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 apparently actually “believe” that investing trillions of dollars into doubtful schemes in the hopes of mitigating against what physicist Dennis Rancourt refers to as “strictly an imaginary problem of the First World middleclass” is a good investment.
I do not (even though I am, like you and Brute, a member of the “First World middle class”).
So you should be allowed to invest your money into this cause.
And Brute and I should be allowed to refrain from doing so (and invest our money into causes, which we feel are more worthwhile).
Makes sense, doesn’t it? Sounds to me like a “win-win solution” for everyone.
One could arrange, on a strictly voluntary and democratic basis, a collection or, better yet, an automatic monthly payment scheme for all those, who truly believe that mitigation against AGW is important. It could be tied to each individual’s estimated “carbon footprint” as a sort of “feel good” atonement or “guilt tax”.
Would you have any objection to this approach?
If so, what would it be?
(This is a serious question, Peter.)
Max
Max 1501
I am very worried about a repeat of a Carrington event. There is empirical evidence that it happened before (in 1859) and a repeat is considered certain by top Solar scientists. It would destroy our civilisation.
http://www.leif.org/research/1859%20Storm%20-%20Extreme%20Space%20Weather.pdf
I want to try and find ways of averting this disaster, or at least to mitigate it. I am looking for 8 Trillion dollars to fund it, which sounds very good value to me compared to the projected future GDP of the world (which of course won’t happen if it is destroyed by a Carrington event).
I will be looking for various people to do research and write impressive papers with lots of graphs. Are you interested in a senior position?
No doubt as Peter will readily recognise this to be a much greater and more quantifiable disaster that is based on actual evidence he will also want to become involved and put theoretical CAGW on the back burner for the time being.
Tonyb
PeterM
I see that your brain works in strange and mysterious ways.
Brute posts links to an article by a physicist who says (among other things) that the man-made global warming movement is nothing more than a
Out of all this, your brain distills this down to:
Peter, get it through your head. Rancourt is not discussing the Marxists’ political dislike of the “middle class” (from which he and some notable Marxist leaders originated).
He is telling us (as a physicist) that the “global warming myth is a red herring”, a “corrupt social phenomenon”, pushed by “power-driven financiers and profit-driven corporations”, and that it is “an imaginary problem of the First World middleclass”.
I agree with his conclusions, but you have apparently failed to grasp what he is telling us as a physicist, and are instead sidetracking to a vague off-topic discussion of Marxist politics.
Max
Just to say here‘s a transcript of last Monday’s Newsnight programme on the BBC: “The disastrous floods in Pakistan – is global warming a factor?”
TonyB
I can share your deep concern about a future catastrophic Carrington event.
Your suggestion to put a future catastrophic Carrington Event on the front burner and toss the computer-generated AGW hobgoblin into the trash heap of history makes good sense (the AGW fad has begun to lose its “oomph” and it is high time for something new, in any case).
Before we can do this, though, we need to identify and mobilize the powerful political and economic forces that will benefit from a new Carrington-disaster craze (TonyN’s “very convenient network”).
In itself, this should not be too hard to do, once these forces smell the prospect of major financial or political gain.
I do see one problem: a future Carrington event cannot easily be tied to perceived human guilt (as has been so cleverly done with AGW in the “rich man’s world” in order to invoke the Judeo-Christian “morality” issue).
Politicians should be easy to switch over: they shift with the wind and love to talk of “change” (and this would be a great example). The “Mencken principle” could also work well here.
I do not readily see the potential of obscene amounts of money coming from a direct or indirect tax scheme (as is a major driving force for the AGW hysteria), but I am sure that the politicians can figure this one out.
Getting the scientists on board should be no problem at all, once taxpayer funding for research grants can be assured (this may be a slightly different group than the current “mainstream gurus”, but the computer nerds will be a key part of creating a new virtual hobgoblin, as they are now).
The media should be a pushover here. They are already tiring of AGW (which has become boring and no longer sells that well with the public).
Industrial corporations should also be easy to convert; I can imagine whole new industries popping up like mushrooms after a summer rain once the gravy train starts rolling.
With a few minor changes in delegates and political appointees, the IPCC could actually stay in place as is, with a slight modification in name to “Intergovernmental Panel for Carrington Catastrophe”.
Guys like PeterM may be more difficult. Changing religions does not happen at the drop of a hat. But if one can tie it to the proper political ideology…
Who knows?
Max
Max,
If Rancourt, as a physicist, is telling us anything about AGW shouldn’t he be illustrating his argument with explanations of such things as the absorption of IR by CO2 and water vapour? I don’t see anything scientific at all – just some mutterings about the defiencies of the middle class.
If scientists are considered to be middle class, as most scientists probably would consider themselves to be, I suppose he could argue that the science of AGW has indeed come from the middle classes. However, if he were to read his Marx he would find that capitalism has “converted the physician, the lawyer, …. the man of science, into its paid wage labourers.”
