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.

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10,000 Responses to “Continuation of the New Statesman Whitehouse/Lynas blogs.”

  1. Alex

    Climate science is indeed incestous with links between all sorts of bodies and many chameleons-organisations that pretend to be one thing but turn out to be another, like the British Council.

    Brute Don’t worry-your suffering was a top story on the BBC news so we know its true because the BBC has told us.

    tonyb

  2. “Children just aren’t going to know what snow is”

    David Viner would be thrilled for you!

    Alex,

    Are you attempting to be vituperative? One could misconstrue your comment as referring to me as childlike…….

    (Of course I’m joking………I just wanted to work the word “vituperative” into the comment.)

    The snow is beautiful, but it’s a big mess and tons of work to clean it up.

    I’d expect many Mid-Atlantic States to apply for federal “bailouts” claiming that “climate change” caused the blizzard and therefore are eligible for other states to pony up and satisfy their portion of the climate debt that caused the storm……

    Think of it this way……….Many states benefited financially by burning fossil fuels to fund their state budgets/industry…….

    Therefore, these states generated “obscene “ profits at the expense of the Earth God and must pay retribution in the form of monetary penance to the states that were not affected by the snowstorm.

    Do you think anyone would fall for a ruse like that?

    Oh wait…………nevermind………

  3. Brute

    How much money are you paying for AGW?

    http://www.ihatethemedia.com/wp-content/uploads/global-warming-spending.jpg

    According to the study “Climate Money” by Joanne Nova, it revealed that the US Government alone spent more than $79 billion since 1989 on climate change science and technology research, administration, propaganda campaigns, foreign aid, and tax breaks. Now, we can cut that figure in half (it is probably a little bit more) and then we will get the spent portion for the 2000 and 2009 period. By looking at the chart, we can figure a number close to US$ 50 billion because the graph steadily rose since 1989.

    Around $7.3 billion were projected for fiscal year 2009 alone.

    There were roughly 90 million US income tax returns filed in 2009.

    So per taxpayer the “global warming” cost was:
    $80 in 2009; $550 from 200 to 2009; $880 from 1989 to 2009.

    Did you get your money’s worth?

    (Just something to think about as you shovel your way out of a 30-inch snowfall.)

    Max

  4. Brute (9452)

    The “environmental guilt tax” you suggest sounds like an excellent proposal.

    Let’s put this into legalese:

    WHEREAS:

    1. California needs money to fund the nation’s largest State welfare expenditures.

    2. California was not blessed with a 30-inch snowstorm.

    3. Other states and the District of Columbia were blessed with such a snowstorm, resulting in the combustion of significant added quantities of CO2-polluting fossil fuels.

    4. The deleterious effects of this added greenhouse pollution are expected to impact the State of California, possibly causing added forest fires, heavy rainfall, mud slides and other serious climate-related emergencies.

    NOW THEN, LET IT BE RESOLVED:

    In keeping with the constitutional principle of ecological and environmental solidarity between the States of the Union, those states that did emit this added greenhouse pollution shall pay a “guilt tax” to California, who did not cause such emissions.

    IMPLEMENTATION

    The “Governator of Kelifoanya” will come around in person to collect this (getting a free ride on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s weekly taxpayer-funded jet junket, in order to save the California taxpayers this added cost).

    (And, if you refuse to pay, it’s “hasta la vista, baby.”)

    Whaddaya think?

    Max

  5. The “environmental guilt tax” you suggest sounds like an excellent proposal.

    So Max…………

    A US State government (California) will adopt socialist policies, wreck their own economy, petition for (and be granted) federal aid and squander trillions of dollars…………then blame their woes on an benign, naturally occurring, harmless, atmospheric trace gas and they can collect money from corrupt politicians that blackmail corporations, establish taxpayer funded slush funds (funded by honest, hard working people) to enrich themselves and their political supporters?

    Are you suggesting that something resembling this could be a confidence trick?

    Confidence Trick

    A confidence trick or confidence game (also known as a bunko, con, flim flam, gaffle, grift, hustle, scam, scheme, swindle or bamboozle) is an attempt to defraud a person or group by gaining their confidence. The victim is known as the mark, the trickster is called a confidence man, con man, or con artist, and any accomplices are known as shills. Confidence men exploit human characteristics and have victimized individuals from all walks of life.

