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.
Brute
A Greek, and Italian and a Spaniard go into a bar and order 3 beers. The barman looks them up and down, and asks who’s paying.
In chorus, they reply “The Germans!”…
Tonyb
Matt Ridley wrote a pretty effective response (IMO) to Monbiot’s witterings here:
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/monbiots-errors
That’s great Tony. Here’s another good one……..
EU’s Debts: Who owns WHO!
http://www.francescolanza.com/2010/06/19/eu-debts-who-owns-who/
http://moonbattery.com/lunch-money-obama.jpg
Brute
It was me, actually. Serves me right for trying to answer two posts at once!
James
tempterrain
I like the SkepticalScience graph of intermittent cooling periods.
I noticed that they ere all of shorter duration than the latest one, which seems to have started January 2001 and is still going strong.
Let’s see how it develops and how SkepticalScience will rationalize it if it continues another 4-5 years,
Max
Brute
Thanks for interesting 4423 blurb on collapse of Carbon Capture + Storage Ponzi scheme. Looks like these scams all eventually collapse.
I hope the really smart investors, like George Soros, made a some pocket change shorting CCS (like he did back in 1992 shorting the Pound).
Max
Just watched Panorama this evening on BBC1: “What’s Fuelling Your Energy Bill?” “Panorama investigates the inconvenient truth behind the UK’s rocketing energy bills.”
Rather interesting, in fact. In the programme, rising energy prices are squarely attributed to the tremendous costs of renewables, plus the costs of new pylons and replacing older power stations. No blaming of evil/greedy energy companies. Chris Huhne is in the frame as a gambler with our energy supplies, also Tony Blair as the man who committed us to an EU target of 20% energy from renewables by 2020 (total energy, not just electricity supply) – a possible “gaffe” in the eyes of Sir David King, who has in the past expressed doubts as to whether EU leaders actually understood what they were committing themselves to.
And in the last part of the programme, the BBC’s Tom Heap describes the UK’s energy situation as the gamble on renewables/nuclear vs a new dash for gas (Prof Dieter Helm mentioning the possibility that gas prices could fall, and the new KPMG report getting a mention.) Unconventional gas wasn’t mentioned (well, we can’t have everything) but – put it this way, this was not exactly the BBC cheerleading on behalf of DECC and renewables. Well worth watching on iPlayer, if/when it becomes available and if you have access.
Alex,
20% of the commercial electric bill in the US is the utility billing for things that have nothing to do with electrical consumption.
Line items cutely labeled “sustainable energy trust fund” and “residential aid discount surcharge” (translation: my company paying for people who don’t feel like paying their electric bill).
“Capacity and Transmission Surcharge” is another scam wherein the local government mandates that a portion of the electricity sold within its jurisdiction be created by means of “green” power generation.
Of course the local power companies don’t own the hundreds and hundreds of square miles of property required to build a wind farm or solar farm of any consequence………so they steal money from the consumer and return a small portion to local solar/wind companies to create a cottage solar/wind industry (using private property) incorporating these inefficient micro power plants into their renewable energy portfolios.
They purchase the power from these unsuspecting dupes for the price of “dirty” power and then resell the “clean” power on the market for twice the price.
These “surcharges” are government mandated theft…….governments impose these fees on utilities who in turn add these line items to their bills.
Alex:
I think that your critique of the Panorama is fair, and as you suggest the programme was much more balanced than one might expect from the BBC. However, three very important, and obviously relevant issues were dodged or fudged:
1) What is the motivation underlying our current energy policy: scientific,commercial, or political? Initially the idea was to avoid iminent ecological catastrophe. Then we were told (pre-Copenhagen 2009) that a global binding agreement on emissions reduction would open up vast new markets if we were first on the renewable bandwagon. Now, are we apparently just going through the motions because of our political commitments to the EU and the political risks of repealing the Climate Act?
2) As you noted, the shale gas revolution was bypassed altogether, even when the programme discussed gas imports and the perceived need to avoid energy price volatility. So far as shale gas is concerned, for once that tired old cliché ‘game changer’ really does apply, and having our own secure domestic fuel supplies would once again stabilise prices to a very great extent.
3) Perhaps the reason for dodging the shale gas issue was to avoid confronting the fact
that, while home-grown renewable energy will undoubtedly mitigate price volatility, it will do so by ensuring that energy will be permanently extortionately and uncompetitively expensive, without the occasional intervals of moderate or low prices terms.
The government’s energy nightmare begins when the public start asking these questions, and at least the Panorama programme provides some of the information necessary for people to begin doing so. That, in my view, is a very encouraging sign.
