While various commentators have suggested that the debate is over, that anthropogenic global warming is a reality and the deniers should be silenced, if not jailed, last week there was a high profile debate on the motion “Global Warming is not a Crisis” in New York.**
The proposition, Michael Crichton, Richard Lindzen and Philip Stott, won by 46% to 42%. Before the event the organizers found the motion would have been disapproved of 57% to 30%, indicating a swing in favour of the global warming skeptics.
This morning I received an email requesting I post the details of a second possible debate, this time between The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley and Vice-President Albert Gore on the subject “That our effect on climate is not dangerous” to be held in the Library of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History at a date of the Vice-President’s choosing.
Ewire.com is advertising the debate with comment that:
“Monckton a former policy adviser to Margaret Thatcher during her years as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom said, “A careful study of the substantial corpus of peer-reviewed science reveals that Mr. Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth, is a foofaraw of pseudo-science, exaggerations, and errors, now being peddled to innocent schoolchildren worldwide.”
Monckton and Gore have once before clashed head to head on the science, politics, and religion of global warming in the usually-decorous pages of the London Sunday Telegraph last November.
Monckton calls on the former Vice President to “step up to the plate and defend his advocacy of policies that could do grave harm to the welfare of the world’s poor. If Mr. Gore really believes global warming is the defining issue of our time, the greatest threat human civilization has ever faced, and then he should welcome the opportunity to raise the profile of the issue before a worldwide audience of billions by defining and defending his claims against a serious, science-based challenge”. [end of quote]
My guess is that Al Gore will decline the invitation. He has so far been reluctant to debate, declining the opportunity to go head-to-head with the skeptical environmentalist, Bjorn Lomborg, when he visited Denmark last year.
Monckton ended his invitation with “May the truth win! Magna est veritas, et praevalent“.
————————-
** You can read a 79 page transcript of the New York debate at http://www.crichton-official.com/GlobalWarmingDebate.pdf
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Monkton vs Al Gore? A waste of time.
This is the same Monckton who wrote in the American Spectator in January 1987
“There is only one way to stop AIDS. That is to screen the entire population regularly and to quarantine all carriers of the disease for life…Every member of the population should be blood-tested every month…all those found to be infected with the virus, even if only as carriers, should be isolated compulsorily, immediately, and permanently”.
He also married into the UK media (Sunday Telegraph, married the editor’s sister), and sought to increase his inherited wealth by falsely seeking self-pity over a failed puzzle enterprise called ‘Eternity’, but used a combination of contractual guarantees and resultant profits to repair one of his manors. Has also sponsored the Conservative Family Campaign, which opposes women’s right to abortion, sex education in schools, and gender equality. Certainly a credible commentator on complex global eco-science.
for debunking of Monckton’s 52 page ‘scientific’ articles in the Sunday Telegraph, see
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1947248,00.html
For Lomborg, see
http://www.lomborg-errors.dk/
For one of the funnier Gore moments, see
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a376806d70cec.htm
Of course Gore won’t debate. The preferred environment of ‘Spivus climaticus’ is shadow and ambiguity. Gore would regard the exposure to light and clarity with all the enthusiasm of a French Hells Angel for a hot bath.
Stop it Ian yo made me spit my coffee.
Anyone debating Monckton on the topic would be a complete waste of time. He is ignorant of much of the topic, and makes ridiculous assertions not based on science. Gore is a frontman, but if you want the scientific basis, please ask a scientist if you can. Not that that will actually help, as the results of the debate demonstrate, all you need is Crighton up there waving his hands and poisoning the well, Lindzen making claims not based on the scientific method, and a professional pundit, and the results a slam dunk.
“First, Monckton doesn’t seem to understand climate sensitivity. This is normally defined as the climate warming we would expect following a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentrations above pre-industrial level; in other words, what will the global temperatures be like after we reach atmospheric concentrations above 550ppm. He uses the Stefan-Boltzmann equation to show that a doubling of C02 concentrations would result in a rise of just 1°C. This is in sharp contrast with most scientific estimates (based on a combination of palaeoclimatology, contemporary observations and theoretical understandings) which suggest that equilibrium climate sensitivity is likely to be around 0.75 +/- 0.25°C/(W/m2) with the predicted rise in temperature at about 3°C, and with likely serious consequences. So why is Monckton’s estimate so low? The main failure of his argument is that he assumes that the earth behaves as a black body with a sensitivity at the Earth’s radiating temperature of around 0.27 °C/(W/m2) which means that a change in radiative forcing of about 4 W/m2 produces a warming of about 1°C. However, the Earth isn’t a black body and the known feedbacks in the climate system, which include the water vapour, albedo and methane feedbacks, will significantly increase this figure. He also forgets that the sensitivity is an equilibrium response, and the various lags in the system such as the slow warming of the oceans means that the temperature rise we have seen so far (around 0.6°C) only forms a part of the warming we will experience.”
That is, he starts and stops at the most basic, simplest, interpretation of how the radiation of the earth works. Everyone knows already that CO2 by itself will not change the temperature much, which is why many scientists at first did not think global warming would be much of a problem. He is about 20 years behind in the debate. Anyone who doesn’t even understand this really needs to get up to speed on the subject.
The only real issue now is the accuracy of the models, can they estimate the feedback that adds to the warming? It’s a complex job, but the scientists are confident they have been able to prove they can track known records accurately. Even if you throw out the models, we know temperature has risen faster than the rise expected purely due to CO2, and we know that feedback will happen, since there are many feedback mechanisms already identified.