  6. The great global warming collapse

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/the-great-global-warming-collapse/article1458206/

    As the science scandals keep coming, the air has gone out of the climate-change movement………

  7. If anyone has the time-Brute you’ve no excuses if your snowed in-please have a wander over to Air vent to read my latest article on climate history. Thanks

    http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2010/02/06/travels-in-europe-part-1/#more-7928

    (Ps Hope you are keeping warm Brute)

    Tonyb

  8. Max:

    Further to my 9443 (about the future, if any, of the IPCC) here’s a footnote.

    The IPCC was set up to inform and advise governments about man-made climate change. It concluded it was happening and potentially dangerous. But Copenhagen demonstrated publicly that governments (or, more accurately, the Chinese and US governments, supported by a few others) have no intention of taking any practical notice of that conclusion. So, if governments are determined to ignore its advice, what purpose does it now serve?

    None really. But IMHO it will continue nonetheless.

  9. In October 2009, international “negotiators” met in Bangkok to prepare for the Copenhagen conference. At the time, the UK government’s Department for International Development (DFID) published this document setting out what the UK was doing to support the conference. The document concludes with this list of “facts and stats”:

    Between 1900 and 2004, 73% of disasters were climate related; 94% of disasters and 97% of disaster-related deaths occur in developing countries.

    Climate change brings the risk of increases in serious diseases such as malaria, dengue, yellow fever and polio.

    Longer rainy seasons have already led to increased malaria in parts of Rwanda and Tanzania.

    In Africa, by 2020 75-250 million people will be exposed to increased water stress due to climate change. In some countries yields from rain-fed agriculture could be reduced by up to 50%.

    Glaciers in the Himalayas are likely to disappear by 2035, affecting the water supply of three-quarters of a billion people in Asia.

    By 2050, 200 million people could be rendered homeless by rising sea levels, floods and drought.

    By 2080, an extra 600 million people worldwide could be affected by malnutrition. An extra 400 million people could be exposed to malaria. And an extra 1.8 billion people could be living without enough water.

    A quick test. How many of the above have been shown to be the result of manmade global warming? How many have been completely discredited in recent weeks? (And note the “could be”s.)

  10. I forgot the link to the DFID document. It’s here.

  11. I thought of killing myself, says climate scandal professor Phil Jones

    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7017922.ece

  12. Brute #9461
    there’s a longer version of Phil Jones’ article at
    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7017905.ece
    in which Phil Jones talks of .. a co-ordinated attempt to interfere with its work .. It was clear to Jones that the attack originated from an old adversary … Steve McIntyre, a former minerals prospector and arch climate sceptic.
    “I think they just wanted to waste our time,” he says. “They wanted to slow us down… We have no data to delete… We interpret data. We don’t create or collect it. It’s all available from other sources.”
    Mosher and others have commented, refuting the lies in Jones’ account. Not that I believe it will make any difference. The Times, like the Guardian, the Observer and the Independent, are not interested in an objective assessment of Climategate.

  13. I suppose one should feel some sympathy for Phil Jones. But that is, I suggest, tempered by recalling the leaked email disclosure that, when John Daly died (Daly hosted the wonderful “What the stations say” site – here), it was Jones who wrote: “In an odd way, this is cheering news!”

  14. Typical of the media to paint the perpetrator of a fraud as a victim (as long as they agree with his agenda)……..it’s what they do……..

  15. Robin (9458)

    Most bureaucratic commissions (possibly excluding a few that are set up to perform a specific temporary job, such as in wartime) have a propensity to survive long beyond their actual “raison d’être”.

    Your brilliant historian, Cyril Northcote Parkinson, used the examples of the Colonial Office and the Admiralty.

    So, yes, you are probably right. IPCC will continue to exist. But I predict that it will become increasingly irrelevant, especially if our planet continues to cool for another decade, based on openly audited and independently confirmed temperature records.

    Max

  16. Brute (9461)

    OK. One can feel a bit of sympathy for Phil Jones.

