Mar 172008

THIS PAGE HAS BEEN ACTIVATED AS THE NEW STATESMAN BLOG IS NOW CLOSED FOR COMMENTS

At 10am this morning, the New Statesman finally closed the Mark Lynas thread on their website after 1715 comments had been added over a period of five months. I don’t know whether this constitutes any kind of a record, but gratitude is certainly due to the editor of of the New Statesman for hosting the discussion so patiently and also for publishing articles from Dr David Whitehouse and Mark Lynas that have created so much interest.

This page is now live, and anyone who would like to continue the discussion here is welcome to do so. I have copied the most recent contributions at the New Statesman as the first comment for the sake of convenience. If you want to refer back to either of the original threads, then you can find them here:

Dr David Whitehouse’s article can be found here with all 1289 comments.

Mark Lynas’ attempted refutation can be found here with 1715 comments.

Welcome to Harmless Sky, and happy blogging.

(Click the ‘comments’ link below if the input box does not appear)

 

10,000 Responses to “Continuation of the New Statesman Whitehouse/Lynas blogs.”

  1. TonyB,

    I wouldn’t support 200ppmv either. I’m going with 280ppmv as the pre-industrial level. But what about you? If not 200pmmv, what lower figure would you support? And would this be an exception to your +/-3% accuracy rule?

    Max,

    You’ve got to be seriously deluded to think that atmospheric CO2 fell from over 400ppmv in the 1940’s to its 315ppmv value of the late fifties.

    What rates of fall are you claiming? 7 or 8ppmv per year? Since CO2 concentrations have started to be accurately recorded, there has never been a single measured reduction from one year to the next. Only in recent years has the rate of increase even approached 3ppmv per year. It was more like 1ppmv year continuously in the sixties.

    There just isn’t a shred of evidence that levels can change that rapidly.

  2. Peter #2476

    You still haven’t said where the 200ppm figure came from that you accused me of believing in.

    I believe that the good measurements were reliable to within plus or minus 3%. As in any form of science there would be many inaccurate outliers which would be discarded (but probably recorded)

    My guess? Well the figure of 200ppm in glacial times is interesting. The current rate of 380 in a period with many precedents for equal warmth would suggest that at many times in the last 350 years there have been similar levels.
    Consequently If the glacial levels ARE correct (and I’m not saying they are) in the depths of the Little Ice age 280ppm or so? But that assumes a very close correlation between temperature rise and co2 and knowing the time gap between temperature rising and co2 following. 1 year? 800 years?

    TonyB

  3. Max

    I would very much welcome your input on this one. A week ago I posted links to actual CET Hadley figures and actual CDIAC/IPCC C02 estimates from now, back to 1750. I suggested printing them out would be instructive but that I would try to combine the two.

    I have now done this. It is a first try and I don’t have the resources of Nasa or Scripps so it is a work in progress! I have several fixed points;

    1)We know the actual CET temperatures back to 1660
    2)We know the claimed co2 emissions back to 1750
    3)We know the actual co2 figures from 1960 to 2008
    4)We know the current temperature and the current co2 levels.

    It might be necessary to adjust scales, so I am just asking you to look at this as a first try to combine actual recorded temperatures over actual known (and speculative) co2 emissions.

    http://www.cadenzapress.co.uk/download/mencken.xls

    After looking at the graph linked above I came to one of four conclusions;

    1)The graphs are hopelessly incorrect and to the wrong scale!
    2)Co2 lags temperature by many years and the current co2 levels are responding to the higher temperatures of the MWP
    3)There is very little correlation between co2 and temperatures
    4)The pre 1958 co2 figures are inaccurate.

    If you look at the graph you will see I have inserted various notes and amplify them here;

    * Firstly it can be seen where the co2/rising temperatures scare came from- until they are seen in a historic context
    * Temperatures preceded co2 rises
    * Bearing in mind these are mostly ‘Little ice age’ readings the modern era temperatures are not ‘unprecedented’ and are not even particularly warm
    * Inserting Co2 spikes pre 1960 (Beck and the Victorians) goes a long way to explaining the previous high temperatures back to 1660- otherwise they were apparently achieved without the benefit of high levels of co2.
    * Co2 levels are responsive to temperatures and reading across the chart the high Port Barrow Co2 measurements you cite in the 1940’s (warm temperatures) and the low co2 levels at the start of the (cold) period when Scripps commenced observations in the late 1950’s can be seen in context.

