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.
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Some good news at last from the New Scientist on the topic of AGW: the “survival of humankind itself is not at stake”.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126971.700-how-to-survive-the-coming-century.html
So waht’s all the fuss about then?
Peter 5298
You are right. Its just that when you say ‘help’ I automatically think of your normal definition of help which is ‘change.’ :)
Tonyb
Peter
From New Scientist article
the species could continue…’if only couple of hundred individuals remained.’
So that could be practially all the scientists from the IPCC then. It would still leave room for other selected individuals. Wonder who they would be?
The New Scientist must be glad of the return of the Arctic ice to something like the average 1978 measurements, even though these started from a a high point due to the cold of the preceding years.
I’m not so sure Poor Pen Hadow would agree that he wants it quite so cold though.
As Brute says 5290 it would be interesting to get your viewpoint on the UN document
tonyb
This is just not true.
“must be glad of the return of the Arctic ice to something like the average 1978 measurements”
Unless your definition of “something like” would mean ‘something like’ a million sq km less.
Brute:
Re that report by Lord Stern (your 5291), I see that “analytical input” was provided by Lehman Brothers. That’s reassuring. Maybe it accounts for the beautiful non sequitur in the Conclusion: “Climate change is a present reality and a major risk for future generations and yet emissions continue to rise”. That’s about as logical as saying that the grass in my garden is growing and will have to be cut again this year and yet I continue to have coffee with my breakfast.
Yes, Peter, that New Scientist article is pretty scary. Gulp: a global temperature increase of 4 °C “might happen”. As might a massive asteroid strike or world-wide decimation from avian flu or …
I know, I know: we’re all bad and must mend our wicked ways.
(Perhaps they’ve been taking logic lessons from Lord Stern and Lehman Brothers.)
I liked the quote from Peter Cox who “studies … climate systems at the University of Exeter”:
Er … no mention then of the rather large group that points out that there is no published empirical evidence demonstrating that, if mankind continues to add CO2 to the atmosphere, the consequence will be a dangerous increase in global temperature.
Oz (Victorian) bushfire aftermath stuff.
Me and friend decided to cruise up to a devastated area in the Kinglake Ranges, some 30+ minutes, (normally), NNE of where I live, and do lunch and shop there in response to a call to help a collection of small businesses that survived, in call it: “Downtown Kinglake”, which is the centre of a widely sprawling bush community on large blocks which in the main no longer exists. Climbing up the narrow tortuous road to the Kinglake plateau took longer than expected because of speed limit of 40 Kph (~25 Mph) through a vast scene of great devastation. (large vehicles banned). Many trees had been sawn and removed from the road, and others rendered safe. In parts the road edge to an almost sheer drop had been narrowed with plastic bollards, because of fear of erosion-collapse at that road edge, and reduced to one lane with traffic lights at one stretch. Some of the Kinglake National Park areas where I love to walk from beside this road, are devastated and the walking tracks are closed apparently because of still unsafe trees. (One ACT volunteer fire-fighter was killed by a falling tree near Marysville).
Sure enough, after driving through this devastation that can only be believed by seeing it, including that formerly lovely forest just below Kinglake; upon emerging onto the plateau, there is a visual surprise. On the north side of main-street every small business had amazingly survived, including the Pub, popular bakery, various eating places and a whole bunch of other businesses. On the southern side of the road however, whilst there was always less there, the only surviving asset was the modernish police station. Some large eucalypt trees were badly burnt-out that side of the road too. How the flames did not jump the road in that small spot is amazing. We parked at the western end of “downtown” (north) adjacent to a devastated brick dwelling, because the regular shopfront parking was full. Our bid to have lunch and shop there was eventually thwarted because of the huge number of visitors.
We got talking to a local passer-by woman prone to verbal diarrhoea whom repeatedly said thanks for coming, and her explanation of why that small spot of assets was spared was: Well; that’s how fires work, they are fickle depending on what the wind decides to do. She and many others had she said, stayed that night in the CFA (Country Fire Authority) hall, just down the road, saying that she was very thankful for the CFA tankers outside spraying water etc, and saving her life.
Yet, surprisingly, so soon, many eucalypt trees are now profuse in sprouting new growth, and grass trees and tree ferns etc. I wish I had taken my camera to show this, and may do it soon.
