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.”
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Senate global warming hearing cancelled due to blizzard……………
EPW HEARINGS POSTPONED DUE TO WEATHER
February 9, 2010
Posted Matt Dempsey matt_dempsey@epw.senate.gov
EPW HEARINGS POSTPONED DUE TO WEATHER
UPDATE: The following Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works hearings have been postponed due to inclement weather this week:
– The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, Subcommittee on Water and Wildlife, will hold a hearing entitled, “Collaborative Solutions to Wildlife and Habitat Management.”
Once the hearings are rescheduled, information will be posted at http://www.epw.senate.gov
Sen. Jim DeMint twitters: D.C. snow will continue ‘until Al Gore cries uncle’
http://thehill.com/blogs/twitter-room/other-news/80395-demint-dc-snow-will-continue-until-al-gore-cries-uncle
Brute (your 9501)
Somebody up there is definitely not “playing along”.
Is it “Lady Gaia”, “Mother Nature” or some other all-powerful supernatural being who is chuckling at the fools down below who seriously believe that they can control the climate of Earth? And even more absurdly, do so by imposing taxes?
Hansen calls an AGW “civil disobedience” rally in Washington, DC and it is snowed out by a major blizzard, so hardly anyone shows up to be “disobedient”.
A year later a global warming conference in Copenhagen sees snow dumped on the thousands of delegates, who “swanned in” from all corners of the world by private planes but were unable to agree how to “save the planet”, despite a failed last-ditch attempt by US President Obama.
A few weeks later a US Senate committee hearing on global warming is cancelled because of snow.
Meanwhile, Climategate and all the other AGW-related “…gates” are taking their toll and the pesky “global temperature” continues to drop despite record CO2 increase. In addition, ENSO is no longer causing warming and Solar Cycle 24 continues to be very inactive.
In addition, the general public is gradually becoming aware of what is going on.
It is not a good time for the AGW faithful.
Could it be that “Lady Gaia” is demonstrating to the doomsayers that SHE (and not the IPCC climate models) is still in charge of our climate and weather?
Max
WUWT has posted an important opinion piece here. It’s by Jerome Ravetz – Oxford University (business college) and an environmental consultant and professor of philosophy of science. He’s been (worryingly) described as “a postmodernist critic of science” – whatever that means. It’s a long (nearly 4,000 words), complex and thought-provoking essay and I’m not sure that I have properly followed his reasoning – I must find time to read it again. Although there’s a lot of good, interesting and perceptive stuff here, I’m unsure that I agree with much of it (especially what I think are his conclusions, especially his penultimate paragraph). And I’m finding it hard to summarise his message. Nonetheless, here’s an attempt:
No, reading that again, I suspect it’s probably more a summary of my views than of Professor Ravetz’s.
I’d like to hear what others think. Incidentally, some of the comments that follow it are arguably more interesting than the essay itself.
This is quite amusing.
This one is for Brute #9496 (see the end of the clip). As he shovels his way to freedom for the nth time this winter, he can contemplate the means the Chinese have to deal with snow. It’s easier on the eye then Al Gore, anyway.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaV8K8ACq5k&feature=quicklist
Robin (9505)
I’m still smiling!
This might be worth keeping an eye on. There’s a flurry of snow outside as I write…
http://www.weatheraction.com/displayarticle.asp?a=144&c=1
[TonyN: Your link appears to be broken]
A couple of climate-related stories in the media this week which are good examples IMO of how bloggers are continuing to show up the traditional media.
First, the BBC’s recent article about how Galapagos seals are moving to waters off northern Peru. And here’s what they got wrong and had to amend (at least they corrected this story, which is good): the sea lions were actually fur seals, it was the Peruvian Geophysics Institute not ORCA that has been measuring average sea temps, and where the original article mentions climate change and global warming (“The Organisation for Research and Conservation of Aquatic Animals says the sea lions have swum to northern Peru because of rising temperatures. They says [sic] the temperature rise was caused by climate change.” “Now, thanks to global warming, that unique ecosystem could face unprecedented changes”), the amended version now has: “The earlier version had a reference to the temperature rise being caused by climate change. This has been removed as the relevant research is still in its early stages.” Biased BBC has some extra background to the story here.
