Mar 172008

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.”

  1. Robin (6821)

    I like to think that the MOD have belatedly discovered that they can get more accurate weather forecasts from Piers Corbyn for about a millionth of the cost!

    That, or they’ve just found some free ones on the interweb… :-)

  2. Another pre-Copenhagen scare in the Guardian – this time by the redoubtable Rajendra Pachauri. There is, he says, “no longer any debate about the need to act”.

    My advice: don’t get involved in the comments – it’ll only drive you nuts.

  3. The BBC has an interesting story here about the findings of a study of the unusually well-preserved fossil of a dinosaur. It is reported that the findings confirm theoretical expectation. Dr Phil Manning, from the team that did the study, described this as “clean science” adding that,

    If you’ve got a hypothesis and you can’t test it, it remains a hypothesis.

    Hmm – so it seems the dangerous AGW hypothesis must be described as “dirty science”. Perhaps the reporter, Jason Palmer, should inform his colleagues who report on climate change.

  4. My apologies for monopolising this thread in recent days. (Where is everyone else? Hello.)

    Worse, this story (from the Financial Times) may not even seem relevant. I think it is – for two wholly disparate reasons, which I’ll explain shortly. But first an extract:

    This year, Britain is likely to incur a fiscal deficit of more than 12 per cent of national income. This figure is completely outside the normal experience of developed countries in peacetime.

    My two comments:

    1. One of the reasons we got into this almost unbelievable situation is that the City of London was (with Wall Street) a world leader in the development of extraordinarily complex financial innovations – such as “correlation trading” (don’t ask), themselves based on hugely complex computer models. Banking whizz kids assured their clients – and the world – that these models could not be wrong. An inconvenient truth was that they didn’t model possible failures adequately. Why? Because the modellers had no “real world” data to input into their models. Sound familiar?

    2. This one is simple. What an appalling time to be imposing huge additional burdens (climate change legislation) on a fundamentally shattered economy.

  5. What other republic, besides the USA, is governed by fools who voted without reading “climate” legislation whose 1,200 pages of rules and regulations will enrich a few and leave the rest scrambling to pay the light bill? That is, if the light turns on. If passed by the Senate, it will be the largest tax increase in the history of the nation. It exists to “save the planet” from a “global warming” that is not happening.

    What other nation would systematically ensure that its vast resources of coal, enough to power plants to produce electricity for the next hundred or two hundred years, not be used because no new plants will be built? Fully fifty percent of our electricity comes from coal, but this nation is about to waste billions of dollars on wind and solar energy—so called “clean” energy—which accounts for about one percent.

    If wind or solar was a sensible way to produce electricity, surely utilities would have invested in it long ago. It isn’t. It never will be. Only a very silly nation would shift billions of dollars to such “clean” and “renewable” energy when it was sitting on top of tons of coal.

    Even if every word about global warming were the immutable gospel truth and even if we never cut down another tree the trail America is leaving behind is conspicuously a brilliant red.

    The culture war is no longer a war between the neo socialists and PC advocates who think the war of ideas is won by just being nice and conservatives who don’t like the idea of America being tinkered with. It has heated up to the level of a social civil war where even though no shots are fired and no blood is shed there are nevertheless real victims and casualties wounded and laying around the perimeters. The saddest thing is that we are too busy following the latest pop craze for it to get to us.

    [Snip. Sorry]

    TonyN; See blog rules and please also be careful about political references unrelated to climate change.

  6. Robin #6829 You’ll find Max and raintempter on RC (Groundhog day thread).

  7. Robin:

    There was an interview with someone from Ipsos-MORI on the BBC Today programme (Monday) here:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8123000/8123821.stm

    The degree of partisanship on the part of the polster is breathtaking. If this item refers to a 2009 update on their polls on attitudes to climate change in 2007 and 2008 that showed significant and increasing scepticism about the science of AGW among the public, it would be interesting to see the results. So far I have not been able to find these on the Ipso-MORI site or references to them elsewhere.

    Jonathan Porritt’s contribution includes a breathtaking reference to something that he often hears ministers say.

  8. TonyN:

    Yes, I heard that programme. And I agree about the partisanship of Ben Page – e.g. his comment that “unfortunately” the British public seem not to agree that it’s human actions that are responsible for climate change. I cannot find MORI’s regular social attitudes results either, although I seem to remember climate change is all lumped together under “environment” which could include matters such as local water pollution.

