It all started with a report by Roger Harrabin of all people. On Wednesday, under the headline ‘Society to review climate message’, the BBC website broke the news that the Royal Society was to review its public statements on global warming, and that this had been brought about by what appears to be an uprising within its ranks.
Disquiet led forty-three fellows of the Society to demand that the governing council should conduct a review in order to establish what is widely agreed on climate science, and what is not fully understood. At the heart of the rebel’s concerns is lack of objectivity about uncertainties and derogatory remarks about climate sceptics.
It would be hard to overestimate the importance of what is happening. The Royal Society occupies a very special place in the scientific firmament, not just in the UK, but worldwide. The impact of its very partisan outpourings about climate change is thought to have been crucial not only to the last government’s decision to put global warming at the top of the political agenda, but also in persuading national academies of science almost everywhere to throw their weight behind the warmist cause. The ructions behind the grand facade of 6-9, Carlton House Terrace will be watched closely by scientists everywhere, and there can be little doubt that if fellows of he Royal Society are prepared to stick there heads above the parapet, then others will follow their lead.
Perhaps the most encouraging thing about this news is that no less than three panels at the Society are now considering the problem, and at leas two of them include a number of fellows who have doubts about the current state of climate science. Reaching an agreement will not be easy, and one fellow told Harrabin that it is by no means certain that reaching a consensus will be possible. The message that this would send to the rest of the scientific world would be even more potent than an admission that the evidence has been exaggerated. For years, the orthodox line has been that expounded by Lord May of Oxford when he was the society’s president: the debate is over and the science is settled. It will be very difficult to explain why the fellows of the worlds oldest and most highly respected scientific institution cannot even agree what the situation is among themselves, let alone why they have been misleading other scientists, politicians and the public for several years about the degree of consensus on this subject.
Since the BBC report appeared, the society has put out a statement on its web site claiming that the review has been planned for a long time. This reminds me of the response I received from the BBC Trust recently to a letter about their review of the impartiality of science coverage, and particularly climate change, which is taking place this year. They told me that this has nothing to do with the Climategate scandal or criticisms of the IPCC, it is a purely routine exercise that would have taken place anyway. Such claims do not enhance the credibility of institutions that make them.
Looking at the coverage of this story in the rest of the MSM, it would seem that the Royal Society has only spoken to the BBC, and other reports are based on Harrabin’s original story together with what little information is available on the Royal Society web site. This seems to have been hastily posted in response to the demands of the forty-three fellows. One, headlined, ‘Royal Society to publish new guide to the science of climate change‘ quotes the president, Lord Rees, saying:
Climate change is a hugely important issue but the public debate has all too often been clouded by exaggeration and misleading information. We aim to provide the public with a clear indication of what is known about the climate system, what we think we know about it and, just as importantly, the aspects we still do not understand very well.
His statement raises some questions. Has he just discovered that the debate has been ‘clouded by exaggerated and misleading information? If he has known all along, then where was he while that was happening, and why has he remained silent until now?
He also says:
Lots of people are asking questions, indeed even within the Fellowship of the Society there are differing views. Our guide will be based on expert views backed up by sound scientific evidence.
He appears to be horrified that:
It has been suggested that the Society holds the view that anyone challenging the consensus on climate change is malicious – this is ridiculous.
Those of us who can remember the Society’s antics when Bob Ward was its press officer, vigorously attempting to cut off funding from sceptics, will not be impressed.
In a report at The Times, Ben Webster identifies 72 year old Sir Alan Rudge as one of the leaders of the rebellion. Apparently the dissidents did not conduct a full poll of the 1400 odd fellows, but just contacted their friends, of whom a third were unwilling to sign the petition. Rudge told The Times:
“I think the Royal Society should be more neutral and welcome credible contributions from both sceptics and alarmists alike. There is a lot of science to be done before we can be certain about climate change and before we impose upon ourselves the huge economic burden of cutting emissions.”
He refused to name the other signatories but admitted that few of them had worked directly in climate science and many were retired.
“One of the reasons people like myself are willing to put our heads above the parapet is that our careers are not at risk from being labelled a denier or flat-Earther because we say the science is not settled. The bullying of people into silence has unfortunately been effective.”
Sir Alan is also a member of Lord Lawson’s Global Warming Policy Foundation.
The article ends with a quote from Bob Ward, demanding that the dissident fellows should reveal themselves, presumably so that the warmist PR machine can start the process of character assassination that is their usual response to those who do not toe the party line.
