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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Peter said in 5024
“I seem to remember TonyB’s so called sea- level expert…”
Here is a brief biography
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nils-Axel_M%C3%B6rner
Lets contrast that with Al Gore and his re-education troops
http://www.theclimateproject.org/
I met some of this crowd in the local high street and it is truly frightening how little they knew about the subject but had been taught to spout bullet points from Al Gores sci fi movie.
They got quite angry when I pointed out co2 didnt comprise 30% of the atmosphere, we weren’t down to our last polar bear, that sea levels werent escalating towards a several metre rise, that temperatures werent unprecedented, and if theyd like to look up the history they would see that arctic ice melted with boring regularity.
I suppose in your view that this indoctrination is all incidental to getting the correct overall message over and a good way of doing that is to discredit the careers of real scientists who disagree with an unproven hypotheses by actually pointing to observational evidence?
Tonyb
Pete,
Regarding your comment @ 5014 you typed the above, (in the quote box).
On the one hand you shrug your shoulders and concede the point that politicians from both sides of the political spectrum are guilty of incompetence, graft, ineptitude and corruption…..yet, in other musings you advocate government control over industry and our personal habits to “adjust” the weather/climate.
Hell, these guys can’t even make certain that the money they’ve been charged with “redistributing” is going to the places that they want it to go to and you advocate handing them the keys to the climate of the entire planet and trust that they’ll “fix” it?
Think about that for just a few minutes. You may as well hand a two year old child a loaded handgun.
Peter Martin Reur 5024 to Max, you wrote in part:
You really need to resign from Lindzen’s and Spencer’s fan club…
YAWN.
BTW, it is past midnight here, as I scribe this. I hope that does not cause you to suspect that I live in Switzerland or whatever!
Here’s an idea…Why not mandate that all members of Congress and the President cut their personal energy consumption by 50%. Let’s start with a small, manageable project like that. Unbiased auditors can track and verify that these “public servants”…..these “pillars of society”, have actually done so and then we can move on to government agencies one by one and mandate that these departments reduce their energy profiles by 50%.
If they manage to get this right, then the private sector can follow suit starting with Hollywood blowhards and entertainment socialites.
After that we can target media personalities and sports figures.
Make sense?
TonyB, Reur 5025; well yes, I agree entirely, as per the graphic below:
[snip]
ALL:
Whoops, sorry guys; wrong link in my 5030; Try:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3212/2500690620_0b6bf111f5_o.jpg
OR
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2375/2494417296_5236b13f68_o.jpg
Sry, completely ignoring 5031, can’t seem to get past 5030. Truely fascinating peaks and troughs even with less than 30 yrs of data.
Bob_FJ,
RE: 5030
Finally, something that we can all agree upon.
Back to the point at hand…..The structural integrity of the post tension…..er ah, let’s see, where was I….oh yes……the power factor involved with the improved variable frequency drives…..no, that’s not it. Ummm, oh, yes….where was I…..well, that about covers it……
I say we break for lunch.
Bob
You are a very naughty man and I have reported you to Germaine Greer, so expect a visit from the re-education police.
Your 5031 -whilst much less interesting- reinforces my 5025, so hopefully we can -without distractions- of which Peter is normally the past master, can talk about things happening in the real world and not the virtual reality one that Al gore and his troops and followers seem to be inhabiting.
Tonyb
Now that we agree on the…uh… ‘tall pole in the tent’, so-to-speak, I’d argue we get back to discussing it.
Robin may have already worded this better, but in an effort to refocus our efforts, I thought I’d summarize the central questions of our debate:
Question 1: Is the climate changing?
Question 2: If so, then is the change part of a natural cycle or event, or is it caused by human activity?
Question 3: If the climate is changing, and if we know it is caused by natural causes, can we, and should we attempt to mitigate the changes?
Question 4: If it is changing, and we know
Hi Peter,
Unfortunately your opinions (5024) are totally out-of-date when it comes to cloud feedbacks.
