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.
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10,000 Responses to “Continuation of the New Statesman Whitehouse/Lynas blogs.”
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Note to Bob_FJ
Thanks for your 2783 with updated graph. If your “projection” (and that of the Russians) are right, we’d better all break out the woollies (should be good for your sheep farmers and the wool industry, even if it’s ba-a-a-a-a-ad for the rest of us).
To be on the safe side, even in the sub-tropical climate of Brisbane, Peter should do the same, just in case.
You lucky guys in Oz probably still have a few years before the next cooling will cause problems, but we here in snowy Switz are already at the raggedy edge, even without the spectre of a new “Little Ice Age”.
I’m hoping Peter is right about AGW, but, somehow, I do not have much confidence.
How about you?
Regards,
Max
Hi guys,
I’ve just been flicking through the posts from top of page 19, aware that I’m not keeping up with what I’d like to say thereon.
I notice that several times I referred to a journal as AGL. I should have written GRL, which is under the AGU, I do believe. Sorry if I caused confusion.
Pete, amongst the garbage in your 2781, the following line of yours stands-out like dog’s balls for me: (I have added emphasis to your collective pronoun: we):
I would like to protest at your arrogant assumption that you assume to speak for everyone in your assertion above.
I doubt if I am alone herein in this blogo-community in greatly valuing Brute’s input and his humour.
What you may not understand is that Brute tends to be satirical, and that you should not interpret all that he says simplistically.
Pete, please think more deeply on what he says!
Brute: Keep it coming! PLEASE!
This article (Africa to pay for Europe’s “green policies”) tells a sad story:
Yet Africa contains many of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people. This cruelty is made worse by European hypocrisy:
Here’s “A complete list of things caused by global warming”.
Pete, Reur 2743, I have only addressed part of it in my 2761, but you also wrote in 3 additional parts:
Well bully for you, And wot about the Asian history, and for instance those South African proxy T’s from cave stalagmites indicating +6C in the MWP, etc, etc.
Please continue with your enquiries, and pay attention to TonyB’s historical knowledge etc.
Whilst that may be true, there is no evidence so far that what you dread is actually happening.
Please pay attention to much evidence that what you fear is not actually happening!
Robin,
Sorry, whilst your 2805 list reference is very interesting, I feel that it is far from complete.
For instance, a couple of thingies that immediately come to my mind without much effort are:
1) Tinea versicolour. (An irritant or itchy fungal infection of human skin especially in warm conditions. Also known as ‘Dobies Itch’ when it goes for the male dangly bits)
2) Peter Martin
Robin Reur 2752, concerning wind turbines, you quoted in part on a big Danish industry:
I don’t know if I’m a total weirdo, but whenever I see a “wind-farm”, in Oz or California, I actually feel that they look beautiful. (and I have some friends whom agree). It may be because I’m an engineer, with abnormal perceptions of elegance, and that I personally feel that wind-farms can blend with rolling hills etc…..Dunno! I have seen cows grazing peacefully below the pylons, and comprehend the added income to the farmers. (On their human-bush-destroyed green pastures in Oz)
So, I repeat part of Robin’s quote above:
Could anyone QUANTIFY what was meant in the above report; by “a small cost” in Daneland?
I might then elaborate my thoughts on the effect on product cost and employment, when demand and volume increases. (Including the attraction for enhanced R & D)
That is not to deny the obvious that the world needs coal. Great mountains of the stuff to lift millions out of poverty.
Bob 23808
You said
“I don’t know if I’m a total weirdo, but whenever I see a “wind-farm”, in Oz or California, I actually feel that they look beautiful. (and I have some friends whom agree).”
I’ve said before that I’m not against onshore wind power per se, althoghh I much prefer off shore.
It depends on the context however. I have seen many a rather dull stretch of flat dutch countryside enlivened by wind turbines. In the British context however many of of our finest landscapes-coastal/mountain tend to be the ones considered most suitable for wind power.
We are a small country and personally I don’t think you save the environment by trashing our best countryside.
I remember travelling over the pass at Domodossola a few weeks ago on my way from Italy to Switzerland and being shocked by a very large and utterly inappropriate wind turbine right at the top.
