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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Robin (9850)
Amen, brother!
Where is that “persuasive scientist who can connect and convince… because he preaches apocalypse in simple, overwhelming terms”?
Let’s dress James E. Hansen up in a white robe with maybe a purple turban and a clip-on white beard (and an inspirational choir of young girls in the background singing the Mother Earth hymn) and turn him loose on the public.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF0bg1T763A
(But let’s call it “science” instead of “religion”.)
Max
Wow Max, that was like a bad LSD experience.
Whew!
No wonder Peter Martin is so agitated all the time.
..and Monbiot is back at Guardian Environment, possibly the Messiah that Peter Preston was pleading for. Potentilla and I have both had a go on thecoments thread. (We’re snowed in here on the Mediterranean coast. I’d invite Brute over, but I don’t think the French would survive the shock).
geoffchambers
No. He’d look too baby-faced in that white robe with the clip-on beard. Besides, he’s no scientist. I think we need a seasoned guy like “coal death train” Hansen. He’s about due to retire from his government job at NASA GISS, so could be available.
Max
Geoff,
After my initial visit, (2004 Nice/French Riviera), I’ve been permanently banned in France.
Something about being “a menace to French society” and “the definition of the ugly American”……… Insisting that Filet Mignon be cooked “well done” and demanding a bottle of catsup seems to have offended more than one snooty French restaurateur………Their loss…… Funny, I had the same reaction in Quebec.
By the way, did you know that major cities in both Britain and Germany (and throughout Europe) were bombed mercilessly during World War II but not a single bomb fell on Paris? (Just an interesting anecdote…)
Also interesting in that it only took German forces 5 weeks to conquer the entire country………pretty much could’ve done it in four weeks but it was raining……………the Germans ran through the French so quickly that they outpaced their supply lines and had to slow down…………also, dealing with the French troops that surrendered without firing a shot hampered the pace.
Brute
Yeah. The you-tube clip of the Mother Earth hymn is a bit psychedelic.
But if you get a choir of pretty 18 to 20 year-old girls in white robes singing it softly in the background behind Swami Hansen as he warns sternly of “tipping points” and eternal damnation caused by human CO2 transgressions, it should help sell the story.
Everybody likes a pretty young face, right?
Max
In a sense of fairness, I’ve added this Google search to “French Military Victories”………very interesting…….
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/text/victories.html
Max,
In my younger days I was drawn to those type girls as they were “free spirits” and “Liberal”………Shall we say, “less discerning” with their physical generosities……know what I mean? The Hippie chicks were fun.
Thank God I never married one of those kooks…….they were all head cases.
Our glaciers are growing, not melting. More falsehoods from Al Gore
http://www.iceagenow.com/Our_glaciers_are_growing_not_melting-3.htm
In Denial
The meltdown of the climate campaign.
BY STEVEN F. HAYWARD
March 15, 2010, Vol. 15, No. 25
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/denial
Brute:
Steady on with this anti-French nonsense – note my surname. Remember Napoleon? It took the combined forces of Europe to bring him down – and his legacy is still everywhere. Anyway, were it not for the French, the US might still be a British colony.
Brute
Excellent summary by Steven Hayward (9860).
PeterM should read this and comment.
Max
The warmists are losing the argument where it matters: on the funny pages of the Guardian. See
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/mar/09/solar-by-ian-mcewan
Oh no … according to this article in the Financial Times, Connie Hedegaard, the European commissioner for climate change, thinks the world “will almost certainly fail to draw up a new treaty on climate change this year”. As the FT observes, this delivers “a heavy blow to the barely flickering hopes for a swift global settlement”. But wait – she goes on to say that forging the treaty (the one that wasn’t “forged” at Copenhagen) “was more likely to happen at a follow-up meeting next year in South Africa”. So that’s all right then – and, best of all, the circus rolls on.
And there I was innocently thinking that Copenhagen was the “last chance to save the planet”. Now it can wait until 2011. Phew.
Robin,
Wasn’t Napoleon Corsican?
