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.
Peter Geany
You mention that many on the “left” are unwilling to consider any other viewpoint but their own.
There may be an explanation for this.
I have heard it said that:
“Right-wing” conservatives consider “left-wing” liberals confused, ignorant and pedantic.
“Left-wing” liberals consider “right-wing” conservatives evil.
Makes dialog difficult.
Max
Wow Peter. What history books have you been reading?
Franklin Roosevelt died before the war ended.
Truman was President and oversaw the de-nazification process.
Franklin Roosevelt was a Socialist.
You certainly have your facts mixed up……….
‘Is Environmentalism Really Working? Not delivering the promised result’ –
‘Environmental measures are expensive and don’t have much effect’
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,751469,00.html
Brute
Believe PeterM may have been referring to the “Federal Democratic Republic” of Germany (Bundesrepublik Deutschland) rather than Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
But his statement is pure garbage anyway.
Many “members of the Nazi Party” were not war criminals, just like many “members of the East German (GDR) ‘Socialistische Einheitspartei'” (or SED) were not criminals, either. Others were, but only very few were tried and convicted after the German unification, even though there was a movement, led by residents of the East (who suffered under these criminals), to do so.
The real Nazi war criminals (who did not escape to Latin America, etc.) were mostly tried and sentenced. A few (including most famously, Eichmann) were caught by the Israelis.
Wehrner von Braun was a scientist, working on Nazi Germany’s rocket program. He, and a few other rocket scientists, ended up in the Huntsville AL, working on the early space program there; several others ended up in the USSR, working on their space program.
There was the old story about the Soviets and the USA landing a man on the moon on the same day, and when they met they greeted each other with “Guten Tag!”
So I don’t know where Peter is getting his history from, but then again, Australia is a long way from Germany, so he can be excused for screwing it up a bit.
But his latest foray into politics is simply a ruse for avoiding the discussion on the flawed science behind AGW and answering the specific questions TonyB and I have asked him.
I’m beginning to wonder whether he has a clue about climate science at all, or simply parrots without question the parts that fit his own personal opinion. I’m basing this on the fact that he is unable to explain things, such as the Hansen “hidden in the pipeline” hypothesis in his own words.
On the other hand, he may be sly as a fox and know full well that the hypothesis is a load of crap, so he’d rather not fall into the trap of trying to defend it.
Who knows?
Max
PeterG,
Read carefully what you wrote? OK You wrote “Most dictatorships are left wing in Nature including that of Hitler’s Germany”
Really?
The Spanish government was the one Nazi European government to survive WW2. Spanish soldiers fought in Russia. There was no democracy in Spain until after Franco died. So why would a left-wing dictator, if that is what he really was, be treated as a friend and ally by the USA in the post war period?
If you think I’m just making this up:
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=2693#axzz1HxXHO6Nx
PeterM 3980
The position of Spain was far more nuanced than you suggest as they were non beligerent during the War and formed alliances with a variety of people in order to pay off debts-financial and symbolic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spain_in_World_War_II
Hitler himself had a non beligerence pact with Russia until he broke it for his own purposes. The over riding fear of Soviet communism by the Allies drove many strange alliances during and after the war.
Now how about answering the question on SST’s? Do you believe they are an accurate reflection of oceanic global temperatures to 1860?
Tonyb
Note the term “non beligerant”. That’s not the same thing as neutral. The Spanish fascists were lucky not to get their comeuppance at the end of WW2.
As your wiki link says “The main part of Spain’s involvement in the war was through volunteers. They fought for both sides, largely reflecting the allegiances of the civil war.”
In other words, the Nazis and Fascists, those same Nazis and Fascists who were later very friendly with Nixon and other right wing Americans, fought with Hitler and the the Republicans fought with the Allies.
Finally, just to dispel any lingering doubts any of you might still have, I’ll just quote the Oxford Dictionary on Nazism.
“The Nazi Party was formed in Munich after the First World War. It advocated right-wing authoritarian nationalist government….”
PeterM #3982
That’s why I used the word ‘non-beligerant’ and not the word ‘neutral.’ The position of Spain was highly nuanced and as the civil war there illustrated there were a high proportion of people who were communists. Franco was a pragmatist and a nationalist. I make no claim concerning Hitler’s allegiances.