Monbiot claims the medieval warming didn’t exist and we are expected to take him seriously? And it is all just a silly mix up on sea level rise? Then why was our own pacific sea level data left with two clearly anomalous records from Fiji and Rarotonga that more than doubled the mean from 18 other stations?
And why has recent research that points to rapid advances and declines in glacial melt been widely reported as implying only rapid advances in glacial melt?
And why has melting permafrost been presented as some sort of climate boogeyman, complete with methane “big burp theory” that was completely out of proportion to the character and scale of the phenomena?
My only reservation about the Monkton/Gore debate, if it happens, is that neither of them will be up to a standard capable of delivering a definitive result. It is a bit like “your village idiot vs my village idiot”, it lacks both substance and symbolism.
I don’t think Gore will attend, he has no reason too. No body could afford his debate fee.
Does Al Gore really believe in catastrophic global warming?
Since Al Gore was offered the opportunity (in person) to facilitate serious debate on the underlying science of global climate change, 1 year, 2 months, 2 weeks, 1 day, 7 hours, 41 minutes, and 13 seconds have elapsed.
The clock is ticking, see,
http://www.junkscience.com/
But of course even the most wretched idiot who follows the news understands that Gore is a grandstander, not a scientist. He won’t debate because it’s all Hollywood. Just like back in the day, when he was a heartbeat away from “the President after Bush [sic].”
If he can’t control the cameras and the script, he’s not in the game.
Did someone bother to tell Schiller that most of us can do up our own boot laces?
Monckton = really BIG Shonkton.
aka Shonk-o-saurus rex var majora.
If you haven’t taken the time by now to chase down the porkies you’ve been told by Shonkers then believe what you want coz it won’t matter.
Jeez – all these debates are more theatre than anything else are they not. So smooth sleazy spivs will win over nerds any time.
Hey Schillsy how come in your “democracy” a majority doesn’t vote and the guy with the most votes doesn’t win? Are you sure it’s a democracy? Perhaps it’s a shonkcracy.
“And why has recent research that points to rapid advances and declines in glacial melt been widely reported as implying only rapid advances in glacial melt?” mmmm – gee dat’s a hard one Ian. Maybe because it’s actually breaking news. And now it has broken. Stoat a well known pro-AGW blogger featured it.
Oh ! Is that right. mmmm
As for burping – this is just what flesh creeping brown hip-hop-cracy do to spin evolving science. Who said anything about sudden expulsions except you.
Isn’t it amazing; the number of major contributors here who insist on using the far corners of the web to support their “shonky” arguments?
As expected the usual subjects resort to ad hominems to state their case.
I notice that Gavin Schmidt of the RealClimate site thought they lost the debate because Crichton was so tall and had a greater presence.
Has it ever occurred to them that perhaps weight af argument and presentation of facts swayed the audience?
As far as I am concerned, Prof. Mike Hulme’s demand we abandon normal science in preference to post-normal science to deal with climate change means but one inescapable conclusion – we have been comprehensively lied to over many years by agenda driven bureaucrats and NGO’s.
Bolin’s theory CO2 warming was and remains a looney theory – so we may as well group Luke and his loonies for what they are.
Does Luke mean he is now distancing himself from his earlier statements about big burp methane in the tundra?
He was quite happy to dish that one out until we discovered that it was only ever likely in poorly drained locations. The problem is that most of it is in Siberia which is actually quite well drained. And wasn’t there a recent post somewhere that confirmed the science that most of this methane would be used by microbes and converted to booring old CO2? That is, the natural consequence of aerobic respiration in non-waterlogged soils.
I suppose we had better let Luke have a win some time. Perhaps we should have a post on the selected quotes of Bugs Bunny, something he can excel in.
Big burp? huh? Oh that’s right Ian’s going to terraform Canada with drainage ditches. Lake Dalyrmple and Lake Argyle pipelines next from Arthur Daly & Son. But no time to waste – now off to Siberia. We drink vodka comrade then dig alternative Volga River.
Not poorly drained ? – get your Atlas out boof-head.
ROTFL
Louis comes in like a Zero out of the Sun – about to fire but the guns jam again – curses –
Yes facts and argument did sway the audience Louis (unlike yourself where facts are irrelevant) – more of the audience left with the opinion that AGW had substance than when they arrived. But let’s not confuse theatre with science.
See you in 100 posts Louis. Louis runs away like the dishonest artful dodger that he is. Yawn.
And I now note it’s Bolin’s theory. Jeez.. .. Who’s been doing some reading then eh?
Ian
stop making up lies about what Luke says. Think what you like, but you prattle on about something he never said as if you have him cornered.
Ian, it’s all in your head. Have you decided to read something on how CO2 can be a forcing or a feedback, and how the forcings can be stronger or weaker. It’s fairly complex, I know, but I am sure you could understand it if you tried.
Ian, do you understand what a positive feedback is? It appears to me to be a point of failure for many denialists. Maybe if we can clear up that point, we can all move on to the next point.
News now breaking Gore must enter the arena on climate change.
He must face the American People in their elected rep chamber.
http://www.drudgereport.com/flash2.htm
About time.
Drudge? Have we really sunk so low here?
“Mr. Gore: How can you continue to claim that global warming on Earth is primarily caused by mankind when other planets (Mars, Jupiter and Pluto) with no confirmed life forms and certainly no man-made industrial greenhouse gas emissions also show signs of global warming? Wouldn’t it make more sense that the sun is responsible for warming since it is the common denominator?”
So there’s eight planets, (nine if you include Pluto), there’s four that are claimed to be warming. What about the other five? If it’s solar driven, it should be nine out of nine.
