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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Re: Susan Watts’ Newsnight report:
Does anyone know more about the dissident group lead by Prins that was meeting in a Buckinghamshire mansion and discussing ways to reform the IPCC. I can find nothing.
The Guardian’s position is becoming clearer with this article
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2010/feb/04/climate-consensus-under-strain
though Monbiot is, as usual, trying to straddle two stools, and risking a serious Graun injury when he claims at the same time that “data [which] isn’t public and contestable [is] not scientific” and that no damage has been done to the canon of climate science. (Yes, he reallly did use the word “canon”, as in “Canon Law”).
To the Guardian’s credit, they managed to track down some sceptics, including Roger Pielke Jnr and Ben Pile of Climate Resistance.
serious Graun injury
:-)
The Guardian seems to have a sensible piece on glaciers up, thought i’d share.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/04/understanding-glacier-changes
This article from the current Spectator (“The global warming guerrillas” headlined, “Matt Ridley salutes the bloggers who changed the climate debate. While most of Fleet Street kowtowed to the green lobby, online amateurs uncovered the spin and deception that finally cracked the consensus“) is essential reading for all – but especially by our host TonyN (whom I’m pretty sure will have read it already). I loved his analogy between the MSM and the blogs as “knights facing archers at Crécy“.
This commentary on the article (“The Day of the Blogger: the Fifth Estate Comes into its Own“) by Philip Stott is excellent. Particularly interesting is his link to an article by the BBC’s Roger Harrabin (an erstwhile uber-warmist): “Reforming the IPCC climate body“. Although he plainly doesn’t like the bloggers (“The web is the home of right-wing bloggers“), he does concede:
Exactly.
The web is the home of right-wing bloggers
That would be the same Roger Harrabin who has just been asking Anthony Watts for help, then?
Link
I suspect a backside-covering exercise here. RH is presumably hoping that there aren’t too many sceptics in ‘current academic posts’ who are willing to be thrust into the limelight (thanks largely to the fear and loathing promoted by his employer), thus allowing him to report that ‘no-one was available for comment’. Of course, there are plenty of retired scientists, including Dr David Whitehouse (who was also a decent reporter), but I’m sure Harrabin chose his selection criteria carefully.
Here’s the Environment Agency’s Lord Smith calling for “renewed urgency” on a climate change treaty yesterday.
“The evidence of change is indeed there. The glaciers of the Alps and the Himalayas are retreating. Weather patterns around the world are becoming more erratic and more extreme. The most intensive rainfall ever experienced in one location over a 24 hour period in England fell on Cumbria last November, and caused the tragic consequences of the severe flooding that we saw in Cockermouth, Keswick and Workington.
We can’t say for certain that these things – or indeed the intense heat recently experienced in Australia, or the droughts in Kenya – are caused by climate change. But we can see with our own eyes that the climatic, weather and temperature trends are changing, and we know that these hitherto exceptional events are likely to become more frequent over coming years.”
Some curious (and circular) reasoning in that excerpt. To paraphrase: the evidence of climate change is there, and here are some examples of this evidence, although we can’t be certain that these examples were caused by climate change. Nevertheless, although we’re not certain of that, there is other (empirical but unnamed) evidence that tells us climate change is happening and so we can be certain that the dubious examples mentioned above will happen more often in future.
And just think about this phrase: “we can see with our own eyes that the climatic, weather and temperature trends are changing”. What is it exactly that he thinks we are seeing “with our own eyes” re temperature trends?
We can’t say for certain that these things are caused by climate change.
Not a very sound basis for disruptive and expensive action then, is it?
Robin, #9504:
When will the BBC begin to take the serious bloggers seriously.
I assume that everyone has seen this:
BBC asks WUWT for help
Is it really likely that any sceptical scientists who have kept their head below the parapet so far are likely to choose a BBC journalist to unburden themselves to? A penny to a pound that this ends up with a report from Harrabin saying that there are no sceptical scientists out there because he can’t find any.
Looks like we’re going to get hit with another “unprecedented” blizzard tomorrow….Gaia help us!