There is surely one arguement about wind turbines effectiveness/value for money and another about their siting?
They are an industrial complex and should be seen in that context when they are being sited-they are not a ‘farm.’
In the Uk’s context we really need to do a lot more to promote wave power-In Max’s context that would be a wee bit inappropriate! (although they still manage to win the Americas cup without the benefit of oceans)
TonyB
Max
Many thanks for your various posts and links. I think de freitas makes a lot of sense.
Truth to tell many of the IPCC statements and estimates are speculation rather than hard science. They largely admit to this but the media and warmists tend to take their pronouncements as gospel.
Anyway I will start producing my zoom out mencken graphs and see what they show.
TonyB
Max, Reur 2801, you wrote in part in response to my 2783:
Well me no too, but I hope the trends we see will soon be reversed.
Max, meanwhile, do you snow ski, either cross-country, or back-country, or lift assisted downhill skiing? If you have the energy for such activity, I imagine you could enjoy this for a good few years before it starts to warm again.
Look: rather than ride your bike into town to buy a loaf of bread, just think what a massive CO2 footprint you can save by skiing into town!
Note to TonyN and Robin
Just saw a TV short story on CNN featuring Andrew Durocher, University of Alberta “polar bear expert”, including some summer shots (bright sunshine) of polar bears on floating pack ice. Durocher was lamenting the recent loss of Arctic sea ice, which could cause the polar bears real problems. So I Googled “endangered polar bears” and got:
http://endangeredpolarbear.com/
Some excerpts:
“Many people are wondering how many polar bears are there? That is a question that the answer is still being researched. No one really knows how many polar bears there are because they are hard to count, and at times hard to find. Researches estimate that there are between 22 000 and 40 000 polar bears in the world. Close to half of the polar bear population lives in Canada.”
“Polar bears spend a great deal of their time in the Arctic Ocean hunting and searching for food. In the winter months they walk on the ice and look for seals and in the summer months they wait on the shore for them. Polar bears know how to use the climate and the land conditions to their benefit when hunting for seals. They will walk on an ice floe (a sheet of floating ice) and look for hole or cracks in the ice. Since seals have to breathe at some time they wait there for a seal to come up for breath. There are also other areas of the Arctic Ocean that do not freeze, polynyas, these are also great areas for the polar bear to find its favorite food, seals.”
Five years ago I read a report that stated that polar bear population had increased steadily from around 5,000 in the 1960s to around 20,000. The recovery was said to be the result of an international treaty, signed in the 1970s, which outlawed sport hunting of polar bears, in particular hunting them from helicopters.
So if there are now “22,000 to 40,000 polar bears in the world”, it seems they are doing just fine, despite Durocher’s concerns.
Immediately following the polar bear story, CNN brought the weather news. Jenny Harrison, the weather anchor for CNN, showed a map of Arctic sea ice and pointed out that its extent was 30% greater today than on this date last year. “30% greater” was even printed in large letters on the map.
Wonder how long Harrison will keep her job at CNN if she brings such “non-PC facts” to light?
Regards,
Max
Reading the rest of the article, it would seem that the energy suppliers have already started to pass the cost of carbon reduction policies on to their customers. Now the government is justifying this new tax by claiming it will channel the ‘windfall’ from these price increases back to taxpayers. All that consumer will notice is that the crusade against climate change is pushing up the cost of energy during a recession.
Hi Bob_FJ
“Max, meanwhile, do you snow ski, either cross-country, or back-country, or lift assisted downhill skiing?”
“Lift assisted downhill skiing” was my choice until a few years ago when I gave it up. Cross-country is too much work. My wife is still an avid downhill skier, but I’ve switched my specialty to “après-ski activities”.
After a few meager years, the ski resorts here have done good business since last year. The local version of “The Farmers’ Almanac” tells us this will be a cold and snowy winter (although I could not find the favorite AGW word “unprecedented” anywhere). Another major snowstorm is supposed to be on its way right now, so we’re all breaking out the woollies.
Right now we’re envying you guys with your “barbies” on the beach. Oh well.
