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
The IAC study has concluded that the IPCC processes need to be fixed. An earlier report by Ross McKitrick came to a similar conclusion.
For another climate scientist’s take on “fixing the IPCC processes” to re-establish its credibility, see this comment by Roy Spencer:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/08/dump-the-ipcc-process-it-cannot-be-fixed/
Spencer makes sense to me.
I have always argued that IPCC has published “agenda driven science” (to “to build a case for regulating CO2 emissions”, as Spencer puts it).
Instead of “searching for the truth” (as scientists should), IPCC had them “searching for the proof” (for its “dangerous AGW” postulation).
Max
Brute and PeterM
This thread and its two precursors have been going on for some time now. You two both joined in early. As I recall, I came in a bit later, when you two were debating the relative CO2 increase in the Astrodome from lighting a match versus that caused in the atmosphere by human CO2 emissions.
And we figured out that it would take 12 people lighting a match in the Astrodome at the same time to have the same instantaneous impact on the Astrodome’s CO2 concentration as humanity’s total CO2 emissions have on the atmosphere.
So Peter was right when he said that one person lighting a match in the Astrodome would not equal the impact of humanity’s CO2 emissions on the atmosphere, as Brute had estimated; it would take 12 people.
The conversation has remained interesting, civil and (almost always) even polite.
Hats off to you both.
Max
Yes. Roosevelt was a Socialist.
Max,
Well then, that changes everything…..I’ve now become a full fledged global warming alarmist, sycophant of all things Gore and have begun to make arrangements to live as hermit in a cave so as not to “impact” the mating habits of snowy egrets.
With such a high ratio as that, it’s a miracle that we’re all still alive.
Gee Pete, I hope you didn’t invest your life’s savings in Al Gore’s scam…….selling air…..There’s a sucker born every minute.
Chicago Climate Exchange drops 50%, new record low
The only lower price than today’s closing price on a ton of carbon is ZERO
Perhaps reacting to the news yesterday about the IPCC getting taken to the woodshed, the growing number of stories in the MSM about the IPCC failure, and the recent layoffs at CCX, carbon trading has once again been devalued by the market. Amazingly, it lost 50% of it’s value for 2006, 2007, and 2008 “carbon instruments” today. Here’s the CCX front page graph at closing today:
The CCX end of day table really says it all, 50% off, from a dime to a nickel in a day.
It must have really killed the person to have to put in a nickel for the closing value today.
Charcoal briquettes and coal have more value than a ton of CCX carbon instruments these days.
Unless CCX starts making adjustments in single cents, the next downward adjustment is zero. The latest CCX advisory says they will be closed for labor day, and will reopen for trading September 7th. One wonders.
One here for PeterM Apparently the Swiss have done a study into the merits of electric cars v modern eco diesels, and not to my surprise, but maybe to many the diesel is more eco-friendly. I have said this before but my “back a of a fag packet” calculations, lack of PhD, and reliance on experience and gut feel just don’t cut it with the committed environmentalist, but as always with these things when everything is taken into account what is best for the environment is not always the obvious answer.
With so much focus on reducing direct CO2 emissions policy makers and environmentalists have completely lost the plot. Bio-fuels is the worst case, and we are now seeing a swing of opinion away from Bio-fuels, except by politicians who have latched onto them as a way of demonstrating green credentials. And if we took the Bio-fuel element out of the diesel used in the above vehicles they would be even better. And ironically, but something I have known for 20 years, when a diesel runs on Bio-fuel it produces more of the real and harmful emissions than when running on pure diesel. This requires a re-tuning of the engine which inevitably results greater fuel consumption or less power or both; a great result don’t you all think? but just one of many consequences of AGW alarmism.
Max
I did read the Thermostat theory by Willis as linked by you. It seems very plausible to me, although no doubt there are other twiddly bits that need to be factored in.
tonyb
TonyB
Agree that Willis Eschenbach’s “natural cloud thermostat” hypothesis needs some “tweaking” to take into account other factors (such as the temporary increase in high altitude IR absorbing clouds, which Spencer also observed).
But it is based on extensive observations in the tropics (where he lives) where most of our planet’s warming (from the sun) occurs.
Believe that what is unique in his study is the concept of thunderstorms as a “heat engine”; this hypothesis makes perfect sense to me.
He has observed that over the tropics, early morning warming from the sun usually shifts to low altitude cloud formation (reflecting much of the incoming solar energy), which then bring cooling afternoon thundershowers.
