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. Peter M

    In discussing atmospheric CO2, you wrote (8687):

    Would you want your drinking water to contain 385ppm of arsenic? Why not?

    Why not?

    Duh! Because arsenic is a poison.

    Let’s check Wiki on arsenic:

    Arsenic poisoning kills by allosteric inhibition of essential metabolic enzymes, leading to death from multi-system organ failure. It primarily inhibits enzymes that require lipoic acid as a cofactor, such as pyruvate and alpha-ketoglutarate dehydrogenase. Because of this, substrates before the dehydrogenase steps accumulate, such as pyruvate (and lactate). It particularly affects the brain, causing neurological disturbances and death.

    Ouch!

    CO2, on the other hand, is a natural trace component of our atmosphere, which represents the basic food of all living things. No CO2 = no life.

    Studies have shown that enhanced CO2 concentrations will result in more rapid growth of crops and forests, generally considered to be a good thing.

    There is really no comparison here, Peter.

    Max


  2. Peter M

    To your exchange with Barelysane on CO2 /temperature relationship in our geological past (8690-8695),

    Barelysane referred to a study, which pointed out that “the late Ordovician suffered an ice age (with associated mass extinction) while atmospheric CO2 levels were more than 4,000ppm higher than those of today.”
    http://ff.org/centers/csspp/library/co2weekly/2005-08-18/dioxide.htm

    The study concludes:

    Compared to former geologic times, our present atmosphere, like the Late Carboniferous atmosphere, is CO2-impoverished

    It asks the very pertinent question:

    there is no obvious correlation between atmospheric CO2 and planetary temperature over the last 600 million years, so why would such relatively tiny amounts suddenly become a critical factor now?

    The study shows graphically that throughout most of our planet’s geological history, CO2 levels were much higher than they are today, with no apparent correlation with average global temperature.

    In other words, to put it succinctly, the case for a significant temperature increase caused by anthropogenic GH warming from human CO2 is not supported by the geological record, Peter.

    This (rather than nefarious ties to the evil mining or oil and gas industries, as you suggest) is the likely reason why a large number of geologists do not support the IPCC premise that AGW is a serious threat.

    Max

  3. Peter M

    Regarding your exchange with Robin

    Pachuari is still a relatively small-time potential benefitter from cap and trade,

    For the big bucks check Al Gore, who has been on the global warming scene a bit longer.
    http://www.resistnet.com/forum/topics/al-gores-investments-in-cap

    The article discusses some Gore financial deals tied to AGW and continues:

    Gore’s suspect profiteering in the Silver Spring and Fisker deals are but the tip of the iceberg and pale in comparison to the tens of billions to be made by Gore and his partners at KPCB, Capricorn Investment Group LLC, Generation Investment Management, and Goldman Sachs in the sale of carbon credits in a global cap-and-trade regime. Al Gore is the rainmaker they are banking on and the upcoming Copenhagen summit is the stage where they hope he will deliver the climactic performance that will “Seal the Deal” for a global UN climate-change treaty.

    Too bad for Al. It did not turn out that way at Copenhagen.

    And the cap and trade markets are reeling at the bad news that the taxpayer-funded bonanza has not materialized.
    http://www.prisonplanet.com/carbon-trading-scam-in-big-trouble-after-copenhagen-failure.html

    Global warming con men hoping to bag windfall profits from the climate change scam are wincing today after carbon trading markets nose dived following the failure at Copenhagen to secure legally binding targets on restricting CO2 emissions.

    Poor Pachauri! (At least Al has already shuffled together $100 million since he left office as US VP, but Pachauri just has a piece of a Nobel Peace Prize, and it looks like the “big bucks” have slipped out of his fingers for now.)

    Max

  4. Max and Robin,

    Referencing articles by Joanna Nova, Richard North and Christopher Booker to support your case? Oh come on. Can’t you do a bit better than that?

    Can’t you find anyone who is slightly less, shall we say, partisan?

    Its a bit like quoting the ‘Socialist Worker’ to support a case against US imperialism!

  5. Peter Martin,

    I’d venture to say that there isn’t anyone that you’d accept as “credible” unless they followed your global warming cult.

  6. Peter M

    Please advise whom you would consider as “slightly less partisan” on the topic of anthropogenic global warming.

