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.
Hi Bob
Yes I did look into climate change in Japan as they have long records such as the Cherry blossom in the Imperial palace. (shows greatest warmth in medieval period)
This article shows Japans public committment to climate change policy
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/TOE62402L.htm
but as in most of the West they are backpedalling, as they are concerned over the economic damage, particularly as their local competitor-China-is not fettering itself.
The Japanese are capable of great cruelty and great politeness. The two seem to live side by side- looking at it from a ‘western perspective.’
Love the ‘revenge’ theory but don’t believe it!
tonyb
Bob_FJ
Regarding the Japanese bears, did any one of the “scientists” ask the bears why they were leaving their habitat and moving into populated areas, where they encountered (and killed) humans?
Could it be that their populations are thriving, i.e. their normal habitat is becoming “overpopulated” with bears?
How did these “scientists” come to the conclusion that
rather than simply the less complicated and more straightforward conclusion (Occam’s razor):
Could it be that “scientists” get taxpayer funded research grants when their work has to do with “climate change”, but not when it only has to do with the habitat of Japanese bears?
My observation:
Max
Tony B, Reur 2376
Hmmm, so the Japanese bears survived the warmer medieval period OK then. (even with less people to eat too). I wonder if there were any complaints about bears back in those days.
I’m a tad disappointed that you reject my theory….. Seems just as reasonable as the global warming mantra to me.
Japanese politeness: Back in the 80’s, I had protracted business with one Nobihuru Irihawa. Eventually, he politely asked me; may I call you Bob san? Flattered, I agreed and asked him if I could call him Nob. He did not seem too pleased with that idea and made alternative suggestions…. And of course I fully understood why. What I don’t understand (or like) is the “polite lie”, for instance the bold painting on the side of their whaling factory ships of the word RESEARCH, when they must know that everyone knows that it is a lie. Sorry, I digress again.
Max, Reur 2377
It reminds me of an article I read somewhere that showed a photo of a polar bear gazing out to sea, with a caption underneath something like: A polar bear waits for the pack-ice to return.
Now we need someone like that to research the Japanese bears, because obviously that author can read their minds and get to the truth. (at least with polar bears)
And yep to everything else you wrote.
Bob said
“I’m a tad disappointed that you reject my theory….. Seems just as reasonable as the global warming mantra to me.”
It seems MORE reasonable than the CAGW theory but that doesn’t make either of them at all likely :)
tonyb
Bob_FJ and TonyB
I have recently come across top-secret files from the WWII US “Office of Strategic Services” (OSS, later replaced by the CIA).
These have revealed a shocking story.
During WWII the OSS organized a “second wave” invasion of the main Japanese islands from the northern island of Hokkaido.
This invasion was to be “manned” (or “beared”, as it were) by the huge local “higuma” brown bears, interbred with Alaskan grizzlies, to make them even more ferocious.
After President Truman’s decision to drop the “atom bomb” on Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended the war, the invasion plan was called off, but the bears remained.
It should be remembered that these “higuma-grizzlies” had been especially cross-bred and then specifically trained to attack Japanese humans. Being very large and extremely aggressive, these beasts had no natural enemies in their native habitat on Hokkaido, so their population increased over the years.
As so often happens, when “man” takes “nature” into his own hands, especially for the nefarious pursuit of war, things can go “awry”.
As they did.
The rest is history.
Max
Bangladesh is drowning.
I sat through an hour-long TV doco mainly about the parlous state of Dhaka, a rapidly growing city of 15 million or so. It was a seemingly endless mantra about climate change. Then towards the end of the programme, to my surprise, someone mentioned that in the past, the water was drained away by seven canals which were now silted up. Also how vast amounts of the delta silt were being moved around as a consequence of the explosion in population, perhaps the worst aspect being that large areas of former marshland, (a natural drain), were being built-up to provide living space. Nice to see a bit of balance sometimes, wot?