    This all leads to the question-Are co2 levels much more variable than we believe? We have only recorded them through a warm period except the early seventies-cold period-when they declined markedly

    As I say this is just a first attempt, but I would appreciate your observations. All the data is attached to the graph.

    TonyB

  4. On the sad death of Michael Crichton, it’s worth recalling last year’s high profile debate in New York about whether or not GW is a crisis. A full report is here.

  5. Hi Peter,

    To your statements (2476),

    “You’ve got to be seriously deluded to think that atmospheric CO2 fell from over 400ppmv in the 1940’s to its 315ppmv value of the late fifties.” and

    “There just isn’t a shred of evidence that levels can change that rapidly.”

    There isn’t a shred of “evidence” that levels cannot change that rapidly either, Peter.

    “Evidence” is what is measured out there (presuming it’s done accurately). If levels around 400 ppmv were accurately measured and recorded in the 1940s (in a remote location, such as Point Barrow, Alaska) and levels of around 315 ppmv were measured some years later in another remote location (Mauna Loa, Hawaii), and if CO2 is indeed a “well mixed” trace component in our atmosphere, then we have some data points (or “evidence”) for a significant reduction in atmospheric CO2 between these two time periods.

    If you can demonstrate that the Point Barrow measurements were botched (or purposely “skewed”) then this would be “evidence” to support your theory. Without this, the “evidence” speaks against you, Peter.

    Regards,

    Max

  6. My #2478

    I hadn’t meant to imply the post was exclusively for Max but just to bring it to his particular attention as he has also been doing work on historic co2 levels.

    When the file is opened the graph can be dragged into the centre of the screen and minimised/maximised as approriate to your screen size.

    Your observations are most welcome.

    TonyB

  7. TonyN, your 2466 (and Brute’s 2474):

    Prop 1A was the high speed LA-SF train service. Part of the argument in favor of it was to:

    Electric-powered High-Speed Trains will remove over 12 billion pounds of CO2 and greenhouse gases, equal to the pollution of nearly 1 million cars. And High-Speed Trains require one-third the energy of air travel and one-fifth the energy of auto travel.

    You can read arguments both in favor and opposed here.

    I think 1A passed, based on my own casual conversations with people, many of whom voted YES and are conservative, is because the idea of getting to the Bay Area in 1.5 hours versus the 3 or 4 hours it takes with air travel, when you include driving to the airport, getting through check-in, security, etc. was very appealing to many. The “benefits” of a reduced carbon footprint was at best a secondary or more likely tertiary consideration.

    Props 7 and 10, on the other hand, were seen by most as a cost-benefit equation, and most saw the costs outweighing the benefits of increased use of renewable energy. Moreover, the electorate is usually smarter than those in power give it, and I believe they could see through the camouflage through to T Boone Pickens and his efforts to profit on the Green movement and it’s sympathizers in the general public. I don’t think hardly ANYBODY is fooled by a former oilman and corporate raider into thinking that he’s miraculously ‘come to Jesus’ and realized the err of his ways. His motivations are purely profit, at the expense in this case of tax and rate payers, with little real benefit to the environment or tax or rate payers. In fact, Prop 7 would even PROCLUDE smaller, entrepreneurial companies from even being considered. Only large, well-capitalized companies could even bid on the contracts had Prop 7 passed.

    Here are the arguments for/against Prop 7.

    Prop 10 was rejected, I believe, for nearly identical reasons at Prop 7: Cost-benefit analysis clearly showed costs to the taxpayers was too high compared to benefit. Very little actual environmental improvement, when people were just a few months ago were paying a premium over list for electric and hybrid vehicles. Since California is broke, most figured we can’t afford it.

    Prop 10 arguments are here.

    Another interesting thing to look at are the state-wide maps of how each county voted on these issues. Here are the links:

    Prop 1A

    Prop 7 (Can you tell where they would build the solar arrays?)