    The IPCC?

    Al Gore?

    James E. Hansen?

    Gordon Brown?

    Anyone else?

    Anxiously awaiting your reply (to see whether Brute was right or not).

    Max

  7. I admire Obama in some ways, but I couldn’t help smiling at this:

    (H/T to Mauibrad on WUWT)

  8. Max,

    The IPCC was set up to give a decision. Everyone, or nearly everyone, agreed that this was the right approach. You deniers have taken it upon yourself to decide that the Umpire is taking bribes and have behaved in the most despicable manner.

    We have all seen this kind of thing in various sports where the decision of the referee is questioned. But there are strong rules against this sort of behaviour. And in general there is an acceptance that you do have to accept all decisions, even if you think they are wrong, and even if do feel highly aggrieved.

    Perhaps you could tell me what would happen in Soccer or the NFL if the captain of one of the teams took his players off the field and accused everyone, including the referee, of being part of a conspiracy against them.

    Compared to you guys John McEnroe was a model of sportsmanship and fair play.

  9. You deniers have taken it upon yourself to decide that the Umpire is taking bribes and have behaved in the most despicable manner.

    If the umpire, has a finacial interest in the outcome of the game then yes, I’d consider him despicable.

  10. More examples of “Global Warming Causes Global Cooling”………….

    Minnesota braces for ‘snowiest Christmas in 30 years’…

    http://www.startribune.com/local/79869182.html?page=1&c=y

    Winter freeze kills 79 in Poland…

    http://www.canada.com/news/Winter+freeze+kills+Poland/2370272/story.html

  11. Peter Martin,

    Just curious………is there anyone in the “denialist” camp whose judgement/opinion you respect?

    Over the last couple of years I’ve never heard you compliment or show the slightest admiration/respect for the opinions of (what you would consider) a “denialist”.

  12. ‘GLOBAL WARMING’ FIX? Hose up to stratosphere with balloons; Pump out sulfur particles…

    http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2511875/nathan_myhrvolds_anti_global_warming.html?cat=15

  13. Science First: Video of Submarine Lava Eruption

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qz2GulEw7fU

    Max,

    We’ve touched on volcanism throughout this thread, but I don’t believe that we’ve scratched the surface.

    I was watching a program the other night titled “angry seas” or something like that. The program listed the worlds “most dangerous” oceans. The Arctic (crushing ice), The Marianas trench (crushing pressures), Cape Horn, The Caribbean (Hurricanes), The Indian ocean (They highlighted the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake/tsunami)…………and the Aegean.

    The Aegean was listed due to the volcanic activity in the area, specifically Santorini (Thera). In any event, the undersea volcanoes were highlighted and the assertion was made that over 20,000 active volcanoes exist under the surface of the sea (worldwide).

    Further, the oceanographers went on to state that a miniscule amount of the seafloor has been explored. 70%-75% of the Earth’s surface is covered by water (I believe the narrator claimed 56%…perhaps he was referring to oceans only).

    Do you believe that the scope of undersea volcanic activity is underestimated by the IPCC?

  14. Brute,

    You say “Over the last couple of years I’ve never heard you compliment or show the slightest admiration/respect for the opinions of (what you would consider) a “denialist”.”

    That sounds about right. I’ll take that as a compliment!

    Max,

    Just to emphasise that my previous comments about the IPCC were in answer to your question about a ‘less partisan’ group.

    It is possible that if they had reported differently, people such as James Hansen may have stuck by their original position. Even Al Gore, who is a bit of a hate figure for you guys, may too, but as I’ve often said its not about Al Gore anymore than its about any politician. Forget about all the polis and take your lead from the IPCC.

  15. Brute and PeterM (8709/8710)

    You raise the question about the objectivity and neutrality of the IPCC.

    We saw from published reports that IPCC Chairman, Pachauri has a personal financial interest in keeping the AGW scare and proposed carbon caps alive, but it goes further than just that.

    The whole reason for the existence of the IPCC is to investigate the extent of and impact from anthropogenic warming.

    No alarming warming = no need for IPCC to continue to exist

    No threatening impact = no need for IPCC to continue to exist

    Have either of you ever heard of a bureaucratic organization (that even got honored with a politically motivated Nobel Peace Prize) voluntarily disbanding and shutting itself down?