This is confirmed over a longer time scale by Spencer and Braswell’s satellite observations (now finally being published in a scientific journal), which show that the net overall feedback from clouds is strongly negative (instead of strongly positive, as was previously assumed by all the climate models cited by IPCC).
This major new breakthrough tells us that the 2xCO2 average climate sensitivity of 3.2C, as estimated by the IPCC model simulations, is off by a factor of around 3.
IPCC assumes that clouds will have a positive feedback equal to a positive 2xCO2 impact of +1.3C, whereas the observed empirical data show that this is more likely to be a negative 2xCO2 impact of around the same order of magnitude, let’s say about -1.0C.
On this basis, the 2xCO2 climate sensitivity based on physical observations on clouds would be around 0.9C, rather than 3.2C as assumed based on the IPCC model simulations.
As Spencer has said, this makes the whole hysteria surrounding AGW absurd, because it means that we would see a theoretical warming from CO2 by year 2100 of around 0.6C (or about the same we have seen over the entire 20th century). Yawn!
Max
I see one of your mates has gotten loose Pete…..The latest criticism of the IPCC must have pushed him over the edge.
Man armed with guns, explosives storms Discovery Channel building…
http://www.wtop.com/?nid=25&sid=2042177
TEXT OF MANIFESTO…
http://tmz.vo.llnwd.net/o28/newsdesk/tmz_documents/0901_demands.pdf
And………a police sharpshooter takes him out…..(In case you were wondering how it ended).
Environmental Militant Killed by Police at Discovery Channel Hdqtrs…
http://abcnews.go.com/US/gunman-enters-discovery-channel-headquarters-employees-evacuated/story?id=11535128
‘Awakened’ by Al Gore’s ‘An Inconvenient Truth’…
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38957020/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/
Max,
You say “No. I am NOT ‘avoiding the point about the Express’. It frankly doesn’t interest me all that much.”
Well it should. The simple fact is that the Express have, to put it kindly, completely misrepresented the IAC report on the IPCC. Its really much worse than anything that the BBC has supposedly done.
The Express are not the only ones to be guilty of this sort of thing of course. The Mail, the Spectator, the Telegraph, the WSJ, Fox News, all the right-wing media, all do it.
But why? If their case is so strong, why don’t they play it straight?
Peter Geany,
You give a link to a newspaper report about the relative environmental benefits of Diesel and Battery powered EVs
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08/31/battery_cars_destroy_the_world/
Which claims, as its source, this article:
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/es903729a
You seem to have taken your conclusions from the newspaper article, which talks about “boffins” – do people really still use that word? – rather than the scientific article itself.
Just read the two articles. Can you honestly say there is any resemblance at all between them? Aren’t the Register just making it up, the same as the Express? Don’t you ever wonder why they feel the need to do that?
Brute,
Brute,
It may be a little off topic but whenever I’ve been in America its always surprised me at how little travelled you guys are and unaware of what goes on outside your borders.
We get lots of European backpackers here in Australia but the young Americans seem to be either Mormon missionaries or Naval personnel on shore leave!
This may well be why!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-11139960
You need to form some decent unions and get out and about a bit more !
PeterM I would have thought by now you would understand that scientists may study things and make discoveries but often they can be poor at putting what they have studied or discovered into context. The Register is making that point, where with a little thought from and engineering point of view, it can be seen that the so call Eco friendly EV may not be so Eco friendly after all. Its the Law of unintended consequences,
Peter Geany
“They [scientists] can be [so] poor at putting what they have studied or discovered into context” that if they say one thing, papers like the Express and the Register really know they mean just the opposite!
OK I see.
Brute,
“Roosevelt was a Socialist.” “Hitler was a Socialist.”
[snip]
Pete,
I see……When your team is losing; you attempt to change the topic……
Buy some carbon credits Pete……it’ll make you feel better, save some spotted owls (in theory) and provide some much deserved vacation leave for all of those “overworked” carbon traders.
According to your theory, the carbon trading market would explode if only the carbon traders unionized and spent some time being paid to do nothing.
I suggest you send some money over to the Chicago Climate Exchange to fund their indolence.
PeterM
You seem to get excited about one report of the IAC inquiry:
This report describes the recent IAC inquiry as follows:
While this statement is certainly true without a doubt, other reports of the inquiry call it a meaningless “whitewash”.
Guess one can cherry-pick out the parts one likes and come to either conclusion.
