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.
PeterM
There is no question about it: IPCC (and with it the so-called “mainstream” position on AGW, as you call it) has lost a lot of credibility due to the many recent revelations of wrongdoing. As a result it is no longer the case (as you wrote) that:
A critical report by Marc Sheppard (in the American Thinker, which you might term a right-wing journal) puts it quite strongly:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/ipcc_international_pack_of_cli.html
Unquestionably the world’s final authority on the subject, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s findings and recommendations have formed the bedrock of literally every climate-related initiative worldwide for more than a decade. Likewise, virtually all such future endeavors — be they Kyoto II, domestic cap-and-tax, or EPA carbon regulation, would inexorably be built upon the credibility of the same U.N. panel’s “expert” counsel. But a glut of ongoing recent discoveries of systemic fraud has rocked that foundation, and the entire man-made global warming house of cards is now teetering on the verge of complete collapse.
Simply stated, we’ve been swindled. We’ve been set up as marks by a gang of opportunistic hucksters who have exploited the naïvely altruistic intentions of the environmental movement in an effort to control international energy consumption while redistributing global wealth and (in many cases) greedily lining their own pockets in the process.
Perhaps now, more people will finally understand what many have known for years: Man-made climate change was never really a problem — but rather, a solution.
Roger Pielke, Jr. is more charitable to IPCC in a recent article in the Guardian (which I am sure you would NOT term a right-wing journal) entitled, “Major change is needed if the IPCC hopes to survive”). His conclusion:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/04/ipcc-major-change-needed
The IPCC is an important institution, but it has fallen well short of performing as a credible, trusted, and legitimate advisory body. Rebuilding what it has lost will take considerable effort and a marked change of course. Some defenders of the IPCC explain that the problems found in the report are only a few of many conclusions, or not particularly important as compared to the headline conclusions. Such efforts to minimize the IPCC’s troubles are likely to backfire and further erode public opinion of climate science, which recent polls suggest has taken a serious hit.
Similarly, efforts of some to demonize those who criticize the IPCC as “skeptics” or opponents to action on climate change only serve to intensify the politicization of climate science. Dealing with climate change is indeed important, but so, too, are issues associated with the integrity of scientific advisory bodies. We should be fully capable of addressing the challenge of climate change while at the same time focusing on sustaining the integrity of climate science.
Standing up for climate science means openly supporting reform of the IPCC while underscoring its institutional importance. The climate science community has failed to meet its own high standards. If the IPCC continues to pretend that things will soon get back to normal or that it need only castigate its critics as deniers and skeptics, it will find that its credibility will continue to sink to new lows. It is time to reform the IPCC.
What does this all mean for the future of the AGW movement?
As Benny Peiser wrote in January (in a translation from a December article in the Swiss “Die Weltwoche”):
http://www.thegwpf.org/opinion-pros-a-cons/413-benny-peiser-copenhagen-and-the-demise-of-green-utopia.html
The failure of the UN climate summit in Copenhagen is a historical watershed that marks the beginning of the end of climate hysteria. Not only does it epitomise the failure of the EU’s environmental policy, it also symbolises the loss of Western dominance. The failure of the climate summit was not only predictable – it was inevitable. There was no way out from the cul-de-sac into which the international community has manoeuvred itself. The global deadlock simply reflects the contrasting, and in the final analysis irreconcilable interests of the West and the rest of the world. The result is likely to be an indefinite moratorium on international climate legislation. After Copenhagen, the chances for a binding successor of the Kyoto Protocol are as good as zero.
The times have changed, Peter.
The “glory days” of IPCC as the “gold standard” of climate science are a thing of the past. Face it and learn to live with it.
Max
PeterM
You wrote:
“Himalayagate” is just one out of many IPCC screw-ups/falsehoods. Many others have been cited on this thread.
Don’t stick your head in the sand, Peter.
Otherwise you’ll start to look as defensive and silly as Pachauri.
Max
Pete,
Of course they are. All of these organizations are funded by the taxpayers with monies allocated to them through the Federal budget.
As for universities, they receive federal grants also to study whatever Congressman’s pet project happens to be. They lobby for funds and feed at the trough funded by taxpayers funneled through Congress.
