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.
Tonyb,
Judges can be bought here in the US also…..
Judge in Virginia ‘Global Warming’ Investigation Blocks Inquiry Into…His Wife’s Former Employer
http://biggovernment.com/chorner/2010/08/31/judge-in-virginia-global-warming-investigation-blocks-inquiry-into-his-wifes-former-employer/
Brute,
In case anyone ever wonders why the term “rabid right” has been coined they only they to look at your posts.
You say “Pete exclaims that these elitist parasites energy consumption/carbon emissions have no impact on the environment” and “I defend them” Is there someone else called Pete on this blog, or has that dog bite really given you a nasty infection which had led you to imagine these things?
Just get whatever treatment you can afford!
PeterM
Yes. We are discussing the same excellent article by politician and writer, Daniel Hannan.
In the beginning Hannan makes the point:
This is precisely how the “mainstream scientists” reacted when confronted with
– physical observations (i.e. “new discoveries”) confirming that net cloud feedbacks with warming are strongly negative, rather than strongly positive as their climate models had previously assumed (i.e. their “belief system”), thereby reducing the overall climate sensitivity of doubling CO2 to around 1/3 of that previously assumed by the models (i.e. their “belief system”).
– physically observed atmospheric temperatures recorded since 2000 of the surface as well as the troposphere plus those of the upper ocean since 2003 (i.e. “new discoveries”) which showed cooling, despite record increases in atmospheric CO2, thereby falsifying the “missing heat hidden in the pipeline” hypothesis (i.e. their “belief system”) as well as the premise that increased atmospheric CO2 concentrations will lead to added heat in our planet’s climate system (i.e. another “belief system”).
If you are unable to make this connection, so be it.
It is quite obvious to me.
The same phenomenon as specifically related to scientists has been made by Thomas Kuhn, in his dissertation on “paradigms”.
Kuhn’s point (like Hannan’s) is that scientists often have a difficult time accepting new data points (i.e. “new discoveries”) that lie outside the prevailing “paradigm” (i.e. their “belief-system”), either rejecting these as non-representative outliers or simply ignoring them. In some cases of extreme denialism they may even be physically unable to even see them.
The case of Alfred Wegener is a classical example of this phenomenon at work.
As a scientist, you should know all this, Peter.
Max
Max,
Yes Hannan makes the point that we have both quoted about belief systems.
Surely you realise that he’s not including himself in the general scientific community? The “we” are Conservatives like himself. You’ve nothing to say about that?
PeterM
You miss Hannan’s point. “We” is not limited to Hannan plus like-minded associates, it is the collective “we”, which applies to everyone.
Trying to “fit” “new discoveries” into one’s “belief-system” is not something, which only Hannan plus like-minded associates do, it applies to EVERYONE.
In the examples I cited, it applies to “mainstream climate scientists”.
Max
Brute and PeterM
Something for you both to think about.
A CTV report entitled
http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20100314/climate_research_100314/
tells us that the Canadian government, in a cost-cutting move forced by the current recession, has apparently shifted focus away from funding some climate researchers, including those who have worked on assessment reports published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Keith Seitter, executive director of the American Meteorological Society reacted to this announcement with:
The report continues:
There is nothing surprising to me that Canada’s (conservative) government has decided to save costs during this recession. It is also not surprising that non-essential work, such as climate-related “projects that gather and crunch data” at least partly to support “assessment reports published by the IPCC” would end up on the list of items to be cut back.
What is surprising is that the executive director of the US-based American Meteorological Society takes it upon himself to criticize this move by the Canadian government.
Some would argue that these taxpayer-funded “climatologists” are really just “parasites” in our society.
I would disagree, provided they are truly providing new impartial scientific answers to the many unknowns regarding our planet’s climate.
If they, however, are simply generating (at taxpayer expense) “agenda-driven science” to provide “proof” for the IPCC party line on “potentially dangerous AGW”, then I would agree, and (if I were a Canadian taxpayer in today’s recessionary times) I would fully agree to cutting back government funding for these “climatologists”.
What do you both think about this?
