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.
Max
Read your link-there seem to be a lot of complex subsidiary arguments going on.
Owen is right,we can’t change anything in the first place and to attempt to do so has other consequences as well as cost.
Peter is standing on the sidelines shouting ‘we must do something’ but utterly fails to comprehend we can have no effect whatsoever, except by closing down the world economy and even then the temperature reduction would be minimal.
Perhaps the truth is that he comprehends that basic truth all to well, but as he demonstrated with his Cuban diatribe he believes man (primarily the US)has spolit the garden of Eden and we must all pay the price by wearing hair shirts.
tonyb
Brute
In 1986 Hansen said (your Miami reference):
Let’s see how well Hansen really did.
He projected warming from 1991-2000 of 0.28°C to 0.56°C.
Using his own GISS record we had a “linear warming rate” of 0.2°C over the decade, so his forecast was overstated by 40% to 180%.
But wait a minute! Hansen slipped in the clause: “if current trends are unchanged”.
Hmmm. Let’s say “current rates” in mid-1986 was the trend over the preceding 10-year period 1976-1985.
His GISS record shows that the linear “trend” over that period was warming of 0.15°C per decade. So if that “trend” had continued, Hansen would have been off by even more.
And he was lucky, because Mother Nature helped him in two big ways (nothing to do with human CO2):
The Mount Pinatubo eruption in 1991 caused a rapid drop in temperature, which lasted well over a year, giving him a “cold start” for his record.
And the “super El Niño” in 1997/98 gave him a big upward bump toward the end of his forecast period.
OK. So he was lucky for his 1991-2000 forecast, but was still off by a large amount (if I had a sales manager working for me whose sales forecast was exaggerated by 40% to 180%, he’d be replaced pretty fast).
But how did his luck run for the next period?
That decade (2001-2010) is just over, and even his record shows that it did not warm at all. Nada! Zilch!
Ouch!
This guy’s forecasts are simply designed to make people afraid. It’s pure fear mongering, with absolutely no scientific justification, just some computer model mumbo-jumbo.
Hansen’s models couldn’t forecast our climate back in 1986 and they sure as hell can’t do any better today, with his totally unscientific notions of “tipping points”, “coal death trains”, “Venus-like runaway GH warming”, etc.
The guy is a doomsayer and a fraud.
It’s good that he is being exposed as such, Brute
Max
How good was Hansen’s forecast in 1986?
(A picture is worth a thousand words.)
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5133/5528080720_5634b4c9a2_b.jpg
How good are his forecasts of “tipping points” today?
Brute and Max,
Perhaps the Miami News is an excellent paper in its own right. I’m sure they are careful to get the scores of the Miami Dolphins correct but not the contents of some scientific paper they just don’t understand. Yut ou can’t use them as a scientific reference.
In this case I am saying they got it wrong unless you can show me where James Hansen would have said otherwise!
You might want to look at what scepticalscience say about Hansen’s predictions and they do indeed say that he did overestimate future warming but not quite to the extent made out either by the Miami news or Max.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Hansen-1988-prediction.htm
Peter
I am a bit nervous asking you this knowing that you see Cuba as a desirable role model, but where do we go from here on energy provision?
Nuclear looks certain to be ruled out for the forseeable future, and nice though renewables are it will be thirty years before they can make a substantial and cost effective addition to our supplies.
Personally, in the interim, I would go for coal (without CCS at this stage) and gas in all its forms including shale. Obviously this needs to be subject to proper pollution and environmental controls.
Although I personally am not concerned about the Co2 issues, you will be. So what do you see as the future in order to provide businesses and ordinary people (i.e. not green zealots) with affordable reliable power?
tonyb
PeterM
Aw c’mon, Peter. Are you saying the Miami News “got it wrong” (3864) because the 1986 prediction made by Hansen, which they reported, was more absurd than the absurd later prediction he made in 1988?
Gimme a break. That’s not logical.
Hansen’s consistently exaggerated predictions of climate change from AGW have simply shown that the GISS models he cites are just as lousy in predicting the future of our planet’s climate as those of the UK Met Office (or Hadley), who got it wrong year after year, until they finally stopped making predictions.
