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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manacker (661) — I see you are still at it about things you do not, in the slight3est, understand. Computational experimentation is used in almost all fields of science and engineering to supliment theory and physical expeerimentation.
These computer models have become so good that, rather to my surprise,
http://windfuels.com/index.htm#
patent applications are being filed without any physical experimentation nor demonstration. Shocking, what?
Peter,
I’d be interested to read your thoughts regarding using fewer plastics, (for instance) and how the use/manufacturer of plastics contributes to global warming.
In my lifetime, I have seen society move from reusing glass bottles to abandoning glass, (for example) in favor of plastics.
We could forgo using plastics and use the excess oil for home heating oil, gasoline and electrical generation!
When I was a kid, a good source of pocket money would be to collect empty glass bottles and reclaim the deposits. Which solved a part of the general litter problem too.
The vast majority of people would have no problem with, and would favour, a return to that system. Although the soft drink maunufacturers and brewers do seem to hate it. So, that’s one clear example of where the democratic wishes of the majority is trumped by the vested interest of business. They would claim that they have a right to sell what they please, no doubt.
I’m all in favour of less waste. Less wasteful use of energy too. I don’t have a problem with extra taxes on big gas guzzling SUVs. That means I have to pay less for my fuel efficient 1300cc car! If you want a warm house, either move to Queensland where the sun gives you that for free or put in some extra insulation.
Mr. Benson,
Post this over at Romm’s site; see if it stays……
Jul 21, 2008
Do As Al Says, Not As Al Does
By Lorne Gunter, National Post
On Thursday, former U. S. vice-president Al Gore delivered a major address calling on his country to abandon all fossil fuels within 10 years. By 2018, U. S. electricity and fuel should come entirely from “renewable energy and truly clean, carbon-free sources,” he said. Tickets to the event encouraged attendees to “please use public transit, bicycling or other climate-friendly means” to reach the lecture hall. So how did Mr. Gore and his retinue arrive? In two Lincoln Town Cars and a full-sized SUV that sat idling with the air conditioners blasting while the Gore party was inside. Remember, too, the Nobel prizewinning environmentalist lives in a Tennessee mansion that produces a carbon footprint 20 times that of the average American home. A sizeable chunk of his personal fortune comes from royalties on a zinc mine which had to be temporarily closed five years ago in part because the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency ruled it one of the worst-polluting mine sites in America. Illegal toxins were frequently discharged into nearby rivers.
But take heart, there is increasing evidence that man-made carbon dioxide may not be causing global warming. Indeed, there is increasing debate in the scientific community whether there is even any warming occurring at all. Mr. Gore might just be able to keep going from jet to limo to estate guilt-free (if not carbon-free) for as long as he wishes.
On Tuesday, the Associated Press reported that seven mountain glaciers in northern California were advancing. They joined glaciers in southern Norway, Sweden, the New Zealand Alps and the Hindu Kush mountains of Pakistan. Indeed, worldwide, there are nearly half as many glaciers advancing as retreating. How did the AP explain this? Well, all the shrinking glaciers it mentioned in its story were melting due to global warming, while the growing ones were “benefitting from changing weather patterns.” Glacier melt is proof of a climate crisis, while–on the same planet, under the same global conditions –glacier advance is chalked up as a mere natural phenomenon.
So I’m sure they’re entirely inconsequential, but here, anyway, are some anecdotes that cast doubt on the notion that emissions from our SUVs and power plants are dangerously harming the climate. Greenland isn’t melting. And while Arctic sea ice may have thinned in the past three decades by about 3% per decade, according to the U. S. National Snow and Ice Date Center, Antarctic ice (which is about 20 times as voluminous as the Arctic kind) has grown by 1% per decade. Also, after last summer’s record melt in the Arctic, this summer’s melt in Antarctica was the smallest on record. And NASA satellites have found that Arctic Sea ice coverage this year is more than one million square kilo-metres greater than last year’s, greater than the average of the last three years and 10-20 centmetres thicker than in 2007. According to observations by the Danish Meteorological Institute, we “have to go back 15 years to find ice expansion so far south.”
Snow coverage in North America this winter was greater than at any time in recorded history. China had its worst winter in a century, and the southern hemisphere its worst in the past 50 years. And while global temperatures increased slightly in June, through the end of May, the nine-month decline in temperatures beginning in September was greater (0.8C) than all the warming of the 20th century (0.6C). All of this may prove nothing (although if these signals pointed toward warming, you can bet they’d be billed as proof a coming climate catastrophe). But they should at least give Mr. Gore comfort that he need not sacrifice his high-carbon lifestyle just to prove he can walk the walk.