    Prop 10

  8. TonyB, your 2478,

    I like it! Now see if you can overlay solar activity, PDO, El Niño/La Niña, etc.

    Very cool!

  9. JZ Smith

    Thats the plan but it will soon start to get cluttered! First off I wanted to establish the relationship between co2/temperature then look for reasons- which certainly includes solar activity and Pdo’s etc.

    TonyB

  10. Hi TonyB,

    Looks like you have gathered a lot of data on CET and human carbon emissions, going back a few centuries. Congratulations!

    To your conclusions:
    “1) The graphs are hopelessly incorrect and to the wrong scale!
    2) Co2 lags temperature by many years and the current co2 levels are responding to the higher temperatures of the MWP
    3) There is very little correlation between co2 and temperatures
    4) The pre 1958 co2 figures are inaccurate.”

    I cannot comment on (1); if your source data are correct I can see nothing wrong here. Showing not only the emission rate of human carbon (as you have done), but also superimposing Beck’s curves of atmospheric CO2 concentrations (prior to 1958) and the Mauna Loa curve (after 1958) could be a good idea.

    As far as (2) is concerned, if the lag is really several centuries, as has been shown in paleoclimate studies, then the data series (350+ years) is probably too short-term to show this correlation. As I recall, in the paleoclimate studies the lag averaged 800 years.

    Your point (3) is obvious. Multi-decadal warming periods prior to the latest IPCC “poster period” (the last quarter of the 20th century) show no correlation with human CO2 emissions, as the AGW hypothesis would have us believe. The 50+ year CET warming period in the early 18th century as well as the shorter warming period in the early 19th century (from your data series) both appear to be much more significant than our most recent warming period, and are obviously in no way related to human CO2 emissions. More recent warming periods in the late 19th century and early 20th century (using global Hadley temperatures rather than CET temperatures) also show no correlation with human CO2 emissions, as has been pointed out previously by Robin and myself.

    To your point (4): I cannot vouch for the pre-1958 atmospheric CO2 concentrations, but I assume you have researched the human CO2 emissions from various sources, which are shown on your curve. I cannot believe that extensive measurements made at Point Barrow in 1947-48 and elsewhere in the 1940s are all bogus, despite Peter’s skepticism on this. We are not talking about medieval alchemy, but modern chemical analytical methods here.

    I would agree with JZSmith’s comment to overlay solar activity, PDO, El Niño/La Niña, as well as major volcanic events on your curve where these data are available. It may look “cluttered”, but our climate is not a simple thing.

    As a final point, I can readily accept that there are many things out there concerning our climate, which we do not yet understand, and that the oversimplified AGW hypothesis as an explanation for everything that is going on today is most likely false. The latest cooling trend despite record human CO2 emissions has provided direct confirmation of this, despite the fact that many AGW-proponents (such as Peter) still refuse to accept this.

    Regards,

    Max

  11. Re: #2468, Peter

    So far as the paragraph that you quoted goes, I can only point you to the same post that I mentioned to Max. This is an attempt to look at the way in which our perceived relationship with the natural world has changed during the last 200 years or so – with a massive acceleration in the last half-century – and it’s relevance to the climate debate.

    You say in #2468:

    The environment is equally important to those living in cities. Maybe more so, when you consider that cities are generally more polluted than the countryside. What are the “reference points” that countryside dwellers pick up on to cast doubt on AGW theory? In Australia, it’s just the opposite. The cities look green, well watered and prosperous. On the other hand, the farmers in the bush are struggling with the worst drought on record and many inland rivers have just about dried up.

    Earlier in this thread, I suggested that there is no such thing as ‘the environment’, but I don’t think that you were around at the time, which was a pity. I expected to be told that I was worse than Mrs T when she said that ‘there is not such thing as society’. Your first sentence illustrates the point that I was trying to make rather better than any of the examples that I could think of then.

    My environment, living in the countryside, is quite different from that of someone who lives in a city. Air pollution simply is not a factor. More broadly, what I see, what I smell, what I hear, what I touch and even what I taste are quite different. Not surprisingly, my attitude to the natural world is likely to be different too.

