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 my 9569, Willis Eschenbach puts it nicely (far better than I could) here.
Robin said
“I suspect he may be kicking himself: he’s an environmental analyst and he’s missed what has been under his nose for months – and it could have been the defining story of his career.”
Totally agree. He could have made a real name for himself but instead merely followed (or led) the party line. Still, if he is now trying to play catch up he may be more vigorous pursuing this story than others might be.
BTW Whilst I deliberately used ‘At this moment in time’ I couldn’t bring myself to use your other two phrases as well, it jarred too much!
tonyb
TonyB
Blogese is contagious.
Robin and TonyB:
I’m afraid that I can think of a far less sympathetic explanation for Roger Harrabin’s change of tack. And there are plenty of signs in his use of language that the leopard hasn’t changed his spots.
Anyone:
Why would Phil Jones words have to be spoken by a producer, no less, in the interview that Robin linked to in #9570?
Looks like Greenpeace wants Pachauri to resign.
http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2010/02/03/uk-greenpeace-chief-calls-on-pachauri-to-resign-al-gore-still-silent/
Interestingly, the guy that stood on the podium next to Pachauri when Nobel Peace Prizes were being handed out (Al Gore) has not yet taken a stand.
So the AGW movement is finding the scapegoats (Jones and Pachauri so far, Mann next?).
This all misses the point.
The problem with AGW is not “bad scientists”. It is “bad science”.
Max
realpolitic/ReedYoung/Fumes,
You guys here?
Robin
Re your list of key concessions from the Harriban interview of Phil Jones (9558).
Yes, Jones is conceding some things that would have branded him an “anti-science climate denier” (or worse) in those heady, pre-Climategate days.
But if you read between the lines you also see a lot of flat excuses plus the same old “party line”.
For example he admits that “some of his decades-old weather data was not well enough organized”, that the “trail of where the (weather) stations have come” is “probably not as good as it should be” and “we have improved but we have to improve more”.
But then he proclaims, “he had not cheated over the data, or unfairly influenced the scientific process”, “I’m a scientist trying to measure temperature”, defends using a “trick” to “hide the decline” in temperature (of proxy studies) and that “recent climate warming was most likely predominantly man-made”.
And he denied any attempt to influence climate data: “I have no agenda,” he said.
Then he puts the blame on poor communication and transparency of the climate scientists:
So it is sort of an defense brief that goes “I’m just a scientist trying to measure temperature, I have no agenda, I didn’t cheat but organized my paperwork poorly, we are improving the quality of the weather data, we need to improve our transparency and communication skills but global warming is real and man-made.”
He then claims that the whole Climategate revelations “had been deliberately taken out of context and “spun” by sceptics keen to derail the Copenhagen climate conference”.
Sounds really like more of the “same old same old” to me, despite the astonishing concessions you mentioned.
Max
ALL; Further my 9557
As a matter of clarification, my quoting of Harrabin’s question G on the MWP was not because I thought it the most significant, but that it added to my 9528. In fact one Q & A that really had me gasping was:
How did Harrabin come to ask first-up such an important, (and perhaps to some; rather obscure) Q?
Does Jones realize the underlying significance of his answer?….Sheez!
The BBC seems to be prepared to portray Pachauri as a figure of fun:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00qll1r
and nothing destroys a reputation more quickly than ridicule.
Note the attempted fight-back from Houghton and Legget(sp?) who sound as though they come from another era. In the last moments the presenter suggests that neither the IPCC nor its chairman are likely to survive another disaster. Ironic that it looks as though that may have already happened when Harrabin posted his interview with Jones last night. Changed days!
The BBC seems to be prepared to portray Pachauri as a figure of fun:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00qll1r
and nothing destroys a reputation more quickly than ridicule.
Note the attempted fight-back from Houghton and Legget(sp?) who sound as though they come from another era. In the last moments the presenter suggests that neither the IPCC nor its chairman are likely to survive another disaster. Ironic that it looks as though that may have already happened when Harrabin posted his interview with Jones last night. Changed days!
AGW Project Progress Report………………………………….13 February 2010……………………..
….Task……………% Completion…..Weeks Ahead (Behind)………………………….Budget %
1. Enthusiasm…………….100……….DNK-I’m just a scientist…………………600+(trying to measure)
2. Disillusionment………….70……….NA-I have no agenda…………………….42- needed to be more
3. Panic……………………..30……….Probably not as good as it should be…….DNK (it can be difficult)
4. Search For Guilty………..10……….UNK-(Organised my paperwork poorly)….will do lots of checking
5. Punishment of Innocent…..5………We have to improve more…………keeping track of everything is difficult
6.Promotion of Uninvolved….0………It is happening……………………this area is slightly outside my expertise
ALL: I’ve finished reading the Mosher & Fuller book: ‘Climategate…. The Crutape letters“.
