Ray G writes:
Donna Laframboise has a post up on the upcoming Royal Society-sponsored meeting with 2,500 attendees expected. the topic is climate change. Donna holds up the ridicule the list of attendees, singers, bureaucrats, song writers, PR professionals. The list is short on physicists, chemists, statisticians and, of course, she supports her conclusions with facts. The RS deserves the attention that your megaphone provides.
happy to help Ray
The Royal Society’s Blatherfest
A “major international conference” will begin on Monday in London. It’s being hosted by the Royal Society, the oldest science academy in the world and previously the most prestigious.
But over the past decade the Royal Society has abandoned its longstanding neutrality and become a political lobby group.
The depths to which this formerly esteemed body organization has now sunk may be seen on the website for this conference. A number of official blog posts appear there, including one written by the event’s co-chair, Mark Stafford-Smith. It declares:
our science tells us that the Earth has entered the ‘Anthropocene’, a geological era in which human impacts are now as important in driving how the planet operates as geological and astronomical forces have been in past eras. [backup link]
But this is nonsense. As I observed last August, a scientific body called the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) is responsible for naming geological eras. It has made no such determination that a new one has begun.
This strange claim can be traced back to informal musings a decade ago by atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen. He is not a geologist. He’s doesn’t belong to the ICS. He has no more authority to announce the beginning of a new geological era than I do.
more here:
http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2012/03/24/the-royal-societys-blatherfest/
It’s the era of the PR crowd and the infinite repetition of the Big Lie.
it’s the water….
…stop drinking the water
I vote for Stultusocene
They could save themselves a bunch of time if they’d let mostly physicists, statisticians, geostaticians, geologists, biologists, glaciologists, astrophysicists and other high-caliber people attend.
On the other hand, what fun would it be for many of these people trying to figure out what the above-mentioned professionals are saying; or what it means? Can’t have a proper party with plenty of those party-poopers pompously parading around.
The good folks at The Resilient Earth dismantled the silly notion of the Anthropocene:
http://theresilientearth.com/?q=content/brave-new-epoch
This Mr. Paul Crutzen is the inventor and proponent for launching thousands of sulfur
loaded ROCKETS each year into the atmosphere for achieving a sulfurization of the
atmosphere, because (1) sulfurization would be beneficial for the climate and (2) to
offset the missing sulfur component in emissions from coal fired power plants……
The festival is in good company……
JS
Society of mutual admiration …
… a little bit like Mensa and the Bilderberg Group …
OT Good call on “Letters, I get letters”
Good judgement makes this place “the best”.
I nominate the Clownopocene Era. And unfortunately, we appear to be only several decades into it.
Am I crazy enough to believe that this conference will be the one were a significant number of Fellows of the Royal Society say enough is enough with this crap and simply resign? That the “cognitive dissonance” will be so strong that even they cannot fail to notice it?
It seems so out of kilter with the real state of the world that even learned scientists will start to realise that this is a religious festival on the End of the World.
Religious revival has three parts:
1. conviction of sin and fear of apocalypse which is the inevitable result of our sinful ways
2. a sincere need for repentance through abstention of sinful acts and commitment to the ultimate reality and his appointed messengers.
3. Absolution through apology and public confession, payment of restitution and affirmation of a changed life.
Do I really need to spell out the parallels?
I think the leadership of the Royal Society are in for a shock when they see the responses from the membership unless they dial down the rhetoric to near zero.
I hope they turn it up to 11. Then the fallout will be glorious.
So the Royal Society has moved from being a scientific institute to a populist science organisation, through psuedo-science lobby all the way to being on par with astrologers and sooth sayers.
Well done Sir Paul Nurse….
The conference will provide a platform for scientists to communicate the latest research on the state of the planet: sea level rise, ice sheet stability, food prices, financial stability.
I think I will quickly knock off a paper on how AGW is causing ice sheet instability and financial instability. I’m sure to get a guest speaker invite.
Note the use of “our science…” as opposed to “the science..” in the quote above.
Does this suggest the Royal Sycophants club at least now accept that their nonsense arguments are exclusively predicated on their parochial interpretation of the science?
Or to put it more bluntly: Orwellian truth inversion
There is a reason geological eras are based on stratigraphy – because profound changes in flora & fauna are seen in the stratigraphic record at era boundaries. The reason the ICS isnt calling for a new “anthropocene” era is that there is no evidence for it in the stratigraphic record.
This is just one more case of the corruption of science for political gain.
Science has lost all credibility with the public & rightly so as long as these hijinx continue.
When people hear something about the latest “study” of any kind, the first thought that comes to their mind is “well, what political point of view is this trying to push?” not , “I trust this because a scientist says it”. A sad commentary on our modern society. Even sadder in that legitimate non-politicized science will not be recognized by the masses & society will receive diminished benefits from these works as a result.
[SNIP: You posted this exact same comment on another thread. It is certainly off-topic for this one. We do not look kindly on thread-bombing. -REP]
I agree that this is a mere blatherfest, but look at the list of sponsors as long as your arm: http://www.planetunderpressure2012.net/commercial_supporters.asp Makes you want to weep.
These people are wielding great chunks of the public purse; they’re expert at it. We sceptics, even though we’re winning the scientific argument, are not in the same league as these professional moneygrubbing windbags. They’ll spin this scam out for decades, curse their black hearts.
Note the use of “our science…” as opposed to “the science..” in the quote above.
Is this a hint that the RS at least now accept that their silly announcements on CAGW are predicated on an entirely parochial* interpretation of the science?
* read: Orwellian truth-inverted reality
I’ve heard 97% of scientists agree we’ve entered the ‘Anthropocene’. /sarc
Latitude says @March 24, 2012 at 4:10 pm
it’s the water….