Louise Grey, in The Telegraph, tells much the same tale. She has also spoken to Bob Ward:
But Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Institute of Climate Change, feared the public could misinterpret the new guide as reflecting doubt about man made global warming.
He called on the Royal Society fellows who question the science to come forward with their doubts publicly.
“This could end in public confusion if people think as a result of this the Royal Society is somehow wrong or reassessing the evidence because there is no justification for that,” he said.
Is Mr Ward really blissfully unaware that the Royal Society actually is engaged in reassessing the evidence, and that is because a section of its membership feel strongly enough about the Society’s public position to confront the Governing Council? The statements on the Society’s web site makes this quite clear; it is Bob Ward who is trying to create public confusion about what is happening.
I have posted about the genesis of the Grantham Research Institute here, and it is worth taking a glance at this as it shows just where Bob Ward is coming from, and I will be coming back to this and a rather strange series of interconnections between Ward, the Grantham Institute and the Royal Society, which bodes ill for the peace and calm of that august body in the coming months.
For a totally different perspective on the gathering storm, the obvious place to look is The Guardian, which has given Ward a whole page in which to spread confusion, but under the unintentionally ironic headline, ‘UK Royal Society revives confusion as US concludes climate change certainty’. Ward hammers home his supposedly killer argument about the sceptics within the Royal Society making themselves known:
But now, 43 of the society’s 1,489 fellows have written to complain about some of its statements about climate change published over the last few years. It is not clear exactly what the 43 have concerns about.
And because their identities have not been made public, we do not know whether any of them are climate researchers.
He is certainly on safe ground with his demand. No one in their right mind who is actively engaged in mainstream climate researche would own up to such heresy, for the moment at least. To do so would be an act of professional suicide, but if the Royal Society is forced to admit that there are vast uncertainties associated with global warming then that could change very quickly. Reputable scientists might not have to worry what the likes of Mr Ward say any more.
An editorial in Nature follows the same line of attack with the headline, ‘ Nameless fellows attack Royal Society’s climate stance’, but – another irony – the article is not signed. It concludes:
A new public document is being drawn up, but if the BBC report is right, then several sceptics are on the panel, which is making it tough to get anything done. Nevertheless, the society says the new guide will be released later this summer.
Am I alone in feeling that Nature’s reference to sceptics making it difficult to ‘get anything done’ is yet more confirmation that this once revered learned journal has left the days of objective coverage of science far behind, and strayed far into the murky realms of activism?
There is some fairly predicable arm waving from Sir John Beddington in another Guardian article headed, ‘Government chief scientific adviser hits out at sceptics’, which would suggest that his political antennae are far less well tuned than Lord Rees’s. In view of some of the things he has said about his faith in climate science, particularly to the House of Commons Science and Technology inquiry into Climategate, now would not seem to be a very smart time for him attack sceptics. If the Royal Society fails to endorse the level of certainty that he has been promoting when they revise their publications, or fails even to agree an official position because of divisions of opinion among the fellows, Sir John could find that the ground has been cut out from under him in much the same way as the chairman of the IPCC. And If the Royal Society is divided, what price the warmist’s mainstay in the climate debate: the claim that there is scientific consensus on global warming.
On Saturday, Roger Harrabin returned to the fray on his blog, but in a way that will surprise many who have become used to the BBC Environment Analyst’s usual line on climate matters. Here are a couple of excerpts:
After years of accusing the fossil fuel lobby of using anti-scientific arguments to undermine climate policy, scientists are now themselves accused of being un-scientific.
There are signs in the Royal Society’s current review of its climate communications that they are beginning to understand the seriousness of their predicament and have included some “climate agnostics” on the panels.
But it seems that message has not seeped through to all quarters. And one Fellow of the Royal Society said there’s the whiff of “end of empire” in the air as establishments strive to protect their authority as it ebbs away into the blogosphere.
Do I hear the desperate splash of oars as someone else who has become very vulnerable to changing circumstances rows desperately back towards the shore? This is not at all the kind of reporting that we have come to expect from Harrabin but then the BBC is having a ‘routine’ review of their science coverage.
Later in the post, he has something to say that is relevant to both the present crisis at the Royal Society and to the fiasco that is known as the Oxburgh Inquiry:
Professor Sir Brian Hoskins, the Royal Society’s lead on climate change, told me he wouldn’t look outside the realms of the Royal Society for input into the framing of a society review into the UEA affair.