    But then one reads:

    Jones, 57, said he was unprepared for the scandal: “I am just a scientist. I have no training in PR or dealing with crises.”

    “just a scientist”?

    “no training in PR”?

    ”Just a scientist”, who has broken the basic scientific rule of honesty and impartiality, and who has used a very slick PR machine to spread unfounded fear among the populace, yet claims he has “no training in PR”?

    This statement is disingenuous. It is also extremely arrogant.

    And suddenly any sympathy one had for Phil Jones is gone.

    But Jones will not be imprisoned or hanged for his misdeeds.

    He will simply no longer be the unannointed “king” of global temperature, receiving accolades plus millions in taxpayer-funded grants, and can truly return to being “just a scientist”.

    Max

  17. Robin

    Your “test” (9459) on the DFID climate claims is pretty much a “no brainer”, but before getting to it, I noted the report tells us:

    world leaders will look at the two issues central to tackling climate change:
    · Preventing climate change, often referred to as mitigation.
    · Preparing for climate change, also called adaptation.

    “Preventing climate change” strikes me as being in the same general category as “preventing earthquakes”, “preventing hurricanes”, “preventing tsunamis” or “preventing winter storms”.
    If we are foolish enough to seriously believe we can “mitigate” against natural occurrences, such as “climate change”, we are not only fools, we are arrogant fools.

    So the concentration (if any) has to be on “adaptation”.

    The Dutch have been “adapting” to sea level rise by building higher and stronger dikes for centuries. No sane Dutchman would ever have proposed undertaking “mitigating” actions to prevent the sea level from rising in the first place. Moreover, had the Dutch pursued this strategy instead of building better and higher dikes, over twenty percent of their country would be under water today.

    Another point: I have seen no actionable mitigation proposals to date. All that has been proposed is a system of direct or indirect carbon taxes on the use of fossil fuels, which will obviously have absolutely no impact on our planet’s climate (no tax ever did).

    The pledges to “reduce CO2 emission levels to those of “year X” or “by Y%” are wishful thinking political goals, not actionable proposals.

    The few extremely costly proposals that could be called “actionable”, such as that of James E. Hansen to stop the construction of all new coal-fired power plants in the USA by 2010 and shut down half of the existing plants by 2050 (replacing them with non-fossil fuel plants: nuclear, solar, wind) would cost over $1 trillion and achieve a theoretical reduction in warming of 0.05°C, as I pointed out to Peter.

    So we can truly forget “mitigation”, and concentrate on “adaptation” to changes in climate if and when they occur.

    Now to the test.

    Between 1900 and 2004, 73% of disasters were climate related; 94% of disasters and 97% of disaster-related deaths occur in developing countries

    FALSE

    Statement is untrue. Indur Goklany has made a study of all climate-related and other causes of death and found no such correlation. In fact, global climate related deaths have decreased dramatically since the earlier 20th century.

    Climate change brings the risk of increases in serious diseases such as malaria, dengue, yellow fever and polio.

    FALSE.

    Professor Paul Reiter has shown that there is no correlation between temperature and malaria plus other diseases. The correlation is based on pure conjecture.

    Longer rainy seasons have already led to increased malaria in parts of Rwanda and Tanzania.

    IRRELEVANT

    The increased rain might be true, but there is no compelling reason to believe that this has anything to do with anthropogenic greenhouse warming. The biggest single cause for the worldwide increase in malaria deaths has been the banning of the use of DDT.

    In Africa, by 2020 75-250 million people will be exposed to increased water stress due to climate change. In some countries yields from rain-fed agriculture could be reduced by up to 50%.

    PURE CONJECTURE – CAN BE IGNORED AS UNFOUNDED

    Glaciers in the Himalayas are likely to disappear by 2035, affecting the water supply of three-quarters of a billion people in Asia.

    FALSE

    This myth has recently been de-bunked. The study actually said if current trends continue and even accelerate due to model-projected temperature increases, the glaciers might disappear by 2350 (not 2035).

    By 2050, 200 million people could be rendered homeless by rising sea levels, floods and drought.

