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.
This was not my standard Peter…….it yours.
You’ve written several times that those who are not schooled as weathermen, have no business being involved in the discussion revolving around the “science” of global warming. So, following YOUR standard, I can conclude that laymen have no business commenting on politics or economics unless schooled in the discipline.
Certainly people can carry signs, burn property, violently attack others and chant slogans…….but they really “don’t know” what’s best for them (according to your standard) because they haven’t been schooled sufficiently.
Your most recent comment, 3572, claims that “people” should be able to voice their opinion regarding the form of government that lords over them but should not have a voice in decisions regarding how much energy they will be “permitted” to use simply because (as you believe) they are incapable of understanding the consequences of their actions?
The time scale is immaterial. The heat/energy transfer is measurable in either case.
There has not been an increase in energy content (heat) of the planet over the last 13 years. The planet is losing (or maintaining) energy.
The CO2 “blanket” is not functioning as theorized by the Warmists.
Peter
This is the relevant phrase from the Environmental Audit Committee od the British Parliament.
“The IPCC has recommended that global emissions need to be cut by 50% by 2050 relative to 1990 levels. As the burden for tackling climate change falls mainly on developed nations, the 50% cut in global emissions equates to cuts of 80-
95% by 2050 relative to 1990 levels for developed nations. The Committee on Climate Change has estimated that the UK’s fair share of the global burden to be an 80% cut in its emissions by 2050 relative to 1990 levels.
Lord Turner made clear that the Committee on Climate Change believed that emissions should continue to fall after 2050, to 2100 and beyond”
Perhaps you would explain
A) How we achieve these fantasies.
B) The cost
C) The effect these measures will actually have on temperature reduction.
tonyb
tempterrain #3575
I like your idea of Climate Science as the revenge of the nerdy physics graduate. I’d always assumed the chip on Hansen’s shoulder came from working at NASA alongside top scientists exploring the cosmos, while he was stuck reading thermometers five feet off the ground.
PeterM
Re ur 3575
You wrote:
True, Peter. I’ve also worked with honest mathematicians and physicists in my time.
But, as the record shows, there are always the exceptions that prove the rule (ex. Josef Goebbels studied music, yet by and large people don’t study music with the idea of subverting society).
Money corrupts.
And obscenely large sums of taxpayer money running in the billions can do so in a very big way.
Michael Mann was an over-eager young scientist, who sold himself out to the corrupt IPCC process for fame and it backfired (check Montford’s detailed account).
James E. Hansen became an AGW activist over his years on the US taxpayer payroll, until he completely lost touch with reality (babbling about “coal death trains”, organizing civil disobedience demonstrations, etc.).
Gavin Schmidt appears to be Hansen’s ever-eager toady and is in direct cahoots with Mann (via the RealClimate propaganda blogsite).
But this in-bred crowd of “defenders of the dogma” is fortunately the exception to the rule. There are many honest mathematicians and physicists out there, who have not become corrupt.
Max
PeterM
Is “climate science” a sub-branch of meteorology, or physics?
Lindzen’s specialty is “atmospheric physics”. Spencer’s is “meteorology”. Hansen studied “astronomy and physics”.
Of course, one can argue that everything is physics (or chemistry), but I’d say “climate science” probably fits better under the more specific heading of “meteorology” rather than the more general heading of “physics”.
But I guess that’s a moot point. It is a scientific discipline that is still in its infancy, with very few “knowns”, a great number of “known unknowns” and an even greater number of “unknown unknowns” today (to use Donald Rumsfeld’s analogy).
That’s why the myopic IPCC political fixation on human CO2 as the principal driver of our climate is so ludicrous, as more and more scientists have begun to appreciate.
Max
Brute,
Yes there is that difference between politics and science. It can be decided , for instance, on a democratic vote whether to go to war, whether certain drugs should be legalised etc.
However, there are certain things even in politics that may not work, like if everyone voted for free beer and zero taxes …..