Regards,
Max
Re: #2808 & #2809
Bob
If you think that wind turbines are beautiful then you have a big opportunity at the moment. Come to the UK and buy a property that has a good view of one; they’re a bargain.
There are plenty of well designed and visually satisfying industrial structures, but that does not mean that they enhance open countryside, as the planning laws of all developed nations recognise.
TonyB
If you want a well informed critique of the economics of wind generation, then this is a good starting point:
http://www.countryguardian.net/Case%20document.htm
TonyB, Reur 2809
I only have a brief window to respond, and have a general warmth and understanding to what you say, but I have a difficulty in understating this ‘ere wot you said:
It’s probably blindingly obvious, but at the m0ment, here and now, me non ho comprendo
If you could elaborate, I will respond better to your 2809 later
I was shocked and truly alarmed by Robin’s list of all the disastrous consequences of the unequivocal and unprecedented 0.006 deg C per year temperature increase caused by AGW.
Just sticking to the “Ts”, I was most impressed with:
“Tabasco tragedy” (yeah, if you put too much on your eggs you may get tragic “after”-effects, but AGW-related?)
“Taxes” (this one’s real; check TonyN 2813 for AGW connection)
“Teenage drinking” (Hmmm… Increased thirst from the oppressive added 0.006 deg C heat?)
“Tigers eat people” (Hey, what’s the problem here? It’s the TIGERS and not the PEOPLE who are the endangered species.)
“Tourism increase” (?????)
“Turtles crash”? This one really intrigued me so I Googled it. I found an entry concerning a motor vehicle accident in New Jersey involving a turtle: “An errant turtle caused a single-car accident Tuesday that sent a Cape May woman to the hospital. State Police in the Bass River Township barracks said Saranne Goldinger, 65, of Cape May, was driving north on the Garden State Parkway at about 3:25 p.m. Tuesday when she swerved to avoid hitting a turtle that was crossing at mile marker 21.5. Goldinger’s four-door sedan left the parkway, plowed through a guard rail, hurtled down an embankment and rolled onto its roof.
Goldinger was taken by Upper Township Rescue Squad to AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center, City Campus, where she was treated for non-life-threatening injuries, police said. Goldinger was wearing a seat belt, police said. Motorists trailing Goldinger came to her assistance. The vehicle suffered extensive damage, police said. That part of the parkway is heavily wooded and is home to many animals, such as raccoons that occasionally cross into traffic. “You don’t get too many turtles. Mainly deer,” Trooper Scott Farkas said. Despite Goldinger’s efforts, things did not go any better for the turtle Tuesday. A car trailing Goldinger’s flattened it, Farkas said. “All of that for nothing,” he said.
Guess the poor turtle was trying to flee from the 0.006 deg C per year temperature increase when it met its demise.
Max
Hi Bob_FJ,
Not to “speak for TonyB”, but I think I got his point.
“Wave action” power generation (i.e. let the moon do your work for you) has been proposed (and I believe even exists in isolated locations) where there are significant tides.
Switzerland will have to pass on this one, but we’ve got lots of hydroelectric power from mountain streams and man-made lakes (where we let the “hydrologic cycle” and gravity do our work for us).
The Swiss (not known to be the world’s greatest “seamen”) have found that all you have to do to win an Americas Cup is to hire enough New Zealanders to do the training and actual sailing for you. Now that UBS is close to going bust, this trend may slow down.
Regards,
Max
Hi Peter,
Coming back to our earlier exchange on climate model prediction accuracy (2756, 2776).
In January 2007 the UK Meteorological Office predicted, based on climate models, that 2007 would be “the hottest year on record”.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/04/phew_what_a_scorcher/
The Met Office predicted that the world’s average temperature in 2007 will be “0.54 degrees Celsius above the 1961-1990 long-term average of 14.0 degrees”.
Met office scientist Katie Hopkins said: “This new information represents another warning that climate change is happening around the world.”
The article went on to say, “The long-term prognosis is alarming. As Reuters puts it: ‘Most scientists agree that temperatures will rise by between two and six degrees Celsius this century due mainly to carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels for power and transport.’”
