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. Speaking of Copenhagen, does anyone know what the wind speed is a present and how much power the so-called best wind farms in the world are producing. We have heavy snow here in London at present and precious little wind.

  2. This is the best………

    PRINCE CHARLES: EXECUTIVE JET WITH BIG CARBON FOOTPRINT GETS HIM TO CLIMATE CHANGE TALKS

    PRINCE Charles used up seven months’ worth of the average British person’s “carbon footprint” yesterday flying to Copenhagen on an executive jet to make a speech on climate change.

    The heir to the throne, who prides himself on his green credentials, cost taxpayers an estimated £12,000 and racked up a 6.486-ton carbon footprint in one day by taking a seven-seater RAF Royal Flight HS125 jet to the summit in the Danish capital.

    And this tops off my day…….

    The Prince, who will offset the pollution he caused by using taxpayers’ money to invest in environmentally-friendly initiatives, generates an annual carbon footprint of 2,601 tons, compared to 11 tons for an average UK citizen. He was one of numerous VIPs at the £130million summit, which will generate 40,500 tons of carbon dioxide over 12 days, the equivalent to the emissions of York, Portsmouth or the African country of Malawi in the same period.

    Charles told politicians they had only seven years to prevent irreversible man-made weather changes.

    “I can only appeal to you to listen to the cries of those who are already suffering from the impact of climate change,” he said.

  3. I don’t much care for Charles’ silly pronouncements on the climate, but to say he “racked up a 6.486-ton carbon footprint in one day by taking a seven-seater RAF Royal Flight HS125 jet” only plays into the hands of these people. A 747 would have not used that much fuel to create that amount of CO2, and a modern biz jet does not ironically use any more fuel per mile that a Range Rover would use. Short of sailing there the 125 is not a bad choice.

    As for what he is doing there well enough has already been said.

  4. Brute is right to point out the extravagent modes of transport used , not just by Prince Charles, but by many other delegates to the Copenhagen conference.

    I’d rather Prince Charles and his ilk were climate deniers if they can’t see the importance of changing their own ludicrous lifestyles before lecturing others, particularly in the world’s poorer countries that they must change theirs.

  5. PS. I really don’t know who is closer to the mark re the amount of CO2 generated but that hardly matters. Travel by executive jet just looks bad. I heard that the excuse was an important morning meeting. Its just not good enough and the idiot has let the side down.

    Do you guys really want him as your next King?

  6. RE: 8629

    Who are you and what have you done with Peter Martin?

  7. Apparently (according to the Telegraph’s James Kirkup) Gordon Brown has been unable to leave the Bella Centre, effectively trapped as protests rage outside. COP15 appears to be getting more shambolic by the minute.

  8. peter geany,

    Do you think that the carbon footprint number includes Prince Chuck and is entourage?

    I mean, if this guy goes to the bathroom he has to take a dozen body guards and attendants with him……he has to have a squad of guys and advisors to carry his robes, crown a scepter………can’t forget the royal food taster and jester.

    When Barry Obama travels he has to load up several C-130’s with limousines, armored cars, riflemen, 200 secret service guys and a couple of Abrahams tanks.

  9. Brute,

    Woory not. I’m still here. I might have told you before that like you I’m a Republican. Maybe that should be republican, in the original sense of the term. I’m no bowing or curtseying, forelock tugging, sycophantic, royalty fawning, “subject” of the UK monarchy.

    The French and US revolutionaries pretty much had it right in the 18th century. The French, however, correctly understood that there can no ‘liberte’ without ‘egalite’ and ‘fraternite’.

  10. Hey Pete,

    I’ve got no problem with the monarchy…….I was simply surprised by your straight forward/objective summary of Prince Charles and his carbon hypocrisy. On other occasions you’ve defended the likes of Al Gore et al and their “excessive consumption” while they preach the gospel of carbon minimalism.

    I did hear today on the radio a Warmist comment that disciples of the church of global warming “cringe” when Saint Gore is mentioned………

    I do think that the Global Warming Cult could do much better if they adopted someone who actually lived the life of a stone age Luddite as their spokesman.

    Glad to see that you’ve grown a spine and finally become somewhat intellectually honest with yourself……I feel vindicated that my 2+ years spent lecturing you on your misguided assertions have not been in vain.

