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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Let the cat out of the bag
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/let-the-cat-out-of-the-bag.html
Federal Judge OKs Global Warming Lawsuit
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0825-09.htm
Pete,
Whew! I’m sure happy to hear that this is ALL about “saving the planet” and has nothing to do with money…………Happy to hear that you are opposed to lawsuits.
Hi Peter,
You asked, ” But, haven’t you said these people are just a bunch of ‘fraudulent charlatans’ who are engaged in a ’scam’ and a ‘hoax’?”
Nope. I quoted Monckton who said that.
Regards,
Max
Cognitive Dissonance
Philip Stott of the University of London
http://web.mac.com/sinfonia1/Global_Warming_Politics/A_Hot_Topic_Blog/Entries/2008/8/19_Cognitive_Dissonance.html
Hi Peter,
You make a valid point, that CO2 gets all the attention but other GHGs such as methane tend to get overlooked in the popular media. Reduction of methane emissions from coal workings and oil fields is certainly much easier politically, and I believe that James Hansen has suggested that this should be given a higher priority.
Hansen has told the US Congress that CO2 is the culprit.
He has warned them that, if they do not implement carbon taxes to stop CO2 emissions and “phase out the use of coal and unconventional fossil fuels except where CO2 is captured and sequestered”, the atmospheric level will reach a “dangerous level of 450 ppm”, at which point “tipping points” will occur that will “set in motion irreversible changes to the detriment of nature and humanity”, “cause extermination of a large fraction of plant and animal species”, result in “sea level rise measured in meters”, render large sections of the US corn and wheat belt “increasingly drought prone and unsuitable for agriculture” and create “a different planet, with eventual chaos for much of humanity as well as the other creatures on the planet”.
Wow! Talk about hyperbole! This guy knows how to scare the pants off of anyone who will listen.
Now he wants to give methane an even higher priority than the “death gas” CO2?
He just warned us that we’ve only got at most 35 years (and it may only be 10!) until we experience the end of the world as we know it from CO2 and now he wants to take his eyes off the ball at this super-critically decisive moment? Is he starting to “lose his marbles” in old age?
Let’s look at methane emissions:
About half are natural, coming from wetlands, forests, termites, ocean and hydrates. This estimate is probably low as these sources have not been studied with nearly the same scrutiny as anthropogenic sources (which get preferential funding from the politicos and the big AGW-machine).
The other half are “man-made”, of which half are from rice cultivation and ruminant “ougassing”, one-fourth from the (evil) oil and gas industry plus coal mines and the other one-fourth from landfills, waste treatment and biomass burning.
So Hansen wants to “go after” the one-eighth that is caused by the (evil) fossil fuel energy industry because this part is “certainly much easier politically” to attack and “should be given a higher priority”?
Sounds to me like Hansen has a bone to pick here. Why not go after all those outgassing cattle and sheep that produce more methane? Or how about all those Asian rice farmers who also produce more methane?
Hansen lost his credibility as an objective scientist some time ago. Now he is starting to talk like dementia is setting in.
Regards,
Max
Max,
“Nope. I quoted Monckton who said that.”
You didn’t use any quoation marks in this phrase:
James Hansen is one of these fraudulent charlatans, as is Al Gore.
Are you also saying that you haven’t used words like ‘scam’ and ‘hoax’ ?
Max,
Wait, wait, wait………I thought there was now an oxygen crisis. Methane, Carbon Dioxide, Oxygen……..I’m confused.
Aug 17, 2008
Nutty Story of the Day #5, One More Thing to Worry About: The Oxygen Crisis!
By Anthony Watts, Watts Up With That
Trend of atmospheric oxygen (O2) from Cape Grim, Tasmania. This looks serious, right? Read on.
FOREWORD: I had to chuckle at this. This is the sort of story I would expect in the supermarket tabloids next to a picture of Bat Boy. For the UK Guardian to say there is a “oxygen crisis”, is not only ignorant of the facts, but simple fear mongering riding on the coattails of the “CO2 crisis”. Read the article below, and then read the reasons why myself and others are saying this story is worry over nothing. Physicist Lubos Motl also takes this article and the author to task, here.