Also this article by Louise Gray in yesterday’s Telegraph. I googled it after the story came up as a 10-second item in yesterday’s BBC TV Breakfast News: “You may think that this winter has been very cold, but in fact a recent study has shown that spring is arriving 11 days early” (I’m paraphrasing from memory here.)
What neither Louise Gray nor the BBC mention is that the study (according to Richard North in EU Referendum) was based on data from 1976 to 2005. So it’s relatively old climate news, from half a decade ago.
Bloggers 2 – mainstream media – nil.
Your link appears to be broken
It links to a page with a separate link to a PDF. I thought that was preferable to linking straight to a download.
Well, here we are again today………The Washington DC Government & The Federal Government have essentially thrown in the towel. All schools in the region are closed until next Monday from Richmond to Philadelphia. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the Federal Government closes until Monday also.
The story below is for TonyN. This problem could be easily remedied; however, I found it quite funny.
Minnesota’s frozen turbines raise new doubts about wind power
http://green.venturebeat.com/2010/02/08/minnesotas-frozen-turbines-raise-new-doubts-about-wind-power/
Well, I found time to read the Ravetz essay again. Yes, it’s interesting and well-written. But a second reading confirmed my earlier uncomfortable feeling about it. (I agree with the commentator who suggested that Ravetz is a beguiling Trojan horse.) First, it reinforced my suspicion that his concept of “post modern science” is foolish and dangerous – I believe there’s nothing about today’s world that, as he seems to think, makes “normal” science obsolete. Moreover, he is I believe subtly trying to make respectable the emerging conceit of AGW proponents that, although the Climategate etc. revelations are damaging to the practice of climate science and lessons have to be learned, they do not prejudice the “underlying” science, which remains “robust”.
Willis Eschenbach (see comments) puts it nicely (although in more extreme terms than I would choose):
Nonetheless, many WUWT thought the essay an excellent analysis and it does include some useful, interesting and perceptive material. I urge people to read it.
My last sentence should have read, “Nonetheless, many WUWT commentators thought the essay …”
Hi Robin
I read the article. I find it distrubing that poor science can be excused by a fancy label excusing the gaps in our knowledge as lomg as its for the ‘greater good.’
I think the comment below illustrates the current state of the art of climate science spin. It was made by Chris Field who is one of the Stanford University Global-Warming-Alarm! team headed by Stephen Schneider, a lead IPCC author who says:
http://www.solopassion.com/node/5841
“On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the
scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole
truth, and nothing but – which means that we must include all the
doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we
are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people
we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context
translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially
disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broadbased support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting
loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make
simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts
we might have. This ‘double ethical bind’ we frequently find ourselves
in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the
right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that
means being both.”
Personally I think that by accepting the sort of analysis made by the Proessor over at WUWT we are in danger of accepting that black is white and up is down. Climatologists need to provide evidence of their case and not to believe that the strength of their cause is superior to the need to prove their science.
Tonyb
Must be a “regional anomaly”………
Blizzards threaten Chinese New Year rush home
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/TOE6190BM.htm
Thanks Brute. I haven’t heard that the same problems occurred over here when Scotland was getting temperatures of -20C last month, but so many of our turbines are stopped so much of the time that I don’t suppose anyone would have noticed.
Robin, TonyB, I’ve read the Jerome Ravetz essay and he makes some fair points, but I just don’t “get” the idea of post-normal science. For me, this isn’t science but politics. Where there is uncertainty (and there always uncertainty, to a degree) all a scientist can say, surely is “I’m uncertain” or state how certain he/she is. The rest of it (“What impact does this knowledge have?”, “What shall we do about X, Y or Z?”) is politics. How has this changed?
Wikipedia’s entry on post-normal science states: “…advocates of post-normal science suggest that there must be an “extended peer community” consisting of all those affected by an issue who are prepared to enter into dialogue on it. They bring their “extended facts”, that will include local knowledge and materials not originally intended for publication such as leaked official information. There is a political case for this extension of the franchise of science; but Funtowicz and Ravetz also argue that this extension is necessary for assuring the quality of the process and of the product.”
