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:
A good question to ask. You might even express it slightly differently: can the UN risk letting Cancun go ahead, or will it be ‘postponed’?
Max:
You’re dead right about AGW being a “rich man’s luxury”. But even the EU (think Greece, Spain and Portugal – plus I’m afraid the UK) is hardly rich these days. And nor, in truth, is the US. We cannot afford luxuries either and our populations too are hardly concerned about the issue. Forget the developing world: selling carbon cutbacks (or taxes) to voters in the West was never easy and it’s getting increasingly difficult.
Robin
You are right, of course.
There may be a small percentage of the population in the “developed world” (such as maybe PeterM in Brisbane), who would be willing to pay 3 to 4 times the current price for energy (or any product, which contains a significant energy component) in the hopes of thereby “saving the planet from humanity”, but most people would balk at this suggestion today (when times are hard and the scientific justification for “saving the planet” by cutting or taxing carbon has come unraveled).
Sarkozy grandstanded a bit about “hypocrisy”, but the Chinese and Indians have exposed the real hypocrisy (in the EU plus, more reluctantly, the USA, under Obama).
The erstwhile “colonial powers” can no longer control their ex-colonies, nor can they keep their populations forever poor and without a cost effective and efficient (carbon-based) energy infrastructure to pull themselves up out of poverty as the industrial nations did in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
There may still be a lot of “wailing, lamenting and gnashing of teeth”, but the AGW craze is dying a certain and agonizing death.
Max
Talking about Cancun, has anyone else taken a peek at the COP16 venue? It’s here at the Moon Palace Golf and Spa Resort. More information here.
“Nestled between 123 acres of tropical foliage and a secluded white sand beach stretching nearly 2000 feet, perfect for non-motorized water sports, this resort offers 2,457 luxurious rooms with either ocean or garden views.”
I don’t think that blizzards will be an issue this time around, do you?
Also, can’t see them cancelling this one – pass up an all-expenses paid junket in a premier tropical holiday destination, in December? Absolutely no way, Pedro.
Max:
And the West, in the meantime, has foolishly handed the ex Third World a wonderful and unanswerable bargaining position. The more we preach about the dangers of global warming, the more they can say:
A no brainer, really. And secretly of course they don’t believe a word of it.
Alex Cull
They even had the “climatologists” at work: December is after the hurricane season.
It should be a nice (taxpayer funded) outing for all the delegates.
Max
Hmmmm……this explains alot.
Global Warming Fears Seen In Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Patients
http://www.voxy.co.nz/national/psychiatry-congress/5/47523
“The decrease in upper ocean heat content from March to April was 1C – largest since 1979?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/07/the-decrease-in-upper-ocean-heat-content-from-march-to-april-was-1c-largest-since-1979/#more-19284
Brute
The article on global warming fears in obsessive compulsive disorder patients is interesting.
It got me to thinkung, so I did some googling.
“global warming anxiety” gets 933,000 hits
“climate change anxiety” gets 1,010,000
“global warming hysteria” gets 510,000
“climate change hysteria” gets 491,000
“global warming fascism” gets 792,000
“climate change fascism” gets 468,000
“global warming fear mongering” gets 158,000
“climate change fear mongering” gets 126,000
The problem appears to be here:
“global warming fear in children” gets 4,630,000 hits
“climate change fear in children” gets 4,140,000
Strange that “fear mongering” got so few hits, when that’s obviously the root cause of the “anxiety” and “hysteria”. Also interesting that “global warming fascism” got so many hits..
Here is a link to the official kick-off film (entitled: “Please Help the World”) for the recent UN COP 15 Copenhagen climate conference. A great example of overt fear-mongering at its worst – aimed at children at that. (And, worst of all, paid for by tax-payer money!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVGGgncVq-4
Max
Max,
3,270,000 hits for environmental propaganda…………
Brute
Yeah.
And 57,200,000 hits for AGW fraud.
