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.
By the way, I don’t need or want the government to “look after me” when I get old……..my family/frends will do that.
Brute,
Don’t you have any sort of “Aged” pension system in the USA?
Many European workers retire on quite generous State pensions. Half pay or more in Germany? Why not, they’ve paid over the years with higher taxes. Not so generous in Australia or the UK but at least you wouldn’t starve.
The idea is that people shouldn’t have to rely on charity. So, no-one is expected to pay in more than is required, which would be a charity donation. What is received isn’t classed as charity either. There is no stigma attached to collecting it.
PeterM and Brute
You mention retirement plans for “those who live in Europe”, Peter.
Switzerland (a European country) has an old-age retirement scheme pretty similar to that of the USA. There is a government plan, paid for by payroll tax, which provides a minimum retirement income at age 65; ours is a bit less generous than the US Social Security benefit, especially if the maximum working years have not been reached by retirement. A second difference: there is no “cap” to the payroll tax deduction (as there is in the USA). This plan is known as the “first pillar”.
Employers also offer a supplemental retirement package, where both employee and employer contribute, known as the “second pillar” here. A minimum plan is required by law (since the mid-1980s). This is similar to “401K” plans in the USA, but I do not believe that there is a mandatory minimum plan there.
Then there are tax-deferred schemes for putting aside a limited amount of added retirement income, known as the “third pillar”.
The government is directly involved in only the “first pillar”..
Google tells me that the average retirement income in the USA was $49,000/yr in 2008 (Social Security is only a bit more than half of this: the maximum benefit was around $27,000).
The maximum Swiss AHV pension is around CHF 26,800/year ($ 25,500 equivalent). Google tells me that the average “second pillar” was CHF 33,500/year ($32,000 equivalent), so the total comes out pretty much the same (but basic costs, such as food and housing, are quite a bit higher in Switzerland).
Google tells me that a retired German household will receive a maximum of Euro 24,000/year ($32,400/year) from the state plan. In addition, many Germans, especially higher-paid salaried employees or self-employed individuals, have a private supplemental plan to increase the total retirement income. There are no published data on these, but I know cases, where this has added another 50% to 100% to the income from the state plan.
All in all, there is not much difference between the three countries overall. People who have worked all their lives in any of the 3 systems will not have to worry about “starving to death”.
“Fat cat” German retirement plans and “starving” US retirees are exceptions to the rule.
But this all has little to do with our topic here.
Max
Max is right.
Quickly, We do have the Social Security Trust Fund which our politicians have stolen and filled with IOU’s. This year, Social Security paid out more than was paid in……..it’s upside down…….Like any government run program, it’s mismanaged and insolvent. All of the people that were born just after WWII, (and there are a lot of them) begin collecting this year (age 65). The next few years will get even worse.
A perfect storm for financial disaster.
“Ice cap thaw may awaken Icelandic volcanoes”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/16/reply-to-ice-cap-thaw-may-awaken-icelandic-volcanoes/#more-18562
Brute
Regarding the Iceland volcano:
Another beautiful theory (AGW may cause ice cap to thaw, awakening Icelandic volcanoes) invalidated.
Shucks! And it sounded so good.
Max
PS The ash cloud has touched Switzerland and the Geneva, Basel and Zurich airports were shut down today. Is this a real threat to jet airliners? (Bring back the good ol’ DC4s and DC8s.)
Damned if you do, Damned if you don’t……
Grounding Of Planes Across Europe Could Lead To Temperature Rise……
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1266739/Grounding-planes-Europe-lead-rise-temperatures.html
Global Warming activist & CNN newscaster Rick Sanchez……..
CNN’s Rick Sanchez: Iceland’s Too Cold For a Volcano
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laptaCg0BHA
Gore takes cash for water campaign from chemical firm
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/gore-takes-cash-for-water-campaign-from-chemical-firm-1947723.html
Brute
Sanchez never was known for his smarts, as this clip shows.
Max
Max,
Is there any way to even begin to estimate how much “greenhouse gas” this volcano has emitted in a week and how many cars/power-plants/households would be an equivalent?