Peter,
I already pay more by using more gasoline in my gas guzzling truck, so I’m paying more taxes than you are and contributing more to the government coffers.
How about this….. You should be required to pay additional taxes because you use the same highway system and contribute less to its upkeep…… I drive 20 miles I contribute $.60……you drive 20 miles and contribute just $.30.
1300cc’s???? What the hell is that, a motorcycle?
I didn’t know things were so bad over there in Australia. You should move to the US and get a better job, buy a real car……collect some soda bottles as a sideline…..
http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/003271.html
July 21, 2008
Denying the Climate Crisis: A Comment from Jim Peden
Someone please help me out here. Everyone is yelling about fixing the “climate crisis”, but I still can’t find it – the crisis, that is.
There appears to be no significant change in either the frequency or intensity of hurricanes and in fact the last two seasons have been pretty quiet. Katrina hit land as a pretty standard CAT 3 and hurricane intensity isn’t measured by the measure of property damage at any rate.
Global “temperatures” appear to be dropping ( if that term has any meaning at any rate ) and the solar scientists are complaining about a quiet sun which is starting to show many of the same characteristics as the Maunder Minimum, which led to the “little ice age”. Well, that’s a crisis, I suppose, but not the same color as the present one.
Sea levels continue to rise a minuscule amount each year as they have since the last ice age when sea level was perhaps 400 feet lower than it is today. I just can’t see New York under water anytime in the 21st century at the present observed rates which don’t seem to be changing.
Even the oceans seems to be cooling a bit based on data from the new diving buoy system, but perhaps NOAA is cooking the data and we can’t trust them any more than we can trust NASA anymore.
The Antarctic Ice Pack continues to grow and is now larger than ever in the 30+ years we’ve been able to take highly accurate radar altimeter measurements. The Arctic Ice continues to expand and shrink annually as it seems inclined to do, and we note some pretty good sized volcanoes have recently been discovered on the Arctic Ocean floor which might be helping the shrinking part a bit.
Polar bear populations are at near record levels and seem healthy, and even I have seen them playing around on floating ice chunks in the Arctic summer. They are a terrestrial animal, after all, as anyone can see who visits the Churchill area in the summer and takes a polar bear cruise on one of their giant bear-proof buses.
Droughts and floods seem to be more strongly correlated with changes in ENSO and his friends than with a one degree temperature rise over the span of a hundred years, but maybe I’m missing something.
When I wrote the WE Campaign suggesting they take a closer look at things before falling off the turnip truck I immediately started receiving email bulletins from them referring to me as a “fellow campaigner”, so I guess I now know how they grew to be a “million strong”.
So, while hordes of folks continually call for Weapons of Mass Taxation to be hauled out to fight the “climate crisis”, I still can’t seem to find the crisis anywhere and note that the likely beneficiaries of carbon taxes and such will be the folks tolling the alarm.
As I said at the beginning: I’m having trouble locating the crisis, so I’m hoping some of the many experts here on this forum can give me a little guidance.
Jim Peden
Middlebury,
Vermont, USA
This comment posted by Jim Peden in this thread at popular blog realclimate.org was disallowed. I tend to think it is the alarmist scientists that are really in denial?
Jim Peden is Webmaster of Middlebury Networks and Editor of the Middlebury Community Network, spent some of his earlier years as an Atmospheric Physicist at the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh and Extranuclear Laboratories in Blawnox, Pennsylvania, studying ion-molecule reactions in the upper atmosphere. As a student, he was elected to both the National Physics Honor Society and the National Mathematics Honor Fraternity, and was President of the Student Section of the American Institute of Physics. He was a founding member of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry, and a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. His thesis on charge transfer reactions in the upper atmosphere was co-published in part in the prestigious Journal of Chemical Physics. The results obtained by himself and his colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh remain today as the gold standard in the AstroChemistry Database. He was a co-developer of the Modulated Beam Quadrupole Mass Spectrometer, declared one of the “100 Most Significant Technical Developments of the Year” and displayed at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.
Brute,
Well my little car is fine for city transport which is all I need it for. If there is a reason for driving a bigger car I can’t quite see it. I’m not yet one of those old blokes who dodders around at 40 kph in a big 3 litre car. There is a theory that some males choose big cars to offset deficiencies in other parts of their anatomy :-)
More seriously you guys should make the switch from cars doing 20mpg to ones averaging more like 40mpg. If you were making the argument to Democrats, you’d emphasise the environmental and conservational benefits. To Republicans, the argument would be that it’s every American’s patriotic duty to help reduce dependency on Middle Eastern oil.
