I’ve just had a piece published by Online Opinion about graziers and environmentalists in a symbiotic parasitic relationship in the Macquarie Marshes, click here to read the story.
And Christian Kerr from Crikey.com.au recently pointed out the advantages for some of Australia’s biggest companies in claiming concern over global warming:
Visy … has been an active promoter of recycling because it makes good business sense. It is also good business for Visy to protect and enhance its environmental credentials [by claiming concern over global warming].
Swiss Re and IAG are insurers. They have been talking up the impacts of climate change for the past five years so they can justify increased premiums against increased risk of damage from the effects of climate change. Cute, hey?
Origin is in the gas business. The gas suppliers are keen to promote climate change so that state governments come under pressure to switch from coal to gas fired electricity. It has about half the greenhouse emissions per GWh – but is a lot more expensive. So, PR.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
An article in the local gazette reported the purchase of freehold property ikn the Forest Creek Road area, north of the Daintree River.
As per the usual PR spin, a cassowary corridor was subsequently created. It is truly amazing that cassowaries and other wildlife are obstructed from traversing natural habitat until it has the name of an environmental foundation on its certificate of title.
I wonder if they will name the nature reserve after the principle contributor; The Rentokil Wildlife Corridor?
Don’t forget the ultimate in image exploitation to cover up lack of hard evidence: Organic food.
“Swiss Re and IAG are insurers. They have been talking up the impacts of climate change for the past five years so they can justify increased premiums against increased risk of damage from the effects of climate change. Cute, hey?”
This shows a total ignorance of how insurance works. Insurance is about pricing risk and spreading risk. When you insure your house what you are actually doing is spreading the cost of replacing your house amongst all the other people that also insure their houses. In effect other people pay to replace your house if it is damaged or lost. The amount you pay for this service is dependant on the calculated risk that the house will burn down, or be burgled. Hence in high crime areas the premiums are higher as the risk is greater.
Insurance companies do exactly the same thing. For large exposures they take out insurance with other insurance companies. This is called re-insurance hence the Re in Swiss Re as Swiss Re is a huge reinsurer. This spreads the cost of large losses like extreme weather events over all the companies that buy reinsurance. Again the price of reinsurance is priced on risk.
What the large reinsurers are finding is that their payouts are going through the roof with increased destructive weather events increasing large losses. This leads to them raising premiums for reinsurance.
While this does not increase your house premium directly and will not, it does increase the cost of insurance companies doing business as the price of reinsurance increases. Insurance is a cut throat business and you cannot just increase premiums as this would make your insurance uncompetitive as the house and car market is very tight with many players.
To absorb the increase in reinsurance the companies have to decrease dividends, cut internal costs and other measures however raising premiums is usually the last thing. One other method is work to reduce climate change. Leading scientists say that there is an increased risk of extreme weather events in the future due to global warming something that companies in the business of risk have to take notice of.
Reducing the risk of climate change is working to reduce the cost of re-insurance which directly affects the insurance companies bottom line not a cynical grab for higher premiums.
What’s this? Providing solutions to environmental concerns makes money and contributes to a growing economy instead of simply costing everyone something?
Mitigating global warming hurts some industries, but will support a whole range of other industries.
Lets not get cynical about the motives of the industries that stand to benefit from global warming mitigation efforts without applying the same level of cynicism to the small number of large resource companies that stand to lose from global warming mitigation efforts.
A bit off topic, and this may well have been covered before (and I missed it) but how much of the increase in insurance payouts is caused by more frequent extreme storm events, and how much is the result of larger numbers of people and corporations building more expensive structures in vulnerable coastal positions? What proportion of the increasing insurance cost is simply the result of us placing more of our capital in harm’s way?
boxer – “but how much of the increase in insurance payouts is caused by more frequent extreme storm events, and how much is the result of larger numbers of people and corporations building more expensive structures in vulnerable coastal positions”
You have hit the nail on the head – that is absolutely right that there is much more development in vunerable areas increasing payouts. However the most expensive insurance event in Australia was the Sydney Hailstorm of 1999 which cost 1.9 billion dollars. While this cannot be classed as development in vunerable areas the combination of development and climate change may increase the payout frequency and size faster than either one alone.
Insurance companies cannot change planning permission however they can influence by leadership, action on global warming.
Ender, I don’t share your view that Christian Kerr’s comment shows a total ignorance of how insurance works. In fact the view he has put is by no means uncommon, has a good deal of sense and extends even to the climate science community.
Dr. Hans von Storch, Director of the (German) Institute for Coastal Research and Professor at the Meteorological Institute of the University of Hamburg, said in his presentation to the US National Research Council panel that is reviewing the ‘hockey stick’ controversy that insurance companies were among the beneficiaries when ‘the perception of catastrophic anthropogenic climate change prevails’, because they ‘find their clients more willing to proactively pay for perceived enhanced risks.’ Isn’t this in fact likely to be the case?
I realise that Professor von Storch will have little credibility among most of the contributors to this blog, because he has criticised the editors of ‘Nature’ for accepting the manuscript of the Mann, Bradley & Hughes ‘hockey stick’ paper, ‘even though the key aspect of replicability was obviously not met by the MBH manuscript.’
He wondered why, as in many other such cases, the manuscript was not recommended to be published in a “normal” journal without the severe length limitations necessarily imposed by ‘Nature’, and said that he believed the reasons were journalistic ones – namely the expected broad interest in the subject. He also criticised Nature’s rejection of the short manuscript by McIntyre and McKitrick criticising MBH98, while giving MBH the opportunity to correct their paper.
It seems that ‘Nature’ will never learn. They have some more explaining to do now that the climateprediction.net team have discovered an elementary error in the software they used to generate their estimate that climate sensitivity might exceed 11.5 deg. C. It appears that all of that BOINCing has been for nought. One of the members of the Oxford University came clean about this on Easter Saturday.
One would like to think that this fiasco would prove to be a significant embarrassment for Oxford University, the UK Met Office, ‘Nature’, ‘Science’ and the BBC. But the latest howler is no worse than some of those made in the MBH papers, and those authors seem to have been able to brazen it out.
James Murphy of the British Met Office was one of the authors of the ‘Nature’ paper, and he is a lead author of the global climate projections chapter of AR4. Another author of the paper in ‘Nature’, Myles Allen of Oxford University, is Principal Investigator of the climateprediction.net team and also Review Editor of the same chapter of the forthcoming IPCC Report. I’m happy to give full marks to Gavin Schmidt of RealClimate for his early recognition that there was a problem with the paper in ‘Nature’ (and with the climatepredictions.net experiment generally).
I may not be correct in saying that there was an error in the SOFTWARE used in climateprediction.net . The website says that the software for the experiment was ‘courtesy of the University of California at Berkeley’, and that the experiment was ‘created for the BBC by a consortium led by the University of Oxford, using the Met Office climate model.’
It’s not clear (at least to me) just where the stuff-up occurred. Sorry to have led this thread somewhat off-topic, but the now-discredited estimate that climate sensitivity could be as high as 11+ deg. C is a striking example of how insurance companies may benefit from scary predictions which have no scientific foundation.
There’s a sudden waft of stale hypocrisy in the air – suddenly free markets doing their thing is now bad ?
I thought the market was supreme?
I notice Westpac and BP didn’t get a mention. Why’s that? Too hard to hang one on? On the IPA goodies list?
What’s wrong any of these firms planning and discussing climate change if they see some future advantage to their portfolio.
Don’t worry about the insurance industry – I’m sure they’re so bereft of information themselves, so uninformed and desperate, that they hang on every word climatologists say.