…stop drinking the water
Yeah, drinkScotch, like wot I’m doin’ … hic ;-*
Among the speakers and panelists we have
Richard Black – Panel discussion: Innovative solutions for a planet under pressure – Moderator: Richard Black, BBC
The digital age and tipping points in social networks: opportunities for planetary stewardship
Chaired by Andrew Revkin and Richard Black
Convenors: Owen Gaffney, International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme; Andrew Revkin, New York Times and Pace University; Richard Black, BBC; Amy Luers, Skoll Global Threats Fund; Martin Rice, Earth System Science Partnership
From the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street the digital revolution has allowed social movements to spread like wildfire. Digital technology and our increasing global interconnectivity are powerful forces for change. This session will explore the potential of digital technology and social networks for transforming society, managing global risks and turning global citizens into planetary stewards.
“We’ll get the anthropocene declared somehow, even if we have to redefine what stratigraphy is.”
Perhaps the IPCC should be the marker for the beginning of the corruptocene.
Attendees should remain calm at all times as thinking about skeptics could bring on psychogenic hyperventilation syndrome resulting in excessive exhalation of carbon dioxide. The resulting lack of CO2 in the blood will increase the alkalinity of the blood causing the blood vessels to the brain to constrict resulting in lightheadedness and difficulty in thinking clearly. :o}
Good lord. A bunch of peacocks.
more here:
http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2012/03/24/the-royal-societys-blatherfest/
=======
Damn right there is more here.
The Planet Under Pressure Conference started today. The home page is here:
http://www.planetunderpressure2012.net/index.asp
This conference is intended to promote the idea of global governance and encourage the Rio Conference this summer to move in that direction. Go to the website and check out the sponsors, the presenters, the sessions. Government entities like NASA, CSIRO, The MET Office are sponsoring a conference that is intended to undermine the sovereignty of the governments that they are part of.
Go to the site. Click on each tab.
Hey! I was calling the Age of Now the “Technozoic” twenty years ago!! Much better name than “Anthropocene” which is merely a silly little time period like the Pleistocene, not a Huge and Significant era like the Cainozoic. Cainozoic means “New Life”…while the dashing and zippy “Technozoic” means “something akin to “Android Life”. It will have a fossil record, trust me. Cross-stratified automotive pseudomorphs, showing signs of both natural and anthropogenic compaction, not that we can tell the difference. Sound familiar? Layers of strange three-bladed giant fans, with no apparent safety guards…ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny? What, oh what, could have been the evolutionary offshoot that caused them to lose their guard after fleeing the sweaty desktop? It must have been at the nacellular level. How could a mere chemist expound on such matters? Easy! He misused the Convention of Stratigraphic Nomenclature, because he could!
This only proves that I am way ahead of my time, not that anybody really cares. Now the Rawl Sauce-atty wants to get in on the glory. Members of the Me-Me generation, spouting the me-me.
Oh never mind. A momentary lapse.
Charles Manson said it best—”Is the world getting warmer, or am I crazy?”
Perhaps the Royal Society no longer has scientists as members? When musicians run the conference, and social scientists deliver the hard science papers /sarc then the society is over.
The Royal Society
Redefining Science
Can we call it the Mannthropocene????
This is my favorite ….I hope someone
will catalogize them and we can use them at the next Skeptics festival
for amusement …..
The Royal Society has had occasional lucid moments in its long history; this is very definitely not one of them. This nonsense is similar in spirit to the long-ago attempt by the RS to delay the promised payment of substantial prize monies owed to the village carpenter and self-taught clockmaker Harrison for solving the navigational problem of establishing longitude, on the grounds that ‘Harrison was not a gentleman’.
Jeremy,
I thought that was the real speaker and panelist list!
……on second thought it isn’t is it?
Oh good grief.
Delegate Mike Edwards declares “This session will make the case for a new, holistic thinking paradigm”.
Wow! ‘Holistic’ and ‘paradigm’ in one sentence. This guy takes pretentiousness to new heights.
‘NASA will award an [alarmist] prize each day’. I thought NASA’s job was to explore space. It hasn’t got any money for a decent Mars probe, but can help fund all this?
And despite the ludicrous list of sponsers, and the ludicrous ticket prices (£450 + £35 ‘carbon offset’ fee) I bet UK taxpayers are getting stung for some of this self-indulgent babytalk.
Meanwhile, good eco-PR: “London’s five international airports combined serve 140 overseas destinations and most of the world’s major airlines – including nearly every major intercontinental and European scheduled carrier and including many low cost airlines such as Ryanair, EasyJet and bmi, reducing the cost of hundreds of short haul routes to continental Europe”. Yep, burn up that fossil fuel guys, and then your £35 carbon offsets can go towards killing or driving out local farmers so that carbon offset corporations can plant non-indiginous trees.
Idiots!
It’s more like the Obscene.
OK have checked the site and seen the list!
You can’t make this stuff up.
All this so they don’t have to email each other 🙂
I have never thought that the “Anthropocene” would be the name of the next era and I do not think it started 10 years ago. I believe that this elevates the impact and achievements of man well above what they deserve. It plays to our inmate (and undeserved) sense of self importance. It once again places man at the center of the universe. (Just as the church argued wrt Galileo 500 years ago.)
My view is that the next age will be called the “Plasticocene” and that it will be shown to have started about 40 years ago. There will be a definable change in the stratigraphic record. However, it will not have anything to do with profound changes in flora & fauna. Instead, future geologists will point to the first presence of plastics embedded into the fossil record as the starting point of this new and exciting era.
Enjoy,
wermet
Edit note:
“Donna holds up
theto ridicule the list …”My nomination is Mendacicene. A thick but mushy crust of crap science will be evident to geographers millions of years hence….
If you would enjoy “learning” about the anthropocene, you must watch this video from Slow TV, featuring one of Australia’s climate science experts and researcher. Prof. Will Steffen
http://www.themonthly.com.au/surviving-anthropocene-will-steffen-1567
Prof. Will Steffen is the Executive Director of the A.N.U.Climate Change Institute at the Australian National University in Canberra. He is also an advisor to Australia’s Climate Commission.
