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, I recommend you do watch the Bryony Worthington video to the end, as her account of the origins of the Climate Change Act is actually rather fascinating and certainly revealing. As you are probably aware, it has been discussed on Bishop Hill, where there is a good transcript of it by Barry Woods (which I have taken the liberty of replicating here.) She mentions the changes to the Conservative Party that were introduced by David Cameron (note the reliance on focus groups):
Also interesting is Baroness Worthington’s description of the way the Climate Change Act legislation was brought about:
Basically, what she appears to be saying, with a certain amount of pride, is that this was legislation that was rushed through, with minimal scrutiny, and containing “enabling powers”. There are comparisons to be made, are there not, with legislation that was drafted with equal haste in order to wage the “War on Terror”.
[TonyN says: Hear! Hear!]
Alex Cull. The most dangerous aspect of modern UK legislation are the so called “enabling powers”. These clauses are all through much of our recent legislation and allows governments to change legislation to their will without recourse to Parliament or the people. It should be outlawed. I bet the proposed changes over planning are riddled with them.
I heard some government minster trying to say that planning regulations where holding back our economy which is total BS. I agree that some of the constraints, conditions and cost that are put in the way of redeveloping brown field sites need to be addressed, but we don’t do this by allowing central control over local planning.
PeterM Not sure where gold is going but word on the street is “they” are trying to limit retail access to it. If we buy to much there is not enough for those with lots of stouch to stach. Word of advice , if you convert some of your millions into gold make sure its real and not paper. Now all this is relevant because in our stupidity converting cash to gold is locking up the only real money available for investment. So the species stupid has worked us into a position in the age of stupid where doing the “right thing” by saving is wrong!!!!!!!!!!!
Further my 4367 on the Nurse movie;
I was wanting to ask; what has happened to cause the decline in the BBC “Horizon” series of documentaries? Has there been a change in management or something?
More recently here there was a Horizon programme shown on SBS questioning the validity of the “Big Bang Theory”, a thingy that I’ve not felt comfortable with for quite a long time. It raised a few issues like why can’t we find that dark stuff that is required to support the hypothesis? Oh and to solve the difficulty of why the background microwave energy is uniformly @ 3K everywhere may be that the initial explosion stopped for a while to enable uniform mixing before….. oh groan.
I thought that I was going to enjoy it as a topic of great interest to me, but what with so many silly video effects such as distorting the images of interviewees, and whatnot, I switched quite early to a different channel in disgust.
Bob:
I’ve moved your very useful comment about the Steve Jones interview to a more visible thread here:
http://ccgi.newbery1.plus.com/blog/?p=499&cp=1#comment-197916
Bob_FJ Interesting your comments on the Horizon program. Horizon use to provide really thought provoking science programs that not so much challenged science but provided the viewer with a range of thoughts about a subject that left you wanting to know more. They made you think. Today all we get is less than you can read on Wikipedia and quite frankly they are wasting taxpayers money making them.
We hear constantly from the likes of Paul Nurse and others about how science constantly challenges the orthodoxy but that we should all revert to peer reviewed papers for the current “truth” Whilst on the face of it this is true what we find are vested interests not only in climate science but in many other branches of science that block or “inhibit” the peer review process, and don’t like any other theories out and about least we the unwashed start thinking the great all knowing Ph.D.s are wrong.
The BBC and the Horizon program has become part of this process by dumbing down its investigative science programs and in their efforts to make them “appealing” to the young they use all manner of gimmicks that have no place in serious science programs.
Getting onto your subject of the Cosmos and the big-bang theory; this is a subject that needs some serious coverage, as we pour a lot of money into research on this subject and perhaps it is wrong. I’m like you not so sure as I once was about the big bang and this has got me looking at a number of other areas in space where we could be wrong. The Sun is a subject where I think we could be way off the mark as a lot of new observations are coming through that don’t fit the the model of the Sun being a hydrogen ball sustained by fusion converting H to He. If this were the case how do they explain the rocky planets that we know come from the remains of a supernova. Could not the Sun be a supernova remnant? It looks more and more likely that the sun has an Iron core and perhaps the nuclear reactions that sustaining it are quite different to those we commonly accept. This would also severely challenge those even further who think changes in the sun have a minimal direct influence over the earth’s climate.