They’re actually continually reviewing all the science globally and investing themselves in research of their own. Why shouldn’t they with storm intensities having doubled in all ocean basins in the last 10 years – it’s their arse of the line if they have to payout.
Ian is trying to assert that they’ve hung their business off the Hockey Stick – come on. This is Ian’s usual tactic of dragging the topic back to what he wants to talk about.
Ian – why don’t you do a guest post on the Hockey Stick – line all the relevant papers up to date in sequence (including Osborn & Briffa, and Feb 2006 Wahl and Amman, and paleo support for global Medieval Warming and Little Age) and then explain to us your position about the howlers, and how it’s all so clear.
The other interesting aspect of hyporisy is that when GM crops don’t do well – we have to “expect some development”. It isn’t a howler.
The climateprediction.net story is most disappointing. Given the public position they may not recover.
The BOINC technology is still an interesting way to use vast unused computer resources on complex environmental problems which was my interest. So this is a major physical and PR setback to advocates, supporting institutions and co-investors. If not fatal given the ill will by the spoilers on innovation in this area.
In hindsight, they probably have been overly ambitious in using BOINC on something as controversial and public as climate change with such a complex experiment. However, if it had been SETI or gravity waves methinks there would not have been a peep from Ian.
If it had of been a goverment computer you would not have heard of it either, they would have held the wake, learned the lesson, and reran the code. I’m sure that Ian’s computer codes (if he actually writes any) all run first time, validate 100% with zero errors.
I assume every space rocket that doesn’t launch is also a “howler” to Ian. And every economic forecast that fails.
Also. It appears not be software but input data from the description thus far. And they did not “come clean” from hiding the facts – they have publicly reported a problem.
But Ian – enjoy it – be gleeful and dance about the bonfire.
So it’s OK if it’s GM problems like our Indian Cotton issue – we just have to be patient and expect some “development”.
Ian Castles – I really do not know how you got the Hockey Stick into this discussion however it has absolutely no place and I will not mention it any further. Your mentioning it only confirms to all that read your comment that the climate change skeptic argument is so totally devoid of any scientific merit that the Hockey Stick has to be brought up at every possible opportunity.
Yes there might be some that use climate change as an excuse to raise premiums however the free market and competition should see that any such rises are temporary. However that does not exclude such companies trying to reduce the risk of large payouts by championing action on climate change.
BBC climate change experiment cocked: Garbage in, garbage out
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=31073
Error discovered in the BBC Climate Change Experiment
http://www.climateprediction.net/board/viewtopic.php?t=4697#top
Ender says “What the large reinsurers are finding is that their payouts are going through the roof with increased destructive weather events increasing large losses”
What shareholders are finding is that insurance stocks are rising, 25-30% increase in profits in 2005, why is that Ender?
Phil,
Your new found obsession with the IPA and always expecting the same angle and the same line is SO misplaced and so boring –
By way of explaination, I didn’t include the whole Christian Kerr quote, just the best examples from his piece.
But hey the IPA has written some great stuff about BP and how they exploit environmentalism including the following piece titled ‘BP Back to Petroleum’ with the subtitle ‘BP’s re-badging to ‘Beyond Petroleum’ is a charade’
http://www.ipa.org.au/publications/publisting_detail.asp?pubid=189
Yes the BP article only confirmed my worst fears ! I’m now sure there’s a list.
But hey – you could do a post explaining the organisation’s misunderstood role to we uneducated bloggers.
Phil: Smack, smack!!!
Phil,
I couldn’t convince you of anything. Firstly you accuse me of letting BP off the hook because I work for the IPA – then when I show you the IPA has actually criticised BP along the lines of Christian Kerr’s piece – you claim that’s what you would have thought all along?
The bottomline is that the IPA is a force for truth and liberty.
I did set up the Wiki – on the basis you were keen to develop a consensus position on various issues. Interestingly my site stats show lots of people are looking at the Wiki but noone contributing to it.
Hi Jennifer,
Had a quick scan of that IPA article on BP, and thought it fairly weak. BP’s efforts might be tiny compared to its investment in oil, but they are pretty decent compared to, say, the investment by the Australian Govt in solar power. This is why BP is one of the worlds leaders is solar power, and, up until a couple of years ago, had the most efficient commercially available solar panels on the market (Saturn modules). I do not think it is as bad greenwash as the article makes out for BP to use this in their marketing.
Regarding the angle of the IPA. I quote this from the ‘about’ page on the IPA website:
“We [the IPA] believe in the free market of ideas, the free flow of capital, a limited and efficient government, the rule of law, and representative democracy.”
I find that an article that attacks BP’s marketing efforts does not agree well with the this.
Why would the IPA feel the need to comment on the marketing strategy of a particular company, given the IPA’s stated aims of supporting the free market of ideas, and the IPAs support for free-markets in general?
Examples like this suggest that IPA often is more about protecting the interests of its funders (coal and other resource companies, definitely not renewable energy technology or climate mitigation companies) rather than being unwavering in its support of free markets and the free market of ideas. Maybe this is the reason for Phil’s attitude to the IPA.
rog – “What shareholders are finding is that insurance stocks are rising”
And the problem with this is???? As well managed businesses they are looking to the future – again what is the problem with this?????
Jen – couldn’t find Christian Kerr’s article – can u post link pls. Blog stress disorder I’m sure.
Do you get a superhero outfit if you’re for truth & liberty. Sounds cool.
And Jen how could you say “I couldn’t convince you of anything”. I’m heartbroken. After all my support. Et tu Jen .. .. Phil dies.
On the Wiki – if you check your posts I think you will find a next step was up to YOU – to decide on some focus areas. I have done a big list of topics on climate (all we have discussed on the blog but perhaps needs some work as my comments left there suggest.
What happened to Blair !
Ian could lead us with a Hockey Stick critique (and we’d all be gentle, professional and scholarly wouldn’t we troopers – no eye gouging in the ruck or wedgies from Joe).
I think we’re all scared – Wiki virgins – or not wanting to be seen to be first (sort of like not sitting in the front rows at a meeting).
Phil,
Suggest you pick a few science-related climate topics at the Wiki and start developing them.
It would be good if Ian C started dumping information on the economic aspects.
PS The Christian Kerr quote was from their daily email that I have deleted. I expect its at the website somewhere – but don’t have the time to look.
Phil,
http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/001297.html
Here you tell us your knowledge of dozers is theoretical.
Maybe you should tell us more for more subjects?
Eco-ey – yes my knowledge of all subjects is theoretical. Just a humble citizen voicing an opinion. It’s just your logic vs mine.
I didn’t say that the insurance industry had hung its business off the hockey stick, Phil, I said that ‘the now-discredited estimate that climate sensitivity could be as high as 11+ deg. C is a striking example of how insurance companies may benefit from scary predictions which have no scientific foundation’. And I stand by that.
But my guess is that the insurance industry HAS also benefited considerably from charts like http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/figts-5.htm . Note how the IPCC experts drew a line across the whole millennium to the 1998 instrumental level. There wasn’t a word in the text about 1998 being an El Nino year or not being representative.
THEY chose to highlight that year as a reference point by comparison with what went before, but when Bob Carter used it as a reference point for what came after – ah, what a so-and-so he is!
Phil, what is this ‘Feb 2006 Wahl & Amman’? The only such paper I can find is dated February 24 2006 and has ‘Climatic Change, in pres’’ at the head of each page. But it surely can’t be in press in this form, or can it? The first paper in the list of references is described as ‘Ammann, C M and Wahl, E R., in review “Comment on ‘Hockey sticks, principal components and spurious significance,” by S. McIntyre and R. McKitrick’. Geophys. Res. Lett.’