Max
Slightly OT
Was reading this article
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/8858/
on the UK general election, and it got me thinking, is there such a thing as an AGW bigot?
(TonyN, had no idea where to post this, please move or delete as you see fit)
Masx
There is an interesting thread on radiative physics here
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/radiative-physics-yes-co2-does-create-warming/#comment-28281
Half way down Ferenc M. Miskolczi starts to comment. I know we were both interested in his theory.
Tonyb
Barelysane, the spiked article mentions those who, paradoxically, accuse others of being bigots, while they “have internalised precisely the kind of intolerance and prejudice that is usually associated with bigotry.” True, hence the vitriol liberally splashed upon “deniers” by commentators over on Guardian CiF, for example.
On a different note, I wonder if anyone has had time yet to read and digest the Hartwell Paper, pdf here, link from Pierre Gosselin’s blog here, also discussed here on WUWT. Could this signal the beginnings of a general shift away from the simplistic (and doomed) drive to bring down man-made CO2 by 80% below 1990 levels before mid-century? I’ve just skimmed this, will read it properly when I have more time, but I note that in this paper, the stated goal of “access to low-cost [and low-carbon] energy for all” (by when? not sure) depends on an “energy technology revolution” funded by a carbon tax (slowly rising but initially low). A tall order, I think. More efficient solar panels, biofuels and batteries (which is what the paper mentions by way of examples) will almost certainly arrive over the next few years and decades, but will these deliver low-carbon energy for all in a time frame meaningful to those who believe that man-made global warming is an immanent threat to the world? I wonder.
Funny thing here…………I’m offering to automate a heating/air conditioning system at an office building here in Washington DC. The cost of the project will be returned to the client in a little over a month in electrical savings. The client happens to be a strong proponent of Obama’s Leftist/Global Warming policies (apparently for everyone else).
I’m meeting stiff resistance from the principles of this outfit because……………they don’t want to have to wait ½ hour for their individual offices to reach optimum temperature (4 degrees lower/higher than night set-back temperature).
This little project could save this business +/- $250,000 per year, (as well as ostensibly save the polar bears from drowning), but they’ll have none of it.
They’ll shell out 250K to donate to Al Gore to plant non-existent trees in non-existent forests, but ask them to do something tangible to “help the planet” (and save themselves some money) and you’ll get the back of their hand because it will impact their comfort.
I suppose the business I’ve chosen to be involved in has put me at the tip of the spear. Commercial energy consumption is a hot topic in my realm. I had no idea how little people understand (supposedly well educated people) about the personal implications of the laws and regulations that they support.
They’re all for saving energy, except when their ox gets gored………………For guys like Peter Martin and the lunatic Romanticists that I’m dealing with here, all this talk of “going green” is wonderful…………(for everyone else)…………but ask them to sacrifice their personal comfort for ½ hour and they become indignant.
I suppose the other factor is that it isn’t “their” money that is being spent/saved………………as long as (presumably) “someone else” is paying the tab, money is no object and asking them to endure 4 degrees of “sweltering/freezing” temperatures for ½ hour is too much to ask of these elitist, leftist, self righteous, saviors of planet earth.
TonyB
Thanks for link to thread (413). The discussion is interesting.
The lead article by Jeff Id specifically tells us it is simply confirming (?) that CO2 acts as an infrared absorber, and thereby leads to warming, without going into any discussion of quantification or any of the other factors involved.
What I miss is any discussion of changes in surface albedo and hence SW reflection from changes in cloud cover with increased surface temp. As I recall from Lindzen + Choi, this constitutes a significant part of the estimated net negative feedback.
The exchange between Miskolczi and Steve Short is interesting, but a bit over my head.
AGW proponents (such as Short) attempt to isolate Miskolczi “on the fringe”, because his theory would be a serious blow to AGW if validated. One of his strongest arguments is provided by the 60-year NOAA record on specific humidity, which shows that not only has atmospheric relative humidity decreased over time with increasing temperature, but so has specific humidity (atmospheric water vapor content).
