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 et al:
It seems that Peter has moved to a new level of blind belief. Re his determined attribution of the 1975-1998 warming to mankind’s wicked GHG emissions, we found recently that, not only is he unable to refer us to any supporting empirical evidence, he is unable to refer us to any relevant evidence – indeed, when he tried, the best he could find was a report on how difficult it is to access Himalayan glaciers and a research paper about the depredations of a North American beetle. He claims this is “established mainstream science”. But, not content with these failures, he has now moved on to suggesting that the 1910-1940 warming was “largely anthropogenic too”. Few, if any, climate scientists support that view – certainly the IPCC does not. So now he’s even deserting his beloved “mainstream” science.
I don’t think Peter is a creationist as suggested by TonyB. But apparent belief in the inherent wickedness of mankind indicates that he is moving firmly into crank/eccentric territory.
PeterM
My advice to you regarding Mann (9999).
Forget about it – you are just making yourself look silly.
Max
TonyN
Looks like this thread survived the “10K” threat (and is still going strong).
Max
Max:
When I invited you (and Peter) to comment on that Brill article I expected you might be rather more critical. (I didn’t expect much of Peter because I didn’t think he’d read it. On that, it seems I was right.)
Overall, I agree with you that it’s good – but one or two things rather concern me about it. For example, he said that “since the end of the Little Ice Age” (no date provided) “natural variability has averaged 0.11C per decade”. In support of this he cited a 2005 paper by Phil Jones. But I cannot find that paper. Can you? And, in any case, would you agree with the 0.11C claim?
If it’s accurate, the difference between it and the recent 0.161C per decade (accepted by Jones) is indeed a minute 0.051C or five hundredths of one degree C per decade as noted by Brill. So why haven’t other commentators focused more on this absurdly tiny anomaly? Or have I missed something? Or has Brill got it wrong?
Peter
You may think you have given an answer in 9990 but you haven’t. You believe that our politics directly drive our belief in AGW but they don’t, how many times do we collectively need to tell you that?
I have re-read your previous link with interest and again I would point out that the gross generalities contained there do not fit my circumstances/beliefs nor, it appears, most of those on this blog
Firstly, you don’t know my politics and second you don’t explain how that relates to my beliefs when these are grounded not only in the science but the precedents we have seen for similar periods throughout our history.
The rise at the start of the 20th century is matched many times even within the 19th century, let alone other warmer periods in the 18th century and before. Have you ever actually looked at the older instrumental records? For example are you aware of the upturn in temperatures from 1855 to 1880 and the subsequent down turn from which Hansen commenced his records and the subsequent upturn?
I think the only way you can reconcile your own beliefs is to apportion motives to other people that simply haven’t got them.
It appears you are now latching on to the latest warmist argument that our emissions have prevented another ice age by adding a few molecules to the CO2 concentration, thereby reinforcing my growing suspicion that if you are not a creationist you are possibly a believer in ‘intelligent design’ who thinks man is automatically a pollutant :)
Come on Peter, in the rest of your post are you seriously saying it may be cold now but just think how cold it would be without AGW? You can do better than that.
tonyb
Max:
Looks as though I was asleep on the job!
Max
Before TonyN wipes the vast amount of peerless thread knowledge from history, did you keep any sort of record of my question and the subsequent response to our ‘intelligent’ design conversation last year?
tonyb
tonyb:
No question of it being wiped-out, see above.
TonyB,
I would like to believe that most people are rational beings. However, The high level of public opposition to theories of evolution and climate theory tell me that is probably being a little bit too optimistic.
Many creationists are quite able people who make good doctors, mathematicians, engineers etc. They are obviously quite sensible in most aspects of their lives, so why do they reject the fossil records and scientific evidence? In a nutshell, its because they are brought up with a certain world view. What happens when they first hear scientific evidence suggesting that this world view may be incorrect ? What happens when they hear preachers, and some scientists too, equating evolutionary theory with atheism?
Sure, some can modify their religious opinions but for most it is much easier to deny the science.
Its a similar, but not quite the same, story with anthropogenic climate change. Climate contrarians have a reputation of being somewhat elderly. This being the case it seems likely that their political opinions are of long standing. So what happens when scientific evidence suggests that their world view may be incorrect or obsolete? What happens when they read people equating global warming theory with socialism!
http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2007/2/6/155027.shtml
Sure some can modify their political opinions but for most it is much easier to deny the science.
Now I’m sure that there are a few oddballs out there who are disbelieve in both god and evolutionary theory. There may be a few global warming deniers who don’t froth at the mouth at the mention of Al Gore , the United Nations, or the dreaded carbon tax. There may well be a few people in America who, one week, will be out demonstrating with the tea parties against Obama’s health care reforms, and the next will be out with the Greens campaigning against CO2 emissions. A few but not many.
I’m not claiming to be able to categorise everyone including the few, but not many, eccentrics and oddballs who seem to believe all sorts of odd things for no apparent reason! But I’d reckon to have a 95% success rate with climate sceptics.
The government have responded to an e-petition calling for the suspension of the UEA CRU until the completion of an investigation.
http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page22924
Nothing particularly surprising, though see if you can spot the response contradicting itself on funding.
PeterM:
Your weird obsession with sceptics’ political views might have more credibility if (a) it had not been amply shown that sceptical contributors do not fit your stereotype and (b) you were able to refer us to one example of the “scientific evidence” that you proclaim.
Paris scraps carbon tax plan
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1b000010-3686-11df-8151-00144feabdc0.html
Nicolas Sarkozy under fire after carbon tax plan shelved
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/23/nicolas-sarkozy-carbon-tax-france
Robin,
It doesn’t much bother me whether or not anyone has right wing views. What is of more concern is that those right wing views are the motivation for climate change denial, but the denial itself is dressed up in a scientific guise.