But this paper isn’t in review at GRL, because it was rejected. Does ‘Climatic change’ intend to publish a paper that refers to, and relies upon, a paper that has been twice rejected by the journal to which it was submitted? I think that that would be most unusual.
Have you read McIntyre’s letter to Schneider about the W&A paper, as one Stephen to another? If you can bring yourself to look at the Climate Audit site again, it’s at http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=607
And please don’t explain again that the case for AGW doesn’t stand or fall on the hockey stick graph. I know that and Steve McIntyre knows that: he’s stressed it repeatedly. In fact, he’s not a contrarian, as far as I can see. Why do you describe him as one?
But the IPCC milieu does seem to go to the most extraordinary lengths to discredit McIntyre, all in the interests of defending something that’s not supposed to matter. A need to assert the doctrine of Panel Infallibility, perhaps?
Jesus Christ!!! “The bottomline is that the IPA is a force for truth and liberty.” Jen is our saviour then!! AMEN!
Ian – please don’t explain yourself again – it’s just too tedious.
Now discredited 11 degrees – did it ever get a run ? Come on.
The world does not stop at the last IPCC report. You just love to pin everything to that don’t you – so you can contain your ongoing assault on favourite material.
McIntyre has well immersed himself in the milieu of the contrarian side and has indulged himself in it to the hilt.
Speaking of the dark side. Excellent article by Paul Krugman of the New York Times:
Enemy of the Planet
says in part.. .. ..
So how have corporate interests responded? In the early years, when the science was still somewhat in doubt, many companies from the oil industry, the auto industry and other sectors were members of a group called the Global Climate Coalition, whose de facto purpose was to oppose curbs on greenhouse gases. But as the scientific evidence became clearer, many members — including oil companies like BP and Shell — left the organization and conceded the need to do something about global warming.
Exxon, headed by Mr. Raymond, chose a different course of action: it decided to fight the science.
A leaked memo from a 1998 meeting at the American Petroleum Institute, in which Exxon (which hadn’t yet merged with Mobil) was a participant, describes a strategy of providing “logistical and moral support” to climate change dissenters, “thereby raising questions about and undercutting the ‘prevailing scientific wisdom.’ ” And that’s just what Exxon Mobil has done: lavish grants have supported a sort of alternative intellectual universe of global warming skeptics.
The people and institutions Exxon Mobil supports aren’t actually engaged in climate research. They’re the real-world equivalents of the Academy of Tobacco Studies in the movie “Thank You for Smoking,” whose purpose is to fail to find evidence of harmful effects.
But the fake research works for its sponsors, partly because it gets picked up by right-wing pundits, but mainly because it plays perfectly into the he-said-she-said conventions of “balanced” journalism. A 2003 study, by Maxwell Boykoff and Jules Boykoff, of reporting on global warming in major newspapers found that a majority of reports gave the skeptics — a few dozen people, many if not most receiving direct or indirect financial support from Exxon Mobil — roughly the same amount of attention as the scientific consensus, supported by thousands of independent researchers.
Has Exxon Mobil’s war on climate science actually changed policy for the worse? Maybe not. Although most governments have done little to curb greenhouse gases, and the Bush administration has done nothing, it’s not clear that policies would have been any better even if Exxon Mobil had acted more responsibly.
But the fact is that whatever small chance there was of action to limit global warming became even smaller because Exxon Mobil chose to protect its profits by trashing good science. And that, not the paycheck, is the real scandal of Mr. Raymond’s reign as Exxon Mobil’s chief executive.
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/ccr/ammann/millennium/MBH_reevaluation.html
ROBUSTNESS OF THE MANN, BRADLEY, HUGHES RECONSTRUCTION OF NORTHERN HEMISPHERE SURFACE TEMPERATURES: EXAMINATION OF CRITICISMS BASED ON THE NATURE AND PROCESSING OF PROXY CLIMATE EVIDENCE
EUGENE R. WAHL1 and CASPAR M. AMMANN2
1 Environmental Studies and Geology Division, Alfred University, Alfred, New York, U.S.A.
2 National Center for Atmospheric Research , Boulder, Colorado, U.S.A.
Climatic Change
May 10, 2005 — In review
September 27, 2005 — Revised
December 12, 2005 — Provisionally Accepted
February 28, 2006 — Accepted for Publication
Abstract
The Mann et al. (1998) Northern Hemisphere annual temperature reconstruction over 1400-1980 is examined in light of recent criticisms concerning the nature and processing of included climate proxy data. A systematic sequence of analyses is presented that examine issues concerning the proxy evidence, utilizing both indirect analyses via exclusion of proxies and processing steps subject to criticism, and direct analyses of principal component (PC) processing methods in question. Altogether new reconstructions over 1400-1980 are developed in both the indirect and direct analyses, which demonstrate that the Mann et al. reconstruction is robust against the proxy-based criticisms addressed. In particular, reconstructed hemispheric temperatures are demonstrated to be largely unaffected by the use or non-use of PCs to summarize proxy evidence from the data-rich North American region. When proxy PCs are employed, neither the time period used to “center” the data before PC calculation nor the way the PC calculations are performed significantly affects the results, as long as the full extent of the climate information actually in the proxy data is represented by the PC time series. Clear convergence of the resulting climate reconstructions is a strong indicator for achieving this criterion. Also, recent “corrections” to the Mann et al. reconstruction that suggest 15th century temperatures could have been as high as those of the late-20th century are shown to be without statistical and climatological merit. Our examination does suggest that a slight modification to the original Mann et al. reconstruction is justifiable for the first half of the 15th century (~ +0.05°), which leaves entirely unaltered the primary conclusion of Mann et al. (as well as many other reconstructions) that both the 20th century upward trend and high late-20th century hemispheric surface temperatures are anomalous over at least the last 600 years. Our results are also used to evaluate the separate criticism of reduced amplitude in the Mann et al. reconstructions over significant portions of 1400-1900, in relation to some other climate reconstructions and model-based examinations. We find that, from the perspective of the proxy data themselves, such losses probably exist, but they may be smaller than those reported in other recent work.
Download the Full Manuscript including Figures in PDF format
Use R-Code of Wahl-Ammann emulation of MBH Northern Hemisphere Climate Reconstruction
——————————————————————————–
Caspar Ammann
Last modified: Fri Mar 3 13:00:00 MDT 2006
Yes Phil, I know about that disgraceful paper that ‘Climatic Change’ accepted for publication on 28 February, but they won’t be so foolish as to actually publish it will they? It hasn’t appeared in their ‘First online’ section yet, so I thought that perhaps it was being quietly buried.
Did you read McIntyre’s letter to Schneider about the paper, as one Stephen to another? The text is on the Climate Change website at http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=607 .
Yes Ian – tell me that you understand all of the critique and can attest to all the elements. It seems that only McIntyre’s work is good enough for McIntyre – every other scientist is wrong. See the rapidity of the Osborn & Briffa rebuttal too.
They should get off their butts and publish their own reconstruction.
Dear Jennifer,
You seem to be getting a bit sensitive about the IPA connection. They pay you to write this blog don’t they?
True tiger
‘Now discredited 11 degrees – did it ever get a run ? Come on.’ Yes Phil, it got a tremendous run. As well as the article in Nature, Science ran a feature article in the same week (‘Climate modellers see scorching future as a real possibility’) which said that ‘Researchers tapping the computer power of 26,000 idling personal computers are confirming that a searing heating of the globe in the coming centuries can’t be ruled out. Their new twist is twofold. It could get even hotter than the previous worst case had it. And, contrary to earlier work, NO MODELER CAN YET SAY THAT SUCH AN EXTREME SCENARIO IS ANY LESS LIKELY than the moderately strong warming that most climate scientists expect’ (EMPHASIS added).
