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.”
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Robin,
You ask “…is Peter just a poor representative?”
I’ve always thought that barristers could accept any brief. In the courtroom, they should be just as capable as arguing for one side as the other.
Probably you are just pretending to be dumb. You’ve do doubt heard the Aussie expression ‘raw prawn”? As in “don’t come the raw prawn with me, mate”. I’d say that’s you!
So, how about using your legalistic expertise to show me how it should be done, and that you aren’t quite so dumb after all?
How about changing sides? Not permanently of course. Just for two or three posts.
Robin,
Yes, an inability to logically explain a theory based on the facts is sophistry; which is what the Warmists are engaging in. For instance, the new administration here is actually telling Americans that the way out of debt is to spend more money.
My experience with people such as this is that when they lose the argument, they resort to personal attacks after the usual “change the subject” tactic. I do admire Peter and his stick-to-itiveness. Frankly, I think he knows that the theory is lost…..he simply (thinks) that he’ll like what the “solutions” will bring. Long ago I advised him to move to North Korea, cancel his vacation (holiday) excursions, etc…..basically live a “green” lifestyle…..or to become a Tibetan monk. He didn’t acknowledge the advice…..
The Warmists have no argument anymore…..their own thermometers have proven them wrong.
Seriously, the ocean acidification catastrophe will be the next “impending manmade disaster” due to humankind’s “unyielding greed” and “avarice” the only resolution being implementing [insert political agenda here].
I may not be a Ph.D. scientist, (Piled Higher and Deeper), but I do know a confidence game when I see one…..global warming being the Mother of all scams.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confidence_trick
Bernie Madoff is a Boy Scout compared to the IPCC, The United Nations and Liberal politicians pushing this ruse. They even have a smart guy like Peter Martin hoodwinked……
Just give it a good bash…..anywhere.
Robin, Max,
You seem to be persisting with the question of why temperatures are not rising exactly in line with record CO2 emissions.
And the answer? Because although increasing CO2 levels are responsible for the undelying and long term increase they are not the only factor that needs to be taken into consideration.
The solar cycle is typically about 11-12 years. Its influence can be see in the graph above. Typically we see a jump in temperatures in the years after the solar minimum as the new cycle gets underway.
Solar cycle 24 has not yet properly started. It is later than many expected. It is quite possible that it might never start. We might be lucky from a climatic viewpoint. But I’d say that the most likely outcome is for a continunity of the recent pattern of cycles, starting this year and next.
Watch out for solar cycle 24. When sunpsot activity increases you’ll see another jump in global temperatures.
Brute and Robin,
No doubt you both pride yourself on being able to answer a simple request better than I can. Lets test you out.
Brute,
In your 5253 you say that ” [Arctic Sea Ice] has grown this winter to an extent not seen since around 1980.”
Does this mean that Arctic sea ice is now more than it was then? Can you provide any evidence for this assertion?
I would say it certainly was less this winter than in 1980, and recently posted up a NSIDC graph showing the February level to be about 1 million sq km less this year than then.
Robin,
Do you really not understand, even though you may not agree, with what I am saying about annual temperature anomalies being a combination of a linear increase due to CO2 emissions, a sinusoidal variation due to solar activity, and random variations?
Maybe my comment (#5272) on TonyB’s #5268 was too flippant – yes it is boring and it is bureaucratic twaddle but it also amounts to an amazing proposal. Namely that, in the interests of saving the planet from “climate change”, the entire world economy should be reordered by the transfer of trillions of dollars from “wealthy” nations to developing nations with the “wealthy” nations imposing extraordinarily complex taxes and regulation on their industries and citizens. And all this would be supervised by – yes, the United Nations.
Er … it’s just a little hard to see this being very popular at present. Or ever.
Peter Martin, concerning your 5279, whilst Max is away for a few days, I thought I would unlurk myself and draw attention to just one part of your extreme sloppiness.
I notice that amongst other things you have continued to post a silly graph repetitively, that BobFJ (retired) has a while ago shown you to be WRONG. I can’t believe that you have forgotten that advice concerning the fundamentally essential multi point smoothing method within the scientific community, for smoothing time-series-data. The correct basics are to use what is known as CPA smoothing as DISTINCT from PMA. (Centre Point Average/ Prior Moving Average respectively) However, out of ignorance, you have variously used PMA, (insisting that it is correct), but it has DIFFERENT usages such as; showing the prior weekly production performance in a factory. (typically Monday to Sunday net, in a long succession of weeks). It is DIFFERENT to the requirements for smoothing time-series data.