This reveals a very interesting series of relationships. Evidently Hoskins is the Royal Society’s big hitter on climate change, and he is also Director of the Grantham Institute, Professor of Meteorology at Reading University, a leading light in the IPCC ,and a contributor to the Climategate emails. Bob Ward was the press officer for the Royal Society during Lord May’s presidency, which was marked by claims about the science of global warming that went well beyond anything that the evidence would stand and has resulted in the present crisis.
It would seem unlikely that tranquillity will return to the Society’s imposing home in Carlton House Terrace anytime soon.
So let’s give the last word to that doughty seeker after truth, and conveyor of certainty where confusion exists, Bob Ward.
In an interview on the BBC’s Friday PM news programme, Roger Harrabin asked him whether he thought that the Royal Society’s guide to climate change was a reliable guide to the science. This is how he started his reply:
I’m sorry, but the reliable guide is the fact that the projections show that the earth is going to continue to warm in the future …
I think that it is safe to say that far more than forty-three fellows of the Royal Society would be likely to find that response either stupid, ignorant, or intentionally misleading, depending on the level of knowledge of the speaker.
The Royal Society story has not received much coverage in the MSM – yet. It may be that it will not do so directly, but within academic circles it is a convulsion of seismic proportions that may severely test the foundations that the whole edifice of global warming rests on. At the moment we can only wait, and watch the shock waves spread.
Tony congratulations, once more your post gets to the nub of the matter and provides much for the rest of us to mull over. I find the comments that are coming out about “authority” and “end of the empire” very interesting, and for me confirms that the Society has allowed itself to become politicised and this, and the lure of money, has critically impaired its judgement. It also ties in with how a lot of people in the UK felt about the increasing authoritarian actions of the Government over a whole range of subjects, and the Societies behaviour is symptomatic of this altitude. Democracy is something that has been eroded over the last 30 years, but more especially in the last 10
Indeed we have had James Lovelock calling for a suspension of democracy to fix climate change. He along with many other advocates seems to have a problem with other who share a different point of view, especially when they are in the majority. I venture that it has always been a failing of the left that when a population ties of their governance, it’s because they have had to turned authoritarian to progress their views as their arguments have failed to convince.
My first post on Harmless Sky I believe was to criticise the Royal Society, and at the time I thought that if they did not change their stance they would be treated very harshly by the public when the inevitable backlash arrived. I put much of the blame for the current malaise at their door, and the comments about bullying over jobs demands an immediate enquiry be held.
I wrote an article for another blog some time ago now about how the huge amounts of money that sloshed around in the system during the period 2001 to 2007 coming on top of a stable period of economic growth had made the population of the West very compliant. This allowed all manner of suggestions to be put about without challenge and likewise many actions to be taken by government and other authorities without challenge. 9/11 just allowed an acceleration of this effort by providing a compelling distraction.
Those who have dared to challenge some of these suggestions or actions have been branded as outcasts or deniers or had their reputations smeared. The one thing that has now changed is we have no money, and this is going to impact science however the cake is cut. If the current Government has any brain power turned onto the issue of who will get future scarce scientific resources then they must surely go into areas where they are likely to offer a return to industry, to help us out of the deep hole we are in. Climate science is not in that category.
Are the likes of Bob Ward and others interested more in saving their own tattered reputations, and indeed the organisations they have setup or do they have the interests of science itself in mind. Interesting times ahead.
Thanks for posting this great information :)
TonyN
Congratulations for another very timely and informational article.
Roger Harrabin continues to baffle me.
It will be very interesting to watch this development as it unfolds, but I would agree fully with you:
Max
Thank you Tony: this is a timely and skilled summary of these intriguing events. But I would urge caution on one point: the tone of your article is just verging on the triumphalist. Yet it may all come to nothing. We’ve been disappointed before when events seemed to be conspiring to destroy the dangerous AGW hype and bring the MSM, politicians, etc. to their senses – e.g. Climategate and IPCC revelations. What happened then was a concerted (and skilled) closing of ranks and, although confidence was dented and scepticism increased somewhat, nothing changed where it really mattered: if anything, the scare stories became shriller. And Pachauri still heads the IPCC. Unsurprisingly, there is a massive determination to protect the powerful reputations, businesses and personal fortunes that depend on keeping the scare going. The Establishment pressure (both threats and promises) on sceptical Fellows to toe (er … not “tow”, Tony) the line will be enormous. Let’s hope they are strong enough to withstand it – I suspect it will not be easy.
Great article. I’d do my usual Doubting Thomas number, except I see Robin Guenier #4 got there first.
