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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Hi TonyB
Ah, guess i was having a friday afternoon moment.
Personally (being an IT person) i was particularly interested in the section of the article that dealt with the number of errors and lack of configuration management. In projects of that size, complexity, and importance, some of what was said was deeply shocking.
The most telling paragraph for me was
Just for the record, the professor who wrote the article is in the comments section and is neither pro nor anti AGW, just concerned about the science being done properly.
I like him already :)
Tonyb/Barleysane,
After reading through the Climate-gate Analysis & the Surface Temperature Record essays through SPPI, I’m thoroughly disgusted with all of the data from CRU, NASA………just about any of the “authorities” of record……I don’t trust any of them.
These guys have been proven to manipulate data/falsify findings in order to further their personal/political/ideological agendas.
Sadly, anyone that publishes anything regarding this topic has been tainted and their work is suspect.
Brute
After going through the long and detailed analysis you posted on “Climategate”, it is clear to me that the “scientific” process with regard to climate change has become totally corrupt.
All IPCC conclusions on past climate changes and, especially, projections for future climate developments, which are based on this corrupt process, should be discarded into the trash heap of history.
The more recent revelations (“Himalaya-Gate”, “Amazon Forest-Gate”, “China Temperatures-Gate”, “Hurricane-gate”, etc.) are simply reconfirming what Climategate has already exposed.
It is time for all government grants to the perpetrators to be cancelled and the perpetrators themselves to be fired and prosecuted (where taxpayer funding was misused or FOI requests were ignored).
In addition, the IPCC has become redundant. It should be be disbanded with all UN funding cut off immediately.
Let’s spend the taxpayers’ money more intelligently than to sponsor these crooks.
Max
Have just been going through an entertaining post over at WUWT about Prince Charles, and found this Guardian article of considerable interest:
Detectives question climate change scientist over email leaks
University of East Anglia scientist Paul Dennis denies leaking material, but links to climate change sceptics in US drew him to attention of the investigators
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/04/climate-change-email-hacking-leaks
Wow Bob…
“Vituperative” is how they describe Anthony Watts’ website……Good word……I like it.
India forms new climate change body
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7157590/India-forms-new-climate-change-body.html
Brute and Bob_FJ
Not only is WUWT described as “vituperative”, but then comes the “knee-jerk” add-on (oh horrors!):
“denialist organization” (sounds ominous)
“received funding from ExxonMobil” (how despicable can you get?)
Max
I don’t desire to sound vituperative, but I’ve never understood this………
How a legitimate business spends its money is to be held in contempt……somehow suspect.
The other side of the coin is that it’s acceptable for institutions and universities to take taxpayer money “granted” to them by a load of corrupt politicians to forward their political agendas.
Mrs. Brute and I (and the dog) are being buried under 30 inches of “global warming” (for the second time this season). We’re in the center of the massive blob of “climate change”.
I’ll probably be labeled as vituperative for pointing this out, but the last time a storm of this magnitude occured was in 1922.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA-FREDERICK MD-CARROLL-NORTHERN BALTIMORE-
1234 PM EST FRI FEB 5 2010
…RECORD SNOWFALL FORECAST IN THE BALTIMORE-WASHINGTON DC REGION…
…EXTREMELY DANGEROUS WINTER WEATHER CONDITIONS DEVELOPING TONIGHT…
GUSTY NORTHEAST WINDS 20 TO 30 MPH WITH VISIBILITIES FREQUENTLY
FALLING BELOW ONE-QUARTER MILE DUE TO HEAVY SNOW WILL DEVELOP
TONIGHT TO PRODUCE NEAR-BLIZZARD AND EXTREMELY HAZARDOUS WINTER WEATHER
CONDITIONS TONIGHT THROUGH SATURDAY MORNING. TRAVEL IS HIGHLY
DISCOURAGED TONIGHT AND WILL BE VERY DANGEROUS.
LOOKING BACK AT THE BIGGEST STORM OF RECORD FOR WASHINGTON DC… THE
JANUARY 1922 KNICKERBOCKER STORM…28.0 INCHES OF SNOW WAS
PRODUCED FROM 3.02 INCHES OF LIQUID WATER. CURRENT FORECASTS FOR
THIS EVENT HAVE TOTAL LIQUID FALLING FROM THIS STORM APPROACHING 3
INCHES…WHICH ACCORDINGLY WOULD CREATE A SNOWFALL THAT WILL RIVAL
THE KNICKERBOCKER STORM TOTAL. GENERALLY ACROSS THE REGION…20 TO
30 INCHES OF SNOW WILL FALL BY SATURDAY EVENING.
BALTIMORES RECORD OF 26.8 INCHES FROM THE PRESIDENTS DAY FEBRUARY 2003
STORM WILL ALSO BE THREATENED.
Brute
Ah, yes. 1922. (Last time Washington, DC had 30 inches of snow.)
Warren Harding was President then, and it was a period of “return to normalcy”, after Woodrow Wilson and WWI.
Harding was the only US president to visit Alaska, where he probably saw less snow than in DC.