Congressmen then get kickbacks from industries that come up with proposed “solutions” to the “problems” illuminated by universities.
Michael Mann recently received a $500,000 “grant” to study God knows what.
Unless these institutions play the game the money gets cutoff………..you know this……….not even you are that obtuse.
PeterM
For more info on taxpayer funding funneled through politicians to US universities and agencies for “climate studies” see:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/07/23/climate-science-follow-the-money/
This political funding of “climate science” apparently totaled $79 billion in the USA a year ago.
Large sums of money can corrupt, as has been pointed out repeatedly.
And when the politicians see that the “big prize” will be even larger sums of money in the form of direct and indirect carbon taxes (justified by the “climate studies” which they helped fund with taxpayer money), the political (and economic) circle is closed.
A true political bonanza!
Max
Max
PeterM
Here is the link to the original study by Joanne Nova cited by WUWT (679).
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/climate_money.pdf
The breakdown of the $79 billion spent to date (1989-2009) is:
32.5 billion scientific studies
36.1 billion technology
3.5 billion foreign aid
6.9 billion tax breaks
One point made, which I am sure you will appreciate, Peter, since we have discussed it repeatedly:
Max
Queensland in Oz has certain reputations.
Concerning a great deal of sillyness from there that has ended up here, and the page space wasted in response, I have this to say in brief:
Y A W N
I typed this very slowly, like how some Queenslanders speak. I hope it comes across OK.
Max,
I wrote “You’d have a hard time finding critical references to the IPCC on any website of scientific repute. And no I don’t mean wattsupwiththat!”
And you replied with something from the so called “American Thinker”, who seem to be more into survivalism than science and actually made “wattsupwiththat” sound quite reasonable!
If you are going to claim that the IPCC has been discredited by Mainstream science, rather than the halfwits who write such nonsense you’ll have to do a bit better than that!
PeterM (675)
To that extent, yes, but since the incoming IR has already been blocked, there is less heat entering the greenhouse, as Woods found when he substituted a clear panel of rock salt, which admitted more heat and caused a greater temperature rise, despite the extra losses.
He concluded that “It seems to me very doubtful if the atmosphere is warmed to any great extent by absorbing the radiation from the ground, even under the most favourable conditions.”
Where this appears in Wikipedia, William Connolley (unable to resist his own POV)dismisses this, asserting that “the troposphere is largely opaque to infra-red radiation”, apparently ignoring the evidence of sunbathers stretched out on beaches everywhere and enjoying the convenient spectral window between 8 and 14 microns. One can only assume that he doesn’t get out much.
I’m not sure you can call it GH if it’s at night. I’d call it insulation!
WRT the abuse, I am not my brother’s keeper. I’m sure I could find some equally outspoken remarks by warmists (‘death trains’ isn’t exactly polite) but that isn’t really the point. I chose the phrase “on theoretical grounds” deliberately, and I was talking (as were you) about contributors to this blog, none of whom, AFAIK, has accused anyone or their relatives of unnatural acts with goats…
PeterM
After first erroneously claiming (673) that only the “right-wing climate blog sites” have been critical of IPCC, you now state (682) that those who are critical of IPCC are “halfwits”:
Did you read the Guardian article by Pielke which I cited? It is quite critical of IPCC:
Is Pielke what you refer to as a “halfwit”?
Is the Guardian what you refer to as “right wing”?
Wake up, Peter. You may not like to hear it, but IPCC has lost credibility as a result of the many revelations of screw-ups and falsehoods, confirming Abraham Lincoln’s statement that “you cannot fool all the people all of the time”.
Max
PS Lincoln was also right when he said that “you can fool some of the people all of the time”. Was he referring to people like you?
PPS BTW, I’ve got a tunnel in the NYC region (named after Lincoln) that you might be interested in purchasing (the Brooklyn Bridge has already been sold to another “AGW-believer”).
