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, your 5675: I had to cut and paste the Q&A, and then I made my answers “bold”. I suggest cutting and pasting my complete results, then editing accordingly. Once you have the results, you can link to the image and it will display your results graphically.
Good luck!
Hey Max,
Does this look like a catastrophe to you?
or this?
Robin, I see that Peter Martin’s 5668 sneered in part at you:
“About 8 hours ago“, I (Bob) posted the following over at The Guardian-Singh blog, after Pete made some insensitive jokes in my direction following my comments on my colonoscopy yesterday, which I stated to be driven by my family history, of related cancers. It should be added, (perhaps ameliorated), that I had the personal privilege, of previously joking about MY colonoscopy:
It seems to have gone quiet over there, for “about eight hours” following about a dozen posts in the previous two hours.
Oh, Anagram Pete,
More than eight hours to work those three anagrams out?
Here’s another one which could take even longer:
‘When Dad’s face turned grey was it caused by pethidine or pain?’
Please include the ? In your solution.
If it is too hard for you, perhaps I would agree to a modification in the original wording. For instance you might change ‘grey was it’ to ‘to grey from pain or maybe the pethidine’
Hi All
Now this might be an interesting film when it comes out.
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/04/10/peter-foster-an-inconvenient-film.aspx
Barelysane, Reur 5680,
Yes, very interesting, I cant wait for the movie.
There were some really cool comments thereupon.
Peter Martin, Reur 5648, after a series of errors in you pontificating on Ian Plimer, you have finally found-out how to spell his family name. Yes it is Plimer, not Pilmer.
Congratulations Pete: maybe you do have some learning abilities after all!
(Although apology seems to be totally absent within your graces)
Bob_FJ,
As you seem to have spilt over to this blog too, I’ll just copy the posts that you are complaing about so that at least everyone knows what you are talking about.
I know you have an earthy sense of humour and I thought you might appreciate something besides anagrams :-)
As I’ve said on the Guradian blog: you seem a bit grumpy. Maybe your backside is a bit sore? I really do hope that its nothing worse than that.
Anyway just to cheer you up, here is another of my anagrams which you seem to find amusing.
Climate Contrarian > ” Cite Conman Liar Rat ”
or do you think ” Cite Liar Rat Conman” sounds better?
…………………………
Did you tell the hospital that you were a climate sceptic before your colonoscopy visit? It would have been worth their while knowing. You could could have had a “two for the price of one” special.
They could have checked out your brains at the same time.
………………………………..
On second thoughts, it was probably a good idea not to say anything. As climate sceptics are well known for being full of something or other, the hospital may well have considered a colonoscopy to have been technically impossible.
Seriously, that’s me finished with the jokes. And I do hope that all will turn out to be well.
………………………………….
As I said previously I do hope the doctors find nothing wrong. But if they do you could:
1) Claim that there is no medical consensus that you have a genuine problem.
2) Say its all a scam and a hoax to make you get out your chequebook.
3) Start up an internet petition. 20,000 scientists who are prepared to say that in their opinion…..
4) Get out your old medical records. Make the case that whatever it is they have found stopped growing in 1998.
5) If they give you a scan they will need to do 3D computer imaging. Say that you aren’t prepared to be cut open on the basis of GIGO computer models.
6) Scour the internet. You’re bound to find some somewhere who has written an article on how intestinal growths have beneficial effects.
7) Point out that is the doctors couldn’t predict that you were going to get the flu last month (or whenever you did get it last), so what hope do they have of predicting what will happen to your health in the next 2 years?
8) Say the growth pattern is part of a multidecadal oscillation. Just leave things alone for the next ten years and it will go back to normal.
I know that I said no more jokes but there is a serious point to all this!
Peter Martin, Reur 5650, you wrote in part:
Well, you can have your own unproven opinion, which I doubt if any authority of significance would take the slightest notice of, and certainly not me!
I personally have a deep respect for Plimer, and his immediate colleagues such as Chris de Freitus and Bob Carter et al. If Plimer lost money in trying to “legally” prove his point, you should at least respect that he put his money where his mouth was, but lost to the silks. (and “the law” is not necessarily the basis of scientific truth)
BTW, have you read his book: “Telling Lies for God”, and do you also disagree with what he says there. Well, from what you have said elsewhere, I believe you should be in total agreement with him in that book. Yet, when he analysis stuff much closer to his nominal expertise, you seek to rubbish him, even if you do not even know how to spell his name.
Pete, in my opinion, you have severely demoted yourself in terms of rationality to only a touch above MeFinney2, but clearly below Bioluminescence.
I may well ignore you from here-on but engage more with Bioluminescence.
Peter Martin, Reur 5683.
What a load of absolutely ignorant distasteful bollocks.
Please do not write to or about me again.