@ TonyN, Brute, yes as always in Beeb-world it pays to look at what is left out or is downplayed. Mind you, the other side are also focussing on what has been left out, and they’re not happy. Here’s Damian Carrington of the Graun (best quote: ” A total absence of green NGO voices was shocking”.) Tom Heap has now posted his response here.
The astronomical cost of it all (rebuilding the UK’s energy infrastructure plus meeting CO2 targets plus meeting renewables targets) is the main thing.
If the man from Citigroup is correct, and if the economy is meanwhile heading in the direction that many people fear it is, the chances of this actually going according to plan seem to be rather – on the low side…
Hey, what’s happening to BBC?
Mixed messages on climate ‘vulnerability’
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15698183
Is BBC beginning to see the light?
Max
Max
It will be very interesting to see whether anyone other than Black of the BBC gets to see a copy of this draft, which will be reviewed and no doubt amended during the Kampala conference. Will quotes like this survive?
And will the recommendations in the IAC report concerning making the assignment of uncertainty a transparent process be implemented?
And how will the UN spin the report in press releases that will go out before outsiders even have had a chance to see the final version?
“we could sort of say goodbye to windmills and launch our own Mars mission if we wanted to”
That sounds more useful to me. At least we might learn something, and we’d only have to spend the money once…
Here’s a link to a very recent interview on ABC’s Science Show (audio is available and they should have a transcript up within a few days) with Robyn Williams talking to Lord Krebs, zoologist, Principal of Jesus College Oxford and member of the CCC.
No mention about the growing concerns re the cost (a minor detail, it seems – what’s a mere Mars-mission equivalent here or there, after all?) Indeed, what Lord Krebs also appears to be saying is that not only will we have to totally “decarbonise” the economy, but we will need to be persuaded to ditch the idea of economic growth as well (which raises, does it not, a double question mark over how all this massive decarbonisation is to be paid for, at the end of the day.)
Notice how this shifts from changing politicians’ behaviour (we, the electorate, doing this by exerting our democratic rights), seamlessly to changing the electorate’s behaviour (but then there’s a riddle – who will need to change our behaviour, so we can then change the politicians’ behaviour?)
I’m wondering if Lord Krebs might have actually already provided an answer to the riddle. “So we ought to be able to take their skills and their knowledge and turn it to a different purpose, to get people not to expect to have the latest gadget…” etc.
Who’s this “we”?
Does Lord Krebs even know how much CO2 there is in the atmosphere? Or how it got there?
I heard him a while back saying how much he loved French unpasteurised cheese – this while head of the FSA which has made life for such producers here all but impossible. He also failed to appreciate (officially) that what people like about organic food is not what’s in it, but what isn’t. He likes the stuff, but it’s too good for the proletariat.
The truth will out on Labor’s carbon scam
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/the-truth-will-out-on-labors-carbon-scam/story-e6frezz0-1226197176697
UK Duke: Wind farms ‘absolutely useless’…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/prince-philip/8901985/Wind-farms-are-useless-says-Duke.html
I know that from time to time I have posted what some would consider flippant comments laced with a touch of sardonic ridicule……………but this time I am dead serious.
What is behind this legislation?
There must be some nefarious intention for a governing body to spend time and effort passing such a law.
Is this legislation an attempt to regulate the bottled water industry?
Is this the fabled social conditioning (2 + 2 = 5) presented in Atlas Shrugged?
I truly do not understand the intent.
I appreciate any insight into the purpose of this law/decree from my European brethren.
EU bans claim that water can prevent dehydration
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/8897662/EU-bans-claim-that-water-can-prevent-dehydration.html
@Brute, re the EU’s bottled water crusade, it’s a bit like the fall of the Roman Empire, probably – one expects these little outbreaks of weirdness before the end.
Re the Duke of Edinburgh’s comments about useless wind farms, it seems even the BBC are acknowledging that he is not exactly the only person to hold this opinion.
I happened to catch a few minutes of a TV programme this morning, where Andrew Marr, one of the BBC’s political journalists, said: ” It’s one of those issues where the Duke of Edinburgh – whether he likes being quoted across the front of the newspapers or not – is also speaking for a very, very large number of people.”
Hi Brute I echo Alex’s words on the bottled water. What they have done is one of those uselessly unnecessary but technically correct rulings that are not going to alter our lives one iota. Its all part of ensuring they justify their jobs. But in the current highly charged political atmosphere these stupidities are getting a greater airing.