It’s great to be able to predict a whole year’s average temperature, and even to predict that it will be a “record hot year”. It’s also nice to be able to educate the public on the reasons for the anticipated rise in temperature.
Let’s see how well the UK’s Meteorological Office really did.
Under the eye-catching headline, “2007 ‘second warmest year’ in UK”, BBC tells us what really happened on a global scale.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7169690.stm
The actual average temperature recorded by Hadley for 2007 was 0.40 rather than 0.54 degrees Celsius (a significant error of 0.14C, when you consider that the entire 20th century only saw warming of 0.6 to 0.7C), and 2007 was nowhere near being a “record hot year”.
Turns out the top 10 were (from hottest to coolest): 1998, 2005, 2003, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2001, 1997 and 1995.
So, despite the eye-catching headline, 2007 was number seven out of ten and not the “record hot year” at all. If you only take the years in the 21st century, 2007 ranked only number six out of seven, so it was kind of a “blooper”.
So much for predicting temperature for a whole YEAR in advance.
But the article said IPCC’s scientists can predict (or project, as they prefer to call it) that “temperatures will rise by between two and six degrees Celsius” a whole CENTURY in advance.
Now the first 8 years of the 21st century have been a bit of a disappointment for AGW doomsayers, since all four temperature records show that it has cooled (as I pointed out earlier). The average cooling of the four records was 0.07C over the eight years (the average linear decadal rate was –0.087C per decade). But the IPCC predicted it would warm by 0.2C per decade. How can these expensive climate models be so far off?
Maybe the forecasts were correct (because, after all, the human “carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels for power and transport” took place at all-time record rates), and it’s just the observed facts that were wrong.
Regards,
Max
Bob 2816
Sorry if I was opaque, but Max understood! Britain is an island surrounded by oceans with tides and waves whilst Switzerland isnt!
Therefore whilst wave power is very appropriate in our circumstances the tiny waves on Lac Leman and the distinct lack of tides there generally, would make that option difficult for the Swiss!
However they do make very good use of hydro electric power
Its horses for courses isn’t it? On shore turbines may enhance certain landscapes whilst greatly detracting from others. We can use wave power but the Swiss couldnt. The Spanish could use solar energy whilst the Uk would find that option more difficult.
The trouble is we have got into a ‘one size fits all’ renewable energy mentality and haven’t sufficiently developed a broad range of energy sources from which we can pick and choose according to circumstances.
TonyB
Peter
Some weeks ago when I was first investigating Ernst Beck you posted a very good critique by an Austraion website along the lines of ‘bajoondrums’ Could you repost the link to save me trawling through hundreds of back posts?
thanks
TonyB
Re: 2819, Max
Some very revealing evidence of Met Office staff’s willingness to take every advantage of global warming is linked to in the penultimate paragraph here:
News: Met Office global temperature forecasts
TonyN
If you are referring to the ‘Met office 2007 weather forecasts press release’, you do realise who spokesperson Katie Hopkins is don’t you?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katie_Hopkins
She would put the best gloss on things if the Met office were to be buried under 50 foot of ice tomorrow. Remember her on the Apprentice?
Not PC at all just a very optimistic person who would enthusiastically respond to any brief to put a positive message out there.
As far as I know there wasnt a direct replacement although the press office remains active in a lower key manner.
TonyB
Re: #2823, TonyB
If you had looked at the link that I gave Max in #2822, you would not have posed that question.
Sorry Tony N
I didnt realise it was the very last press release I was supposed to look at- I assumed it was the first one, so didn’t scroll down far enough…
The Met office need to make money so see themselves as a ‘weather/climate information supplier.’ I am local to them and they continually advertise for business development people to sell their services widely to the business and govt market. It has all become very much a matter of corporate branding and they need a product to sell.
‘Its likely to be fairly warm with a little rain and not too windy’ won’t get the orders rolling in as we all know!
They have a job advertised in this weeks local Exeter newspaper for an analyst to;
‘…enable executive directors and the board to make informed decisions….ensure all areas of the business are aligned to each other and our corporate plan….’
Its very tempting to respond and at interview see how they react to the novel idea of supplying factual rather than ‘managed’ data! So what do you think, should I try and become a ‘mole?’
TonyB