  9. Hey Robin, I’m still here, reading and enjoying your posts.

    Max

  10. While searching the Ipsos-MORI site for the poll data mentioned in #6832 I stumbled on this:

    http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchtechniques/qualitative/publicresearch/ourclients.aspx

    FOI Act requests for all research relating to climate change commissioned from Ipsos-Mori during the last two years will be going to the first four clients on the list.

  11. Jasper Gee

    Yeah. I am sort of sorry that tempterrain has left us on this site to move on to friendlier territory on the RC Groundhog blog.

    The problem there is that they are quick to censor out posts that are too provocative (i.e. non-supportive of the views of the site moderators).

    But Bob_FJ is also having some fun there, while Peter has gone silent for now.

    Max

  12. Tonto

    You wrote (6830)

    If wind or solar was a sensible way to produce electricity, surely utilities would have invested in it long ago. It isn’t. It never will be. Only a very silly nation would shift billions of dollars to such “clean” and “renewable” energy when it was sitting on top of tons of coal.

    This is a very astute observation.

    I showed earlier that curtailing new or shutting down existing coal plants in the USA (as proposed by Hansen and Gore) would cost 1 trillion dollars for a theoretical reduction in global warming of 0.05 degrees C.

    And this was based on replacing the coal plants with nuclear generation.

    If you tried to do it with wind or solar plants it would cost much more (but it would still only result in a theoretical reduction in global warming of 0.05 degrees C).

    Of course, there are lots of folks that are already smelling the fat profits they can make if these silly proposals go through. And good ol’ Al Gore is in the front of the line. A bonanza!

    Max

  13. Max 6837

    I am pleased to say I have just become ruler of a medium sized country and was interested in your proposition.

    I am very keen on reducing catastrophic global warming and can lay my hands on 100 trillion dollars. A few questions;

    How much can you theoretically reduce my country’s temperature by for that sum?

    Is that reduction guaranteed?

    What lifestyles changes will you expect from me (or more accurately from my subjects)

    What sort of travel restrictions will you need to place on me (or rather my subjects)

    What standard of living will they enjoy compared to today? (as ruler mine won’t change)

    How will it be paid for? ( I have banned the use of the words ‘tax increases’-instead ‘investments in the green infrastructure’ is the new ‘in’ phrase.)

    What sort of knock on benefits will there be; More sunshine? Less storms? Just the right amount of rain and only at night?

    I eagerly await your written quotation and detailed proposal.

    TonyB (Climate Emperor)

  14. Robin, Reur 6829, you wrote in part:

    My apologies for monopolising this thread in recent days. (Where is everyone else? Hello.)

    And, further to Max’s 6836, I can repeat/confirm that although we both read well over here, we are rather busy teasing Gavin Schmidt at RC, leaving less time to contribute here.
    Much to my surprise, I’ve had some 15 or so posts accepted over there with only one minor snip and the majority provoking responses from Gavin himself. (But that’s nothing! Max has had a scolding from Mike, seemingly in an “executive” statement over the top of Gavin, and it seems apparent that this was from none-other than you-know-who, of Manna fame.)
    I’ve not had that privilege, but can boast to have managed to get Bart Verheggen and Kevin McKinney, to crawl out of the woodwork to protest at some of my inconvenient comments. These two guys run their own alarmist websites, and appear to be at least guest contributors on RC, or at least VIP‘s there.
    Unfortunately, the moderator(s) over there are still holding my recent post# 936 to Gavin, which might be a tad inconvenient for him. On the other hand, a later more innocuous post from me, #940, has been accepted.

    It’s been great fun!
    Oh, and BTW, some of the regular fruitcakes such as:
    Dhogaza, Mark (aka “yeah whatever” suggested Jasper), Peter Martin, James, and David B Benson, seem to have gone rather quiet….. Apart from the odd irrelevant nonsense.
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Jasper Gee; I love your AKA Raintempter for Peter Martin!
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Meanwhile, we have some serious winter type stuff here (Melbourne NE suburb) day#2, with more forecast. I took the dog for a walk. She was not as well rugged-up as me, and I reckon had she been male, her nuts would have dropped off because of the wind-chill factor.

  15. Bob_FJ (and Max): thanks for the link to RC. I haven’t visited it for a while so it was interesting to do so again. What to say? Just this: you are both doing a great job there – engaging in quite serious debate with their “stars”. I wonder what’s happened – why do you think they seem more ready these days to have (by the standards of that site) a reasonable dialogue with sceptics?

