This is a continuation of a remarkable thread that has now received 10,000 comments running to well over a million words. Unfortunately its size has become a problem and this is the reason for the move.
The history of the New Statesman thread goes back to December 2007 when Dr David Whitehouse wrote a very influential article for that publication posing the question Has Global Warming Stopped? Later, Mark Lynas, the magazine’s environment correspondent, wrote a furious reply, Has Global Warming Really Stopped?
By the time the New Statesman closed the blogs associated with these articles they had received just over 3000 comments, many from people who had become regular contributors to a wide-ranging discussion of the evidence for anthropogenic climate change, its implications for public policy and the economy. At that stage I provided a new home for the discussion at Harmless Sky.
Comments are now closed on the old thread. If you want to refer to comments there then it is easy to do so by left-clicking on the comment number, selecting ‘Copy Link Location’ and then setting up a link in the normal way.
Here’s to the next 10,000 comments.
Useful links:
Dr David Whitehouse’s article can be found here with 1289 comments.
Mark Lynas’ attempted refutation can be found here with 1715 comments.
The original Continuation of the New Statesman Whitehouse/Lynas blogs thread is here with 10,000 comments.
Fay Kelly-Tuncay,
I could point out that Arrhenius at the turn of the previous century arrived at very similar figures to the IPCC for the warming which would occur if CO2 levels were doubled. His computer power was somewhat limited at the time as you might imagine! Maybe an abacus? But, anyway, the nature of CO2 and its role in the GH effect has been known for over 150 years.
However, I’m not sure that there would be much point in all that. Your post would indicate your motivations are primarily political, rather than scientific, in your objections to even the existence of an IPCC.
Hah! The European politicians aren’t even pretending anymore. They now readily admit that they need to implement carbon taxes…………not to “save the planet” but to rescue their failed Socialist fiasco.
Pathetic………
Euro under siege as now Portugal hits panic button
Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/Euro+under+siege+Portugal+hits+panic+button/3831814/story.html#ixzz15PEOFV6M
Greek deficit much bigger than estimate
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/nov/15/greek-deficit-bigger-than-thought
IRELAND ON THE BRINK……TOLD TO TAKE EU BAILOUT
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/8135582/Contagion-hits-Portugal-as-Ireland-dithers-on-Rescue.html
Sorry Pete…………looks as though there really isn’t a market for air……Would you like to buy some sunshine Pete?
How about I sell you some sea water or beach sand?
Chicago Climate Exchange Closes in Silence
http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/tech-mainmenu-30/environment/5201-chicago-climate-exchange-closes-in-silence
Brute 2552
See our earlier exchanges with Peter on Page 17 where we were discussing the financial crisis. The overall severe debt crisis in 2007 was easy to forecast by ordinary people but seemingly came as a complete surprise to the experts in our ruling elite.
There is a close parallel to climate change with the latest crisis, in as much the Euro is a mad idea but there is so much prestige and power invested in it that none can admit it was ill conceieved or dare let it collapse.
Similarly I suspect there must be many in government who by now have realised the climate ‘crisis’ is largely illusory, but they will find it very difficult to change their entrenched position.
Europes ruling elite will do anything to keep the euro and climate change madness afloat and as your story observes there is a neat synergy. As we have always pointed out here a significant part of AGW is to do with raising taxes. That it should raise taxes in order to kep the Euro afloat is breathtaking effrontery.
Incidentally the eurocrats are currently building a highly expensive nerw central bank in Frankfurt and tearing down a 20 year old Parliament building (They have three in Strasbourg, Luxembourg, and Brussels) in order to build an even more gradiose one.
Of course shelving the project in order to save money hasn’t occurred to them.
The EU is madness on an epic scale and one on which we arent allowed to vote. Climate change is rapidly joining it as an expensive and unnecessary luxury.
Tonyb
Brute,
You seem to be short of a socialist enemy since the fall of the Berlin wall! And you’re looking to Europe to fulfill that role? Europe may have Socialist parties but at least half the time its the more Right wing parties which are in government. There is no real correlation of countries which have done worse or better, since 2008 and the GFC, and the complexion of the country’s government.
For instance, Ireland has a Socialist Party or a Labour Party but they’ve only ever been in Government as part of a coalition so they can’t be responsible for Ireland’s economic problems.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_Party_%28Ireland%29
TonyB,
Haven’t you previously denied any right wing political beliefs, and didn’t you then go on to argue that therefore you couldn’t have been motivated by them on climate questions?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t your 2556 indicate a support, or affiliation, with UKIP? The same UKIP who describe themselves as a right wing and libertarian party?
Peter #2558
You must stop constantly confusing expressions of concern at the mad way our taxes are being spent with your belief that we are all right wing ideologues.