The debate doesn’t exactly get off to a good start when the host states rubbish like this.
“I‘m old enough to remember when there was a, uh, scientific consensus on global cooling, and this was in the 1970s with all kinds of alarmist data on that subject. I‘m enough of a businessman to know that the modeling and the use of the computer, uh, algorithms and forecasting the future is a very, very difficult undertaking. I mean, if one could predict, uh, the weather or patterns of storms even a year in advance it would be worth billions and billions of dollars to people engaged in energy trading or, uh, or, insurance underwriting and a whole bunch of other pursuits. And yet it can‘t really be effectively done.”
No, they don’t predict the weather, and have never claimed they can. They are modelling the climate.
There was never any scientific consensus on global cooling. It was an interesting idea put up, IIRC, by Carl Sagan, and looked at by a few scientists. It was the press that took the idea and ran with it.
Graham Young has an interesting take on the polling taken before and after the New York debate: http://ambit-gambit.nationalforum.com.au/archives/001958.html .
SJT interesting thought that, it’s not weather it’s the climate, shit here I was thinking weather and climate were inclusive involving all the same stuff.
Have we sunk so low Jen we have got to listen to SJT attack ad hominem with puerile supercilious arrogance continuously.
LOL Sieg Heil.
I guess arithmetic isn’t mathematics either.
If Monckton is such an ignoramus (yet admired by the sceptics), surely that is even more reason to debate him. Winning such a debate would then be easy, and if Gore wiped him out, then he really could claim that the “debate is over”.
It won’t happen.
The fact that Luke and SJT are continuing their vaudeville routine with zero substance but big licks of sneering, and the odd generalised question thrown in to feign technical credibility, makes it obvious that they have run out of blind alleys to mug us in.
And notice how Luke feels the urge to describe a bit of drainage, to the extent that it would be justified by any prevention of methane emissions, as “terra forming”? As if it is some humungous enterprise involving the complete re-landscaping of the planet.
But if prevention of methane emissions gets 20 times more credits than CO2, and CO2 credits are $50/tonne then a thousand bucks a tonne can get an awful lot of drainage ditch.
But of course, that would be pooh poohed as a techno-fix, and the closet luddites won’t have that, will they?
Jen: Bit off topic but there was some CO2 buried in it once uponatime.
http://canberra.yourguide.com.au/detail.asp?class=news&subclass=environment&story_id=567582&category=Environment
GM related too.
Better posted here hey since my no1 pc crashed and I lost some other interested folks
John
the weather and the climate is to do with the difference between knowing what the temperature will for a day in 50 years time, and having a good guess at what the average temperature for that day will be in 50 years time on that day.
If we consider a chaotic system, like a leaf floating down a stream, we can’t possibly know exactly which path it will take, but we can estimate, according to the flows we have observed, roughly what the most likely path is. Even in chaos, there are strange attractors, and stable states around that attractor.
That is all the models are claiming to do.
So I repeat, they have never claimed to be able to model the weather, anyone who says they can’t, has no idea what they are claiming to be able to do.
Ian
how am I supposed to debate you when you don’t appear to understand the basics? Luke gives you plenty of evidence that is available on the internet, presented by scientists, but your responses seem to indicate you either don’t read them or don’t understand them.
I doubt Gore will accept. I’ve spoken with Monckton acouple of months ago. He is intending to submit something for peer review, instead of making a science fiction movie.
SJT – Ian undertstands plenty – he’s just in the service of development-at-all-costs forces as a professional sophist and spoiler. Fools the cheer squad though. He’s not up for a serious debate.
SJT no model yet seen can predict the single leafs eventual end point from destination. Probabilities for thousands perhaps, chaos theory is still outer edge theory, but if we use the point of origin and river long enough one leaf out of millions will make it.
Piss off with zen, and chaos theory is used for imagery and gaming mostly.
It’s not an argument on zen or chaos theory its a scientific argument on the observed and the measurement. Chaotic theory has no application without proof and there is none. If we start to use chaos thory, for limited high forcings we are in trouble.
The argument as it stands is CO2 man made v other forcings of far higher magnitude and relativity.
SJT most of the argument I see is politics which is advertising of one sort or another.
That is not science.
SJT
all the believers have to do is prove their theory, that man made CO2 in the next under one hundred years will start DOOM and the death of all.
That’s the mantra not the probability.
Science is about proof nothing more or less under the science known or being tried, make the proof known, let the world see.
Finally chaos theory is about systems collapsing after the turning point, systems are never stable, equilibrium does not exist.
There is no good no evil, the universe is random.
But the argument is not about stability. No one with a real mind believes in stability, this is a human wish.
Is it getting warmer, where, why and how.
The problem remains, the CO2 man made proponents are welded to an argument on man and refuse the universe.
That’s not science thats a closed argument scientifically speaking.
Had a few beeries lol.
John: since I can get lost between threads and themes, let’s do it here.
I sent a long time watching eddies and other flow disturbances whist doing the eng physics late at night. Mid 60’s we had no theoretical round up on the complexity of non linear events. At the time I was also deep into mag flow techniques Foxboro style in all sorts of fluids and dynamics.
By the time I had given up and gone back to practical comparisons between all the working apparatus available, we had chaos theory. I loved the idea of it all. I bet nobody here understands the relief I felt back then.
Hey; who are you to dismiss it now as irrelevant?
And why?
Romance is not science.
Drop the emotion.
Anyway while we’re playing silly buggers with goobers like Ian the real science goes on “Has Pacific Northwest snowpack declined? Yes.”