Of course I don’t know the answers to these questions, but what I do know is when we seem to have too many questions, and an establishment not openly prepared to discuss the uncertainties and options we have dead rats somewhere close. More evidence of species “stupid” leading us into the age of “stupid”
Polar bears threatened by Arctic ozone hole
Gore’s sci-fi movie, “AIT” taught us that polar bears are at great risk due to human-induced global warming, but here’s a REAL threat for the hapless beasts:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2044627/Europe-Canada-Russia-risk-second-hole-ozone-layer-opens-Arctic.html
Where are the brave heroes who will volunteer to go up there to rub them all in with sunscreen?
(How about your neighbor, tonyb?)
Max
Max
What a wonderful image is conjured up by you of my nearish neighbour sledging to the arctic with a load of sunscreen and slathering it all over the polar bears. Mind you it wouldnt take long would it, as we all know they are virtually extinct!
tonyb
tonyb
Yes. It is a heart-warming image.
The hapless bears may be nearing extinction, but it is clear to me that you courageous neighbor would also become extinct on this caper.
Max
What’s going on here?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204346104576638634143967012.html
Looks like the EU is looking at backing out of the programmed CO2 cuts.
Who does that leave?
Australia?
New Zealand?
Canada (maybe)?
If these 3 nations shut down completely today it would not change temperature in year 2100 by 0.01 degree C.
Even if the UK decided to “go it alone” without the rest of the EU, the theoretically averted warming would be less than 0.02 degrees C
Bye-bye, Kyoto…
Max
Looks like
Max
As I understand the WSJ article, the EU recognises that making carbon emission reductions ahead of the rest of the world will harm competitiveness, retard growth and cause industries to migrate. All well and good, but then there is this editorial comment:
Without seeing the original document it is impossible to check what this is based on, but if it means what it seems to mean, then surely it marks a new low in EU strategic thinking. They seem to be saying. ‘We know there is a problem here, and that it will get worse with time, but let’s not do anything about it for at least another eight years’.
Praying for a miracle? And if so, then what form is the Divine intervention supposed to take? Somehow I don’t think this would happen in Switzerland.
Max & TonyN What we are seeing here is the weasel talk in the face of the realisation that there is no money left. If it wasn’t so serious it would be side splittingly funny. Our politicians are currently playing out one of the greatest comedies of all time.
We have the cancellation of a CCS scheme where we know the technology doesn’t work, so its hardly surprising no one will do it, and almost in the same breath news that the Government are looking to cancel further subsidies to wind farms. Read all about it at the GWPF
Whilst the nice people at the BBC have been reporting that our energy bills have gone up by 15%, the reality is more like my experience where I am having to pay double this year over last. Its the combination of needing more energy and higher prices that are killing everyone.
And this is only the start. The entire world economy is winding itself back-wards, yet our governments seem quite incapable of reducing frivolous spending. The markets are reacting faster than species stupid can think. But for the first time in a long time I feel we are at the beginning of the end of the age of stupid. But I don’t expect any admission that they were wrong or any apology. Rather what will happen is events are going to dictate future behaviour and their will be no room for todays excesses.
On a brighter note did you see how the All Black dealt with the Wallabies. Poetry in motion.
[TonyN says: If other media follow up on this story and find that it is well founded I think it may move things along very nicely.]
Peter Geany
The worst thing is that so often when these schemes are pronounced (from the Euro to Carbon technology) we all scratch our heads and say ‘how on earth is that going to work.’
The politicians then diuly spend the money and…it doesn’t work.
Hopefully the credit crunch (another thing most of us, except politicians, saw coming) will make those who spend our money to think twice and follow through the logic of what they propose.
Having said that, we are still having nonsensical schemes thrust on us . Google ‘nowhere Island’ an arts council climate change project coming to a West country port soon.
tonyb
[TonyN says: The link that tonyb should have provided is here. And whatever you may think of the NowhereIsland project, I’d certainly give £1/2m for that schooner which features in some of the graphics.]