Is there any statement that’s too absurd to make, if it’s oiling the wheels of the alarmist campaign?
‘McIntyre has well immersed himself in the milieu of the contrarian side and has indulged himself in it to the hilt.’ Any evidence for this, Phil? You claimed that Lambert had said that McIntyre had made an error. Do you still think so?
‘But Ian – enjoy it – be gleeful and dance about the bonfire.’ Well Phil, obviously I’m pleased, if only for my grandchildren’s sake, that there’s no need to fear that climate sensitivity might be 11+ deg. C. Aren’t you also pleased that this possibility has been put to rest? It’s a pity that participants had to simulate over four million model years and donate over 8,000 years of computing time along the way (or did the penny drop before all of this effort went down the drain?).
The Oxford University press release of 27 January 2005 certainly looked like a PR stunt to me, with all that guff about the IPCC having ‘predicted’ that CO2 concentrations would be double their pre-industrial level by 2050 and the deep cuts in emissions that were supposedly necessary by then in order to avoid such an outcome (although the IPCC itself had shown that this was not the case). But it WAS Oxford University, funded by the Natural Environment Resource Council (which issued an identical press statement, but with additional details, on the same day) and leading a small army of partners and affiliates: the British Met Office, the London School of Economics, the Open University (both through its Knowledge Media Institute and its Earth Sciences Department), the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, the University of Reading Department of Meteorology, the UK Department of Trade and Industry’s e-Science programme, Numerical Algorithms Group Ltd., Risk Management Solutions Inc., Research Systems Inc., Tessella Support Service pic, and the Search For Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence of the University of California at Berkeley.
The well-orchestrated reports in ‘Nature’ and ‘Science’ were in preparation for what the Natural Environment Resource Council media release described as ‘Stabilisation 2005, next week’s international conference proposed by Prime Minister Tony Blair.’
By the time next week came, this meeting had apparently transformed itself into the notorious ‘Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change Conference’ at Exeter which, according to Rosemary Righter, Associate Editor of The Times, ‘became something like a contest between which horror stories – the Vanishing Gulf Stream, Millions Dead of Malaria in the Midlands, the Parboiled Polar Bear – would do the best job of making the public’s flesh creep.’ Ms Righter commented, in her written evidence to the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee, that ‘As spin for the Government’s case that climate change is a threat greater than terrorism, this was no doubt effective. As guidance to policy-makers, it was a disgrace.’
I can only endorse the observations of a correspondent on the Climate Audit website that ‘the point of this Climateprediction.net exercise is PR rather than any sort of real science. The aim is to get a load more people to buy into AGW, and to feel some degree of ownership because they ran this silly program on their PCs for a while. This will help to increase their resistance to any opposing viewpoint. It will end up with BBC Breakfast interviewing the young academic behind it, plus Charlene from Dagenham. Charlene will be the person whose PC came closest to replicating the 1990 temperature record.. (There will be no reference to infinite monkeys with infinite typewriters, and how a monkey that has written Macbeth will not necessarily go on to write the other works of Shakespeare.)’
How about a reply to the Osborn and Briffa rebuttal Phil, rather than criticising McIntyre for producing it so quickly? I’ve already pointed out the obvious reason for the speed: the fact that O&B was sent out to journalists with an embargo.
The other interesting thing about climateaudit is that it’s very hard to find a quality discussion piece on anything there. It’s a contrarians’ dream come true of endless inappropriate behaviour by endless scientists. It’s all enough to make you want to take up law.
Golly gee Ian – so many conspiracies – it’s a wonder you have any time. All these rogues out there to root out. Thank heavens for the IPA showing the way to truth, liberty and light.
No you don’t know they had a pre-copy of Osborn & Briffa – it just suits you to think so.
Ian – I suspect you really haven’t a clue about the modelling and do little serious computer modelling yourself. The 11 degrees C had nothing to do with it. That was an outside level you could get with an extreme selection of GCM parameters, and we have discussed, as has RC reasons for it’s unlikely occurence. They were exploring more fully GCM parameter space. The current problem is a data set error from representation of aerosols.
I think it’s disgraceful how you are now spinning all this. The Hadley GCM is now a silly program ! For heavens sake. Be prepared to put up !
You’re now blathering about material you haven’t a clue about.
http://www.climateprediction.net/science/strategy_adv.php
Anyway explain McIntyre’s critique on Wahl and Amman and Osborn & Briffa to we unwashed given your expert recognition of the critique’s quality. I contend you haven’t a clue what it means.
And if the House of Lords can’t get basics right like “apparent divergences between land-based temperature records and satellite-based measurements, the latter showing some cooling rather than warming in recent years.”
Why would you trust their competence.
And also “In the view of Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT, current climate models would have predicted a substantially greater increase in the past temperature than has been observed in the past 150 years, perhaps +3oC compared to the +0.6oC we have witnessed.” – yes we know you don’t correct answers omitting forcing inputs.
Probably too late to try to bring this discussion back to the thread, but surely the point that Jennifer is making is that it’s not a valid negation of someone’s argument to say that they have a commercial interest in putting it. It might make you sniff harder around the argument to see if it has been distorted by self-interest, but it doesn’t change the logic of the argument itself.
The Business Roundtable’s argument is not falsified because they stand to make a buck out of it, neither is Jennifer’s, because the IPA may or may not receive money from energy industry interests. I’m fascinated by the lop-sided nature of the debate where capital is assumed to start at a moral disadvantage to the activists because activists never, allegedly, make any money, although many of them work for outfits which are in effect quite large businesses, like Greenpeace.
On the insurance industry front, if Ender thinks that insurance companies accurately price for risk he should ask himself why most of them make their profit from the investments they make with the reserves they hold, rather than on their under-writing activities which tend to run at a loss. Investing in insurance companies is generally a way of taking a leveraged punt on equities markets rather than global warming!
“capital is assumed to start at a moral disadvantage to the activists”. This is a dumb assumption
Investing in insurance companies is risky business.
If it’s a “dumb assumption” how is it that one of the pieces in the environmental rebuttal tool-kit is invariably that “X works for an organisation funded by ‘Big Y’ where Y=’energy’, ‘pharma’, ‘industry’, ‘oil’, ‘agriculture’ etc. – take your pick”.
I’ve seen this line or variations of it run by people as diverse as John Quiggin, Noam Chomsky, John Pilger, George Monbiot, Ian Lowe, and there’s even websites like SourceWatch http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=SourceWatch which are devoted to the concept. (And yes I know SourceWatch claims to be impartial, but if it is why does it cover the IPA, for which Jennifer works, but leaves the ACF alone, even though it is quite clear that the ACF receives funding for its work from irrigators in the wine industry!)
‘The 11 degrees C had nothing to do with it’. Come off it Phil. The Allen Consulting Group’s report for the Australian Business Roundtable on Climate Change, published earlier this month, says:
‘More recently, research undertaken by Oxford University, also using distributed computing methodology, showed a substantial temperature response to even a relatively low stabilisation level, and greater than 11 deg. C for a doubling in CO2.’
The ACG Report used this in support of an argument that ‘more recent work on the temperature outcomes associated with given CO2 stabilistion levels suggests that the range of climate sensitivities may actually be significantly HIGHER than that found by the IPCC’, and that ‘To some extent, this may balance any upward bias in the IPCC’s temperature projections.’
You say that the 11 deg. C projection ‘was an outside level you could get with an extreme selection of GCM parameters’. Just innocently ‘exploring more fully GCM parameter space’? As Annan and Hargreaves have shown, and as Gavin agreed in his comment on my posting to RC, the 11 deg sensitivity is impossible (not just unlikely). The climateprediction.net researchers chose to highlight this figure, and have therefore given a misleading impression.