Before offering my wider thoughts on it, (I’ll abbreviate it as Mosh’s book), including its cohesiveness with ‘The Hockey Stick Illusion‘, (I’ll call that Bish’s book), I’m going to try again here with a little more nagging:
On Mosh’s page 182, para 7, there is this; …. I copy-type it; (fingers crossed), my bold added:
From my reading and understanding, I believe this to be of general acceptance!
Thus, and this is my nag; further to my recent 9557 & 9528 etc; even IF dendro stuff IS meaningful within its very limited NH regional and temporal scope, what is the point of proxy-inferring summer-growth daytime temperatures in millennial terms in the NH, when relatively recent indications of warming are said to be mostly outside the growth period of such tree rings?
Furthermore, dear ol’ Phil (via UEA Press Office ? …. see 9557) is quoted as having written:
There are a bunch of other simple arguments too, that also make the hockey-sticks nonsense or corrupt!
That is not to say that M & M’s exposés are irrelevant, (they are brilliant), it is just that that approach is very complicated, and hard for most people to understand; thus enabling controversy.
So why not go for the simpler more digestible explanations?
TonyN (your 9583 (and 9584!)):
“figure of fun”? Sounded like hagiography to me.
ALL-following up Robin’s comments
The Mail is following up on the Phil Jones interview and I picked this piece out
“Professor Jones also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now – suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon.
And he said that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming.”
Hmm. The former could have been any of us saying those things over the last year or two on this forum and with regards to the MWP what MOST historians have always said
BOB FJ
Tree rings have always bemused me, as whilst they may plot dry and wet periods they only record the growing season conditions and can;’t acurately measure temperatures. Their importance is exaggerated by the researchers who use them.
Tom
I liked your chart. Is the panic measure the one currently felt by AGW scientists, or what they have induced in vulnerable/gullible sections of the community?
I gave a talk recently to a school and I would say the panic measurement there was 75%-many of the children expected the world as they knew it to end within 5 years.
Tonyb
Potentilla:
I’ve moved your most recent comment to a new thread.
Robin:
We evidently don’t have the same kind of sense of humour.
TonyN:
This blog certainly provides a useful learning experience: first TonyB (9577) and now you (9589) are telling me that I have a humour defect. Ho hum.
Tonyb
This Progress Report (9585) is my rework of the Phil Jones interview. The explanations incorporated in the Report are of course directly quoted from Phil’s remarks as provided in the previous comments.
So the % Completion figures and other data in the Report refer to the Warmist camp, their backers, supporters and believers.
The population at large is subject, not object, and is thus suitable for subjection.
But the question of whether it is Us or Them, or Them and the other Them is non trivial. The psychological terms ‘transference’ and ‘counter-transference’ refer to the point that even (especially?) in the psychological sphere the observer and observed are not independent.
Tom
PeterM and Robin
Here are my observations on the “Decline and Fall of AGW”. I would appreciate hearing your reaction.
I believe that we are witnessing something historic here with the unraveling of the AGW movement.
Historians will probably write erudite studies on the inception, rise and demise of this movement, much as Edward Gibbon studied the Roman Empire and William Shirer wrote of the Third Reich.
But what caused the AGW momentum to implode so rapidly and will the movement now die an agonizing but sure death (as the Nixon presidency did with Watergate)?
So far we have seen:
Hockeystickgate – discredited study used to claim unprecedented 20th century warmth
Thermometergate – poorly sited weather stations cause spurious warming trend
Climategate (CRU) – CRU record is manipulated, raw data lost or destroyed
Climategate (paleo) – “hide the decline” to cover up a poor correlation
Hurricanegate – false claim of increased hurricanes with global warming
Himalayagate – idiotic IPCC screw-up of dates and time period plus cover-up
Amazongate – unsubstantiated claim using WWF story
Glaciergate – study by student, anecdotal data from mountain climbers
Waiting to “pop” are:
Sealevelgate – bad IPCC science, splicing records to show acceleration when there was none
Snowcovergate – false IPCC claim of reduction in NH snow cover
Icecapgate – false IPCC claim that Greenland and Antarctic ice caps lost mass 1993-2003
Climategate2 (GISS) – GISS record is manipulated to show increased warming
Coolinggate – 21st century continues cooling, despite model forecasts, increased CO2
What else is out there?
Regardless of how many more “gates” are revealed, the damage has essentially been done.
With Watergate the greatest damage was not from the original transgression (the break-in) but from the cover-up.