Prof. Steffen’s name also crops up in relation to the London School of Economics with this conference “Planet under Pressure” in the UK, end March 2012.
http://sd.defra.gov.uk/2012/03/planet-under-pressure/
Isn’t “anthropocene” just another frightener buzzword to scare the natives, while keeping the funding gravytrain secure ?
I forgot to add – “Heaven help Australia”.
I’m disappointed that Bono won’t be there. That would have been the icing on the cake.
To give full credit to Paul Crutzen is insane. The ecologist Eugene Stoermer originally coined the term Anthropocene, in the 1980’s, and a joint paper by Crutzen and Stoermer may have made it more popular in the year 2000 (Global Change Newsletter 41), but the idea was not Crutzen’s alone.
For those who are into etymology (the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time), you have to travel way back for the proper credit here.
“…As early as 1873, the Italian geologist Antonio Stoppani acknowledged the increasing power and impact of humanity on the Earth’s systems and referred to the ‘anthropozoic era’.
A similar term, Homogenocene (from old Greek: homo-, same geno-, kind, kainos-, new and -cene, period) was first used by Michael Samways in his editorial article in the Journal of Insect Conservation (1999) titled, “Translocating fauna to foreign lands: here comes the Homogenocene”.
Samways used the term to define our current geological epoch, in which biodiversity is diminishing and ecosystems around the globe become more similar to one another. The term was used by John L. Curnutt in 2000 in Ecology, in a short list titled “A Guide to the Homogenocene.” Curnutt was reviewing Alien species in North America and Hawaii: impacts on natural ecosystems by George Cox.
Andrew Revkin coined the term Anthrocene in his book Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast (1992), in which he wrote, “we are entering an age that might someday be referred to as, say, the Anthrocene. After all, it is a geological age of our own making.” The word evolved into the Anthropocene, which is generally regarded as being a more suitable technical term…”
On top of all that, in the 1990s the term Anthroposphere was widely used in the Chinese science literature.
So pick one: anthropozoic era, homogenocene, anthrocene, anthropocene or anthroposphere.
Whatever. Read more here about this “new” term.
http://www.igbp.net/download/18.1081640c135c7c04eb480001178/NL78-anthropocene.pdf
PaulH says:
March 24, 2012 at 4:24 pm
The good folks at The Resilient Earth dismantled the silly notion of the Anthropocene:
http://theresilientearth.com/?q=content/brave-new-epoch
————————————————————-
You just reminded me that R Gates would parrot the word “Anthropocene” as one of his “memes of the month”. Where did he go ? I miss the guy.
He seemed to disappear around the time of Peter Gleick’s “heroic” act. Was he disgusted, or … or …. or …. has anyone ever seen R Gates and Gleick in the same room together ??
Just asking.
Call the new age what you will, but I expect this present geological transition to be characterized by an unusual abundance of coprolite.
or … or …. or …. has anyone ever seen R Gates and Gleick in the same room together ??
=======================
ROTFLMAO,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
I like kcom’s term: the Corruptocene☺. Pigtroghocene? Rentseekercene? Alarmocene?Idiotocracene? Grantsuckocene?
newtlove, should that have been …musicians run the conference and scientists provide the entertainment? After Mike Edwards ‘holistic thinking paradigm’ declaration I perceive there’s more science in mfo’s brilliant ‘hyperventilation’ post than this whole conference. Holistic and paradigm are the sort of words a student nurse may want to use in an essay to try to score points, or a declaration that a health care organisation provides a ‘holistic’ service leaving some patients with the impression that the care is akin to being blessed by the pope!
@philincalifornia:
I’ve been watching the trolls come and go for a while now. I have a theory. I think they are likely to be students at some particular schools, likely in particular majors, where they are ‘assigned’ to visit a “denier blog” and report on how some arguments are presented / responded. Write it up for some number of points toward their class.
Why? Because as a teacher I’d assign my students to go “buy a computer” (in that they were required to go “shopping” for a computer and report on the experience (and the correctness of the salesguy, or lack thereoff)). Teachers are often looking for ways to have a ‘field experience’ for students. That, and the semi-scripted standard talking points (as though they were on a handout as ‘ideas’).
There is also a tendency for the ‘handles’ to rotate more or less in unison, like the change of semester. Then there is the tendency to swoon a bit about holidays. (Some of the individuals seem to ramp up during holidays, so I suspect they may be the Teaching Assistants who have more free time then 😉
So maybe R. Gates finally graduated 😉
Or we’re coming up on Easter break…
It appears some members of the Royal Society’s knowledge of climate change is limited to BBC newscasts. I would assume that those who are knowledgeable are intimidated and hence choose not to speak out.
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2012/anomnight.3.22.2012.gif
http://blogs-images.forbes.com/warrenmeyer/files/2012/02/15yr-temps.gif
“The problem for (William: “catastrophic”) global warming supporters is they actually need for past warming from CO2 to be higher than 0.7C. If the IPCC is correct that based on their high-feedback models we should expect to see 3C of warming per doubling of CO2, looking backwards this means we should already have seen about 1.5C of CO2-driven warming based on past CO2 increases. But no matter how uncertain our measurements, it’s clear we have seen nothing like this kind of temperature rise. Past warming has in fact been more consistent with low or even negative feedback assumptions.”
William: Perhaps the explanation of a lack of warming could be due to planet’s response to a change in forcing is negative (planetary clouds in the tropics increase thereby reflecting more sunlight off into space to resist the forcing change) as opposed to positive, amplify forcing changes.
This is the fourth published paper that supports the assertion that planet’s response to change in forcing is negative. This paper analyzes top of the atmosphere radiation changes using satellites as compared to changes in planetary temperature change. The conclusion of the paper is clouds in the tropics increase or decrease thereby reflecting more or less sunlight off into space to resist (negative feedback) planetary temperature change.