I would have thought that with the inclusion of “extended facts”, there is more danger of the sort of fiasco we’re witnessing with IPCC’s IR4, where various materials from questionable sources have evidently been thrown in to bolster a case and have never been scrutinised properly. In my view there is more likelihood that it will not have the effect of “assuring the quality of the process and of the product” but the exact opposite. But in any case, the decision by policy-makers to look at “multiple viewpoints” or less-than-rigorously-scientific material, justified or not, is always a political decision, not a scientific decision.
As for paradigm shifts or scientific revolutions, these are surely just part of science, and there is nothing “post-normal” about them. It may be that a revolutionary new theory will arise that will address the current uncertainties of climate science, and explain long-term warming and cooling trends on a continental or global scale and which will help us to understand, for instance, why it was possible to farm Greenland in AD 900 but not in AD 1500. Basically, our knowledge of the universe will have advanced by a few notches, and some phenomena that were puzzling or appeared contradictory will now be understood. But won’t that, again, just be “science”?
Too Dangerous to Plow, D.C., Area Governments Halt Snow Removal
February 10, 2010
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/02/10/dangerous-plow-dc-maryland-governments-halt-snow-removal/
Yes, TonyB, Ravetz has a knack of seducing anyone reading his attractive prose with insufficient care: it all sounds intelligent and perceptive. But, as I found (see my post 9504), it initially made me suspicious and a second reading confirmed that suspicion. His concept of “Post Normal Science” (a concept shared by Mike Hulme, founding director of the Tyndall Centre and Professor of Climate Change at, er, the University of East Anglia) is extremely dangerous: what, in effect, we are being asked to accept, by seemingly learned people, is that in the modern world the rational values of the Enlightenment must be replaced by new “values” that dismiss rationality and treat the truth as heresy. This article (in Buy the Truth) explains it well. It quotes this comment by Mike Hulme:
And there I was innocently thinking it was about scientists seeking the truth about a physical phenomenon. A quotation from Buy the Truth:
These are worrying times.
Further to the above, a lot of the WUWT commentators are full of admiration for Ravetz’s essay. So, if the Trojan Horse analogy is accurate (as I think it is), Ravetz has done an excellent job: the innocent citizens have opened the gates, pulled their trophy inside and are busy celebrating and getting drunk.
seducing anyone reading his attractive prose with insufficient care
I fell for it too, I’m afraid. Not so good on a second reading – perhaps I’ll just get drunk…
Posted on the wrong story…
Snowstorm shatters local records in Chicago…
http://cbs2chicago.com/local/snow.foot.chicago.2.1481078.html
Robin James and Alex
We have a number of people in public life whose very dense manner of communication often obscures their real message. Sometimes the words are so dense and convoluted that even reading it several times still leaves the reader wondering what it was all about. The most guilty of these is the Archbishop of Canterbury who I can’t fathom out at all.
The good Professor covers his message in layers of obfuscation which has to be unwrapped bit by bit but basically he is defending the non scientfic method when the topic is climate science which seems to live by its own rules.
Tonyb
Robin (9504)
The article on WUWT by Jerome Ravetz is a thought-provoking treatise on Climategate and its causes. A lot of it makes good sense to me, but some other parts do not. Here are my comments:
Ravetz starts off lamenting the “betrayal of public trust” at IPCC (Himalayagate) and UAE (FOIA violations). Compares “the debate is over” with “WMD beyond doubt”.
Concludes that Climategate was created by “people within science”, rather than from outside influences (greedy corporations or an unscrupulous State). This is a bit naïve, as it ignores the fact that the “State” is financing those very “people within science”, and that this same “State” is looking for scientific justification for its plan to impose major new “carbon taxes” (see Mencken).