    [Peter, don’t bring up WWII organizations that were specifically set up for the war duration.]

    The IPCC was set up by the UN.

    I am of the firm opinion (and I am not alone on this) that an ulterior motive here was to get the carbon caps and either a global carbon tax or a global cap ‘n trade system implemented, with the UN acting as “enforcer”, using the “command and control” principle, all a part of global wealth equalization and world governance.

    This would give an organization, that is now largely supported by donations from member nations, a major independent source of funding and power, which it can control.

    Having seen how the UN has mishandled past mandates involving large sums of money, I cannot imaging that this would evolve any differently, with a big part of the money probably ending up in a few personal bank accounts in Switzerland and elsewhere.

    Would the UN leadership want all this money and power to wield?

    Or are they just humble servants of the people, trying to objectively do what is best for our planet?

    I’ll leave you two to your own opinions on that, but I have stated mine.

    The guys like Hansen and Gore are also on their own personal ego-trips.

    In Gore’s case the financial kickbacks he hopes to get from the whole AGW scare have been exposed and are transparent. The $100 million he has earned since 2000 are a testimony to his shrewd ability to squeeze big bucks out of a virtual, computer-generated problem.

    In Hansen’s case, I think he simply wants the power that comes with moving from being an unknown, rather dull, government-paid, scientific bureaucrat, stuck off behind a computer somewhere, to being a global Messiah out on a mission to save the world from the disaster that he and his computer have created out of nowhere.

    As for the many scientists that go along with the scare mongering in their reports, these are probably simply aware of the old adage:

    No scare factor = no funding

    There are, however, as you both will have to concede, a growing number of scientists, who do not support the dangerous AGW premise and are openly expressing their rational skepticism of this premise.

    The Copenhagen fiasco has dealt the AGW cause a major blow.

    The latest Climategate scandal has also not helped (and it is not “going away” anytime soon, even if internal “self-investigations” attempt to whitewash things).

    Will the flow of really “big climate bucks” be thwarted by this turn of events?

    Who know?

    Stay tuned for the next chapter.

    But, in the meantime, don’t look for IPCC to be a neutral arbiter.

    They have a major bet on their horse in the race.

    Max

  16. Brute

    The report you cited on underwater volcanoes is interesting.

    You asked:

    Do you believe that the scope of undersea volcanic activity is underestimated by the IPCC?

    To start off: If it isn’t “anthropogenic”, IPCC does not have much interest in spending too much time on it.

    For example, Chapter 2 of AR4 (Changes to Atmospheric Constituents and to Radiative Forcing) skips over solar forcing quite superficially, ending up with the conclusion that natural forcing factors (including the sun) are essentially insignificant in driving our climate.

    Sub-oceanic volcanic emissions of CO2 are not mentioned at all; it’s all about human emissions.

    Ian Plimer got beaten over the head by the AGW-faithful (including Peter) for saying that volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans, with the AGW believers pointing out that CO2 from known volcanic eruptions (almost all over land) represents only a fraction of the human CO2. Plimer is a geologist, not a fool. As a result, he should know a lot more about submarine volcanoes and their annual emissions than most people, including IPCC.

    The USGS tells us
    http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/hazards/gas/index.php

    Scientists have calculated that volcanoes emit between about 130-230 million tonnes (145-255 million tons) of CO2 into the atmosphere every year…This estimate includes both subaerial and submarine volcanoes, about in equal amounts. Emissions of CO2 by human activities, including fossil fuel burning, cement production, and gas flaring, amount to about 27 billion tonnes per year (30 billion tons) – The reference gives the amount of released carbon (C), rather than CO2, through 2003. Human activities release more than 130 times the amount of CO2 emitted by volcanoes–the equivalent of more than 8,000 additional volcanoes like Kilauea (Kilauea emits about 3.3 million tonnes/year)!

    But these estimates are based on the guess that CO2 from submarine volcanoes only equals that from subaerial (i.e. terrestrial) volcanoes. If it is true that there is 100 times as much CO2 being emitted by the many as yet undiscovered submarine volcanoes and fissures than there is from volcanoes on land, then Plimer is correct in his statement.