    “Give me liberty or give me death!” – Patrick Henry

    http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/henry.htm

  11. Brute,

    I don’t remember defending any hypocrisy, either from Al Gore or anyone else. I might have said that Al Gore was cheated out of the 2000 election, which he was, or that he was substantially right about AGW but he frequently gets the details wrong. But anyway, its not about Al Gore its more about what every University and every US government climate institution say on their webpages and in their reports.

    Someone, on this blog, once described Al Gore as a reforming Tory. An English term: meaning a member of the Conservative Party who might advocate Social Democratic style consensus policies aimed at picking up the working class and left-liberal vote. Ted Heath would have been the last Conservative PM to be so described, but David Cameron, if he’s true to his word, may be the next.

    Often these people are from very privileged backgrounds and are totally unaware of the difference between their lifestyles and those of ordinary people. Sometimes its better that they are in control rather than the Margaret T types, but sometimes it can be an embarrassment sometimes to find that these guys claim to be on your side.

  12. it can be an embarrassment sometimes to find that these guys claim to be on your side.

    As far as being self appointed Pontiff of the Church of Global Warming, Al Gore is certainly an embarassment.

    The Times of London reports that Al Gore thinks the latest research shows that the Arctic could be completely ice-free in five years.

    In his speech, Mr Gore told the conference: “These figures are fresh. Some of the models suggest to Dr [Wieslav] Maslowski that there is a 75 per cent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years.”

    But, oops! The climatologist whose work Mr Gore was relying upon disputed this. “It’s unclear to me how this figure was arrived at,” Dr Maslowski said. “I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this.”

    Gore has a lot of money tied up in the theory of global warming; sometimes this makes it hard to stick to the facts. Exaggerating claims can easily be justified when one stands to benefit financially.

    http://www.examiner.com/x-17336-Midland-County-Public-Policy-Examiner~y2009m12d16-Al-Gore-lies

  13. PeterM

    Since neither you nor I are British subjects, we can discuss the Royal Family objectively, without the passion that comes with direct involvement.

    Your wrote of Prince Charles:

    Do you guys really want him as your next King?

    My answer to that would be:

    Long live the Queen!

    Max

  14. When Barry Obama travels..

    Has he got to Denmark yet? I suppose their airports are too well organised for his flight to be diverted for snow, but at least it might affect Uncle Gordon’s return, as our airports never are…

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/6824978/Snow-falls-in-London-for-first-time-this-winter.html

  15. Brute and Peter M

    Gore is still grandstanding at Copenhagen – or is he lobbying for his carbon offset company?

    You choose what you think the multi-millionaire’s motives might be.

    http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/12/16-4

    Max

  16. James P, Reur 8625
    Another great source of information on Amman’s trail of shame is in the Expert Review Comments in the WG1 second order draft of AR4. Most of the comments are by Steve Mc or Ross Mc, and the review author’s responses are interesting. Here are a pair from Jeff Kuetter

    Comment 6-748, [Jeff Kueter (Reviewer’s comment ID #: 137-67)]: The use of Wahl and Ammann (accepted) does not comply with WG I’s deadlines and all text based on this reference should be deleted. WG I’s rules require that all references be “published or in print” by December 16, 2005. Wahl and Ammann was “provisionally accepted” on that date, and not fully accepted until February 28, 2006, at which time no final preprint was available. Substantial changes were made in the paper between December 16, 2005 and February 28, 2006, including insertion of tables showing that the MBH98 reconstruction failed verification with r-squared statsistics, as had been reported by McIntyre and McKitrick in 2003. These tables were not available in the draft considered by WG I when developing the SOD.

    Response: Rejected- the citation is allowed under current rules.

    Comment 6-749, [Jeff Kueter (Reviewer’s comment ID #: 137-68)] : The statement “Wahl and Ammenn (accepted) demonstrated that this was due to omission by McIntyre and McKitrick of several proxy series used by Mann et al (1998).” Is incorrect and should be deleted on factual as well as procedural grounds (see previous comment). In their paper, Wahl and Ammenn state: “In MM03, the authors describe their results as being developed using the MBH reconstruction methodology, albeit with elimination of a large number of proxy data series used by MBH, especially during the 15th century.” There is no such statement in MM03. Quite the opposite. MM03 reported that some proxy series data said to have been used in MBH98 were not actually used.
    Subsequently, McIntrye and McKitrick filed a Materials Complaint with the journal Nature. In response to this complaint, Mann et al admitted that 35 series said to have been used in MBH98 were not actually used, but claimed that this did not affect the results. Wahl and Ammenn were able to closely reproduce the original reconstruction when all records were included. However, prior to this, McIntyre and McKitrick (2005a, 2005b) also had reproduced MBH98 results using the flawed principle components method. Wahl and Ammenn reproduced McIntrye and McKitrick (2005a, 2005b), and, in the final version of their paper, also reproduced MM’s finding that MBH98 failed rsquared verification.

