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
You wrote:
The key issue here is the CO2 sensitivity. Prof. Richard Lindzen has estimated this to be around 1C, as has IPCC (Myhre et al.). As I pointed out, this checks fairly well with actual physical observations.
A secondary issue, then, is whether we are 45% or 75% of the way there, i.e. whether we have seen 0.45C or 0.75C GH warming since 1850.
I would personally think the lower number is more likely, based on the observed physical evidence, since the entire warming we have seen is only 0.65C.
In addition, the logarithmic relation would point to the lower number.
But this brings up my questions to you (105).
Have you had a chance to study them a bit yet?
Max
PeterM
You opined to Robin:
You are wrong here, Peter.
As I showed you (91) the empirical evidence does point to a 2xCO2 climate sensitivity of around 1C. Check out the figures, Peter, and you will see that this is the case.
Max
Barelysane and Robin (124/125)
You bring up a valid question.
Why should a scientist be more honest by definition than a politician or an insurance salesman?
The recent Climategate revelations have cast some doubts concerning the integrity of several very influential climate scientists.
But I believe that there is no higher percentage of “dishonest” climatologists than there is of “dishonest” politicians or insurance salesmen.
It is more worrying if a process rewards dishonesty, especially if this process is being driven by fear.
For example, if politicians honestly believe that they are doing what is best for humanity by stopping human-induced global warming, they will see to it that climate scientists who report the dangers of AGW will receive funding. Less honest politicians, who simply see that it is in their personal interest, will do the same.
The astute climate scientists will see that they need to report dire consequences from AGW in order to receive government funding. “Everything is just fine” is an unacceptable conclusion, which will ensure no repeat funding.
The IPCC also needs to report dire consequences from AGW, or it loses its very reason to exist.
The underlying driver for the AGW premise is fear. The public must be made to fear the consequences of AGW.
If we were talking about small sums of money this would be a minor problem, but we are talking about several billions of dollars.
Carbon taxes are being proposed that involve hundreds of billions if not trillions of dollars. It is generally known that extremely large sums of money can corrupt.
Many individuals, corporations, money shufflers, hedge funds and other organizations stand to gain billions of these dollars, and are therefore interested in keeping the fear alive. The media have always liked “impending disaster” stories, and this is a perfect one.
But the general public is beginning to see through the fear mongering.
Leaked e-mails are demonstrating that the scientists have manipulated the data upon which the dire consequences projected by IPCC are based, and that exaggerated or outright fictitious claims have been made by IPCC in order to keep the fear alive. Even worse, it appears that this has been a general trend, rather than just one or two isolated incidents.
An increasing number of scientists are openly pointing out the basic errors in the science supporting the premise of dangerous AGW.
And, worst of all for the fear mongers, the climate appears to have stopped warming.
But back to the original premise. I believe that the root cause of any personal dishonesty on the part of climate scientists is a basically corrupt process, which rewards dishonesty.
Max
There’s an interview with Lovelock here
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/mar/29/james-lovelock
which will have the warmists knickers in a twist for months to come.
Max:
I have made no allegation or observation about the honesty or otherwise of scientists. Nor did I bring up the matter. I have no reason to believe that intrinsically they are any more or less honest than anyone else – be they politician, insurance salesman, nurse, lawyer, journalist, policeman, businessman … or even banker. My point was simply that the result of an opinion poll of scientists’ views is not scientific evidence. A very different matter.
I do, however, agree that a scientist (like – to take a recent example – a banker) can be prejudiced by the circumstances of his profession: if his income, family security, prospects, public reputation, professional standing, even personal safety are enhanced by his adopting a particular point of view, it takes exceptional character to jeopardise these things by taking an opposing point view. The best historical example is probably the Soviet regime’s vehement support for the agronomist Trofim Jysenko’s theories regarding an agricultural technique which he claimed would massively increase crop yields – a disastrous support that was a major reason for the crisis in Soviet collectivisation policies. Yet many scientists, especially geneticists, who had spoken out (honestly and bravely) against the theory were professionally (and, in many cases, personally) ruined.
Robin,
You’re wrong again. No single paper can address all the issues on AGW. Or if it can, I have yet to see it. That’s why the IPCC , and I hope you agree that they are an important body, was set up and their last series of reports in 2007 were indeed both in the form of “official statements” and scientific interpretation of literally 1000’s of papers. The IPCC report represents the position of mainstream science. If you are rejecting that you are rejecting science too.
I’m sure you are going to point to the error over the Himalayan glaciers trying to make the case that because the report wasn’t 100% correct therefore it must be 0% correct. Scientists aren’t infallible but they get it right more often lawyers and judges!
Max,
Resending:
Lets just get this point cleared up then we can move on to the rest of the discussion.
Is it 44% or is it 75% ?
Max,
Please ignore the last part of the last post. I’d missed your #126. For a while there I was thinking that you couldn’t bring yourself to admit that Lindzen and Carter were wrong!