However you have repetitively displayed that WRONG graph with some minor adaptations for various obtuse arguments.
Hoping that other lurkers and contributors here may not be deceived by your latest version, I have ghosted out the WRONG smoothing, and show the partial correction below.
You could perhaps reissue it with corrected CPA smoothing, (weighted or unweighted…. A minor variation of method, especially with longer smoothing intervals than your chosen five years),
You could also perhaps overlay some curves of solar cycles too, stating source
BTW, without checking I thought the current delayed solar minimum started in 2008, not 2009.
Also, did you copy this from some scientific paper, or did you make it up yourself?
Bob_FJ,
Re your 5282.
I think we’ve had this discussion before about how to apply the running averages.
If I sent you the spreadsheet, do you think you could ‘fix’ it for me?
I am not a conspiracy theorist by nature-quite the opposite-as a skeptic I have found there is usually a rational explanation to most things if you look hard enough, which generally centres on money, power, prestige politics, ignorance and idealism.
However the UN document elevates debate on AGW to a different league. The ‘science’ we have always been sceptical about-doubling co2 causes a temp rise of up to 5degrees C (How!) All sorts of unproven exotic feedbacks promoted as facts. The use of ridiculous proxies such as global temperatures to 1850, nonsense about rising sea levels, scorning history demonstrating we have been warmer than today and that polar ice has been greater than today.
These and many more things simply don’t add up to a compelling arguement that ‘WE’ are dramatically changing the planet.
On another thread someone posted this-I havent checked it through so can’t confirm its veracity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenda_21
http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/documents/agenda21/index.htm
“Agenda 21 is a comprehensive plan of action to be taken globally, nationally and locally by organizations of the United Nations System, Governments, and Major Groups in every area in which human impacts on the environment.”
THe posters comment “Note how they have planned to act on such a vast level without asking any population for approval. Aren’t agendas and manifestos supposed to be presented by representative politicians to a voting public instead of being crafted by faceless unelected bureaucrats who make the decisions for everyone”
Robin 5281 has hit the nail on the head except with his finnal comment. It may not be very popular, but nor was our absorption into the EU-I dont think our elite have a great concern for what the ordinary people think-they have become completely disconnected-you only have to look at the fantasy world our own Govt has retreated into.
I have no stomach for endlessly recycling and commenting on material that poses as science.
Mencken was absolutely right.
Tonyb
Update on the wikepedia ref above. There are many links.
This is the claimed agenda of the UN
http://worldinbalance.net/agreements/1992-rio-agenda21.php
This is the schools agenda
http://sage-agenda21.site.voila.fr/
If this is all some eleborate joke it is extremely well though out and executed. AS a sceptic I will investigate further to see if there is a genuine connection with the UN.
Tonyb
Peter Martin, with respect to your 5283, you wrote to BobFJ, (retired), apparently confusing him with me:
Que?
Don’t exaggerate your silliness!
If you want to present scientific arguments here, you need to understand and be able to express the science correctly, otherwise you make yourself to appear an absolute fool. If you want to correct your ignoramus graph, it is up to you to do it. BobFJ explained it to you a good while ago…. Do something about it under your own steam.
Peter Martin, WRT my 5282, I notice that in your 5283 you responded only in part, but not to my following points:
Why do you avoid the many questions raised of you throughout this thread?
Brute: I agree with your observation at #5277 that the warmists are engaging in sophistry. And we currently have a good example illustrating your comment, “that when they lose the argument, they resort to personal attacks after the usual “change the subject” tactic”. But, possibly, that’s being slightly unfair to Peter. Re your “their own thermometers have proven them wrong” point, he has attempted a response (#5279 and #5280):
Now these are interesting statements. So (Peter) thanks – and I’ll certainly follow up on them, observing how you deal with Proxymax’s comments in the meantime. (BTW here’s the answer to your “simple request” at #5280: yes, I can unravel what you’re struggling to say.) However, as you seem to be in the mood for actually answering requests (as Proxymax noted, not one of your usual characteristics), I’ll remind you of the other two:
(1) Please produce a list of scientists who have gone on record that they believe that AGW is a serious threat – showing how it’s “many many more” than the 200 whom Max has named who disagree.
(2) As you agree with me that science is not determined by majority vote, please explain why there’s any further point in referring to a “consensus”.