I want my country to regain its sovereignity and stop spending vast amounts of money on silly ventures that have little popular support and have never been voted for.
The auditors have refused to sign off the EU accounts for the 16th year in a row due to the corruption and misappropriation of funds.
In similar circumstances would you want your country undemoctatically administered from Djakarta whilst it spends vast sums of your money on things that you have never agreed to whilst syphoning off a fair proportion to corrupt supporters?
This in no way prevents the need for co-operation on many matters with our European friends and neighbours, but the EU and the Euro have evolved in ways that alarm many people.
tonyb
TonyB,
So you are a UKIP supporter!
Peter #2560
No
Now answer my question in #2559
“In similar circumstances would you want your country undemoctatically administered from Djakarta whilst it spends vast sums of your money on things that you have never agreed to whilst syphoning off a fair proportion to corrupt supporters?”
tonyb
PeterM
You wrote to Fay Kelly-Tuncay (2551):
Yes, Peter.
And I could point out that he later corrected his figures, arriving at much lower values than his original estimates.
And I could also point out (surprise!) that there have been many advances in the knowledge of our planet’s climate since Arrhenius’ time (or even since the publication of the latest IPCC report) including empirical evidence from satellite observations (to which Arrhenius did not have access).
These have shown that the 2xCO2 climate sensitivity is less than 1 deg C, i.e. slightly lower than Arrhenius’ corrected estimates and around one-third to one-fourth of the IPCC estimates based on model assumptions (rather than empirical data).
Just to clear up your statement, Peter, lest it cause confusion.
Max
TonyB
You wrote to Brute:
Fortunately, we (in Switzerland) have been allowed to vote, and turned it down (despite a lot of pressure from our bigger neighbors – and even from several of our own politicians).
I’d also agree with you when you write:
But I think that it has gone further than simply “an expensive and unnecessary luxury” in your country.
It sounds to me as though it is spiraling pretty far down the road from hysteria to insanity.
The efforts to get public opinion represented and to repeal the Climate Act may be able to stop this insane spiral before your politicians and bureaucrats have gone completely “bonkers”.
Max
TonyB,
Australia is currently governed from Canberra which is 5400 km from Djakarta. You’d be talking about somewhere like Cairo or Nairobi to make the same comparison in UK terms. London is only 318km from Brussels.
But leaving that aside, it’s you guys who need to decide who you are going to get into bed with. But, didn’t you have a referendum on Europe years ago? You’ve got to make up your mind – you can’t keep chopping and changing.
The main point however, is you say you aren’t right wing, so that can’t be your motivation on climate change, and you say you don’t support UKIP, who by their own description are libertarian and right-wing, even though there is little, if any, difference between their position and yours.
So there’s something which isn’t quite right there.
Max,
You say: “Just to clear up…lest it cause any confusion” Well that would be a first!
Not to put too fine a point on it you simply don’t know what you are talking about.
2 x CO2 sensitivity is subject to some uncertainty and is thought to be in the region of 1.5degC to 4.5degC with 3 deg C the most likely.
The current thinking is expressed in this paper by Annan and Hargreaves:
http://www.jamstec.go.jp/frcgc/research/d5/jdannan/GRL_sensitivity.pdf
Peter 2564
Answer the question, which was not about geographical distances as you well know, but about whether you’d like to be ruled by another country promoting policies on which you’ve had little say.
Add in that they produce 80% of your laws and that their legal system is totally different to yours. So how about answering the question and you can then see whether its a matter of democracy and sovereignity rather than this silly parallel you keep making between right wing politics and climate change.
As for ‘keep on chopping and changing’. That is absurd. Our Prime minister deliberately (on his later admittance) lied to us in the 1970’s that we were voting to join a free trade area when he knew it was a political union.
One vote on false pretences 35 years ago is hardly chopping and changing is it?
So answer the question. Would you like to be ruled from thousands of miles away by a different country making your laws and promoting policies over which you’ve had little say? A straight answer (for a change) would be nice.
tonyb
PeterM
Sorry, but it appears that you are confused here (2565).
You started off (2551) by referring blogger Fay Kelly-Tuncay to Arrhenius, who initially estimated a high 2xCO2 CS, but later revised his crude calculation to a much lower (also crudely calculated) figure.
I pointed out (2562) that much has happened in climate science a) since Arrhenius’ day in the 19th century and b) even since the last IPCC assessment report four years ago.
I also pointed out that recent satellite observations have provided empirical data, which show that the 2xCO2 CS is most likely to be below 1C, as opposed to what you call the “current thinking” as “expressed by [a January 2006 paper using 2005 and earlier estimates by] Annan and Hargreaves”.
I could point you to the more up-to-date “current thinking”, as “expressed by Lindzen or Spencer”.