But science is different. For instance, there may well be a democratic majority in certain of the Bible belt states against Darwin’s theory of Evolution. You can’t define scientific truth by legislative fiat regardless of the size of the overall majority that may support a particular version.
Mind you, you aren’t the only one to have ever thought otherwise. Wasn’t there a case of some legislature in the USA who tried to rationalise the value of PI? Sometimes there is just no substitute for actually knowing what you are talking about!
PeterM
Let’s see if we can summarize our recent exchange regarding the “dangerous AGW” hypothesis.
1. We’ve seen that the science supporting this hypothesis is sketchy: the most recent decade’s “lack of warming” despite record CO2 increase has indeed been a “travesty” for proponents of the DAGW hypothesis, in effect falsifying the notion that atmospheric CO2 concentration plays a primary role in driving global temperature and leading the Met Office to attribute the observed “lack of warming” to natural factors, hitherto considered by IPCC to be insignificant.
2. Despite this observation, you made a proposal that some as yet unidentified body should assign a “carbon quota” to every inhabitant of the planet, which should then be systematically reduced year-by-year, in order to hopefully result in a slowdown or even a reversal of the increase in atmospheric CO2 and possibly even affect a slowdown or reversal of global temperature increase. You stated that you preferred this approach to a direct carbon tax (as has been proposed by James E. Hansen).
3. I pointed out several basic problems standing in the way of implementing, administering and enforcing such a plan in a democratic society, to which you replied (in effect) that the “devil lies in the detail” but that the “laws of physics” are not subject to the concept of democracy. Yet you had no suggestion for how this could be implemented if, as now appears the case, the majority of the voters around the world do not support such a scheme, so we essentially concluded that this plan was not doable at this time..
4. I then calculated what the impact of such a scheme commencing in 2015 could possibly be on the atmospheric CO2 content and global temperature by the year 2100; it turns out that this could theoretically reduce CO2 concentration from an estimated 580 ppmv (without the plan) to 480 ppmv (with the plan); this would result in a reduction of global temperature of somewhere between 0.3 and 0.8C, depending on the assumed 2xCO2 climate sensitivity (in other words, an insignificant impact when compared with the obvious high cost and negative effects of implementation).
We then got off onto various sidetracks, as has often been the case in our exchanges, but I believe the above summary pretty much captures the essence of our recent exchange.
Do you agree?
Max
You say “There are many honest mathematicians and physicists out there who have not become corrupt”.
Incidentally I wouldn’t disagree, but I just wonder if the ones you mean are different from the ones I mean!
So who are these “many” according to you? Can you name one climatic research organisation or one university dept who are staffed by the sort of people you might have in mind?
Northern New Brunswick wind turbines frozen solid
http://www.nationalpost.com/Northern+Brunswick+wind+turbines+frozen+solid/4287063/story.html#ixzz1E4cqW7YC
Pete,
Here’s how well your “green” initiative is working……..burning food was a “green” initiative, was it not?
Here’s the thing……..I can afford double the price for a pound of meat or a gallon of milk. I doubt most people can……..but that really doesn’t matter does it Pete?
The point is that the government is DOING SOMETHING to save polar bears………..to hell with the people………right Pete?
Funny thing is, I invested heavily in corn 2 years ago…….so the doubling of the commodity might do better then covering the cost of our increased grocery bill.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703572404575634753486416076.html
PeterM
You asked about physicists and mathematicians, who might have a different opinion than that of IPCC, if I understood correctly.
Some time ago (on this thread) I gave you a long list of scientists of various disciplines who are not part of the “hockey club” or devout defenders of what Dr. Curry has referred to as the “IPCC dogma”.
These have gone on record that they do not support some aspect of the IPCC party line.
Of course, there are probably many thousands of other physicists or mathematicians, who may honestly have reached varying conclusions on the “dangerous AGW” premise, or who have not reached any definitive conclusion on this at all as yet.