Bob_FJ
Re Bangladesh: send in a handful of Dutchmen, an “itsy bitsy” piece of the money being squandered on “climate change research”, to put in dikes, drainage systems with pumps, etc. plus several “do not build here” signs (in English, Hindi, Bengali, Urdu and Farsi) outside the dike, with a couple of hundred armed policemen to control the dike plus chase people away from the unprotected side, and the problem would be solved.
I think every blogger on this thread (including even PeterM) will agree that it will definitely NOT be solved by introducing a global (direct or indirect) carbon tax.
Max
ALL:
In my 2375, I gave a link to a dual image of young Danish (white-blondish) men being very cruel to dolphins, together with a parallel image of mass spectatorship and mass slaughter. I refrained from actually showing the images at that time, because in itself I thought it might have been too shockingly distracting to properly take-in the dialogue that I posed.
However, I’m rather surprised that there was zero comment on the images.
Was that because you were too shocked by it, or because you did not open the link?
Well anyhow, here it is, right in your face, in case you missed it:
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1110/5115554033_37b8fedd8e_b.jpg
Very briefly, from Wikipedia:
The family Delphinidae is the largest in the Cetacean order, and relatively recent: dolphins evolved about ten million years ago, during the Miocene. Dolphins are among the most intelligent animals and their often friendly appearance and seemingly playful attitude have made them popular in human culture. For much more info, and links, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolphin
Something that I don’t understand is that these are toothed cetaceans and one would think that they are capable of inflicting very severe injury especially on the limbs of their Danish and Japanese persecutors, and yet they do not. There is also much evidence that they recognise humans (via their penetrating sonar), as friendly lung-air-breathing cousin mammals. (There are even accounts of them helping potentially drowning humans to the sea surface to breath, just as they do with their own calves.)
Another feature of cetaceans is that whenever, as a pod, they are in some way “entrapped“, they will not desert the collective motive of each other, even unto death. How noble is it possible to be!
I would like (as a start) to get hold of that blonde kid in the middle of the first photo, and shove one of those blunt hooks up his anus followed by several rotations of it.
I guess those young men would not try it on orcas, (killer whales), they being by far the biggest of the dolphins. Now orcas are admittedly a VERY cruel predator, that I would like to see reduced, but that is another story. (“humanely“ I mean)
ALL:
Bugger, what i wanted to show above was:
In my 2375, I gave a link to a dual image of young Danish (white-blondish) men being very cruel to dolphins, together with a parallel image of mass spectatorship and mass slaughter. I refrained from actually showing the images at that time, because in itself I thought it might have been too shockingly distracting to properly take-in the dialogue that I posed.
However, I’m rather surprised that there was zero comment on the images.
Was that because you were too shocked by it, or because you did not open the link?
Well anyhow, here it is, right in your face, in case you missed it:
Very briefly, from Wikipedia:
The family Delphinidae is the largest in the Cetacean order, and relatively recent: dolphins evolved about ten million years ago, during the Miocene. Dolphins are among the most intelligent animals and their often friendly appearance and seemingly playful attitude have made them popular in human culture. For much more info, and links, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolphin
Something that I don’t understand is that these are toothed cetaceans and one would think that they are capable of inflicting very severe injury especially on the limbs of their Danish and Japanese persecutors, and yet they do not. There is also much evidence that they recognise humans (via their penetrating sonar), as friendly lung-air-breathing cousin mammals. (There are even accounts of them helping potentially drowning humans to the sea surface to breath, just as they do with their own calves.)
Another feature of cetaceans is that whenever, as a pod, they are in some way “entrapped“, they will not desert the collective motive of each other, even unto death. How noble is it possible to be!
I would like (as a start) to get hold of that blonde kid in the middle of the first photo, and shove one of those blunt hooks up his anus followed by several rotations of it.
I guess those young men would not try it on orcas, (killer whales), they being by far the biggest of the dolphins. Now orcas are admittedly a VERY cruel predator, that I would like to see reduced, but that is another story. (“humanely“ I mean)
Bob_FJ
Yes. The pics of Danes killing dolphins are pretty revolting.
But again, we (“mainstream science”, as Peter calls it) know exactly what the root cause is.