In 1999 GISS still reported the USA temperature anomaly in the early 1920s at the same level as the 1990s (with the 1930s even warmer).
But history got rewritten after the fact by Hansen’s GISS to show that the 1990s were much warmer than the 1920s (and even warmer than the 1930s).
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=63360
Maybe the 30 inches of snow you’ll be shoveling in the next few days will also get “rewritten” in climate history as a brief anomaly during an “unprecedented mild winter” (caused by AGW, of course).
Hope you, Mrs. Brute (and the dog) enjoy global warming.
Max
Aw, c’mon, Brute. You live in DC, so you must understand.
Taking large sums of taxpayer money to promote your own activist goals (in the common interest of the entire planet, of course) is a noble endeavor.
Taking much smaller amounts of money from a profit-seeking corporation to promote its interests is inherently dishonest and even despicable.
Those are the rules of the game for climate “scientists” (written by group 1 above, of course).
Max
Robin
You have done some thinking on this topic, so let me get your opinion.
Let’s see if India really goes through with it: setting up its own climate change group and withdrawing all representatives (plus funding) for IPCC.
If so, China may be next (having already decided to do its own climate research).
Could the (weak-Obama) USA be next, once “cap ‘n tax” gets trashed?
Will Russia be next?
If so, what will the EU member states (including the UK) do?
Could this be the real beginning of the demise of the IPCC?
What do you think?
Max
Brute, Max, yes vituperate is an interesting word, though I don’t think I’ve ever used it. (per MS Works dictionary: be harshly critical: to attack somebody in violently abusive or harshly critical language).
I don’t recall Anthony Watts (or the impeccably polite Steve McIntyre) ever “vituping” anyone, do you?
Concerning the evil oil (& coal) industries, should they not be subjected to vituperative attacks if they showed no interest or investment in research or review of the possible effects of their industries on the environment etc?
Brute, Reur 9431
What should we call it? The IPCC: Indian Panel on Climate Change?
It would be nice if it could become the IPCC: Indo-Chinese Panel on Climate Change, since they share some of High Asia, and other considerable interests, plus a sizable developing population compared with say lil-ole Europe!
To all posters here
For an interesting slant on Climategate, how it happened and its fallout on the scientific process see the 3-part report “Peer-to-Peer Review: How ‘Climategate’ Marks the Maturing of a New Science Movement” by Patrick Courrielche
http://bigjournalism.com/pcourrielche/2010/01/08/peer-to-peer-review-how-climategate-marks-the-maturing-of-a-new-science-movement-part-i/
http://bigjournalism.com/pcourrielche/2010/01/10/peer-to-peer-review-part-ii-how-climategate-marks-the-maturing-of-a-new-science-movement/
http://bigjournalism.com/pcourrielche/2010/01/12/peer-to-peer-review-part-iii-how-climategate-marks-the-maturing-of-a-new-science-movement/
Courrielche concludes:
I think we are all (arguably even PeterM) aware and thankful to TonyN that his “Harmless Sky” site is part of this “undermedia” that “will play the unavoidable role of getting to the truth”.
Max
Brute
You wrote:
A point well taken.
Prior to the development of these industries and the parallel industrial revolution, the per capita annual GDP was around $1,900 in the USA, around $1,000 in the “industrially developed world” of today and around $700 worldwide.
After these “evil industries” brought us the energy to lift ourselves out of the pre-industrial misery, we had a per capita annual GDP (i.e. standard of living) of $35,000 in the USA, $30,000 in the industrially developed world and $7,000 world wide (constant 2005 dollars).
At the same time, worldwide life expectancy at birth went up from around 30 to 67 years.
So the impact on humanity of the “evil coal and oil industries” (along with other parallel improvements in sanitation, immunization and medical care) was very positive.
And the impact on “the environment”?
How would you measure that?
And what would it mean?
Max
As regards funding of Heartland by Exxon I would remind people of my recent article on the compopsition of IPCC which included the following;
“6) Funding of major contributors
The British Government, through a variety of State funded organisations such as the Hadley Centre and Cru are thought to be the single biggest financial contributor to the IPCC and also supply much of its data. Other funders include private and state organisations, some by way of expertise, others by actual funds.
The following is a list of those who help to fund CRU.
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/about/history/
Extract; “This list is not fully exhaustive, but we would like to acknowledge the support of the following funders (in alphabetical order):
British Council, British Petroleum, Broom’s Barn Sugar Beet Research Centre, Central Electricity Generating Board, Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS), Commercial Union, Commission of European Communities (CEC, often referred to now as EU), Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils (CCLRC), Department of Energy, Department of the Environment (DETR, now DEFRA), Department of Health, Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), Eastern Electricity, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), Environment Agency, Forestry Commission, Greenpeace International,…………”
Tonyb
Max:
You ask (9437) for my view on the future (if any) of the IPCC, prompted by the recent report that India, according to the Telegraph, “‘cannot rely’ on the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the group headed by its own leading scientist Dr R.K Pachauri”.
