UPDATE: 9:50AM 2/28 Professor Kelly responds in comments. It seems the Times saw fit to remove an important portion of his first paragraph. I’ve highlighted the missing text in red. Gobsmacking that they couldn’t handle this one sentence but left the rest untouched – Anthony
M J Kelly Submitted on 2012/02/28 at 9:13 am
If I told you that the first sentence of my letter was edited, your readers might be mollified.
I wrote:
Andrew Motion (report, Feb 23) is correct to castigate climate change deniers, as the climate has always been changing, but he is profoundly mistaken in linking all those who oppose the current climate science orthodoxy into one group.
Michael Kelly
=============================================================
This is a rather strong condemnation of the state of affairs in Climate Science. Professor Michael J. Kelly of the University of Cambridge Department of Engineering has written a scathing letter to The Times about rightfully criticizing “deniers” and lumping everyone else who questions climate science conclusions into that same meme. Most people I know of agree that CO2 has some impact, but the magnitude and feedbacks are the real issues of debate. Ben Pile has this to say in his summary of the Fakegate:
The myth of the climate change denier exists in the heads of environmentalists, and seems to prevent them entering into conversation with anyone that dares to criticise environmentalism. The crusade of ‘communicating’ climate change is not a project that involves an exchange of views. To criticise environmentalism is to ‘deny The Science’, no matter how incoherent the environmentalist’s grasp of science or how lacking his or her sense of proportion.
Kelly, in his letter to the times, says what we’ve been saying for a long time; the models and the effects have been grossly oversold, and real-world observations don’t match the sales brochure. He writes:
Sir, Andrew Motion (report, Feb 23) is correct to castigate climate change deniers, but he is profoundly mistaken in linking all those who oppose the current climate science orthodoxy into one group. The interpretation of the observational science has been consistently over-egged to produce alarm. All real-world data over the past 20 years has shown the climate models to be exaggerating the likely impacts — if the models cannot account for the near term, why should I trust them in the long term?
I am most worried by the billions of pounds being misinvested and lost as a consequence. Look out to sea at the end of 2015 and see how many windmills are not turning and you will get my point: there are already 14,000 abandoned windmills onshore in the US. Premature technology deployment is thoroughly bad engineering, and my taxes are subsidising it against my will and professional judgment.
Professor Michael Kelly
Prince Philip Professor of Technology, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge
Source An Englishman’s Castle via “The Times“, subscription required
major hat tip to Bishop Hill
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It would be good to know that there are rational scientists who could take over the metaAGW science .
“Professor Michael J. Kelly of the University of Cambridge Department of Engineering has written a scathing letter to The Times about rightfully criticizing “deniers” and lumping everyone else who questions climate science conclusions into that same meme.”
What are the “deniers” saying that should be rightfully criticized? That the globe isn’t warming, that the climate isn’t changing, or that the climate isn’t disrupting?
However, the deniers of CO2 altogether having an effect may not be wrong. As N2, O2, CO2 and H2O ALL have IR spectra, with CO2 having the least breadth, it is hard to imagine the smallest bit player in the atmosphere having any detectable effect.
The recent post regarding the IR Window (said to be closing by the warmists) indicates the above state of affairs. The IR efflux at the poles has not changed in the decades of satellite observation, despite significant CO2 increases. It does sound odd, as CO2 at the poles would be the only GHG there. But, if one remembers that the ENTIRE atmosphere is participating, changes in CO2 could easily have no undetectable effect, being swamped by the 99% of atmosphere’s N2 and O2.
The participation of the entire atmosphere in modulating IR would easily explain the observed stability of the IR efflux.
I do find it odd that it was very difficult to find an IR spectra for these two common gases. Wikipedia only mentions CO2 and H2O as GHGs, suggesting by omission that N2 and O2 do not interact with IR—a convenient result, hunh?. The reader is pointed only to CO2 and H2O. Political agenda, anyone?
Sometimes skeptics are almost too amenable to the junk science of AGW, just as they so very often mention the historically low CO2 concentrations before 1950, accepting a fabricated result and then discussing it as if it real.
CAGW is based on data that aren’t and models that don’t.
The only climate change “denier” I can think of right off hand is Michael Mann, whose hockey stick “denies” both the MWP and the LIA.
It seems that the ad hominem attacks and the arguments from “authority” are dominating the discussion, since the climate is not cooperating.
4 years of WUWT in two pithy paragraphs!
With such few words, Prof. Kelly couldn’t get into WHY the models are wrong, either the erroneous positive feedbacks, or natural forcings (PDO, NAO, Arctic oscillation, solar influences), not that we know any of these as well as we would like.