Serious stuff.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=426
Gavin did I not say it was irrelevant.
I said it was relevant in gaming and imagery.
Though I should have said as I have seen.
You tho are talking of it as an app in fluid engineeering, of which I have no skill, would you define and apply the use of ch the on your observation in fluid engineering to the future of man kind, fluid eng which is clearly a very defined science, must have rules etc.
Is it ( chaos th) applied science now in fluid engineering ? In general use.
I don’t know.
John: Somewhere (lately) I recall SJT asked us to consider “feedback”, positive feedback in fact. That’s fundamental in anyone understanding certain events like explosions (obviously not your field hey).
From experience positive feedback is to be avoided ie out of phase reactions in cyclical or wave like motion (I feel another hockey stick swing coming on).
IMO; SJT remains solid on “stability”
Luke,
I have a daytime job plus extra responsibilities associated with the AIG, so I really don’t time to debate idiots as your self.
That you use the hackneyed technique of personal vilification to make your points simply proves you have lost the play.
I presume the only reason you post here is to indulge your self in anonymous ad hominating (if such a verb is possible).
Obviously it seems you have no real job, or are retired, (not in the commenting sense) but really, I don’t have the time Luke, or Phil, or Sue, or who ever you are.
How did you know my name was Sue – will the wretched AIG stop at nothing !
Well Louis I’m sorry if you’re not sure of your facts. You could retire I guess.
John: To be truthful in my answer to your question on current fluid dynamics and the use of chaos theory I don’t know as I left all that sticky stuff behind mid 80’s and went into electronics for med science then radio systems, spectrum licensing and that sort of thing.
However throughout my time in industry including the latter I never let accuracy issues get in the way while searching for system reliability. After working with many disciplines I simply attached my effort to those maintaining the big picture or helped those expanding the boundaries any new technology in the most practical way. Note it was Jennifer who called me “undisciplined”. If only she knew how!
John: The Petro-chemical industry, pulp& paper, mining etc still use familiar brand names and techniques for measurement and control systems according to the www.
I had to check up on a few things before I wrote up some thoughts for our industry policy ppl (hammered them). I assumed the engineers, physicists, metallurgists etc that employed my generation of technical staff way back were long gone.
That’s about our skills revival.
A fitter who spent his war years getting capital ships to sea in the UK told me this gem.
“You can learn something useful from every one you meet provided you are willing”
He as midshipman was chosen to escort a princess from a cruiser stationed off Ireland in the touchy period after the German surrender. I know his discipline was impeccable.
What he taught me saved my bacon many times.
Monckton peer reviewed? Now that’s a knee slapper.
There’s a conspiracy with global warming alright! Its called ‘while we debate about whether global warming is occurring or not we aren’t talking (or doing for matter) about the more important topic of what are we going to do now the Ghawar, Cantarell and Burgan oilfields are officially in decline?’ Why worry about global warming when oil at $100/barrel will effect your lives in a much more tangible way than a few freak storms here and there? And it will undoubtably force the rationing of hydrocarbon use should the environment have needed it anyway?
The trouble with SJT’s ‘basics’ is that they are all ideological, all articles of faith. But then we all know he was just looking for some way to shimmy out of tight corner.
It is usually followed by a change of topic or some red herring.
Changes in Pacific northwest snowpack are nothing more than a sub-set of precipitation. It varies, get used to it. Another RC beat up.
It’s not their work boofhead. And you fell for precipitation in your analysis – I hoped you would. The trend is your friend remember and it’s going one way ! And how about all those pine beetles going berserk nearby too – extending their range – munch munch. You’re getting desperate Ian as the MULTIPLE evidence piles up and buries you. Back to terra-forming dreamland and draining Siberia for you.
Both headings “Global warming is not a crisis” and “That our affect on climate is not dangerous” are in themselves a just promotion of a particular view. Elitism is at work here; I doubt the intended audience in either debate would include a cross section with say Australian farmers or Pacific islanders for starters. We should therefore dismiss them as a mere media stunts. Jennifer however insists on hosting this stuff over and over.
Only a handful of people in our debate might have a handle on what’s at stake. SJT and John had me thinking back to basics, things like measuring advance and decay. To me it’s all about understanding rates of change, difficult enough if we really believe in steady states.
I had to do a lot of work with energy in standing waves. Our development of transducers in recent times is critical to all current science. Anyone writing around the study of atmospheric and ocean physics without a sound knowledge of modern measurement techniques is doomed to just gathering the droppings of another elite. But that elite is now severely muzzled.
I say we still depend greatly on the scientific advances directly tied to the space race. I wrote recently about the impact of the D/P cell on industrial process control. This was a forced balance instrument with proportional negative feedback applied that allowed continuous measurement of extremes in volume and pressure with precision for the first time across a range of process, oil and gas in particular.
Gas and other fuels in combustion etc led to us refining other measurements. stream flow, opacity, density and so on. Also previous work in radiation quickly comes to mind.
These public debates loose so much in the deliberate distortions designed to obscure trends and that’s dangerous. Reading trends and reactions was my business, take it or leave it.
Luke,
You are aware, of course that the AGW believers are into “terra-forming.” Are you in?
If you are into reacting against AGW with terraforming (i.e., restrictions on CO2 emissions), please tell me:
1. the ideal temperature of the Earth;
2. a way to accurately take the Earth’s temperature; and
3. whether these measures are biased against human habitability.
Luke,
You are aware, of course that the AGW believers are into “terra-forming.” Are you in?