Warmer weather, caused by anthropogenic global warming, has been a basic cause of psychological disorders. First of all there is the fear in children, as this report states:
http://clipmarks.com/clipmark/1E09609D-0FB0-4D8F-A016-DB8CF909F647/
Here’s one from your home city:
http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/green/articles/2009/02/09/climate_change_takes_a_mental_toll/
The “inconvenient” question here is, what has caused this fear? Climate change itself? Unbearable heat? Or fear mongering of children with climate change disaster predictions (dead polar bears and penguins and “you may be next”) by misguided educators and teachers? [The thread on brainwashing school children covers this.]
But adults are also affected.
The report goes on:
“Climate Change” (a.k.a. “AGW”) is a cause for anxiety, mental illness and aggression, as determined by a group of your countrymen affiliated with the C.G. Jung society of Sydney. The book describing this is “Depth Psychology Disorder and Climate Change” (various authors).
Since I know that you enjoy reading psychological treatises, I thought I’d cite the link.
http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/depth-psychology-disorder-and-climate-change/6066445
The authors (psychologists and psychiatrists) start off by saying that they fully accept the IPCC premise that humans have caused climate change and that this will most likely become a major problem for our environment. [Good for them!]
In addition to a discussion of aggressions arising from the seemingly inevitable looming threat, the book discusses psychological reasons for denial (which I will quote in a separate post).
It looks like the “shrinks” are hopping on the AGW bandwagon as long as the multi-billion dollar gravy train is still on the tracks.
But one thing appears clear. All this warm climate (caused by human CO2) has unleashed a wave of psychological anxiety disorders, “Climate Change delusion”, mental illnesses including psychosis, panic plus aggression across the globe (as evidenced by the desperate Danes in your pictures).
A sad story. The poor dolphins, who are undoubtedly fleeing more southerly waters to escape the rapidly warming ocean, are now being butchered by humans who, themselves are also psychological victims of global warming.
Max
Bob_FJ
Not to overload you with psychological babble relating to global warming, but here are some quotations from the Sydney Jung Group study I cited, which concern another related psychological disorder: the “dangerous AGW denial syndrome”.
The report tells us:
This paragraph makes perfect sense to me. It tells me that projections of catastrophe (viz. “doomsday predictions”) are ignored by most people, because they have not happened.
However, the sentence that we have been able to “cope without drastic changes” “for well over fifty years” despite the predicted negative “effects of humans on the environment”, is a bit misleading.
We have actually been able to thrive (rather than simply “cope”) over these past “fifty years”, largely because of the changes we humans have made to our “environment” (eradication of many diseases, improved crop yields, improved hygiene, expanding the energy infrastructure, improved mobility, improved communication systems, instant information, reduction of waste and pollution, etc.). As Indur Goklany points out, human life expectancy has increased in most parts of the world, and deaths from severe climate events (droughts, floods, hurricanes, etc.) have been drastically reduced over this period (despite a slightly warmer climate). So we are significantly better off today than we were fifty years ago, despite the “warnings about the effects of humans on the environment for well over fifty years”, a larger world population and a slightly warmer climate.
In other words, the predictions of “catastrophe” were false fifty years ago, raising the obvious question “are they just as false today?”
In a later paragraph the authors explain the dilemma of the doomsayers (although not calling expressly calling them that, of course).
Indeed!
The absolute “proof” for failed doomsday predictions is that they never happen. This fact is pointed out by another countryman of yours, Dr. Ian Plimer, in his book “Heaven and Earth”:
So much for the problem of the “dangerous AGW denial syndrome”.
In my humble opinion it is pompous, pretentious and arrogant of these psychologists to talk of a denial syndrome as a psychological problem of those who have not swallowed the premise that AGW represents a serious threat
But back to the other “psychological disorders” cited (such as anxiety, psychosis, aggression, etc.). Are they caused by “climate change” (i.e. warmer temperature, higher sea level, etc.) or by the “fear of predicted impending disaster caused by climate change”?