I’d rather agree that it was a “whitewash”, since it did not dig into the many blatant exaggerations and outright falsehoods in the “climate science”, but rather concentrated on poor bureaucratic procedures and organizational structure plus understated uncertainties.
I really do not care which journal came to what conclusion on the investigation (that’s likely to be defined by the politics of the journal, itself) – my conclusion (after reading it) is that is was another “whitewash” by like-minded, friendly reviewers rather than an independent audit by a neutral or even critical panel looking for “worms”.
Get a few guys like Spencer, Christy and McIntyre on the review panel (plus charge it specifically with investigating the validity of the “science” itself) and I’ll start believing that it is truly a critical and independent audit.
Unfortunately, that has yet to happen.
Max
PeterM
The IAC review of the IPCC recommended “Fundamental Reform of IPCC Management Structure”, but did not dig into IPCC’s soft spot: the “climate science” underlying its alarming projections for the future,
The IAC stands for “Inter Academy Council”, rather than “Independent Audit Committee”
But just how “independent” was it? The report itself states (bold type be me):
Oops!
Sort of reminds me of Nixon’s Watergate investigation.
Max
Brute
Regarding your 1585:
Look for more of these tragic events as distraught scientists, who have just lost a juicy taxpayer-funded research grant to study potentially alarming AGW impacts on various abstract and irrelevant global phenomena, become disgruntled and then desperate.
Maybe Peter is right: these poor victims (obviously of “right-wing government repression”) need to unionize and get 6-week paid vacations to recover from the shock related to their loss.
Max
Peter (1587)
They do, especially at The Register, who like to confuse Americans. They also like to dream up arresting headlines, hence ‘battery_cars_destroy_the_world’, but the article seems reasonable enough to me, and quotes chunks of the source document, so there must be some resemblance between them!
Given that in most cases, fossil fuel is used to power both conventional and electric cars, it’s not a big surprise that electric ones have no big advantage in the CO2 stakes. How much that matters is a moot point…
Having returned to El Reg (The Register), I noticed that this is the third most read article:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/15/asa_climate_pron/
Time they ran a poll, perhaps…
Brute,
I’m not sure if there is any point trying to explain to you, but maybe you’ll listen to what George Orwell had to say on the topic of Fascism.
“The backbone of the resistance against Franco was the Spanish working
class, especially the urban trade union members. In the long run–it is
important to remember that it is only in the long run–the working class
remains the most reliable enemy of Fascism, simply because the
working-class stands to gain most by a decent reconstruction of society.”
More reading:
http://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/As_I_Please/english/efasc
http://www.george-orwell.org/Looking_Back_On_The_Spanish_War/0.html
Pete,
Your problem, (and those that think as you do), is that you are detached from reality……you’re an idealist.
You believe that corrupt, self serving politicians, passing inane laws, are going to transform the planet into the Garden of Eden where no one will have to work, food will fall from the sky, the weather will always be sunny and pleasant and that no one will ever get sick. You believe that union mobsters have your best interests at heart. You believe that government financed, bureaucratic “scientists” are the solution to all of your problems.
Trouble is, that’s not reality……and no matter how much you whine and complain, or how much (of other people’s) money you spend, life/society will never be that way.
The peace/love/dope thing didn’t work Pete.
The “Age of Aquarius” never was.
You need to grow up…Life is cruel. The world is a dangerous, inhospitable place……Get used to it.
The sooner you accept these realities, the better off you’ll be.
PeterM
We are drifting dangerously far from the topic of this blog (and thread) with discussions of Orwell’s thoughts on fascism and the working class.
I think that the writings of Arthur Koestler on the temptation and betrayal of socialism (a.k.a. communism) are even more pertinent, because they were written by someone who experienced this directly. It’s an old work, but I’d recommend “Darkness at Noon”.
Autocratic totalitarianism (whether it carries the banner of “fascism” or “socialism”) is pretty much the same thing, Peter.
To get things back on topic, I believe that the current political move to “tax” the public (against its will) for “consuming carbon”, allegedly “for the common good” (i.e. to “save the planet” from an imaginary hobgoblin), is a crude autocratic power grab attempt by those in power.
It doesn’t interest me very much whether these guys call themselves “socialists”, “fascists” or anything else.
It can only be neutralized by demonstrating that the “hobgoblin” is not real, IOW not supported by empirical scientific evidence. This is what is happening today, Peter. The “hobgoblin” is being exposed as a fraud.
Max