If you are into reacting against AGW with terraforming (i.e., restrictions on CO2 emissions), please tell me:
1. the ideal temperature of the Earth;
2. a way to accurately take the Earth’s temperature; and
3. whether these measures are biased against human habitability.
If you can’t answer these three questions, you are in “terra-forming dreamland.”
Ian
“The trouble with SJT’s ‘basics’ is that they are all ideological, all articles of faith. But then we all know he was just looking for some way to shimmy out of tight corner”
List them, and in what way they are all ideological or articles of faith.
25.3154 C
With a krypton hygrometer
No they’re not.
Schiller
There is no ideal temperature of the earth. The way it works is life forms adapt to the existing range of environmental constraints. You change those constraints, and the life either adapts or dies. The quicker the change, the bigger the chance it can’t adapt. Hence, the record contains evidence of mass extinctions in the past when climate change has been rapid. The current warming, in geological terms, is extremely rapid, hence the concern that mass extinctions will occur.
Also, the usual way of detecting warming is with temperature anomalies, that is, measuring the changes. So you can consign McKitrick’s latest stab in the dark to the dustbin of history.
And therein lies the problem:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200703/s1878241.htm
Solar activity ‘won’t break drought’
By Anna Salleh, ABC Science Online
A theory that Australia can expect drought-breaking rains within the year, thanks to increasing solar activity, has been dismissed.
A paper on the research has been rejected from Australia’s top peer-reviewed meteorological publication as it is “significantly flawed”, its editor said.
Associated Professor Robert Baker of the University of New England has been reported as saying that links between Earth’s climate and pulses of magnetic solar emission means that heavy rains are likely for eastern Australia later this year and in 2008.
Professor Baker says his theory is based on correlations between Earth’s climate and 11-year peaks in the sun’s sunspot activity and switches in the sun’s poles, which also occur every 11 years.
He says above average rainfall is due because sunspot activity is increasing.
An interaction between the resulting solar magnetic activity and Earth’s atmosphere causes more clouds to form.
As well as linking increased sunspot activity to more rain, he has linked a decrease in activity to eastern Australian droughts over the past 100 years.
However, Bureau of Meteorology climate scientist Dr Blair Trewin dismisses Prof Baker’s theory.
He says a few weeks ago, Australia’s top peer-reviewed meteorological publication Australian Meteorological Magazine rejected a paper on Prof Baker’s research.
“That was essentially on the grounds that the statistical analysis used in the paper was significantly flawed,” said Dr Trewin, who edits the publication.
Prof Baker has reportedly submitted his theory to another journal.
Grain of truth
Dr Trewin says the “grain of truth” in Prof Baker’s research is that solar cycles and drought have been correlated a number of times, but he says this could be a coincidence.
“The sample of data is too small for that to be a statistically meaningful result,” Dr Trewin said.
Dr Trewin says there is even less evidence for a link between solar cycles and rain.
He says there is a small effect on Earth’s temperatures due to variations in the amount of solar radiation.
“Obviously if there’s less radiation coming in from the sun, that changes the energy balance,” said Dr Trewin.
He says such effects are small, about one or two tenths of a degree, compared with other factors influencing the Earth’s climate.
Professor Baker was unavailable for further comment. {END}
But it “silly buggers” isn’t it – if it rains through a break down in the El Nino or La Nina – the Prof will still insist he’s right. The old problem of sample sizes of one, remembering the rights but not the wrongs, and cherry picking.
It’s all enough to make Inigo Jones very angry.
Luke,
as a scientist I might be permitted the heresy of questioning your citations described in your post preceding mine?
Jen,
The battle is won.
Luke, Cur Specious thinks he won battle but, alas, the War, not.
Well start asking Louis – don’t leave us in suspense or suspenders.
Louis
I have read some of your banter with the folk at Lamberts blog. You have no idea what you are talking about when you get outside your comfort zone.
For you, winning the battle means killing of Kyoto. A hollow victory.
http://www.globalwarminghysteria.com/blog/2007/3/19/books-by-skeptics-outstripping-gore-on-nyt-bestseller-list.html
Books by skeptics outstripping Gore on NYT Bestseller List
Is there finally some hope that the public square debate and the reasoning mind may be “warming” to a higher degree of logic?
Well the latest evidence from the New York Times Bestseller List (Paperback non-fiction section) suggest it may be so. Avery and Singer’s Unstoppable Global Warming (at no 18) and Chris Horner’s The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming (at no 20) – see my ‘Key Books’ page for reference – are both outstripping sales of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth (at no 29). (Paperback non-fiction section)
Another .com ref from Schiller.
Some people here haven’t an ounce of personal experience to offer.
Some on both sides of the debate here are going to have a problem with this latest paper from 0z unions.
http://canberra.yourguide.com.au/detail.asp?class=news&subclass=environment&story_id=568288&category=Environment
Interesting stuff in an election year with the likes of the hard line CFMEU getting stuck into our coal problems etc
Gavin,
My personal experience is that here up north it has been an exceptionally nice winter.
The local economy suffers badly during cold winters, when sometimes, the cost of heating can equal or exceed the cost of rent or mortgage payments.
So, as you might imagine, jokes about “the devastation of global warming” are rife, and AGW enthusiasts are regarded as buffoons on a par with campaigners against human lactation and so forth.
Mentioning Al Gore at a gathering brings guffaws without any attempt at a punch line.
So that’s my personal experience, Gavin. I hope you like it better than stats which show skeptic books sell better.
Schiller
yes, the attitude is expressed in Australia as “Bugger you Jack, I’m OK”.