No I don’t do any modelling myself, but I can read plain English. McIntyre & McKitrick said from day 1 that they were not offering an alternative reconstruction and were not saying that the MWP was warmer than late 20th century temperatures. The were simply showing what the MBH methodology would have produced if correctly applied.
For a couple of years I was surprised that so many intelligent scientists could not grasp this simple point, but you can’t really expect me to believe that Wahl, Ammann, Schneider and the reviewers are all just making an honest mistake.
Graham Young: “but surely the point that Jennifer is making is that it’s not a valid negation of someone’s argument to say that they have a commercial interest in putting it. It might make you sniff harder around the argument to see if it has been distorted by self-interest”.
Graham, your argument must likewise apply to the IPA. I had every intention of letting this egg and sausage soup of a thread pass till you tried to reinforce it. With these words “symbiotic parasitic relationship” Jennifer colors debate from the top.
My position is that this pseudo science used here is a very bad tool to put any vexed public issue into perspective. Contributors will be divided regardless in this regime.
Let’s look behind her rhetoric for a moment. Although Visy have a social obligation with cardboard recycling we could easily run all their production based on very cheap plantation timber from local sources without regard to other issues.
What do I know? A bit more than some after at least a dozen years in the industry. I once had the job of minding our hydra-pulper as some government officer untied bundles of confiscated playboy and penthouse. No one was allowed to look till they went under!
Elsewhere on this blog BP got a serve, why not Shell or Esso? Lets keep a proper perspective in our energy debate.
Wiki; whata farce that would be coming from here on say bulldozers and the economy.
Some contributors know bugger all about bulldozers or the economy in any social context and I can say this bit of science on here won’t help them or us.
Where I grew up there was a dozer in every other back yard. Wiki links dozers as engineering vehicles with deforestation.
I reckon this blog has a long way to go in social engineering terms before we get off into Wiki and its more about gaining individual perspective than jumped up science by the IPA.
then fine-tune yr argument Graham. It’s not the existence of capital you’re on about, it’s the source of funding and motivation driving the investment. The people you mention aint rallying against capital per se. They’re concerned with big businesses ($$$) influencing ($$$) government policies as well as funding research and social programs that are skewed towards their agenda (more $$) and the funding is often not transparent (even hidden via an obscure paper trail, holding companies, etc). Do you find that defensible?
Generally the vested interests argument can apply to anyone, I agree on that, so your point of difference comes down the choice of moral (or amoral) imperative driving the organisation. Not all corporate funded science is rubbish and not all government programmes are exemplar, however why should businesses have strong influence on social policies and science activities? As someone else commented, why aren’t those who are concerned about extreme socialism also concerned about unfettered capitalism?
I’m concerned that the IPA and it’s sponsors see themselves as the arbiters of love, light, peace and freedom. Worryingly fundamentalist. Do they have a God club too?
“symbiotic parasitic relationship”
I frowned over that tortured phrase too buggga. Another blond one I decided.
Graham’s argument might hold water if Jennifer had a track record of fair, unbiased debate, but she doesn’t. You could finger vested interests again, but only to repeat a discussion where people have fixed opinions anyway. Glimpse the future where rather than socialism, unbridled capitalism is the latest, most feared & reviled enemy.
What are you trying to say buggga?
Did you actually read the article or do you just want to get a bit of dirty water off your chest?
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=4377
egg and sausage soup is not his favourite dish rog
Graham,
Firstly, lets not pretend that the anti-environment movement is above attacking the credibility of environmentalists instead of focussing on the content.
I’m sure you’ve heard the repeated attempts by a whole host of anti-green commentators both big and small trying to cast any consideration for the environment as ‘green religion’.
If you think that the debate is ‘lop-sided’, then you need to open the other eye.
Secondly, the reason why “one of the pieces in the environmental rebuttal tool-kit is invariably that “X works for an organisation funded by ‘Big Y'”
is that a lot of the X’s don’t actually disclose who it is they are working for, or if they do, it isn’t up front and clear.
Take the Institute for Public Affairs: the positive sounding title and the nice fluffy ‘about’ page on their website doesn’t accurately communicate their motives or sources of funding. Now while the nature of funders of the IPA shouldn’t render their arguments negated, I’m sure you would agree that it is important information for lay people who are trying to guage IPA material.
It is extremely important to disclose your interests if you are relying on any sort of appeal to authority in presenting your argument. I think that it is obvious what the interests of an oil company like BP or an insurance company are. I do not think it is obvious to every reader what the interests of the IPA are, and i think it is more important for the IPA to disclose its interests, since it is a think tank that relies on its reputation to maintain its voice.
Heh heh heh,
Mind you, I realise that my previous post is a good argument against anonymous posting on blogs!
Hm.
Jennifer; our media is our proper social perspective. On the front page today is the Solomons rescue mission. Last week one of my lot farewelled their counterparts off in civil support just before it all blew up again. Keelty was on AM about our fragile region including PNG.
Another commentator reminded us the Solomons will soon be logged out. Meantime Monica whips our north. On Monday I was invited on a 4×4 picnic over the range, a chance to see the bush and its 2003 bushfire recovery in drought conditions.
This blog is a luxury.
Business in The Canberra Times today can give us another perspective about our near island communities, “Kathmandu bought for $243m” a story on NZ’s richest woman and yuppies world wide. “Poppy farmers left reeling after contracts cut by 90%” a Glaxo Smith Kline story from bulldozer island involving 450 farmers after a world glut of opium oils.
Given that Elphingstone Caterpillar had about 600 mine tractor builders in their heyday who have recently been globalized again in favour of booming overseas expansions life here on the mainland looks increasingly comfortable. After all what have we had to do lately?
Aren’t we all so smug?
Phil, You claim that the House of Lords said that there were “apparent divergences between land-based temperature records and satellite-based measurements, the latter showing some cooling rather than warming in recent years” and you ask why would I trust their competence if they can’t get these basics right.
I trust the Committee’s competence because what they said was absolutely right. They ‘heard doubts expressed about other features of the accepted science.’ One of the eight doubts that they listed under this heading was in the terms you’ve stated. That they heard this doubt expressed is a simple statement of fact.
The Commitee then said, in the immediately succeeding sentence, ‘We do not propose to evaluate these doubts, nor are we qualified to do so.’ And they added in a footnote ‘An excellent description of most of these debates is to be found in M. Maslin, ‘Global Warming: A Very Short Introduction’, Oxford University Press, 2004.’
What is your argument, Phil? That the Committee should not have reported that the doubt to which you refer was put to them? Or that, in the case of this particular doubt, they should have said ‘Oh yes, we’re competent to address this one and in our expert opinion it has no substance’?
Of course, if they’d said this, they would have been criticised for implicitly accepting that there IS substance in the other claims.
The report was on ‘The Economics of Climate Change’, and I trust it because, on all of the matters within my area of knowledge, they got it right.
Graham Young – “If it’s a “dumb assumption” how is it that one of the pieces in the environmental rebuttal tool-kit is invariably that “X works for an organisation funded by ‘Big Y’ where Y=’energy’, ‘pharma’, ‘industry’, ‘oil’, ‘agriculture’ etc. – take your pick”.”
No it is quite different. The companies listed are saying they support ACTION on global warming because it will help our bottom line.
The large corporations funding the skeptic campaign are supporting INACTION on global warming because that will help their bottom line.
The companies listed are quite open about this however the companies that are supporting inaction are secretive using front lobby groups with nice sounding names. There is nowhere a group of companies advertising in their own names that there is no need for action on climate change.