You quote Wikipedia (a questionable source when it comes to AGW issues), who state: “Some concluded that that there was simply no evidence supporting the [Lindzen] hypothesis.”
Even “pro-disastrous AGW” Wiki did add, “However, there has been some relatively recent evidence potentially supporting the hypothesis.”
Did you somehow miss that part, Peter?
Wiki was referring to the study by Spencer et al., which provided exactly this evidence. “Potentially supporting the hypothesis” is as strong an endorsement you will ever see in Wiki, because of its input screen (I’m even surprised that one got through!).
Physical observations showed that the net feedback from clouds on warming is strongly negative, demonstrating that the assumed strongly positive cloud feedback from the IPCC models (with an admission of large uncertainty) was wrong, and that the 3.2 climate sensitivity for 2xCO2 as ass-u-me-d by IPCC was wrong, as well, and overstated by a factor of around four!
I’d call this a major breakthrough, but Wiki hasn’t heard of it yet? Duh! Even with their pro-AGW input filter, Wiki refers to this work as “evidence potentially supporting the [Lindzen] hypothesis”.
Forget the outdated 2007 IPCC projections, Peter, and REJOICE!
The major warming by 2100 as projected by the IPCC models is based on a basically false assumption of strongly positive cloud feedbacks. Physical observations (as opposed to GIGO model outputs) have shown that they are strongly negative instead.
All your mealymouthing about Spencer’s religious beliefs or where his breakthrough work was first published won’t change the FACTS here, Peter,
Cloud feedbacks are strongly negative and, as a result, there is no major warming from AGW in sight.
Regards,
Max
PS Peter, there is another empirical check on the 2xCO2 climate sensitivity that can be gleaned from the actually observed 20th century warming, the amount attributable to solar forcing and the pre-industrial plus 2005 atmospheric CO2 levels, which gives a good check for the 2xCO2 sensitivity of around 0.6 to 0.8C (but we’ve been through all that before).
PPS Peter, you make yourself look stupid with remarks about Spencer’r religion or Lindzen’s smoking habits. This is all totally irrelevant BS which you bring up because you have lost the argument on the facts.
TonyB, your fears about “ocean acidification” being the next threat once AGW has died a cooling death is clearly building steam.
By the way, did any of you see that Rahm Emmanuel, Obama’s chief of staff, said of the financial crisis, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste,”. Seems like the AGW crowd is of a similar mindset
Hi Peter,
Further to TonyB’s 5026, where he provides a CV of Professor Nils-Axel Mörner, the renowned sea level expert, let me add a few`words.
You, Peter Martin, are not a renowned expert on climate change, sea level trends or anything else related to this topic.
I am not either.
TonyB, unlike the two of us, is a scientist directly involved in an aspect of climate research, so he speaks from a higher level of knowledge in his field of expertise than you or I.
But the point here is, by trying to denigrate any scientific experts who happen not to agree with your rather one-sided views and beliefs on AGW, not based on their statements on AGW but on some totally irrelevant other issue, such as their religion, etc., you are really making yourself look foolish and bone-headed. Can you see this?
I might say I believe James E. Hansen is a hysterical alarmist, based on his alarming prophesies of imminent “tipping points” occuring when CO2 levels reach the “dangerous level of at most 450 ppm”, “irreversible deleterious effects”, “extiction of species”, etc., but I do not give a “fiddlers f…” where he does to church and whether they roll on the floor there during services. This has absolutely no bearing on our discussion.
Peter, let me ask you bluntly: can you see how silly the “ad hom” approach is of putting someone down for totally non-related reasons just because you disagree with their opinion?
It is, in fact, an open admission of defeat on the factual issues.
Regards,
Max
Max,
Are we talking about the same thing here? The only reference I have is a ‘letter’ in GRL from Spencer et al. Published in August 2007.