He states we should look at what “fostered and nourished” Climategate. Then brings in his idea of “Post-Normal-Science”, which Wiki defines, as follows:
For me there is a basic problem of logic here. On the issue of AGW it is clear that “facts are uncertain and values are in dispute”. But it is anything but clear that “stakes are high and decisions are urgent”. The very fact that the “facts are uncertain and values are in dispute” raises serious questions about the claim that the “stakes are high and decisions are urgent”. The stakes are only high and urgent decisions are only required if we believe that the scientific support for this premise is valid. If this scientific support is based on bad, manipulated or agenda-driven “science” (as we are beginning to see), then the case for “high stakes” and the need for “urgent decisions” no longer exists.
Ravetz’ frightening statement could have been taken direct out of Orwell’s 1984 (or a script from Hitler or Stalin):
“Governance of science” by the makers of policy has an ominous “big brother” sound.
Ravetz then goes on to examine “what went seriously wrong”, blaming a part on the “evangelical science of global warming”, which allowed the observation of a general warming trend, along with the known greenhouse properties and the increasing human emission of CO2, to be parleyed into an impending threat of dangerous AGW, as a “proven fact”.
The scientists are given the largest share of the blame here for oversimplifying the case for AGW to make it understandable to politicians and the public. It is certainly true that the myopic fixation of IPCC on anthropogenic climate forcing factors to the essential exclusion of natural factors has led to oversimplified and even simplistic claims.
But I would question Ravetz’ logic in claiming that this oversimplification was caused by the scientists, largely because of difficulties is explaining their complex science to politicians and the public.
Instead, I believe it was programmed into “the DNA” of IPCC from its inception. IPCC was set up by politicians and bureaucrats to investigate human impacts on climate and identify possible mitigating steps to avoid negative impacts on society and the environment. No potentially threatening human cause impacts = no need for IPCC to continue to exist. So it is clear that the oversimplification was not caused by the scientists, but rather by the politicians and bureaucrats, who then provided financial support for the “science” that would justify their policy goals, in other words “agenda driven science”
Ravetz points out the weaknesses of computer simulations in “normal science” involving complex scientific situations with high degree of uncertainty:
Ravetz points out that the global temperature models depend more on the assumed “storylines” that on anything else that and the assumed ranges in climate sensitivity are so high that any predictions are, by definition, questionable. Projected end-of-century temperature increase ranges from a barely noticeable 1°C to an alarming 6°C, based on these shaky assumptions.
He then points out how “a small set of deeply uncertain tree-ring data for the Medieval period” was used to rewrite the historical evidence for the MWP, in the Mann et al. “hockey stick”, including the latest revelations of the “trick of hiding the post 1960 decline” in the reconstructed figures. But he fails to point out that the “hockeystick” had already been comprehensively refuted on scientific grounds as a fake prior to the current revelations.
The predictions of severe weather events caused by AGW were politically necessary to frighten the public into accepting the AGW story. But, as Ravetz points out, they were based on even shakier science than the global temperature projections upon which they were based.
Ravetz looks for rationalizations to explain the actions taken by the scientists when “facts are uncertain and values are in dispute”.
He acknowledges that the political pressure was strong to find simple explanations of the imminent dangers in what had become a crusading “war on carbon”.
But he the gets into rather theoretical and philosophical discussions about Thomas Kuhn and a “’pre-revolutionary’ phase of normal science”, where the scientists felt they were surrounded by uncertainty on one hand, but under pressure to provide a clear and compelling (if oversimplified) case to support the premise of potentially serious AGW on the other.:
I believe it is far simpler than that. The root cause was political pressure to provide scientific support for a policy agenda (massive taxes on carbon). The policy makers who wanted to make these policy changes needed a “scientific” rationalization for the need for “action”. These same politicians controlled the funding for climate research. IPCC, which had been specifically set up to investigate human-caused climate change and its impacts on our society and environment, was the logical vehicle to spread the case for the urgent need for action.
Ravetz mentions how these pressures caused scientists to corrupt the “peer review” process and withhold information from critics or independent auditors.
Again, this is a rationalization of the behavior of the scientists resulting from “facts uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high, and decisions urgent” (i.e. the conditions for “post-normal science”, per his definition).
It is undoubtedly true that facts were uncertain (they still are) and values were in dispute (ditto). But stakes were only high and decisions urgent if we believe the exaggerated claims that were made by the scientists to support the political “war on carbon” (and excuse for a major new tax on carbon). The sense of urgency was fabricated by “agenda driven science”.