Of course, I’m teasing………
Brute
You mention that Napoleon was a Corsican.
Corsica is a land with many “brigands” (organized bands of bandits and thieves).
There was the saying (in Corsican, which I can only approximate):
(Not all Corsicans are brigands, but a good part, with the “double entendre” on “Bonaparte”)
[A bit of non-climate related history…]
Max
Brute,
The Weekly Standard, like the Wall Street Journal is a very Right Wing publication owned by Rupert Murdoch.
The position of both journals, like the UK’s Sun and many other papers in Australia reflects Rupert Murdoch’s own personal prejudice. Nothing more.
Incidentally, I remember reading that the guys from RealClimate had invited the WSJ Journalist’s over to see and discuss their work at NASA, but the word back was that they had been forbidden by Rupert Murdoch from attending.
Its like I keep telling you……………
PeterM
You state that several “right wing” journals reflect Murdoch’s personal opinion.
Whose “personal opinion” would you say the New York Times reflects?
How about the BBC?
Or the Guardian?
Just curious.
Max
Pete,
So? The Guardian, The New York Times and The Washington Post are ultra Leftists newspapers……
Think whatever you want to but the Weekly Standard is placed on every Senator’s and Congressman’s lobby coffee table on Capitol Hill. Read the ARTICLE and provide comment.
Different Topic and I need an Australian’s viewpoint…………One of your fellow countryman named Gary Mole owns Glacial Energy here in the US…………ever hear of him?
The Guardian had a great piece yesterday – here. Written I’m ashamed (but not surprised) to say by a lawyer, it argues that the lesson to be learned from the CRU disclosures is not that scientists should be more open and honest – no, the thing is not to get caught in the future.
Max
We went to Corsica on our honeymoon and got lost in the mountains in the car. We started to get a little nervous when we realised the signposts had been defaced with bullets. A really beautiful island though.
Tonyb
Brute:
OK, so Napoleon was a Corsican (incidentally, I agree with TonyB: Corsica is a most beautiful island … although the cuisine is rather limited) but Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette (best known as Lafayette) was most certainly a Frenchman. And, without the support of such brave members of the French aristocracy, the colonials would have had a harder time shaking off the cruel British yoke.
Max,
I’m not familiar with the NY Times.
Neither the Guardian nor BBC are run by powerful individuals, or traditional newspaper families, but instead through Trusts.
The Guardian, according to their Wiki entry, is ultimately owned by The Scott Trust, a charitable foundation existing between 1936 and 2008, which aimed to ensure the paper’s editorial independence in perpetuity, maintaining its financial health to ensure it did not become vulnerable to take overs by for-profit media groups.
I’ve really nothing against the idea of running a newspaper for profit. What’s more worrying is that powerful people like Murdoch and his allies run their papers, which are usually loss making, as influentially mouthpieces promoting their political influences.
Its important that institutions like the BBC and the Australian ABC should be allowed to continue. TonyN has campaigned against various BBC editorial decisions he’s disliked and which is of course fair enough. There’d be no point in his complaining to the likes of Murdoch about anything that’s obviously incorrect in the Sun or WSJ !
Brute,
It is interesting that you feel that the Guardian is a ultra-leftist newspaper.
It actually represents, politically, but certainly not unconditionally the majority of UK voters. That is those who vote for either the Labour Party or the Liberal Democratic Party.
You ask me to read the article in the Weekly Standard and comment on it. There can be no doubt, looking at the cartoon cover, that it is scientifically incorrect. Murdoch knows that to be the case and yet he still publishes even though there are many qualified scientists who would help him get it right for no cost at all. But, Murdoch doesn’t allow any dissent in his newspapers.
Why is that would you say?
Peter
I would suggest that you refrain from presenting as fact opinions on a topic you obviously know very little about. The Guardian has a fairly low circulation in the UK compared to the other dailys, and it has a highly specific target market, specifically the “middle/upper middle class left leaning crowd”. Frankly if you want to judge by circulation and likely core labour voters you’re better off looking at “The Sun”.