Max
PeterM
Since you are apparently having trouble grasping the concept that the “mainstream” has difficulty accepting “new discoveries”, which lie outside its “belief-system” (and how this applies directly to the field of climatology today), let me start off by giving you another example:
The prevailing paradigm of IPCC (or “belief-system”) is that most of the observed recent warming has been caused by anthropogenic greenhouse warming. IPCC even states that the computer models cannot explain late 20th century warming without anthropogenic forcing. Greenhouse theory tells us that the troposphere should be warming at a slightly faster rate than the surface (if the warming is caused by the GH effect, rather than some other natural cause). As IPCC states in AR4 Figure 9.1, in Section 9.2.2.1 on page 675, this should also be evidenced by a “hot spot” at the top of the tropical troposphere.
Unfortunately for the prevailing paradigm, the record since 1979, when satellites started recording tropospheric temperatures (i.e. “new discoveries”) shows that the surface is warming more rapidly than the troposphere. In addition, temperature sondes (more “new discoveries”) tell us that there is no “hot spot”, as expected based on GH theory (the “belief-system”).
This “missing hotspot” is more than just a theoretical discussion. The “hotspot” as shown on IPCC’s graph C is generated by the assumption that there will be an accumulation of water vapor in the troposphere, which will effectively double the greenhouse effect of GHGs alone. As there is no observed “hot spot” in the tropical troposphere, there is no accumulation of water vapor in the troposphere as predicted by the model simulations (the “belief-system”).
So, therefore, without the accumulation of water vapor as predicted by the models, the IPCC’s projected temperature rises by 2100, which rely heavily on an accumulation of water vapor, will not be achieved. So the real-world data confirming a “missing hotspot” in the tropical troposphere (the “new discovery”) is a serious problem for the dangerous AGW postulation (the “belief-system”).
How can the “mainstream” “fit” these conflicting “new discoveries” into its “belief-system”?
First, by outright denial.
In AR4 Chapter 3, page 237 the IPCC says:
and this claim is repeated in FAQ 3.1, page 252:
and
So the physically observed and recorded more rapid warming at the surface compared to the troposphere (the “new discovery”) is simply denied, because it does not fit into the “physical expectations and most model results, which demonstrate the role of increasing greenhouse gases in tropospheric warming” (the “belief-system”).
The “missing tropospheric hot spot” is rationalized away (to make it “fit” the “belief-system”), first by stretching the error bars of observed temperatures (Santer) to argue that, even if the “hotspot” has not been physically observed, it might have occurred within the limits of error! When this rather convoluted argument was falsified statistically, a second study (Sherwood) suggested that the thermometer measurements (which do not show this “hotspot”) must be wrong and we should, therefore, use the wind shear data from the very same sonde to get a proxy estimation of the temperatures. This second approach raises a very good question: Thermometers are designed to measure temperature; why should one think a wind gauge on the same sonde would be better at it?
The two (Santer and Sherwood) are both very complicated and tortuous attempts to try to bend the real-world temperature data (the “new discoveries”) to make them “fit” the model assumptions (the “belief-system”).
This all fits Hannan’s statement like a glove, Peter, as you will have to admit.
Max
PeterM
Here is one bit of news that you will certainly applaud.
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,5976412,00.html
http://www.nzz.ch/nachrichten/international/deutschland_akw-laufzeitverlaengerung_1.7457417.html
The German government announced today that it has come to an agreement to extend the lifetime of its nuclear power plants on average by 12 years (beyond the current deadline of 2021).
The Greens and Social Democrats were against this extension, the coalition government between the CDU-CSU (Conservatives) and the FDP (Liberals, in the European sense) supported it.
There were already some demonstrations against this decision organized by Greens.
Whether or not it will be (or even needs to be) ratified by the parliament is apparently still open.
The token, “feel good” political concession was made to levy a tax on the nuclear power companies, with the proceeds going to the development of “renewable” energy sources.
Who do you think will end up paying this new “tax”?
“Ach du lieber!” It’s “Herr und Frau Deutscher”.
And what will it achieve?
Hmmm… (About the same as the proposed direct or indirect “carbon tax” = 0).
Max
Max,
If you’ve ever studied quantum mechanics, nuclear physics, or astronomy (just read Stephen Hawking) you’ll know that mainstream scientists have accepted the strangest concepts which lie well outside any belief system imaginable!
Not being content with twisting the words of people you consider to be opponents, you’ve extended the treatment to those who are supposed to be on ‘your side’. You say Hannan’s article is “excellent” but you can’t bring yourself to discuss the point of it.