The second link in #100 shows a world map with some areas showing little or no warming whilst some areas have warmed by several degrees. I was just wondering what your explanation might be for that?
Wouldn’t you expect everything you warm up evenly?
Geoffchambers
OT – from the guardian thread.
Geoff i really do recommend the book, it does have a few ideas that i get the impression many “warmists” simply don’t understand, they just see Gaia and get all mother earth. The central part of the hypothesis is that the earth is a “self regulating biosphere that acts to maintain homeostasis”, think feedbacks. Well worth a read.
Been shopping a new “grocery getter”. I think this will do nicely. This would solve a lot of parking problems…………
Whadya think Pete?
Ford F-650
Robin,
And therein lies the rub……these guys are leeches on the public dole dressed up in lab-coats. They justify their extremely expensive hobbies professing their “altruistic virtues” and their “self sacrifice”.
The truth is these guys are histrionic in their core beliefs and have been indoctrinated through years of brainwashing all the while basking in the thin veneer of their fleeting stardom.
These were the guys with the pocket protectors that couldn’t get a date……suddenly they’ve discovered that they can stand in front of a podium and pontificate to the great unwashed…….while raiding the public treasury year after year to fund their idiotic fantasies.
They’ve become the rock-stars of the scientific community…………jet setting to exotic destinations to study Slugs…………all on the public’s dime.
It’s a good gig if you can pull the wool over the eyes of the starry eyed coeds and the ideologically bankrupt politicians.
Maybe I’ve painted with too broad a brush here…………however, I run into these charlatans every day.
PeterM
You opined to Robin
This is a very naive statement, Peter, and it is basically wrong. One can reject large portions of IPCC 2007 AR4 WG1 and SPM exactly because of the poor science. Other parts are OK, but to claim that the whole report must be swallowed in its entirety, otherwise “you are rejecting science” is blatantly absurd.
You are beginning to sound more and more like a religious fundamentalist defending every word in the Holy Bible as absolute truth.
Can’t you see this?
Max
PS Are you going to answer the few simple questions I asked you, or do you prefer to avoid getting that specific?
Gulf Stream ‘is not slowing down’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8589512.stm
Brute
You had some harsh words for the alarmist climate scientists, and I agree.
In my past I knew quite a few scientists (none were “climatologists”). These were people working in industry, mostly in R+D jobs. They were not much different from other employees: some good, some bad, some hard-working, some lazy, some exceptional.
I only met very few scientists who were on the government dole, and this contact was mostly limited.
The problem we have now is that “climatology” (the modern form of astrology, with the crystal ball replaced by computerized climate models) has become a multi-billion dollar business, paid almost entirely by taxpayer funding, e.g. steered by politicians.
As I pointed out earlier the whole process is rotten and corrupt. Dishonesty (or hyperbole) is rewarded; honesty (or simply sticking with the facts) is punished. Agenda driven science is encouraged.
Climatology has been infiltrated by the likes of James E. Hansen, Michael Mann, Phil Jones, etc., and these in turn bring in more like-minded types. Some may actually think they are trying to “save the planet”, while others are simply charlatans. Peer review is a farce and editors of scientific journals are part of the problem.
I am hopeful that it will now get cleaned up, but it will require not only many personnel changes (including a complete dismantling of the IPCC), but also a basic change in how climatology is funded.
It is the process that needs to be cleaned up. Only then can the climatologists, themselves, begin to act like real scientists.
Max
Brute
Thanks for the good news on the Gulf Stream. Looks like central Europeans won’t have to worry about a new Ice Age (caused by AGW, of course) just yet.
What a relief!
Max
Yes Max, I was harsh…………I’ve not been know to mince words……something the world desperately needs right now.
Global Warming/”Climatology” has become big business and a soapbox for political ideologists to spout their rhetoric.
Gone are the days of Jonas Salk, Edwin Hubble and Dr. Charles Drew I’m afraid.
What we’re left with is Jimmie “Panama Red” Hansen, Phil “Fat-finger” Jones and Michael “The Lumberjack” Mann…………two bit, washed up “activists” more interested in making a name for themselves and spouting their political “philosophical” doctrines than furthering the once highly noble disciplines of scientific rigor.
My apologies to Tony N…………
Speaking of men of high principle and discipline, we visted the Edison winter estate in Fort Myers this January………I highly recommend it if you get back over here.
BarelySane #133 Thanks for the recommend for the Lovelock book. I wasn’t being sarcastic when I asked what was in it on the Guardian thread. Anyway, not necessary now, as he has revealed himself as an original thinker and the poor Guardian regulars are running round like an upturned ants’ nest. He says that the CRU scientists are corrupt or stupid, that you can’t forecast temperatures decades in advance, that man-made warming may not kick in for a thousand years etc. And he admires Lord Lawson and other “good” sceptics.
Oh, and talking of CRU, “careers have been ended by this affair”.
Does he know something we don’t?
Max,
The position of mainstream science isn’t fixed. It’s you who are naive in comparing the IPCC reports to the Bible which clearly is static. In fact you could say it was writ, at least parts of it, in stone!
