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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to TonyN #8100
To be fair, the moderators at Guardian Environment reply to complaints in a reasonable fashion. I’d complained that often a comment of mine would elicit a reply, and my response wouldn’t appear, eliciting a comment like “.. the Denier disappears or doesn’t respond to the question”. You’re not allowed to mention the fact that your comment has been moderated, so it’s Catch 22 in Kafkaland.
When I complained, I got this reply:
“Judging by your posting history, I note that your main interest is arguing whether climate change is happening. My advice would be to attempt to keep your comments to threads that explicitly deal with this subject.”
Of course, the Guardian never asks: “Is climate change happening?” but only “how can we persuade people that climate change is happening?” or “Why do some people not believe that climate change is happening?” etc. So sarcastic or dismissive comments get through more often than mentions of Briffa or LIndzen. I keep at it though. The reactions of the faithful when you touch a raw nerve are a fascinating study in psychology.
TonyB
Thanks for link to your elephants project over at Air Vent.
Very interesting.
Max
Max
I see my old friend Ernst Beck has submitted a paper to the Recent (virtual) Climate conference
http://www.klima2009.net/de/papers/4/6
The more I learn of it the more history demonstrates Beck is correct regarding co2.
tonyb
Robin,
You say:
“You might also ask them if they think that, as he wasn’t a tailor, the small boy was ineligible to point out that the Emperor was naked”
However, and unlike you guys, the small boy wasn’t blind to the evidence before him!
I’m actively involved with several local charities – concerned, inter alia, with “community food production and wildlife conservation” schemes. Many (most?) of my colleagues (all good, well-meaning people) believe strongly (passionately?) that a major justification for these schemes is the threat of man-made global warming. When I express serious scepticism (something I usually avoid as I strongly support these schemes and “carbon reduction” can be a useful basis for of funding), few are able to argue their corner. But instead they commonly respond that, even if I’m right, we have to face the fact that “peak oil” is looming.
Well, it seems that may be another false perception. in artical published in the Scientific American (October 2009, Vol 301, No 4), Leonardo Maugeri, head of strategy at the Italian energy company ENI, agues otherwise. There’s a piece by him in the WSJ of 4 November – here. Maugeri makes three points (each of which is expanded in the article):
It’s worth reading.
I’ve noticed that you guys are very keen to compare yourselves with Galileo. As in JamesP’s:
“I think Galileo had similar problems with the establishment…”
There are other examples you could choose. How about that well known crank, Ron Hubbard, of scientology fame? I’m sure Ron would have had a few ‘similar problems with the establishment’ too.
I know you climate change deniers think that Wiki is in the hands of the hoaxers but you may recognise some of your own traits in this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crank_%28person%29
Do climate change deniers?
1. seriously misunderstand the mainstream opinion to which they believe that they are objecting,
2. stress that they have been working out their ideas for many decades, and claim that this fact alone entails that their belief cannot be dismissed as resting upon some simple error,
3. compare themselves with Galileo or Copernicus, implying that the mere unpopularity of some belief is in itself evidence of plausibility,
4. claim that their ideas are being suppressed, typically by secret intelligence organizations, mainstream science, powerful business interests, or other groups which, they allege, are terrified by the possibility of their allegedly revolutionary insights becoming widely known.
A warm welcome back, Peter. As for “climate change deniers”, well that’s easy: no contributor to this thread denies the reality of climate change.
Welcome back Peter. Did you have a nice break?
It’s good to see you back so that we can calibrate our sceptical compasses again. My question that I asked in the other thread that you kindly answered for me, was all about the language used and how misleading it is in the way it simplifies a very complicated process, but also leaves a misleading impression of the magnitude of the effect man has in what is essentially a natural process, and a natural process that complete dwarfs our own minuscule contribution.
For what its worth I will see Plimer on Thursday at the Spectator debate, and as I understand it he will be taking questions from the floor. Anyone else going?
Peter
Welcome back-if you used a plane to go on holiday I have some carbon credits I call sell you :)
Here are some of the many Professors that don’t agree with the (non )consensus.This is from Hansard of the 5th November
“The committee issued that statement without consulting the society’s members, which sparked off a revolt, and 160 senior physicists—members of the American Physical
5 Nov 2009 : Column 1051
Society—wrote a letter publicly disowning that statement and suggesting that it should be replaced with a more moderate statement, saying that
“while substantial concern has been expressed that emissions may cause significant climate change, measured or reconstructed temperature records indicate that 20th-21st century changes are neither exceptional nor persistent, and the historical and geological records show many periods warmer than today.”