As Jennifer says, the debate has only just begun, it won’t be a debate of science, but spreading doubt by volume of noise. And when you yourself appear to have the unique ability of simultaneously denying change, observing it and welcoming it.
If only we were all so lucky to be living at mid latitudes.
Next cold winter try draught proofing, insulation and wearing a jumper. I’m sure the economy will be fine.
What does the word ‘macro’ mean to you Schiller?
Anthony,
I don’t live at the equator, so I’m not lucky enough to live at mid-latitudes.
And I’m quite comfortable with the notion of ‘macro.’ Cold weather has macroeconomic implications. Terrible things happen when people must balance the costs of heat, shelter and food.
More energy is spent in heating than in cooling. Is that “macro” enough for you? Sheesh.
In the meantime, since TGGWS is off the screen, more information on how they actually tried to swindle us.
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/climate_change/article2355956.ece
” A Channel 4 documentary that claimed global warming is a swindle was itself flawed with major errors which seriously undermine the programme’s credibility, according to an investigation by The Independent.
The Great Global Warming Swindle, was based on graphs that were distorted, mislabelled or just plain wrong. The graphs were nevertheless used to attack the credibility and honesty of climate scientists.
A graph central to the programme’s thesis, purporting to show variations in global temperatures over the past century, claimed to show that global warming was not linked with industrial emissions of carbon dioxide. Yet the graph was not what it seemed.
Other graphs used out-of-date information or data that was shown some years ago to be wrong. Yet the programme makers claimed the graphs demonstrated that orthodox climate science was a conspiratorial “lie” foisted on the public.
Channel 4 yesterday distanced itself from the programme, referring this newspaper’s inquiries to a public relations consultant working on behalf of Wag TV, the production company behind the documentary.
Martin Durkin, who wrote and directed the film, admitted yesterday that one of the graphs contained serious errors but he said they were corrected in time for the second transmission of the programme following inquiries by The Independent.”
Yes, scientists accused of fraud and lies, using evidence that was fraudulent.
http://www.badscience.net/?p=386
Schiller
yes, and we will be spending more cooling than heating. Recent heat waves in Europe killed 30,000.
SJT,
Europe has made electricity so expensive, due to “green incentives,” that many cannot afford air conditioning.
During the period you mention, it was far hotter in the US and the heat killed far fewer.
Also, the “30,000” claim is vastly inflated. Massively.
Give me a credible link for your claim of 30K deaths.
But remember Gavin won’t credit it if it ends in .com.
“Cold weather has macroeconomic implications. Terrible things happen when people must balance the costs of heat, shelter and food. ”
While I don’t take affordability for gas and electricity lightly, I can’t feel the world economy reverberating with the shivering of Queenslanders.
“More energy is spent in heating than in cooling. Is that “macro” enough for you? Sheesh.”
Really? The peak load in London just moved from winter to summer. That means there is a greater maximum demand for energy in summer (assuming thats not for warming) than maximum demand for energy in winter. Oh, I see… by macro you meant your street spends more energy on heating than cooling.
As for air-conditioning costs causing the deaths in Europe, any idea what is the greatest cause of peak demand for cooling? -air-conditioning. Any idea what is the greatest cost of running an electricity network? – peak demand.
If you think the problem is ‘green electricity’, you nede to get out more Schiller, the worlds bigger than your backyard.
Anthony,
I shiver at your insensitivity to basic human needs. Global warming doesn’t necessarily thaw the cold-hearted.
To be fair to your cruel opinions, I wish on you what you wish on the rest of us.
The rest of us prefer to live long and well.
Schiller
they haven’t had a heat wave like that before. That’s why it caught so many unprepared. In Australia, our peak power demand is on the hottest days. And the peak is exactly that, to meet that peak requires billions of dollars spent on excess capacity that is mostly not used.
Shiller, if I recall correctly, your experience was telling you that because a local winter was mild, global warming was a laugh. From this, we could deduce that so long as your local town doesn’t have a cold winter, you don’t give a stuff about global warming (real or otherwise)
On the other hand, I was suggesting there is more to supplying energy to people than the tinge of its emissions, that I don’t take energy affordability lightly and that your mild winter wasn’t exactly a crises point for the rest of the world’s economy.
At what point exactly did you assume a moral high ground?
SJT,
May you bake and swelter in the next wave of heat. Others will prefer not to.
They won’t begrudge your baking and sweltering. Will you graciously concede their preference for comfort?
Anthony,
You don’t like statistics, and demand an anecdote. Then you don’t like the anecdote, so you want to hear something “moral.”
You know, you really ought to set yourself down and decide what you most want to hear.
Bear in mind, we don’t come here to make you happy; you can get a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor for that. And maybe methylphenidate to help you stay focused.
Be well.
Schiller, I can only assume you are on LSD cos thats the only thing that would explain your last post.
Che?
Was this thread about whether climate change is a crises or was it about Schiller’s journey through wonderland. Stick to the cordials.
Schiller
you are making up what I think again. You have no idea. Maybe you should just ask me first, before accusing me of something.
Schiller: OK, so your heating bill has gone down due to AGW 🙂
Now you may have guessed, but I’ve been most interested in the “campaign against human lactation” since I got involved with food processing by multi nationals.
However: I doubt you have hands on there and your best contributions will still depend on being glued to a pc all the way.
Let’s do better hey?
Dare I say it, but this is one debate I will not contribute to because in science there is no such thing as debate over a theory.
It can be easily shown that anthropogenic global warming depends on specious reasoning and misrepresentation of facts.