So on a strictly Marxist interpretation he should be arguing that it has come from the western proletariat! But, I suppose the counter-argument might be that the “paid wage labourers” are trying to please their masters in the bourgeoisie so in a sense all classes could be said to be involved.
PeterM
Your “yes or no” question 1489 misses the point, but I will try to answer anyway.
Hansen’s proposal is “hare-brained” because it achieves absolutely nothing at exorbitant cost, as the numbers clearly show.
As I understand them from the brief description given, the IPCC WGIII proposals fit the same description.
“Wasted money to chase an imaginary hobgoblin”, might be a more acceptable description for you than “hare-brained scheme”.
Either one will do for me.
Max
PeterM
Forget the “middle class” argument and concentrate on what physicist Rancourt tells us about AGW.
He confirms what many of us have known for some time.
AGW is not a major potential threat (even if CO2 is a greenhouse gas).
Rancourt does not need to provide empirical data to support his statement.
It is up to the proponents of the postulation that AGW is a major potential threat to provide the empirical evidence to support this premise, which they have been unable to do (as Rancourt, being a physicist, knows full well).
Max
Max and TonyB,
I can sense the mirth of ignorance in your prattling about solar storms and “Carrington” events.
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/06may_carringtonflare/
I’m sure engineers have designed in protection measures as far as is possible to prevent widespread damage. They probably won’t be completely effective though and some future damage can be expected. But really, the threat is just nowhere near the same as the effects from hundreds of years of AGW.
Geoff, further to your 1484
It is interesting to see this church behaviour demonstrated in V’s Article “A Near Miss”. V’s publisher wrote to the discoverers of radio noise from Jupiter, advising of V’s prediction of this in his yet to be published book; “Earth in Upheaval”. The astronomers replied on April 12, 1955
What can be said is that the astronomers could not have possibly read V’s manuscript, and it would also seem unlikely that they read “Worlds in Collision”, since it was unnecessary, given the edicts from on high. (some of whom officials proudly declared that they had not and will not read it)
It is a pity that Einstein died long before some of V’s other predictions such as Venus’ high temperature and anomalous rotation were confirmed by probes in the 60’s & 70’s. He was certainly impressed by the Jupiter discovery, but died before his promise of help to V could be implemented.
All told, V had an impressive array of “near misses”, but whenever I find a second hand bookshop, I head first for the ”science fiction” shelf, where his books may be found.
PeterM
You gave your unsolicited personal opinion regarding a “Carrington event”:
Without getting into the potential impact of a major Carrington event, let’s look at your statement.
Over the past 100 years we have had 0.7C warming with no noticeable negative impact, and only around half of this is attributable to AGW, with the rest most likely caused by natural forcing.
100 years of future AGW = 0.5 to 1.5C warming above today’s temperature, depending on whose estimate you believe (based on the evidence out there, I have concluded that the low end of the estimate is more likely, as this also checks well with the past warming).
Doesn’t sound like a very big deal to me, Peter.
Max
Good news Pete!
Thanks to Obama’s new “green” initiative the government is relaying the railroad tracks in my area. A buddy of mine works for the railroad and there is a mountain of creosote impregnated railroad ties available to me for free!
I appropriated a circa 1920’s coal fired boiler from a downtown apartment house……and the railroad worker has an awesome machine at the yard that cracks/breaks the ties into firebox size lengths. I’ve run water pipes from the boiler to all of the outbuildings at the Brute compound and will heat the entire site with free Obama provided railroad ties this season………isn’t that great!
My next project is procuring an Army surplus electrical generator from the local armory………this thing is a monster and will burn most anything………I get used motor oil (thanks to a guy I know that will divert it from the local waste depot) and I’ll have free electricity!
And you thought I wasn’t environmentally friendly…………
Recycling the railroad ties and the used motor oil will save more polar bears than you could begin to dream of…………and me and Mrs. Brute will save tons of money!
Cold empties Bolivian rivers of fish
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100827/full/news.2010.437.html
PATTERSON: Al Gore’s global-warming crusade shrinks
Eco-autocrats are exposed as frauds
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/aug/24/al-gores-global-warming-crusade-shrinks/?page=1
Peter #1509
I grow ever moe convinced you don’t read your own links.
“More than 35 years ago, I began drawing the attention of the space physics community to the 1859 flare and its impact on telecommunications,” says Louis J. Lanzerotti, retired Distinguished Member of Technical Staff at Bell Laboratories and current editor of the journal Space Weather. He became aware of the effects of solar geomagnetic storms on terrestrial communications when a huge solar flare on August 4, 1972, knocked out long-distance telephone communication across Illinois. That event, in fact, caused AT&T to redesign its power system for transatlantic cables. A similar flare on March 13, 1989, provoked geomagnetic storms that disrupted electric power transmission from the Hydro Québec generating station in Canada, blacking out most of the province and plunging 6 million people into darkness for 9 hours; aurora-induced power surges even melted power transformers in New Jersey. In December 2005, X-rays from another solar storm disrupted satellite-to-ground communications and Global Positioning System (GPS) navigation signals for about 10 minutes. That may not sound like much, but as Lanzerotti noted, “I would not have wanted to be on a commercial airplane being guided in for a landing by GPS or on a ship being docked by GPS during that 10 minutes.”