Max, 670, item 2),
First of all Max, I’ve retreated inside again late afternoon because of AGW. Tried to take the dog for a walk but I figured, what with her tail between her legs she was not enjoying it. We are back home, heater going full blast, and me warming to a glass of Shiraz.
You wrote in part:
“…{Zurich banks} there was a recent robbery attempt by an environmentally aware bank robber. When he asked the teller to empty out the cash drawer into a bag the reply was “paper or plastic?” As he was agonizing over the environmental impact of this decision, the Stadtspolizei came…”
Here is something related, that is indelibly etched in my mind, from back in the 80’s when I was working in N. California:
I was behind a lady at a supermarket check-out, and she answered to the enquiry; ‘Paper or plastic‘?, with………………. wait for it; wait, wait, wait;
‘Paper inside plastic please’!
Max, 670, item 1)
Your proposal to use kangaroo hide for environmentally friendly home construction purposes, (for fundie greenies), makes sense to me….. Possibly also an export trade for like-souls in the USA?
Unfortunately, there are problematic rival Gaia schisms. There have been American and other foreign activists that have protested loudly about the “slaughter” of kangaroos. (And of course, the louder a minority is, and which the media picks-up-on, the more effective it is than the majority quietly shaking their heads in the background)
One of the things that these goodie goodies apparently do not realise, is that the “slaughter” is only in areas where the animals are in plague proportions, and that the reason for their over-abundance, is that they have benefited from anthropogenic creation of vast areas of grazing land, jointly with artificial watering holes installed for the purpose of providing for farm animals.
These foreign fruitcakes scream about the slaughter of an endangered species. Shees!
They are hopping around in mobs of hundreds near where I am….. that’s the big Eastern Greys, and we love them despite the odd SERIOUS road-smash. They look cute on some golf courses, camping grounds and the like. Most people here adore them.
Yep, that’s right, they are endangered, just like those cuddly Polar Bears!
Peter Martin 682,
Whilst I actually agree with some points in your post, because “Peak Oil” (however it may be defined), SCARES me. But; you went far into the daft-zone with:
“There is a theory that some males choose big cars to offset deficiencies in other parts of their anatomy”
I declare with equal authority, unless you can prove otherwise:
“There is a theory that some males possessing abnormally small genitalia, recognise their reality by operating equally tiny cars ”
Furthermore, I believe your statement of theory is utterly irrelevant bullshit, in the Oz dictionary definition proffered by me earlier!
David B. Benson 676 wrote in part:
Max has referred to some computer models as GIGO, which is an acronym new to me in Australia, and which I deduce to mean: Garbage in = garbage out! My more long established Anglo version would be SISO, where S is a more vulgar and smelly equivalent of G. I’m also an engineer, and am fully aware that computers are a handy tool.
LET THE TRUMPETS SOUND!
DBB has found a computer analysis that does not need testing? Wow!
Tell us all DBB, are you not aware of any computer based projections that have been proved wrong?
Have you ever listened to the sound recording of the Russian astronauts, (with English subtitles) taken by two Italian brothers in Torino that hacked-in, as the said astronauts fried during re-entry?
Oh, OK, that’s right, Russian computers aint no good, right?
Re the Channel 4 controversy, some reports are rather better balanced – see this for example.
Brute: you asked (674) about the origin of the Ofcom ruling. Well, it’s an “independent” regulator set up by Act of Parliament with the duty (re the broadcast media) to, inter alia, apply “adequate protection for audiences against offensive or harmful material … [and] adequate protection for audiences against unfairness or the infringement of privacy.” Members of the public can complain about what they see as infringements – and, as here, it publishes its findings. Freedom of speech? Well, I dunno – but note this post from an American to the article I refer to above:
I referred yesterday to an BBC article (link) about the Ofcom decision re Channel 4, noting that its main illustration was the long discredited hockey-stick graph. What’s especially deplorable about this is that the author, referring to Channel 4, complained that “a public service broadcaster should not be allowed to deceive the public about science” and should not have “recycled long discredited myths … in an apparent attempt to massage data in order to support their desired conclusions”. Do I detect a whiff of hypocrisy?
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png
Pete,
Way back when, you predicted that the Arctic would be ice free this year. How do you account for the +/- 1 Million Square Kilometers of ice this year over last despite the “dangerously” high level of CO2?
Oil is NOT a fossil fuel and AGW is non-science
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/3952
Comments?