What about this piece of advice?
“Instead of arguing about the evidence – which few of us are qualified to interpret with certainty – we would be better off saying: Alright, all you Monbiots, let’s suppose you’re right”
Is that excellent too?
PeterM
Yes. I agree with your statement that (some) scientists “have accepted the strangest concepts which lie well outside any belief system imaginable”.
But we are talking about the “mainstream climate scientists” here, who have indeed accepted and embraced as a firm “belief” the strange postulation that the greenhouse impact from anthropogenic emissions of a trace greenhouse gas, CO2, will lead to disastrous impacts on our planet’s climate.
Yet (as pointed out repeatedly in previous posts, which you have been unable to refute) there are no empirical data base on actual physical observations which support this strange postulation.
As I pointed out with several specific examples, the “mainstream climate scientists” are having great difficulty accepting any data based on actual physical observations, which tend to falsify their “belief” that the greenhouse impact from anthropogenic CO2 emissions will lead to disastrous impacts on our planet’s climate.
I would go along with your: “Alright, let’s suppose you’re right” game (as long as you are prepared to do exactly the same), provided that we base our conclusions on empirical evidence according to the scientific method.
Is that a deal?
Max
Max,
Look, its not my “Alright, let’s suppose you’re right” game. And to be fair to Daniel Hannan, he’s not suggesting playing word games either.
He’s prepared to argue that Conservatives should accept, or at least consider the possibility, that mainstream science is correct and take it from there. You obviously feel he taken a step too far!
Max, Yes it’s good news that the German government have extended the life of their nuclear reactors. Hopefully it will be the first step towards a complete change of policy leading to the Germans going almost fully nuclear in the same way as have the French.
There really isn’t any alternative. I think the Greens will see that in time, but they have the same problem as the Conservative and Libertarian Right, in that the science does not fit neatly with their politics or world view.
Thank you Pete.
Scientists warn of demise of Canadian climate research
Max,
Initially, I’m not certain what to say……..My gut reaction is that there needs to be a system/structure in place to monitor weather events (particularly severe weather events) to provide adequate warning of impending catastrophic weather……errrr, “climate” (hurricanes/floods/tornados).
As far a long term temperature/precipitation trends, there needs to be a network capable of collecting/collating data which already exists.
In a meandering way, I’m trying to weigh the pros and cons…….and trying to think of a way that this could be provided via a privately funded organization without manipulation to provide accurate, unbiased, data interpretation.
As Hannon has written, personal bias seem to creep into every facet of our lives……..the data collected could (and is) being used for nefarious purposes as has been demonstrated by Mann, Hanson and the CRU.
I can’t see a way presently, where simple atmospheric data can be collected without being exploited and/or falsified to pursue personal political agendas…….the genie is out of the bottle.
Charlatans and faith healers have existed for time eternal. Hucksters/Witch Doctors such as Hanson and Mann have substituted tea leaves and rodent entrails with multi-million dollar computer models.
There has to be a way to collect and analyze simple atmospheric data for benign purposes……through privately funded organizations for profit (which could present problems also).
The current system has been corrupted and discredited so thoroughly by government funded palm readers, soothsayers and “cosmic psychics” (such as Hansen) that it is beyond repair.
The latest recommendation by the InterAcademy Council regarding the IPCC should be implemented………that is, scrap the entire system and begin anew.
It’s late here and I’ll come up with something……
By the way, the climate has “changed” here recently. Suddenly, the temperature is dropping at night and we are forced to wear light jackets in the evenings. If this climate change keeps up, we’ll be forced to wear heavy coats in just a couple of months.
Addendum to my above 1689……..
Existing data has been so thoroughly corrupted by Hanson/CRU et al, I question the wisdom of using this data for any purpose (I think I discussed this with Tonyb a few pages back).
The bottom line is that no one knows of any data that has not been tainted by these frauds……most unfortunate……(as the English say).
Brute,
Just on a point of information there is no such thing globally as Summer and Winter. As the Northern Hemisphere cools the Southern Hemisphere warms and vice versa! The Winter months here down under are: June, July and August. Summer is in December, January and February and so it can get very warm at Christmas time.
PeterM
Correct.
There is also no such thing as “global climate” or “global temperature”.