But I do anticipate Luke and his cohort to now try and convince us that in reality it is the earth that moves to the falling Newtonian apple, rather than the reverse.
Much like arguing over how many angels could be fitted onto a pin-head I suspect.
Louis
in theory, they are both falling towards each other, the earth is just a lot bigger so it’s gravitational force is stronger.
No debate over theory? Gravity is an excellent place to start. How does gravity work?
The reality is that Louis’s mind is closed like a steel vice. From many hours of interaction it’s clear his mind is made up and he is not open to debate. He doesn’t read the literature and isn’t going to. It’s all some sort of post cold-war warrior anti-commie thing.
“It can be easily shown that anthropogenic global warming depends on specious reasoning and misrepresentation of facts.” says one of the greatest b/s artistes of all time. The blog world’s Arthur Daly of anti-AGW arguments. Nothing too shoddy to sell as an argument.
Jennifer caught this trend right out of the box when she suggested “The Debating Has Really Only Just Begun Over Global Warming.”
(.com deniers should close their eyes.)
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledgerenquirer/news/politics/16954861.htm
Georgia Republican says Gore not allowed on House floor – Ben Evans – Associated Press
As Gore visited with former colleagues on the House floor around lunchtime, Rep. Westmoreland argued that the Democrat was violating recently enacted ethics rules rescinding floor privileges for former congressmen working as agents of a foreign government. Because Gore serves as an adviser to Britain on climate change, Westmoreland said, he shouldn’t have been allowed.
http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/20427
Is Gore all wet? – Jay Ambrose, ScrippsNews
Gore’s unscientific, alarmist, inane claim in his movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” that sea levels will zoom upward by 20 feet over the next century if we don’t heed his remedies, and no more preposterous than the idea that this king of ballyhoo has anything more to contribute to the warming debate than fallacies and exaggeration.
An who is J ambrose Schiller? Another sucking writer selling papers up on the hill.
Jay Ambrose: “Cutting emissions depends on nonexistent technologies”
http://www.examiner.com/a-266352~Jay_Ambrose__Cutting_emissions_depends_on_nonexistent_technologies.html
Gavin,
To your lame, ad-hom, off-topic pretend-rebuttals, I have this to say, and you may quote me: “Boo-hoo.”
Luke,
my mind is not closed like a steel trap – I practise as an exploration geologist, probably one scientific profession that has more experience with the empirical method of science than any other.
You have not demonstrated at all that any obeserved global warming can be attributed to humanity’s oxidation of coal or petroleum.
You and your lot have, and continue, to comphrensibely lie to us here.
In your case this may be too harsh – you might actually not understand the subleties involved.
Here’s a transcript of Gore’s testimony before the House yesterday…
http://democrats.science.house.gov/Media/File/Commdocs/hearings/2007/energy/21mar/gore_testimony.pdf
And here’s Bjorn Lomborg’s that followed…
http://democrats.science.house.gov/Media/File/Commdocs/hearings/2007/energy/21mar/lomborg_testimony.pdf
I’m guessing that the above actually is the testimony summary that is required to be submitted prior to the presentation… Though from the below it appears that Gore had trouble doing this and “winged” this compared to Lomborg.
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=71e7e4c1-802a-23ad-4c16-02e25ed1bfd3
cheers
Arnost
So Louis – what lies might that be exactly? Do you have a theory for the current warming of the world? It’s interesting that one finds some many broken down old geologists on the contrarian side of things.
Louis,
would you care to comment on the debate over the theory of gravity?
Louis,
could you list the lies?
I have asked for evidence on claims before, and usually all I hear is the sound of crickets.
You won’t get anything of substance SJT – Louis just darts in and out throwing “grenades into the blogosphere” as he puts it. Then wants to be treated as a serious scientist but can’t see the ego getting in the way. (Giggle .. ..)
He’ll then lay the ad homs on thick and fast but complain bitterly if you give him any lip back (called hyprocisy I think).
You won’t get a serious debate.
So the role of Louis is not reasoned debater, but spoiler. Just as long as he can destroy reason, and sow confusion, he has succeeded. Kyoto is dead.
“grenades into the blogosphere”. How much does that some up the debate on this issue?
I see luke still has his work cut out for him. Of course fools attract other fools so that explains the numbers. I don’t know why wingnuts can’t understand science, but it has to be genetic. The science is settled, and yes if the Greenland ice cap melts completely seas will will rise 20 feet. They have before. Yet no critic actually quotes Gore accurately.
Of course Homo sapiens didn’t live here then and much of the land we know was under water inhabited by stalking T. Rex’s and their prey. Until an asteroid killed them and small mammals emerged to become victorious. The good news is the smartest will rule. That leaves most here out of the picture except for being extra baggage on the ship.
I don’t know why a supposedly smart botanist wants to tout this canardish line of fallacious thinking, but I posit personal politics is in play. In humans, it can trump all else.
sjt,
you are totally incapable of taking part in any debate whatsoever, that I have seen. all you do is change the topic. i cannot understand how jennifer puts up with your off-topic rants. do you have any concept of what we are supposed to be talking about?
gravity? sure, gravity kills, you want to fix that with co2 or what. you are a flaming idiot and a good example for everyone who wonders about agw wankers and tossers.
if gravity has something to do with agw the next thing you will say is that co2 is increasing gravity which makes people heavier which drives the obesity epidemic.
or what.
wank and toss.
watch out for gravity!
For example from the testimony, Sen. Kit Bond posited it could be sunspots or CO2, we just can’t tell.”