The general perception with AGW is that there is an attempted cover-up underway, and people believe that they have been lied to.
The frantic attempts by AGW supporters to blame “a few renegade climatologists” while maintaining that the “science” itself is solid, is not selling with the general public, which is becoming aware that this is not only a case of “bad scientists”, but rather a case of “bad science”.
The increased shrillness of the disaster predictions makes the general public more doubtful of the whole story.
The AGW movement might possibly have been able to survive all of this scandal had Mother Nature played along.
Even after all the manipulation and ex post facto adjustment, the surface temperature record shows that it stopped warming and began cooling after 2000. AGW supporters have gone through all sorts of contortions and rationalizations to deny this fact, but this denial does not help the credibility of the movement.
The current cold and snowy winter in the northern hemisphere has also raised doubts about AGW (even with its new “brand” name of anthropogenic climate change, ACC). The desperate attempts of AGW supporters to claim that this cold and snowy weather is “what the models predict should have occurred as a result of AGW” are so ludicrous and unbelievable that they only raise more skepticism of the AGW premise.
People are asking themselves: “do these guys think we are that stupid?”
Will AGW die a quiet death?
AGW had become a multibillion-dollar business, with the prospect of trillions of dollars at stake in direct or indirect carbon taxes and tax-payer funded climate research grants, subsidies to “green” industries, “guilt taxes” to be paid by industrial nations to non-industrial governments, major expenditures for “carbon sequestration” schemes, etc. and with hedge funds and other money shufflers poised to make big profits from a “carbon market”. This would all have to be financed by someone, of course (the common citizen and taxpayer in the industrialized nations).
With such obscene amounts of public money at stake, AGW had picked up a lot of momentum, which will take some time to counteract.
But, as Gibbon pointed out, Rome also did not fall in a day.
Thanks for any comments you have to the above.
Max
Bob_FJ
I’m in the middle of the Montford book, The Hockey Stick Illusion.
It is a good read; it covers the lead-up to the original MBH98 study and the subsequent MBH99 study, which extended the time period from 1400 to 1000 AD, The McIntyre audit, which showed that the data was dodgy and the statistical methods were flawed. It also takes on the many “copy hockeysticks” that came out in the hopes of resurrecting the MBH99 hockeystick long after it had been comprehensively discredited and buried.
This is a “blow by blow” depiction of what happened, with sometimes a bit too much detail, but it is fascinating (even if the reader already knows the “ending”).
Max
Max, I’ve responded to your 9593 over at TonyN‘s thread on the book:
http://ccgi.newbery1.plus.com/blog/?p=253#comment-43635
Here (Conning the Climate – Inside the carbon-trading shell game) from Harpers Magazine is a long and devastatingly critical look at carbon trading (“now the fastest growing commodities market on earth“) written by an AGW believer. Plainly the author thinks it’s a total scam. Maybe, as that feeling takes root – as I think it will – it will do as much to undermine the AGW ramshackle edifice as, for example, the CRU disclosures and their aftermath. Perhaps more: no one, whether they believe in dangerous AGW or not, likes being lied to and cheated by international tax-funded organisations, governments and big money-grubbing corporations.
Here are some quotations:
Max:
Despite all that’s happening (your 9592), I consider your Gibbon quote (Rome did not fall in a day) apposite. The powerful political, business, media, academic and scientific interests whose reputations and fortunes (see my 9595) are tied to the continuation of the dangerous AGW scare have yet to come to terms with what’s happening (see, for example, this from today’s Guardian) and, when they do begin to understand, they will still try desperately to keep it going. But I don’t think they can do so for ever.
Here’s an interesting footnote to my 9595. It’s from this article (Wind Energy’s Ghosts) in American Thinker today about the absurdity of wind farms. The relevant quotation:
Max,
Re: 9592
Thanks for that………There have been so many “gates”, I’ve lost track.
Someone (TonyN) should compose a story explaining/detailing all of the deceptions/fraud/outright lies/backtracks/errors/etc. of the IPCC and the Warmist cultists (Al Gore).
Tonyb (9588)
many of the children expected the world as they knew it to end within 5 years
Time to involve Social Services? That sort of trauma must be at least as bad as allowing outdoor sports (where there are winners and losers) and the playing of conkers…
There was also an interesting piece on R4 this morning about the boiler scrappage scheme.
For once, the interviewer was on the ball and asked what the payback time was for the environmental damage caused by the manufacture of the new boiler. Tellingly, the spokesman/apologist didn’t know, but opined that boilers were long lasting things and was presumably keeping his fingers crossed that no-one asked him if that meant the new ones or the ones they were replacing!
I have suggested to the Beeb that they reserve that question for Ed Miliband the next time he appears.. :-)