    PURE CONJECTURE

    There is no indication that floods or droughts have increased globally (see Goklany above) or that any local increases are caused by AGW. Sea levels have continued to rise since 1850, with no observed acceleration in the long-term tide gauge record (see Dutch adaptation solution, above).

    By 2080, an extra 600 million people worldwide could be affected by malnutrition. An extra 400 million people could be exposed to malaria. And an extra 1.8 billion people could be living without enough water.

    FALSE

    This, again, is pure unfounded conjecture (see Goklany study above), To relate this unfounded guess to human-caused greenhouse warming is an even greater “leap of faith”. The statement can be ignored as unfounded fear-mongering.

    So the test results are poor for IPCC, as the general public is beginning to become aware.

    Max

    .

  18. geoffchambers (9462)

    The Sunday Times story on Phil Jones, “The leak was bad. Then came the death threats”, with the snapshot of an embittered Jones, brings a tear to the eye and some sympathy for Jones.

    Then he goes and blows it all with:

    He [Jones] shows how the warming trend plotted by the CRU precisely matches the plots from two independent sources in America. “There, you see!” The three coloured lines precisely overlay each other, proof positive of scientific probity.

    [The “sources in America” are anything but “independent”, as recent revelations have shown, but that is not even the key point here.]

    The rationalization of why he did no wrong and was instead the victim of an evil skeptic who wanted to destroy his work (Steve McIntyre) plus the total absence of any remorse for having cheated and misled the taxpaying public that was funding his organization in order to pursue his own agenda reminds me of earlier statements heard at Nuremberg over 60 years ago:

    Guilty? Nein. Ve vere tschust trying to kreyate a perfekt Tschermany, mit only members uff de Aryan Meisterrrasse. Besites, ve vere only following orters from abuff.

    What Jones did was obviously not a heinous crime against humanity – just a major scam committed against those who paid him.

    But until he openly confesses to his apparent cheating in reporting the facts to those that paid him, or proves conclusively that he did not manipulate the numbers, by allowing a completely open independent audit by someone like Steve McIntyre, he should be banned from his director post and any further government funding.

    Max

  19. Manacker #9468
    You’re right about Jones’s major crime being to defraud his employers (ie British taxpayers). And his pretence that the surface data sets are independent is truly pathetic, proving that neither he nor the journalist have the foggiest idea of what is going on. Thanks to the blogosphere, there are now hundreds of thousands of us, (many, like me with little scientific training) who know that this is a lie. The fact that he thinks he can get away with it shows that he is not only a bad scientist, but an incompetent PR man.
    But you can’t blame a man in a tight corner for defending himself. The real scandal here is the attitude of the journalist, who makes no attempt to discover the opposing view, or form an independent judgement as to where the truth lies. All the major “serious” newspapers in Britain are effectively pushing the same propaganda agenda, though the Telegraph gives space to its dissident freelancers Booker and Delingpole, and the others have been, for the last week, desperately trying to catch up on some of the “bad” news in order to be able to justify their shredded reputations as “journals of record”. I see no sign in the British Media that anyone has had their minds changed by the scandals at the CRU or IPCC.
    By the way, I have a big problem with comparisons with Nuremberg, particularly delivered in a mock German accent. I think we’re all tempted to make these comparisons, because we are seeing an irrational political movement based on mass hysteria, and we naturally want to compare it to the biggest and most sinister movement of this kind which hovers in our collective consciousness. But whatever it is, the green movement is not fascist. It’s not the goosestep, more the Ministry of Silly Walks.

  20. geoffchambers

    Yes. The journalists carry a lot of the blame.

    And the few independent ones, like Delingpole and Booker are subjected to a lot of verbal abuse by the AGW faithful.

    There is no comparison of this scientific fraud of the UK taxpayers today with the horrors caused by Nazi Germany at the time. Nor of the political motivations behind the AGW and Nazi movements, as you point out.

    But there is the same amazing denial of any personal culpability and complete lack of remorse, and that was my point.

    Max

  21. Brute, re your #9452, no vituperativity intended, (if that is an actual word!) Glad that you’re coping with “snowmageddon” in style – it’s the sort of event that seems to paralyse us here in London when it occurs.