I just keep thinking of those poor big black goanna lizards around Mount Juliet nearby, which reportedly was also burnt-out. We tried to have a look up there a week ago but the highway was closed (presumably until trees were to be rendered safe) These magnificent huge lizards (which draw ones breath on early sightings) always run up the nearest tree when I have walked in their territory. But they are not alone in an awful death also shared by a whole bunch of marsupial mammals….. Enough for now in general!
TonyN, Re those 3 photos of Mountain Ash regrowth from the massive 1939 fires, that I posted elsewhere, they may be a matter of history. We were blocked from driving up there a week ago.
I dearly hope that this is not so. However, they are adjacent to that then closed road.
(Over the famous Black Spur)
And, Eucalyptus Regnans is apparently unique in that it is killed by bushfire. It does not have the survival strategy of re-sprouting like all the other 600 or so species. (instead it relies on fire induced seeding, which takes somewhat longer, clearly beyond my lifetime to become magnificent again)
Robin Guenier; WRT your 5305, you wrote to Brute:
YEP, but I sense an element of satire in your comments.
So how about this: I’m told one can buy an “environmentally friendly” electric lawn mower in Oz which is charged from the (coal fired) grid, for only around four times the price of a directly electrically driven device. (e.g. el cheapo Flymo)
Robin, as a legal expert, are you able to disentangle any of my thoughts which might be confused by this shit?
Proxymax: nope – my comment wasn’t satirical. It was simply noting that Stern’s comment is as logical as mine – i.e. not at all.
Peter Martin WRT your 5298, you wrote:
The facts are that long ago, BobFJ clearly explained to you that your graphical representations of time-series smoothing were WRONG. Despite that, you have recently repetitively posted that WRONG information yet again. (Thus ignoring sound advice, like pouring water onto a duck’s back)
Listen here fruitcake: if you want to present scientific arguments to justify your dogma, it is up to you to get those arguments right, and to be able to present them in a sensibly readable format such as in credible graphics.
Your suggestion that us rational sceptics should help you in this, your personal dogma, (none of which has made sense so far) is ludicrous.
Proxymax: you said that, if Peter wants to present scientific arguments to justify his dogma, he should “present them in a sensibly readable format such as in credible graphics”. I disagree. He should present them in the most readable of all formats: words. If helpful, they may be illustrated by credible graphics. But I agree that it is ludicrous for him to expect others to help by doing the job for him.
Peter 5304 in reply to my;
“must be glad of the return of the Arctic ice to something like the average 1978 measurements”
said;
“This is just not true.
Unless your definition of “something like” would mean ’something like’ a million sq km less.”
Perhaps you would care to post your source as to the total amount and the deviation, and whether you are talking extent/area?
Look forward to your comment on 5290
tonyb
(Apologies to all for the length of this rather self-indulgent essay.)
A question for Sunday afternoon: what has happened to our society when the entire political class, the establishment institutions, the church, academia, well-meaning charities, the mainstream media and, worst of all, the so-called scientific “community” are in thrall to a dogma which, although described as “science”, is based on a hypothesis that has not been verified by science’s basic requirement, empirical evidence, and when anyone questioning it is labelled “denier” much as Galileo was labelled “heretic”?
I mention Sunday because I’m finding it difficult to avoid an answer that, so far, I have tried to ignore – namely that we are witnessing the emergence of the secular religion of environmentalism, with its undeniably attractive message that taking care of the planet we inhabit is a major step towards resolving mankind’s multiple ills. (Hence, I suggest, environmentalists marching with anti-capitalists in the current G20 protests in London.) Yet, as with any religion, “faith” or “belief” is paramount and proof irrelevant. It’s interesting, incidentally, that this is a recent phenomenon: the smoking/cancer link, for example, was established by logic applied to a vast amount of physically observed evidence, as was the HIV/Aids link. Yet, with “climate change” and the supposed link between CO2 emissions and a dangerous increase in global temperature, we are told we must bow to the authority of the “overwhelming consensus” and accept that “the science is settled”.
This, I suggest, is an extraordinary development. The only recent parallel I can think of is the early twentieth century transition of Marxism from a philosophy to the secular religion of Soviet Communism.