[I plotted this against the HadCRUT record, and (while short-term “blips” seem to follow an opposite trend, the long-term trend clearly shows less water vapor content with warming (and increased CO2), as Miskolczi’s theory stipulates.]
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3343/3606945645_3450dc4e6f_b.jpg
AGW proponents usually attempt to discredit the record as erroneous (since shorter term studies show increasing water vapor content with surface warming). But could there be (as Miskolczi postulates) a long-term modulating trend between CO2 and H2O which acts as a natural thermostat?
Max
Barelysane
You ask (412):
When AGW proponents refer to those who are rationally skeptical of the AGW premise as “flat earthers”, “climate change deniers” (as compared to “Holocaust deniers”), “climate criminals”, etc., this seems to put them into the “bigot” role.
Statements such as “Bring climate criminals to justice: The penalties must be proportionate, reflecting the unprecedented scale of death and human misery the Climate Criminals will cause”, tell it all.
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57043
Sounds a whole lot like “treating the members of a group with different opinions or beliefs with hatred and intolerance”, a.k.a. “bigotry” to me.
Max
Max/Alex
Was something of a rhetorical question wasn’t it :)
Just struck me as i was reading the article, that the term fits perfectly with some of the more irrational and excitable warmists. Yet i’ve never heard the term used in the AGW debate, probably something to do with sinking to their level and them then beating you with experience. That said it might be fun to deploy it on CiF one day just to see the reaction, could create an interesting sub-debate.
Max,
Re: #419
Pretty harsh quotes…….are you certain that they are “in context”? (The usual dodge from bigots when they’ve been quoted with something particularly embarrassing).
Quotes such as those highlighted above will be dismissed or ignored by the sympathetic/compliant media.
Nothing shocks or surprises me anymore.
Max #416
“But could there be (as Miskolczi postulates) a long-term modulating trend between CO2 and H2O which acts as a natural thermostat?”
Yes. We constantly see these large swings in temperature but something usually stops it going outside ‘disastrous’ bounds. Willis Essenbach ran a thread on this at WUWT I think.
Part of the thermostat are clouds, part are currents and part are winds/jet stream. No doubt there are lots of other factors we aren’t aware of yet.
The mechanism obviously broke down in The Ice age and other extreme hot and cold periods so the thermostat is not perfect.
Tonyb
TonyB
Your point that “the thermostat is not perfect” is well taken. Nothing is.
But it has kept the climate of our planet within the acceptable range for humans and most of the current plant and animal life for the past few million years, refuting the postulation of James E. Hansen of a climate dominated by positive feedbacks allowing the “entire planet to be whipsawed between [extreme] climate states”.
Sure, there were warmer periods (MWP, Roman Optimum, to name two recent ones) and colder ones (LIA and Dark Ages cold period, to also name two recent ones), all within our present interglacial warm period. Then there was the Ice Age itself, to go back a bit further.
History has taught us that colder periods are more difficult for human society than warmer ones.
Despite Hansen’s hysterical “wolf cries”, the real danger is not that it will warm a bit more (due to whatever natural and possibly anthropogenic causes), but that it will cool significantly.
Miskolczi’s theory is interesting, because it postulates one mechanism for this natural thermostat, a rather novel concept that H2O and CO2 compensate one another in the atmosphere to provide a constant GH effect. The long-term NOAA record showing decreasing atmospheric water vapor content as CO2 (and temperature) have risen seems to corroborate this postulation.
Max
Brute, re your #415, what you may well have witnessed is this psychological phenomenon discovered by Nina Mazar and Chen-Bo Zhong. Your customers have already paid their 250K and have gained their “halo of green consumerism”, which entitles them to be extra selfish by way of compensation. It’s another form of offset.