But for his audience, probably what matters most is that the models are wrong, and consistently over predict pretty much everything, relative to reality.
where exactly are the 14000 abandoned windmills onshore in the US? citation/source please. I don’t agree with wind either, but i think he’s making that up. It doesn’t help when you make up a misleading fact, credibility becomes an issue.
The climate alarmist message is shot through with exaggerations.
Exaggerated certainties in measurement; exaggerated scope and scale of effects, and an exaggerated role for Mankind in climate-making, and the list could go on and on.
Nothing ruins truth like stretching it.
Good to see a prominent British engineer standing up to this nonsense.
David Suzuki weighs in (Caanda’s equivalent to David Attenborough in UK or Carl Sagan was in USA): It’s time that climate-change deniers were exposed
http://www.straight.com/article-612156/vancouver/david-suzuki-its-time-climatechange-deniers-were-exposed
However, as this expose shows, Suzuki is like the kettle calling the pot black:
http://ezralevant.com/2011/12/davids-details.html
Michael was one of the signatories to WSJ article criticizing AGW alarmism; it is good that academics of his stature are willing to go public with their condemnation of the abuse of the scientific method
The difference her is that it is a “real engineer” doing the thinking and writing. The whole climate/energy debate has been missing engineering attention, esp. in UK.
Tthe climate warmist defense is understandable, for years they’ve been treated better than rock stars, traveled the world to the hottest locations on junkets, preached the cause and mixed with Hollywood movie stars.
They call climate skeptics “deniers” for one reason only and it has nothing to do with the science, the skeptic community at large are a threat, denying the fantastic righteous lifestyles they have been accustomed to over the past 20 years. If their message of climate change catastrophe disappears, so to does the celebrity lifestyle of scientists not having to do proper research. It will be back to the real mundane world of scientific discovery, probably too difficult and much like hard work for those now firmly entrenched as made-to-measure celebrity scientists.
The “14,000 abandoned windmills onshore in the US” may come from here: http://www.naturalnews.com/034234_wind_turbines_abandoned.html where it says:
“…high maintenance costs, high rates of failure, and fluctuating weather conditions that affect energy production render wind turbines expensive and inefficient, which is why more than 14,000 of them have since been abandoned…”
This a great and all, but from my perspective; what the hell took you so long? It has been painful to watch the ridiculous expenditure all these years. The Bloggies have rejuvenated my faith in the general publics reasoning skills. So that’s good.
Sad that environmentalists have to view criminal behavior as “heroic”. Dangerous line of thinking.
higley7 says:
February 28, 2012 at 6:27 am
“However, the deniers of CO2 altogether having an effect may not be wrong. As N2, O2, CO2 and H2O ALL have IR spectra, with CO2 having the least breadth, it is hard to imagine the smallest bit player in the atmosphere having any detectable effect.”
Higley, please take another look at the scales of the absorption spectrum graphs of N2 and O2. They have very narrow spikes or lines with an absorptivity a thousand times less than the ones of CO2 and H2O. They are irrelevant.
I too would like to know the source for the 14,000 number. I live in a county (Lee County, Illinois) where there is in a lively debate going on as to how many turbines should be allowed to be built. I’m sure local opponents would like to know where turbines are being abandoned so this reality could be added to the debate.
It is the environmentalists who are the true deniers. It is they who claim that climate has been stable in the past which is far from the truth. Climate changes, it is what it does and will continue. It is the alarmists who have mistakenly claimed that atmospheric CO2 levels have remained steady at 280ppmvfor thousands of years. The real argument is about causes, feedbacks and model scenarios. The foundation theory of Greenhouse Gasses has been proved wrong in that several of its claims fail. If that theory is wrong then another mechanism for the extra surface heating above that of the BB radiated temperature must be found. Luckily there is a mechanism, thus far overlooked by mainstream scientists, that fits the bill. Adiabatic compressive heating which initiates a star’s trip into nuclear fusion down to the warming of Foehne winds. The principle of Ockham’s razor would indicate that the GHG theory was not a good choice of theory.
For those wanting the source of the claim that 14,000 wind turbines have been abandoned, here it is:
http://hawaiifreepress.com/main/ArticlesMain/tabid/56/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/1698/Wind-Energys-Ghosts.aspx
Here is the relevant paragraph:
“California’s wind farms — then comprising about 80% of the world’s wind generation capacity — ceased to generate much more quickly than Kamaoa. In the best wind spots on earth, over 14,000 turbines were simply abandoned. Spinning, post-industrial junk which generates nothing but bird kills.”