The Knickerbocker Snowstorm
http://www.weatherbook.com/knickerbocker.htm
TonyN (9409):
Don’t worry – the bloggers are winning. Re that knights (MSM) / archers (blogs) analogy, here’s the Wikipedia entry:
TonyN
In order to help Anthony Watts respond to Roger Harriban, I have posted this on the WUWT blog
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/03/bbc-asks-wuwt-for-help/#comment-308897
Hope this helps Harriban find his skeptical UK scientists (that he appears to believe do not exist?).
Max
TonyN
Further to my 9412, I posted this on the WUWT blog about BBC’s Harrabin:
What is Harrabin really trying to achieve with his memo to Anthony?
Let’s not be cynical. Let’s assume he is honestly asking for help in finding some scientists who are skeptical of the AGW premise.
Does this make sense?
Harrabin is basically a reporter. He should know that a letter was written to the UN Secretary General in December 2009 stating:
and challenging
This letter was signed by over 100 scientists, including 9 from the UK.
As the environmental analyst for BBC, Harrabin must certainly know this, if he is worth his salt.
So is his request really a “curve ball”? Is he trying to demonstrate that there ARE NO UK scientists who are sceptical of the AGW premise?
His request specifically asks for “UK scientists in current academic posts who are sceptical about AGW”. Does this exclude UK scientists who are either retired or are working in non-academic posts?
As many posters have already remarked here, openly speaking out against the AGW premise may be career limiting for academic scientists in the UK today, so that many skeptics may simply be hesitant to go on record, thereby proving Harrabin’s point that there ARE NO UK scientists who are skeptical of the AGW premise, and, therefore, that (as Robert Watson proclaimed over 10 years ago) “the science is settled”.
Let’s see how this plays out.
Max
Robin
You mention the historic Battle of Crécy, where English long-bow archers defeated a larger army of French armored knights in 1346.
The Swiss had a similar “game changing” battle in 1315, the first in their struggle for independence from their Habsburg rulers.
Leopold of Austria led an army of 3000 to 5000 men — about one third of them armored knights on horseback — to crush the rebellious Swiss confederates from Uri and Schwyz, planning a surprise attack from south via Lake Aegeri and the Morgarten pass and counting on a complete victory over the rebellious peasants.
The Confederates had been tipped off about the attack. They prepared a road-block and an ambush at a point between Lake Aegeri and Morgarten pass where the small path led between the steep slope and a swamp. When about 1500 men attacked from above with rocks, logs and halberds, the horses panicked and the knights had no room to defend themselves and so suffered a crushing defeat, while the foot soldiers in the rear fled back to the city of Zug. The Habsburgians lost a total of 2000 men, while the Confederates lost 12.
The victory of the Confederates left them in their virtual autonomy and gave them a breathing space of some sixty years before the next Habsburg attack resulted in the Battle of Sempach (1386), [which the Swiss also won].
At Morgarten a large force of mounted armored knights was routed by a smaller group of peasants, taking advantage of the local topography and using rocks and logs from above to panic the horses before moving in with halberds to finish off the knights who were stuck in the swamp.
Not a “hi-tech” victory like Crécy, but nevertheless also a “game changer”, with the “knights” on the losing end.
Max
IPCC: International Pack of Climate Crooks
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/ipcc_international_pack_of_cli.html
Have you guys read this?
Peter Geany or Geoff Chambers put me onto it a couple of pages back……….it really is disturbing what these “scientists” were up to.
It is a rather long essay, but it’s worth taking the time to read it and digest how unethical and underhanded these people are.
Climategate Analysis:
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/reprint/climategate_analysis.pdf
Does this image catch your interest?
Click URL IF NO IMAGE: http://images.theage.com.au/2010/02/03/1090797/420monckton-420×0.jpg
Why such a silly photo, just as it appeared in the print edition?
TOM ARUP in the environment section of the Melbourne Age last Thursday wrote:
‘Mad Monk’ meets Monckton
http://www.theage.com.au/environment/mad-monk-meets-monckton-20100203-ndl9.html
BTW, the ONLY newspaper that I regularly buy is the Thursday Age because of a useful supplement that it contains. “Mad Monk’ appears to refer Tony Abbot, leader of the opposition and its efforts to kill the ETS (Emissions Trading Scheme) etc.
