and debate them openly.

    We all appreciate your taking a lot of your time to keep “Harmless Sky” alive and well with new and interesting ideas and viewpoints, despite having many other priorities.

    I personally look forward to continuing on board, even if you reduce the scope to shorter and less frequent blogs, and I wish you all the best with your new book.

    Max

  4. TonyN
    I agree entirely with your comment that:

    ..perhaps the most intriguing question in the climate debate today is not where are we headed, but rather how the hell did we get to where we are at the moment?

    There is no inherent reason why blogs should be ephemeral. Only a long-term look will enable us to understand the mechanisms of the CAGW story.
    In a comment at Bishop Hill, I once compared his excellent blog to a noisy town centre pub, whereas Harmless Sky is more like a Gentlemen’s Club, with comfortable armchairs and a conversation that never ends.
    I think there’s a tendency to see any political conflict in terms of our two-party democracy as a kind of “tug-of-war” bertween two opposing sides, with truth as a kind of trump card which will eventually “tip the balance”.
    The coverage of the story since Climategate shows how inadequate this model is. I think we all need to get more savvy about questions of social change and how it happens, the mechanics of ideology, and maybe group psychology. In the meantime, the kid of meticulous analysis you do is an inspiration to all your readers. Keep us posted!

  5. I should explain that I set up several posts to appear before departing for a holiday in France, where I am now using a hotel network connection that, infuriatingly, keeps dropping out before I can do much.

    I’ll try to reply to comments again later, but for now, thanks for the suggestions, kind words and encouragement.

  6. Tony

    Before you go much further, could I suggest that you upgrade the blog software? Its very out of date, and you’re missing out on newer features which could get the message out, particularly on these new social media fangled thingies that the young ‘uns talk about. Your software is probably very insecure as well.

    If I could make a suggestion it would be that in order to write a book, you need to stop writing essays on HS (or at least cut down on them). The best way is to use the blog to talk about a single issue, problem or conundrum which can help you in your research for the book, clarify the reasoning and avoid making obvious mistakes.

    Also (after you have upgraded the software, naturally), link like crazy to other sites, to Wikipedia, to other blogs.

    The best way to do this is to use something like Zemanta, which is a plug-in for Firefox and also for Windows Live Writer, which I’ve written about.

    But first upgrade, then start blogging in short courses, rather than one humungous feast.

    If you need help with the upgrade, you know where to find me.

  7. TonyN:

    Despite being one of your veterans (I was most grateful when you chose to keep the remarkable NS thread going), I haven’t posted here for a long time. Nonetheless, I’ve been visiting the site from time to time and have concluded that it was time for a change. So I find this development very interesting – and encouraging. Good luck.

    BTW I agree with most of the above comments – especially Alex’s observation that whatever emerges from your endeavours will be worth reading. I look forward to it.

    And, Geoff, I was amused by your Gentlemen’s Club analogy. But did you know that, back in January 2008 (when the NS thread had been going for only a couple of months), the redoubtable Brute thought a bar a good analogy? Perhaps we’ve become more refined. He said:

    Guy’s (and Gals) it’s been fun. I almost feel like I know some of you personally. I can’t help but imagine if we all were sitting in a bar, (or pub if you will), having this discussion over a cold beer, (or room temperature beer as you do there?). This will sort itself out one way or another, like most things in life, hopefully for the best.

    Well, we’re three years on and it still hasn’t sorted itself out – and, as noted above – certainly not for the best. Perhaps, Tony, you will help to push it that way.

  8. TonyN I understand where you are coming from and if a book is to emerge I’m sure it will be a cracking read. Your taking stock is what a lot of people are doing at present. I think we have flogged the science to death and it has come up wanting. Luckily for us it is through the likes of you and others that we have had a forum to discuss what we have all had to contribute.

    What has emerged is a lot of evidence to refute the temperature record. Tonyb has been at the heart of this for us, bringing to our attention all manner of discrepancies. Anthony Watts has carried out audits of equipment used to measure temperature in the US with an army of volunteers that have shown conclusively we cannot rely on these readings to be an accurate measure of climate, but only a measure of weather, and yet others headed by Steve McIntyre that have delved into the dark art of statistical analysis and have exposed how “Climate Scientists” (a term I use very loosely here) have manipulated proxy data (at best only a lose indication of temperature) and the inaccurate modern temperature record to tell a story of their making.