The IPCC models assume positive feedback which amplifies CO2 warming. Based on the analysis of Lindzen and Choi the warming due to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 will be roughly 0.8C as compared to the IPCC predicted 3C to 5C.
http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/236-Lindzen-Choi-2011.pdf
“On the Observational Determination of Climate Sensitivity and Its Implications
We estimate climate sensitivity from observations, using the deseasonalized fluctuations in sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and the concurrent fluctuations in the top-of-atmosphere (TOA) outgoing radiation from the ERBE (1985-1999) and CERES (2000-2008) satellite instruments. Distinct periods of warming and cooling in the SSTs were used to evaluate feedbacks. An earlier study (Lindzen and Choi, 2009) was subject to significant criticisms. The present paper is an expansion of the earlier paper where the various criticisms are taken into account. ….
….we show that simple regression methods used by several existing papers generally exaggerate positive feedbacks and even show positive feedbacks when actual feedbacks are negative. We argue that feedbacks are largely concentrated in the tropics, and the tropical feedbacks can be adjusted to account for their impact on the globe as a whole. Indeed, we show that including all CERES data (not just from the tropics) leads to results similar to what are obtained for the tropics alone – though with more noise.
… We again find that the outgoing radiation resulting from SST fluctuations exceeds the zerofeedback response thus implying negative feedback. In contrast to this, the calculated TOA outgoing radiation fluxes from 11 atmospheric models forced by the observed SST are less than the zerofeedback response, consistent with the positive feedbacks that characterize these models. The results imply that the models are exaggerating climate sensitivity.”
This is a succinct explanation of why the extreme AGW science is based on a incorrect science.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/warrenmeyer/2012/02/09/understanding-the-global-warming-debate/
http://www.climate-skeptic.com/
http://blogs-images.forbes.com/warrenmeyer/files/2012/02/gw1.gif
I see Realclimate has a comment showing this graph. It should be noted the lack of warming logically supports Lindzen and Choi’s finding.
E.M.Smith,
Don’t be so cynical, you know the students aren’t up yet.
What’s become of the Royal Society? I think I’m going to vomit.
Anthony,
I just wanted to say how much of a gentleman you are to do what you did earlier. A class act through and through.
I.G.
E.M.Smith says:
March 24, 2012 at 7:01 pm
So maybe R. Gates finally graduated 😉
Does that also mean Hugh Pepper wasn’t accepted into first yeer?
It is the age of toothpaste photographers, telephone desinfectors and the construction of the ‘B’ Ark. Joe Romm will sit in a bathtub, steering the thing while those with two braincells to rub together will wave these folks goodbye as they take off into outer space. And yes, that’s a thinly veiled Douglas Adams reference.
Iggy Slanter says:
March 24, 2012 at 7:25 pm
Anthony,
I just wanted to say how much of a gentleman you are to do what you did earlier. A class act through and through.
I.G.
========================================
Completely agree, even though I made a comment or two myself. If only she could learn from this experience and realize who the people who are really into true environmentalism are.
Sadly, …..
Jimmy Haigh says: I’m disappointed that Bono won’t be there.
Representative Bono might have attended, just a few years ago. However, she’s had a change of heart, causing apoplexy over at thinkprogress:
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/02/07/207451/koch-mary-bono-mack-pollution-epa/
Oh, you mean that Bono….
: > )
Watched a nice documentary on the BBC iPlayer site last night. It was about a 3000 year old Peruvian Pyramid-building civilization that suddenly went extinct about the time of the Spanish Conquistadors in the 16th Century.
Turned out that they panicked at that time because of the news of potentially impending doom brought about by the appearance of the horse-riding iberians and resorted to human sacrifice to assuage the wrath of the gods.
Didn’t work so they self-destructed!
Maybe it’s just me but I see a similarity here 🙂
“”philincalifornia says:
March 24, 2012 at 6:35 pm
PaulH says:
March 24, 2012 at 4:24 pm
The good folks at The Resilient Earth dismantled the silly notion of the Anthropocene:
http://theresilientearth.com/?q=content/brave-new-epoch
————————————————————-
You just reminded me that R Gates would parrot the word “Anthropocene” as one of his “memes of the month”. Where did he go ? I miss the guy.
He seemed to disappear around the time of Peter Gleick’s “heroic” act. Was he disgusted, or … or …. or …. has anyone ever seen R Gates and Gleick in the same room together ??
Just asking.””
I took a look at fantasyclimate.com. R. Gates hasn’t commented over there for some time either. He is a regular there.
Lots of academics from India trying to tell the world how to clean up the environment. Well I spent some time in Mumbaia few years ago and it is the filthiest place I’ve ever seen. Why don’t these Indan academics practise a little of what they are trying to preach to us about back home first?
juanslayton says:
March 24, 2012 at 7:46 pm
NO!!!!!!!!!!!!! Don’t tell me that there’s more than one?!/!?!/!??!!!!!!!!!!!1
Moral: When faced by certain catastrophe it is necessary to first convene a great meeting of the wise and powerful; have a show of hands to determine the consensus; vote to isolate, marginalise and get rid of dissenters.
Meet consequent and inevitable failure with stoical acceptance and look for others to blame!
Hint. Most scapegoats revel in taking on the role of the martyr. They confuse the notion of the ‘Hero’ with ‘Useful Idiots’
Discover novel crises, market aggressively and repeat until a well deserved and rewarding retirement ensues.
Be able to define Hubris without ever understanding what it means.
I was visiting a major London Science Museum circa 2005. Nearby was an elderly gentleman, reading the museum’s dire predictions of catastrophic manmade global warming.
He was obviously very upset, and slowly shook his head. Our eyes met, and he spoke to me sadly, bemoaning the impending climate doom that would befall his beloved grandchildren.
I tried to ease his concerns, and said “I’ve studied this subject for twenty years and recently co-authored a paper with leading climate scientists. We believe there is no global warming crisis. Your grandchildren will be just fine.”
I hope he believed me, even a little. But then why should he, with even the esteemed Royal Society promoting global warming hysteria?
One of the many immoralities of global warming mania is the needless fear that has been deliberately caste into the minds of children and those who care most about them. This tactic was morally wrong , even when the claims of dangerous manmade global warming had some limited credibility.