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007/2007GL029698.shtml
I’d have to pay for the full contents but the abstract itself doesn’t mention anything about rejoicing. Cracking open the Champagne. Suggesting that we go out to buy that Hummer with a clear conscience. I’m a bit underwhelmed, to be honest. What he does say is:
“These observations should be considered in the testing of cloud parameterizations in climate models, which remain sources of substantial uncertainty in global warming prediction.”
Models? You don’t think he means computer models do you? No, surely not!
Its getting on for two years now. Surely he should be following up his ‘letter’, with the real thing, an actual paper?
I wish you become less fixated on me. I’m not expecting a phone call from President Obama, anytime soon, asking me what I think of Spencer’s paper, sorry I mean letter. The argument which should matter to you is with all the world’s scientific institutions. Its what they say that matters. You aren’t making too much progress there I’m afraid.
Max,
I’ve just looked it up. It wasn’t ‘smoking’ with Prof Morner. I might be thinking of that solar warming guy. Maybe he’s been persuaded by Lindzen?
No, Prof Morner’s into water divining or dowsing. You know. You walk over a water pipe with a bent twig and it starts twitching away when you get over the right spot. Marvellous stuff.
There are those who claim a lot more than that. No need to go out to buy a metal detector. If he’s any good he could supplement his pension with $10k prize money.
http://www.skeptics.com.au/articles/divining.htm
PS Maybe you or Prof Morner could ask skeptics.com if they would add AGW to their list of topics?
Oh dear, according to the BBC, it seems those Europeans – who once thought they were leading the world on combating climate change – are backing off again. This time, according to Yvo de Boer, secretary of the UN climate programme, they are “shifting the goalposts in global talks on climate change“. It seems that, having agreed “after marathon talks” to “bankroll clean technology in developing countries if they agreed to take appropriate actions to curb emissions growth, … [they now want] developing countries to produce plans to cut emissions across their entire economy before getting cash help from the EU.”
That’s beginning to sound remarkably like Bush’s policy. Surely not.
Peter 5040
The prize for proving diving does not works is chicken feed compared to that still being offered to anyone who can prove global warming is real
http://www.ultimateglobalwarmingchallenge.com/
This should be very easy money for you that will fund a long and happy retirement. I claim 10% as your agent. After all I’ll have egg on my face for being wrong when you collect the prize so I might as well benefit from it.
Perhaps all of us here can help you to fine tune your answer?
Hey! Max Bob JZ Barleysane Luke and everyone. On second thoughts it looks like money for old rope now that Peter has tutored us so well, so why don’t we swallow our pride and put in a joint answer and share the prize money?
TonyB
Max 5038
Sorry to contradict you, but in a letter late last year to the Swiss govt
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/20081113_Switzerland.pdf
James Hansen confirmed the safe level is not 450 but only 350ppm or likely less than that. So we are already at a tipping point and the world is well beyond the safe zone.
Sorry for the correction, but I thought you ought to know urgently in case you wanted to escape to one of the nuclear bunkers the Swiss were so fond of building until recently. You should be safe there.
Hope you will still be able to communicate with us though. Me? Hansens claim at the Bridgnorth enquiry last year of a possible rise of up to 75 metres
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2008/20080910_Kingsnorth.pdf
has worried me. My house is only 25 metres above sea level. Perhaps you could advise me. As we have already passed the safe point should I move further up the hill or will I be ok for another year or two? Your urgent advice sought.
It seems to me that compared to all this nonsense, divining seems perfectly sane.
TonyB
TonyB
Your 5025 to Bob_FJ raises some key points concerning the cyclical nature of our planet’s climate over history and the very weak evidence of CO2 as a climate driver, which is all based on a very brief 25-year “blip” in the record.
