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: I ended my 5560 with this: “Can you can spot the difference? Sigh … no, I suppose you can’t.” Your 5565 confirms that you can’t – so no surprise there.
So here’s a question I have asked twice and to which I still have no answer:
Is it your view that only those who understand “climate science” (which embraces a vast range of disciplines and specialties) are qualified to have a legitimate view on one of the major economic, cultural and political issues of our time?
Hi Peter,
You wrote, “We could be lucky and only have a couple of degrees AGW this century. If our luck is out it will be much worse.”
Let me paraphrase, adding in a bit of reality:
We could be lucky and reverse the current cooling trend of 0.1C per decade and return to the long-term warming trend of 0.04C per decade, so that we will have around 0.4C net warming over the next 100 years.
On the other hand, we could be unlucky and (as predicted by some solar scientists) have a continuation of the most recent cooling trend over several decades, ushering in a period of harsher weather, crop failures, famines, etc. as we witnesses at the onset of the Little Ice Age.
In either case there is not much we can do about it but try to adapt to whatever nature throws at us.
Regards,
Max
Hi Peter,
You wrote:
“The message from the scientific community is quite simple and unambiguous…”
Are you kidding?
Get serious, Peter. It’s anything but unambiguous. Look around you, man.
Regards,
Max
Hey Brute,
Just saw an AP report entitled “Geoengineering Considered To Combat Global Warming”, which stated:
“Tinkering with Earth’s climate to chill runaway global warming – a radical idea once dismissed out of hand – is being discussed by the White House as a potential emergency option, the president’s new science adviser said Wednesday.
That’s because global warming is happening so rapidly, John Holdren told the Associated Press in his first interview since being confirmed last month.
The concept of using technology to purposely cool the climate is called geoengineering. One option, raised by Holdren and proposed by a Nobel Prize-winning scientists includes shooting pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun’s rays.
Using such an experimental measure is being thought of as a last resort, Holdren said.
‘It’s got to be looked at,’ he said. ‘We don’t have the luxury…of ruling any approach off the table.’
His concern is that the United States and other nations won’t slow global warming fast enough and that several ‘tipping points’ could be fast approaching. Once such milestones are reached, such as complete loss of summer sea ice in the Arctic, it increases chances of ‘really intolerable consequences,’ he sais.
Twice in a half-hour interview, Holdren compared global warming to being ‘in a car with bad brakes driving toward a cliff in the fog.’
He and many experts believe that warming of a few degrees more would lead to disastrous drought conditions and food shortages in some regions, rising seas and more powerful coastal storms on others.
At first, Holdren characterized the poyential need to be technologically tinker with the climate as just his personal view. However, he went on to say he has raised it in administration discussions. ‘We’re talking about all these issues in the White House,’ Holdren said. ‘There’s a very vigorous process going on of discussing all the options for addressing the energy climate challenge.’
Holdren said discussions include Cabinet officials and head of sub-Cabinet level agencies, such as NASA and the Environmental Protection Agency.”
Holdren sounds like even more of a loon than his biography indicates. Can this guy be serious about shooting pollutants into the stratosphere? Has he checked the latest temperature records? (Apparently not, or he would not have opined that “global warming is happening so rapidly”.)
Wow!
Max
Hey Max,
The only thing accurate in this analogy is the part about the fog.
These buffoons have no idea what they’re doing. The entire Obama Administration is out to lunch……you guys over in Europe better be careful and gird your loins (meaning “prepare for the worst” or “prepare to defend yourself.”) I wouldn’t count on America being much help in any instance with Obama as CIC (unless someone needs to have a surrender treaty signed). Obama can’t gather his thoughts on what shoes to wear in the morning or which teleprompter to look at much less decide what action to take regarding a few Somali drug abusing thugs or how to change the world’s weather.
Still, purposely polluting the upper atmosphere sounds much cheaper than the cap and trade boondoggle. I wonder if the Greenies will go for it?
Brute and Max, your posts about Obama’s science adviser, John Holdren’s plan to shoot pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to cool the Earth led me to this interesting post at Powerline that is along the same lines.
