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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Here’s Prius Sales Vs. Global Warming…..coincidence? I don’t think so….Prius sales rising and temperatures rising? A slam dunk cause and effect correlation.
Next I’ll do Granola Bar consumption, Latte sales and Tofu Sales…..Obviously, the environmentalists are ruining the planet with their habits….
TonyN,
You’ve created a monster by unlocking the secret of adding images you know.
TonyB,
I spit coffee out of my nose when I read this….a little levity after returning home from church this morning before I go out on a joyride in the 4 wheel drive truck through the forest destroying some fuzzy creature’s habitat……
I enjoyed the article 3465. I’ve saved the link and will be forwarding the warning of impending planetary apocalypse due to plate tectonics to all of my friends and coworkers in the morning.
The more that I research this topic, the more loony eco-head insane ideas and assertions I find. Posting this stuff is a coping mechanism for me…..sort of therapeutic…..I don’t suffer fools gladly and believe me, these environmentalists are truly foolish people.
I’m still toying with Peter’s idea of building suspension bridges and skyscrapers from lumber although I’m certain that the National Fire Protection Association and many local municipalities may object with the Great Chicago Fire, The Great Fire of London and others in mind…..although I’m certain that those disasters, (according to Al Gore and Joe Romm) were probably caused by George Bush or one of his ancestors, (or the military industrial complex).
I’m scratching my head trying to figure a way to sequester all of the CO2 from volcanoes, plant matter decay and offgassing from other “natural” sources that comprise the other 99% contribution to our atmosphere. Why mess with the small stuff? Why not concentrate on the BIG polluters that are introducing all of this CO2 “pollution” into “our” atmosphere? If we dropped a nuke in a few volcanoes or somehow could cool off the molten core of the planet we could really lower emissions and use as much electricity as we want.
Pete, further my 3466, you wrote in part in your 3451
This may sound good to you, but may I point out:
1) Nothing in the Wiki entry for Boeing discusses liquid hydrogen flight. They flew a light propeller driven aircraft using hydrogen fuel cells, (another source claimed for only ten minutes duration), but that is irrelevant. It seems like a publicity or student engineering stunt to me!
2) When you say ‘Airbus’, you really mean an EU feasibility study, driven by concern of evident reducing availability of oil. That is all it is, not initiated by Airbus, but an European Commission Research project utilizing the German division of Airbus and 34 other partners.
I wouldn’t get too excited about feasibility studies; No doubt, there are plenty of universities etc that would eagerly take funding to research the idea, (Just like with AGW), but as I opined before; this is all in Santa-land.
There are apparently no aircraft corporations currently showing real interest, perhaps because they know there is still a lot of coal available for a long time yet, should oil become too scarce. (Tupolev may still be interested in dual fuel LNG toggle to Kerosene, but not hydrogen)
And, uhm, relative dollar and energy cost of H2 maybe?
And shale oils?
Bob_FJ
re your posts 3433 and 3435.
Thank you, you have helped me greatly.
I have much to read and learn, much more than I thought at first…
But, there does seem to be light at the end of the tunnel,
it’s just a bit confusingly dim at present.
BTW – I have already come across the type 23 – it seems to be deliberately so full of assumptions and required corrections (all seemingly site specific) that these machines / instruments will be completely unintelligable to everyone, but a selected few at each site.
So much for reproducability then..
Max,
What values have you used for the effect of areosols and ocean heat uptake?
This is one of my all time favorites; Hansen’s 20 year prediction of “global warming”. Doesn’t look like he’s done very well…maybe he should get out of the fortune teller business……perhaps he should stick to astronomy.
How To Link Record Cold And Snow To Global Warming……in a few easy steps!
1. If a winter is warmer than the average, claim that as evidence that the globe is warming and the climate is changing, because winters are supposed to be cooler.
2. If the following winter is warmer than the average, go back to 1.
3. If the following winter is average or colder, claim that as evidence that the globe is warming and the climate is changing, because even if winters were initially supposed to be as cold as the average, since recent winters have been warmer than that, then an average or cooler winter is a change in climate (and it is due to global warming because everything is)
Sadly, the above is not an example of sarcasm, but the unvarnished truth of some unbelievable debate currently at play in Italy. I may (or may not) translate the whole thing, but for now I’ll simply point to the record-breaking snowfalls in Piedmont and the Vallée d’Aoste, Northwestern Italy, where :
– The village of Balme has seen 170cm, 5?7? of snow in just 24h (previous record in that part of the Alps: 115cm, 3?9?, again in Balme in 1933)
– Limone Piemonte has been buried in more than 200cm, 6?7? of snow
– Champoluc, Vallée d’Aoste, is likely to be evacuated because of too much snow
Hi Brute,
Let me first compliment you on your “chartmanship skills”. You are approaching the award winning level of the IPCC.