It is my opinion that those, like Peter (but also the IPCC scientists) who support the notion of a major climate forcing from anthropogenic CO2 leading to a much warmer world, fall into a serious trap of
(a) ignoring the historical cyclical nature of our climate
(b) ignoring any historical evidence of climate changes other than proxy studies
(c) concentrating on a brief 25-year period of rapid warming from 1976 to around 2000, a period during which CO2 levels also increased significantly
(d) concentrating climate model work to making projections of anthropogenic climate changes
(e) ignoring any research work that shows that the sun has played a significant role in our planet’s climate, both historically and over the 20th century, a period of unusually high solar activity (the highest in 11,000 years)
(f) relegating the solar impact to only that portion which can be directly measured (with today’s technology) from direct solar irradiance
(g) ignoring the empirical evidence of a much stronger solar impact for which the mechanism has not yet been discovered
(h) ignoring natural ocean circulation factors (ENSO, PDO, NAO) as climate drivers
(i) sticking the head in the sand concerning the causes for the current cooling
In addition, there is far too much emphasis placed on “alarming” developments. An example is the emphasis on sea ice in the Arctic and automatically blaming any reduction in sea ice on warmer Arctic temperatures caused by AGW, rather than investigating other possible causes, or investigating why sea ice is growing in the Antarctic.
It truly appears that scientific research is being conducted to find proof for the current paradigm of “disastrous AGW” rather than to find truth even if it might challenge this paradigm.
You have apparently seen first hand how the truth is being bent to fit the desired story. We laymen do not have the opportunity to see how these things are manipulated behind the scenes to “support the desired story”, unless there is an occasional (suicidal) whistle-blower (obviously there are not many who want to put their careers on line to expose the truth).
Four years ago I was still quite neutral on the whole AGW issue. In fact, I leaned toward accepting the theory as plausible and the potential future impact as disturbing. But the more I saw and read the more I observed that something “fishy” is going on here. The few whistle-blowers did get my attention, and then I started checking things out more skeptically for myself until I finally came to the conclusion that the whole postulation (or paradigm) of alarming AGW had become a multi-billion dollar industry in itself, which was being supported by self-preserving agenda-driven science. The unmitigated arrogance, errors, falsehoods, omissions and sloppy science of the IPCC SPM 2007 report helped confirm my skepticism, as did the 1,000 page AR4 report which came out later in support of the SPM.
As for Peter, it appears that his mind is made up, regardless of what happens out there.
If it cools off for 8 or 10 years despite all-time record human CO2 emissions, he simply ignores the fact that it is cooling.
If scientist find physical evidence that cloud feedbacks are strongly negative, rather than strongly positive, as assumed by IPCC, thereby reducing the theoretical warming to be expected from a doubling of atmospheric CO2 from over 3C to somewhere between 0.6 and 0.8C, he simply ignores that this physical evidence exists, or writes it off as rubbish, because of the religion of one of the researchers involved in the study.
If a renowned climate scientist proposes a hypothesis of a natural negative feedback from clouds, this hypothesis is written off because the scientist once allegedly took an incorrect stand on cancer and smoking (not his area of expertise at all).
This is the approach of someone that no longer really wants to rationally question what is going on, but rather already knows everything that he feels is needed to know to support his own pre-defined viewpoint.
In fact, this is not the scientific approach of rational skepticism until a hypothesis can be proven by experimentation or physical observation.
It is like the approach of a religious fundamentalist who will support his belief against any facts out there that contradict it.
This is why discussing this with Peter is so very difficult and slow-moving. But, like you, I do enjoy these debates (and learn from them), so I am grateful that Peter “indulges” me with his time and thoughts.
Regards,
Max
My 5042
Whilst diving might not work either, it should have read ‘divining’ in the first line of my post
Tonyb
Hi TonyB
Thanks for info on Hansen letter to Swiss government.
All I can say is “what an arrogant bastard!”
But Hansen must really be getting desperate with his new 350 ppm “safe limit” for CO2, as he is violating the most sacred rule of prophets: “make sure your prophesy is so far in the future that you’ll be gone when it turns out that it didn’t happen”.
With “450 ppm or less” as the “dangerous level” he was still safe, since this will only occur when he reaches the age of 100.