It went on:
“Current climate models appear insufficiently reliable to properly account for natural and anthropogenic contributions to past climate change, much less project”
climate change.
The statement was signed by a lot of serious scientists. I am going to take the House’s time and list some of them, but I shall read out only those who are professors of physics. They include the professor of physics at the university of North Carolina, the professor of physics at Rutgers university, the professor of physics at Princeton university, the professor and chair of the physics department at Bernidji state university, the professor of chemical physics at the university of Medina, the professor of physics at the university of California, the professor and chair of the physics department at the George Washington university, the professor of physics at the university of Rochester, the professor of engineering physics at the university of Virginia, the professor of physics at the university of Washington, the professor of physics at Santa Clara university, the professor of physics at Colorado state university, the professor of the physics of geological processes at the university of Oslo, the professor of the department of chemistry and physics at the William Patterson university, the professor of physics at the Ivar Giaever institute—who won the Nobel prize—and another professor in the university of Virginia’s department of physics.
The list goes on: the professor of physics at the university at Hatfield, another professor of physics at Princeton university, the professor of physics at the university of Connecticut, another professor of physics from Washington and yet another from the university of Rochester, which seems to be a hotbed of scepticism. A professor of physics and astronomy—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Order. This is taking quite a proportion of the right hon. Gentleman’s speech. Perhaps it would be better to say to the House that the list will be available in Library.
Mr. Lilley: With your permission, Mr. Deputy Speaker, the list will be available in Hansard. I have only three more to go, but I want to point out to those hon. Members who say persistently that only a handful of mavericks disagree, that, in fact, a lot of serious professors at serious universities do so.
With your permission, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I shall add the last few: the professor of physics at the university of California, the professor of physics, astronomy and geophysics at Connecticut college, the professor of physics at Tuft’s university, and the professor of physics at Midwestern university. There are rather more than I thought, I do apologise. The professor of physics—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Perhaps the House has got the idea, given what the right hon. Gentleman said was the point that he was trying to make.”
tonyb
Geoff,
I was also involved in that ‘discussion’ at the Guardian. Perfectly valid, on-topic comments by sceptics (including one of yours) were deleted. Meanwhile, offensive comments involving Nazis and Goebbels were allowed to stay, even though I complained about them.
I raised this with the author of the piece, Chris Goodall, at his website
http://www.carboncommentary.com/
and he said he was puzzled as I was. The irony was that his piece was about engaging in rational debate.
Robin 8105
The report by Leonardo Maugeri is very interesting and supports the view of an engineer for an oil exploration company that I travelled with on the train every day for a couple of years. He told me that with some of the older fields they only got about 5% of the oil out with the early 20th century technology and subsequently capped these fields off as spent in the full knowledge that when technology improved they would get significantly more out the next time around. Often these fields are not fully acknowledged in the companies books. When they are included it can lead to issues such as Shell had a few years ago when they were accused of over stating their reserves, although I’m sure there was more to the problems than just that.
There are several things going on here.
Shortage or the perception of shortage drives up the price, hence greater profits. You can not blame the oil companies for this as this is governed by governments and other factors such as the markets where very few people truly understand the subject but speak with great authority.
Maybe there is some strategic hording going on whereby the West uses as much foreign oil as they can for the day when it runs out and we return to our own reserves. The problem with this is I think our money will run out before that happens and or we ruin our economies. The US is currently doing both closely followed by the UK.
Uninformed environmental messages are continuously coming our way, the latest I read yesterday accusing oil companies of over estimating reserves. All this pushes the price up as market makers take advantage of misinformation.
Canada and The US have reserves far in excess of those of Saudi Arabia’s current known reserves. This does not count what the Arabs could go back and get with new technology.
Very often those who try and make these facts known are written off as cranks, but so far they are the ones who have been right. Where have we seen this situation in action before.
Peter M
Welcome back!
I went through your questionnaire (8107) for “climate change deniers”.
First of all, I am NOT a “climate change denier”. Climate has been changing on our planet for billions of years.
But back to the questionnaire.
Do “they” (in this case, I):
No. I have read the IPCC reports in great detail. I object to the unfounded claims and ridiculous projections of future disaster contained therein.
No. I have only become interested in the ongoing AGW debate around 4 years ago.
No. Galileo and Copernicus were scientific geniuses in their time. None of the IPCC authors meet that grade; nor do James E. Hansen or Al Gore. I do not claim to be one, either.
No. The only suppression of free speech I have witnessed in conjunction with this ongoing debate has been on blogsites, such as RealClimate, but the site moderators there do this simply to avoid embarrassment.