Now that global warming has been exposed as a fraud in the ClimateGate 1&2 emails, this tactic of frightening children and the elderly is despicable.
There has been no net global warming for a decade.
There is no evidence of a manmade global warming crisis.
Is it not about time that the warming alarmists tuned down their very-scary rhetoric, and stopped scaring little kids and old people?
Erratum:
“have a show of hands to determine the consensus”
replace with
“have a show of hands to CONFIRM the consensus”
Determinism is done by the Despots. Confirmation is genetically wired into the DNA of the sheeple.
An evolutionary advantage right up to the point that the flock gets herded onto the market transportation system. Downhill from then on!
Sorry about that.
I prefer “the Bozocene.” It’s short, punchy, clear, and has a good vowel-to-consonant ratio.
For a fall-back position, I like “the Lysenkocene,” which reflects the state of the RS and post Modern science.
When it comes to nonsense-on-stilts, the proctocratic RS advances full-thrust to its newfound Coulrocene Era, where outgassing is pseudo-science’s new norm.
I suspect that when the history of global warming psychosis is written we will discover that the leaders of the movement were driven not by a desire to save the world, nor to create one world government, nor by religious fervor; rather I suspect this whole movement was driven by money.
In the US, the political class is permitted to invest in things and then make laws that make those things more valuable. It explains how many politicians enter political life with few assets, yet retire as multimillionaires despite making only a modest salary (e.g., Joe Biden). The US is not alone in this regard — the UK is arguably worse when it comes to economic corruption of politicians.
The one thing that politicians from all parties could agree on is that climate policy was a great way to make a lot of money. So politicians got on board and invested heavily in “green technology”. And all of the friends and big donors of the politicians followed suit. All that remained was to pass a set of politically popular climate regulations and presto, instant millions. It was a plan that could not lose.
Unfortunately, democracy got in the way and the political will for climate legislation evaporated.
Now, the political class and their friends are in a panic. The Carbon Credit market has collapsed and green tech companies, cut off from subsidies, are all going bankrupt. We are seeing the green tech bubble burst and its not pretty sight. At this stage, the promoters of the scheme will say and do anything to try to restore the sense of climate fear that existed prior to CGI, CGII and Fakegate. It strikes me as not at all unusual for the leaders of the Royal Society to throw the reputation of the society under the bus to save their retirement accounts.
If the Royal Society is any indication, we are in the Lysenkocene.
Two comments
1 This mob are obviously a humourless bunch since they are willing to sit through 4 days of repetitive mutual masturb*tion with very limited opportunities for a drink for relief. I imagine the sandal/ Oxfam shop quotient will be high.
2 Of the long list of sponsors, about 4 are from the private sector, the rest are funded by you and me. Where’s Big Oil when you need it!
Cheers
Paul
kbray in california says: (March 24, 2012 at 4:31 pm) OT Good call on “Letters, I get letters”
Good judgement makes this place “the best”.
I fully endorse those sentiments.
it’s the putrescine. i know by the smell.
Early days of the Royal Society
http://royalsociety.org/about-us/history/
1660
Following a lecture by Sir Christopher Wren, the Royal Society is founded at Gresham College, London on 28 November. King Charles II becomes patron.
1661
Marcello Malpighi observes capillary action in frog’s lungs and writes to the Royal Society. It is the missing link in William Harvey’s theory of blood circulation.
1662
Christopher Merrett communicates to the Society a technique of double fermentation to produce sparkling wine. The champagne method will found a regional industry in France.
1663
Charles II, his physician Walter Charleton and John Aubrey view the Neolithic stone circle at Avebury in Wiltshire, submitting plans of the structure to the Royal Society. Modern archaeology begins here.
1665
The Royal Society publishes Robert Hooke’s Micrographia, containing landmark drawings made using a microscope and including the famous flea. The book coins the word cell as a biological term.
1677
Antoni van Leeuwenhoek sees little animals under the microscope the first sighting of micro-organisms. The Royal Society repeats his observation and the science of microbiology is born.
1687
Sir Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica describing the action of gravity is published by the Royal Society with the help of Edmond Halley. It remains one of the most influential books of all time.
1714
The first English account of inoculation against disease appears in the Philosophical Transactions. The fight against smallpox in the West begins, ending in global eradication by 1979.
1727
Sir Hans Sloane becomes President of the Royal Society. On his death in 1754, Sloane’s collections, including much Royal Society-related material, become the core of the British Museum.
1736
The Copley Medal is established from an endowment of £100 received from the estate of Sir Godfrey Copley in 1709. It is Britain’s oldest scientific honour, a prestigious forerunner of the Nobel Prize.
1752
Benjamin Franklin demonstrates the electrical nature of lightning using a kite and key in a paper to the Royal Society. It is still the world’s most famous scientific experiment.
1768
The Royal Society backs an expedition to observe the transit of Venus from Tahiti. The vessel Endeavour, commanded by Lieutenant James Cook, reaches Australia and New Zealand.
1769
The geologist Rudolf Eric Raspe is elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. His most enduring work relates the fantastic and unreliable Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1785).
1774
The Royal Society publishes letters on ornithology by curate Gilbert White. His systematic records will create the Natural History of Selborne (1784), the most popular nature book of all.
1781
William Herschel discovers a new body in the solar system. Sensationally it is a planet, reported to the Royal Society as Georgium Sidus [George’s Star] by 1783 and eventually renamed Uranus.
1804
In a letter to President Sir Joseph Banks, Matthew Flinders suggests that New Holland should be termed Australia. The name appears in the 1806 Philosophical Transactions.
1823
The Royal Society approves Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine, a mechanical means of computing mathematical tables. Babbage goes on to design Analytical Engines capable of storing programs.
1825
Gideon Mantell, a physician from Lewes in Sussex, describes for the Society some ancient bones he has found while on medical rounds in 1822. The creature is Iguanodon, the first land dinosaur.