    I have never visited Australia, but I understand that drought is part of your climate and, if the cities are green, then I assume that this is either because they have developed in areas where the climate is less extreme, or because an artificial environment has been created by irrigation or the extensive use of hosepipes.

    The reports of the present severe droughts in Australia that I have seen vary between those that say that they are ‘unprecedented’, and ones that say that they are the worst for ‘x’ number of years, which tells me that there has been one as bad or worse fairly recently. And what does unprecedented mean in terms of Australian agriculture? Three hundred years at most, and in many areas far, far less?

    See Max’s #2471 for roughly what I would have said next. In #2441 he has also touched on an important point. In Hayden’s time, the seasons were far more important to people than they are now, but even in our own age, it is arguable that they are more important to, and more closely observed by, country dwellers than urbanites. And the seasons are a regular sequence of climate change, with variations.

    There are, of course, no ‘“reference points” that countryside dwellers pick up on to cast doubt on AGW theory’, and this was not what I was suggesting. Farmers and many other country people are instinctively aware of the vastness and complexity of the natural world so they just take a lot more convincing than those who live in a man-made urban environment and only experience the natural world occasionally, if at all, and even then as spectators rather than participants. If you live in an urban man-made environment, then it is just a whole lot easier to believe that humans can now control the climate.

    That said, a lot of arable farmers in the UK do seem to have been converted to the AGW cause by the sudden rise in grain prices, caused by the developing biofuel industry. And who can blame them, a whole new market for their products has been created.

    None of this is intended to disparage people who do not live in the country or imply that country people have a particular wisdom, but only to suggest that they have a different environment and a different experience of the natural world. When we go up to London my wife threatens to put me on a lead to so she can keep me safe from the traffic.

  12. Hi JZSmith,

    Reur 2482, I would agree that Californians voting in favor of a rapid LA-SF rail transit system has absolutely nothing to do with “reducing CO2 emissions in order to save our planet”.

    It is a major infrastructure project, such as Switzerland also voted to implement a few years ago (and is now being implemented).

    The hassle at airports, with security, early check-in times, etc., make a rapid train system look more attractive than air travel. The French (bless ‘em) have had their rapid TGV system in place for years, as have the Japanese. These systems work.

    But, as with all these projects, initial budgets are usually underestimated (our Swiss system will cost more than twice what the citizens agreed to pay initially).

    I also recall that (some years ago) the Bay Area Rapid Transit system (BART) also ended up costing well over twice the originally budgeted amount.

    Governments and municipalities are just not that good at exercising rigorous cost control and effective project management on major capital projects, and there are always “creeping” scope changes (and surprises) that add extra costs.

    But I do believe that a rapid LA-SF rail connection makes sense, while the other “save the planet flim-flam” props did not (as your voters apparently also agreed).

    Regards,

    Max

  13. Note to JZSmith

    I hope your California Congresslady (and House Speaker), Nancy Pelosi, took note of the recent vote in your state. Take-home message for Nancy: The “folks back home” (whom you are supposed to represent) are not in favor of costly initiatives to “save the planet”.

    Max

  14. The links JZSmith provided showing the geographic split of the two “save the planet from AGW” intitiatives (which were both soundly rejected by California voters) tell the whole story.

    No counties (not even ultra-liberal SF) voted for the alternate fuel vehicle initiative, and only one far south county (hoping to benefit from the solar stations) voted for the renewable energy initiative.

    AGW has not yet caught on in California, it seems, when it comes to actually paying for “mitigation” measures.

    Max

  15. Tony B,

    You can’t have come to any sensible conclusions at all from the graph you posted.

    You can’t correlate anything with CO2 emissions. It is the CO2 concentration in the air that matters. If emissions were somehow zero next year it would not mean that the concentration of CO2 would immediately drop back to pre-industrial levels.

    The analogy would be with a person’s diet. You can’t correlate weight with a daily food intake. You have to look at the difference between calories burnt and calories consumed an integrate over an extended time period.

    There is an added complication with CO2 and climate in that the oceans slow up the warming due to their large thermal mass. When CO2 levels do start to fall they will slow down the cooling too of course.