    [Of course, the CO2 from submarine volcanoes and fissures does not go directly into the atmosphere.]

    So it appears that the total amount of CO2 emitted from all above-ground volcanoes plus all submarine volcanoes and fissures is unknown. For a “best guess”, I’d say “go to a geologist; that’s the kind of thing they study”.

    Max

  17. Max,

    Are you suggesting that the IPCC was set up against the wishes of the Reagan administration?

    This is Spencer Weart’s ( head of Director of the Center for History of Physics at the American Institute of Physics ) account of the process:

    “The Reagan administration wanted to forestall pronouncements by self-appointed committees of scientists, fearing they would be ‘alarmist.’ Conservatives promoted the IPCC’s clumsy structure, which consisted of representatives appointed by every government in the world and required to consult all the thousands of experts in repeated rounds of report-drafting in order to reach a consensus. Despite these impediments the IPCC has issued unequivocal statements on the urgent need to act.”

    So according to him, any deficiencies of the IPCC are essentially down to those with conservative political opinions, yet those same people are now the most critical of it? Don’t you think that’s odd?

    What form of structure for the IPCC would you be happy with?

  18. Looks like global warming skipped over Europe agian this year.

    European weather deaths pass 100

    Freezing weather brings death and disruption in Germany, Italy and across Eastern Europe

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/22/cold-weather-europe-death-toll

  19. Interesting post over on WUWT

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/22/study-shows-cfcs-cosmic-rays-major-culprits-for-global-warming/

    He’s probably over-egging his results a little, but it’s definately one to put in the “science is not settled” pile.

  20. Peter/Temp

    It wasn’t all roses and unequivocal agreement in the first IPPC report and you should also be concerned about the definitional issue (which is still a problem) if you are interested in science.

    This is quite interesting (from the horse’s mouth so to speak) and there’s much more out there if you look.

    http://www.apec.org.au/docs/zillman.pdf

    Even the announcement of the first IPPC report said “Mr. Houghton, Britain’s chief meteorologist, said that only a handful of the scientists in the panel disagreed with the findings”

    The science is settled was a political mantra.

  21. I’m not quite sure who said that “the science is settled”. Probably not a scientist.

    The science is never settled, not just on AGW but everything else too, in the sense that everything is known. It never can be.

    For instance there is still scientific research into nuclear fission, but there is enough known to use fission to build nuclear reactors.

    I’m guessing that whoever said, originally, that the science is settled would have had in mind that you deniers would argue that no mitigation should take place until it was.

    But that’s a silly attitude. For instance, the science on HIV/AIDS isn’t settled either but that doesn’t mean that strangers should engage in unprotected casual sex without a condom.

    PS The guys at Realclimate are saying pretty much the same thing:
    http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/12/unsettled-science/

  22. Peter

    I suspect realclimate are only saying it in an attempt to re/gain a little credibility. However it is a bit of a pointless sidetrack, if you really want to know type “science is settled” into google.

    I don’t believe you ever gave us your thoughts on if you believe the head of the IPCCs buisness interests create a conflict of interest, would be interested to hear your thoughts on that.

  23. Peter, I thought your nuclear comment was a bit of a bait and switch, but even if not, it was mixing science and technology a little. Also, let’s not get into epistemology but take a simple naive realist approach.

    Let me ask you this – if the science of AGW is not settled – which bits do you think we need to know more about?

    Also, can you see how unlike nuclear fission, the AGW issue (both magnitude and sign) needs to be based on a proper understanding of all of the system’s interactions and feedbacks. CO2 sensitivity requires us to understand the paleo-temp and instrumental record – hence the HS issue etc. Proof by “can’t explain it any other way” is a fairly weak one, especially when we have new findings about black carbon, PDO, possible solar issues coming out all the time etc.

    BTW if you call us deniers then you are pretty much saying that the science is settled.

  24. Brute, re your #8719, the Met Office was tending towards an average-to-mild winter for the UK in its predictions, as late as November 27th. When snow fell in London in October last year, I remember wondering what January and February would be like, as it tends to be that time of year when we get a cold snap (in southern England). And yes, we had a very icy February. Now we are having a very icy late December, so again, I’m wondering what the New Year will have in store for us…

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