    What is even more bizarre to me is that they thought they would get away with it. They choose CO2 as their cause of all this dangerous change without giving any rational thought to that fact that CO2 is essential to life. And it not just essential to humans or other animals insomuch as we may get sick and need a substitute, but essential as in without it we die, along with every other living thing on the planet. Therefor it follows given that we know roughly (in the last 500 million years of complex life) that CO2 concentrations have fluctuated hugely, have been high when we have had previous ice ages that some though perhaps be given to the way nature seems to have its own thermostat. To me it is a fantastic leap of faith to think the small changes we have seen over the last 3 or 4 decades is causing any measurable effect on the climate. There is certainly no physical evidence of this. And whilst we have seen much gnashing of teeth over the temperature record, I believe there is just as much a story to be told over atmospheric CO2 concentrations, and even those scientists who readily dispute DAGW often seem to accept without question that the increase in CO2 is real and just down man’s burning of hydrocarbon fuels.

    Then we have the political aspect, all the way from environmentalists to the current crop of grandstanding world leaders. How you decipher all this is a problem. Everyone has an opinion depending on their point of view. Myself I think it is down to money and the Wests fatal obsession with risk avoidance, celebrity and all the other wonky modern fads. Our MS media are appalling and education has slipped from equipping youngsters for the practical aspects of the world, to ill-equipping them for the modern service orientated information world. Professor Niall Ferguson’s current series on channel 4 is a must see for anyone trying to understand where we are at. I think we have spent too much, have rewarded too many that were not deserving of reward and our Politians see energy as the root to clawing the money back. All they really need to understand is how to stop spending our money on their grand schemes before there is a revolt. Greece and Ireland are the key countries to watch. When Ireland wake up they will realise that they would be better off doing what Iceland have done. This will precipitate political revolution.

    And then we have the financial crisis, a crisis of purely political origins, that we are still nowhere near resolving whilst politicians and the majority of those they rule are in denial. When the public wake up, the current political class will be history and we can start to fix our country. However I fear we are going to have to see it get much worse before it will get better.

    Watch this, I have 3 times and still need to a couple more times to fully comprehend how we got in this mess. And whilst this is focused on the US, Europe was doing the same and its banks were worse basket cases than most US banks.

    TonyN I wish you all the best and look forward to future thought provoking posts.

  9. If I had realised what the reaction to this post was likely to be I would not have scheduled it for publication before fleeing to France, and I feel that I owe some apologies as a result. So now that I’m back:

    tonyb:

    I wonder if you have thought about a ‘theme’ for a book? …. your posts tend to be wide ranging, eclectic, and don’t always have a convenient narrative that has a clear beginning, middle and an end.

    Of course in principle you are right about this; any (non-fiction) book should have a clearly identifiable structure if possible. But in the case of the AGW narrative, have we reached the middle stage? Or are we somewhere around the end of the beginning? Or even at the beginning of the end? What is certain is that we are not at the end, and that makes any survey of what has happened over the last 10 or 15 years very difficult to write.

    Your comment here is fascinating;
    “Although the weight of evidence, and public opinion, is clearly piling up in the sceptics favour, there still appears to be a furtive, and very determined, finger on the scales that is preventing the balance shifting.”
    Here we are into whodunnit area which could be the glue to hold your narrative together and drive it forward. Identify the finger(s) and you have the plot.

    It may not be possible to identify the ‘fingers’, but it should be possible to throw some light on the influences that cause them to act.

    There are two main areas that I am considering focusing on at the moment: alarmist stories (myths?) that have had dramatic and immediate impact on the public perception of climate change, but are later debunked without the public ever becoming aware of this happening. Examples would be the 2007 floods in the UK, which an Institute of Ecology and Hydrology (part of NERC) report published a year found to be completely unrelated to climate change – greeted with a yawn by the media Or more recently the Russian heatwave of last summer that was extensively used in the same way. Just last week this weather event was shown to have been well within the limits of natural variability, and unrelated to climate change, by research published by the American Geophysical Union, an outfit that could hardly be described as climate-sceptical.