Yet science’s escape from the tyranny of the consensus of authoritative opinion was a major achievement of the Enlightenment, well illustrated by this quotation from Thomas Huxley (whose famous Oxford debate with Bishop Wilberforce in 1860 established the pre-eminence of the theory of Darwinian evolution):
As a result, an indispensable tool of science is the scientific method, whereby a problem is identified, a testable hypothesis put forward and tested against empirical evidence. But that process is now, it seems, to be subordinated to authority. This seems to me to be a terrifying situation. Am I exaggerating?
Robin
You wrote quoting Huxley;
“The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, scepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin.”
Some people embrace the new religion not because they actually believe it-Peter is much too inteligent to believe everything he posts here is remotely true- but because they want to believe it. As for a significant percentage of the remainder, to query the truth of something, and to think for your self and be self confident enough to be sceptical-when people in authority are telling you they know the answers- is something many people are unable or unwilling to do.
Critical thinking- and thinking for your self- is not prized these days, and the result is dumbing down
In our Sunday papers was a free copy of ‘Hello’ magazine.
Headlines’ “Britain mourns two unforgettable stars” (Jade Goody and Natasha Richardson) and sub headlines; the Birth of the child of TV presenter Amanda Lamb and society beauty Tamara Beckwith’.
Its easier to hope that one of Menckens hobgoblins will lead you to safety than to have to think for yourself-a nice green cult like AGW is so much easier to follow and gain the appreciation of your peers- than having to get involved with real problems or the intricacies of a real religion.
I guess we need a new enlightenment. Not sure I can see it coming yet, as surely science itself-and supposed rational thinking- will be discredited when the false hypotheses of AGW falls apart through its own internal contradictions.
Tonyb
I can’t see that Pen Hadow has communicated for around 36 hours now. Anyone come across anything more recent than that?
tonyb
Robin/Tonyb,
I’ve come to realize that over the course of this conversation, Mr. Martin has, (unknowingly) conceded at least two points, being:
A. The Earth is cooling.
B. Solar inactivity is indeed causing the drop in global temperature.
I for one see this as progress as at the outset he would not concede either……possibly the debate with Mr. Martin is proving worthwhile after all.
Collectively, we have pulled back the curtain of the “science” behind the Anthromorphic Global Warming claim and exposed it for the agenda driven science/political agenda that it truly is, (which is the crux of the initiative).
I’m not writing that Mr. Martin has now converted to being a skeptic, only that he has abandoned the hallmarks of the Alarmists “scientific evidence” (talking points), and now is embracing the ideological aspects of “the plan” as worthwhile regardless of the science.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Telling CO2 Lies to Destroy America
By Alan Caruba
My friend, the internationally famed climatologist, Dr. S. Fred Singer, calls them “the CO2 wars.” It is the last ditch attempt by the Greens, under the aegis of the Obama administration, to declare carbon dioxide a pollutant and thus open the door to its regulation.
Singer says such regulation “would be the equivalent of an atomic bomb directed at the U.S. economy—all without any scientific justification.”
I am increasingly of the opinion that the main goal of the Obama administration through CO2 regulation, exploding deficits, punishing taxation, and any other means at their disposal is the destruction of the economy and the complete control of impoverished Americans.
This is an administration that exists to impose an Orwellian socialist utopia after the smokescreen clears.
When it comes to CO2, Obama, his so-called science advisors, and the Environmental Protection Agency are all lying. It is governmental gangsterism.
As reported in The Wall Street Journal, “The Environmental Protection Agency has sent the White House a proposed finding that carbon dioxide is a danger to public health, a step that could trigger a clampdown on emissions of so-called greenhouse gases across a wide swath of the economy.”
Here are a few things you need to keep in mind about carbon dioxide:
CO2 is not a “pollutant.” It is a trace gas necessary for all life of Earth because it is essential to the growth of all vegetation.
Without CO2 all vegetation—grasses, forests, jungles, crops such as wheat, corn and rice—dies. Then herbivores die. Then you die.
The CO2 produced by human industry or activity is a miniscule fraction of a percentage of greenhouse gases. It constitutes a mere 0.038% of the atmosphere.
The oceans emit 96.5% of all greenhouse gases, holding and releasing CO2 as it has down through the millennia of Earth’s existence.
In past millennia, CO2 levels were often much higher than the present.