And these climate model yo-yos think we are going to swallow their long-range predictions of disaster when they can’t even get shorter term predictions right? Duh!
How stupid does Hansen think the US Congress or public really is?
Face it, Peter, Hansen is not a serious climate scientist, but a doomsday fear monger, pure and simple, and his forecasts today are just as absurd as the failed projections he made in 1986 or 1988.
And that’s the “take home message” here.
Max
PeterM
The defense of Hansen’s lousy 1988 forecast by “Skeptical Science” is a classic response when predictions fail, as described by Nassim Taleb in The Black Swan.
He calls it the:
where anything can be added to the sentence to explain why the prediction failed miserably.
If a sales manager (or other “forecaster”) working for me used this ruse after his forecast failed miserably, he’d be fired on the spot.
Hansen is ready for retirement. IMO, the US taxpayers (like Brute) should make sure he gets his “gold watch” and loses his taxpayer-funded budget, the sooner the better. He is wasting US tax money on fear mongering nonsense.
Max
TonyB,
I think my comment about Cuba was that they were doing the best with what they’d got, not necessarily that a society on a relatively small island which was blockaded by the USA could be used as a role model for countries such as yours or the USA itself.
The situation in Japan is bad, and that goes without saying, but if the Earthquake had broken a dam wall, and swept away thousands, would we have condemned all hyrdoelecric storage schemes? Rational thinking is still required no matter how bad things get.
I think we’ll just have to wait and see how the crisis in Japan unfolds and take stock once all the facts are known.
Max,
No, I’m suggesting that the Miami News got it wrong by perhaps doing something like missing out a decimal point. Its called misreporting. It happens all the time.
Of course, if you have any other evidence that James Hansen did indeed made these claims himself ……
Not to put too fine a point on things here Pete, but the US “blockade” of Cuba lasted a little over a month. Before and after that time, Cuba was the beneficiary of decades of advice and financial support from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics……………you may remember this group…………another failed “Progressive” society that would “alleviate all pain and suffering in the world” through collectivization and central planning……
In case you haven’t noticed, the USSR no longer exists.
This seems destined to be ignored by today’s climate change obsessed media: Scientists from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies – the very organization now presaging gloom and doom at the hands of global warming – predicted a new ice age back in 1971.
Think this will be a focus of tonight’s evening news broadcasts?
Regardless of the answer, the Washington Times wonderfully reported Wednesday:
The Post archives do indeed identify the existence of such a piece, with the following preview:
The Times piece continued:
It turns out the Post was referring specifically to an article published at the journal Science that day, which was written by Rasool and S. H. Schneider.
Science archives identified the following abstract of the piece entitled “Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Aerosols: Effects of Large Increases on Global Climate,” and indicated the authors were from “Institute for Space Studies, Goddard Space Flight Center, National Aeronautics and Space Administration” (emphasis added):
How marvelous. Yet, 36 years later, this same organization is predicting a planetary cataclysm at the hands of global warming.
Which one of this agency’s warnings should we heed?
Brute,
The USSR hasn’t existed for the last 20 years yet you are still in a state of semi war with Cuba.
It just seems rather odd. They are no military threat. Maybe you prefer the word ’embargo’ to blockade?
That’s lasted slightly longer than one month.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_embargo_against_Cuba
Why an embargo anyway? What criteria do the USA apply when applying trade restrictions?
PeterM
I think I answered your question in 3856.
Whether or not Miami News “got it right” in 1986 (and I have no compelling reason to conclude that they did not, despite your “suggestion”) Hansen has made a few ridiculous forecasts which have not come true.
It is obvious that his models cannot forecast our future climate.
As a result, his (model-based) predictions of “tipping points” with “deleterious effects” on our “climate” (with all the other scary stuff on sea level rise in meters, species extinctions, etc.) are simply unscientific attempts to frighten people into swallowing his “doomsday” prediction.
Doesn’t work anymore.
Max
I’m not sure Pete……maybe the “Progressive” Presidents (Kennedy, Johnson, Clinton and Hussein Obama) can better answer your question.
Brute,
So, in your own words, would you say the Cuban embargo is more about American commercial losses in Cuba after their revolution or is it an attempt to sway the Cuban government towards introducing a more democratic system?