    Robin, re your #9459, I remember the “By 2050, 200 million people could be rendered homeless by rising sea levels, floods and drought” statement as originating in 1995 (?) with Professor Norman Myers, Fellow of Green College, Oxford. He is cited in this report by the IISD (International Institute for Sustainable Development):

    “However, Professor Myers’ estimate of 200 million climate migrants by 2050 has become the generally accepted figure and is widely cited. But repetition does not make the figure inherently accurate. Professor Myers himself admits that his estimate, although calculated from the best available (and limited) data, required some “heroic extrapolations”. The simple fact is that nobody really knows with any degree of precision what climate change will mean for human population distribution.”

  22. RFK, Jr. 15 months ago: Global warming means no snow or cold in DC

    Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who flies around on private planes so as to tell larger numbers of people how they must live their lives in order to save the planet, wrote a column last year on the lack of winter weather in Washington, D.C.

    In Virginia, the weather also has changed dramatically. Recently arrived residents in the northern suburbs, accustomed to today’s anemic winters, might find it astonishing to learn that there were once ski runs on Ballantrae Hill in McLean, with a rope tow and local ski club. Snow is so scarce today that most Virginia children probably don’t own a sled. But neighbors came to our home at Hickory Hill nearly every winter weekend to ride saucers and Flexible Flyers.

    In those days, I recall my uncle, President Kennedy, standing erect as he rode a toboggan in his top coat, never faltering until he slid into the boxwood at the bottom of the hill. Once, my father, Atty. Gen. Robert Kennedy, brought a delegation of visiting Eskimos home from the Justice Department for lunch at our house. They spent the afternoon building a great igloo in the deep snow in our backyard. My brothers and sisters played in the structure for several weeks before it began to melt. On weekend afternoons, we commonly joined hundreds of Georgetown residents for ice skating on Washington’s C&O Canal, which these days rarely freezes enough to safely skate.

    Meanwhile, Exxon Mobil and its carbon cronies continue to pour money into think tanks whose purpose is to deceive the American public into believing that global warming is a fantasy.

    Having shoveled my walk five times in the midst of this past weekend’s extreme cold and blizzard, I think perhaps RFK, Jr. should leave weather analysis to the meteorologists instead of trying to attribute every global phenomenon to anthropogenic climate change.

    ICE AGE: WEST WING BURIED IN SNOW…

    http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/slideshow/photo//100206/480/1161e1b700bd409391d7c80b3dc58edf/

  23. geoffchambers,

    RE: # 9469

    I really don’t have a problem with Jones et al fiddling around with their datasets in an attempt to figure out how many jellybeans are in a given size jar with their own money……..What bothers me is that they’ve misrepresented themselves and hoodwinked the taxpayers/industry into funding this nonsense.

    I suppose that in the case of “industry” they’ve been fooled and they’ll (hopefully) know better next time.

    In the case of the taxpayers, I doubt that we’ll ever know how much of our hard earned dollars were wasted down this rat hole that is “global warming research”. Being so far removed from the decision making process of where/how these funds are allocated, I take particular offense. In the United States, politicians funnel money to organizations and “institutions” that they think are pretty, without public input or oversight. Jones did take federal grants from the United States and should be prosecuted (if possible) for misuse of public funds…..further; the politicians/bureaucrats that authorized the funds should be prosecuted.

    I don’t equate what these guys did to the events surrounding the Third Reich; however, Max is correct that “only following orders” doesn’t cut it (at least with me).

    “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” – Edmund Burke

    One of the “scientists” involved in this conspiracy could have had a crisis of conscience and blown the whistle……(which apparently happened in the case of the leaked CRU E-mails).

    The others involved (including Phil “crocodile tears/I’m upset because I got caught” Jones, should be investigated vigorously and prosecuted for fraud.

    I believe the United States and Great Britain have reciprocity agreements regarding extradition…………..

  24. Robin, #9463:

    Jones’ attempt to liken himself to David Kelly would seem equally offensive.

  25. Looks like this storm made the news all the way to Australia………..More global warming coming on Tuesday………

    Sunday, February 07, 2010

    Global cooling paralyses US East coast

    http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/world/snowmageddon-paralyses-us-east-coast-two-dead/story-e6frfkui-1225827497547

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