    The other is the way in which individuals and organisations that advocate action against climate change have increasingly become willing, and able, to transgress the normal bounds of acceptable behaviour in support of their cause with impunity. The actions of the UEA in relation to the Climategate inquiries, the BBC’s indisputably partisan reporting of environmental matters, and Ofcom’s defence of the Channel 4 broadcast of An Inconvenient Truth are all examples, as are many of the extraordinary claims and predictions that have come from DEFRA and the DECC. And then there are utterances from the likes of Lord May of Oxford and Sir David King, which were treated with reverence when they were made, but are now more than a little shop-soiled. And the Grantham Institute apparently masquerading as an academic organisation while devoting itself to advocacy, without anyone within the climate science community batting an eyelid.

    Alex Cull and Max:

    Very many thanks for the kind words and encouragement. It helps and, believe me, it is appreciated.

    Geoff Chambers:

    In a comment at Bishop Hill, I once compared his excellent blog to a noisy town centre pub, whereas Harmless Sky is more like a Gentlemen’s Club, with comfortable armchairs and a conversation that never ends.

    I’ve got a hunch that I should be alarmed, or even offended, by your analogy which I remember well, but rightly or wrongly I actually think it is one of the nicest things that have been said about this blog,, while warning of the mental torpor that comfortable armchairs can engender.

    I think there’s a tendency to see any political conflict in terms of our two-party democracy as a kind of “tug-of-war” between two opposing sides, with truth as a kind of trump card which will eventually “tip the balance”.

    That’s a very interesting remark that really does deserve exploration, and it points precisely the conundrum of people appearing not to want to recognise the emerging truth about AGW advocacy in spite of the fact that they should find it reassuring and comforting.

    John A:

    If I could make a suggestion it would be that in order to write a book, you need to stop writing essays on HS (or at least cut down on them). The best way is to use the blog to talk about a single issue, problem or conundrum which can help you in your research for the book, clarify the reasoning and avoid making obvious mistakes.

    I intend to do just that once I start looking in more detail at how the loose ends can be tracked down and tied together.

    Robin Guenier and Peter Geany:

    Many thanks to you too. One of the – somewhat daunting – advantages of this blog is that I can be in no doubt of the degree of informed scrutiny that anything I write may be subjected to. I will expect no mercy!

  10. TonyN

    Good to hear from you again.

    You are gathering:

    alarmist stories (myths?) that have had dramatic and immediate impact on the public perception of climate change, but are later debunked without the public ever becoming aware of this happening

    Here is one that is getting essentially NO mention in the MSM, but the article below got a new thread started over at Judith Curry’s Climate Etc. site. (Brute posted it on the NS thread, as well.)
    http://asiancorrespondent.com/52189/what-happened-to-the-climate-refugees/#
    http://judithcurry.com/2011/04/17/climate-refugees/#comment-63118

    It is a classic, because it even has a cover-up
    http://asiancorrespondent.com/52560/cover-up-un-tries-to-erase-failed-climate-refugee-prediction/

    After failing miserably with the 50 million climate refugees by 2010, it appears that the UNEP has simply moved the date to 2020. Yawn!
    http://www.care2.com/causes/global-warming/blog/coming-in-2020-50-million-environmental-refugees/

    All the best wishes for your book! (As an old-timer on your site, I’ll be sure to insist on buying an autographed copy!)

    Max

  11. TonyN

    I think a book debunkinhg alarmist stories that got front page coverage would sit very well in the pantheon of climate literature.

    To this can be added such subjects as sea level change which is highly conspicous by its absence.

    Tonyb

  12. TonyN welcome back again. We are definitely in interesting times. Certainly the financial crisis is continuing apace, not that most our media would notice. Standard and Poors the rating agency downgraded US debt; opps that wasn’t on Obama’s radar scope, Greece is about to default, we know this because we have been told this is not about to happen. Iceland had a referendum and has refused to pay back its money, so the UK and Holland are going to sue them. What are we going to do? Bomb them??? Portugal has no government and Belgium still cannot agree on theirs. Things are going well!!!

    All this is piling pressure on the political system that has supported CAGW. As with WWII when the Battle of Britain was seen as the end of the beginning, we have won our battle of the science and have reached the end of the beginning. Our beginning of the end may not yet be in sight, and we may have some home grown political upheaval before we get there, but when it comes, it will be very swift, and more like a withdrawal than an invasion.

    I suspect we need to see the emergence of a strong leader for it to happen, something that is not so apparent at the moment. Powder is being kept dry I think.