1839
William Henry Fox Talbot communicates his process of photogenic drawing to the Royal Society. His colleague Sir John Herschel promptly renames it photography, the first new art form in centuries.
1851
The British Government awards the Royal Society its first annual Government Grant of £1,000 to be distributed for private individual scientific research.
1864
Charles Darwin receives the Copley Medal. On the Origin of Species (1859) is controversially excluded from the citation, but a speech affirms it is with that work that the public will naturally recollect the honour.
1883
Krakatoa explodes killing an estimated 40,000 people. The Royal Society solicits observations from the public and letters pour in from many nations describing this global phenomenon.
1894
William Ramsay and Lord Rayleigh agree to research atmospheric gases in the aftermath of a Royal Society lecture. Ramsay discovers argon, helium, neon, krypton and xenon in a research tour-de-force.
1904
The Society’s Tropical Diseases Committee begins to research malaria and other ailments, particularly in Africa. As a result, Sir David Bruce elucidates the role of the tsetse fly in sleeping sickness.
1919
Astronomers confirm general relativity theory to the Royal Society using observations made during the total eclipse of this year. Albert Einstein is elected to the Fellowship in 1921.
1932
James Chadwick detects the neutron, and publishes his findings with the Royal Society. Soon, neutron bombardment of uranium will release the power of the atom.
1936
Sigmund Freud is elected to the Fellowship.
1953
Francis Crick and James Watson determine the structure of DNA, detailing their breakthrough in a paper to the Royal Society. It is the secret of life, radically changing science for decades to come.
Allan MacRae says:
March 24, 2012 at 9:33 pm
Early days of the Royal Society
1768
The Royal Society backs an expedition to observe the transit of Venus from Tahiti. The vessel Endeavour, commanded by Lieutenant James Cook, reaches Australia and New Zealand.
That reminds me – there is a transit of Venus this year, on the 6th June.
Allan MacRae says:
March 24, 2012 at 8:29 pm
“One of the many immoralities of global warming mania is the needless fear that has been deliberately caste into the minds of children and those who care most about them. This tactic was morally wrong , even when the claims of dangerous manmade global warming had some limited credibility.”
The moral wrong perpetrated against children in the name of climate science is so large and so grave that it staggers the imagination. The Left sees children as weaker useful idiots who can be programmed to become stronger useful idiots.
intersesting point made above. Maybe they are not scientists any longer. As we all know, the Union of Concerned Scientists is entirely political, with a smattering of people educated in science, but who do nothing but lecture Matt Lauer and other media idiots on ‘science’ that is nothing of the sort.
This just makes me sad. The Royal Society is (was) such an august body. So many (real) Nobel laureates have explained there findings here. Did you know that the first one-way street in the world was created there after the traffic jam that arose when Pierre and Marie Curie presented their findings on Radium. That was before the days of motor vehicles.
Now they were real scientists and it cost them lives to make that discovery. Nowadays scientists give up if there’s no money or fame in it.
Monckton is right, we stand on the edge of a new Dark Age.
Judging from the cliches, it sounds like the conference would be an ideal occasion to play this game.
http://www.lovelyjane.btinternet.co.uk/bullshit.htm
I want the geologists out there to confirm that we have entered the anthrop (sic) era. I hadn’t read that, and didn’t know. Who knew? Not me.
Just for kicks, what is the typical time span of a typical geologic era? A few thousand years?
Until I can power my home with my own windmill, my car with my own garden and lihgts with the sun, and the taxpayers pay me a a big bonus, I want cheap gas.
Ask your neighbor if they want windmills and algae fuel which costs 200 times that of gas, or plain old gas for their energy needs.
The past of the Royal Society does not happen to be squeeky clean.
Newton got the Roy Soc involved in his prior publication dispute about
Calculus with Leibniz. The Roy Soc commttee, effectively appointed
by Newton, then slimed Leibniz.
Also, I notice the mention of Robert Hooke. Newton really did not like Hooke
and Hooke died poor and in obscurity. The famous phrase
“If I have seen further, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants”
came from a letter of Newton to Hooke who was a hunch-backed midget.
I am pretty sure that the Roy Soc members in the 17th, 18th centuries behaved
in an manner consistent with its 21st century leadership.
Jim
EJ says:
March 25, 2012 at 12:17 am
I’m a geologist and no we have not entered a new geological era.
Geological Eras last 200 to 300 million years. Geological Periods, for example, The Jurassic, last typically 50 million years.
Had we entered a new geological era i’m pretty sure none of us would be here to talk about it.
I used to be under the impression that methane was a fossil fuel until I found out that a moon of Saturn, Titan, had an atmosphere of methane, or natural gas comparable to our water atmosphere.
I think the term natural gas is best. Methane appears to be natural through out the solar system.
Never again let someone say that CH4 (natural gas) is a fossil fuel, lest you have found life on Titan.
How about the “Squalorcene”
Named in honor of the intellectual and moral squalor of our time……
I think it needs to be repeated that:
There is no difference between a rabbit, a bear, a lawn mower, a person, a power plant or a snake. They all eat carbon based fuel and exhaust CO2 and water.
Thanks Jimmy
Goldie says:
March 24, 2012 at 11:32 pm
This just makes me sad. The Royal Society is (was) such an august body…. Nowadays scientists give up if there’s no money or fame in it.
Monckton is right, we stand on the edge of a new Dark Age.
_________________________________________________
Humanity had a bright future and the love of money and power is destroying it. That the Royal Society is joining the ranks of those who love money and power instead of standing for scientific integrity is indeed very very sad.
We have the knowledge and wealth to see that everyone in this world is well educated but John Dewey found that a well educated mind was an independent mind and therefore a danger to those who wish power over all humanity.