It’s fair enough that the IPCC have been criticised for getting the Himalayan glaciers story wrong. However , unlike the RC church, no-one is claiming infallibility. It will be corrected next time and that will be the new mainstream scientific position – if it isn’t already.
That’s the way science works. Mistakes are made, mistakes are corrected. The science we have now is better than it was ten years ago but not as good as it will be in ten years time. But , we don’t know what that will be. On the AGW issue it may move more in your drection , equally, it may well move away from it.
However, the only smart thing, on all issues- not just AGW, is to stick with the best scientific knowledge we have right now.
Lysenkoism and James Hansen
An interesting article by Bob Carter, also titled;
BOB CARTER ON THE CONVERSION OF JAMES HANSEN TO ‘HONESTY’
http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2010/03/hansenist-climate-alarmism
PeterM
Take out the silly word “mainstream”, Peter.
The position of science is not fixed. It never is.
Yes, mistakes are made and corrected. This is what science is all about.
It now appears that many mistakes are being revealed, which supported the IPCC premise of dangerous AGW.
These include, most notably, the postulations that “positive feedbacks” greatly enhance the theoretical GH warming from CO2 and that unseen GH warming is being “hidden in the pipeline”.
These are the two unsubstantiated suggestions that change the AGW outcome from a minor, probably positive, impact to a postulated disaster.
Fortunately for us all, the “best scientific knowledge we have now” has shown them both to be false, so yes “science is definitely better” than it was just a few years ago, when IPCC AR4 WG1 and SPM 2007 were published.
But how about addressing the specific questions I asked you?
Max
Bob_FJ
The “Doomed Planet” article by Bob Carter, which you cite lists the genesis of Lysenkoism:
Wow! This is exactly the same path that the AGW hysteria has taken!
Max
PeterM:
You really don’t get it, do you? Of course I’m not asking you to produce a “single paper [addressing] all the issues on AGW”. Your problem is this: you have no difficulty referring us to research providing evidence that the Earth has warmed, that GHGs cause atmospheric warming and that mankind’s GHG emissions have increased over recent years. But these are peripheral issues – albeit important peripheral issues. The IPCC refers to evidence for these and many other peripheral issues – hence the “1000s of papers” to which you refer. But, as you know, there are two specific issues that are fundamental to the dangerous AGW hypothesis: (1) that such emissions were the principal cause of recent warming and (2) that more such emissions will cause dangerous climate change. What I am requesting is that you cite for us published research that refers to empirical evidence (that can be confirmed by third party scientists) supporting these specific propositions. You say that the IPCC “represents the position of mainstream science” on the matter. If you’re right about this and “mainstream science” supports these two propositions, the published research you should be looking for will be referred to in the IPCC report. If it’s not, it would seem that “mainstream science” does not support the propositions after all.
Therefore, please cite for us, if you can, the relevant evidence referred to in the IPCC AR4 report. A tip: you should look in WGI, Chapter 9 (Understanding and Attributing Climate Change). Remember: until you can refer us to such evidence, the dangerous AGW hypothesis continues to be no more than yet another interesting hypothesis.
Max,
If you are asking my opinion I would say that Kevin Trenberth is speculating. I wouldn’t expect him to disagree – I’m sure he knows that as well as anyone. This article is probably being pretty fair about what is known at present.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88520025
We tend to focus on too short a timescale; that is what has happened in the individual years since the turn of the century, instead of the decade as a whole which is a lot warmer than the previous decade.
Warming tends to happen in jumps. We’ve seen relatively level temperatures for the last few years. As the solar cycle changes we’ll see another jump in the next few years.
Robin,
If anyone is out of step with scientific opinion it is yourself!
You may be right that I “don’t get” your thought processes. They seem quite bizarre.
Are you now saying?
1)Yes. The Earth has warmed.
2)Yes. GHGs cause atmospheric warming
3)Yes. Emissions of GHGs from human sources have increased amospheric concentrations of CO2 by 40% and have doubled CH4 levels.
So far so good. But then you appear to contradict yourself by suggesting that these particular emissions didn’t cause the recent warming???
It’s like I said, no one can prove it. But if you do accept points 1, 2 and 3 then its hard to follow how you can fail to consider, it to be at least quite likely, that they are all connected.
90% likely according to the IPCC.
Peter reur #148
Peter, this is not science, “mainstream” or otherwise, it’s a leap of faith.
You say;
This is the ultimate cop-out and has been in use by religions for centuries. It’s the sort of thinking that absolves us of the requirement to search for answers and finally the truth.
Your;
But if you do accept points 1, 2 and 3 then its hard to follow how you can fail to consider, it to be at least quite likely, that they are all connected.
PeterM:
Pay attention: I am not asking you to “prove” anything. Many factors can cause atmospheric warming – and have done since the Earth’s beginning 4.5 billion years ago. I am simply asking you to refer us to empirical evidence supporting the hypothesis that Man’s emissions of GHGs were the principal cause of the warming at the end of the 20th century.