According to reports in The Times and The Financial Times the Govt subsidy for domestic solar panels will be slashed as wiil the subsidies for on shore wind farms.
Note to TonyN;
Sorry, can’t link as;
a) The Times sites are behind paywall
b) For some reason I can’t copy and paste at moment
Tonyb
The schooner, I think, must be the Noorderlicht, originally built in Germany in 1910, often hired by Cape Farewell for their various expeditions, and at the moment chartered by the Nowhere Island project. I agree, it’s a beautiful ship, and it would almost be worth posing as an eco-activist-comedian-artist-media person of some sort, just to cadge a berth when it next sails for Spitzbergen on one of Cape Farewell’s jaunts.
Re Nowhere Island, there was an interview on BBC Radio 5 Live, not so long ago, with a spokeswoman from the Arts Council, who was justifying this waste of money on the grounds that it would inspire West Country schoolchildren (I captured the audio and am intending to transcribe it at some point.) Mind you, it isn’t the only project associated with the Cultural Olympiad that is bizarre/wasteful/pointless – check out “Forest Pitch” in Scotland, for instance (which is costing another £460,000) – in my opinion, there’s very little to justify it on either artistic, financial or environmental grounds.
Alex:
My feelings about the Noorderlicht exactly, especially having travelled in that direction — but only as far as the Lofoten Islands — this summer. I keep meaning to post my wife’s photos of that enchanted land.
Speaking of transcriptions, did you hear Muller being interviewed about the BEST findings on Today this morning? Both he and Justin Webb seemed to be picking their words with extraordinary care, and the result was not at all what you might expect post Jones’ report on impartiality.
Tony – missed it but have now listened on iPlayer; definitely one for the collection, and yes, rather different in tone to Steve Jones’s “slightly less but still overwhelming consensus that it’s [climate change is] due to human activities”.
Some interesting input from Doug Keenan and William Briggs on the subject of BEST. I’m inclined to agree with commentator Mike Jackson on the BH thread:
You aren’t giving the correct impression of what Richard Muller is actually saying. It’s good the WSJ have given him fair treatment with this article:
“The Case Against Global-Warming Skepticism: There were good reasons for doubt, until now.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204422404576594872796327348.html
Pete M, thanks for the WSJ link. Here’s how he concludes his article:
The only statement in that paragraph that I’d take issue with is “[p]erhaps our results will help cool this portion of the climate debate”, because my understanding is that the majority of CAGW-sceptics would very broadly agree with the literal statement that “[g]lobal warming is real”. I think most people would not violently disagree with the idea that there has been a very gradual, uneven and gentle warming, off and on, for at least since about the mid-19th century, and so the real debate, on this blog and elsewhere has not actually been about whether or not global average temperatures have been increasing very slightly over a period of centuries (I realise I’m not doing anything like justice, though, to the various complexities and caveats that might apply, including the question of the value of “global average temperatures”).
He succinctly describes the terms of the real debate in his next sentence. “How much of the warming is due to humans and what will be the likely effects?” These are the key questions, and he has made sure to write that he has made no independent assessment of these matters. Which to me seems entirely in line with what he said at the end of the BBC interview.
Alex and PeteM
One BEST sub-report had me chuckling a bit.
It was the preliminary report on the impact of the Urban Heat Island effect on the temperature record.
If we compare the satellite (UAH) and surface (GISS) records we see that the former shows warming since 1979 at a rate of 0.14C per decade, while the latter shows warming at a rate of 0.17C per decade over the same time period.
Even if we ignore the fact that the troposphere should be warming more rapidly than the surface (and not the opposite, as observed), we arrive at a difference of 0.03C per decade (or 0.3C per century), which could be attributed to the UHI effect (plus poor station coverage and shutdown of stations).
But the preliminary report concludes that urbanization has contributed 0.019C COOLING to the surface record.
Huh?
I think some urgent rework of this report is in order!
Max
TonyN and Peter Geany
The BEST study is interesting, but it is merely a sideline covering a small piece of the ongoing debate on climate change.
The latest book by Donna Laframboise, “The Delinquent Teenager who was mistaken for the world’s top climate expert” is a hard-hitting expose of the IPCC and its corrupt process.