BTW you would have to provide a reference for this statement “if Ender thinks that insurance companies accurately price for risk he should ask himself why most of them make their profit from the investments they make with the reserves they hold, rather than on their under-writing activities which tend to run at a loss”
If you look at the annual report of one of the companies you can see on page one that this is not true of IAG:
http://www.iag.com.au/pub/iag/results/media/HY06_Interim_Report.pdf
Ian – so essentially you are saying that multi-billion dollar insurance companies who have risk as their business are utterly unable to review the science for themselves. Those devilish IPCC commies bastards have them in their power.
The corporates are unable to resist their insidious doomsday messages. They are paralysed from further rational thought.
Golly I may have to cancel my policy if it goes up too much.
Makes you wonder though why organisations like Munich RE have intelligent staff continually roaming the world keeping up to date with climate science. Must just be junketing executives? Or wasting all that money on research at Potsdam.
Perhaps the free market will desert the insurance industry and leave it to government to run a fund like the very popular Medicare system. I’m sure we’d like that. Or perhaps the government could intervene by capping excessive insurance industry profits. That would do wonders for an Australian free market- a sectoral specific increase in insurance company tax based on profit to climate ratio (El Nino seasonally adjusted of course) should do the trick.
And speaking of Potsdam – here’s a fun game we can play with our children, given they won’t be BOINCing on their PCs.
http://www.pik-potsdam.de/pik_web/press/pressrelease/pm_winds_e.htm
You’re penalised heavily if you make silly warming scenarios. 🙂 (that was a joke!)
Interestingly ‘Capitalist Environmentalist’ not only uses a pen name, but an email address that doesn’t work. I wonder what motivates that sort of behaviour? Maybe she doesn’t want to be identified because her intentions are not honourable?
rog: are you one of these smart arses that’s done nothing too? Like the one that throws up DDT yet knows nothing about Santobrite etc. Pesticides, fungicides and herbicides are what you make of them hey?
I’m just waiting for Jen to have a go at science for toxic fish in our estuaries, re ABC 7.30 last night. The acid test will be, would she let her kids eat tasty Sydney fish rather than complain about the long winded un covering of the extent with our contamination problem.
rog mate union carbide threw me of their other site in the 1960’s because I asked questions about dodgy control of reactors that could blast us into space.
rog; can you tell us patient people on here where you are coming from? Environmental police work and social education in regards to risks takes a bit more than your experience I reckon.
>>>>’The 11 degrees C had nothing to do with it’. Come off it Phil. The Allen Consulting Group’s report for the Australian Business Roundtable on Climate Change, published earlier this month, says:
Well if Allen’s have as you have said uncritically used a preliminary figure from very early research more fool them. They need to be more critical. And I agree Nature editorialized this more than necessary.
However – there are merits to the experiment IMHO – the url above from their site gives a reasonable experimental plan. A full exploration Of GCM parameter space is worthwhile. The experiment is “off-line” not taking mission critical and scarce Cray/NEC/SGI supercomputer cycles. Of course they’re wanting to publicise their experiment but I don’t think many people other than enthusiasts would be interested. Indeed I did a guest post on the issue for Jen by her request. I had emailed her the press release as something of out of field interest in environmental modeling assuming the blog being interested in issues such as high tech GMO issues might be interested in such things.
So it depends on whether you think this is all a big conspiracy or not – the number of intelligent individuals involved in setting something g like this up is incredible. If you wanted to make a political statement and get public opinion – demonstrating at conferences and making TV documentaries is probably quicker and more to the point.
You are now seeking to tear down everything in their entire experimental schedule. Essentially the message continually on-song is disband – don’t engage – don’t rectify – disband. Desist. Stop. Don’t create.
“innocently exploring GCM parameter space” – it’s not a banned activity. It’s a reasonable activity.
>>>No I don’t do any modelling myself, but I can read plain English. McIntyre & McKitrick said from day 1 that they were not offering an alternative reconstruction and were not saying that the MWP was warmer than late 20th century temperatures. The were simply showing what the MBH methodology would have produced if correctly applied.
Yes it was McKitrick who made the radians error as you pointed out. But it was on his team. I’m sure he would support his colleague fully still. The point is nobody is immune from errors.
Most of us don’t understand the complex multi-variate statistics involved in the Hockey Stick. McIntyre sounds convincing at times but you get others saying if you knew your stats you would be far from convinced. One example was that the method always produces Hockey Sticks. A retort to that was that’s irrelevant – the issue is in the validation to that model. What does that leave us lay person to gather then? Clearly most of McIntyre’s bloggers are a cheer squad. I find his site incredibly negative. Practically every post is a complaint. There are no discursive building posts that make anything. It’s easier to rag than create anything. And of course he won’t be offering his own reconstruction – he’s too clever for that – wouldn’t suit the game of being a ragger as then you’d have to defend yourself, instead of devoting all your energy to pot shots.
I have downloaded about 100 papers on Medieval Warming etc – I can tell you it’s all far from clear. Many overlapping periods and confusing issues.
I notice Ian that you have found McIntyre convincing but you fall short of being able to précis an argument as to whether he’s right, or to explain it us here. That’s OK as the issues are complex.
I believe Science will have much more on this issue in weeks to come. So fasten your seat belts. It’s far from over.
>>> For a couple of years I was surprised that so many intelligent scientists could not grasp this simple point, but you can’t really expect me to believe that Wahl, Ammann, Schneider and the reviewers are all just making an honest mistake.
But don’t worry about IPCC conspiracies – the contrarian side and issues such as raised above by the New York Times have now done a Big Tobacco job on AGW. The issue has been scuttled pretty well in the Bush Administration. There has been so much noise, disinformation, polarisation, claim and counter-claim that the AGW agenda is derailed. So well done. Opposing science camps simply don’t trust each other any more. Everything is a try-on and who’s above emotion on such issues.
We can only await the 4AR report (which McIntyre is already making sleights on) to perhaps restate the position and clarify some of the issues.
In any case – it’s just past Jen’s blog anniversary.
I think little has been accomplished in AGW discussion here in the last year.
Most people still believe what they want.
Despite all the worrying how CO2 cutbacks will affect the economy, fear not, nothing substantive is happening and energy growth is increasing.
Contrarians can sleep tight knowing they’ve partially damaged the IPCC system and left utter confusion in the minds of the public.
So frankly I wonder if ongoing discussion will illuminate anything. Most of our time here is spent discussing alleged “scandals” and individuals. The science takes a back seat.
Jennifer posts an opinion piece on the Macquarie marshes and all we get is IPA, Exxon, General RE and the Marlboro Man mixed into a long and winding yarn essentially about “me me me”
Phil: Believing in Hockey Stick or not is irreverent.
I say from personal observations there is no evidence in our local coastlines of a substantial medieval warming event that is between us and the last warm peak building from the most recent ice age. What ever it was there are no odd steps in the oceans gentile retreat.
There is however faint lines of dunes beyond the main frontal dune that need some explanation. This typical “tidal” ebb process also occurred in the glacial out flow sands around Lake Pedder.
Let your climate science model all that!
Rog – that’s not correct. One line is about the marshes. The title is about Business Exploiting Environmentalism. Have you been part of the discussion – no ! The issues are contemporary and relevant to this post and other recent posts.
Exxon’s funding of a disinformation campaign is most relevant.
The insurance industry’s ability to discern information and/or profiteer is most relevant.
Whether IPA’s funding sources influence IPA’s opinion is obviously a curiosity to some.
Ian has broadened out the discussion – but you wouldn’t say boo to him would you?
Rog just throwing some muck for fun as he’s bored. Would love to make a right wing anti-green comment but he can’t think of one.