Further my 9417;
Here is another point of view:
http://australianconservative.com/2010/01/monckton-and-plimer-draw-big-crowds-win-debate-in-brisbane/
Brute (9415)
Great stuff! That article also links to this – the parallels with CO2 are striking…
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/the_cfc_ban_global_warmings_pi.html
If only more politicians were like this gentleman.
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2010/02/what-happens-when-dike-shows-cracks.html
Brute 9416
I’m pleased you took the time to read it all the way through. I think some of our journalists need to do the same, in fact it should be compulsory before they broadcast or go to print again. I was truly astounded and it is still not getting across in the MSM just how bad some of this stuff is. That anyone can say that the science still stands after reading this or that Jones and Mann could have any creditability left is beyond me.
I think some of these scientists are hoping that the general public don’t read this stuff and become disinterested so they can continue to play politics with it all
By the way, has anyone heard any uterances from The Royal Society. I’ll say it; isn’t it typical that when we need real leadership and a steady hand on the tiller of science these guys have their heads in the sand. Thet should all be stripped of their titles and sent out to pasture in disgrace.
Another disturbing development is the impression those jumping to the defense of the IPCC and CRU are trying to give. They are trying to portray that whilst being alarmist is wrong and mistakes have been made, the skeptics are damaging the public’s impression of science, and that somehow being skeptical is bad and there is a third way.
I thought it was the bad science that was doing the damage but never mind. This is where we need leadership from the RS.
Peter Geany,
Thanks again.
I really don’t know what to say……I’m speechless…….physically sickened by the cutthroat ruthlessness, maliciousness and outright fraud that these men and their cohorts are attempting to perpetrate.
I’m all for sensible environmental policy, but what these guys are up to is flatly, criminal.
If the essay weren’t so (relatively) long, I’d send it out. Unfortunately, most wouldn’t take the time to read through it. The raw E-mails were extremely “inside baseball”. That is, without some historical knowledge of the names, institutions, background and acronyms, the raw E-mails are difficult to wade through……but Costello formats them all very nicely.
That being said, I understand that Michael Mann secured a $500,000.00 “grant” from the Federal Government last month………unbelievable………
Here’s at Least One Job ‘Created or Saved’
http://planetgore.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YmRiMjU3YjAxNTNlNDljNTM2YTY4YjExMWUyMDMwYTM=
Barleysane #9420
We have posted on sea levels here numerous times. There is a fixation by warmists -as with arctic ice-on the very recent levels as evidenced by satelite records.
It is possible to go way back with sea levels because of bench marks cut by the ocean, tide level marks, evidence of buildings now above or below the current sea level etc.
This study from Israel looks at a longer perspective of 2500 years. Others from elsewhere in the world would show some levels higher than 2500 years ago and some lower.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/04/israel-study-shows-variable-sea-level-in-past-2500-years/#more-16087
Sea level peaks in the UK coincide with the Roman optimum and the MWP.
Chapter 5 in AR4 admits that modern sea levels are based on a hopelessly inadequate study of three only Northern Hemisphere tide gauges all from within the same tidal basin.(Not that they use quite those words of course!) From this minimal data all sorts of global suppositions have been extrapolated. It is (even) more laughable than the hockey stick.
Tonyb
Hi Tonyb
Don’t disagree with any of that, was essentially just pointing out a new IPCC error i hadn’t heard of until reading that (Danish land area below sea level).
I’m beginning to think the Guardian has been very quitely taken over after reading this piece (while doing a credible impersonation of a goldfish)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/feb/05/science-climate-emails-code-release
Barleysane
Sorry, wasn’t grumbling, just agreeing with your comments and adding another.
Your Guardian article is interesting. These days scientists are expected to be pre-eminent in their own field, computer experts, and also accomplished statisticians-the latter skill now needed as so much of the info thrown up by computers is highly theoretical and needs interpreting.
Whilstmost scientists are pretty good at the first part of the job description (although they tend to be very focussed and don’t always see the bigger picture) they are often rather poor on the other two aspects.
tonyb