The article in question “Could the decline of oxygen in the atmosphere undermine our health and threaten human survival?” by Peter Tatchell guardian.co.uk, Wednesday August 13 2008 tells us “The rise in carbon dioxide emissions is big news. It is prompting action to reverse global warming. But little or no attention is being paid to the long-term fall in oxygen concentrations and its knock-on effects. Compared to prehistoric times, the level of oxygen in the earth?s atmosphere has declined by over a third and in polluted cities the decline may be more than 50%. This change in the makeup of the air we breathe has potentially serious implications for our health. Indeed, it could ultimately threaten the survival of human life on earth, according to Roddy Newman, who is drafting a new book, The Oxygen Crisis.”
Anthony notes: Predictably, once again mankind gets the blame in the article: “Much of this recent, accelerated change is down to human activity, notably the industrial revolution and the burning of fossil fuels.” From a mailing list I subscribe to, there?s been a number of comments made about this story. Read those responses here.
Anthony concludes with the remarks by Australia’s Ray Langenfelds from CSIRO Atmospheric Research who has this to say about the Cape Grim O2 measurement. “The changes we are measuring represent just a tiny fraction of the total amount of oxygen in our air – 20.95 percent by volume. The oxygen reduction is just 0.03 percent in the past 20 years and has no impact on our breathing,” Langenfelds. “Typical oxygen fluctuations indoors or in city air would be far greater than this.”
So there you have it. So much for the “oxygen crisis”. I really wish the media would do a better job of researching and reporting science stories. This example from the Guardian shows how bad science and bad reporting combine to create fear mongering.
Max,
Something just occurred to me. Do you think these Alarmist nuts are purposely undermining their own efforts or do you think that they are truly this obtuse? I mean, reporting that global warming causes everything from incontinence to insomnia to oxygen deprivation seems to wear pretty thin even for the most devout environmental adherent………I can’t figure out the strategy.
Maybe just throw everything against the wall and hope something sticks?
The planet is now cooling so shift the focus to something else?
Just paint a picture that everything associated with progress and prosperity is evil and demonize it all?
Max,
Rather than worry about James Hansen’s supposed dementia you might want to get yourself checked up.
In posting 1176 you clearly used the term “fraudulent charlatans” with no quotation marks. Yet the day after you must have forgotten and denied it in posting 1202!
I’m not sure how old you are . Maybe it’s time for the nursing home?
Hi Peter,
Try not to be insulting when you post. It does not add to the validity of your argument to do so.
My #1176 said, “I can well understand Christopher Monckton when he compared them to fraudulent charlatans engaged in a conspiracy against humanity.”
This was in response to a post where you wrote of “contrarians”, “I can well understand James Hansen when he compared them to criminals against humanity!”
You did not state that those who did not share your personal belief in the AGW story were “criminals against humanity” any more than I stated that AGW-believers were “fraudulent charlatans engaged in a conspiracy against humanity”.
We both just quoted someone else’s views.
While insinuating that I may be suffering from old-age dementia, you would certainly not accuse me of being a “criminal against humanity”, would you?
And, while I might have insinuated in the past that you suffer from an adolescent lack of maturity, I would never accuse you of being a “fraudulent charlatan engaged in a conspiracy against humanity”.
So let’s set the record straight, Peter, and not get wrapped up in a “finger-pointing” exercise.
Regards,
Max
Note to Tony,
This post in various modifications has gotten kicked out by the site’s spam filter. Can you make sure it gets through?
Thanks.
Hi Peter,
I am reposting this message, since it got hung up twice, probably due to the links I provided.
To my comment: “I am personally convinced that there is significantly more that we (i.e. “science”) do NOT know about the “behaviour of the earth’s climate” than there is that we DO know”,
You replied, “You are probably right. The same was true of studies into the linkage between smoking and lung cancer. Of course, the tobacco companies used the same argument as you, viz: nothing needs to be done until the science is better known.”
Wrong again, Peter.
There have been innumerable clinical trials and patient statistics that confirm a direct linkage between smoking and human deaths from lung cancer.
There are no such trials showing the linkage between atmospheric CO2 and human deaths from rising global average temperature.
Smoking causes an increase in the incidence of cancer. Increased cancer causes an increase of premature human death.