We all know that you can’t necessarily believe what you read in a newspaper, including, unfortunately for the gullible elites, the NY Times. For this cynical reason, I’m not yet ready to treat the claim in this article as infallible truth, but there certainly is a source for the 14,000 dead wind turbines. I recommend reading the article, it is pretty thorough about how we have come to where we are on wind machines.
Another myth is the myth of the well-funded anti-science skeptical campaign/conspiracy. Another is the myth of the skeptics who are paid by Big Oil.
And we can and should always object to the term climate change denier for several reasons, the first of which is the implication that skeptics are no better than holocaust deniers.
The second objection is who denies the climate changes? Being a climate change denier is like being a gravity denier. It’s meaningless, except as a precalculated insult against those who disagree.. Is there any serious skeptic out there who believes the climate doesn’t change? Isn’t it the AGW proponents who try to gloss over the fact that the climate changes all the time? By using climate change instead of man-made climate change, Professor Kelly is deliberately misleading the public and using straw man arguments.
Bravo – at least someone in the academic world has the courage to speak out against dogma. The tide is turning. I was inspired by the previous post “The Skeptics Case” to write a poster comparing IPCC 2007 predictions to reality. You can find it at http://clivebest.com/data/Poster.pdf
@dwb
I believe this might be the original story, however it says: “In the best wind spots on earth, over 14,000 turbines were simply abandoned.” Only California and Hawaii is talked about so not the entire US.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/wind_energys_ghosts_1.html
I cannot attest to the 14,000 number. However, on a road trip across country about 4 years ago, I do not remember seeing a single wind turbine installed on an “erector set” tower which was operating.
dwb says:
February 28, 2012 at 6:31 am
where exactly are the 14000 abandoned windmills onshore in the US? citation/source please. I don’t agree with wind either, but i think he’s making that up. It doesn’t help when you make up a misleading fact, credibility becomes an issue.
and
HankHenry says:
February 28, 2012 at 6:50 am
You will get multiple hits if you google: 14000 windmills
you will get multiple hits if you google: abandoned windfarms
such as
http://epaabuse.com/3124/editorials/wind-farm-grave-yards/
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/wind_energys_ghosts_1.html
You can also search in more detail and get
http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/708563
http://www.flickr.com/photos/doverpast/2873736790/
http://www.artistsagainstwindfarms.com/walks/queens-exhibition/bucks-cross-folder/turbines-in-spain-and-france.html
Or of course you can just drive through some of what were the more beautiful parts of the world such as California or Spain and see them yourself.
It stands to reason that if an industry can only be worthwhile when it is subsidized that when the subsidies cease – so does the industry.
On a trip down the Columbia River gorge from Pendleton to The Dalles, where a large number of turbines sit on the summit of the gorge walls, I could see many that were inactive. I found it rather odd that for all the touted benefits of wind generation, so many of these units were at a standstill. Extrapolating…..
Something bothers me about the effect of CO2. If it has been shown to lag behind temperature rises, why then are so many agreeing that it has some effect on temperature increase? I’m not getting this.
But what REALLY bothers me is the out-of-control bellowing about “deniers”: it’s childish, sandbox-and-toybox blather that destroys the credibility of those who engage in the mudslinging. With the recent self-immolation of Dr. Gleick (an action based on a self-admitted loss of control), it only points to the childishness of the entire tendency. An immature ‘science’ using immature, whingy methods to get what it wants. Donna was correct to call the IPCC a delinquent teenager.
Glossing the attack mentality over with factoids does nothing to disguise the vitriol, as can be demonstrated by WUWT’s klatsch of resident snarks, who regularly hijack threads with their ongoing meme-citing. It is laudable that they are not censored, but what a bunch of wasted effort to sling mud back….it reduces some threads to the level of a backwoods snake-oil revival!
Common sense will prevail. Or at least, one sure hopes so. This entire industry is unsustainable, and a blight on society, science, and the world’s economic state. The apparent failure of the green energy industry is the beacon illuminating the folly-in-progress. And as the light brightens, the gleick-shriek will only increase, until it too becomes unsustainable.
I’ve spent an hour trying to find the source of the 14,000 abandoned windmills claim but only find it is repeated almost endlessly but not cited. Until someone can do better than me this will have to be declared “faked but accurate” which is a code word for urban legend.
CO2 still has not start to have “some impact” in Antarctica, allegedly the most sensitive polar area to “increased greenhouse effect”. Wake me if it starts.
http://climate4you.com/images/MSU%20RSS%20ArcticAndAntarctic%20MonthlyTempSince1979%20With37monthRunningAverage.gif