So I guess your questionnaire does not apply to me.
Max
PS It was a good try, though.
Peter M
You apparently confuse numbers of people espousing a position with scientific evidence.
In one corner we have all the venerable (and some not so venerable) institutions such as the RA, NAS, IPCC, etc., which tell us that AGW (caused principally by human CO2 emissions) is a serious threat, primarily due to strong positive feedback based on climate model simulations, which increases the greenhouse effect of CO2 by a factor of 3 to 4, resulting in a theoretical 2xCO2 climate impact of 2° to 4.5°C.
In the other corner we have physical observations of empirical data measured by NASA ERBE satellites, which show us that the actually observed feedbacks are strongly negative (rather than positive as assumed by the model simulations), so that the 2xCO2 impact is only 0.5° to 0.7°C, and that AGW is therefore no big deal.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/Lindzen-and-Choi-GRL-2009.pdf
Which provides the better evidence?
It is pretty clear to me, even if the “venerable (and not so venerable) institutions” (as well as you, Peter) haven’t caught on yet.
Max
Peter Geany: I’ll be at the Plimer debate – perhaps we can discuss “peak oil” there.
Anyone else going?
Robin,
You say “no contributor to this thread denies the reality of climate change”. Really? What was the talk about the UHI effect all about then?
I guess I should use the term anthropogenically induced climate change denier. Its a bit of a mouthful, so maybe AICCD? That’s a fair description of you all I’d say.
It’s curious that the people who have a problem accepting the peak oil theory tend to be AICCDs too. Yes, of course, improved technology has enabled oil production to be higher now than it otherwise would have been. Its probably more improved in the USA than anywhere else in the rest of the world. And yet, US oil production is around 55% of what it was at its peak and falling at around 20% per decade.
Does your theory really fit the facts?
Peter M
Not really. Advocates of AGW also tend to advocate renewables and the idea of peak oil. These concepts seem not to be politically unrelated. You might remember them as the people who where gloating about peak last summer, just before the bottom dropped out of the oil market.
Sorry to butt in.
solarphysicist #8111
Thanks for the support, and the tip. I’ve just left a comment on Chris Goodall’s blog. The content of his site matches that of Guardian Environment, but the tone is totally different.
Does anyone know how many green climate change blogs there are like this in Britain? I count just four active British sceptic blogs (Here, Climate Resistance, Omniclimate, and Bishop Hill). It’s not much.
PeterM
Your use of the word denier is disingenuous, and crafted to paint those who genuinely question your views in a poor light. As has been pointed out to you on numerous occasions no one denies anything. What we do on the other hand is ask questions of those that purport to tell us what can and cannot do with our lives, and ask them to justify their claims. If these claims cannot subsequently be substantiated that is not reason enough to call someone a denier.
It just so happens that many of the positions you support are not supported by empirically derived scientific evidence, but rather by unproven hypothesis or at worst misinformation. If you wish to persuade more of us to your view then offer up some real science rather than star wars science fiction.
Robin I have passed TonyN my mobile number if you are OK for him to pass it on so that we can find one and other on Thursday at the debate.
Peter (M): yes, I agree with both the other Peters (and Max). I don’t think anyone here denies that man may well have contributed to recent temperature change. However, no one is aware of any empirical evidence (a) that man’s contribution was significant or (b) that man is likely to cause dangerous global climate change. Simple really.
Peter G: I’ll do likewise.
TonyN,
My cheerful, benign comment didn’t appear (twice).
Was it gobbled up by the moderator?
Test, Test…..is this thing on?
“Global Warming” seems to be occurring everywhere else in the world with the exception of the United States.
PeterM
Robin stated it pretty succinctly in 8121.
No “denial” of a human impact on our climate (even if the empirical evidence supporting this is not there).
There is, however, a rational skepticism of the premise that AGW, caused principally by human CO2 emissions, is a potentially serious threat.
Fortunately, we do have some empirical data here (see 8114), which confirms that the theoretical greenhouse impact of doubling atmospheric CO2 is 0.5 to 0.7C. This confirms that the rational skepticism is supported by the empirical data.
I believe we are getting to the strange situation where AGW-believers are (a) denying that it has been cooling since 2001 despite all-time record increases in atmospheric CO2 and (b) denying the physical observations of empirical data (Spencer et al.; Lindzen + Choi) which tell us that all the IPCC model simulations on climate sensitivity have exaggerated the 2xCO2 impact by a factor of four, thereby making AGW appear to be a serious threat, when it is not in actual fact.
So who is in denial here?
Max