PeterM
Let me ask you, can you say in your own words, do you consider it “part of a democratic system” for a government to “nationalize the properties of foreign citizens and corporations” without there being a state of war with that foreign nation?
Max
Pete,
Originally, we were discussing your admiration for Cuba’s adherence to “green” technology……..
I submit that their “green” initiatives are the result of desperation and abject poverty primarily due to their failed collectivist/”Progressive” economic policies as well as a brutal totalitarian (centrally planned) socialist state.
For decades Cuba was permitted to “prosper” under the guidance and finance of their mother country……the USSR.
The experiment has failed and the country has subsided into an economy that closely resembles something from the 19th century.
So, if you’d like for the rest of the world to regress, I’d say a wonderful way to achieve this would be to mirror the economic “Progressive”/”green” model of Cuba circa 1958-2011.
Brute,
If the system is as bad as you claim, why endevour to make it worse? Why not just leave it to collapse on its own? What sort of conditions are the Americans offering anyway? Total surrender?
Max,
I would say that all revolutions would involve a degree of injustice to some of those who might happen to find themselves on the losing side.
I did read that Castro had paid out compensation to US companies. However, they had seriously understated property values to minimise taxes so they were hoist by their own petard on that one.
What happened after the US revolution? Were all the settlers who had sided with the British, and ended up having to flee back home, or to Canada, given full and fair compensation for loss of their property?
PeterM
In war situations, expropriation has occurred (you mention the US Revolutionary War against Britain).
Cuba was not at war with the USA when the confiscation of property of US citizens in Cuba took place. It was simple theft on the part of the Castro regime, if you will.
Also, as you must know, the concepts of “international law” were quite limited in the late 18th century compared to the late 20th century.
But let’s drop this topic before TonyN tosses us off.
Max
Max,
According to Wiki “In February 1960, Cuba signed an agreement to buy oil from the USSR. When the U.S.-owned refineries in Cuba refused to process the oil, they were expropriated, and the United States broke off diplomatic relations with the Castro government soon afterward.”
What would the US do if US refineries were owned by overseas interests and refused to process oil from sources they didn’t agree with? Like Brute would agree to bike to work? He wouldn’t under any circumstances want to interfere with anyone’s property right?
Peter 3858
I don’t disagree with your dam analogy. However the reality is that the media are thoroughly scaring people and govts will reflect this.
At the least there will likely be a moratorium on nuclear as designs are revisited and more safety measures introduced.
In the UK private investment is needed to build new power plants-the govt won’t do it due to Chris Huhnes personal anti nuclear beliefs.
We are going to be chronically short of power anyway and without nuclear our baseload supply will be severely reduced.
tonyb
Peter,
It is “collapsed”.
Pete,
Considering that 76% of Australia’s electrical production is generated using black or brown coal, wouldn’t your anti-humankind crusade be better served standing on a corner with a placard or possibly planning attacks on the grid to stop the destruction of the planet due to Australia’s careless disregard for penguins and polar bears?
I see that Australia is way ahead of the rest of the world in utilizing “green” energy………..NOT
It would seem to me that your ire should be directed toward your fellow Australians as opposed to the good citizens of the United States….after all, we only derive 44% of our electricity from coal.
People who live in glass houses should not throw stones Peter.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf64.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_generation
Brute
You’re only talking about the tip of the iceberg, when you chastise Peter for Australia’s totally irresponsible carbon footprint.
The problem is much worse than you depict. 75% of Australia’s coal is exported, mostly all over Asia: Japan, Korea, China, plus some to Europe.
These “death shipments” make coal Australia’s largest export product, accounting for over $50 billion, a shocking $2,300 per man, woman and child living in Australia!
As you can see an entire nation is selfishly profiteering from the misery it is causing the entire world.
Max
Those damn Australians! Profiting from fueling China’s electrical “death ovens”
Exporters of death!
They should be forced to pay taxes to the rest of the world for wanton ecological destruction!
The Earth god Gaia is weeping due to the pillaging and poisoning………………I have a good mind to boycott future purchases of vegemite!
What is vegemite anyway?