There is ample proof of the “Dumbing Down”
http://www.rense.com/general75/pass.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/century-old-8th-grade-exam-can-you-pass-a-1912-test/2012/01/04/gIQAxjC00P_blog.html
The reason for trashing our education systems is because the Regulating Class wants to promote the idea that humanity needs a lot of bureaucratic leeches. They want us to think we can’t function without the government holding our hand every day of our life. The corollary is that we must give a large portion of our labor to the state for the privilege of being told what to do allowing the leeches the opportunity to siphon a portion of that wealth into their pockets.
“If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime. If you teach a man to learn, you feed him for a lifetime and he doesn’t have to only eat fish.” -Chinese Proverb
The addendum should be “If you teach a man not to think, it is easy to turn him into a serf.”
Remember the recent SciAm blog by Gary Stix about effective world government being needed to stave off climate catastrophe? Stix references an article in Science magazine to bolster his case, called “Navigating the Anthropocene: Improving Earth System Governance”, and here is the transcript of a podcast featuring Prof Frank Biermann, one of the authors:
http://tinyurl.com/7skdu9v
“We know from the natural sciences that there are a number of core processes in the Earth’s system that are changing fundamentally. This is why natural scientists have coined this term of “The Anthropocene” that has been described as a fundamental transformation of key planetary systems”.
This is what he proposes, to cope with the Anthropocene:
“…we argue for the creation of a new counsel within the U.N. system – a counsel on sustainable development that should better integrate sustainable development changes – the economic, the social, and the environmental pillars of sustainable development at the highest level in the U.N. system. We also argue for the upgrading of the existing U.N. environment program toward full-fledged specialized U.N. agencies, which would give this agency better possibilities, better mandate to influence norm setting processes, a better source of funding, and a higher influence in the international governance.”
No surprise, really, that Frank Biermann will be one of the speakers at “Planet Under Pressure”.
The Royal Society Hippyfest is all about quantifying concern and bed wetting. Blood pressure monitors and beakers will be handed out and the data will be recorded. The scientific findings will be published in the next IPCC report. This is real science in action, go RS.
I was thinking of registering but the attendance fee is 450 pounds !
Check out “policy briefings: http://www.planetunderpressure2012.net/policybriefs.asp
You will learn how :
“Humanity is at a crossroads. Social, economic and environmental crises that have played out in recent years offer a unique opportunity for a step change in the way humanity does business. Although the concept of the ‘green economy’ was introduced to address today’s challenges, its continued dependence on traditional – and questionable – trickle-down economic growth theory has rendered it inadequate. “
Here is some more to enlighten us:
“Inequality destabilizes societies and leads to environmental degradation through ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ and the hedonic treadmill effects. We must strive for a post-consumerism and post-materialist society.”
“The international scientific community, spearheaded by the United Nations and its various organizations, to provide recommendations to redesign trade rules, financial flows and investment within the context of planetary boundaries and the well-being of all people.”
“Human societies must change course and steer away from critical tipping points in the earth system that might lead to rapid and irreversible change, while ensuring sustainable livelihoods for all.” The 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development must become a major stepping stone towards introducing a stronger institutional framework for sustainable development. We urge decision makers to seize this opportunity to develop a clear and ambitious roadmap for institutional change and bring about fundamental reform of current sustainability governance within the next decade.”
All this talk of “fundamental transformation”…and now we’re told (thanks, Frank Bierman) we’re so bad we are affecting (negatively, of course) “key planetary systems.” Will Steffen in the Slow TV presentation above is quick to disparage any evidence of humankind, assume the worst. Such an estranged coterie of catastrophic misanthropes seems bound by an alien intelligence. Maybe they ARE zombies. How to falsify?
I didn’t realize that science is a popularity contest. The RS has me convinced to accept GHG’s and all the other claptrap.( I don’t think).
What shall we call the new era when the ecogenicists assume control and rid the overpopulated planet of its undesirable excess -the anthrophobscene?
Brent Hargreaves: March 24, 2012 at 4:54 pm
I think what is happening here is “AGW theory under pressure”, rather than Planet, hence the need for a massive propaganda hit before Rio. The trouble is, the network is now so vast that you can find links between all of the sponsors and participants, often the same people on the different boards, but hey, what a consensus you can claim.
This is a discussion the often leads me to propose a units problem.
Could all seven billion people stand shoulder to shoulder, four square feet per person, in Pierce County WA? Yes, easily.
If you have a tract of land that is 32 miles by 32 miles, all the world’s population could stand on this tract of land.
This “Conference” in 2010, was one of the Royal Society’s finest moments:
“Rising to the Climate Challenge: Artists and Scientists Imagine Tomorrow’s World”
The link is still live: http://royalsociety.org/events/2010/age-stupid/
“Tate (gallery) and the Royal Society collaborate by bringing together scientists and artists to imagine the social and psychological impacts of climate change. On 19 and 20 March, (2010) Tate and the Royal Society collaborate to bring you a screening of the film “The Age of Stupid” following, (sic) by a discussion and a public symposium about the social and psychological impacts of climate change.”
The director of the Age of Stupid, Franny Armstrong, was the director of the 10:10 climate campaign “snuff” movie, “No Pressure”, which “blew up” dissenters. So much for the science of the 300 year old Royal Society and its friends.
I have just browsed the programme for the RS meeting. Unbelievable. The sociologists have taken over what they think is science. When will the real Royal Society stand up for science?
Allan MacRae says:
March 24, 2012 at 8:29 pm
Is it not about time that the warming alarmists tuned down their very-scary rhetoric, and stopped scaring little kids and old people?
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Can’t speak for the kids but as an old person — 67 this year — I’d say most senior citizens can recognise bullshit when it appears. I’ve come across just one person in my age group who’s been taken in by the alarmists; a rather dim-witted acquaintance of my wife’s.
The foot soldiers in the warmist army are overwhelmingly young. As idealists in search of a cause they’ve landed on CAGW. A good number of their boosters seem to be of advanced years, however; mostly chancers who’ve been corrupted by the baubles on offer to promoters of the cause.
Dave says:
March 25, 2012 at 3:37 am
I have just browsed the programme for the RS meeting. Unbelievable. The sociologists have taken over what they think is science. When will the real Royal Society stand up for science?