PeterM
You referred to WUWT (673) as a “right wing climate blog site” and then wrote:
WUWT is now listed as the Top blog in the Sciences category by Wikio.
http://www.wikio.com/blogs/top/sciences
Here are two excellent WUWT essays by Willis Eschenbach:
1. (From June 7, 2010): Are humans responsible for the post-1850 increase in atmospheric CO2? (Conclusion is that humans are the main cause of the increase in atmospheric CO2)
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/07/some-people-claim-that-theres-a-human-to-blame/#more-20260
2. (From June 14, 2009): The Thermostat Hypothesis (explains how Earth’s natural thermostat works in practice to keep our planet at an equilibrium temperature)
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/14/the-thermostat-hypothesis/
Both are well worth reading, Peter.
The first confirms the premise (which you endorse) that humans have been the primary source of increased atmospheric CO2, while the second demonstrates why this does not make much difference to our climate.
Max
Max,
I didn’t actually refer Anthony Watt’s website as a “right wing climate blog site” . I have ticked you off before about misusing quotation marks. They are supposed to represent words I actually used rather than ….
But, what’s the point of trying to explain that to you? I’ll let it go. What I was actually suggesting is that there is no rift between mainstream science and the IPCC. None at all. And that I wouldn’t accept Anthony Watt’s opinion as evidence to the contrary!
But, I do agree that if you are trying to make out a case to the contrary then quoting Anthony Watts is probably the best you can do.
The Death Spiral for Climate Alarmism Continues
http://www.masterresource.org/2010/06/the-death-spiral-for-climate-alarmism-continues/
PeterM
You wrote
Peter, once you post something, it remains there.
Max
Where Has the Magic Gone?
The New York Times plaintively ponders global warmism’s loss of credibility.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704717004575268552256888416.html?mod=rss_Today%27s_Most_Popular
PeterM
I also quoted the Pielke article in theGuardian.
Read what I post, rather than just making up silly commentaries that do not even apply.
Max
Latest climate climbdown: the Royal Society reviews its statements on global warming
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/geraldwarner/100041427/latest-climate-climbdown-the-royal-society-reviews-its-statements-on-global-warming/
Max,
What has happened is that rank and file citizens are beginning to awaken to what the lunatic fringe groups like the IPCC have been up to and how these policies/recommendations are beginning to affect their lives……they don’t like what they’re seeing.
Global Warming Alarmism was viewed as the realm of the environmentalist nuts (activists)………no one paid attention until their ox was gored. Now people are beginning to see the earth worshipping lunatic policies creep into their everyday lives and they resent it…………which is why we are seeing the backlash.
The Royal Society is but one example of how organizations have been hijacked into espousing the global warming claptrap…………now we are seeing the sane members of these groups standing up and proclaiming enough is enough.
The curtain is being drawn open to what these self serving ideologists have been up to…………a delayed reaction………
Sorry Max, but I can’t resist.
Does Peter’s suggestion that “You’d have a hard time finding critical references to the IPCC on any website of scientific repute” mean that his definition of such a website is one that endorses the IPCC?
QED, you might say.
Max,
Your #688 doesn’t show that I wrote that “wattsupwiththat” was a right wing blog site. Read it again.
But maybe it is, even though Anthony Watts is careful enough to keep out the most extreme nutters. I’m not sure where his funding comes from. I just don’t know.
JamesP,
You ask if my definition of a website of scientific repute is one that endorses the IPCC?
Not at all. How about any University run website? Doesn’t have to be in the public sector. That would enable you to say that they’d get their funding cut if they didn’t toe the government line!
Incidentally that didn’t stop the Australian and American Universities, and their government funded science organisations, taking a very different stand on AGW to the previous denialist governments!
Firstly, thanks Peter M for responding to my #660 – I was out and about this weekend, making the most of the warm weather (while it lasted!), or would have come back sooner.
Everyone, having read quite a few online comments about AGW sceptics being “anti-science”, here are several things that have occurred to me re science in general, which if valid would also, of course, apply to climate science:
1) At any one point in history, science is not a homogenous block which can be accepted or rejected as a whole; it appears (to me) more like a spectrum, an ever-shifting mixture of basic truths, well-understood principles, as-yet unfalsified theories, tentative hypotheses, promising lines of enquiry and quite a few theories, assertions and assumptions which (from a later perspective) are thought to be (or shown to be) inaccurate, incomplete or just wrong.