On her climate blog, Climate Etc., Judith Curry has given a good review of this book, which is well worth reading.
http://judithcurry.com/2011/10/19/laframboise-on-the-ipcc/#comment-125889
I believe that exposes such as this will result in pressure for the IPCC to be disbanded and replaced before its new “AR5” report is published.
Max
.
The BEST Study tells us nothing new and was never likely to given that the figures had already been analysed to death. It has just been an indulgence by academia. People like Anthony Watts need to go along with it all as it would have seemed churlish of him not to, but once more scientists missed the whole point.
What gets me though is that it must be obvious to most scientists by now that CO2 is not this great climate driver they once imagined it was, otherwise we would be seeing much higher temperatures. Given that, why are they still wasting time looking at just the last 150 years of instrumented records and not looking at the trends over thousands, tens of thousands and millions of years. Because if we look at the Holocene as a whole we are in an unequivocally cooling, and temperatures would need to rise significantly and remain so for hundreds of years before you could say otherwise.
I’m finding it totally boring now reading regurgitated tosh, that brings nothing to the table. We have so many problems heading our way with the speed of an express train, and these people are arguing semantics.
Alex I am one of the sceptics as you will see from my statement above that doesn’t believe in global warming at all. I do agree that the temperature has risen a little since the little ice age, but far from being global warming is just part of the rhythm of nature. The real challenge for us is to understand if we are going to plunge back down in temperature and see the glaciers increase and sea levels fall. After all we are in the latest of a number of interglacials that last on average 10,000 years of an ice age that has lasted more than 2 million years, and perhaps started 6 million years ago, and have been for a longer period than most previous interglacials (15,000 years) It is now recognised that it was the beginning of the ice age that triggered the evolution of modern man, so understanding this period as a whole is quite important.
I understand why so many sceptics say they agree global warming is real and have never denied the temperatures are rising, but really that statement is only true in the context that CO2 is causing that rise, which to me is nonsense. We should not have to dance around the sensibilities of the overblown egos of some in the scientific community, just to get our point across.
Our Solar system is still in and around the Orion arm or spur in the Milky Way so we are still likely to receive high levels of cosmic rays of the type that cause low cloud and come from super novas, and by implication temperatures will remain lower. And we also need to open our minds as to what the Sun is. It is not a simple ball of hydrogen that via fusions is turning Hydrogen into Helium. That model can not explain its strange behaviour nor the fact that the planets are iron rich supernova remnants. I could go on and on, but I have discovered lately it is not just climate science that does not like awkward questions.
I believe we are on the cusp of a seismic change. One country will release the shackles of the age of stupid and embrace the information age and use it properly to progress through the 21st century and lead the world into our next age of discovery. For the last 30 years it has been the vision of just a few individuals that has defined what we do. This needs to change so that we avoid another con trick and disaster that has been DAGW.
@Max, the UHI paper is interesting and I have to confess the “opposite of an urban heating effect” (p.11) has me scratching my head, too.
“Urban cooling”? “Rural warming”?
@Peter Geany, I take your point about the bigger picture, in which the last 150 years are a mere blip. On that topic, Nir Shaviv I think is one who has written much that rings true.
I would have posted this sooner but I had to flush the new Al Gore, “low water consuming” toilet for a third time to clear the bowl…………….then I stumbled over the rug because I couldn’t see with the dim light provided by the Al Gore light bulbs………..
Not Alarmist Enough
Normally, I might not deal with a four year old paper by James Hansen, the NASA doyenne of serial doomcasters. However, I note that this paper has been cited ten times this year alone, so I thought I might comment.
At some point when he was not giving a Press Conference, or getting arrested, or spending time complaining that he was being “muzzled”, Mr. Hansen wrote:
I love the naked power grab. I mean, what an audacious plan!
First, you unilaterally declare that there is some huge looming disaster a long ways in the future. Using a variety of methods fair and foul, you obtain the full cooperation of other scientists, governments, educational institutions, and the media the world around. With all of you, the whole chorus, baying for skeptic’s blood in full voice, you spend a quarter century trying to convince the people of the oncoming Thermageddon.