I am truly impressed with your 3476, which shows a clear (and unequivocal) correlation between Toyota Prius sales and global warming (I always knew that the Japanese were the real root cause for this apparent future disaster).
I had previously thought (based on an exhaustive statistical analysis) that the problem was more closely tied to McDonalds “Big Mac” sales, but your statistical analysis has convinced me that Toyota Prius sales are the principal climate forcing factor today.
This is good news, actually, because the mitigationn policy can easily be defined and implemented.
Congratulations!
Max
Hmmmm……I forgot about the exhaustive study you had done regarding the correlation between hamburger sales and global warming……shoot.
Well, I guess I’ll have to go back to the government with hat in hand and procure another few million dollars to fund further research…….Damn. You’d think that they’d be getting wise to me after all of these millions I’ve wasted……Ummmm…….I mean committed to these philanthropic pursuits.
Hello again, Bob_FJ,
re post 3433 – This is in no way a dig or slight at yourself, but can I ask did the link to the Siemens Ultramat 3 CO2 analyzer work.
I tried it yesterday and the page was not there, today it is.
http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/trends/co2/nocm-ml.htm
At present the graphics button produces the same page I got off the above link yesterday.
“This page may have been moved or relocated, etc etc.”
Does there appear to be any changes you can see to the “new” page. ?
Pete, I wrote in part in 3449/23 concerning liquid hydrogen flight:
You responded in total to this with the following:
[A] Do you believe that the volume of contrails, (water vapour trails) from aircraft will not increase if the product of their exhausts becomes almost entirely H2O? (and by sheer volume, more easily reach saturation for a greater range of ambient conditions…. Exceed 100% humidity etc)
Here is an extract from Wikipedia:
[B] I guess your comment is aimed largely at emissions from surface transport, but let’s just run through some of the processes involved. The PRIMARY issue is whether “average lower atmosphere humidity” might change regionally, or globally. Currently, biosphere humidity levels are driven mainly by complex natural processes with but a few of them being evapo-transpiration, surface water and air temperature, (esp. T1 – T2) cloud-cover, rainfall, altitude, etc. This all varies spatially and temporally around the world, and is unfathomably complicated. Whatever, there is some kind of varying background level of humidity as a consequence of natural processes. The question is whether adding more anthro-emissions of H2O to this general background will increase the net humidity, or modify cloud patterns and rainfall and whatnot, and by what degree. I strongly opine that no one can know. Of course someone might be funded to generate a computer model and feed in some personal preferences of a great many assumptions, but in reality it could not decode the truth that is hidden in that vast complexity. (and it would be a waste of time and money.)
I could probably go-on and make a major essay on this, but I doubt if you would listen, just as you have not listened to the evidence and citations that Max and TonyB have raised on various CO2 issues. (and/but they are welcome to take this up from me)
Oh BTW, it is the MAGNITUDE of the H20 cycle, which is vast compared with CO2, that is the primary issue, and NOT its cycle time. (Not to mention its three phase changes…latent heat)
SORRY, WRONG LINK IN 3486
For: “Here is an extract from Wikipedia”, it should be:
http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=Contrail&btnG=Google+Search&meta=
Hi Derek, Reur 3485,
As of a moment ago, all five links in my 3433/23 were working fine, as was yours in 3485/24…. No difference.
Seems like you may have had a temporary hiccup. A couple of tips though:
1) If you want to find the actual URL of a link, where the URL is not visible, right click the proxy, and then click PROPERTIES. (Same as for images in web pages whatever.)
2) If a link ending with .htm does not work, try changing it to .html
Hi Peter,
IPCC tells us that the other anthropogenic forcings (aerosols, other GHGs, etc.) cancel each other out (i.e. the RF for all human factors is the same as the RF for CO2 alone).
Regards,
Max
Brute
No need to apologise for the images. The only point you need to watch is the size: 550-700 pixels width is good. You can re-size images in the Paint application that comes with Windows. Open the image, go to Images, then Stretch/Skew in the menu bar and change the percentage values in the top two input boxes by the same amount and save using a different file name.