Most of these probably do agree that CO2 is a GHG, that human activities emit CO2, thereby contributing in some measure to GH warming, but that the magnitude of this warming is still unsure, in view of the many basic uncertainties involved.
Many participate in the various interesting blogsites dedicated to climate science issues.
Judith Curry’s blogsite is one such site with many interesting threads.
Hope this has answered your question.
Max
I’ve found a better you tube link for Sir Paul Nurse’s lecture: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V89AeCLCtJQ
it the whole 60 mins in one go.
One of the themes that runs through Sir Paul’s talk is that scientists should go out of their way to better explain science, including climate science, to the general public. Once this is done, AGW climate denialism will fall away. The editors of the Spectator, Telegraph, Mail, Express etc will run their editorial line past the Royal Society so that they can be sure they don’t get their science wrong!
Maybe Tony Newberry too! As if!
Personally I think he might erring slightly too much on the optimistic side. It’s not so much that you guys don’t understand the science behind AGW, it’s more that you don’t want to understand.
What do you think?
Brute,
In your debate with that Queenslander friend of yours whom claims to be some kind of a physicist. (I suspect an ex school teacher), let me draw an analogy that the added corruption of truth in “climate science” by politicians can be seen to be duplicated in just about anything.
This afternoon, I was about to start drafting an additional article on my new website when I heard on radio that there was to be a performance of Shostakovich’s 12th symphony, with which I’m not overly familiar, so I thought I’d catch up.
So let’s go back a few steps. Some 2 years ago I went to a Melbourne concert performance of his 4th symphony for the first time, and the hairs-stood-up on the back of my neck at the vast orchestration, atonality, and even stuff like what I would describe as violent reverse crescendos. As we walked out for some bubbly refreshment in the interval, I heard someone say: “I can’t understand why Stalin didn’t like it”
So, anyhow, Shostakovich then composed his 5th , which is my favourite, with his apologia attached to Stalin: “In response to just criticism“, or words to that effect from memory. However, it was still hair-tingly atonal with sudden shifts in themes etc, and it follows that whilst it is very popular today, probably Uncle Joe would not have liked it.
(I even attended two consecutive performances of the 5th in a row in the 80’s by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, a truly world-class band, whilst encouraged by the company first by Canadian and then by American epitomes of human charm)
So anyhow, coming back to his 12th the radio announcer commented (paraphrasing) that Shostakovich had been “obliged” to join the communist party, and after considering the title for the symphony to be “A Lenin symphony”, finally settled on : “The year 1917”. And, amongst other things, some English commentator wrote something like: “It is the voice of a man foaming from the teeth after being forced to eat soap.”
Bob_FJ,
Just to establish my credentials, I might say I started off in Physics but switched to Electronics and worked as an engineer in both the public (CSIRO and various unis) and also private sector companies. I now run one of my own. So, I actually design things, make them work and customers buy and use them.
I’ve written a few papers, but it’s often not encouraged in private industry for commercial reasons. This is probably the one that is most cited by others in the field.
http://www.docin.com/p-35390847.html
PeterM
Referring to the Paul Nurse broadcast, you wrote:
I would agree wholeheartedly about “better explaining science” with two caveats:
– “explain the science” of a subject with which you are familiar (Paul Nurse fell into the trap of pontificating about climate science, a field about which he is obviously not knowledgeable, as evidenced by the groaner he made on human vs. natural CO2).
– “explain”, for example in climate science, “all sides of the science” (not just the politically correct IPCC party line); point out the many uncertainties rather than glossing over them or pretending that they do not exist.
Would you agree with these caveats, Peter?
Max
Max
Max,
Well no you couldn’t use climate scientists, could you? They’ve all been corrupted by the huge amounts of money involved. Non-climate scientists don’t know what they are talking about, right? So that doesn’t leave anyone. You might as well just do what you’ve always done, cherry pick the bits you like, trash the rest, and twist them into your own version of what scientists should be saying.
