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.”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Robin in #1801 cited a link which led to a composite page.I assume he was referring to this paper by Bob Carter which the following link leads directly to. This post should really be read in conjunction with my links referenced in my post 1823
http://members.iinet.net.au/~glrmc/2007%2005-03%20AusIMM%20corrected.pdf
Having researched past climate change thoroughly which included the climate references made during the Byzantine empire and some 400 other studies, I would say that Bob’s chart on p69 is a pretty good indication of past climate. The two main caveats are that the MWP was slightly warmer and more extended, and the second is that the wildly fluctuating nature of the climate within an overall type (such as the MWP or LIA) is better characterised by looking at the vertical spikes of the graph rather than the smooth solid temperature line.
It is futile to pretend we have not been this way before-we have, without the help of man made Co2. To me the real argument is why it is believed to be different this time round? Co2 seems an unlikely culprit compared to water vapour and the models are being adjusted to fit current facts. This ‘science’ has all the hallmarks of being made up as it goes along
TonyB
TonyN,
Robin incorrectly referred to Bob Carter’s effort as “a substantial paper”. Substantial papers are indeed what he and Dr Akasofu need to write if they have something new and of importance to say. They need to aim a bit higher than magazine articles for mining or economic journals.
Peter,
What exactly qualifies someone to be a Climatologist?
Peter
But have you read this paper, or any of Carter’s other papers?
Hi Peter,
Please refer to your #1808, where you wrote, “Some of you even feel that Sarah Palin is an intelligent woman who is qualified to be Vice President of the USA”, and my reply to you #1810 requesting you to define why you believe otherwise.
Anyone who had any doubt as to the intelligence of Governor Palin was certainly reassured by the Biden/Palin debate.
We were fortunate enough in Switzerland to be able to watch the entire debate in replay, and it was apparent that Palin is an intelligent woman who expresses her thoughts well. All in all, she was more convincing than Senator Biden, who spent too much time looking backward at the mistakes of the past 7+ years of the Bush administration rather than looking forward.
Her answer on the global warming debate was certainly more reasonable than Biden’s. She acknowledged that there could well be a human component to the warming we have experienced, as well as natural factors. Biden just repeated the standard “PC AGW party line” that humans are the only cause for the warming (while even the pro-AGW scientists today acknowledge that natural factors also play an important role).
Like her views or not, Peter, this lady is as intelligent and tough as they come. However the US election next month comes out, I predict that Sarah Palin has a bright future in US politics.
Regards,
Max
Peter: the word I used (re Bob Carter’s article) was “comprehensive”. And so it was. Now perhaps you will read it and answer the questions I asked at post 1812.
JZ: I wholly agree with you that “the GW debate and these debates over politics are crucial to our future.” My only concern was that we seemed to be drifting too far into general politics than was helpful.
TonyB: the Carter paper I referred to at 1801 (you go to the link and click on the first item listed) is different from (and more recent than) that for which you provided a link at 1826. Both are worth reading (Peter to note). BTW, although I was most interested to see that the Exeter conference suggested greater uncertainty re outcomes, there was I think no hint of uncertainty about the AGW hypothesis. Thanks for the link.
Answered my own question…..
Definition of an Atmospheric Scientist (Weatherman)
http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos051.htm
I wonder what kind of credentials it takes to be both a politician and a weatherman?
Maybe it requires shaking hands and kissing babies in the rain?
A Changed Climate
http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12341574
Hi Peter,
After going through R.M. Carter’s paper “The Myth of Dangerous Human-Caused Climate Change” in some detail, I must agree that it is a very comprehensive summary of the scientific debate surrounding the current “dangerous man-made global warming” scare of today.
The scientific reasoning behind Carter’s paper appears better founded than that supporting James E. Hansen’s more alarmist presentation for the U.S. House of Representatives on 26 April 2007 entitled “Dangerous Human-Made Interference with Climate”.
The most striking difference is that Hansen’s paper relies almost entirely upon computer models, while that of Carter relies more heavily on physical observations (a basic weakness of IPCC “projections”, as well).
Hansen also extrapolates model-based climate data to predict extinctions of species, flooding, droughts, severe weather events, etc. These extrapolations are intended to alarm and frighten, with the political end-objective of garnering congressional support for carbon taxes.
It is refreshing to see an objective, non-political assessment of the AGW debate after being exposed to all the media hype and hysteria currently surrounding this issue.
Study it in detail, Peter. Clear the hysterical clutter out of your mind and take your time to really follow Carter’s line of thinking. Compare it with Hansen’s hysterical congressional testimony, and then make up your own mind, as I have done.
I am sure that it will be an “eye-opener” for you.