CO2 may possibly have an influence on global warming of some undefined magnitude. Global warming has not been shown to cause an increase of premature human death. In fact, the physical evidence indicates that just the opposite may be true.
Human mortality rates are significantly higher in the colder months than they are in the warmer months, as was demonstrated in Deschenes & Moretti, 2007.
Death rates from cardiovascular, cerebrovascular and respiratory disease fall significantly as temperatures rise, both in warm and cold regions of Europe, as was pointed out by Donaldson et al, 1997.
Global death rates due to climate-related disasters have decreased significantly since the 1960s. I would kindly ask you to refer to Goklany, 2007.
So you see that your argument making a comparison between
(a) smoking / deaths from lung cancer and
(b) anthropogenic CO2 / deaths from global warming is silly.
The whole “tobacco company” argument is a “waffle” that has nothing to do with the scientific debate surrounding climate change. Forget it.
Making such meaningless comparisons only backfires on you.
Regards,
Max
Hi Brute,
I think you hit the nail on the head with your observation of the current AGW-believer tactic,
“The planet is now cooling so shift the focus to something else”.
Tobacco companies, oxygen depletion, alleged (imminent) extinction of cuddly polar bears. These are all attempted distractions from the fact that it is not getting warmer anymore as an unprecedented high level of 20th century solar activity has suddenly come to an end with the advent of solar cycle 24.
How could the sun do this to us? We had such a beautiful theory and such wonderful computer studies that all made such a convincing story of human culpability and guilt, with beautiful charts and graphs and 1,000-page reports to back the story. It’s really not fair.
Guys like Peter (plus a lot of others) are still staunchly defending the beautiful theory against the contradicting observed physical facts.
Faith is a great thing.
Regards,
Max
Max
I fear that two of your comments got deleted when I cleared the spam filter early this morning, a sad case of a bleary eyed stab that hit the wrong button. Sorry about that, and I hope that you have copies.
I’m afraid that the spam filter is something that we all have to live with. Without it there would be about 700 more comments on this thread advertising all the usual things, and some that I’ve never even heard of.
Hi Peter,
You wrote to Bob_FJ, “Incidentally, I do agree with you and Max on the question of fraudulent insurance claims, which are more a question of law and criminality rather than a political issue.” You continued with, “Some years ago, when I was more involved in running children’s sporting teams, there was a sharp increase in public liability insurance of the order of 300% over a period of a couple of years.”
I had a similar experience several years ago. I was running a small company that produced specialty chemical products in Switzerland, which were sold throughout Europe, Asia and parts of Latin America and North Africa through a distributor network. At the time of a relatively strong US dollar, we thought it might be a good idea to try to expand our sales by adding the USA market, so we contacted several regional distributors in this field to see what the opportunity there might be. In the process, I contacted my insurance company to inform them of what we were considering and to see if we needed to change our product liability coverage to include the USA.
The answer came back. By adding the USA to our market coverage our product liability insurance premium would increase by a factor of almost 10! This even though we only anticipated an initial sales increase of a few percent.
This plus a subsequent weakening of the US dollar vis-à-vis the Swiss Franc convinced me that we were better off staying out of the US market.
But I do believe the problem is partly a political issue, as Brute has written. The USA has an overabundance of lawyers (sorry, Robin, no offense intended), all of whom are looking for an opportunity to earn, and many (if not most) of the US lawmakers are lawyers.
In his novel “God Bless You Mr. Rosewater”, the late American author, Kurt Vonnegut, quoted the advice of a fictitious law professor to his students, “Just as a good airplane pilot should always be looking for places to land, so should a lawyer be looking for situations where large amounts of money are about to change hands. In every big transaction there is a magic moment during which a man has surrendered a treasure, and during which the man who is due to receive it has not yet done so. An astute lawyer will make that moment his own, possessing the treasure for a magic microsecond, taking a little of it, passing it on. If the man who is to receive the treasure is unused to wealth, has an inferiority complex and shapeless feelings of guilt, as most people do, the lawyer can often take as much as half of the bundle, and still receive the recipient’s blubbering thanks.”
The book (an oldie) is still a good read.
Regards,
Max
Message to TonyN
No problem about the spam filter. I do understand, and modified the text slightly to exclude links, so it went through OK.
You are running a good site and this precaution makes sense.