I did post this piece with the intention of drawing some attention to my opinion piece in OLO the issues in the Macquarie Marshes.
My opinion piece is about agricultural and environmental interests not doing the right thing by the environment, and government turning a blind eye.
Perhaps the response would have been completely different if I had not included environmentalists in the same boat as graziers?
And if I had not drawn a comparison with the Christian Kerr piece, I suspect there would have been very few comments.
Who really cares about the environment – and is reflected in who you work for?
I will repost the link to the Macquaire Marsh piece here: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=4377 .
rog; did you go down the marshes to get wet and spoiled?
In a previous thread on that place was a comment on jamming the lot of it to cause more water to spill over, out and about.
Rural water courses everywhere are not what they used to be due to over clearing upstream and down stream. Neither is the river flow what it once was.
Any marsh land in a large flood plain had meandering water channels all over and the flow barriers were complex. Nutrition depended on slow and settling floods like any delta. Natural filtering and dewatering of solids is something we easily stuff up though. Life within marshes was complex too.
This type of re-engineering won’t come from current agricultural science.
rog; did you notice no one else came in on the jamming? Some of us are out of our depth here.
Jen – exactly who’s crusading? It was yourself that introduced us to the levee. Now you seem to be saying the bird populations are OK. So there’s no issue then ? A win for the environment and the graziers? Case dismissed?
The article raises a heap of issues, including that the ramsar listed nature reserve has lost its birds and probably also its reed beds to private land which provides no protection for the rookeries or reed beds.
There are also issues of how public money is spent and how important issues are reported … and the list goes on.
There are no points in this for the IPA from any perspective …
Was just asking nicely. Not suggesting anything for IPA at all.
No Phil.
Most of this thread suggests that I and the IPA are motivated by money (rather than a genuine interest in issues) – and you started the mud slinging…
“The article raises a heap of issues” ALL nit picking at best Jennifer.
What about the greedy b’s up stream and down stream beyond the greedy reeds?
Fat cows and ducks versus fat crops hey?
Bam Bam
I find your response extraordinary.
I know you have seen the satelitte photos of the nature reserve bone dry with surrounding land flooded (for others the link is to an earlier blog piece and in the last para of the OLO piece).
I guess there are none so blind as those that would not see.
Most of this thread – Jen that’s fanciful ! Most of the discussion has not been about that at all. It’s a minority of text which you are senitive to.
You’ve put up an assertion with no evidence (or requoted) that insurers are putting up their premiums directly from global warming stories. And requoted similar assertions on the other companies. Why you would be that selective in quotation or listing I found curious and incomplete.
How clear is the title of this thread.
Businesses Exploiting Environmentalism
There is a very clear tone that bogus environmental issues are exploited by business for perhaps selfish and ignoble motives.
I find it curious that you’re prepared to run on the Marshes with little data – if it had been the Murray or the Reef you would have been saying where’s the evidence of harm. Evidence based.
The trend in the discussions is one way IMHO and unrelenting.
So the bird populations you assert are OK. The levee is legal. The outcome is achieved nonetheless. A great victory for conversation on-farm.
Anyway instead of increasing your ire and engaging in tit for tat I’ll decamp the thread and allow others to discuss the marshes issues with you.
As for our insurance; who do you recommend?
The ones well covered with their own assessment of AGW? Or the cheapest ones?
IMHO Any one farming or living in our high country areas would be virtually un insurable after 2003 bushfires and the on going drought across much of NSW.
Asked any one from Goulburn lately? Whoz got their head in the sand?
No Phil,
I am concerned about the reed beds. And I reckon you probably know more about grazing and reed beds than anyone else – you know a lot about grazing anyway.
I actually think you know bugger all about AGW – but you do have a big emotional attachment to the concept.
Phil, Your comment that ‘Yes it was McKitrick who made the radians error as you pointed out. But it was on his [McIntyre’s] team. I’m sure he [McIntyre] would support his colleague fully still’ is (a) absurdly wrong and (b) typifies your ‘my team, right or wrong’ approach to every issue.
Of course Steve McIntyre doesn’t support his colleague on the point ‘still’, because his colleague does not himself support the point ‘still’. He acknowledged it immediately it came to light – rather a contrast to the rearguard ‘we haven’t conceded’ attitude that typifies the response of the Hockey Team as the flaws in their studies continue to be brought to notice (including, in some cases, by respected scientists).
I find it an odd argument that Steve McIntyre is expected to produce his own reconstruction, and that he is ‘too clever’ to do so. Perhaps he is not clever enough to do so, and perhaps no one is clever enough to do so.
If a medical researcher proved beyond doubt that the treatment being prescribed for a particular illness led to serious and sometimes fatal complications, does it make sense to say that the treatment must continue to be administered until the same researcher who has made the discovery produces a complications-free cure?
I note that you’ve downloaded about 100 papers on Medieval Warming etc and you tell me ‘it’s all far from clear. Many overlapping periods and confusing issues.’ Well that’s the point, Phil. It was all clear five years ago, according to the IPCC’s Third Assessment Report.
One of the expert reviewers of that report wrote to McIntyre and McKitrick as follows:
‘One of the major concerns I expressed was the high level of credence given to the Mann et al temperature history, without it having been seriously subject to testing. I strongly recommended that this had some dangerous implication, should the reliance upon that research prove premature ..’
Ross McKitrick has commented: ‘It is ironic that, despite having received such warnings, it took two people outside the IPCC process to provide a critical reappraisal of the hockey stock. I think this points to the need for some external oversight to put proper checks and balances into place.’
It was after this comment was made that ‘Climatic Change’ decided to ignore the comments that Steve McIntyre as reviewer had made on the Osborn and Briffa paper, including the need to avoid reliance on a paper that was cited as being ‘in review’ (but which had in fact already been rejected when the paper was submitted, and which has subsequently been rejected again). History has repeated itself.
I readily admit to not being able to understand all of the details, Phil, but I don’t need that understanding in order to be able to see that ‘Climatic Change’ will place itself in an untenable situation if it does publish W&A, and that W&A (and UCAR/NCAR) are in an untenable situation if it doesn’t. Perhaps they’ll get away with it in the IPCC context, but not in the court of serious scientific opinion.
Jen: our solution to the dry bit is more outflow channel barriers not less, but down stream from the levee of course.
btw,I got several PC’s back on line, each with a different ID now after some security issues, note same IP. For the keen however, don’t bother that will change soon too.
darn the internet!
BAm Bam,
1. What do you mean by “our” (as in “our solution” in the first line). Who do you represent and who are you speaking on behalf of?
2. What do you mean by more outflow channel barriers? How is this going to help the nature reserve?
The point on the 100 papers – was that universal agreement of a global Medieval warming was not apparent.
Well Ian I’m glad to know it’s a question of belief and not understanding for you.
Jennifer; you may think some of us came down in the last shower on a few of these issues (marshy reeds etc) and in defense of Phil I will say this – Phil was the only one here to take up my challenge on climate model calibration with ice in a bucket of water. Our perspective is everything!
Ian; procrastination over this or that mathematical climate model is just procrastination in any thread on our environment. Look for the temperature sinks over time!
As Canberrians procrastinate over future power options preservation of a very dry Lake George is a renewed subject, it’s a grassy whatever homeland in terms of wind power. Understanding it’s unique hydrology in this extended drought period is not a public issue but I find it fascinating. Enough said on that though.
Jennifer I reckon you know bugger all about marshes.
Ian; did you know most of Melbourne is more in the poo than any one here realizes?
Jennifer we grew big tomatoes at Werribee long before chemicals came. For those who don’t know, Werribee is the home of the largest richest oldest artificial flatland wetland in this country and I spent years watching it from a fair height. I got some serious stream flow and settling pond experience in other places too managing measurements of solutions every which way. Jen stream flow and suspended solids recovery was my job.