Yes I have actually done some research on this as opposed to you doing a quick google. As part of a related project I asked five of the biggest infrastructure suppliers of services in the UK as to what measures had been taken to protect electronic devices likely to be affected. This covered such basics as water, waste disposal, electricity.
I won’t pretend it to be comprehensive but only one service provider had actually heard of a Carrington event let alone knew of its potential effects. No one had-or intended to- do anything about it unless instructed by the Government.
Needless to say they had all heard of AGW.
The serious point I wished to make is that there are many things that I consider to be of greater importance than AGW for the simple reason that we have evidence that they are real. This was one example of something that that has actually happened in the past and will happen again.
Its effect will be to almost instantly destroy modern life on earth and throw us suddenly back to the pre industrial society that you appear to admire (as we weren’t then producing quantities of Co2 that fuelled our civilisation.)
You are living in a dream world if
A) You believe we have prepared for this
b) It won’t happen
c) That highly theoretical CAGW is much more important than something we have empirical evidence on and that top solar scientists agree is a major problem, (re-read what Hathaway said in your link plus my own first link)
You concluded
“But really, the threat is just nowhere near the same as the effects from hundreds of years of AGW.”
I quite agree Peter, the effect will be much worse (especially as AGW has yet to be proven)
Why you would ignore such a thing as this yet enthusiastically promote something that appears to be a minor concern-if it exists at all-is somehing that others might care to comment on.
tonyb
Brute,1513;
It was also notably chilly in South Africa during the “World Football Cup” last June.
500 African penguins freeze to death in South Africa
http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/6086915-500-african-penguins-freeze-to-death-in-south-africa
Other reports give ~600 deaths
Brute and Bob_FJ
Just shows how uninformed those Bolivian fish and South African penguins really are (1513/1516): freezing to death by the millions when GISS and Hadley both tell us this is poised to become a “record hot year”.
Peter needs to straighten out these dumb creatures.
Max
Max #1505
I think the mane IPCC is a splendid one as I understand the organisation already bearing that name is likely to become defunct soon. I am of course worried that the existing holders have a poor reputation which I hope we won’t inherit.
As you say;
‘Guys like PeterM may be more difficult. Changing religions does not happen at the drop of a hat. But if one can tie it to the proper political ideology…’
Peter has exhibited this with his comment about our mirth of ignorance and his scorn over the effects of something that has happened in the past, against which we are making no preparations whatsover as our whole attention is focused on promoting what you describe as a religion.
Seems illogical to me for Peter to scorn empirical evidence.
Tonyb
TonyB
You write:
I would agree, Tony. To me his disdain for empirical evidence points to the suggestion that he does not see AGW as a “science” (despite his claims to the contrary), but rather as a dogmatic “belief”.
An essay entitled “An Introduction to Science” defines “science”, “reliable” (or “scientific”) “ knowledge”, “scientific” (or “critical”) “thinking” and the “scientific method”.
http://www.freeinquiry.com/intro-to-sci.html
It appears to be quite pertinent to our discussion here, so I will quote excerpts.
The first principle is “Empiricism: The Use of Empirical Evidence”:
The above paragraphs describe how a rational skeptic searches for “empirical evidence” in order to validate or falsify the “authoritarian evidence”, which others (in this case IPCC) “tell you to believe”. Peter has not chosen to question the IPCC claims critically by insisting on their validation by empirical evidence (the point you made earlier).
Part 2 covers “Rationalism: The Practice of Logical Reasoning”:
To part 3, “Skepticism: Possessing a Skeptical Attitude” the treatise continues:
In the case of the AGW hypothesis as promulgated by IPCC, there have been predictions of warming made in the 1980s. These have been shown to be exaggerated, with only the lowest estimates of a very wide range approaching the observed reality. This would lead to the conclusion that the hypothesis has not “matched the objective reality as measured by empirical evidence”, and should therefore be rejected or modified. (More on this topic below, under “testing a hypothesis”).
In discussing the “scientific method” the treatise states:
Then to “post-modernism” in “science”:
An extension of post-modern science is the premise that because the consequences of “dangerous AGW” are potentially so devastating to humanity itself, the hypothesis should not be subjected to the rigors of the scientific method, but mitigation steps should be initiated immediately “just in case” (a.k.a. the “precautionary principle”). Obviously this has nothing to do with science anymore.