CO2 levels rise hundreds of years after temperature rise on planet Earth.
The Sun is the primary source of warmth on Earth. Rising CO2 is an effect of global warming, not a cause.
Both global warming and cooling are natural phenomenon over which humans have no control.
The Earth is not currently warming. It has been cooling for a decade and likely to continue for at least another twenty years or longer. If a new Ice Age is triggered, it will last at least 10,000 years.
Polar ice is now at record levels and still growing.
If you had a choice, would you prefer a warmer or colder Earth?
And consider this, if only the United States was to significantly cut its CO2 emissions, how much effect, if any, would that have in a world where most other nations, including China and India, have no intention of doing so? Both are exempt from the UN Kyoto Protocol. The answer is zero!
The EPA proposal is not about science. It is about power and it is about money. As the Wall Street Journal noted, “The administration has proposed a cap-and-trade system that could raise $646 billion by 2019 through government auctions of emission allowances.”
The federal government, though the aegis of the EPA, would have control over the destinies of an estimated 13,000 facilities if this regulatory obscenity were to become law.
“Coal-fired power plants, oil refineries and domestic industries, such as energy-intensive paper, cement, fertilizer, steel and glass manufacturers, worry that increased cost burdens imposed by climate-change laws will put them at a severe competitive disadvantage to their international peers that aren’t bound by similar environmental rules.”
Such industries would flee the United States as the most toxic place on Earth in which to do business.
This would be the fulfillment of the Obama administration’s goal and explains in part why this new assault on science, industry, and common sense has been put forth by the EPA.
One of the best sites for information about carbon dioxide is:
http://www.ilovemyco2.com/
I recommend you visit and browse through its extensive data.
Brute
Peter has also conceded that perhaps global temperatures especially from 1850 are perhaps not that robust, and also that Michael Mann has over minimised the effects of the Mwp.
I guess we already know all the that Alan Caruba writes about but we are in a minority.
Tonyb
Tonyb
TonyN,
It appears that you’ve kicked the machine in the sweet spot. All of the other topics come up (for me) now.
Carbon Communism
I think that the CO2-caused Global Warming theory is false and unproven junk science.
But let’s suppose for a moment that the CO2 equals Global Warming equation is real. The wealthy elitists James Hansen, Al Gore, Tony Blair, Barack Obama, and the other high-profile cheerleaders for CO2 reduction are asking the poor and middle classes to suffer the consequences of a radical shutdown of global commerce and energy production in order to ‘save the planet’ from Global Warming. They want to make serfs of the masses of working people, while a privileged elite will be permitted to continue living in high style with a much larger ‘carbon footprint’ than the un-entitled lower classes.
We should never let that happen. The only way that ‘carbon rationing’ should be allowed is by assigning the exact same carbon limit to all people everywhere. Al Gore, Barack Obama, a London cabbie, and a Kalahari Bushman should all be assigned exactly the same number of ‘carbon credits’, period. Let them trade their credits with each other, but everyone should be restricted to the same limited ‘carbon credit’ allowance. The long-term ultimate effect of this would be an economic leveling of society; essentially global Communism. Under such a system, no one would be able to accumulate an excess of personal property or wealth because they could never accumulate enough ‘carbon credits’ to do so.
When Hansen, Gore, Blair, and Obama give up their patrician incomes and lifestyles and restrict their own ‘carbon footprint’ to the level of the common labourer or office worker, I will begin to believe that they are sincere about preventing Global Warming. Their obvious unwillingness to do what they are asking the rest of us to do proves that they are not sincere. They want the common people to sacrifice their lives to prevent Global Warming, while the wealthy retain their high-carbon consuming and producing privileges.
We cannot permit a privileged elite to enjoy a ‘high-carbon’ lifestyle while the poor are restricted by law to a ‘low-carbon’ lifestyle. Any effort by any government to impose carbon rationing with preferential treatment to any class of people should be seen as sufficient reason for an all-out French-style revolution in which the majority population dispossess the elitists of their wealth, their positions of power, and their privilege. In a world that is constantly threatened by Global Warming, we cannot allow a greedy few to consume or produce in excess of the average ‘carbon footprint’ of the world’s population as a whole.