Ian; the slightest sea level rise in Port Phillip Bay will bugger everything for a lot of people. Google on Werribee, sewage farm, history, and tell me if I’m wrong in condemning all this trivia here about our Macquarie Marshes.
Note: The Werribee wetlands environmental issue and a new high volume toxic waste dump re Ramsar 18
Buggga,
I am little interested in anecdote or kitchen experiments.
But I think you should be honest and not use several different names at the one thread.
I know you also posted here as Bam Bam, and I did ask Bam Bam, who you were referrring to when you wrote “our solution”.
Thanks,
Looking back Jen: my comment “our solution to the dry bit is more outflow channel barriers not less, but down stream from the levee of course” refers strictly to the “dry bit” and its users.
Dam it too!
Restricted flow here means evaporation loss and less water down stream and that is probably how it was before we farmed right along that river. ABC recently repeated a program where a former horse stud owner made it his business to recreate stream wetland in abused country by building log jams and replanting willows in his first stage
I noticed again this week willows for all their current condemnation hold banks together naturally like nothing else we impose on our river flats. Wombats freely colonized the edge between old willow buttresses along the main stream and the anabranches. Without these barriers the farmers could say goodbye to their river flats in the wetter months.
Really bam bam/bugga/taz?
I’m surprised no one picked up Jennifer’s tilt at Origin, a rather cautious company imho considering their present energy directions. After minding combustion efficiencies with various fuels and furnace emissions during our early city smog reduction programs I frequently wonder what Jennifer is on about here.
Many businesses converted their heaters asap after natural gas became available throughout Victoria.
Back to Oreign; let’s say for example, gas production from their Yolla field has been an interest of mine for a long time and the current battle over a start up date (commissioning difficulties) is most likely related to lost experience in construction after the Longford experience.
http://www.originenergy.com.au/news/news_detail.php?pageid=82&newsid=663
Gas handling can be tricky, both on platforms and onshore. A platform we built in the 70’s with local steel companies at Dandenong for CIG had to be entirely cut up and re welded before the design UK engineers finally passed it all.
The Yolla hydro carbon basin was discovered a long time ago, perhaps before the official year 1985, when announcements for several decades of reserves began based on Victoria’s needs.
Lead times for building a reliable gas supply to all our industrial and domestic needs like furnaces are quite long. But compared coal there are considerable benefits short term as well as long term regardless of price.
Perhaps Jennifer can give us the lead on where coal is better.
Dont you mean Christian Kerr from Crikey.com.au?
Ender, your example of IAG as a way of countering my claim that in general insurance companies make under-writing losses and make their profits out of investment income is pretty typical of the way the greenhouse debate appears to proceed in many of the comments on this blog. Pick an outlier, establish a trend, when none can exist, and then say “ah ha, got you!” without properly assessing the context and the history. The IAG exception doesn’t disprove the general rule about insurance companies. Yeah, some make under-writing profits, but in general over reasonable periods of time, most haven’t. Perhaps we are about to enter a statistical nirvana where the actuarial practices at IAG will spread across the whole industry and be used to accurately assess under-writing risk, and the people determining policy premiums will forget about competition and market share and price accordingly, but I don’t think so, and history is on my side.
And that’s another characteristic of the AGW debate. For the true believers all the warming is in the future, just like for the stock spruiker floating a dog – all the profits are in the future. From an etymological point of view, as far as I know the term “hockey stick” was first applied to dodgy projections in financial prospectuses before it was applied to a graph promoted by the IPCC!
I wonder if the reason Jen’s wiki is languishing is because so many of the commenters on this blog are good at doing Google searches and finding contradictory outliers, but don’t really have a handle on the subject area. That most come here just to vent their ideological (not that climate science should be ideological, but some appear to think it is) or personal spleen?
One hump or two?
One could guess as to the identity of this *new* poster, perhaps it is one who has (over Easter) transmogrified into a dusty, dented and demented dromedary, nobody else would heap such undeservedly lavish praise on Phil Done’s manic googling.
In an astonishingly ignorant, thankless and ill-considered remark, Jennifer said to Phil “I actually think you know bugger all about AGW”. Surely that broke the camel’s back.
Jen rudely dismisses the extensive, thoughtful and well-researched contributions Phil has made. This confirms that not only does Jennifer ambitiously pursue one-sided politics rather than balanced science, but that she has made less effort to understand the science than her readers and the commenters on whom she relies so heavily to research and think through her own posts. She mindlessly dismisses one of her best contributers because she’s against in the position that he represents.
Next thing Jen will be banging on again about being impartial, fair and independently minded.
Dear Jen how can you possibly hope to lead anyone to truth and liberty when your eyes and mind are closed tight?
Rog’s comment should follow Thinksi’s.
The original comment from Thinksi had been deleted because it was posted anonymously and from a bogus email address. She has now reposted it using her usual pen name and a working email address.
And all I can say is,
Thinksi, if you, Phil, or others would like to do a guest post or two on global warming etcetera you are most welcome.
But more respect for the opinion and person you disagree with, in threads following posts from others, is expected.
And ‘trolling’ will be less tolerated in the future at this blog.
Gee glad we clarified that and now we’re back to my real identity and Jen is pushing intolerance as usual.
Jennifer you owe Phil an apology. It was typically bigoted of you to delete another recent remark that was inoffensive and made under a normal name, yet its only offence was to challenge your IPA ally Mr Castles. You have a track record of getting trigger happy with the delete button, even when people write under real names, when Mr Castles is coming under fire.
Jennifer you should try to engage in the science yourself, less politically charged and mindlessly repeated spin. You have zero track record of engaging in the climate science yourself yet you made a childish jab that Phil knows bugger all about AGW. Petty and immature – next you try to take the high moral tone. Standing for truth and liberty indeed!
If it wasn’t for commenters such as Phil making such a valuable and selfless contribution to balance your blog then it wouldn’t be thriving like it is, and you wouldn’t be getting unwarranted credit for being impartial as you wouldn’t be getting handfed tidbits to post. Yuo rely on people like Phil to do your research for you, ie to give your blog the credibility it lacks in your sloppy writing. You’re always keen to promote yourself as interested in science, as fair and impartial – those claims warrant a sincere apology to Phil and a retraction.
Awaiting your apology and retraction to Phil. Chance to redeem yourself slightly.
Jen – I am not sure that I am OK with your treatment of Phil – some of the abuse myself and Phil and Thinksi have taken from the likes of rog and Louis and particularly joe merit your comments far more that Phil. Joe had not contributed anything to this blog other that smartass jibes. His posts are a desert of information or science and deserves censor much more that Phil.
I would agree an apology or retraction is in order.
“Absolute garbage”
rog commented garbage
Just filing this comment here, it from http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=296 :
“Thirdly, though we are trying to do something about it here, most journalists are not experienced enough in scientific topics to be able to place new results in context without outside help. Often they have a small number of preconceived frames into which they will place the story – common ones involve forecasts of possible disasters, conflict within the community (the more personal the better), plucky Galileos fighting the establishment, and of course anything that interacts directly with politics, or political interference with science. This can be helpful if the scientific story fits neatly into one the boxes, but can cause big problems if the story is either more complex or orthogonal to the obvious frames. Scientists are aware of this, but often are not pro-active enough in preventing obvious mis-framing. This implies that even if a press release is 100% scientifically accurate refection of the original paper, the press coverage can still be terrible.”
Perhaps the problem with my maquarie marsh story is that it doesn’t fit a ‘frame’ that most people can understand/relate to.