Can I thoroughly recommend this fiction book by C Sansom which deals with this nuancing in Spain.
http://us.penguingroup.com/static/rguides/us/winter_madrid.html
Now please answer the question regarding SST’s before TonyN jumps on us for going off topic
tonyb
PeterM
Watch Brutes you tube link, it explain the theory very well and very succinctly. Peter you are confusing real categories with popular misconception on how to categorise an action. On every measure you care to nominate Dictatorships are left wing, and Hitler’s Germany in particular was total government and therefore left wing.
Now please answer tonyb’s and Max’s questions
PeterM
Governments of democratic republics, such as the USA (and Switzerland, for that matter), often have diplomatic relations with nations, whose governments are totalitarian.
The USA had diplomatic relations with the old USSR, as they did with Franco’s Spain and Nazi Germany before WWII.
The USA has diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China and President Obama recently honored China’s President Hu Jintao.
Those are the facts of life, Peter.
This does not mean that Franklin Roosevelt approved of the Nazi government or Ronald Reagan or Jimmy Carter endorsed the repressive style of government under the USSR anymore than Nixon endorsed Spain’s under Franco or Obama endorses China’s today.
Get real, man.
Max
PeterM
You’ve let us all drift way off topic here.
Now let’s get back to the topic at hand: please answer the questions TonyB and I have asked you.
If you are unable to do so, simply respond, “I don’t know the answer”.
Then we can move on.
Max
To get this conversation back on topic, here is a link on Judith Curry’s site to an interesting essay summarizing today’s situation in the AGW debate by Don Aitkin, a former President and Vice-chancellor of the University of Canberra.
http://judithcurry.com/2011/03/29/an-essay-on-the-current-state-of-the-climate-change-debate/#more-2761
Aitkin takes a neutral and objective stand (hard to find generally nowadays), but what he writes will make sense to anyone on either side of the debate.
Max
PeterG,
So you’re saying that all of these were lefties????
Hitler
Mussolini
Pinochet
Franco
Pik Botha
Emperor Hirohito
Ante Pavelic
Chiang Kai Shek
Max,
Recognition? Yes of course it is necessary at times.
But , if Franco was such a dangerous leftie, why was it necessary for Nixon to go on record with “General Franco was a loyal friend and ally of the United States.” ?
And why overthrow a democratically elected President in Chile just to replace him with another Franco-like ‘leftie’ – Pinochet?
Nixon may not have been many people’s idea of an ideal president , but at least he wasn’t politically illiterate. He did know his left from his right!
PeterM
Looks like you need to get back on topic and stop ranting about former US President Nixon – you sound like you are stuck in a time warp.
It appears that you are not going to answer the questions TonyB and I have asked you, so let’s move on.
I posted the link (3987) to an interesting essay by a countryman of yours, Don Aitkin, a former President and Vice-chancellor of the University of Canberra. Aitkin summarizes the current status of the ongoing scientific and political debate surrounding the AGW issue.
I think this essay is well worth reading, no matter where one stands on the debate itself.
Aitkin writes of his own position:
Aitkin states that there are several categories of believers/non-believers and lists them as follows:
I might have come up with slightly different nuances, but I believe Aitkin has listed the categories of participants in the debate fairly accurately.
What do you think of his classification?
While viewpoints change over time as new data become available, I see myself today somewhere between Aitkin’s category 3 and 4, although I might have picked another name to describe this, namely a “rational skeptic”, who would agree that:
I would add that while I have not concluded that AGW theory is a “scam”, I think the IPCC process has corrupted climate science to satisfy a political agenda, and that the hysterical doomsday warnings one hears from doomsayers like Al Gore or James E. Hansen are a “scam”.
Where would you see yourself in this classification?
I would suggest you concentrate on defining your own position, rather than trying to second-guess mine.
[Advice Before you answer this question, it would make sense to read the whole essay.]
Looking forward to your response.
Max
PeterM Read my 3984 my last word on the subject; I assume you can read plain English.
Now please answer the questions you have been asked.
TonyB, Max and Brute,
I’m not sure why you want me to comment on SSTs. It would still be a valid denialist (or is that a contradiction in terms?) position to accept that CO2 was indeed causing an increase in temperature if the 40% rise in CO2 was not caused by human activity.
However I think Tony’s argument is that CO2 increases aren’t caused by human activity but even if they were, which they aren’t, then they haven’t caused the temperature rises which have been observed in recent decades, beacause there haven’t been any, and the temperature record in the 19th century is suspect, as are Antarctic ice core records, but the CO2 record isn’t, but even it wasn’t, it could still be
… that there are other explanations for the warming like the Earth coming out of the last ice age.
OK. If I can’t convince Tony that CO2 rises are of human origin then I have to admit that I’ve got SFA of a chance on anything else to do with climate science.
