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.

4,522 Responses to “Continuation of the New Statesman Whitehouse/Lynas blogs: Number 2”

  1. Best wishes for a swift recovery TonyN. Your posts are much missed. As I’ve said before, many of us appreciate the leisurely pace of discussion here, particularly when the subject is some long report or audio document that needs analysis and reflection before commenting.
    In the meantime, I’ll just have to go back to annoying Brute and/or PeterM by saying how much I agree with them.

    [TonyN says: Very many thanks for the good wishes Geoff. So far as long reports are concerned, Andrew Montford’s new opus on the Royal Society would seem to have much to say that certainly needed saying, although I have yet to do more than glance at it. If you feel like starting a thread about it here I would be happy for you to do so.]

  2. Looks like the Germans have finally realized their terrible mistake and are drastically cutting their welfare payments to solar businesses.

    Germany’s Solar Power Money Pit

    In the words of the German Association of Physicists, “solar energy cannot replace any additional power plants.” On short, overcast winter days, Germany’s 1.1 million solar-power systems can generate no electricity at all. The country is then forced to import considerable amounts of electricity from nuclear power plants in France and the Czech Republic.

    Indeed, despite the massive investment, solar power accounts for only about 0.3 percent of Germany’s total energy. This is one of the key reasons why Germans now pay the second-highest price for electricity in the developed world (exceeded only by Denmark, which aims to be the “world wind-energy champion”). Germans pay three times more than their American counterparts.

    http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/project_syndicate/2012/02/why_germany_is_phasing_out_its_solar_power_subsidies_.html

  3. Another “green” project is tits up………………

    GOV’T MOTORS halts production of CHEVY Volt………..Lays off 1,300…

    http://thehill.com/blogs/transportation-report/automobiles/213889-gm-halting-production-of-chevy-volt

  4. Hi Brute, we are seeing a lot of this over here at present. General Motors should have gone bust and been reconstituted with new management rather than being given taxpayers money to produce a car no one wanted.

    This is an interesting article.

    http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm/9962/Fuelling-the-Rise-of-the-Anglosphere

  5. Tony N

    Very sorry to hear about your accident and injury.

    Here’s hoping you have a speedy recovery and that your knee is back to normal again before too long.

    Cheers.

    Max

    [TonyN says: Very many thanks for the good wishes. Progress is steady but it’s a matter of being patient while the healing process runs its course.]

  6. Tony N

    Looks like autoformat took over in my previous message.

    Max

  7. We are doomed! (Club of Rome)

    Jorgen Randers of the Club of Rome sees a 2°C rise in global temperature by 2052.
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/08/us-climate-clubofrome-idUSBRE8470JE20120508

    In an attempt to keep the agenda-driven hype on AGW alive, Randers is quoted as saying:

    “It is unlikely that governments will pass necessary regulation to force the markets to allocate more money into climate-friendly solutions, and (we) must not assume that markets will work for the benefit of humankind,” said Jorgen Randers, author of the report and professor of climate strategy at the Norwegian School of Management.”

    “Professor of Climate Strategy?” How can I get a job like that?

    Yawn!

    Max

  8. Godfather of ‘global warming’ lowers boom on climate change hysteria…

    http://www.torontosun.com/2012/06/22/green-drivel

  9. Good to hear from you Brute, and I hope that this blog will come to life again later this autumn. At the moment I have an Information Tribunal hearing pending and that must take priority.

    The temperature standstill is obviously going to be a very big problem for the IPCC when they start to unveil their Fifth Assessment Report next year. It will be very interesting to see how they approach it.

  10. Brute,

    I suspect that you have accumulated so much money from selling air-conditioning to the Eskimos, (as you implied a year or so ago), that you may well be able to make a generous donation for TonyN’s appeal on the ruling against him by a learned judge. Stranger than fiction is that! My head nearly exploded:

    http://ccgi.newbery1.plus.com/blog/?p=600&doing_wp_cron

    And this at Bishop Hill:

    http://www.bishop-hill.net/

    And various links therein particularly to Andrew O at The Register.

    Very important stuff, and you must be searching to find a good cause!

  11. mpainter comments on the BP representative (“follow the money trail”).

    BP will need “the money”, now that they have to pay $4.5 billion in damages and criminal penalty for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
    http://www.foxbusiness.com/news/2012/11/15/bp-agrees-to-pay-45-billion-in-penalties-for-us-oil-spill/

    “Beyond Petroleum” indeed.

    Max

  12. Crikey, don’t tell me this thread has finally petered out ?

    I have found much entertainment and some salient information
    from the nearly 15000 comments in here over the years. . . . .

    I shall check back from time to time.

  13. Axel: well, I hope it hasn’t petered out. I, like Brute – who’s kept going far longer than I – was a regular contributor from the earliest New Statesman days until a year or so ago here. Like you, I found it entertaining and useful. As an illustration of the latter see my post at 2:21 PM here.

  14. Have you seen this?
    http://scottishsceptic.wordpress.com/2013/12/15/ranking-of-climate-blogs-dec-2013/
    Harmless Sky ranked 3rd most visited climate blog ahead of Climate Audit and Judith Curry!

    It’ll certainly be one of my most frequent visits next year. Merry Christmas all.

  15. PS The only reason I haven’t been back here more often to check if it was still in action is that this site takes an awful long time to load. Could that be something to do with the size of this thread? Maybe someone internet-savvy could enlighten us.

  16. Geoff

    I’ve been neglecting the blog I’m afraid, but I hope that there will be some interesting tales to tell again before long.

    The extraordinary Alexa ranking of HS that you spotted may not be unrelated to a warning I got from my ISP about unauthorised activity on the site. Apparently a lot of WordPress blogs are being temporarily hijacked and used to send spam, so that may account for ablip in traffic.

    The slow loading of this thread is because of the vast amount of comments (some with images) that it contains. If people still want to keep it going I can start another ‘continuation’ thread as I did before when the original thread became overloaded.

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