Regards,
Maxc
Peter:
Your characterization of the right-leaning skeptic (RLS) is incorrect, in my view. While there may be some who feel that way, I don’t think that most do.
To me the RLS—as are all skeptics—are quite pragmatic. We want to see the evidence and know for ourselves that there is indeed an emergency that requires immediate, drastic action.
My political orientation begins to influence my view of climate science is when the entire left wing political apparatus implores me to stop asking questions about the science behind their position and get on board with their solutions. The fact that it fits so perfectly with with larger agenda makes me very suspicious. Too perfect to be a coincidence
In fact, it is fair to say that I came to be a skeptic only after it became clear to me that there was a strong political component to the proponent’s arguments. The more I learned about the subject the more skeptical I became. When legitimate, logical questions were met with ad hominem attacks I became even more suspicious of the underlying science supporting the notion that human activity is to blame for GW. The Hockey Stick debate and debunking, and the horrific attacks on McIntyre and McKitrick by the defenders of AGW proved to me that I was not alone in my skepticism. Furthermore, since the proponents of AGW could come up with really nothing more in rebuttal than vicious name calling—spittle flying from their quivering lips—I became a full-fledged skeptic.
Robin and Max,
There is a difference between an article and a scientific paper. If Bob Carter has something important to say he should make a bit more effort to get his work into one of the relevant scientific journals. Articles in mining magazines and economic journals are all very well, and written for a certain target readership, but they should be in addition to more serious publications.
The question that I’m asking is: has Bob Carter has submitted his work for the more serious minded peer-reviewed journals? Somehow I doubt it.
Max,
Its not just me who thinks Sarah Palin is not up the the job of US VP. Apparently 60% of Americans feel the same way too. Even senior Republican figures in the USA are saying the same thing.
I gather she has been the subject of quite a bit of mirth recently. There is a mixture of real Sarah Palin interviews and take-offs on Youtube and its not easy to tell the difference! She did better yesterday though by falling back on the politician’s old trick of giving a series of stock answers rather than directly addressing the question itself.
The main four characters in this election are quite uninspiring. I include Obama in that although he is clearly the best of the bunch. Are these guys really the best four politicians that the USA has?
Peter, I don’t know where you get your figures, but here is the latest polling data on Palin and Biden.
Here are the polls on the VP debate, thought the sample size for both are small, and are only of registered, not likely voters. That is a big difference.
Wow Peter, for an Australian you certainly are obsessed with American politics. One would go so far to say that you are Americo Centrist….
The figures are from a poll published in this week’s Washington Post. Although I should say that the 60% figure referred to those who had doubts about her ability to be president rather than VP. Mind you, I would ask if that difference matters given the age of John McCain. The Washington Post didn’t report how many of the other 40% thought that, if George Bush could hold down the job for eight years, then maybe anyone could.
I seem to remember at one time that the US VP didn’t have much of a role. Opening a few bridges, launching a few ships, and meeting world leaders, who were deemed to have insufficient importance (maybe the Swiss Prime Minister?) to meet the actual president. I would agree that she could perhaps manage that.
There are some who would consider Australia to be an outpost of the American Empire so its reasonable for us to take a bit of interest in what goes on in the USA. Certainly the world would be a very different place had Al Gore been elected President in 2000 as many would argue that he should have been. I doubt if he’d have arm twisted John Howard to send the Aussie army into Iraq for a start. You can argue about checks and balances and the reasons for having an electoral college but , to me, the winner should be the guy who gets the most votes. When the same sort of thing happens in Zimbabwe, we’ve all got a lot to say on the subject.
Of course, it’s quite possible that a similar sort of electoral injustice may have happened in Switzerland in the last decade. But who cares? They just seem carry on an usual in their Alpine home, counting their money and not bothering anyone too much. :-)
I hope that we’ve now got past the stage of thinking about North Korea whenever the name of Karl Marx is mentioned. Who brought him into the discussion anyway? I don’t think I’m guilty of that.
Anyway, it’s a bit of an embarrassment to find I’m on the side of the clergy, but I do have to say that the Archishop of Canterbury and the Pope are saying similar sorts of things. Karl Marx did have a point after all!
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article4819605.ece
Of course, these two support the science of global warming too. I suppose you must be thinking that it’s an indication of just how widespread the international Communist conspiracy really is. They’ve managed to infiltrate two of their guys into such key positions!
I hope that we’ve now got past the stage of thinking about North Korea whenever the name of Karl Marx is mentioned. Who brought him into the discussion anyway? I don’t think I’m guilty of that.
Anyway, it’s a bit of an embarrassment to find I’m on the side of the clergy, but I do have to say that the Archishop of Canterbury and the Pope are saying similar sorts of things. Karl Marx did have a point after all!