But he must be realizing that his time is running out, so he now tells us that we have already reached the “dangerous level” (now scientifically determined to be 350 ppm) where “crystallizing scientific data” show us that “dangerous climate change” to “tipping points” with “irreversible deleterious effects” will lead to “sea level rise this century [that] may be measured in meters” and “the extermination of a large fraction of plant and animal species”.
Is this guy for real? We’re already beyond the “tipping point”, but there is no unusual sea level rise, there are no plant or animal extinctions (that can be linked to climate), and, as a matter of fact, temperatures are plummeting while CO2 emissions are at an all-time high.
Unfortunately there are politicians (and some others) who see that they can gain advantage from this hysteria (I recall your reference to Mencken). There are probably some in Switzerland (especially among the socialists and greens).
Of all nations of the world, Switzerland has the highest carbon efficiency (GDP generated per ton of CO2 emitted) with a 2006 GDP per metric ton of CO2 of over $8,000 (while the EU has around $3,000, the USA, Australia, Canada and Brazil around $2,000, India around $700 and China and Russia around $450).
This is because Switzerland has a lot of hydroelectric power, very little heavy industry, a fairly high population density with a good public transportation system run on electrical power.
But for Hansen to start giving the Swiss “advice” on what they need to do to reduce the world’s CO2 emissions is not only extremely arrogant, it is downright stupid.
I think the guy is really “losing it”.
Regards,
Max
Aw, TonyB, I was about to go for the bait (5042), but then I saw that there is a $15 “handling fee” for all entries.
This reminds me of the true story of a man who got rich by renting a warehouse in the Kansas wheat country and then (shortly before harvest time) offering a reward of $1,000 for the best bushel of wheat submitted.
Needless to say, thousands of wheat farmers sent him multiple bushels of the best wheat they had produced until his warehouse was full.
The lucky winner was celebrated with plenty of photo-ops, a few high-school bands playing patriotic songs and even a local country band and singer along with beer, soft drinks and hot dogs at a reasonable price, and a good time was had by all.
The next day the trucks rolled in to haul off a warehouse load of the best wheat in Kansas, sold at a premium price, of course.
Regards,
Max
Hi TonyB,
Just one more.
You talked about divining, a practice that is well known in Switzerland for locating underground water sources for wells, etc. Local farmers use the services of diviners regularly.
I cannot vouch for whether or not it works, but I did come across an oilman several years ago when I had dealings with the oil exploration industry who told me he would do all the normal seismic exploration work and get the geological evaluations beforehand, but he would never drill a hole unless he had first gotten a thumbs up from a diviner telling him that there was oil down there and where to drill to find it. He claimed to have a very high hit rate (and was doing well when I met him).
Regards,
Max
Reur 5043
You asked what you should do in anticipation of Hansen’s major “tipping points”.
My advice: head for the hills!
If not to escape from the imminent 6-meter high sea level rise (from the sudden disintegration of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet), you need to be prepared to escape from a rushing avalanche of BS from Hansen’s “crystallizing science”, which I’m sure is coming to the UK (as it has to Switzerland).
Switzerland is still safe from the sea level inundation until the North Sea backs up as far as Basel, but it appears that the threat of drowning in a Hansen BS avalanche has become a more imminent threat for Switzerland.
I’m following your advice and checking for a vacant bunker.
Regards,
Max
Hi Peter,
Here’s the way to present the CV of a skeptical scientist.
First, you present all his credentials, achievements, awards, etc.
Then you say he is “controversial”, since he does not go along with the obviously correct “mainstream consensus of 2,500 scientists”.
Then you try to find some strange personal habit, out-of-context quotation, religious belief or anything else you can conjure up to add to the CV as a footnote, more or less insinuating that “if this guy is stupid enough to do, say or believe this ridiculous thing, his opinions on AGW are probably not much better”.
In Nazi Germany, the CV footnote would have been that the scientist is a Jew.
In Communist Soviet Union it would be that he is a capitalist or fascist enemy of the working class.
I’m sure you are astute enough to realize that your approach of slandering a skeptical scientist is really not much more subtle than that.
Regards,
Max