All that really exists (and that really matters) is local climate and temperature and the rest is a myth (dreamed up by statisticians and established by manipulation and ex-post-facto adjustments of cherry-picked local data).
Max
Very funny Pete……you make jokes while the trees here are dying.
The leaves are turning brown and falling off the branches for God’s sake!
You deny that the climate is changing?
Heresy! I suppose you’ll write next that the holocaust never occurred!
I’ve personally observed squirrels gathering food for storage and birds flying south to escape the impending climate change.
We’re all gonna die!
This is all due to the collapse of the Climate Exchange…..greedy Americans refused to pay for their excessive energy consumption and now we’re paying the price…….satisfied now Pete?
At the rate that the temperature is dropping, the entire landscape will soon be covered in ice and snow simply because people did not send money directly to Al Gore’s bank account to appease the vengeful climate Gods.
Brute
You think you’ve got problems. The ocean outside my door has risen three feet in the last two hours-conclusive proof of the melting of the ice caps I’m sure you’ll agree.
tonyb
PeterM (1684)
You’re cherry-picking again! The above is followed immediately by:
and follows that with:
Somehow, I don’t think he’s a Monbiot.. :-)
When you’re all tired of baiting PeterM, do get over to
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/sep/02/environmentalist-paradox-wellbeing-resource-depletion
where ClimateResistance has been holding out against all comers for four days now. It’s intellectual comedy of the highest order.
Well Pete, it looks like you were correct all along……happy now?
The climate just passed the “tipping point” exactly as prophesized by Hansen.
World renowned climatologist, (and hat designer) Lady Gaa Gaa was interviewed this morning outside her sea side villa and has affirmed that the cause was the second pot of coffee that I made this morning. She went on to explain that all was not necessarily lost…..that the climate could be salvaged if only citizens of the world buy front row seat tickets to her next world concert tour. The interview was cut short though……as her highness…I mean, Miss Gaa Gaa, was late to catch a (private) flight from London to Tokyo to have her nails done.
United Nations endorsed Astro Physicist (and rock legend) “Sting” was reached for comment at his palatial estate outside Milan regarding the “tipping point”. Mr. Sting attributed the cause of the tipping point to the low turnout at one of his recent book signings and slumping sales of his record albums. It seems that there is a direct correlation to falling world temperatures and proceeds generated from profits of his new book titled “I live in a mansion so everyone else can pay up!”.
Mr. Sting also excused himself as his private jet had been idling for several hours at a nearby airport readied to fly him to Rio de Janeiro where he will spend several days studying the effects of climate change on the walrus population there.
When queried regarding the fact that Walruses do not inhabit the beaches of Brazil, Mr. Sting exclaimed “That’s because Climate Change has already caused walruses to become extinct in the area!………Just as predicted!”.
Mr. Sting nonetheless continued his flight to Rio cursing greedy oil companies for ruining his scientific expedition. Results of his findings will be published next month in the American Journal of Science after being painstakingly peer reviewed by his band manager and (IPCC certified) roadies.
I’m sure that you’ll be rejoicing after reading this wonderful news…….right Pete?
Climate: New study slashes estimate of icecap loss
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/afp/20100908/tts-climate-warming-science-ice-c1b2fc3.html
Brute,
Why would you believe any of this stuff anyway?
But its good if you are changing your mind about people like Vermeersen, and organisations like NASA’s Jet Propulsation Laboratory and the Netherlands Institute for Space Research.
The new figures according to them are:
<em>”With glacial isostatic adjustment modelled in, the loss from Greenland is put at 104 gigatonnes, plus or minus 23 gigatonnes, and 64 gigatonnes from West Antarctica, plus or minus 32 gigatonnes”.
and
“If the figures for overall sea level rise are accurate, icesheet loss would be contribute about 30 percent, rather than roughly half, to the total, said Vermeersen. The rest would come mainly from thermal expansion, meaning that as the sea warms it rises.”
OK. We’ll see how the discussion develops. This is how science works.
Besides Daniel Hannan who seem to be breaking ranks with the more hardcore Climate change deniers, we now have none other than Bjorn Lomborg doing exactly the same thing!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/aug/30/bjorn-lomborg-climate-change-u-turn
I don’t suppose anyone will want to get into the detail of what he’s now saying either!