{http:}//www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article4819605.ece Remove {} from link.
Of course, these two support the science of global warming too. I suppose you must be thinking that it’s an indication of just how widespread the international Communist conspiracy really is. They’ve managed to infiltrate two of their guys into such key positions!
My post #1823
Robin, in your post 1832 you mentioned you had read my link to the abstracts from the Important climate change conference which took place in Exeter last week attented by most of the great and good from the climate change industry. No, the scientists do not seem to want to bite the golden hand that feeds them by querying AGW but surely no other large scale industry affecting so much govt policy has been built on so many admitted uncertainties?
I have pasted two of the abstracts from the conference below. This doesn’t sound to me like an industry that is at all certain about causes, effects, scale, or its interpretation of data. One side effect-not pasted here-is a dramatic reappraisal downwards of likely sea level rises
Tony Brown
D.Stainforth, University of Exeter
CATEGORIES OF UNCERTAINTY AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS FOR ADAPTATION PLANNING
The requirement to quantify uncertainty in projections of future climate change is increasingly widely acknowledged. Uncertainty has a significant influence on the design of experiments to inform us about the future, on strategic scientific planning at national and international levels, and on the development of robust adaptation decision making processes. There are, however, several different sources of uncertainty and each influences experimental design and adaptation planning differently. Here, these sources of uncertainty will be broken down into five categories: forcing uncertainty, microscopic initial condition uncertainty, macroscopic initial condition uncertainty, model inadequacy and model uncertainty. Each will be described and illustrated and its implications for impact studies, adaptation planning and experimental design will be presented. Finally current proposed methods for providing guidance to industry and government, such as UKCIP08 and the weADAPT climate change explorer (CCE), will be discussed in the context of these sources of uncertainty.
B. Booth, Metoffice Hadley Centre, UK
PREDICTIONS OF CLIMATE CHANGE UTILIZING PERTURBED PHYSICS AND MULTI-MODEL ENSEMBLES
We present a method to produce probabilistic climate predictions for the coming century, conditional upon different emissions scenarios. The method is built upon ensembles of the Hadley Centre HadCM3 model with perturbations to key parameters (perturbed physics ensembles) and uses a Bayesian statistical technique. The technique seeks to “emulate” the parameter space of HadCM3 based on some prior assumptions about parameter ranges, and then down-weights regions of parameter space based on a comparison of modelled historical climate with observations (accounting for observational uncertainties). The effect of structural uncertainties, not sampled by the perturbed physics approach, are further accounted for by incorporating information from the CMIP3 and CFMIP multi-model ensembles in a term which we call the discrepancy. The method seeks to account for the major uncertainties in feedbacks associated with the atmosphere, surface, ocean, sulphur cycle and terrestrial carbon cycle in a systematic way as well as tracking uncertainties from the statistical components of the method. The resulting probability distribution functions for future climate change provide a benchmark whereby sensitivities to methodological assumptions may be tested and the value of future progress in climate modelling and new observations may be measured. The method is currently being implemented, together with a combined dynamical-statistical downscaling.
Peter: as usual, you are going to great lengths to avoid having to respond to my earlier post. So, to avoid the need for cumbersome cross reference, I’ll restate it. First, I suggested that you should read Carter’s paper and identify some aspects with which you disagree. Then we could discuss them. As an alternative, I invited you to comment on the following extract:
As I said, that’s the point Max and I have made regarding the 1860/79 and 1906/40 warmings: until the natural causes of these are identified and eliminated as main causes of the 1976/2000 warming, the AGW hypothesis is unproven. And, of course, it’s the point made by Dr Akasofu arising from recent Arctic temperature records. Carter, a marine geologist with a specialist interest in palaeoclimatology, produces data going back much further (6 million years). He demonstrates that, throughout that period, global climate has been in a state of constant change – for natural reasons. Natural change is the established norm. Therefore current change should not be assumed to be human-caused unless natural causation is first eliminated.
Do you disagree? If so, why?
Robin,
We’ve been through all this before. Unfortunately we’ll never be able to obtain the same quality of climatic and solar data for the first half of the 20th century, and earlier, as we have for the second half of the 20th century.
Does this mean that we can never hope to gain a good understanding of what is happening to the atmosphere and climate right now? You might like to be able claim that is indeed the situation. But, no it doesn’t!
Please don’t keep whining on that I haven’t answered your point when what you really mean is that you don’t agree with my answer. If you don’t agree, why don’t you come back with a counter argument, in your own words, rather than trawling the contrarian websites for ever longer tracts of unsubstantiated, un-peer-reviewed pseudoscience which you can throw at me?