Barack Obama keeps the temperature at 78 degrees Fahrenheit in the Oval Office while telling the rest of us to turn our thermostats down. James Hansen has received grants amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars to promote the Global Warming theory. Al Gore has invested heavily in the ‘carbon trading’ brokerage business. All of these men jet around the world, live in oversized houses, and ride in limousines. If the common people are to be required by law to reduce our ‘carbon footprint’, we need to demand that our leaders and the wealthy elite be restricted to exactly the same carbon allowance as everyone else.
We are not all together in the fight against Global Warming unless everyone is required to make the same sacrifices by sharing an equal ‘carbon footprint’ and an equal ‘carbon ration’, which should be assigned equally to every living person in the entire world. We need to hold the elitists’ feet to the fire and require them to make exactly the same sacrifices as the rest of humanity.
Individual carbon limits and carbon rationing? Bring them on. Viva la Revolucion!
Gregory Fegel
Brute,
With titles like “Carbon Communism”, and “Telling CO2 Lies to Destroy America” its really difficult to accept that you aren’t more motivated by politics than science.
How about adding a little free market economics into the mix? If the rich want to fly their helicopters they buy carbon credits off the bushmen you mentioned. At a price freely agreed by both. I’m sure you’ll have no objection to the right of individuals to trade that way.
I’ve no problem with that system. Maybe I should even congratulate you for coming up with a sensible suggestion for once.
The trouble is, the Bushmen would have to have something of value to trade/bargain with. When sand (or whatever the Busmen have laying around the scrubrush) becomes valuable, that is, something that other people want, then they could trade it for helicopter rides.
My guess would be that if the Bushmen had something of value, they’d trade it for a diesel generator and some light fixtures or an electric water pump.
It doesn’t surprise me a bit that you’d approve of the system described considering the article was posted @ Pravda.
http://english.pravda.ru/world/americas/107272-0/
Peter,
You seem to feel that the institution……the “State”………… is more important than the individual. You’ve got it backward…..the rights of the individual are more important than the State.
One could argue that the institution of slavery was important to the “State”……that the subjugation of a minority of the populace was beneficial to the society as a whole……Thankfully, the liberties and freedoms of the individual were (eventually) recognized as being sacrosanct and overcame the theory that the needs of the State were secondary to the freedoms/liberties of the individual.
Study National Socialism in Germany during the 1930’s to get a better sense of what I’m talking about. See how “the few” were butchered to satisfy the needs of “the State”.
Stalinist Russia would also be a good study for someone like yourself who advocates any means to justify benefiting “society” as a whole.
Brute,
You should read the papers a bit more often. Pravda hasn’t been quite the same since 1989.
He’s some more of George Fegel’s stuff. You might not like this quite so much!
http://www.oregontruthalliance.org/book/export/html/472
If George Fegel isn’t himself American, he sounds like he’s heavily influenced by American ideas of ‘elitism’.
Its a curious concept. Whereas the Europeans can , and do, have a problem with their ruling classes it’s not normally considered in the same terms. For instance, you might have heard of Silvio Berlusconi. Rich , corrupt, and with so much political influence that he managed to reach the office of Prime Minister. But elite? I don’t think you’ll hear his opponents call him that.
But in the USA, if you have an IQ which runs into three figure, earn a reasonable living, but vote Democrat, then you almost certain are labelled that way.
Do you think that’s a fair assessment?
Brute,
I think you might be confusing the ‘state’ with society. Or a better term would be the people. Government of the people, by the people, for the people etc
I would argue that, to achieve that end, we (including us Aussies) need more democracy not less. Apparently in Washington for every democratically elected senator or congressman there are four paid lobbyists. In that sense you’ve probably got the best democracy money can buy, as James Hansen has recently pointed out.
So how do we do that? The Swiss have a tradition of national referendums. I do accept that some votes wouldn’t go my way, such as, maybe on Capital punishment. But if we’d had a referendum in Australia in 2003 , no soldiers would have gone off to Iraq. If we had one now they’d all come home from Afghanistan.
If it was put to the vote I doubt if we’d see CEOs earning 300 times more than their employees. There would be no question of spending billions of dollars on fighter bombers when hospitals were underfunded.
I’d like to see more democracy in the workplace too. The board of directors shouldn’t be decided by the shareholders alone. Those who work for the company should have a say too.