You ask for evidence that this is the case- I previously posted this link showing how 141 English-language environmentally sceptical books published between 1972 and 2005 are linked to conservative think tanks.
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a793291693~db=all~order=page
Writing in the Guardian (3 December), Bob Ward of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change, based at the London School of Economics, said that pressure [hate mail, threats on climate scientists] was coming from a small number of individuals, many on the far right.
Wanting to know the political motivations and beliefs, of climate change deniers, is no more “weird”, as you put it, than wanting to know the religious affiliations of those who seek to engage in a debate on evolution and creationism.
I’ve known it for a while , of course, but there is really no point arguing with the sort of Zombie science that you guys try to pass off as rational thought.
Latest climate disaster story doing the rounds.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/cif-green/2010/mar/24/india-bangladesh-sea-levels
The above article seems to be doing the round in a number of news agencies.
Having heard similar stories before a quick check on google found this:
http://www.deccanchronicle.com/dc-comment/climate-change-hoax-sinking-island-316
With the slightly interesting few paragraphs
I truely despair of the laziness of modern reporting and journalism.
PeterM:
I’m not remotely interested in “evidence” supporting your weird obsession with sceptics’ political views. What I would be interested in is evidence supporting your AGW beliefs. However, despite repeated requests, you have consistently failed to produce any. Maybe that’s why you’ve decided it’s best instead to pursue your boring political interests. Sad really.
PeterM:
Good news here for Oz.
But what’s particularly interesting about this development, whereby Australia will supply to China about 3.3 million tons of LNG a year for 20 years, is that the gas concerned is coal bed methane – a product making an increasing impact on world energy supplies. Potentially this is particularly significant as coal bed methane can be a substitute for gas supplies from unstable political regimes.
It’s part of a wider global realignment whereby emerging economies, such as China and India, are getting their hands on secure supplies of cheap energy, thereby underpinning their future prosperity and stability. In total contrast, Western countries are busily turning their backs on fossil fuels and saddling themselves with high-cost, unreliable, dead-end technologies such as wind power, thereby undermining the future of their productive economies – all in the name of (pointlessly) “fighting climate change”.??
We must be quite mad. And you spend your time wittering on about the political affiliations of sceptics!
Barelysane:
I had the same thought as soon as I read the story in the Guardian. Subsidence of large deltas is a well-known phenomenon throughout the world. Coupled with erosion from wave action, islands in deltaic environments are unstable and disappear and reappear as a result of natural processes unless engineering works are constructed.
The real problem with this type of story is that it will be taken as yet more “evidence” of the impacts of AGW.
Peter #9
You do have this uncanny knack of linking to right wing blogs we have never heard of and will never visit again. Surely that must tell you your preonceptions are misplaced? :)
Are you aware that one of the key scientists involved in Climategate is a creationist? Perhaps you can explain to me how he has calculated the ice core data and believes in them implicitly for 5000 years, but then he suddenly believes they are completely wrong? So all the ‘misguided’ people aren’t all on our side are they?
tonyb
PeterM
Let me paraphrase the first sentence in your last set of gibberish.
Max
PeterM
You opined:
You sure it is not “voodoo science” (as Pachauri called the evidence, which demonstrated that IPCC lad lied on Himalayan glaciers)?
Just to get the terminology straight.
Max
PeterM
Let me paraphrase your sentence to Robin, so you can see how utterly silly it was:
Duh!
Max
PeterM
Until you can respond to Robin’s (and my) request to provide empirical data supporting your premise that AGW, caused principally by human CO2 emissions, is a serious potential threat, this premise remains unsupported.
All your wafflings about political or religious motives, etc. are simply side tracks to distract from the fact that you are unable to provide these data.
This ruse has become pretty apparent to one and all, and you only make yourself less credible by reverting to it.
As we’ve tried to tell you, “It’s the SCIENCE, stupid!” (where “stupid” is NOT meant to refer to you, personally, but is just an emphatic part of the message).
Max
Max
Robin
The only paper I could find reference to for Phil Jones in 2005 relating to natural variability is
IDAG (International ad hoc Detection and Attribution Group, including Jones, P.D., 2005
“Detecting and attributing external influences on the climate system: A review of recent advances.”
Journal of Climate, 18 1291-1314
So far I was unable to get access to the paper itself, so cannot confirm the 0.11C natural variability claim, or how this is supposed to have worked.
If the LIA “ended” in 1800, we have seen 21 decades since its end, so it is stretching the imagination that we have seen a steady 2.3C warming since then due to natural variability. Maybe TonyB knows more about this, but most references (Lean, etc.) put the warming since 1800 at around 1C.
If the natural variability claim does not mean a steady 0.11C decadal increase, but rather multi-decadal swings in either direction of 0.11C per decade, then this is quite imaginable. It certainly fits for the past 9 tenths of a decade after 2000, as the Met Office, itself, has conceded.
It would also fit for the other three multi-decadal warming cycles we have experienced since the modern record began. All three of these showed linear warming trends even exceeding 0.11C per decade, and the first two would hardly have had much anthropogenic warming from CO2, so most of the warming must by definition have come from natural factors.
I’ll dig some more to see what I can find.
Max
Barleysane
Usual alarmist nonsense from the Guardian I’m afraid. This is a mud island which the locals say was unstable and only appeared for the first time in the last 50 years. Prior to that it didn’t exist. These islands come and go in such a muddy delta.
tonyb