The key difference between my example of “current thinking” and yours is that the former is based on recent empirical data from physical observations whereas the latter is based on older computer model assumptions based on theoretical deliberations.
Quite simple, actually.
You really need to get up-to-date, Peter, if you want to seriously discuss these matters.
Max
UN warns of 50 MILLION climate refugees a year – by 2010
October 12, 2005
Amid predictions that by 2010 the world will need to cope with as many as 50 million people escaping the effects of creeping environmental deterioration, United Nations University experts say the international community urgently needs to define, recognize and extend support to this new category of ‘refugee’.
In a statement to mark the UN Day for Disaster Reduction (October 12), UNU’s Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) in Bonn says such problems as sea level rise, expanding deserts and catastrophic weather-induced flooding have already contributed to large permanent migrations and could eventually displace hundreds of millions.
Unlike victims of political upheaval or violence, however, who have access through governments and international organizations to such assistance as financial grants, food, tools, shelter, schools and clinics, “environmental refugees” are not yet recognized in world conventions.
UNU says the number of people forced to move by environment-related conditions already approximates and may someday dwarf the number of officially-recognized “persons of concern,” recently calculated at 19.2 million1. Indeed, Red Cross research shows more people are now displaced by environmental disasters than war.
“There are well-founded fears that the number of people fleeing untenable environmental conditions may grow exponentially as the world experiences the effects of climate change and other phenomena,” says UNU-EHS Director Janos Bogardi. “This new category of ‘refugee’ needs to find a place in international agreements. We need to better anticipate support requirements, similar to those of people fleeing other unviable situations.”
Victims of sudden and highly-publicized catastrophes like the 2004 Asian tsunami or the recent US Gulf Coast hurricanes benefit from the mobilization of private and public sector generosity and humanitarian relief. Countless millions of others around the world, however, are uprooted by gradual environmental change, receive comparatively little support to cope and adapt and are not recognized as ‘refugees’ with the benefits that bestows.
“This is a highly complex issue, with global organizations already overwhelmed by the demands of conventionally-recognized refugees, as originally defined in 1951. We should prepare now, however, to define, accept and accommodate this new breed of ‘refugee’ within international frameworks,” says UN Under Secretary-General Hans van Ginkel, Rector of UNU.
Prof. van Ginkel stresses that environment-related ‘refugees’ must be carefully defined and distinguished from economic migrants, who depart voluntarily to find a better life but may return home without persecution.
Dr. Bogardi notes that the term “environmental refugee” rankles many experts as simplistic, masking what are often compound motives behind migration and implicitly laying the blame on nature when often the policies and practices of people are the cause of displacement. UNU-EHS is working to establish an internationally-agreed glossary of terms to facilitate cooperation in the broad area of environment and human security.
As well, most such displaced people today migrate within their own country. There is therefore a major need for international agreement about a nation’s duty to protect and support internal migrants fleeing catastrophic events or environmental degradation. That duty is implied in the agreement produced by the World Conference on Disaster Reduction in Kobe, Japan (Jan. 2005) and international guidelines on internal displacement have been promoted. However, states’ obligations need to be formalized, says Dr. Bogardi.
The statement coincides with the announcement of a new chair on social vulnerability at UNU-EHS, funded by a charitable foundation of the global reinsurance company Munich Re. Among the areas of study will be migrations forced by “slow moving catastrophes,” says Dr. Bogardi, including desertification, diminishing safe water supplies and climate change-induced sea level rise.
Environment-related migration has been most acute in Sub-Saharan Africa, but also affects millions of people in Asia and India. Meanwhile, Europe and the United States are witnessing increasing pressure from victims of often mismanaged and deteriorating soil and water conditions in North Africa and Latin America.
And such migrations may grow dramatically in future.
Among many global problem sites, Sana’a, Yemen’s capital, has doubled its population on average every six years since 1972 and now stands at 900,000. The aquifer on which the city depends is falling by 6 meters a year, and may be exhausted by 2010, according to the World Bank.
In China, the Gobi desert expands more than 10,000 square kilometers per year, threatening many villages. Oxford-based expert Norman Myers says Morocco, Tunisia and Libya each lose over 1,000 square kilometres of productive land a year to desertification. In Egypt, half of irrigated croplands suffer from salinization while in Turkey 160,000 square kilometres of farmlands is affected by soil erosion.
Florida professor Tony Oliver-Smith is a UNU-EHS Munich Re Foundation chair holder designate for 2007-08, whose work will include study of the recent exodus from New Orleans and other environment-related migrations. He notes that in the U.S. Louisiana now loses to the sea roughly 65 square kilometers per year while in Alaska 213 communities are threatened by tides that creep roughly 3 metres further inland each year.
Internationally, the low-lying Pacific island state of Tuvalu has struck an agreement with New Zealand to accept its 11,600 citizens in the event rising sea levels swamp the country. By one rough estimate, as many as 100 million people worldwide live in areas below sea level and / or are subject to storm surge.