    Response: See response to comment 6-1157 and 6-1154. [See below]

    Response at 6-1157:= The reviewers opinion is noted and in part accepted – the text in this paragraph is intended to convey a brief and basic assessment of the current balance of evidence regarding the features and likely reliability of the original ‘hockey stick’. It is not intended to provide a detailed elucidation of the criticisms or responses, but rather to provide an indication that aspects of the Mann et al (1999) methodology have been challenged and these challenges
    addressed. This list of references has been extended to include McIntyre and McKitrick 2005b and other minor wording changes made in response to other comments. The reader is also referred to the responses to comments
    6-732, 6-734, 6-736, 6-1154 and to the comment 6-740 made by another Reviewer [Gavin Schmidt]

    Response at 6-1154:= Reject – suggested wording overlong and seemingly phrased in a biased way. The current text (and additional paragraph discussing ‘problems’ with tree-ring derived data) convey the salient points, hopefully objectively, and cite references for the reader to explore further. See also response to Comment 6-1152 and 6-736
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    I cant find the URL for the original continuous page PDF, which enabled easy searches, but there is this 185 page version:
    http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/view/7786989?n=2&imagesize=1200&jp2Res=.25

  17. Max, further to my 8623, concerning the demise of the Manna hockey-stick in AR4, here is my part 2.

    I suggest that not only was Mann excommunicated from authorship in Paleo-Chapter 6 in AR4, but he was also strongly ‘on the nose’ of the authors.
    Below is a list of his comments by number in the expert review comments for chapter 6 in the second order draft, aka SOD, and the responses from the review authors. Notice that a majority were rejected and others were ambiguous such as ‘noted’. Even some that were accepted were rather trivial!

    151- REJECT – observed is used in the paloeoclimate context, which by virtue of the use of proxies almost always means ‘inferred’.
    194- Rejected, reference to tar 6k as written
    195- Rejected, number of records drop off beyond 1300 BP
    197- Accepted
    198- Rejected, our current undertanding the the seinsitivity and spatial distribution of existing proxies suggests that the text is most adequate to the best of our understanding
    210- Taken into account, text rewritten
    224- ACCEPT – Paragraph now more humble.
    250- Accepted, text changed
    307- cannot locate what this comment refers to
    359- REJECT: NOT IN THIS SECTION
    505- Rejected, no basis offered for assertion
    658- rejected, there is no comparison between the modern and the interglacial volume of ice neither in the bullet no in the text. No data on the sizes of mountain glaciers is avaliable for the last interglacial
    677- Accepted
    717- Rejected – sufficient citations already provided
    719- Accepted. [WRT: There is something wrong with the sentence. Should be “Pettersson (1914)” rather than “(Pettersson,1914)”]
    728- Rejected – suggested reference does not add to currently cited information.
    752- See response to comment 6-1157. [See post 8641 above]
    754- Noted and taken into accoount – wording of this paragraph has been shortened and the ‘offending’ word [however] does not appear.
    761- Noted – no revision to text necessary as a consequence. It was considered necessary to include this curve in Figure 6.10 and reference to the reconstruction used by Hegerl et al. even though insufficient evidence of their method had been published at the time of writingt. This is not to say that this paper will not be subject to criticism, but any such criticism would be an appropriate subject of a subsequent assessment. In the interests of comprehensiveness it was considered ‘best’ to include the curve here.
    773- Accepted – text modified to further clarify the point.
    774- Noted – but no change will be made to the text.
    776- Rejected – the caveat is not considered an appropriate one to state explicitly in this level of assessment, particularly as it is not possible to judge which, if any, is more likely to be realistic. That some/many of the differences between reconstructions are attributable to different targets/predictors is clearly implied and can not be taken further on
    the basis of current understanding. The final remark regarding the similarity or otherwise to early instrumental data is also a debatable point, with the bias towards European early instrument locations – and as a result of CLA discussion, the indication of the (dotted) early instrumental record on Figure 6.10b has been removed anyway
    783- Noted – and text revised to account for this point
    786- Rejected – the purpose of including this citation in the text (despite their unfortunate error in not disclosing the detrending) is because it still has some potential significance for several reconstructions. It is a moot point whether the details of the model implementation they used is that significant for the existence (if not the magnitude) of potential bias in reconstructions. The full history to date of the claims and rebutals are trackable in the citations and the implication as regards this assessment is still clear. On balance, therefore, the paragraph should remain. The word “indicate” is clearly accompanied by “may” so the sense is clear.
    788- Accepted – text now indicates that Rutherford et al (2005) is potentially non-biased – and the references to the
    bias issue are not formed in any way that impunes, RegEM – rather the text makes general points about the possibility of ‘several’ methods being somewhat suspect in this retrospect. Overall, the balance is considered fair and (though very brief) factual and sufficient references are provided to help those seeking further details.
    789- Accepted.
    790- Noted – the text has been amended to include the word “possibly”. The assessment does not state that Hegerl et
    al (2006) have correctly accounted for error variance in their use of the total least squares method – the statement here merely indicates that such an approach has the potential to avoid bias in the estimation of the regression coefficients. There is no implication in the revised text that the TLS approach is better or worse than RegEM.
    792- Rejected – this is clearly implied in the current text
    794- Rejected – the large reduction in available data prior to AD 700 precludes this statement
    800- Accepted – “ground” added before “surface”.
    801- Rejected – not clear what the reviewer is referring to.
    807- Rejected – this reference appropriately cited on line 55.
    809- Rejected – reviewer seems to be overcritical of the potential value in some of the papers referred to here despite the known (and described as the reviewer mentions) problems with the German simulation. It is not clear whether these
    problems seriously compromise conclusions being refered to here – this assessment is attempting to provide a dispationate view of the issues.
    821- Noted – true , but no alteration of text required
    888- Rejected. Based on IPCC document size limitations, only the most relevant references should be included
    926- Noted – need to make sure justification is more clear in text
    1075- Noted