Paul Nurse didn’t get it wrong. Natural emissions and natural absorptions are in balance. Net emissions are zero. The only possible exception is the contribution of “new” CO2 from volcanic activity. That is tiny when compared to the release of CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels.That was the point he was making.
I thought you agreed with all this? I’ve mentioned before that the burning of fossil fuels has led to a 40% increase in CO2 levels. Its only the even wilder men of the contrarian activists than yourself who would dispute this.
I guess this might be your next step though. Now that it’s patently obvious that temperatures are still rising, you’re running out of options. You might have to fall back on the contrarian position on the nature of CO2 emissions.
PeterM
Your rant (3592) sees rather incoherent, but I’ll try to respond anyway.:
I have never said that “climate scientists have all been corrupted” by “huge sums of money”, as you have claimed.
It is clear to one and all that the IPCC process is too highly politicized and has thus become corrupt.
However, there are a great majority of scientists, some of them “climatologists”, who have obviously not been affected by the corrupt IPCC process.
I named a fairly sizable group of scientists earlier on this thread, who have even gone so far as to go on record that they were not in agreement with the “IPCC dogma”. This list includes many climate scientists, such as Spencer, Lindzen, Christy, Loehle, etc.
Others have not gone that far but have also not stated that they totally support the “IPCC dogma”. These are the ones I’ll call “neutral”. Maybe they are undecided. Maybe they are simply being cautious, because they want to continue working in their field and realize that this means getting taxpayer funding via the politicians of this world.
Then there are a few “insiders” (as Judith Curry called them) who ardently defend the “IPCC dogma” against all critique. These include the likes of Mann, Jones, Trenberth, etc. (essentially the hockey team plus others implicated by climategate), plus a group of surrogates.
I’ve also never claimed that “non-climate scientists don’t know what they are talking about”. There are many “non-climate scientists” and engineers, etc. who have evaluated all the data out there and come to varying conclusions regarding the validity of the “IPCC dogma”. I’d put many of the bloggers on this and other sites (including you) into this category.
Now to your statement:
Your nice rationalization about “net impact” of various CO2 emissions does not change the fact that Paul Nurse made a silly boo-boo on the BBC broadcast. This has been pointed out. It was unfortunate for Nurse that he made this error in a public broadcast.
He would have been better off leaving the climate debate out of his discussion entirely and sticking with either his field of specialization or discussing more generally how science has influenced our society, rather than slipping into a political discourse. It appears that he did what he did because that is what BBC wanted him to do (i.e. sell the party line on climate change).
But this has all been written up by several people (TonyN, Andrew Montford, etc.), so does not need repeating here.
Suffice it to say, his message backfired, at least partly because of his silly boo-boo.
Max
PeterM
A side issue, which you brought up in your 3592 was the relative magnitude of natural CO2 emissions versus those caused by human activity (primarily fossil fuel combustion).
Let’s say your interpretation of Nurse’s boo-boo on human versus natural CO2 emissions was meant to be limited to only the “natural emissions” from the Earth’s crust, excluding all the others.
Nurse is a geneticist by scientific education and practice. He has even been awarded a Nobel Prize.
Another scientist, Ian Plimer has stated that the total emissions from the Earth’s crust (terrestrial volcanoes plus submarine volcanoes and fissures in the crust) is likely to be greater than that from human activities.
This other scientist happens to be not a geneticist, but a geologist by scientific education and practice (exactly that field of science, which studies this sort of thing).
Which of the two scientists would have greater scientific credibility on this specific topic: the geneticist or the geologist?
Please justify your choice.
Max
Max,
Well its all a question of spin. If you want to say Prof Nurse got it wrong, you compare human net emissions to natural gross emissions. Human emissions then superficially appear harmless or negligable. However the true situation is that nature offsets all its gross emissions, and more besides, with gross absorptions. Whereas humanity doesn’t offset any at all. In reality human emissions are not negligable but change the balance over a period of time.