Regards,
Max
Hi Peter,
One of Hansen’s most ingenious inventions is the “in the pipeline” warming argument, i.e. it is warming (due to AGW) but we just do not see this warming yet, because it is “in the pipeline”.
This argument is very timely during periods (such as the present) when temperature measurements show global cooling at the same time that CO2 emissions are at an all-time high.
Do you give this argument any credibility?
If not, forget my question.
If so, how can you explain this?
Thanks and regards,
Max
BRUTE!
I’m shattered! your 1206 tells me in part:
I always thought, for the whole of my cognitive life that there was only 20% of oxygen in our atmosphere.
Lordy Lordy, I was wrong! What are we going to do!
Should we increase our consumption of red green and yellow fruit and vegetables? Perhaps take anti-oxidant food supplements?
I don’t think I will sleep well tonight.
PeterM 1208, wrote to Max in a way that is such an excellent example of how NOT to conduct a debate, that it is worth repeating in full for study purposes, by anthropologists, psychologists, or whomever might pass by. Believe it or not, this person actually wrote:
Yes, that’s what he wrote! (believe it or not, to be read in the context of what went before)……in his tradition of a plethora of;
Semantics; ad homs; obfuscations; change of subject; and whatnot, but never an answer to a simple question in conflict with his dogma. (= ignore the inconvenient question)
Let’s see how we go if I repeat YET AGAIN, the gist of my unanswered 1193, with bold accent added:
Max,
You wote in 1176 “James Hansen is one of these fraudulent charlatans, as is Al Gore.”
But, now you are saying that this statement does not represent your views, it was just a quotation from what Christopher Monckton had said. And presumably you just forgot the quotation marks. Is that correct?
Are these, or are they not, your own views?
If they are your own views maybe you could name some of the other ‘fraudulent charlatans’?
If they are not, maybe you could say that clearly.
Pete,
Something quite curious is happening here in North America which requires your opinion. Every morning, when Mrs. Brute and I awake, (+/- 5:00 AM) we have noticed that the outside air temperature has been decreasing,(over the course of the last several weeks)……can’t figure this out………such a radical change in temperature in such a short period of time is quite worrisome.
Has the global CO2 level been dropping recently? I’m scratching my head trying to figure out what is happening to the climate in these parts. Just a few short weeks ago the temperature was quite warm in the morning when we awoke…every day it seems to be getting progressively colder. I haven’t seen any news reports lately regarding CO2 levels decreasing although I’m certain that it must be as the IPCC states that CO2 levels are directly responsible for temperature fluctuations.
Will you help me out and explain this to me?
(One other observation that I’m certain has no bearing and is hardly worth mentioning; it is now DARK at 5:00 AM when just a few weeks ago it was light at the same hour. Another curious observation which I’m certain has no bearing, (as I trust everything the United Nations reports regarding CO2 and temperature), is that it seems to be getting dark earlier in the evening these days).
How can this be?
Have I somehow offended the Earth God Gaia? Must I make sacrifice to appease it? Please! Help!
Re: #1214, Max
Thanks!
It seems that the alarmists’ views are increasingly complying with Irving Langmuir’s (1881 – 1957) “Laws of Bad Science” (see link). These are:
• The maximum effect that is observed is produced by a causative agent of barely detectable intensity, and the magnitude of the effect is substantially independent of the intensity of the cause.
• The effect is of a magnitude that remains close to the limit of detectability, or many measurements are necessary because of the very low statistical significance of the results.
• There are claims of great accuracy.
• Fantastic theories contrary to experience are suggested.
• Criticisms are met by ad hoc excuses.
• The ratio of supporters to critics rises and then falls gradually to oblivion.
Hi Peter,
Instead of responding to substantive issues (which are not developing in your favor), you are beating the “you said, I said” dog to death.
You started off this particular exchange with your personal views in voicing agreement with James Hansen’s assessment that those who do not believe in AGW and raise doubt about its validity can be compared to “criminals against humanity”.
I responded to this obvious hyperbole as any sane “criminal against humanity” would.
I did this by paraphrasing your blurb (replacing Hansen’s name with that of Monckton) and comparing those who try to spread AGW-hysteria to “fraudulent charlatans engaged in a conspiracy against humanity”.