And isn’t the root cause of this “fear” the constant fear mongering in the name of “climate science”, rather than “climate change” itself?
Seems pretty obvious to me, even if the psychologists and psychiatrists haven’t grasped it yet. It appears they are suffering from the “denial syndrome”, themselves.
Max
For the record, I am horrified by the dolphin photos – and I always thought the Danes were supposed to be civilised…
On a happier note, I see that the Met Office hasn’t entirely given up longer-range forecasting:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/8090325/Met-Office-data-suggests-mild-winter-but-dont-forget-last-year.html
I think I’ll chop some extra logs!
Re: Danish awful mass cruelty to dolphins.
For those here that were horrified at the two images (that I selected from a whole bunch) above in my 2384, including the apparently unprotesting big spectatorship, might I suggest a couple of approaches to try to stop it:
1) Send an image Email to your friends/ colleagues, and ask them to pass it on as a chain Email.
2) Here is a website listing Danish embassies and whatnot around the world.
http://www.embassyworld.com/embassy/Denmark/Denmark1.html
Complain to a Danish authority in your region, and as a suggestion to any activists in your Email in 1)
From “sickened” in Melbourne.
PS: I doubt if it is worth approaching the inscrutable Japanese; not directly anyway. (yet an approach to the IWC on great cruelty, if driven home, might possibly register in their thinking)
James P
Looks like Met Office are “playing the odds”.
After getting it wrong four times in a row (two “record hot years”, a “barbecue summer” and a “mild winter”, all of which failed miserably) they are hoping that the law of averages will finally give them a “hit” with a “mild winter” this year (putting their short-term forecasting accuracy at 20%).
These are the same clowns that seriously want us to believe that they can predict our planet’s climate 100 years in advance!
Ouch!
Even PeterM must realize how totally absurd this is.
Max
Here is an interesting chart of long-term global temperature swings from:
http://www.longrangeweather.com/global_temperatures.htm
(Looks a bit different from the strange chart by Mann et al., which IPCC once favored, before it got comprehensively discredited.)
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1427/5125935862_2d85cc08df_z.jpg
Here is an interesting “declaration” from a blogger called Cerberus that Jeff Wood put on the “Ministerial Meetings” thread at Bishop Hill:
Hmmm… Any errors?
Max
ALL:
An interesting interview comment by Travesty Trenberth here, from WUWT today:
Spectrum: It seems to me the most damaging thing about the disclosed e-mails was not the issue of fraud or scientific misconduct but the perception of a bunker mentality among climate scientists. If they really know what they’re doing, why do they seem so defensive?
Trenberth: What looks like defensiveness to the uninitiated can just be part of the normal process of doing science and scientific interaction. Scientists almost always have to massage their data, exercising judgment about what might be defective and best disregarded. When they talk about error bars, referring to uncertainty limits, it sounds to the general public like they’re just talking about errors.
Max,Reur 2391
I notice that Cerberus missed one benefit of increased CO2, in that not only does plant growth increase, but as a consequence of reduced stomata size,(breathing pores), they transpire less water and can thus tolerate marginal dry land better. Also, not only is top growth improved but also root growth, thus compounding the stomata effect
BTW, more flood warnings issued for later today and tomorrow in Victoria
Peter, your #112 on the Monbiot thread
You said;
“The quote from Judith Curry was in no way chosen to deliberately misrepresent the conclusions and arguments that she’d presented in her testimony to Congress. If you think that’s the case just read the whole thing.”
I never said it was.
What you surely realise is that science moves on as new data becomes available and old data is constantly reviewed. This is never more so than with climate scientists who really know far less than they think they do on the totality of what makes the climate tick.
We have a lot more information now than we did on the first assessment. The way that science and data is being used is being questioned. Judith Curry is merely the latest to want to revisit the information.
Constructing papers on such as hurricanes and SST’s is fraught with problems as the information can be very sparse and not always comparing like with like-hence the astonishing degree of interpolation.