Robin and Brute
If you want to examine the veracity of the science you can do no better than to ask the opinions of Expert reviewers of the IPCC fourth assessment as I have done. This is part of a much longer reply to me from Richard Courtney
” Expert Peer Review Comments of
the first draft of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report provided by Richard S Courtney
General Comment on the draft Report.
My submitted review comments are of Chapters 1 and 2 and they are offered for use, but their best purpose is that they demonstrate the nature of the contents of the draft Report. I had intended to peer review the entire document but I have not bothered to complete that because the draft is of such poor quality that my major review comment is:
The draft report should be withdrawn and a report of at least acceptable scientific quality should be presented in its place.
My review comments include suggested corrections to
a blatant lie,
selective use of published data,
use of discredited data,
failure to state (important) limitations of stated information,
presentation of not-evidenced assertions as information,
ignoring of all pertinent data that disproves the assertions,
use of illogical arguments,
failure to mention the most important aerosol (it provides positive forcing greater than methane),
failure to understand the difference between reality and virtual reality,
arrogant assertion that climate modellers are “the scientific community”,
claims of “strong correlation” where none exists,
suggestion that correlation shows causality,
claim that peer review proves the scientific worth of information,
claim that replication is not essential to scientific worth of information,
misleading statements,
ignorance of the ‘greenhouse effect’ and its components,
and other errors.”
This no longer has much to do with science but promotion of a belief system.
TonyB
Tonyb,
The UN document linked to in #5268 is a classic example of doublespeak. I did read through the excruciatingly painful “information note” twice, and have to agree with Robin that these guys should be out performing some useful function instead of sitting around pontificating how they’d intend to rearrange the world socially and politically. These people are unelected, pompous, ideologues that seem to be of the mindset that they have the authority to dictate to the rest of the world how we should go about our lives.
As an American citizen and more basically, a human being, I’m appalled that this oligarchial cabal feels entitled to decree edicts from on high that effects millions of peoples lives…..that somehow they know better than Pete, or Robin or you what’s in your best interests. The conceit and arrogance is unfathomable. Our freedoms and liberties come from our Creator, not from some pretentious, self-important group of snobs masquerading as “saviors” of the world.
Pretty much everything that the United Nations is or has become involved in has degraded into a morass of inefficiency and failure, (same goes for the U.S. Federal Government for the most part) yet, we keep this and other institutions in place……
I’m waiting for Peter’s comment regarding this; however, one would think from his “progressive” views on things that he would oppose a small group such as the UN lording over him and his personal decisions.
The sword cuts both way and the principal in and of itself of the United Nations establishing governance over the entire world population is truly frightening. Next, they may come up with some type of proclamation that people such as Peter Martin object to……but having set a precedent, with direction such as this “informational note”, who would be able to argue that they were without rational domination?
I am not a Subject of the United Nations or am I bound to abide by their laws of governance; neither is any other citizen of the United States under our Constitution.
Mar 27, 2009
U.N. ‘Climate Change’ Plan Would Likely Shift Trillions to Form New World Economy
By George Russell
A United Nations document on “climate change” that will be distributed to a major environmental conclave next week envisions a huge reordering of the world economy, likely involving trillions of dollars in wealth transfer, millions of job losses and gains, new taxes, industrial relocations, new tariffs and subsidies, and complicated payments for greenhouse gas abatement schemes and carbon taxes – all under the supervision of the world body.
Those and other results are blandly discussed in a discretely worded United Nations “information note” on potential consequences of the measures that industrialized countries will likely have to take to implement the Copenhagen Accord, the successor to the Kyoto Treaty, after it is negotiated and signed by December 2009. The Obama administration has said it supports the treaty process if, in the words of a U.S. State Department spokesman, it can come up with an “effective framework” for dealing with global warming.
The 16-page note, obtained by FOX News, will be distributed to participants at a mammoth negotiating session that starts on March 29 in Bonn, Germany, the first of three sessions intended to hammer out the actual commitments involved in the new deal.
In the stultifying language that is normal for important U.N. conclaves, the negotiators are known as the “Ad Hoc Working Group On Further Commitments For Annex I Parties Under the Kyoto Protocol.” Yet the consequences of their negotiations, if enacted, would be nothing short of world-changing.
Getting that deal done has become the United Nations’ highest priority, and the Bonn meeting is seen as a critical step along the path to what the U.N. calls an “ambitious and effective international response to climate change,” which is intended to culminate at the later gathering in Copenhagen.