    Well done, both!

  16. Dear TonyB (Climate Emperor)

    Thank you very much for your fascinating letter, which I have read with great interest.

    I have discussed your proposition with some business friends in the Cayman Islands, Liechtenstein and Palermo, and all believe that there could be a possible area of mutual benefit here.

    The 100 trillion dollars of taxpayer funding from guilt-driven, climate-aware governments in the more affluent societies of Europe and North America should be no problem whatsoever. I am pleased to learn from your letter that you see this in exactly the same way. As you suggest, ‘investments in the green infrastructure’ will be the key mission statement for our venture.

    Sole rights of access to the vast natural resources in your great nation would be a part of the trade-off.

    Of critical importance would be that we limit the number of direct beneficiaries from our project. For example, we should not consider too heavily the standard of living of your subjects (a rather large number of individuals who are living in close to abject poverty, I am told), but rather concentrate on the standard of living of those (beside yourself, of course) that implement your decisions in your great nation. I assume that you have these individuals under full control, and that they, in turn, have the masses in equally firm control. If slight improvements in the plight of the masses are required to avoid uprisings, etc. we would leave this at your discretion to decide and implement.

    The business partners we have selected will ensure confidentiality, discretion and enforceability, the three pillars upon which our joint cooperation will firmly stand.

    There would be no imposed travel restrictions on yourself, other than those, which you may have cautiously self-imposed in the interest of maintaining the security and strength of your home power base.

    Lifestyle changes should not be a problem. In your own self-interest, you should avoid publicity, great shows of wealth or any contact with the press whatsoever (except for pre-agreed formal press releases), as these could only cause others to become jealous or resentful.

    As far as the climatic “knock on benefits” are concerned, we can arrange to have these reported as required for the desired effect, through our contacts at the influential UK Met Office and elsewhere. If, for example, you want more storms in some part of the world to increase the awareness factor, these can be found and reported extensively, with emphasis on loss of human life, etc. If you want more sunshine and just the right rain to demonstrate that climate progress is being made under your leadership, these can also be called off more or less on demand.

    Reducing the temperature of your country is only a matter of proper reporting of the data. In addition we can relocate thermometers from the inner cities to the countryside or to the tops of mountains.

    Even more importantly, if you want a whole army of easily convinced climate alarmists to give your efforts the proper global visibility, these are already eagerly waiting in the wings and can be mobilized almost instantaneously at the drop of a climate model study, with some leadership from our business partner in Palermo, if required.

    We will need the proper pay-offs from the hundreds, if not thousands, of businesses that will benefit from the climate hysteria; again confidentiality, discretion and enforceability will be the key factors to success in collecting these.

    There are still many details that need definition and resolution, but all in all, I believe our cooperation in a new global climate effort under your esteemed leadership will be of great mutual benefit to us all.

    Eagerly awaiting your further details, I remain,

    Your abject servant,

    MaxA

  17. Hi All

    This might be of interest

    http://www.climatechangereconsidered.org/

    If you don’t fancy the $150 ish price tag to buy the book, you seem to be able to view the content using the menus on the left.

    Happy reading

  18. MaxA

    Exciting news! We have decided to rebrand my country Eco-britain.co.uk. New passports will be issued immediately showing our dynamic new green identity which will include a micro chip so we can check the carbon usage of our citizens. Everyone will have 100 free green credits! Myself and members of the Govt will have the gold version offering unlimted carbon usage.

    It will take only 2 CG to travel to Dover. It will take 500 if you wish to travel abroad-although why anyone would wish to do that when we are creating a green paradise here I do not know.

    We will be increasing our army size by 25% and they will also be permitted unlimited travel.

    Now, I must admit I was a little concerned about the rather vague nature of your quotation. In fact you do not seem to have directly answered a single one of my questions. Whilst I can easily sell eco-britain.co.uk to my citizens by the use of ‘settled science’ I do need a few figures from this settled science that I can release to the media.

    I repeat the questions below for your convenience and would be greatful if you could answer them in turn with actual facts (using the wikepedia definition of a ‘fact’) and figures which obviously need to be suitably exciting and convincing.

    “How much can you theoretically reduce my country’s temperature by for that sum?

    Is that reduction guaranteed?