Second, after said quarter century you notice that despite having the entire resources of the educational and media institutions of the planet and the blind agreement of other scientists and billions of dollars poured into trying … you have not been able to establish your case. Heck, you haven’t even been able to falsify the null hypothesis. In fact, after a long string of predictions of doom, none of which came to pass, and at the tail end of a 15-year hiatus in the warming, the US public doesn’t believe a word you say. Oops. Over two-thirds of them think climate scientists sometimes falsify their research. Oops.
In response, you say that the problem is that scientists have been too retice … too re … sorry, it’s hard to type and laugh at the same time … you say that scientists have been to reticent, that they haven’t been alarmist enough or aggressive enough in promoting their views.
That’s the problem? After 25 years of unbridled alarm from scientists and everyone else from Presidents to my kid’s teachers, the problem is that scientists are not alarmist enough, they’re too reticent to state their true opinion? Really? That’s the reason the public doesn’t believe you? Is that your final answer?
(Does he really, in his heart of hearts, believe that? Possible, I guess, but it presupposes a level of self-delusion that is scary …)
The real beauty of the plan, however, the sting in the tale, is the proposed solution—a “panel of scientific leaders” to inform the people of the error of our ways. I mean, the IPCC did so well, let’s make a sea level rise mini-IPCC. Staff it with people who will know what to say, who won’t have to be prompted.
Mr. Hansen claims he is a scientist first and an activist second. He and far too many other climate scientists are activists first, and scientists maybe fourth or fifth if at all. He proposes convening a Star Council of Jim and his hand-picked acolytes to lecture us sternly on a radical sea level rise slated to occur when they are dead? He wants us to listen to his pals make predictions they’ll never be held accountable for? And all this from the man who in 1988 predicted a 10 foot (3m) sea level rise putting parts of NYC underwater in forty years? Fuggedaboutit. He probably felt safe with such a long-term prediction. In any case, we’re more than halfway there, and since 1988 the sea level in NYC has gone up by 2.5 inches (6 cm). Would you buy a sea level prediction from Jim?
There certainly are many problems in the field of climate science. Reticence on the part of climate scientists to clean up their own backyard is high on the list.
Reticence on the part of climate scientists to make alarmist claims, about sea level or any other imagined future disaster, is not on the list at all.
The main problem, however, is thinking that it’s a communications problem. It’s not. The problem is that Jim and his Climategate pals lied and cheated and pulled strings and even destroyed evidence in order to advance their views. All of that was revealed clearly in the UEA emails. They stand convicted by their own words.
As a result, lots of folks don’t believe a word that the climate scientists say. And reasonably so. I have seen no reason to believe they are now acting differently. There has been no “mea culpa” from even one individual involved. Noble Cause Corruption appears to have rotted the ethical parts of their brains entirely. They don’t even think they did wrong … and the rest of the honorable, decent, good climate scientists? Well, by and large they played the faithful dog Spot, they rolled over and played dead.
That’s the problem, not communications or reticent scientists. I had hoped that Climategate would lance the boil and the healing could begin … foolish boy, wrong again …
So no, I believe I’ll pass on the brilliant plan for the formation of the Official Panel Of The Sea-Level Wise Men. No need to even read the novel, most of us have seen the IPCC movie, and would prefer not to be forced to sit through a bad sequel.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/23/not-alarmist-enough/#more-49819
Max,
No one is saying that the UHI isn’t real but the charge has previously been that it is incorrectly accounted for. The Best team have looked at the period 1950-2010 and have measured a small negative influence. So, they are saying that it is less now than it was in 1950. I agree that it is a surprising result. But is it wrong?
Your heroine Judith Curry has her attached her name to this report, so she can’t think so!
TT
Yes. I have a lot of respect for Judith Curry and her assessments.
That she undersigned the preliminary BEST subcommittee report, which concluded that the net effect of urbanization since 1950 was one of net cooling does not mean that she would endorse this absurd finding per se.
This finding goes against the findings of many local reports from all over the world, which show a significant local warming bias from urbanization.
This BEST subcommittee has some rework to do, in order to come up with a credible estimate of the UHI impact on averaged land based global temperature.
We’ll see how they approach this and what their final result will be. They have not yet spoken their last word.
Max