I got in a reference to this article on a Guardian thread, and it came up as a link, so you may get some warmist traffic, who knows?
It’s interesting to compare your approach to that at Bishop Hill. His Grace tends to just mention a news item which catches his eye, and leave it up to commenters to flesh it out, which allows him to react quickly to events, whereas your more structured articles take more time to write, obviously, but also to absorb.
I know Climate-Resistance has done some excellent articles on May, Ward and the RS in the past, and I’ll post some links if they seem useful.
I’ve long thought that there’s a need for some kind of centralised source for information on the climate change movement in the British establishment, with a kind of Who’s Who and in particular a Who Said What? Remember the fuss recently about the misquoting of Sir John Houghton by, I think, Benny Peiser?. It was used against the sceptics, until it turned out that Houghton had said something similar to the misquote. I have difficulty remembering who among the Green and the Good said what, and this article will spur me to trawl through past articles and try to sort them out.
The British attitude is so different from the American. Americans can get seriously excited about the question of whether Gavin Schmidt writes RealClimate in office time, presumably because it’s a federal crime and could lead to him being put away for 20 years. We don’t have laws like that, but we do (I hope) still have an idea of certain standards which should be upheld by prestigious organisations. Parliament is obviously a lost cause, but we can still hope that there are people within the civil service, the BBC, the offices of serious newspapers, and of course the Royal Society, who care more for the reputation of their organisations than for promoting the fad of the moment
Robin & Geoff. The difference between now and all the other false dawns is that now the Government has no money. I still get the feeling that most people don’t have any appreciation just how dire the situation with the Euro is and just how deep the cuts in public spending in the UK will be. If as has been promised the Government publishes all spending, then when it come to allocating funds things such as schools, the NHS and other front line services will take precedence, and any spending on climate change will come under server scrutiny like never before.
The whole global warming / climate-change mantra has only been possible due to our perceived wealth in the West. This has allowed politicians to indulge themselves, a luxury they no longer have, despite any recent rhetoric about green government by our new PM.
Peter Geany #6
But isn’t the financial emergency just the excuse the government needs to impose unpopular taxes (on air travel, for example) in the name of saving the planet? (I agree about the situation with the euro being dire, and Europe may get the kind of nasty shock Britain had over Northern Rock, Woolworths, etc. when the abstraction of financial crisis suddenly changed the face of the High Street.)
Robin’s warning about false dawns is more to do with the nature of the RS and the British Establishment in general. They really are superb at closing ranks and shrugging off attacks when their closest interests are at stake, as Robin details at #4.
On any other subject (the MPs expenses scandal, Iraq etc) their ability to close ranks and protect their own is limited by a critical press. But with the media on-side, and little interest among the public at large in the obscure questions of scientific procedure, I don’t see what will stop the RS and similar organisations from repositioning themselves and never saying sorry. You can’t “bring down” a Sir Martin Rees or Phil Jones in the way you can bring down a Richard Nixon, simply because no-one knows they’re up in the first place.
I hope TonyN is right, that the shock waves will spread and bring down the edifice of global warming. But I’m not laying any bets.
Great article and comments. My own take on the situation is that it is like observing erosion at work (well, maybe a little more exciting than that) – no sweeping immediate changes but a little piece here and a fragment there. If we were to fast forward to this time next year or in 2012, we might be astounded at some of the differences we’d find.
geoff #7 Up until this May and the problems with the Euro, your comments about excuses for raising Taxes would have carried much weight, and found most agreeing with you. In fact AGW has been a perfect excuse for Gordon to raise taxes so that he could continue to borrow uncontrollably. However our new government is going to make cuts to Government spending and therefore has little scope to raise taxes as this will hit the less well-off and not affect the rich. There may be a shift in the tax burden from income to expenditure and I expect an increase in VAT. But any direct green taxes will hit the wrong people.
I agree with Robin about the establishment closing ranks, but the whole AGW industry relies on government hand-outs, and with the Spanish already cutting back its subsidies to electricity companies we are already seeing a sense of reality return in the Mediterranean counties in the Euro zone. This again will stop our government doing anything unilaterally as it will have an adverse effect on the markets
Northern Rock was totally predictable, and I can still recall having a beer with a mate from a hedge fund (we both work in IT and are not bankers) in August of 2007 and wondering which would be the first bank to go pop. Much of the rocks silly lending in 2006/2007 was as a direct result of Lehman Bros needing more and more mortgages to securitise. They Lehman’s underwrote the lending and did not care about the normal lending criteria as the money was in selling the security.