    What lifestyles changes will you expect from me (or more accurately from my subjects)

    What sort of travel restrictions will you need to place on me (or rather my subjects)

    What standard of living will they enjoy compared to today? (as ruler mine won’t change)

    How will it be paid for? ( I have banned the use of the words ‘tax increases’-instead ‘investments in the green infrastructure’ is the new ‘in’ phrase.)

    What sort of knock on benefits will there be; More sunshine? Less storms? Just the right amount of rain and only at night?”

    Thank you for your continued attention. I need to mention that we have opened negotiations with a similar organisation to your own and they have already sent us some extremely convincing figures. They are called Gore Hansen enterprises-do you know them? Are they reliable?

    Yours

    TonyB Climate emperor of eco-britain.co.uk-
    ” a green paradise-because you’re worth it.”

  19. TonyB

    reur 6844

    I’ve just twigged how incredibly appropriate your name and initial are ;)

    Nice!

  20. TonyB Climate emperor of eco-britain.co.uk-
    “a green paradise-because you’re worth it.”

    LOL! As climate emperor, you will surely need a cadre of loyal, green-fearing climate bureaucrats, enjoying plenty of carbon-fuelled perks, while oppressing the plebs. May I join?? Pretty please!!

    The eco-Britain idea reminds me of EDF’s green Union Jack ad, which is appearing on billboards everywhere now. “Green Britain Day”, or something equally dire-sounding…

  21. Robin, Reur 6841, you wrote in part concerning RealClimate’s notorious censorship reputation:

    I wonder what’s happened – why do you think they seem more ready these days to have (by the standards of that site) a reasonable dialogue with sceptics?

    Well me too; I’m very puzzled because I’ve had going on 20 posts accepted, most of which I thought pushed what might be their tolerance level of inconvenient rational information. But I’m new there, and have maybe not yet earned the title of public enemy No. 1 that Max probably has with Gavin. (For instance after Max a while ago compared Gavin’s qualifications with those of some others)
    Maybe it is a case of them becoming sensitive to the awful blogosphere reputation that they have accumulated, and that they now want to do a bit of PR?
    Maybe they have changed the way that their website processes comments. What happens in my case is that when I make a post, it is immediately accepted and given a post number, but with the flag: “awaiting moderation” Meanwhile, whilst it sits there, other fully cleared posts appear, continuing the number series. So, if the moderator ultimately deletes my post, what is the consequence in post numbering? If it is just described as snipped, what are the implications to any readers that may see a pregnant issue?
    One of the interesting things is that my last two posts that have been accepted, have, in my view made two of their buddies (Kevin McKinney & Bart Verheggen) look rather silly, and yet neither Gavin or “Mike” have so-far leapt to their defence.
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Sheez, it’s cold here; I’ve come in early again today, so am blogging early this avo’

  22. BobFJ #6840

    Peter Martin is also capable of making an “emptier rant”.

  23. Dear TonyB
    (Climate emperor of eco-britain.co.uk-
    ” a green paradise-because you’re worth it.”)

    I must admit that I was a bit taken back by your last letter, in which you identified your nation as the United Kingdom. From your earlier letter I had assumed that you were the leader of a resource-wealthy central African nation with a rather under-privileged local population.

    After discussing the new situation with our prospective partners in Liechtenstein, the Cayman Islands and Palermo, we believe that the project is still valid but the basic concept has to be re-evaluated.

    I am told that the natural resources in your nation have been fairly well depleted, or are on the way of becoming so. Solar radiation does not appear to be a resource with which you have been blessed and wind, while a bit more prevalent in your fine nation than sun, appears to be available mostly off-shore, from whence it will be more costly to harvest, so hardly “worth a fiddler’s f…”, as they say in your fine nation, I am told.

    The sum of 100 trillion was expressed in U.S. dollars. I presume this has not changed.

    You asked, ““How much can you theoretically reduce my country’s temperature by for that sum?”

    A recent study has shown that a 1 trillion dollar investment (to curtail all new “death-train” power plants after 2010 in the USA and replace half of the existing ones there by 2050) would result in the reduction of global warming by year 2050 of exactly 0.05 degrees C. I believe with some “economy of scale” we should be able to do at least 40% better than 0.05°C per trillion $, so that with your 100 trillion $ we should be able to.reduce global warming by 2050 by 7°C (± 3.5°C).