Brute
Don’t have any data on “SUV equivalents” of current volcanic eruption, but just read in local newspaper that the last major volcanic eruption in Iceland may have been responsible for the crop failures and famines that resulted in the French Revolution.
http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/wissen/geschichte/Auf-die-Eruption-in-Island-folgte-die-Revolution-in-Frankreich/story/21296581
The report states that the current eruption is not that strong (yet), so that no major cooling is expected to result.
Let’s hope the report is correct.
Max
Harvey Korman (Count DeMoney):
“The peasants are revolting”
Mel Brooks (King Louis XVI):
“You said it……they stink on ice”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk47saogI8o
That volcano ash.
This article suggests that “the European Union’s famous precautionary principle is behind this absurdly risk averse air travel ban.” A spokesman for Lufthansa (“rightly furious over this disaster” after carrying out its own test flights) said,
It seems the EU relied on UN and UK Met Office computer simulations rather than “real science” – i.e. “testability, samples and experimental test flights”.
Sound familiar?
Robin
Yes. There is quite an uproar brewing because of the forced groundings, especially now that it is coming out that they were all based on the same kind of GIGO computer simulations used to “predict” future climate disasters and the infamous “precautionary principle” carried to extremes.
Let’s get the names of those who made these studies and of the EU officials that were stupid enough to fall for them and issue the flying ban.
I have heard that this is all costing $200 million per day. Of course, the nincompoops that have caused this grounding will not be held accountable in any way, but they should at least be exposed publicly.
Max
Re my 314 and Max’s 315, something extraordinary has just happened. After days of assuring us that the Met Office models were sound and aircraft were not to fly in UK airspace and after telling us today that, despite the rest of Europe virtually returning to normal, the restrictions would remain in place “until at least” tomorrow and despite the ash cloud still being up there, its suddenly been announced that “All UK airports can reopen from 2200” tonight. Well, well. Hmm – it seems the decision was based on “thorough gathering of data and analysis”. Willie Walsh – British Airways CEO – said “lessons can be learned”, ominously adding: “There will be plenty of time for a post mortem of what has happened over the last few days.”
This may have wide implications.
I live almost right under the landing path to Heathrow and a plane came in to land at about 9.50 this evening. I can hear distant aircraft noise from my garden now, so it sounds like things are starting to go back to normal.
Richard North at EU Referendum is running with this story here and here.
Ash cloud models – overrated? A word on Post Normal Science by Dr. Jerome Ravetz
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/19/ash-cloud-models-overrated-a-word-on-post-normal-science-by-dr-jerome-ravetz/#more-18699
Climate sceptic wins landmark data victory ‘for price of a stamp’
Belfast ecologist forced to hand over tree-ring data describes order from information commission as a ‘staggering injustice’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/apr/20/climate-sceptic-wins-data-victory
Alex:
Thanks for the references to North’s posts on the flight ban debacle. He has another (Breaching the barricades of bureaucracy) here.
He suggests that British Airways CEO Willie Walsh, with 22 long haul aircraft converging on the UK, “had virtually made clear [they] were going to land, come what may” – and the bureaucrats, waffling for the first time about “risk assessment” and empirical evidence, buckled.
As I said at #310, this may have wide implications.
The Government’s Chief Scientist, Sir John Beddington, was wheeled out on the BBC R4 News at 8.00am to say that the advice given by scientists about the dangers of the volcanic ash was ‘unequivocal’. I wonder how that one will play out?
TonyN:
As this story seems to be demonstrating, being unequivocal isn’t the same thing as being right.
Robin:
I hope that the chaos of the last week will help policy-makers and the public appreciate that.
Apparently the model that the Met Office is using was originally developed during the cold war to monitor the spread of nuclear fallout. The say that it has been updated over the years.
Does anyone know much CO2 the Eyjafjallajökull* volcano is putting out?
*Cut and pasted – obviously!
JamesP
Eyjafjallajökull
The Germanic pronunciation tip includes “Ah, ja!”, “Fiat”, “Joghurt” and “Merkel”, but appears a bit inexact, while the Anglophone version:
“Ah, yeah…fee…Allah…yokel”
sounds a bit closer.
The French have given up. You can’t pronounce this word in French. The last TF1 news announcer that tried it got his tongue tied in knots and had to be hospitalized.
Max