You know what I think of global surface temperatures, and SST’s (for example) are so thinly spread, sproadic and haphazardly obtained (except from genuine scientific expeditions) that it is completely mad to allow such as Hadley to sell them on to gullible users such as the IPCC who then sell them on to gullible governments. Do you think 99% of politicians know the manner in which historic SST’s were obtained? Do you?
As I said previously it takes a very big person to admit they were wrong and scientists have reputations to protect so its even more difficult for a prominent one to shift their position even slightly.
tonyb
Bob_FJ
Interesting comment from Travesty Trenberth (2392), especially:
Thomas Kuhn deliberated about this in his study of “paradigms” among scientists, coming to the conclusion that scientists often ignore or arbitrarily discard data points, which lie outside the limits of the prevailing paradigm. But it is often exactly these “outliers” that send the message that the paradigm is false, and which then eventually lead to a “paradigm shift”, where the old paradigm is discarded and replaced by a new one.
This is obviously a painful process, as TonyB points out in his 2394, because the scientist has invested a lot into the old paradigm, so does not relinquish it readily. [This is so quite apart from any additional political or economic pressures, which are obviously enormous in the case of climate science today.]
A concrete example is the reaction to the post-AR4 findings by Spencer et al., which confirm, based on actual physical observations from satellites, that the net overall feedback from clouds with surface warming is strongly negative, rather than strongly positive, as had been previously assumed by all the IPCC model simulations. In other words (as Lindzen and Choi also later observed and reported) the increased reflection of SW energy by increased low-altitude clouds with surface warming (resulting in cooling) exceeds the increased GH absorption and re-radiation of LW energy, also by high-altitude clouds that allow incoming SW energy to pass through (which results in a slowdown in outgoing LW radiation and, thereby, in warming).
We see the first painful steps taken by Trenberth himself in reluctantly accepting this. First, he decries the observed recent lack of warming of the atmosphere plus ocean despite record increase in CO2 as a “travesty”, and then he concedes in an interview that the “missing energy” is most likely being radiated into “space” (i.e. leaving our climate system), [and here comes the interesting part] with “clouds acting as a natural thermostat”.
In other words, Trenberth is reluctantly acknowledging the physical observations of Spencer et al. on clouds (without specifically saying so as yet).
Trenberth has obviously “invested” a lot of his work (and his reputation as a scientist) into the Earth’s energy balance and the impact of AGW. Along with Phil Jones, he was lead author of IPCC AR4 WG1 Chapter 3, “Observations: Surface and Atmospheric Climate Change”, with 15 papers cited, which he authored or co-authored.
Five papers by Trenberth et al. are also cited in Chapter 8, “Climate Models and Their Evaluation”, eight in Chapter 9, “Undestanding and Attributing Climate Change” and three in Chapter 10, “Climate Models and Their Evaluation”.
In these chapters it is concluded, based on various model simulations, that the net feedback from clouds is strongly positive, in fact, so strongly positive that the impact from clouds increases the 2xCO2 climate sensitivity by 1.3C, from 1.9C (with all feedbacks, except clouds) to 3.2 (on average, with all feedbacks)!
So, if the net cloud feedback is actually strongly negative, as was confirmed by the recent physical observations, rather than strongly positive, as was assumed previously based on model simulations, it is likely that the 2xCO2 climate sensitivity is below 1C. This would mean that the hypothesis that AGW represents a serious threat (upon which the entire IPCC forecasts for the future and the entire AGW hullabaloo are founded) has been falsified.
Quite apart from the enormous political implications, it will not come easy for Trenberth to give this all up as a scientist. Nevertheless, it looks like he has started the first tentative steps in this process with his statement of clouds acting as a net natural thermostat with surface warming to reflect energy into space. This has already been a major, but certainly painful, concession.
Paradigms die hard, as Thomas Kuhn observed, and although it appears that the paradigm of “catastrophic AGW” is entering its death throes, it “ain’t dead yet”.
Max
Bob_FJ
You are right in your comment (2393) that Cerberus missed the added benefit of higher CO2 levels to plants growing in arid conditions, which you cited. (This is probably of more interest to you, as an Aussie, than to me as a Swiss).