    By the way note how sea level rise looks as if it is slowing. This is going to be another great story. There is also much to come out of recent work with cosmic rays and the action of the sun in general. From the scraps I have been able to scrape up I wouldn’t be at all surprised if in 10 years’ time our view of the sun and how it works has completely changed. Much that is accepted about it being just a big hydrogen ball making helium and energy may be wide of the mark.

  13. Peter Geany

    I think the debt crisis is so severe that eventually even our politiciuans must realise that what the West desperately needs is cheap and plentiful (carebon) energy for our industry and transport, and putting all sorts of expensive bureaucratic barriers in the way of achieving this may eventually bring us all down.

    The CAGW scare is a busted flush but, like the EU and Euro, the politicans and activists aren’t going to accept this, so there is still a very long way to go.

    I agree that sea level is an interesting proxy but we have been pointing out for years that a) this is a very imperfect meaurement
    b) nothibg at all unusual is happening
    c) Sea levels have been higher in the MWP.

    Quite how you go about persuading the dedicated activist such as Peter Martin that they have been mistaken all these years and the fight needs to be on the economy and debt is something that appears impossible.

    tonyb

  14. Max:

    Such stories, in their original form and with the UN (WHO) imprimatur to give them credibility, were potent opinion formers when they were launched. And quite understandably so, along the lines of ‘We must do something now!” I expect to find examples of the contemporary press coverage these predictions received among my papers.

    tonyb:

    Speculation about sea level rise is certainly in my sights, particularly the ‘on-off’ plans for a new or improved Thames Barrier and the stories that the Environment Agency floated to support their case.

    Peter G:

    It’s worth looking at this article, which bears out much of what you are saying, and also some of the comments that it has attracted:

    Climate fatigue leaves global warming in the cold

    It would be interesting to know what Conrad’s affiliations are.

  15. Benny Peiser’s article is a good one, and is backed up by a recent Ipsos MORI poll (reported this month in the Ecologist, here) which concluded that “[o]nly a quarter of Britons believe climate change is one of the most important environmental issues facing the UK today”.

    The MORI poll involved more than 18,000 people across the world, who were asked to choose the three most important environmental issues facing their country. Of the 24 countries surveyed, the UK was among the least concerned about climate change, with energy security, waste disposal and overpopulation listed as the most pressing environmental issues. Other European countries showed similar results to UK, with people in Germany and Sweden principally concerned with sources of future energy supplies.

    Which is ironic, given that the EU leads the world in CAGW advocacy.

    Benny Peiser refers to Anthony Downs and the “issue-attention cycle”, and I think the original article by Downs (first published in 1972) is an excellent read in itself, and prescient, considering it was written in an age long before the invention of the man-made global warming scare.

    Re “Conrad – Brussels”, this might be unfounded speculation on my part, but I’m wondering if it could be Naomi Conrad, a journalist and researcher who has written articles such as this one, about climate change and cycling in Brussels. According to this website, she works for an economics consultancy called Delta Economics, which has “a particular focus on sustainable economic development” and has worked for the EU, UNHCR and the Oxford Analytica think tank, which may go some way to shed light on the commenter’s affiliations, if I’m right. Of course, this is purely a guess on my part, and may well be wrong, in which case I offer my apologies to Naomi!

  16. Alex
    The MORI poll referred to in the Peiser article is one of the worst I’ve seen. Respondents are asked which THREE of a list of environmental problems are the most important. Thus those who think we are thretened by multiple environmental catastrophes and those who think there are none each have the same number of votes. Our favourite worry is listed as “Climate Change / Global Warming” which is an idiotic concept, and naturally gets a bigger vote in hot countries. Polling was simultaneous in northern and southern hemispheres, so comparisons between countries are useless.
    As I’ve often said, the only polls of any value are those where the same questions (however poorly worded) are repeated over time. At least one can then see a trend, though the meaning of the trend is often obscure.

    Having said that, Jo Nova has a fascinating opinion poll at
    http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/guest/harper-stephen/the-public-fail-the-knowledge-test-on-carbon.pdf
    It’s only based on 100 respondents so far, but is being enlarged. Even with this insufficient sample, it indicates the success of warmist propaganda in spreading the wildest disinformation. Thus 53% think climate change causes tsunamis, 40% earthquakes 37% volcanic eruptions. 91% think that CO2 forms more than 1% of the atmosphere. 47% think that CO2 is pollution, and 40% think that carbon is.
    If this poll is ieven approximately correct, it demonstrates why opinion polls on climate change are so useless as a basis for political decision-making.

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