In my post 1742, I referred to this report (about the continuing growth in world CO2 emissions) and made my repeated assertion that “anyone who believes that mankind’s CO2 emissions will be radically reduced by 2020, 2050 or whenever is living in dreamland”. This obvious truth is underlined by an article in the current Economist. Here’s the opening paragraph:
If the “green” Europeans cannot deliver, what hope is there that the rest of the world (especially the growing Asian economies) will do so?
McCain Eyes Potential Treasury Picks; Would Tap Gore
http://www.reuters.com/article/vcCandidateFeed2/idUSN02296341
Hi Peter,
You wrote, “There are some who would consider Australia to be an outpost of the American Empire so its reasonable for us to take a bit of interest in what goes on in the USA. Certainly the world would be a very different place had Al Gore been elected President in 2000 as many would argue that he should have been.”
Yes, Peter, and there are some who firmly believe that the moon is made of green cheese. But leaving certified lunatics out of the picture, I doubt that any sane person considers “Australia to be an outpost of the American Empire”.
Back in WWII when the US Navy fought the Japanese in the Coral Sea, thwarting their plan to invade Port Moresby, Australia was on the way to becoming part of the Japanese controlled “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere”. But despite the US-led victory over Japan, Australia never became part of the USA.
I agree that “the world would be a very different place had Al Gore been elected President in 2000”. Among other things, he would not have earned a hundred million dollars, he would not have a carbon trading company poised to earn even more if the world signs on to the AGW ploy, he would not have founded a AGW lobbying group that inundates the US public with TV commercials promoting the scam, he would not have made the “AIT” science-fiction movie or received a politically motivated Oscar for it and he would not have gotten a ideologically justified Nobel Peace Prize.
All of these things would not have happened, because he would have held a fairly demanding full-time job and would have had no time for such foolishness.
Would he have gone into Iraq? Would he have even gone into Afghanistan? Would he have waited until Al-Qaeda launched a full-scale attack on the USA? Who knows?
Would the planet have gotten warmer after he entered the office in January 2001? Would it have gotten cooler, as it actually has since Bush became U.S. President in 2001? Would Gore have been able, as U.S. President (“the most powerful man on Earth”) to stop Solar Cycle 24, which is now causing AGW enthusiasts so much concern because warming has stopped and things are cooling off? Would he have been able (using his “Monroe Doctrine” influence over Latin America) to reverse the ENSO cycle, so that warming would continue beyond 2001?
So, yes, certain things might have been different, but others would be pretty much the same.
As far as 2008 US election polls are concerned, these are totally meaningless, given the pro-Obama bias of the US media and pollsters. The only meaningful poll will be on November 4. We only have one month to wait to see whom Brute, JZSmith and the estimated other 120 million US voters will elect.
Regards,
Max
Robin,
Regarding your post # 1846:
Governments/Politicians are not concerned with “saving the planet”; their primary concern is securing handouts for their political contributors and maintaining control over the electorate ensuring that more of our liberties and freedoms are eroded and that government entities wrest more and more control from the people to themselves. They make promises in front of the microphones and secretly cut deals to feather their nests and the nests of their powerful contributors. Peter posted a comment recently regarding my “unfounded” distrust of government and their motives. How could any reasonable person think otherwise considering information as I have posted below? Mr. Martin then asserts that, and I’m paraphrasing, that we should simply rely on government to “do the right thing” and we should trust the government to lower emission levels…..the best word that I can come up with to describe government efforts to resolve any “problem” is bullshit. (I apologize Tony, but no other word better describes this corruption).
These political hacks do not have the best interests of their constituents in mind. I don’t know if this sort of thing happens in the UK or Australia but it happens constantly, (attributed to both political parties) in the US Congress. No matter if you are a Climate Alarmist or a Climate Skeptic these liars promise to resolve, [insert catastrophe here] and then handout billions of dollars, (OUR DOLLARS) funding interests that undercut the “cause” that they recently supported. The entire process, (from any point of view) is disgusting and abjectly corrupt.
As an AGW “Skeptic” I would still respect, (but vehemently disagree) with a politician that supported laws that dealt with the subject at hand. I respect integrity in any case; however, politicians are speaking out of both sides of their mouths no matter what the topic or situation, (Left or Right). Many would argue that this is a vehicle for compromise or just how the “game” is played; nonsense….This is nothing more than bribery. The process is sickening.
Tonyn: Sorry Brute, not acceptable when shouted.
This article – “Winds are Dominant Cause of Greenland and West Antarctic Ice Sheet Losses” – is interesting (if only because of the animation at its head). Peter to note: the papers referred to are published in Science magazine.