  16. There is an added complication with CO2 and climate in that the oceans slow up the warming due to their large thermal mass.

    Gee Pete, Argo buoys show zero temperature increase.

  17. Max, your 2488:

    I wouldn’t count on it. As you may also know, Prop 8 on the ballot amended the California Constitution to define marriage as only between “one man and one woman”. Despite it’s passage (with overwhelming support from minorities, by the way), those who opposed Prop 8 have filed lawsuits with the state Supreme Court to OVERTURN the will of the people as expressed on Tuesday.

    Given their zeal (I suspect the anti Prop 8 crowd is pretty much the pro-AGW crowd), I doubt the “will of the people” to be not very interested in “mitigating” the effects of AGW will matter much to those in power. They will likely seek court redress soon as well!

  18. TonyB

    http://www.rfshop.com.au/Portals/22/supp/mencken.xls

    I’ve added some smoothing and averaging to your temperature data. Nothing fancy. Just using the fuctions that are supplied with Excel.

    Its starting to look a bit like a hockey stick! Are you sure its accurate?

    Do you have any data going any further back?

  19. Pete Reur 2463 responding my 2459

    Your reference to young “ice-core age” at Law Dome (<1998), was interesting and was a bit of a surprise to me. As a quick response for my recollections of more recent stuff, I Googled your favourite oracle: ‘Ice core Wikipedia’

    Wiki’ Extract: As snow continues to accumulate, the buried snow is compressed and forms firn, a grainy material with a texture similar to granulated sugar. Air gaps remain, and some circulation of air continues. As snow accumulates above, the firn continues to densify, and at some point the pores close off and the air is trapped. Because the air continues to circulate until then, the ice age and the age of the gas enclosed are not the same, and may differ by hundreds of years. The gas age–ice age difference is as great as 7 kyr in glacial ice from Vostok. [1]
    Under increasing pressure, at some depth the firn is compressed into ice. This depth may range between a few to several tens of meters to typically 100 m for Antarctic cores. Below this level material is frozen in the ice.

    If you go to link [1] therein, you will find some interesting and unusually open discussions in some of the theory applied in many convoluted processes and procedures. I suspect though that you will not understand the scientific complexities etc involved, and therefore will be unable to appreciate the true magnitude and uncertainty of many of the scientific JUDGEMENTS which are argued upon those theories. (hypotheses)
    FOR INSTANCE, to demonstrate your doubtful ability to properly apply such theory, in your 2455 you wrote very naively (wrongly) on gas diffusion, in the last sentence, as quoted below:

    …Snow is relatively porous to air and, as you say, gas can diffuse through its structure. Diffusion always occurs from a higher concentration to a lower concentration…

    Let me attempt a simple education for you:
    Perhaps the easiest way to understand diffusion is in the classic QM demonstration of two sealed containers initially holding different gases, but then adequately interconnected via a tube. (AOTBE) The various gas molecules are all whizzing around in RANDOM DIRECTIONS, such that EVENTUALLY, including isotopes, the gases become of the same mixture in both containers. (and every molecule should if given enough time, move back and forth from one container to the other, RANDOMLY.)
    Incidentally perhaps to aid your understanding, these gas molecules via their directionally random impacts on any reactive surface, is how gas pressure is sensed, also according to their individual energy levels of ~Gaussian distribution around any measured T, per species. (AOTBE)

    One complication within just this single process is that molecules of different mass and size, e.g. CO2 compared with O2 have different dynamics, which raises certain questions. In typical glaciers under our consideration, the deep layer of firn above the ice can be visualized as a very thick membrane. Firstly, in that visualization, please appreciate that the initiating snowflakes predominantly fall flat, then become compressed, and subsequently, the ensuing firn-ice creeps sideways under the progressive compressive massive accumulation from above. Firn, and transitional ice, is thus inherently laminar in structure, with most of the diffusive airways obviously in the horizontal. Thus by comparison, vertical diffusion is very tortuous, narrow in height of initiation of molecular motion, (or the lack of vertical count of available dynamic molecules in a small source.), and the progressively creep-compressed narrower vertical pathways are also progressively likely to be more tortuous (unstraightened) and hinder some molecules dynamically more than others.