So I believe that it doesn’t particularly matter now what the establishment or the Royal Society say or do on the matter of AGW. It is too late now as time will demonstrate that the science was wrong, and it will be a very long time before we have the money to be so indulgent again. The Royal Society is now in a battle to save the reputation of science. For many of the individuals it’s already too late.
Its always worth having a look at what the Royal Society themselves are say rather than what the Guardian or the Times say the Royal Society are saying.
See http://royalsociety.org/Royal-Society-to-publish-new-guide-to-the-science-of-climate-change/
The Royal Society well tidy up a few details which certainly should be tidied up. However, if anyone seriously thinks they are going to come out with anything substantially different to what the rest of the scientific world are saying they are living in dreamland!
PS Peter Geany,
Did you ever give me that reference I asked for?
Peter M, I’m not sure it would be reasonable to expect the Royal Society to radically change their official stance right away. To use Peter Geany’s example of the ailing Northern Rock bank, it would be a bit like walking into a branch of the bank, on the eve of the sub-prime crisis, and expecting to find their brochures and customer literature suddenly reflecting the uncertainty of the times and telling potential customers to think twice before opening an account.
And talking of uncertainty, my guess (no more than a guess) is that the Royal Society’s new guide to climate change will hedge a bit and emphasise the uncertainties of climate science (not so much of the settled science, maybe!) but also adopt the line that the public should support carbon emission reduction anyway, as a sensible precaution. It will be interesting to read, at any rate, and see what tone they take.
Alex Cull,
The RS position is not fixed. Certainly 25 years ago they were not saying the same thing about climate change and if the evidence changes they too will change with it. What would you say was the most significant new, and recent, piece of scientific information which should cause the Royal Society to change their line?
PeterM
I would agree with you that he RS position is very likely “not fixed”, now that there has been a “change of management” away from the previous rigid “the debate is over and the science is settled” position of Lord May when he was the society’s president.
People change. And so does knowledge.
You ask Alex what would be the most significant new, and recent, scientific information which should cause the Royal Society to change their line.
In addition to the many recent revelations of data fiddling and manipulation by IPCC and some scientists cited by IPCC, here are a few recent scientific studies and new information, which came out after IPCC published its AR4 WG1 report.
Spencer et al. (on cloud feedbacks, based on CERES observations)
Lindzen and Choi (on climate sensitivity, based on ERBE observations).
Loehle (observed upper ocean warming since 2003, based on Argo measurements)
HadCRUT surface temperature record 2001-2009
UAH and RSS satellite (tropospheric) temperature record 2001-2009
Wyant et al. (on cloud feedbacks and climate sensitivity, based on superparameterization model studies).
There have been others, of course, but these are some of the more recent new papers casting doubt on the outdated IPCC position on AGW, which RS should consider before revising its stand.
Max
Max
Correction
Loehle’s paper is on observed upper ocean cooling since 2003 (not warming).
Max, you’ve put it better and a lot more succinctly than I could. Peter M, while I think it unlikely that the Royal Society will start to do anything as radical as address the shortcomings of IPCC AR4 just yet, what I would expect to see is a change of tone and shift of emphasis.
For instance, their “Climate change controversies” page (here) has: “This is not intended to provide exhaustive answers to every contentious argument that has been put forward by those who seek to distort and undermine the science of climate change and deny the seriousness of the potential consequences of global warming.”
I’m not a betting man (and have too little money anyway!) but what are the odds that the new introduction to their replacement document for “Climate change controversies: a simple guide” will have language that is somewhat less combative, more circumspect and – how shall I say – more “future-proof”?
I was wondering why Alex Cull thought that there was enough new science but I see Max jumped in!
Is that because Max thought that Alex Cull really had no idea why the scientific evidence had changed and no idea why he was suggesting that the RS should change their line?
But anyway do you, Max, have the references for these ‘papers’? You can forget about the temperature records. You know very well that just one decade is nowhere near long enough to provide any indication one way or the other.
I overheard a news item this morning about a cutback in grants affecting solar panels. Could this be a row of dominoes about to fall over..?
PeterM
You ask for “references to the papers”, which were published after IPCC AR4 and raise questions concerning the “mainstream party line” contained there of “strongly positive net feedbacks” primarily from water (vapor, liquid droplets, ice crystals and precipitation changes) expected with increased surface temperature.