This is the key weakness of the hypothesis that most of the recent warming has been caused by AGW and that AGW represents a serious potential threat. It has “failed the test”. In fact, many of the recent empirical observations have falsified the hypothesis (ex: “missing heat”, observed net negative feedback from clouds, etc.) But, instead of rejecting and abandoning the hypothesis, various rationalizations are proposed to “explain” why the observed data are either inaccurate or can be rationalized away with alternate hypotheses (ex: mid-century cooling caused by human aerosols, lack of observed warming rationalized away with “hidden in the pipeline” postulation, etc.)
This step has not occurred for the “dangerous AGW” premise; in other words, it is still an “uncorroborated hypothesis” in the scientific sense.
“Dangerous AGW” is obviously several steps away from this status, and based on the empirical evidence observed so far, it appears very doubtful that it will ever become a “scientific fact” or “truth”, but will remain an “uncorroborated hypothesis”, or even eventually be discarded as a “falsified hypothesis”, which has been invalidated by the observed “empirical data”.
But this is very hard for Peter to accept, as you say.
Max
Brute and Bob_FJ
Eureka! We’ve got the answer (at least for why all the tropical fish in Bolivia are freezing to death, even if it may not cover the frozen South African penguins, as well).
The cause of this disaster is (believe it or not!)
CLIMATE CHANGE (a.k.a. “anthropogenic global warming”)
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2010/8/27/nature-notices-bolivia.html
Max
TonyB
Back to your proposal to shift the fizzling effort on AGW to a new, sexier and more realistic potential disaster scenario from a “Carrington event”.
Pachauri would have to go, of course, as would the guys incriminated by Climategate and a few die-hards like Hansen (who should retire from active government pay in any case), but the political cats (who don’t know anything about the science anyway) could stay on to spread the new political message. I think we could get Gore lined up as well, if we can promise him a major cut of the action plus maybe a new Nobel Peace Prize.
We still need to solve the potential tax issue – with no prospect of trillions of (publicly funded) dollars, it will be hard to get the “very convenient network” together.
And there is still the “human guilt for being affluent” issue, which is harder to construct for this disaster than it was for AGW. Maybe we can tie it to a “back to nature” movement. After all, Stone Age Man would not have been affected much by a Carrington event, so maybe that could be the key. We all need to return to the Stone Age to avoid the disastrous consequences, which an affluent modern world would suffer. This aspect still needs work, Tony.
Any suggestions you might have are welcome.
Max
TonyB
Here are some excerpts from Michael Brooks’ report in New Scientist Magazine on what could happen if a solar storm the size of the “Carrington Event” were to happen today:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20127001.300-space-storm-alert-90-seconds-from-catastrophe.html?full=true
http://chasblogspot.blogspot.com/2009/08/carrington-event.html
You are right, Tony. This makes AGW (even the hysterically hyper-inflated Hansen version) sound like a stroll in the park.
Max
Max
Thanks for your two very intersting and long posts. I know this is a subject that Peter Taylor is also very interested in.
The attention of NGO’s, Government, Business, Media etc are all focused on AGW. I increasingly believe that humanity is unable to face up to more than one ‘disaster scenario’ at a time, witness the periodic scares on Sars, Swine flu etc etc that sweep the world then suddenly die down.
The end result is that this complete preoccupation with a hypothetical problem-CAGW- is blinding us to other problems of a greater magnitude.
Personally I think its genuinely scary that modern infrastructure is now completely vulnerable to solar induced problems of the type described, and that there seems to be no plan to ensure that the electronics on which we rely are protected.
No Fuel, No water, No food, No waste disposal No computers… the list goes on. This isn’t science fantasy it HAS happened before and its only pot luck it hasn’t happened again. The world is uniquely vulnerable to this threat because of the way we have developed, relying on technology but without the means to protect it.
So should we concentrate on REAL problems, of which a Carrington event is one example of many, or should we spend trillions chasing a chimera called CAGW?
As you say, this sort of thing hasn’t got the tax dollars potential for Government, nor the almost pseudo religious appeal appeal to those who don’t really seem to like humanity and want to curtail our activities and send us back to the pre industrial world where only the priviliged would thrive.
Tonyb
Brute 1515
You are setting a fine example to the rest of us with your impeccable green credentials :)
Tonyb
Max,
Your comment “This [a possible Carrington event] makes AGW …..sound like a stroll in the park ”
The damage from a possible Carrington event, under a worse case scenario, is more comparable with the sort of damage which may be expected in a war of comparable magnitude to WW2 in Europe. That is reversible and the situation is recoverable.
The worst case for scenario for AGW is one of runaway warming and the Venus effect! That’s not quite so easy to recover from.
Even under a less than worse case scenario of 3 degrees of warming and a couple of metres of seal level rise, the long term effects will be much more damaging and costly.