    No matter; a HOST of assumptions and “corrections“ on this and many other theoretical considerations are made with confidence by some authors, but are strongly questioned by others. Ho Hum!
    As TonyB put it in his 2421:
    I [Tony] had selected four modern scientific studies showing the huge uncertainties associated with modern ice core samples-the science is by no means agreed or settled. As Max might do this however I thought I would concentrate on the social aspects through the ages of the effects of co2 -which you might enjoy-(and believe) more.

    Hey Max,
    Are you going to take-up TonyB’s suggestion that you educate Pete on some of the realities of ice-core proxies?

  20. TonyB/Max,

    I’m not ignoring your stuff, but need more time to catch-up

    Regards, Bob_FJ

  21. Hi Peter,

    I was surprised to read your statement (2490), “You can’t correlate anything with CO2 emissions.”

    Hmmm… I thought that is what “mitigation” was all about: levy draconian taxes on carbon to force mankind to reduce CO2 emissions to save our planet from ourselves.

    Are you now saying that human CO2 emissions are meaningless?

    Regards,

    Max

  22. Peter #2493

    Thank you for your interesting post.

    The emissions and the concentrations are already shown. Concentrations are said to be a linear extension of emissions, that is when nature puts 5ppm into the atmosphere it becomes part of the carbon cycle and is absorbed, when man puts 5ppm into the atmosphere it is additional and feeds straight into concentrations. The graphs all come from the various sources cited and are raw data and not changed in any way.

    The reasons I decided not to smooth and average is that this disguises the actual real data points and the temperature ‘spikes’ get obscured. Having plotted temperatures for many years I never cease to be amazed as to how variable they are day by day, let alone month by month and year by year, and these informative peaks and troughs get lost if they are adjusted.

    Thanks for creating your own version though which I thought was very interesting .

    As a double check on accuracy we know what the temperature and co2 levels are in 2008 and we can track them back to 1958. At that stage the existing theories all work- although temperature clearly precedes co2. It certainly looks like a hockey stick until you step back and see temperatures and estimated co2 levels in a wider context.

    Until relatively recently I hadn’t expected the recent past (to 1660) to be at all similar to the modern era-after all much of it is in the little ice age which remains strongly in our folk memory. I had expected the majority of the graph to be below the centre point, in other words modern era temperatures to be consistently very much warmer than these older ones.

    I would however have expected the modern era temperatures to be lower than MWP (which this graph doesn’t cover)

    Anyone looking at the graph only from 1970 to the current date would;

    A) Note the steep rise in co2 levels
    B) The dip in temperatures in the 70’s which prompted the global cooling scare
    C) Would assume that temperature marches in step with co2, and if reliant on computers would extrapolate both and end up with a hockey stick stretching into infinity.

    Step back however and view it from a historic perspective (which is what I always tend to do having owned a house built in 1580 and always being interested in the subject) and the low estimates of co2 pre 1960 do not correlate with the high temperatures pre 1960 (many of our individual records are still pre 20th century)

    I have already cited the four possible reasons for the discrepancies- which include inaccuracies of scale on the graph-this is a first time effort in articulating something I have never seen done elsewhere.

    Right from the start of my involvement in this Blog I said I believed co2 has an impact on temperatures- which I estimated at up to 0.6C of a degree with a doubling of co2 levels, but no more than that because of the logarithmic curve that occurs early on in the co2 cycle. I have never bought the idea of 4.5 degrees.

    Consequently I think the most likely explanation is that co2 temperatures prior to 1958 were substantially higher than we believe-otherwise it suggests co2 has little effect. I don’t think you can discount the many thousands of records made at the time by competent and accurate people which has been the subject of our posts over the last week.

    I also tend to believe the Port Barrow readings Max has posted, which according to the chart was during a warm period and showed a similar or higher level of Co2 to now. I also posted some late 1930’s figures of a similar nature. Then compare these to Keelings first records- made during a cold period- which gave a low figure. So do co2 levels go up and down substantially in close relationship to the temperatures that drive them?