I probably couldn’t convince him that Wednesday always followed Tuesday if he’d got it into his head that there was no proof!
PeterG,
OK if that’s your last word on those two dangerous lefties: Emperor Hirohito and Adolf Hitler, I might just mention that you do get some support for this argument from that well known fount of human knowledge ‘Conservapedia’.
Mind you, they think Darwin was an agent of Satan and the scientific opinion on global warming is all a hoax, so I suppose that is to be expected.
Peter 3992
You are now being silly.
When have I said that atmospheric co2 concentrations arent affected at all by mans activity? We had this conversation just a few weeks back if you’d like to re-read the exchange. Have you forgotten?
What effect they have on our climate however is quite another matter, and to point to a deeply flawed temperature record as ‘proof’ of accelerating AGW simply isnt good enough.
As has been demonstrated, there are locations on the earth that have been cooling for a statistically meaningful period of at least 30 years. There are more that have been warming. Many of those are in locations that were previously in green fields outside cities and are now inside cities where it is warmer.
The warming signal-largely UHI- is greater than the cooling signal. A global record is nonsensical as we should be looking at real world locations rather than the manipulation that goes on to create a spurious global one.
That global record consists of two strands, both as bad as each other but for different reasons. SSt’s are easiest to demonstrate as nonsensical as they are very largely based on sailors and fishermen randomly throwing buckets over the side to varying depths and then measuring the water once it has been lying around on deck for unknown periods.
I happen to think that parsing the results to tenths of a degree and claiming there is a global record back to 1860 is a silly way to go about constructing one of the prime pieces of evidence of warming.
Glaciers have been generally melting since 1750 according to Lamb. As best as we can tell the low spot of the intermittent LIA was 1607 with numerous reverses and advances since. The trend has been gently upwards for hundreds of years. GISS merely plugs into the end of this trend and does not herald the beginning of it.
Your refusal to come to terms with the manner in which these records are constructed speaks volumes, as does your refusal to consider the many previous periods of arctic melting or the manner in which sea levels have been drifting gently upwards at a non accelerating pace after rising to a peak in the MWP and dropping through the LIA.
tonyb.
PeterM
OK. I give up.
Hitler and Hirohito (actually it was Tojo, who was calling the shots in Japan at the time) were secretly supported by the USA and their capitalist running dogs, Britain and France, in order to start global warming (CO2 and temperature soared to unprecedented heights at the time).
Meanwhile under Stalin, the heroic defenders of world socialism and Mother Russia were dying by the millions at the hands of this evil imperialistic alliance and the unusually cold Russian winter, which was caused by global warming (just like the most recent ones).
Now let’s get back on topic.
Max
Max,
Sadly, this is the alternate reality that Peter believes……..
“When have I said that atmospheric co2 concentrations arent affected at all by mans activity?”
How about changing “at all” for ‘significantly’?
I’ve been thinking, that you guys, not just TonyB, need to get your story straight about what you think, and what you don’t. I was thinking it might help if you could summise or crystallise your thoughts as succintly as possible. To help you out I’ve made a stab with this:
“CO2, which is a plant food and not a pollutant, increases aren’t caused by human activity but even if they were, which they aren’t – it’s probably all come from volcanoes, then they haven’t caused the temperature rises which have been observed in recent decades, because there haven’t been any, (didn’t you know the hockey stick had been broken?), and the Arctic has been gaining ice and polar bears, which aren’t a separate species anyway, and it might all be due to the Urban heat island effect, and the temperature record in the 19th century is suspect, as are Antarctic ice core records, but even if they weren’t, it could still be that there are other explanations for the warming, but not that there has been any since 1998, like the Earth coming out of the last ice age or the sun is getting hotter, or an increase in Cosmic rays, and as we all know, climate has always changed in the past and always will in the future, and anyway the scientists disagree on the causes of global warming, not that there has been any, at least not since 1934 which was the warmest year on record, but even if there was, warmer weather would be a good thing, and even if the scientists, who once predicted a return to the ice age, Al Gore and all those other liberal elites, who are really just gay vegan commies in disguise, who are just trying to bring about a new world order via the UN cap and trade and carbon taxes, didn’t disagree, science isn’t about consensus, and it isn’t about computer models either, junk in junk out. Just ask Galileo.”
Peter 3999
Why don’t you go and have a nice lie down?
I take it from your wriggling and obfuscation, which has been going on for a month, that you know as well as I do that the global temperature record is severely flawed.
tonyb