If you want to experiment, then the Admin thread is a good place, and it doesn’t really matter about disasters there.
Thanks TonyN.
Great News; we no longer have to worry about the apocalyptic end of the world from global warming by 2030 due to prophecies made by Nostradamus and Mayan Indians that the end of the world will occur precisely on December 21st 2012. It seems that on this date the Earth and Sun will be directly aligned with the center of the Milky Way galaxy (referred to as a Catastrophic Galactic Alignment or Dark Rift). This phenomenon occurs every 27 thousand years, (why it didn’t destroy the world 27 thousand years ago when it happened is immaterial). The television show went on to describe the unprecedented cataclysmic events that we are seeing today, Economic Crisis, Middle East Violence, “Extreme” Weather, Tidal Waves, Earthquakes, etc (although I’m certain that the explosion of Krakatoa, The Napoleonic Wars, The Great San Francisco Earthquake/Fire, World War One, The Stock Market Crash of 1929, The Great Depression and World War Two were probably equally “unprecedented” and “cataclysmic” at the time…..but I digress).
So you see Pete, not to worry about “climate change”….. we can use as much electricity and gasoline as we’d like as the curtain will close on this world on the above referenced date before global warming has time to ravage the planet turning us all in to Cannibalistic Troglodytes.
http://www.mendhak.com/40-the-lost-book-of-nostradamus.aspx
Considering this new information, Ms. Brute and I have decided to quit our jobs and live off of our savings for the next 3 years until the end comes….after all, Nostradamus predicted this 500 years ago, much like Hansen, Lynas, Romm & Gore; (Soothsaying Seers of the Modern Age), so it must be true.
This week is “Apocalypse Week” on the History Channel……..and I’m certain that we’re in store for more scenarios that are certain to doom mankind in the future. I’ll provide updates of the latest crackpot theory, (closely related to global warming), in future posts.
Sort of “pick your poison” week over at the History Channel.
Pete,
Here’s CO2 vs. Temperature…..
Here’s Solar Activity vs. Temperature…..
Which fits better?
This appeared in a national daily yesterday. It covers a subject we went into a few months ago. I think phytoplankton is a very large part of the natural carbon cycle and removes carbon after it has been outgassed by warmer temperatures and takes carbon back out of circulation into the deep ocean. I posted some historic incidences of this from way back and I think Max did some calculations. Anyone remember when this was?
TonyB
http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1104772/Amazing-discovery-green-algae-save-world-global-warming.html?printingPage=true
A Tale of Two ‘Realities’
From June: ‘No ice at the North Pole,’ to January: ‘Sea Ice Ends Year at Same Level as 1979’
No pairing of any two stories better illustrates the child-like alarmism of global warming religionists than these two stories. The first:
Exclusive: Scientists warn that there may be no ice at North Pole this summer
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/exclusive-no-ice-at-the-north-pole-855406.html
from June of 2008 claims that all the ice at the North Pole has melted and will be gone for the first time ever, while the second
Sea Ice Ends Year at Same Level as 1979
http://www.dailytech.com/Article.aspx?newsid=13834
shows that by January of 2009 the polar ice measurements show that it is the same as it was in 1979, with no ice loss seen at all between then and now.
The first story was published by the Independent newspaper in England. Written by their “science editor,” Steve Connor, this piece was replete with dire warnings and shocked proclamations of how it all seemed “unthinkable” that all the ice at the North Pole was melted because of globaloney.
It seems unthinkable, but for the first time in human history, ice is on course to disappear entirely from the North Pole this year.
The disappearance of the Arctic sea ice, making it possible to reach the Pole sailing in a boat through open water, would be one of the most dramatic – and worrying – examples of the impact of global warming on the planet. Scientists say the ice at 90 degrees north may well have melted away by the summer.
Yes, it’s the end of civilization as we know it. We’re all doomed. Erect the tombstone over planet earth now.
Yet, by January of 2009, another story came out that proved that sea ice at the poles are exactly the same now than it was when scientists first began to measure it starting in 1979. In other words, no loss at all.
Thanks to a rapid rebound in recent months, global sea ice levels now equal those seen 29 years ago, when the year 1979 also drew to a close.
Ice levels had been tracking lower throughout much of 2008, but rapidly recovered in the last quarter. In fact, the rate of increase from September onward is the fastest rate of change on record, either upwards or downwards.