“Sunspots?” Gore asked. “Senator we know the current warming isn’t cause by the Sun because sunpsot activity hasn’t been above normal during the last 50 years, when much of the warming has ocurred. We’re it the Sun, in a top down scenario, the stratosphere would be heating as well as the troposphere. But it isn’t. In fact, CO2 is heating the troposphere while the stratosphere is cooling is a prediction of the global waming models.”
Bond was silent. There’s your sceptic answer to facts.
We know becuase we measure things in science.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/how-do-we-know-that-recent-cosub2sub-increases-are-due-to-human-activities-updated/
I say “Bring em on.” I’ll debate the whole damn bunch of them on national television. Anyone’s. Crichton better have something better than private jets like the ones he uses because that ain’t gonna fly far the a “free” audience.
Eric
I have to constantly pull Ian back to the point, he wanders all over the place.
I was debating Louis claim that a theory is not something you debate in science. I am guess he believes that once something has achieved the status of theory, it is settled. Nothing could be further from the truth. Gravity is an excellent example. We have understood the laws of gravity for hundreds of years, yet we still have not found the evidence for the force that drives it. Scientists have a theoretical particle, but it has never been observed. He was claiming that Enhanced Greenhouse is a sham and a lie, because we don’t have cast iron evidence for it. However, gravity is included in calculations every day in science, when we still don’t understand exactly how it works.
It is not my fault that Louis ‘throws in his handgrenades’. It’s hard to keep up with someone who will not even debate the science because he does not think it is even a valid topic of debate.
A theory in science is as close to fact as there can be. The novices among us think it’s the same as some fancifal notion they might posit. It isn’t.
True, and even then nothing in science can ever be settled absolutely. We have known about gravity for hundreds of years, understand it’s laws, but do not know still the details of how it works.
The theory about enhanced global warming is just the same, only the time scale is shorter.
It’s a matter of degrees of confidence in the theory. Scientists are confident that enhanced global warming is happening and that temperature rises will cause severe disruption to the planet.
Typical Luke, “broken down old geologist…”. Well, give me Louis any day over a broken down ex US Presidential contender cum Hollywood science fiction producer and fib teller.
And that fib teller was ‘done like a dinner’ by Bjorn Lomborg on the floor of the House too.
As for scientific debate on AGW, the Real Climate heavies were found wanting recently, when the brilliant young Israli scientist, Nir Shaviv, took them on at their own blog. He very quickly disposed of the lightweights, like Mark A York, who seems to have only just surfaced again. Their best AGW believers couldn’t refute his science, and after about 150 postings, the last of them walked away, unable to answer him.
Jen, are you going to run a thread on Earth Hour?
A good motto could be ‘Light Up For Earth Hour’. That’s what we are doing here, and have instructed our city business to do. The SMH supplement telling us what we should do, was itself the product of quite a few trees and carbon emmissions!
Nir Shaviv, takes on Mark A York, who is a biologist ,not a specialist scientist from that website. Not much of a leg to stand on Sid, Mark is to a large degree just an interested punter like me. I will wait to see Nir take on the experts from the site.
If you want to have a look at Shaviv in action as per Sid’s post, see this Real Climate thread esp. 37 – 125
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/05/thank-you-for-emitting/
And the principal deabate is with the RC principals Gavin / Rasmus etc…
cheers
Arnost
Yea – he got a good hearing. You think he won do you? Pity all his satellite data is unravelling just like for UHI.
http://n3xus6.blogspot.com/2007/02/its-curtains-for-cosmic-rays.html
Whoops !
“(1) If cosmic rays affect climate then you will have another possible explanation to the observed global warming, since overall, the cosmic ray flux (at high energies, those which are responsible for the tropospheric ionization) has increased over the 20th century (increased up to the 1940’s then again from the 1970’s).
[Response: Some say that the cosmic flux has to decrease in order to get a warming, the hypothesis being that they affect the nucleation of cloud condensation nuclei and thus the low cloud cover (personally, I’m still far from convinced!). So, how do you propose that the rays affect the climate (I must have missed something here – admittedly, I didn’t look up all your links…), and why do you think that the other explanation is wrong and yours is true (they clearly cannot both be true). -rasmus]”
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/05/thank-you-for-emitting/
So has rasmus got it right here? There are two sides claiming a solar influence that has been unaccounted for, each contradicting the other.
There are two theories:
More solar activty = Higher Temps
More solar activity = Less Cosmic Ray influence = Less Clouds = Higher Temps.
cheers
Arnost
But alas Arnost you ahve failed to read Nexus above. A snippet ! (drat eh?)
We have demonstrated that the long-term global trends in cloudiness from the ISCCP record are influenced by artefacts associated with satellite viewing geometry. Results from earlier studies based on these trends may be influenced by these non-physical artefacts, and we therefore suggest that development of a correction for the data is warranted. As the number of publications on the subject of climate change continues to grow [Stanhill, 2001], this paper highlights the need to critically explore the source of any trends in global, multi-decadal satellite data sets.
Paper and Nexi’s post has more.
Luke
Typical of you Luke – you just link what appears to be convenient and then use this as a basis to ad hom others.
Sigh – as I said in the comments on that post a month ago, the jury is still out.
All the paper is saying is that a correction to satelite data appears to be required since it appears that there’s more clouds than the satelites measured.
It’s not saying anything about GCRs. All that is Nexus’ interpretation.
So what you really can take out of it is that the GCM’s are probably underestimating the cloud cover (I betcha they use this “wrong” satelite data) and therefore their projections overestimate the projected warming.
I’ll take Shaviv over Nexus any time.
cheers
Arnost
And so will I, Arnost!