You’ve suggested that climate scientists should be encouraged to explain their science with a couple of caveats, beat up the uncertainty, give both sides of the story etc. You’ve found a handful who might comply.
Why not write their lectures for them? Why risk that they may say anything at all which so much hints that there may be a real problem?
PeterM
Yep.
I’ll agree with you (3595) that “its all a question of spin”.
And, up until Climategate, Copenhagen and Cancun, IPCC and the climate alarmists pretty much controlled the spin. Times were good.
Just look at it, Peter: Al Gore first got an Oscar and then even a Nobel Peace Prize, along with Pachauri and the whole of IPCC. Politicians were lined up to implement “binding” resolutions (i.e. taxation proposals tied to “carbon caps”), profiteers from various groups were lining up at the taxpayer-funded trough and the “dangerous AGW” bandwagon was riding high. The media were having a field day with disaster predictions from the alarmist “scientists” and even the general public (the “funders” of the whole exercise) were generally favorable to the “spin” of a “dangerous AGW” problem.
Then the “spin” changed (as it always does in this world).
Now these same guys are desperately trying to get the “spin” back in their favor – but this is very unlikely to happen. Many scientists have begun to ask embarrassing questions, others are openly questioning the “spin”, the media are backing off from their unwavering support and the general public has begun to see through it.
Times are not good for the “dangerous AGW” spinmasters, as I’m sure you’ll have to admit.
But I’ll agree with your original premise that “it’s all a question of spin”.
Max
PeterM
As always you miss the point. If the scientist simply reported their science, made the data available to others, stopped trying to block contrary views in peer review, and stopped prescribing their version of the cure within their scientific papers then that would be a start. Your suggestion is like that from a petulant school boy who has been caught stealing from the tuck-shop after all his mates have got away with it.
In climate science there has been precious little non agenda driven research or publication and that is what we need. We will then make up our minds who to believe, not be told who to believe.
Peter Geany,
Peer review, in all branches of science, superficially may appear as “trying to block contrary views”.
There are “contrary views” on all topics, not just AGW. The problem for those holding these views is that they are considered by the consensus to be incorrect. Yes, it is probably much more more difficult to get these views past the initial peer review step, whereas I do acknowledge that pro-consensus mainstream stuff gets through fairly straightforwardly ‘on the nod’ – particularly if the authors have a certain level of standing in their field.
Correctness is the criterion. No reviewer want to put a tick against anything that is subsequently shot down after the initial peer review process. However, that’s not to say that ground breaking, consensus breaking papers don’t arise from time to time, and the rewards can be enormous. You don’t get a Nobel prize for a rehash of what’s already been written.
On AGW, there would, I would say almost certainly, be a Nobel prize for anyone who could demonstrably show that it’s all been a mistake. Every climate scientist would do that if they could, but they can’t. The simple reason being that it almost certainly hasn’t been.
I will put the first name forward for the Nobel prize: Henrik Svensmark
Each year and each experiment brings him closer to proving his theory. It certainly makes more sense to me, it is elegantly simple, and therefore more likely to be right, and it explains everything way back including snowball earth. The CO2 feedback theory relies on too many other factors so is more than likely wrong. Its certainly not working at present. However My thinking could be wrong.
PeterG and PeterM
Henrik Svensmark may indeed become a future Nobel Prize winner (for science, not for a “political” Peace Prize), if the CLOUD experiment at CERN does confirm the small scale lab results on his cosmic ray / cloud hypothesis.
As you wrote, PeterG, the correlation looks much more convincing than that for CO2 / temperature (which was always tenuous due to the unexplained multi-decadal temperature cycles despite non-cyclical CO2 increase and which has come unglued over the past decade’s “lack of warming” despite record CO2 increase).
But, as has been said many times: correlation does not prove causation (even when a perfectly plausible hypothesis supports the case for causation).
This is equally the case today for the premise that either AGW or cosmic rays have been the cause of past warming; CERN may provide the empirical data required in order to change this.
Max