I intend to ignore you if you do.
I hope you get this very clear message.
However, I suspect that you will try to get the last-word-in. If so, I will simply repeat the above, or something very much along the same lines.
BTW, to other readers here, I believe that Peter Martin is atypical of the Australian population, and I’m embarrassed by it! We have some 20 million other good people here.
Peter,
Your 5683 is a serious line cross, I believe you should get the last word in here, and it should be “sorry”.
(Cancer has also affected my family and friends)
Barnay Eels,
Look. So it has just about every family. The teasing was about the colonoscopy which isn’t the same thing at all.
Lighten up you guys. Fight fire with fire. I could sayberenal too!
Hey Brute,
Yeah. Your NSIDC curves do look like a catastrophe – at least for Mark Serreze and his doomsday predictions on Arctic sea ice.
Maybe this is why he is lying low for now.
But there’s always the good side tracks of “new versus old ice” and “ice getting thinner” (which no one can measure, but it gets the eyes off the growth in ice extent).
Catastrophe has many faces.
But maybe Peter can pick out a curve from last September or August to show us that we are in big trouble (despite the more recent info).
Regards,
Max
Hey Brute,
There is one thing about the NSIDC figures for the Arctic that I do not understand.
In February it was revealed that NSIDC satellite malfunction had caused the underreporting of around 500,000 square kilometers of Arctic sea ice since November 2008. NSIDC admitted to this error.
I have been downloading the monthly measurements each month as they come out.
NSIDC have made no corrections to the November throuh January measurements from those that came out before the error was discovered.
Does it have to take so long to correct an error if the error goes in the direction of exaggerating the ice loss?
Strange!
Max
Hi Peter,
Not to distract you too much from your anagram fun, but from time to time, it’s good to take stock and see what we have been able to resolve in our ongoing debate covering the open scientific questions surrounding the AGW controversy.
Let me summarize this and see where we have reached resolution on any of the points we discussed over the many months our interchange has lasted so far.
We have not questioned the validity of the greenhouse theory, nor whether CO2 is a greenhouse gas nor whether the IPCC estimate is correct that all other anthropogenic forcing factors cancel one another out. We have also questioned neither the validity of the IPCC assumption (based on ice core data rather than actual physical observations) that CO2 level was at a constant “pre-industrial level” of 280 ppmv nor the validity of the Mauna Loa CO2 measurement as a “global” value (TonyB has raised an objection here, based on physical measurements taken prior to 1956, but we have left that discussion aside in our debate.)
We discussed the temperature impact one could theoretically expect from a doubling of atmospheric CO2 from its so-called “pre-industrial level” of 280 ppmv to the anticipated level of 560 ppmv by year 2100.
We concluded that this would result in a theoretical greenhouse warming of around 0.6 to 0.8°C over the entire time period.
This figure was arrived at by using two different independent approaches.
– Subtracting the warming caused by the unusually active 20th century sun (as calculated by several solar scientists) from the total observed 20th century warming and adjusting this for the difference in atmospheric CO2 (using the logarithmic relationship)
– Calculating the theoretical greenhouse warming using the forcing factor for CO2, as estimated by IPCC (Myhre et al.)
Both independent methods give the same result of around 0.6 to 0.8°C.
We also investigated the IPCC suggestion of strongly positive feedbacks, which would multiply the theoretical 2xCO2 warming by a factor of four (to over 3°C) if they were, indeed, real as assumed.
We saw that a major portion of the positive feedback as suggested by IPCC was assumed to be coming from clouds (albeit with an admitted large degree of uncertainty) and that a subsequent study by Spencer et al. based on actual physical observations (rather than just climate model assumptions) showed that this net feedback is actually strongly negative, thereby clearing up this “largest source of uncertainty” on the part of IPCC.
When correcting the assumed 2xCO2 climate sensitivity for this factor, we arrived again at a figure of 0.7°C (of which we have already seen 0.3°C to date), leaving an expected theoretical greenhouse warming from today to 2100 of 0.4°C.
You were unable to provide any physical evidence that any of the above conclusions are false, so we can accept them as correct.
So we have made some progress here, Peter, as I am sure you will agree.
I will move on to other areas where we seem to have reached some sort of conclusion in our discussion in a following post.
Regards,
Max
Max,
That’s because you are a rational, logical, sensible person. In order to understand the workings of the backward, illogical, deranged thinking of the typical Alarmist or government Bureaucrat, you’d have to be insane. You see, up is down, black is white and hot is cold in the delusional mind of the Alarmist (Statist)………you’d have an awful time dealing with the government.
I’ve been trying to get the US government to complete a project for 5 years. My company took matters into our own hands and completed the project in one month with our own money and for 1/20th the price that the government wanted to spend (same scope).