The Dukes words on wind-farms won’t change anything, that is already set in motion, but his words will help stop the idiots at the BBC ramming wind power down our throats all the time. Wind Turbines will have been knocked on the head by uncertainty now that the UK government suddenly cut the solar feed in tariffs in half. Now all you can do is just about cover your costs. A building maintenance manager of a large housing association I know was telling me they were about to press the green button and cover all their houses in Solar panels. Last week the plan was ditched. They were not doing it to be green but to make money. He by the way was against the plan but his opinion carries no weight. tells you everything you need to know really
Thanks Alex.
Because I do not trust the media, I felt best to get “man on the street” viewpoint and who best to ask than my friends across the sea in Europeland?
So this is simply more mental masturbation by self important political busybodies?
I see there are fines associated with making claims that water is essential to the human condition………….
I suppose Europe is that hard up for money?
As far as the Queen’s husband goes…………..I give 24 hours before kooks such as Peter Martin paint him as a “non-believing heretic” being paid off by “big oil”, “big coal” or otherwise describing him as a befuddled luddite.
Yes Peter Geany…….here in the US the subsidies for “green” technology have dried up also causing many to abandon plans to install wind/solar whatever.
These “green” schemes cannot stand on their own and would have never been considered in the first place without the “free” government money to offset the inefficiencies and prohibitive costs.
In other words, no clearly thinking individual would invest in such a losing proposition with the exception of government bureaucrats (who don’t care because it isn’t their money).
(“Clearly thinking individual” and “government bureaucrat” are a contradiction of terms……I know)
Hi Brute, Today I note that the moneybags men from Beijing are heading for the hills. Wang Quishan, China’s financial commissar, said his country was planning for “a prolonged global recession”, Now just a short while ago they were calling for a change in the US dollars status as the reserve currency……uuummm how things can change.
The really crucifying thing at present is that there is a complete lack of leadership in the West, both morale and piratical. Governments on both sides of the Atlantic are paralysed and trapped in their liberal left world view of all things Government. They simply can not grasp that it has been their interference that has created our current financial crisis and that the only way out is to set us all free.
As I see it at this point their are 2 things that will regenerate the West. The easiest is for a New President in the US to strip away 3/4 of the US government machine, reduce taxes and let the economy regenerate. Pass legislation that favours the small business over the corporate, and removal of subsidies for anything other than essential welfare, paving the way for a return to a genuine market economy or capitalism.
The only option for hope in Europe is the UK. Although Germany is currently strong, her strength is about to go the way of China’s. Germany has too much invested in the EU to be able to see the wood for the trees. The Germany people instinctively know something is wrong but I think they are going to be slower on the uptake than the UK public. The public mood in the UK is starting to turn from frustration to something more demanding. The removal of 2 democratically elected prime ministers by the EU has shocked people out of their complacency. More searching questions are being asked of the UK government as it stumbles 2 steps behind events, events that have been telegraphed to all and sundry but ignored by the political class. I don’t think this government will last another year without the coalition breaking.
Who will take the lead is not yet apparent, perhaps as is usual the UK will not take the first step, I have a sneaky suspicion it will be France, however involuntary, that precipitates the inevitable breakup of the Euro and by inference the EU. But it will be the UK that will show the way forward out of the mire with a new and more inclusive type of government.
Peter Geany,
As you, I see the writing on the wall.
There is a children’s game titled “hot potato” wherein an object is passed from player to player with music playing. If you hold the object when the music stops……….you’re “out”. There must be a similar game played by British children.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Potato_(game)
The game is illustrative of the economic situation facing the world today. Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, etc are already “out”. The United States and Great Britain will be “out” in due course.
I used to believe that the United States could rally considering its vast untapped natural resources and manufacturing base…………….however, the manufacturing base is now gone and environmentalist prevent any use of natural resources.
The debts incurred by the socialist policies of the West have created a mountain of debt so immense that it can never be overcome. Of course these policies were implemented in order to buy votes.
There will be, very soon, a massive collapse of the world economic system…….no way around it.
No person or government can spend more than they earn without an eventual (inevitable) collapse.……..the socialists have run out of other people’s money.
My opinion is to own tangible (as well as portable) stores of wealth.
I own very little fiat currency.
Peter Geany,
By the way, citizens of the west have become addicted to government funded “goodies” (by design). The intention was to perpetuate a ceaseless entitlement class in exchange for re-election.
Many utilize these handouts without even realizing it…………..if asked to do without they bristle so the voters won’t elect for austerity.
A cabal of 12 US Congressmen were assembled to cut 1.2 Trillion from the US budget in August. Their deadline was today and they’ve failed.
Politicians will never cut spending for fear of being ousted from office………….however, now the well has run dry and the cuts will be sudden, unmanageable and catastrophic.