The whole thing has me wondering if the Alarmists are so nervous about the last ten years of cooling that they now plan to actually try this stunt. First, of course, they’ll need several billion dollars for ‘research and development’ of the ‘device’, then they’ll fire the thing, or claim they did, then, claim that the next decades of cooling climate are BECAUSE they ‘took decisive action’ to combat global warming.
It’s hilarious!
OK, boys… here we go again over at the New Scientist.
Polar ice.
[HT (and for post 5582) Greenie Watch]
Oh, and this was interesting from Whats Up With That.
Hey Brute and JZ Smith,
Yeah. I guess shooting pollutants into the stratosphere might be cheaper than cap and trade (but cap and trade or a carbon tax would probably be used to generate the taxpayer money required to implement this hare-brained scheme).
This ranks up there with the other hare-brained schemes that are being discussed in the “very vigorous process” that Holdren mentioned, such as:
· Sequestration of CO2 in underground geological formations
· Seeding the ocean with iron so phytoplankton can absorb more CO2
· Installing several million square kilometers of mirrors to reflect sunlight
· Switching US electrical power generation off of coal and onto wind and solar
Here we are talking about a non-toxic, naturally occurring trace gas in our atmosphere that is absolutely essential for all life on this planet, and these loons want to dispose of it somewhere else where it will do who knows what damage, put in some other expensive idiotic scheme or turn the whole economy upside down trying to avoid emitting it.
These are truly hare-brained non-solutions to a non-problem. How crazy can we get?
Just my thoughts on this.
Regards,
Max
Max and JZ,
You’ve both claimed that Antarctic sea ice is 30% above normal. Suppose I now dispute this with: ‘No it isn’t it’s 10% less than normal’.
How would any reader of this blog make sense of these two conflicting statements? I don’t seem to have made much progress in getting you guys to reference your assertions.
And that word again? REFERENCES please.
Brute,
It may pain you to learn that outside of the USA there is an overwhelming public support for Barrack Obama. The phrase ‘buffoons who don’t know what they are doing’, or similar, was certainly widely used about the last US Administration. And not just in bar room discussions either. Late last year our PM Kevin Rudd created a mini diplomatic incident after he’d let slip that he’d had to explain to George Bush just what the G20 was.
Its early days. The expectations of Barrack Obama are high and its hard see how he’s going to get anywhere near even halfway meeting them. But he knows what the G20 is, he knows that Australia isn’t a landlocked European country just south of Germany, he knows the difference between APEC and OPEC, and he talks in coherent sentences.
That’s a good start.
Robin,
You’ve asked “Is it your view that only those who understand “climate science” (which embraces a vast range of disciplines and specialties) are qualified to have a legitimate view on one of the major economic, cultural and political issues of our time?”
What do you mean by legitimate? Maybe you could give me an example of an ‘illegitimate’ view?
Of course everyone can have a view on anything. There’s still quite a few people who believe the world is flat. Do they have legitimate views? They’d say yes. I’d just laugh. What about you?
Of course, I can see the nuance in your original explanation. But you’re associtaing and allying yourself with people who freely use words like scam and hoax.
The phrase ‘hopelessly wrong’, which you seem to be shying away from, is mild language in their vocabulary.
Still, if you are saying that you don’t feel Prof Jones, all those of like mind, all your countries unis and research instititions are ‘hopelessly wrong’, then I guess that’s something. That’s a start.
Maybe you can outline the areas where you feel there is some hope they might actually have it right?
Max,
You’ve disputed my statement that the message from the scientific community was ‘clear and unambiguous’.
I’ve done as you suggested and taken a look around. And yes, though it does pain me to say it, you may well be right.
This is from the UK’s Royal Society
http://royalsociety.org/page.asp?id=4761
“It has become fashionable in some parts of the UK media to portray the scientific evidence that has been collected about climate change and the impact of greenhouse gas emissions from human activities as an exaggeration.”