They’ll never correct the NSIDC numbers. It suits their agenda and they embrace mediocrity and sloth. There’s no profit motive because they’re spending other people’s money with no accountability.
Pete,
I’m having a hard time understanding something……..
Will you please explain to me (briefly) how Cap & Trade will lower CO2 emissions and save the world?
Me a crank,
I haven’t forgotten you or JZ’s survey but I’m a bit busy with other things right now. Mainly tied up in boring meetings but I might get time to doodle out a few more anagrams if I think no-one is looking!
Brute,
I can’t do much with your name. Not enough letters. Rebut? Tuber? They’re too easy.
Look, on the cap and trade thing, why don’t you read up on how the SO2 (that’s sulphur dixide ) cap and trade scheme has worked since the 90’s.
Thought up in the USA and has been very successful.
Pete,
Have you been drinking?
Typically, you duck the question…..you can’t explain it……
Brute,
A cap and trade scheme means that you need a permit to discharge pollutant gases. If you fix the number of permits you fix the number of gases. It doesn’t really cost anything overall.
For instance, imagine a group of 10 flatulent people stuck in a confined space such as a lift. They’ve discussed the obvious problem and they have all agreed that it would be just unbearable if everyone succumbed to their natural inclination. But maybe it would be tolerable if just two exceptions were made.
Consquently, two permits are issued and auctioned off. The money raised isn’t lost – its shared around the total group. Those that have lost out in the bidding receive some financial reward to compensate for their discomfort.
Does that make it any simpler to understand?
Hi Peter,
Your simplified analogy for explaining “cap and trade” misses two points.
This is OK for polluant gases, such as SO2, etc. But CO2 is a naturally occurring trace gas in our atmosphere that is essential for all life on our planet, not a pollutant.
The second point you have apparently missed is that we are talking about a “cap and tax” plan, where the “tax” is eventually borne by every man, woman and child on the planet.
Whether this turns out to be $1,500 or $3,000 per household per year, or 3-4 times this amount as some have predicted, it will have a major negative impact on the world economy, without accomplishing anything positive at all.
Be honest about it and call it a “tax”, so that everyone can understand what it will really end up being.
Regards,
Max
Brute,
It really doesn’t matter whether you agree that CO2 is a pollutant or not. The scheme works just the same whatever its definition.
No it doesn’t necessarily mean that the cost is “eventually borne by every man, woman and child on the planet.”
There will be winners and losers of course like there is with everything. But for every loser there will be a winner. The money just doesn’t disappear off to Mars!
My lift example is an oversimplification of course, but essentially that’s the way it works.
I believe that you should be addressing Max in 5698.
You write: “the money doesn’t disappear to Mars”…….where does it go? Who does it go to?
What I do know is that it would be confiscated from me and my family, to address a postulate that has been sold to people as gospel when the truth is that it is anything but verified.
This “rush” to do “something” makes me all the more skeptical……….as in the television ads that proclaim “act in the next 15 minutes to save $9.99” on whatever piece of crap the guy is selling. After all, if you are talking about confiscating my hard earned money you’d better have some rock solid answers to any and all question that I have regarding what you intend to do with it.
Who/What institution would issue these permits?
What industries would they apply to?
Which nations would be bound to comply?
Who sets the price of these permits?
What amount of CO2 is the maximum limit?
How would CO2 emissions be monitored and by whom?
Why does government need to be involved at all? If the situation is dire, than prove AGW and convince people to address it voluntarily.
You see Pete, this is a form of rationing and a tax on productivity. The cost of this massive bureaucratic mess would be borne by the end user, (you and me). Guys like Al Gore and Prince Charles would not be affected as they have buckets of money and, as has been demonstrated, have no intention of changing/altering their lifestyles/business practices to address environmental issues……they just buy their carbon “Indulgences” and continue along their merry way.
Any energy producer would simply absorb the costs of this tax and pass it along to the consumer (it’s called overhead). Any manufacturer would simply do the same thing. I know what you’re thinking…..stick it to “big business”……”make them pay”……..they’ll simply raise prices to cover the costs.
Then, you have nations such as China, India and Russia that have massive quantities of fossil fuels as well as energy hungry economies and populations. China is not going to “play nice” and cripple their economy by purchasing/trading worthless pieces of paper.
What would be the penalty for non-compliance?
Then we have the purpose of rationing energy use as it relates to CO2 in the first place……..the purpose being to “cool” the atmosphere. CO2 has been rising and global temperatures are falling, so there’s no cause and effect. I’d really prefer not to be lied to………….if a politician wants to raise taxes, simply explain why. If the purpose is valid then I don’t have a problem with it. Face it Pete, this idea is nothing more than a feel good tax arbitrarily levied on everyone……………. especially those that can least afford it.
“Prove AGW and convince people to address it voluntarily.”
Well said, Brute.