    For your great nation this would mean the start of a new Ice Age, with glacial expansion possibly as far south as Birmingham, and wonderful new year-round winter sports opportunities in the hilly country. The climate in Scotland would become only slightly more miserable than it is today, with an appropriate increase in whisky consumption to be introduced as an anti-freeze measure, to the delight of the hardy Scotsmen.

    We can guarantee this reduction as compared to the normalized global warming we would anticipate without our efforts.

    Our partners have suggested a down payment of half the total sum at the start of our joint venture, with time payments of 1 trillion $ per year for the next 40 years and the final payment of 10 trillion $ to be paid as a “performance payment”, for example if only 3.5°C of global warming has been averted by year 2050, only half of the final payment would be due.

    The current UK MetOffice forecast of anticipated warming per decade will be used to determine the warming that would have been reached had we not undertaken our massive mitigation efforts.

    The calculation example would then look as follows:

    UK Met Office (under your full control) tells us that the geographically and annually averaged temperature of your country today is 13.7°C and forecasts, say, 0.2°C warming per decade for the next 5 decades (until 2050). This equals a “normalized” warming of 1.0°C and a normalized temperature of 14.7°C by 2050.

    If our joint efforts have been able to avert 7°C warming, this means that the geographically and annually averaged temperature of your country will have been lowered to the level of 7.7°C, and we would receive full payment.

    If, on the other hand, we have only been able to avert 3.5°C warming, and the geographically and annually averaged temperature of your county (as established by your Met Office) has only sunk by 3.5° to 11.2°C, the “performance payment” would be cut in half.

    We would also suggest that we consider a “bonus” clause, under which we would receive additional payment for any cooling of the geographically and annually averaged temperature of your county (as established by your Met Office), which exceeds the contractually established value. Here one could consider an added “bonus” payment of 1 trillion $ for every full degree of additional cooling (no payment for partial degrees).

    You ask about lifestyle changes for yourself (as the partner who signs the contract and brings up the 100 trillion dollars). I would suggest that a contract signing fee of 1% of the total value (or 1 trillion $) be transferred via our partners in Liechtenstein to a Cayman Island account for your personal use in managing your lifestyle changes.

    As far as the lifestyle of your subjects is concerned, I would move with caution here. A small fraction of your trillion dollar fee properly divided up and doled out would go a long way to making the more influential and vocal individuals in your society deliriously happy and fully supportive of your leadership. There is no need worrying too much about the rest; they have shown that they can endure great hardship without becoming restless, due to a rather unique trait generally referred to as a “stiff upper lip”. In the worst case, our partner from Palermo can provide the proper incentives to calm down any restless elements.

    As I indicated earlier, your travel restrictions will be self-imposed, in the interest of avoiding any eroding of your local power base during prolonged periods of absence.

    As far as the masses as concerned, they have put up with foreign travel restrictions in the past (Attlee 1947); refer to earlier paragraph on “stiff upper lip”.

    You ask: “How will it be paid for? (I have banned the use of the words ‘tax increases’-instead ‘investments in the green infrastructure’ is the new ‘in’ phrase.)”

    I fully agree with your approach “investments in the green infrastructure” along with “stiff upper lip” (see above) should go a long way to making the 100 trillion dollars seem painless.

    I have also discussed the “knock on” benefits in my earlier message. As long as you maintain firm control of the reporting office, these should all be no problem.

    Things can be reported more positively (to show the impact of your climate leadership) or more negatively (to show imminent disasters that might occur if the “investments in the green infrastructure” were not made), as needed for the occasion.

    As for your discussions with GHE, we are, of course, fully aware of this organization.

    Our partner in Palermo tells us that this group lacks the basic honesty and business intergity required in order to be considered as a serious contender for such a major venture as you are proposing. In addition, there is the inherent danger that one of the partners in the mentioned firm is what is commonly referred to as “a loose cannon”, representing an inherent danger of instability to any major undertaking; the other has the “savior of the planet” syndrome, which could lead to a personal agenda which diverges from the project mission statement or vision.

    But, of course, it is up to you to decide with whom you would like to realize this great project.

    Hoping to hear more from you, I remain,

    Your most obedient and admiring servant,

    MaxA

  24. Warning: long comment alert.

    [benign snip]

    TonyN: In fact this comment is so interesting that I have asked Robin if I can put it up as a guest post. Should be online tomorrow morning, but there’s trout and a bottle of white wine in the offing for supper. If anyone has seen it already then please save comments for later

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