    Part 3 to follow.

  18. Re my 8641/8642,
    BTW, if anyone would like an easily searchable PDF of any chapter of AR4, in either the first or second order draft expert review comments, then I would Email them to you with TonyN’s assistance.

  19. Manacker,

    Its only in the last 50 years that Australians have moved away from being considered ‘overseas British’.

    Queen Elizabeth is still ‘head of state’, even though a majority of Australians would prefer a republic. Its a long story as to why, but nevertheless the question of the monarchy, in Australia, isn’t quite as indirect as you seem to think.

  20. Briefly watched Breakfast News on the BBC this morning before heading out onto the wintry roads; there’s a bit where they show today’s headlines in the national newspapers – the Daily Express had “CLIMATE CHANGE “LIES” BY BRITAIN: NOW RUSSIA ACCUSES MET OFFICE”, but strangely the presenters seemed to find Nicole Kidman’s makeup gaffe more interesting. :-D

  21. Peter M (8644)

    As a “recent overseas British” I’m sure you also echo my thought (as a “non-British”):

    “God save the Queen!”

    Max

  22. Alex Cull (8645)

    Nicole Kidman is undoubtedly more interesting than tens of thousands of bureaucrats, politicians, lobbyists, activists, corporates, climatologists, etc. blowing hot air in Copenhagen.

    Max

  23. Mr Brown in “Flash Gordon” mode again, this morning: “People rightly say: If we can provide the finance to save our banks from the bankers, we can, with the right financial support, save the planet from those forces that would destroy it.” I’m with Ming the Merciless on this one.

  24. Blizzard Dumps Snow on Copenhagen as Leaders Battle Warming…

    http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601130&sid=a5wStc0K6jhY

  25. Brute 8633

    Sorry got distracted yesterday, but to roughly answer your question

    A 747 has a take-off weight of about 400 tons, of which 180 tons could be fuel for a very long range flight around the world. Combustion of say 150 tons of hydrocarbon is going to create about 500 tons of CO2 using the formula C12H26(l) + 37/2 O2(g) ? 12 CO2(g) + 13 H2O

    A HS125 by contrast will burn considerably less than the 747, and produce nowhere near 6,500 tons of CO2 even if followed by a fleet of C130’s. Obama on the other hand will probably exceed that figure by some margin.

    In Jet fuel 91% by weight is Carbon, but in CO2 only 27% by weight is Carbon, the remainder being that awful poison Oxygen. So, some of the figures and terms that are banded about in the name of science are just beyond being even fanciful.
    So when the morons we have for politicians talk about carbon sequestration three quarters of what they intend to bury will be Oxygen, and is why it will never happen, because at the end of the day it’s just too stupid to be practical.

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