Ofcom Decision: A Humiliating Defeat for Bob Ward and the Myles Allen 37
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=3328
I’m not sure when the Arctic will be ice free. I didn’t say that it would be this year.
Last year the summer ice minimum showed a record low. See:
REF LINK
If you look at the graph on the above link you can see that the ice extent was about 1.8 sq million km less,at the minimum of last year, than you would have expected on the basis of the long term trend line.
It’s too early to say for sure what it will be this year but if you are claiming that there is another million sq km, that may mean that we’ll end up with approximately ‘only’ 0.8 million sq km less that we might have expected on the same basis. Well whoopee!!
My guess is that we’ll most likely be back closer to the long term trend line this year and that 2008 will turn out to be the second or third worst year on record.
Peter Martin 692,
You prophesise that 2008 will turn out to be the second or third worst year on record
(Concerning sea-ice coverage in the Arctic)
I take it that when you say worst, you mean in your own view that the least coverage of sea ice is a bad thing for humanity.
When you say “On record”, will you please identify to us precisely what year ZERO is on your record base-line?
Could it be 1979 perhaps?
Peter,
If rising CO2 levels are causing the global temperature to rise, why is there a greater amount of Arctic ice on July 22nd 2008 than there was on July 22nd 2007? Wouldn’t the rising temperatures cause the ice to diminish over time?
I enjoyed and recommend this article by Philip Stott. Here’s a taster (starting with a quotation from an article by David Aaronovitch in today’s (London) Times):
Absolutely. This is something I have been noting, if less pithily and less succinctly, for over ten years. What really got up European snobberies was not the fact that the Bush administration wasn’t doing anything about ‘global warming’ (actually, the US has often done far more practically-speaking than Europe), but a deep irritation that the Toxic Texan resolutely refused to play the European hypocritical game of hand-wringing and talking-the-talk, while doing pretty well zilch of note.
Also note his comments about Ofcom and Channel 4.
I’m sorry – I finger trouble. My last post should have read:
I enjoyed and recommend this article by Philip Stott. Here’s a taster (starting with a quotation from an article by David Aaronovitch in today’s (London) Times):
Also note his comments about Ofcom and Channel 4.
“Could it be 1979 perhaps?” No.
As the NSIDC put it “The Northwest Passage, through the channels of the Canadian Archipelago, opened for the first time in human memory, this [2007]melt season.” Even I can remember earlier than 1979, and I guess there are those around in the Arctic who can remember back at least as far as the 1920’s. So, it follows that the NSIDC are saying that even during the 1940’s warm period the ice was more persistant.
I know the the sceptics fall-back position on AGW is to say that it may not be a bad thing. However, the NSIDC position on the changing Arctic climate is that “the implications for global climate, as well as Arctic animals and people, are disturbing.”
Its all very well to like warmer weather. If so, then move closer to the tropics rather than argue for the earth’s climate to be warmed generally.
“If rising CO2 levels are causing the global temperature to rise, why is there a greater amount of Arctic ice on July 22nd 2008 than there was on July 22nd 2007? Wouldn’t the rising temperatures cause the ice to diminish over time?”
This is a rather naive question and shows a lack of any concept of statistical variation.
For example, if you look at the way oil prices have risen over the last year or two you’ll see periods where prices have actually fallen, temporarily. However, only a fool would argue , because the price between two dates actually showed a fall,that this showed that there was no relationship between the rising price of oil and increased demand for the product.
It is exactly the same principle at work with changing ice levels and a warming climate.
Pete,
As a matter of fact, retail gasoline prices have dropped here recently. I’m not certain why….market fluctuations, President Bush lifting the Executive ban on offshore drilling…..I do know that the noise is growing VERY loud in Congress to lift the Congressional ban on offshore rigs and open up ANWR for exploration/drilling. Perhaps the speculators see a storm coming or OPEC figures they better make their money now before the bottom drops out. I don’t know.
I do know I made quite a load of dollars recently with oil stocks…..wish I would have sold a week earlier……but still, a tidy sum.
Your analogy of oil prices and Arctic ice extent doesn’t wash. There is no “demand” for Arctic ice…..there also is no “supply” of Arctic ice…….Arctic sea ice is not “manufactured” or mined or extracted or bought and sold on any exchange that I know of. It isn’t a commodity….it isn’t subject to the same variables or market forces…..not even remotely.
Peter: this is devoid of any hint of religion or politics – it’s exclusively about the science. Just a polite reminder: please reply to the two questions I put to you at post 528. Hint: you may find it useful to read post 625 first.
(Tony – 700 posts. Congratulations!)