Just how ambitious the U.N.’s goals are can be seen, but only dimly, in the note obtained by FOX News, which offers in sparse detail both positive and negative consequences of the tools that industrial nations will most likely use to enforce the greenhouse gas reduction targets.
The paper makes no effort to calculate the magnitude of the costs and disruption involved, but despite the discreet presentation, makes clear that they will reverberate across the entire global economic system. Read more here. Based on the latest Nicholas Stern nonsense here.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,510937,00.html
Icecap Notes: U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon raised congressional hackles by calling the US deadbeats in our support fo the UN. The U.S. pays a disproportionate 22 percent of the U.N.’s $4.86 billion operating budget ($1.15 Billion), but is perennially late with its dues and now is about $1 billion behind on its payments.
A better solution some have long believed, would be the separation from or better yet the dissolution of the UN as a totally ineffective organization that has done far more harm that good in the recent decades. In addition to the Secretary General Kofi Annan resignation over the food for oil scandal, disagreements in the Security Council about military action and intervention are seen as having failed to prevent the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, failed to provide humanitarian aid and intervene in the Second Congo War, failed to intervene in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre and protect a refugee haven by the authorising the peacekeepers to use force, failure to deliver food to starving people in Somalia, failure to implement provisions of Security Council resolutions related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and continuing failure to prevent genocide or provide assistance in Darfur.
Their political ideology driven IPCC reports and Kyoto agreement were dismal failures helping bring about losses of once strong industrial bases and the decline of the overall economies of many countries in Europe, Asia, in Canada and Australia. And now they want an even more aggressive action taken with admitted much greater economic reprecussions.
Robin, Tonyb,
Take a look at this…..
http://www.occ.gov.uk/activities/stern_papers/Key%20Elements%20of%20a%20Global%20Deal%20-Final01may.pdf
Brute: re your 5291.
I got as far as the first sentence:
Here we go again: science is not based on “the balance of scientific evidence”, it’s based on empirical proof. Here’s a recent quote from Will Alexander, Professor Emeritus – University of Pretoria (An expert on drought and rainfall in Africa):
Are we really going to take all the expensive and busybody actions defined by Stern when there is no empirical evidence that shows it to be necessary?
Tonyb,
This is cool. Your buddy is in the Arctic risking his life measuring the constantly shifting ice, sleeping in a wet sleeping bag, getting frostbite and his trip’s sponsor is in South America……..You seriously should get hold of this guy’s wife to get him out of there; he isn’t thinking rationally.
Robin,
I liked this one……………
Brute and Robin
This from Twitter from Pen Hadow just now
Temperatures of -39’C are being experienced once again, as the team continue to travel north for day 28 of the expedition.
about 1 hour ago from web
Today the Catlin Arctic Survey team are switching off their lights to support Earth Hour.
about 5 hours ago from web
Temperatures have dropped off the thermometer once again, reaching lows of -40 and lower!
10:43 AM Mar 27th from web
I’m celebrating human achievement day by turning all my lights on, what sort of empty gesture is that to turn your lights off in the circumstances the team find themselves?
I think this is colder than they expected-temperatures should be -15C or so by now. I think this is a futile expedition but I admire their courage but it is bordering on stupidity.
tonyB
Tonyb,
These guys are going to end up popsicles………Tango Uniform.
Tango Uniform
(US) NATO phonetic alphabet for “Tits Up” also used by the FCC, FAA and DOD to mean killed or destroyed.
Hypothermia Symptoms and Signs
http://www.natureskills.com/hypothermia_symptoms.html
Two things to remember about hypothermia is that…
1. you don’t need to be experiencing sub-zero temperatures to encounter hypothermia and …
2. your judgment will be impaired making you much more likely to experience an accident.
Bob_FJ/Proxymax,
You aren’t entering into the spirit of scientific co-operation very well. I seem to remember helping out TonyB with one of his graphs a while back.
If ‘either’ of you know a better way of applying running five and ten year averages that the simple one I use in Excel, it seems a bit mean spirited not to share it.
How about I send TonyN an Excel spreadsheet and you fix it up for me?
BTW. I’m not wasting my time writing this am I? You do know what you are talking about ‘both’ of you, don’t you?
Peter 5298
I remember you doctoring a graph of mine but I dont remember you helping me out with it
tonyb
TonyB,
See My postings 3015 and 3016
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