“Around the world vulnerability is on the increase due to the rapid development of megacities in coastal areas,” says Dr. Oliver-Smith. “Many cities are overwhelmed, incapable of handling with any degree of effectiveness the demands of a burgeoning number of people, many of whom take up shelter in flimsy shanties.
“Combine this trend with rising sea levels and the growing number and intensity of storms and it is the recipe for a disaster-in-waiting, with enormous potential to create waves of environment-driven migration.” He says it is difficult today to discern “environmental refugees” from economic migrants. In many cases a decision to move is a function of a push to leave one disaster-affected location and the economic pull of another, more promising location. American history offers vivid examples: the 3 million people who fled the Dust Bowl of the 1930?s and the 700,000 mostly poor people who departed to northern states following the Mississippi Delta flood of 1927.
Max,
There is more to keeping up to date than just reading Spencer and Lindzen!
I know its hard for you to grasp this, but they are not well regarded in the climate science fraternity and are unlikely, on their own, to produce the ‘paradigm shift’ you dream of. However, if they are right they should stick at it. If, too, they have the evidence to back it up they will be able to convince the others.
However, if they are producing more of the same dodgy science that they are known for, then they won’t. That’s the way it works.
TonyB,
You ask “whether you’d like to be ruled by another country promoting policies on which you’ve had little say. ” I guess that used to happen in the old days of Empire!
So which is the “other country” that you refer to in the UK’s case? I thought the idea that there was a pooling of sovereignty in the same way as the States of North America pooled their sovereignty to form the USA. I can’t see anything wrong with that.
For it to work, countries have to be at the same or similar stages of economic development like they are in Europe. That would rule out Indonesia and Australia for the foreseeable future but there has been some suggestion that NZ and Australia should do the same. I’ve no problem with that but the Kiwis aren’t too keen on the idea.
TonyB,
Just following on from my previous post I’d just say that I don’t want to get sucked into an argument about the EU and Britain. Nevertheless I’m just wondering why you are so aligned to the a very right wing party yet happily deny that your politics are just that.
“A silly parallel you keep making between right wing politics and climate change”? I don’t think so. I’m not the first, or only, person to notice the connection.
See: http://climatedenial.org/
PeterM
You advised me:
Please be more specific and refer me to more recent studies providing empirical scientific data based on actual physical observations, which refute the observations of Spencer and Lindzen, rather than just making hollow claims.
Thanks in advance.
Max
PeterM
You wrote to TonyB:
There may have been others to make this silly parallel before you (which you then parrot as if it were true), but despite this, it is still “a silly parallel”, Peter.
It would be just as silly as if I were to write that there is a “parallel between left wing politics and climate change”.
The truth of the matter is that the “science” supporting your premise of “dangerous AGW” has been shown to be flawed, as sad as this may seem to your belief system.
The IPCC has been discredited by its own recently revealed exaggerations and fabrications, which have been compounded by the stonewalling of its chairman after they were exposed.
And, even more sadly for you, you have been unable to provide empirical evidence in support of the science behind the IPCC premise.
This all has nothing to do with “right wing politics” at all.
It’s all about bogus “pseudoscience” instead.
Max
PeterM
You cited (2571) a truly absurd op-ed by George Marshall, the founder of a climate change “charity”, the “Climate Outreach Information Network”, on the recent US election, right wing politics and the rejection of “cap and trade” legislation by the US voters, describing it as the “psychology of denial”.
Sure, the US voters rejected “cap ’n tax” (as they rejected higher taxes, higher deficits and increased government spending and waste, in general).
Earlier polls had already shown the public rejection of climate alarmism to be the case in the USA as well as in most of the world, especially following the recent revelations of Climategate, IPCC lies and stonewalling plus thinly veiled internal whitewash attempts by insiders to salvage the “science” and keep the hysteria alive.
Face it, Peter.
Whether you happen to like it or not, the tide of public opinion has turned, as more and more scientists are speaking out against the AGW hysteria and the general public is beginning to take notice.
Publicly financed fear mongering PR campaigns by desperate politicians have not helped, as the general public has begun to see through the brainwashing attempts.
What happened in the USA can be seen as a “leading indicator” of what is also beginning to happen elsewhere.
The blogosphere is playing a major role in this wave, with this site, Bishop Hill, Climate Audit, WUWT and several others playing a key role.
As Bob Dylan once sang: “The times they are a’changing”.
Max
Max and TonyB,
Well if you don’t like George Marshall. And why would you?
How about James Dellingpole?
http://jamesdelingpole.com/blog/why-conservatives-shouldnt-believe-in-man-made-climate-change-1097/
Or is he just being silly too?