    I do not claim to have invented a new theory-I don’t have the resources to ask my ‘team’ to run hundreds of thousands of new models- but as Max might say ‘the figures are what they are’.

    You will that see along the bottom of the graph I have inserted some of the obvious spikes cited by Beck which appears to coincide with temperature spikes. If- and I only say IF at this stage-the figures are correct, it would suggest that we need to re-examine past records of co2 levels which I intend to do.

    Whether any of this turns out to be remotely correct or not I can’t say at such an early stage (Dr Mann spent 12 years on his hockey sticks). However it is interesting and it does raise a number of questions.

    TonyB

  23. Re: #2474 Brute, & #2482 JZ

    Many thanks for the explanations of the California propositions. Its rather more complex than I thought, but it still doesn’t sound like a resounding cheer for the warmist cause.

  24. Max,

    I’m suggesting that TonyB is going about it the wrong way by trying to match up temperature rise with the rate of emissions.

    In the language of mathematics you integrate emissions over a time span to obtain the accumulation of emissions. Climate change responds to the accumulation of emissions rather than rate of emissions.

    Its exactly the same as trying to work out your location on a journey. Of course speed is important, just as the rate of CO2 emissions is important, but you need to look at the odometer rather than the speedometer to be able to do that.

    Does that make sense?

  25. Peter: I’m intrigued by your continuing reluctance to complete the very straightforward survey I posted recently. As I have said, properly drafted surveys are a valuable means of establishing precisely where someone stands on an issue. What prompted me to produce this one was your continued practice of describing those on this thread with whom you disagree as “deniers”, “contrarians” etc. and to contrast them with the “overwhelming scientific consensus” – I don’t really understand what you mean and it seemed to me that, by defining the views of some contributors here and comparing them with your view, we could establish where you think the line is drawn between a “denier” and the “consensus”.

    So let’s try again. Here’s the survey (select one answer per question):

    Q1 Do you think the world’s temperature has increased over the past one hundred years?

    a. Yes
    b. No [please exit the survey]?
    c. Not sure / don’t know
    .

    Q2 Which of the following is closest to your view of how mankind’s greenhouse gas emissions are likely to have affected any such global warming?

    a. They were the cause of all or most of it?
    b. They made a substantial contribution to it?
    c. They made a small contribution to it?
    d. They had little or nothing to do with it?
    e. I have no view on this
    .

    Q3 Do you think global warming is likely to continue over the next one hundred years?

    a. Yes
    b. No
    c. Not sure / don’t know
    .

    Q4 Which of the following is closest to your view of the likely effect on mankind of continued global warming?

    a. It will be seriously harmful
    b. It will be fairly or slightly harmful
    c. It will be not be harmful – and may be slightly beneficial
    d. It will be beneficial
    e. I have no view on this
    .

    Q5 Do you agree that taking action to reduce global warming should be at or near the top of the priority lists of world governments?

    a. Yes
    b. No
    c. Not sure / don’t know
    .

    Q6 Do you agree that taking action to reduce global warming should be at or near the top of your personal priority list?

    a. Yes
    b. No
    c. Not sure / don’t know
    .

    Now, to keep things simple, I’ll examine the first two questions only.

    Re Q1, Max and I (two “deniers”) responded with a. In other words, we think global temperatures have increased over the past 100 years: I assume you and the “consensus” agree – so no denial there. Re Q2, we think that mankind’s GHG emissions are likely to have made a contribution to that warming: so we accept the principle of AGW – so no “denial” there either. But we opted for c (a small contribution) and probably your view (complete the survey and we’ll know) is that GHG emissions were likely to be either the cause of all or most of the warming (a) or to have made a substantial contribution to it (b). Which is it? And what do you think is the “consensus” view? Your answers would be a step towards understanding where you think the “denier”/”consensus” line is drawn.

    With your completion of the rest of the survey, we will be able to consider other aspects of “denial” and “consensus”. It should be helpful and interesting. Thanks.

    A reminder: Max and I responded the same way – Q1a / Q2c / Q3c / Q4c / Q5b / Q6b.

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