If you’ll excuse the pun, these two stories are polar opposites.
In the first story, we see “scientists” wringing hands and worrying.
The polar regions are experiencing the most dramatic increase in average temperatures due to global warming and scientists fear that as more sea ice is lost, the darker, open ocean will absorb more heat and raise local temperatures even further. Professor Peter Wadhams of Cambridge University, who was one of the first civilian scientists to sail underneath the Arctic sea ice in a Royal Navy submarine, said that the conditions are ripe for an unprecedented melting of the ice at the North Pole.
But the second story explains just how wrong they were.
Why were predictions so wrong? Researchers had expected the newer sea ice, which is thinner, to be less resilient and melt easier. Instead, the thinner ice had less snow cover to insulate it from the bitterly cold air, and therefore grew much faster than expected, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.
So, what we see here in the first story is “scientists” that imagine that they “know” that everything will travel in a straight line from their claims to the end of life as we know it. They make no allowance for the reality that, like it has for millions of years, this planet might just know what it’s doing after all! And we find them shocked and surprised by the time the second story rolls around that they couldn’t have been more wrong.
Could anyone find two better stories to reveal the farce that is the religion of the globaloney crowd?
Brute,
I seem to remember when Mark Serreze(sp?)and Ted Scambros first launched the vanishing sea ice story about four years ago there were some unkind people on the net who pointed out that the Uni. of Illinois website was not showing any unusual decrease in ice in spite of their using the same data. Climate Audit, I think, commented on this. The Daily Tech cites Illinois as the source for the current story. Interesting!
TonyN,
Are you and Robin alright over there? Methinks that it will be extremely difficult to convince people to conserve fuel and “go green” when they are freezing in the darkness.
I apologize again for the billboard size chart #3492. I’ll get it right.
Yesterday was cold. Tomorrow is going to be positively Arctic
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/article5447307.ece
Hey Brute,
Reur 3492 with attachments, I don’t think you need to be a rocket scientist to see from these charts that there is no robust correlation between atmospheric CO2 and global temperature over the past decade, whereas it is clear that the sun is driving our climate here on Earth since the late 19th century.
Peter will have problems with these observed facts, since they do not substantiate his (more or less irrational) religious belief in anthropogenic greenhouse warming.
But the rational skeptics of the current AGW craze and hysteria will see clearly that human CO2 is only a minor factor in our climate.
Regards,
Max
Must be a regional anomaly……
Below zero temperature hits Kuwait agricultural products
http://www.kuwaittimes.net/read_news.php?newsid=MTQwMzQ0MDE4Ng
Merry (belated) Christmas and Happy New Year, everyone!
I took two weeks off for the holidays, and stayed far away from the computer. I just got caught up on the posts while I was away, and wanted to thank Robin for your kind words (3294) regarding my comments on the Whitehouse article now more than one year ago. I was in a rush to get the post up, and have ever since wanted to edit my comment to add the word “train” to the passage you quoted:
I guess I never bothered because I had no idea that the Whitehouse thread would take on such a life of its own.
Looking back on the year since, things have gone much differently than I had foreseen. To watch the transformation of Robin from a believer in AGW but a skeptic of the efforts to “mitigate” to what I would describe as a full-blown skeptic has been very interesting.
I tend to agree with Robin’s later link that 2008 may be the demarcation point between false front of the AGW lobby and their enablers on the political left. 2008 seemed to be a tipping point all right, but not the one the AGW crowd has so often warned of. Despite the darkness of those days and the years prior (see below), I for one am beginning to see a tiny spec of light at the end of the proverbial tunnel that is the AGW argument. AS someone much smarter than I one said, “Facts are stubborn things”, and the facts seem to be mounting against the AGW view.
I have long been a skeptic, and even had an op-ed piece published in a California paper, back in late 2004. Here is an edited version (names changed to protect the innocent):
Hey Brute,
Don’t feel too sorry for those Kuwaitis, who are freezing their a…. off due to anthropogenic greenhouse warming.
At least they have enough oil and gas over there to crank up the thermostat and heat the place up a bit, maybe even hoping that the increased CO2 that this generates will help out (as the IPCC, Hadley and Hansen predict).
As far as global implications are concerned, Peter can confirm to you that this, unlike the unusually warm European summer 2003 or the Arctic sea ice melt back in summer 2007, is a purely local anomaly, not to be taken too seriously in the overall longterm development of our planet’s climate.
Regards,
Max