Ravetz then discusses the “debate is over” syndrome and the subsequent rapid “unraveling” of the science behind the AGW premise with the revelations of Climategate, etc.
There is no question that the peer review community has been extended, even to the blogosphere, as Ravetz states. Errors, omissions, exaggerations and just plain “bad science” in the IPCC reports have been pointed out by many critics, largely on the various blog sites. The absurd and arrogant cry ,“the debate is over”, was a key precursor to the demise of the AGW premise. (No one likes arrogance, especially if it is being funded by the taxpayer.)
Ravetz states:
To me this is simply a rationalization of bad scientific behavior by a cabal of highly influential publicly funded climatologists who had become activists in the “war on carbon” rather than impartial scientists.
Was it a “post-normal situation” that climate science funding (by the politicians) depended on delivering the scientific message to support the policy agenda of the politicians giving the grants?
Or was that just “politics as usual”, several hundreds of billions of dollars at stake and “agenda driven science”?
Ravetz makes a strange observation:
In other words the credibility of “science” in our society stands or falls with the validity of the premise that we are experiencing AGW and that it is a potentially serious threat for our society and our environment.
I would argue against this statement. If the AGW premise is, indeed, refuted by the scientific evidence before us, then this gives “climate science” a new chance to redeem itself by doing real impartial science to find the “truth” about our planet’s climate rather than provide the “proof” to support a politically-motivated agenda.
Those are just my thoughts, Robin.
Max
PeterM
You suggested on the “warmist don’t know what hit them” site that someone should “suggest to the Royal Society that they correct their website”.
I think they will quietly do this on their own, as they discover that many of the AGW claims they had supported are not backed by sound science.
You quote the paragraph:
The preconceived notion that climate change is not ‘safe’ but ‘dangerous’ instead will certainly be removed in the future. Even the “global temperature increase to date” (0.75°C) may have far more beneficial effects on our planet than negative ones.
It raises the “Goldilocks just right” temperature question. Do we enjoy this “perfect” temperature today, did we enjoy it five years ago, when average global temperature was a bit higher than today, or was it during the 1980s, when they were a smidgen lower?
RS seems to believe the whole 0.75°C increase from around 1850 was potentially “dangerous”. Does the RS think our perfect “Golidilocks just right” temperature was back in 1850, prior to this 0.75°C increase?
The fact of the matter is, Peter, that the RS does not have any earthly idea what the perfect “Goldilocks just right” globally and annually averaged land and sea surface temperature for our planet really is, so cannot logically claim that the observed increase of less than 1°C to date is not “safe”.
The statement that further increases in global temperature will increase “the risk of more widespread and dangerous climate impacts; from sea level rise, from increasing frequency and intensity of climate extremes such as heat waves, floods and droughts, especially in vulnerable areas” is based on conjecture, as the recent revelations are showing (Africa-gate, Himalaya-gate, etc.). The IPCC case for increased extreme weather events due to AGW is not based on “formal attribution studies”, but on “expert judgment” (i.e. educated guess), as the report itself concedes.
If the RS political leadership is astute, they will drop these claims, as well, as the scientific case for AGW becomes unraveled.
Peter, I predict that it will take some time and possibly some changes in personnel, but the RS will eventually quietly back off on the claims you mentioned and take a more objective and neutral stand on AGW.
Max
Robin
Coming back to Ravetz.
The more I re-read this, especially the part about his theories on “Post-Normal Science”, this all sounds like a thinly veiled justification for (or rewording of) the ”precautionary principle”, i.e. to paraphrase: well, we may not have all the facts and some of the data values we have are uncertain, but the stakes are so high that we urgently need to make (and implement) decisions “just in case”.
You are a better judge of the fine points of the English language than I am; do you also read this into Ravetz’ “Post-Normal Science” rationalization?
AGW aficionados have used this line of malarkey to justify “cap and trade”, etc. (I seem to recall that even PeterM played this tune once on this site).
I pointed this out (along with its logical weakness) to Ayrdale, a new poster on the “warmists just don’t know what hit them” blog.
Max