Then I indicated that Gore/Hansen fit that description (since they are obviously engaged in “spreading AGW-hysteria”).
Shall we leave it at that and get back on topic?
Regards,
Max
Hi Robin,
Enjoyed your 1221 (Irving Langmuir’s “Laws of Bad Science”).
Noted that the cited Wikipedia article gave several examples of “pathological science”, such as “polywater” and “cold fusion”, but has not yet been up-dated to include “anthropogenic global warming”.
Believe the Wikipedia editors are still singing the AGW-mantra, so it may take a few more years until they add this latest bit of “bad science” to their list.
Maybe one of the posters here should suggest this to them.
Regards,
Max
I don’t know why you are finding it so hard to answer. It is a simple question and not off topic at all. But I’ll have one final try at getting the truth out of you :-)
You wote in 1176: “James Hansen is one of these fraudulent charlatans, as is Al Gore.”
Are these your views? Yes or No?
Hi Robin,
Here’s some food for thought (since I know you are an avid reader of IPCC reports).
Browsing through the IPCC AR4 WG1 report can be rather dull and tedious work, as there is a large amount of repetition, rationalization, pseudo-scientific double-talk and model gobbledygook to shovel your way through.
But it can have its rewarding moments, if you’re looking for something both humorous and astounding.
One of my favorites is Figure 10.4 in Chapter 10. This is a multi-colored graph that shows various computer generated temperature projections to the year 2300 as extensions to the 20th century actual record.
Yes, I said 2300! This is no joke, although I am sure most rational observers would conclude that it must be something of the sort.
We have a rather flat orange curve (that stops in 2100), called “constant composition commitment”, purporting to predict how our global average temperature anomaly would react to no further increase in human CO2 emissions, and a rapidly accelerating curve labeled “A4” (high greenhouse gas growth), which (sort of like Mann’s hockey stick as shown in Gore’s “AIT”) shoots off the chart.
More interesting are the (moderate growth) green “A1B” and (low growth) blue “B1” curves, both of which rise smoothly and inexorably to the year 2300, where they reach a level of 3.6°C and 2.2°C above the (1961-1990) baseline value.
Now IPCC missed the first 7 ½ years of the 21st century pretty badly in projecting a +0.2°C per decade linear rate of increase when all four temperature records show a net decrease averaging -0.08°C per decade.
So we have seen that the models have a hard time predicting the next 10 years, yet we are supposed to believe that they can project THREE HUNDRED YEARS into the future?
A good example of the folly of long-range forecasting can be found in the interesting study by Eric Morris entitled “From Horse Power to Horsepower”.
http://www.uctc.net/access/30/Access%2030%20-%2002%20-%20Horse%20Power.pdf
Morris describes the late 19th century dilemma posed by rapid urbanization and the use of horses for both intra-city human transportion and transport of goods. Reflecting that the horse population had increased more rapidly than the human population, Morris observes, “Horses need to eat”. He estimates that each urban horse consumed around 1.4 tons of oats and 2.4 tons of hay per year, adding, “and what comes in must come out”. Each horse is estimated to have “produced between fifteen and thirty pounds of manure per day” plus about a quart of urine daily.
As Morris puts it, “A public health and sanitation crisis of almost unimaginable dimensions loomed”, adding, “And no possible solution could be devised. After all, the horse had been the dominant mode of transportation for thousands of years.”
This environmental problem makes AGW look like a casual stroll through the park.
“The situation seemed dire. In 1894, the Times of London estimated that by 1950 every street in the city would be buried nine feet deep in horse manure. One New York prognosticator of the 1890s concluded [even without a supercomputer at hand] that by 1930 the horse droppings would rise to Manhattan’s third story windows.”
These futurists of the time were looking less than 60 years into the future, during a time when things changed relatively slowly compared to today, yet (as we all know today) they got it totally wrong.
Yet IPCC is trying to tell us they have a clue as to what is going to happen 100 or even 300 years into the future!
Looks to me like arrogance and ignorance have reached an all-time high in this IPCC graph.
It should be posted on every rational skeptic’s wall as the epitome of absurdity. And hanging next to it on the wall a picture depicting a nine-foot pile of horse manure would give good perspective and add deeper meaning.
Regards,
Max