A second benefit he overlooked is that generally warmer climates result in changes of weather patterns, which generally decrease desertification (ex. Sahara desert). So this is actually a positive “double whammy” for agriculture in semi-arid locations.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/07/090731-green-sahara.html
AGW is looking better all the time!
Max
PeterM and Axel
Peter asks (on the other thread):
The two may not necessarily be mutually exclusive.
However, in this case I believe it is more a case of a “paradigm” (rather than a “dogma”, in the religious sense), and I would refer you to my 2395 above on this topic.
Does a “paradigm” risk becoming engrained as a “dogma”? This is beyond the treatise of Thomas Kuhn on “paradigms” in science, which I cited (he does not get into a discussion of pseudo-religious connotations, such as dogma).
I do, however, believe that there are many who view AGW from a more pseudo-religious viewpoint: guilt of mankind (wasting our planet’s resources in order to live affluently) and retribution/punishment (by “Mother Nature” or “Planet Gaia”, as a substitute for “Almighty God”).
In this case, we are moving away from a scientific “paradigm” into the direction of pseudo-religious “dogma”.
The word “dogma” can also be used in the political (rather than religious) sense. Here I think you are “spot on”, Axel.
The postulation that AGW is a serious potential threat, which requires immediate political action (i.e. global carbon taxes), is clearly a “political dogma” being promoted by those politicians who want to get these taxes enforced.
As far as the “incorrect understanding of the evidence” is concerned, Peter, I think I have addressed that question in many previous posts, including the one specifically mentioning Kevin Trenberth and the “dangerous AGW paradigm:
1) his painful acknowledgement that Earth is cooling despite record increases in CO2 (the “travesty”), as well as
2) his reluctant concession that this cooling may be the result of the net “missing energy” being radiated “into space”, with “clouds” acting as a “natural thermostat” (thereby indirectly acknowledging the findings of Spencer et al. on clouds), all of which
3) tends to falsify his previous “understanding of the evidence”, i.e. that clouds exert a strongly positive feedback with warming, thereby making AGW a potential serious problem (which was based on model simulations, rather than physical observations).
So you are both correct, in my opinion.
Max
Bob,
Re: Danish dolphins
What is the purpose of the dolphin roundup?
Are dolphins some sort of delicacy that I have not heard of? I know the Japanese are fond of shark fin soup and whales are harvested for specific purpose……..but I’m not familiar with dolphin.
Brute
Dolphin meat is apparently considered a delicacy in Japan (despite alleged high mercury levels).
http://www.wordpress.tokyotimes.org/?p=1062
Don’t think this “delicacy” has made it to Scandinavian “smorgasbrods” yet, though.
Maybe the brutal bastards on Bob’s photos are trying to start a new trend, but I’ll repeat my opinion that they (like the hapless dolphins they are murdering) are more likely to be victims of man-made global warming.
Max
Max
PeterM
There is a final minor point to your question about the
It has to do with the word “available”.
At the time that IPCC gathered the data to publish its AR4 WG1 report and the SPM political summary, the cited climate model simulations concluded that clouds exerted a strongly positive net feedback with warming, resulting in a major increase in the theoretically derived 2xCO2 climate sensitivity.
In the same report IPCC conceded (based on the data that were available at that time)
So it may have been an “incorrect understanding”, which could have been excused by the fact that there was insufficient “available” evidence at the time.
Spencer et al. provided a major breakthrough in “available” evidence: empirical data based on actual physical observations demonstrating that, in the real world, clouds exert a strongly negative feedback with surface warming, resulting in a major decrease in the previously assumed 2xCO2 climate sensitivity from 3.2C to somewhere below 1C.
This means that previous IPCC projections of future warming from AGW were grossly overstated and that, as a result, AGW does not represent a serious threat to mankind or to our environment.
So as new data became available, new knowledge also became available, so that new projections of future warming can now be made (and new conclusions drawn), based on this newly available data.
Any comments?
Max