In this context, I don’t think that saying that someone is “rejecting science” or “denying science” is a useful or accurate statement – logically it would imply that the person believed they inhabited a very different universe, e.g., one that was governed wholly by magical or theological processes. I don’t know many individuals like that.
2) Towards one end of the spectrum are relatively simple and well-understood statements about the universe, such as Boyle’s Law, and towards the other end are contentious fields such as dendroclimatology. I think it not unreasonable that a person can express relative certainty about some of the science that exists around the Boyle’s Law area of the spectrum, and express uncertainty, or have deep reservations, about some of the science that lies towards the dendroclimatology end of the spectrum.
3) Looking at the history of science, it seems easier to determine where things lay on the spectrum in past eras than it is to analyse our own era. If we went back in time to around 1910, we’d find much that we’d still accept as true or accurate now (like Boyle’s Law, which has been around for centuries.) However, there would be much that was mainstream but has since shifted to the dodgy or defunct end of the spectrum – for instance, we’d find theories such as James Dwight Dana’s contracting earth still in common usage; a century later, we generally accept that Alfred Wegener and his successors had the right idea about continental movement (but who knows in what ways our understanding may change again over the next century?). The further back in time we go, the more the spectrum will appear unfamiliar and rife with wrongness. Phlogiston, anyone?
4) Looking at James P’s quotes (Royal Society thread) by Lord Kelvin, it is clear that although Lord K was a brilliant man in his time, he had limits. He was wrong about quite a few things, as would have been multitudes of other people at the time, many scientific experts included. Fast forward to the year 2110 and what in today’s science will still be valid? Some things will probably not have changed that much (I’m confident that Boyle’s Law will still be there) but much else will be shown to have been inaccurate, poorly understood, exaggerated, once plausible but eventually falsified or on the wrong track completely. I don’t think it’s possible to predict with any great accuracy which theories will survive (futurology is an entertaining but notoriously unreliable field, after all!) but I think it reasonable to assume that a proportion of today’s science will have gone the way of Lamarckism, phrenology and the steady-state universe.
This is becoming rather long-winded and convoluted, so to sum up: 1) at any given point in history, science appears not to be a homogenous whole so much as a spectrum varying wildly from the well-understood at one end, the theories of the day occupying the middle, perhaps, and the exotic, the misunderstood and the discarded at the other end, 2) that which seems settled and established now, may well not be so in the long term and 3) from a future 20/20 perspective, even the best minds of the time will have made Lord Kelvin-like misjudgements about the science of our own era.
If that all sounds a bit half-baked, off the wall, or on the other hand simplistic, please let me know!
Alex Cull,
You are right to point out that Science isn’t infallible. It is quite likely that in another 50 years time some of will have changed and some of it, probably most, will be exactly the same. The problem is we don’t yet know which is which.
It doesn’t make any sense to say that because Climate science may be wrong we can therefore ignore it. It is the best we have got and just as likely to understate rather than overstate the problem.
Yes Pete, it’s all about altruism, saving the planet and “science”…………
More Global Warming Profiteering by Obama Energy Official
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/more-global-warming-profiteering-by-obama-energy-official/
More taxpayer money wasted………..
Department Of Energy Secretary Chu Throws $1.4B Loan To Nissan Leaf
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/01/doe-secretary-chu-throws-14b-loan-to-nissan-leaf/
Alex Cull
Your 695 sums it up very clearly and concisely.
Add to the uncertainties and ever-changing knowledge base of science, which you point out, the immense financial and political implications surrounding the ongoing debate on climate science, plus a few overly ambitious and underly honest individuals, and you have the cast and setting for the drama that is going on today.
I am sure that fifty years from now historians will only scratch their heads at how humanity could have gotten so wrought up about what turned out to be nothing at all.
But few of us will be around to read their treatises on and analyses of “the early 21st century climate hysteria”.
Max
PeterM
Re your 694 and James P’s 693.
When you write:
This essentially pinpoints YOUR definition of a “website of scientific repute” as one that does not make “critical references to the IPCC”.
James P’s logic here is impeccable, Peter.
Max
PS MY definition of a “website of scientific repute” includes such sites as Climate Audit and WUWT, which have made “critical references to the IPCC”.
So, you see, it’s all a matter of definition.