These have all been cited earlier on this (and the previous) thread, but I will post them again for you:
Spencer et al. (on cloud feedbacks, based on CERES observations)
http://www.weatherquestions.com/Spencer_07GRL.pdf
Lindzen and Choi (on climate sensitivity, based on ERBE observations)
http://www.drroyspencer.com/Lindzen-and-Choi-GRL-2009.pdf
Loehle (observed upper ocean cooling since 2003, based on Argo measurements)
http://www.ncasi.org/publications/Detail.aspx?id=3152
HadCRUT surface temperature record 2001-2009
UAH and RSS satellite (tropospheric) temperature record 2001-2009
(you wrote that you have access to this information)
Wyant et al. (on cloud feedbacks and climate sensitivity, based on superparameterization model studies)
ftp://eos.atmos.washington.edu/pub/breth/papers/2006/SPGRL.pdf
Hope this helps.
Max
PS Alex could have provided you this info as well, but (since I had it at my fingertips) I thought I would save him the trouble and help you out, at the same time. Hope you don’t mind.
PeterM
You wrote (about “global” temperature records):
We probably have a point of agreement here.
I would agree that 9 years or 30 years of data is simply a “blip”. More important is a record of 160 years, which shows a gradual rise of temperature (since 1850) with several multi-decadal warming and slight cooling oscillations of around 30 years each.
We need to be sure we know what caused these cycles. It was obviously not CO2 which does not correlate at all with the temperature record.
How were changing ocean currents involved?
How about changes in solar activity (and how could this be related to the ocean currents)?
What role did CO2 (or other GHGs) really play?
What role did water (vapor, liquid droplets, ice crystals) plus precipitation changes play?
How was this related to other factors?
Lots of open questions, Peter. Lots of hypothetical deliberations and outputs of model simulations but too few (real) answers, unfortunately.
Max
Max, Peter M, I was aware of the Craig Loehle paper, and a couple of the others rang bells too, but it would have taken far longer for me to track these down (especially while I’m meant to be working!) For a while now, have been meaning to build up a personal library of climate notes and references, but just haven’t had the time.
Which has some bearing on Geoff’s #5 – it would be great to have some sort of central online climate resource, with links to published material, summaries, a who’s who, etc., and everything laid out and cross-referenced – ideal for occasions like this (and for disorganised folks like myself.) Too many times I’ve read something very interesting and useful but have been unable to find it easily again.
James #17 James you are on the money there. There will be a whole series of small announcements such as this and before we know it 5 years will pass and AGW will be dead. If this doesn’t happen it will be because the west has imploded and decided to embrace the third world.
Max,
References 1,2 and 4 are “letters”. A letter doesn’t have the same weight as a paper. Its more of a discussion document – more latitude is allowed – and should be followed up subsequently to establish the credibility of the work.
Reference 3 is from “Energy and Environment” which I doubt would be even allowed into the RS library!
Reference 4 is from 2006, before the last IPCC report, and in any case, it is not immediately apparent just how it supports your case.
So any new scientific evidence, in your direction, is somewhat thin to say the least. The RS is obviously being pressed to change its line for political rather than scientific reasons.
Alex Cull,
So you “just haven’t had the time” to make a proper scientific assessment of the evidence, but you’ve obviously made time to come to the conclusion that mainstream science is all wrong!”
Don’t worry. You aren’t the only one!
Alex Cull#15 suggests the RS rewrite may be more circumspect and “future-proof”. Now that’s an expression that’s going straight into my “best of” compilation. It takes an SF fan to think like that!
On compiling a list of most-used expressions, “the science is settled” is attributed to Bob Watson at Kyoto, by Tagel, a commenter on a Guardian thread. I’ve seen several commenters wrongly attribute “we’ve got to get rid of the MWP” and “why should I give you my data…?” to the CRU emails. The latter is Phil Jones to Warwick Hughes, I believe. The former, anyone?
On my pessimism about the government cutting back on warming expenditure, here’s an interesting comment from a recent Delingpole thread:
“The major political parties are agreed that spending money on combating AGW is a form of insurance, a bit like spending money on a nuclear deterrent. If they are right, they will have saved the world from Armageddon in one form or another. If they are wrong, Joe Public isn’t going to be much fussed”.
Peter M, I’ve had the time to read plenty of climate-related material (and continue to do so), enough to form my own opinions on the subject. No, what I meant is that having read the material, the problem is keeping track of it all for quick reference. I’d be interested to know what you and others do to stay on top of climate developments, i.e., do you build up a library of documents in PDF format, or do you create a reference document containing hyperlinks, do you use web-based systems like delicious.com to organise all this stuff? That’s what I’ve been having trouble finding the time to do!