Well, first, you should note that (in the same article) Mr Jairam Ramesh , India’s environment minister, is quoted as saying, “I respect the IPCC but India is a very large country and cannot depend only on [the] IPCC and so we have launched the Indian Network on Comprehensive Climate Change Assessment (INCCA)”. That doesn’t sound to me like a call to disband the IPCC. Moreover, since that report, it seems (see this article in the Times of India) that Pachauri and Ramesh have shared a platform (with the Indian prime minister) where Ramesh is reported as saying, “The Indian government is backing Pachauri to the hilt. Let there be no doubt on that. There is no wavering in the support of the Indian government. The PM and others in the government are supporting him as chairman of IPCC”. (Nonetheless you may note, from the Times of India report, that Ramesh clearly does not now hold Pachauri or the IPCC in the highest regard.) There are subtle undercurrents in play here: don’t forget that India and other “developing” economies, whatever their private views about AGW, stand to gain enormously from Western guilt about “dangerous climate change”.
So, no, I think it most unlikely that we are about to see the demise of the IPCC. But I do think that, after recent (and continuing) scandals, it will be obliged (not least by China) to take a far more transparent and balanced line in AR5. And that should be interesting.
I liked the suggestion that this Pachauri story (“The embattled head of the United Nations’ climate change panel clocked up more than half a million miles of air travel in a year and a half as he travelled the world warning of the global warming threat“) be called Departure Gate.
We’ll we’re snowed in……….tight. Over two feet of global warming has fallen so far and it’s still coming down.
I plan on cleaning the global warming off of the massively powered Brute® 4 Wheel Drive Truck and getting out in a little while.
True blizzard/white out conditions here……high winds, snow at 3” per hour.
Threw some more shredded car tires and wood into the Brute® wood stove, so we have heat………the colossal amount of global warming blocked up the flue pipe (before the power went out).
I started up the generator…………so we can watch movies. I use an Air Card for internet access and use the generator to keep the computer warmed up so we’re entertained.
Speaking of entertainment, I predict many children will be born 9 months from today. I’ll bet Peter that this prediction is more accurate than Michael Mann’s or Jimmie Hanson concerning projected temperature/sea level rise.
Brute
A survival tip if you’ve lost power and central heat due to massive global warming event.
Toss a few of those 1,000+ page IPCC reports into the fireplace. They burn well, and have no other value than fuel value.
As the French say, “Bon courage!”.
Max
Robin (9443)
Thanks for your insight.
You may be right that the Indians will politely give continued lip service to IPCC while doing their own thing.
Having spent some time working with Chinese, I suspect they will also avoid direct conflict by being very polite, while doing their own thing, as well.
Whether these movements result in the demise of IPCC is very much an open question, and I agree with you that it is anything but certain.
If, however, the USA reject “cap ‘n tax” and the Democrats lose several congressional seats later this year, it is possible that the USA will also reject IPCC and “do its own thing”.
And Russia is also a potential “wild card” here.
An IPCC, which is only backed by the EU (halfheartedly by many of the new EU members) and Japan, plus a few other countries, would be an emasculated shadow of what it once was, and would, in effect, have become irrelevant.
I do not know how IPCC funding is established, nor whether individual member nations have insight into and control of major UN line budget items, but I could imaging that this avenue could be used in the future to rein in IPCC activities.
At any rate, I believe that the recent events have severely diminished the power and the image of IPCC, which were almost unassailable as little as one year ago.
Max
ALL: These items featured in SBS TV news in Melbourne yesterday:
[1] Sea level [IPCC] blunder enrages Dutch minister
http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/sea-level-blunder-enrages-dutch-minister
[2] Climate scepticism ‘on the rise’, BBC poll shows
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8500443.stm
No mention on ABC, but SBS has greater coverage, particularly worldwide.
ALL: Another item that has been more popular (than 9448) in the news was:
Four British MPs charged over rorting of expenses
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/four-british-mps-charged-over-rorting-of-expenses/story-e6frg6so-1225827310559
Incarceration of up to seven years was mentioned on ABC and SBS TV News, for what were mentioned as fairly modest frauds of up to $30,000.… sounds a bit excessive to me.
Compare Climategate where the numbers fiddled there carry cost implications in the millions at CRU and the Met office, but globally; in the billions. If ever charged, seven years might be adequate for the cabal members?
If they were to make an example of crook MP’s, should they not also make an example of crook scientists?
TonyB, re your #9442 I note that the British Council is one of the contributors, and is also a recipient of government funds (despite being a listed charity, thus being eligible for the “fake charity” category). It is a climate change activist organisation in its own right, as you can see here, and its climate change programme leader is none other than former CRU scientist David Viner, he of the famous “Children just aren’t going to know what snow is” prediction.
Brute, by the way, I hope you’re making the most of this “rare and exciting event” – David Viner would be thrilled for you!
Just a couple more links – first Christopher Booker’s new article about the stupendous rivers of money our beloved government has been pouring into climate-change related goodness knows what.
And here’s EU Referendum’s Richard North about yet another “gate” – Africagate!