TonyN,
I’ve been waiting for you to open up a new thread on the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Aren’t you interested in that? Or maybe you’ve just missed it in the news with all the excitement about the election?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8679090.stm
Hi guys…I’ve only been lurking here because I’m having too much fun over at WUWT, most recently with two threads on planet Venus and Carl Sagan’s fantasies about her.
However, catching up: About 2 weeks ago, I was watching a TV doco about the vast coral island archipelago of Tahiti, and what a wonderful life the inhabitants there live. As the program progressed I was waiting for it; “any minute now“: But, all this will soon disappear because of AGW. But no, not a mention of it, or of rising sea levels, and everyone was smiling and relaxed.
Well, stuff me pink, I thought, that’s amazing, and I felt warm and relaxed just like the Tahitians, that included interviews with French, a German, and Polynesians.
But alas, my serenity was soon shattered by a following Oz doco where it was declared by various learned plant researchers that increasing levels of CO2 are either reducing productivity or poisoning some foods.
Wheat is yielding less protein, Cassava has less tuber growth and increasing cyanide, and some other catastrophes, but worst of all, the iconic Koala (aka Koala Bear) is under threat because of bad things happening to eucalyptus (gum) leaves.
Back on to the cassava: They showed what looked like fairly old film of some Africans paralytically stricken by cyanide poisoning, which at first was thought to be polio. However, cassava, (not indigenous to Africa), has always contained cyanide and it apparently had not been properly prepared for eating.
In all this, although there were claims of less this, or more that, nothing, zilch, zero, was said about by how much!
Check this out: “Koalas vulnerable to higher carbon dioxide levels”
http://www.abc.net.au/rural/nsw/content/2006/s2239199.htm
But then for a laugh, check this out; both are from the ABC: “Koala Wars“. (Too many koalas)
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s528804.htm
Ho hum.
PeterM
You ask TonyN (423) whether he is planning to create a thread on the BP oil spill. Don’t know what such a new thread would contribute to the large amount of media coverage this is already receiving worldwide (yes, even in far-away Switzerland).
There will be plenty of time later for investigations into possible malfeasance or safety shortcuts by BP, Transocean or Halliburton (who have already been asked to testify before the U.S. Congress), or of lobbyist pressure (successfully) applied on congressmen and Interior Department officials to relax safety requirements, etc., but now is actually the time to look for solutions to the problem.
Here is a very simple and inexpensive solution, at least for the oil that has already spilled into the Gulf waters, which BP should be looking into more closely. To me, it looks much simpler and less problematic than the proposed chemical dispersants to sink the oil to the bottom of the Gulf.
http://politech.wordpress.com/2010/05/12/a-truly-green-solution-to-the-bp-oil-spill/
BP has spent enormous amounts of money in the past to spin a green “beyond petroleum” image with its sunflower logo, and has even sponsored PR blurbs about fighting climate change caused by CO2, enthusiastically lobbying for carbon trading schemes, promoting “solar home solutions”, etc.
One can argue that much of this PR was opportunistic, as BP saw a chance to make a profit from “being green” (or rather, “being seen to be green”).
With the exception of providing open news releases on cleanup efforts, BP would now best remain silent regarding the recent disaster, as the media, politicians, pundits and anti-oil environmental lobbyists are beating the “we told you so” drum in feigned outrage.
Attempts by BP chief executive Tony Hayward to put the blame on the drilling rig operator on U.S. television or before U.S. Congress are ill advised, IMHO. BP was the owner and operator and carried the final responsibility. BP decided which safety devices to install and which ones to leave out. And, in the final analysis, BP paid for the whole operation, and therefore had the ultimate decision.
To its credit, the company has spent a lot of money to make sure that its worldwide operations are environmentally safe and sound, but it appears that they may have “goofed” this time.
Offshore oil exploration, development and production have always involved some risks, but, with very few exceptions, they have been very successful and environmentally safe in the past. This is one of those exceptions. And it is a biggie.
Max