And, yes, they do go on to agree with you that the scientific community do need to do more to be clearer about what they are actually saying.
Right, and last week he made reference to Austrian EU members discussing topics in “Austrian”.
Max,
Do the people that live in Austria speak Austrian? I guess the teleprompter flubbed that one.
I’d like to debate the teleprompter. I’d like to ask the teleprompter that’s currently running the U.S. government a few questions…….
By the way, I don’t care if he’s popular outside of the US……the man is a fool.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc6wQMVHhic
Hi Brute,
You asked, “Do the people that live in Austria speak Austrian?”
Last time I checked they talked German (with an Austrian accent plus a regional flair).
Austrian is not a language, as everyone who has passed the 6th grade knows.
Max
PS But, hey, this is the same guy that bows to the waist before the Saudi king and then forgets he did it. But I guess you can’t get them all right all the time.
Hi Peter,
Yes, you are right when you write (5588), “And, yes, they do go on to agree with you that the scientific community do need to do more to be clearer about what they are actually saying.”
I suppose the “scientific community” that is being discussed here includes both the supporters of the premise that AGW is a serious threat as well as those who have stated publicly that they do not support this premise.
And, yes, both sides of the “scientific community do need to do more to be clearer about what they are actually saying”.
So we agree.
I would even say that those who do not support the premise that AGW is a serious threat probably need to be more vociferous in stating their scientific objections to this premise, since they appear to have been drowned out by all the hype being published and aired by the media from the other side of the ongoing debate.
But that’s just my opinion.
Regards,
Max
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThEAO0lt4Dw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hSnEMV58F8
Yep, that was the pinnacle of his magical apology tour…..cowering and genuflecting to the Saudi King.
I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt……maybe he dropped a contact lens or discovered that his shoe was untied.
Here you go Tony, to make up for my Obama diversion.
Wind power is a complete disaster
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/04/08/wind-power-is-a-complete-disaster.aspx
Brute,
Nice clips. I guess it must be a bit galling that the public persona of Obama is one of a smart guy but poor old GW Bush was widely regarded as a dimwit.
It just goes to show that there’s no justice in the world!
Max,
No I don’t think “the ‘scientific community’ that is being discussed here includes both” sides of the argument.
It’s a while since I’ve been there, but I would say that the climate deniers don’t get much of a look in at Carlton Place.
Sorry about that. Maybe you’d like to write to them.
Anyway I’m away for my Easter Break for a few days.
Hi Peter,
With amazement I read your line, “No I don’t think the ’scientific community’ that is being discussed here includes both sides of the argument.”
Hmmm. So a significant portion (albeit arguably a minority) of the “scientific community” is being ostracized and shut out of the scientific debate because they do not agree with what is arguably the “majority”.
Is that the way that climate science works today?
In other fields of science, there are often many diverse opinions that are tolerated, and open debate, challenge of prevailing paradigms and diversity of opinion is even encouraged, in the ongoing search for new scientific knowledge and truth.
I cannot believe that climate science has limited itself to a “majority opinion” without allowing other viable scientific opinions just because they are not in “goose step” with the majority.
This approach would sound a bit like that under the Nazis or Soviet Communists.
I am sure that this is not what you were actually saying, and therefore that, in fact “the ‘scientific community’ that is being discussed here does include both sides of the argument”.
Please elaborate if you do not agree.
Regards,
Max
PS Forget to include it, but enjoy your holiday.
Max
Brute/Max/Peter:
I think it’s pointless discussing the relative verbal abilities, social skills and IQs of Presidents Bush and Obama. What matters is that the US has a new President and, as this article argues persuasively, he seems not to understand science. That is worrying.
Peter Martin, I recommend that you read and consider very carefully what is said in the link provided by Robin just above
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=324081052281380
The author Deming is a geologist and associate professor of Arts and Sciences at the University of Oklahoma.
It’s yet again interesting to demonstrate that geologists, engineers, and other “coalface types” seem to be able to cut through the hype and see what the sensible analysis of CO2 warming really amounts to! (as distinct from the alarmist view)