This is the same as you see in the scientific journals and popular ‘science’ magazines. Pick up Nature, Scientific American, New Scientist – they are all following the same sociological path – with Gaia and sustainability and politically correct research results. It doesn’t take a lot of people in ‘the Team’ to skew today’s world view; ask Fenton communications.
Probably get snipped here, but humorous is NOT spelt with a u in Brit Eng. Humour, the noun is but not its derivatives e.g. humorousness.
Probably re-snip, but Sherri, please take this as an opportunity to learn more about the science, I too when only listening with one ear, believed the appeals to authority, and confused CO2 with CO (one of my best friends, a very intelligent guy did too). A few days mozying round WUWT and I learnt so much.
And please forget this fear of modern chemistry. You do know we are all chemistry, everything we do eat, cook breathe is chemistry? What you’re saying is you want to go back to old-fashioned chemistry. Do you really think cleaning your house with C2H4O2 is better than cleaning it with O-Cedar? I’m not sure which is better, but the answer is not based on one is evil chemistry, they are BOTH chemical compounds, BOTH produced in a factory using industrial techniques. You do know white vinegar (C2H4O2) is acid right? You know that living in Brittany will expose you to natural radioactivity from the granite all around?
I’m reminded of a retired perfumer of my acquaintance’s comment: he couldn’t understand the fashion for Organic perfume, from his point of view Organic perfume is exactly the same chemistry as his perfume, but doing less well things his industry has been doing better for 150 years …
I will repeat. Science is going to get the black eye it richly deserves and hopefully the Royal Society chair, Sir Paul Nurse will get liberally smeared when the fecal material hits the rotating blades.
As a chemist I hang my head in shame…
The Royal society contact page is here: http://royalsociety.org/Contact-us/
Perhaps those with degrees in science may want to make a comment direct to the society.
Anthropocene, shmanthropocene.
They used to call it “holocene”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene
The Idiocene.
(Not quite as rude as it sounds; idio – from the Greek, ‘one’s own’, ie a peculiarity in language or behaviour of a particular person or group).
I’m thinking we have a devolution going on here. maybe a sub-species, ‘homo pathetic’, of the ‘asinine’. motto: ‘audire unum’ (pronounced ‘ oh dear… un…um….) ((nothing in mind))
mandate: ‘stercore fit, asinos fecere’ (!@#$ happens, asinoles do it).
clivebest says:
March 25, 2012 at 2:38 am
You will learn how :
“Humanity is at a crossroads. Social, economic and environmental crises that have played out in recent years offer a unique opportunity for a step change in the way humanity does business. Although the concept of the ‘green economy’ was introduced to address today’s challenges, its continued dependence on traditional – and questionable – trickle-down economic growth theory has rendered it inadequate. “
————————————————————-
Waaaaah, fake-socialism and fake-environmentalism can only survive by taxing private sector capitalism. Waaaaaah. No fair.
Who woulda thought it ….. ?
For these people and the enviro-NGO’s, government bureaucrats and rent seeking business people the problem is as follows.
Humans are causing the world to rapidly warm. This climate change causes extreme weather events like floods/blizzards/droughts/hurricanes to increase and the global sea level to rise.
Therefore the industrial countries apart from decarbonizes its economy has to pay climate debt to the development countries so that they are compensated for having variations in their weather.
Problem is, there is no evidence that incidents of extreme weather events has increased.
There is no credible evidence that humans are casing dangerous global warming.
If nothing else I’m sure the delegates at this Gaia catastrophism feast meeting are going to be feed well with good food.
All I can say, the world has gone mad. Scary that adult people with this level of political and scientific power have become this perversely deluded.
My worry is that the Royal Society hierarchy actually believe this **it, I was hopeful they just needed this because the gravy train was running out. From what I can see climate alarmism is now all they do. This is a ‘science’ talks activist rhetoric meeting.
There are many peed off sceptical members. I wonder how much this is costing me as a UK tax payer.
In this day and age the Humanities rule, and those in said field have decided that Critical Theory and Speculation trumps Empiricism.
…..the horror….
J.
re:
Thanks so much for the additional info. I haven’t had the time to conduct exhaustive research on this matter. I merely assumed that, when The Economist ran a cover story in May 2011 titled Welcome to the anthropocene – geology’s new age it roughly knew what it was talking about. Silly me.
The the RS has entered the Chimpanocene era
I think that’s the core of it.
The world has a climate chancer cancer.
DennisA says:
March 25, 2012 at 3:25 am
“The director of the Age of Stupid, Franny Armstrong, was the director of the 10:10 climate campaign “snuff” movie, “No Pressure”, which “blew up” dissenters. So much for the science of the 300 year old Royal Society and its friends.”
Franny’s defense: “We ‘killed’ five people to make No Pressure – a mere blip compared to the 300,000 real people who now die each year from climate change”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franny_Armstrong
Be careful though, when tempted to use such an argument to justify your own actions; it is only acceptable by MSM SOP when directed AGAINST western civilizations…
Hi Donna,
The Economist became an acolyte of Global Warming Hysteria about a decade ago. – I wrote the editor, got the usual sillly reply, and cancelled my subscription.
Regards, Allan
The Obscene gets my vote.
Geologically our era is called “the Recent”
Come on! Face it: We entered the ‘Anthropocene’ long time ago.
How many plant and animal-species would have survived if humans weren’t there in the first place?
The dodo, huia, great auk, passenger pigeon etc etc. are just some of the thousands of examples.
Let’s also not forget on what scale we destroyed many natural habitats on this planet. Having at least some effect on local climate as well.
You people want facts. Well there are some.
Skeptic’s also agree that climate will warm up with the increase of CO2. Has CO2 increased lately? Answer: YES!
We are in the Anthropocene. Stop apologizing for that!
EJ says:
March 25, 2012 at 3:16 am
But how well will that work when they need to use a bathroom?
I’m confused…are we supposed to take our own guitars or what?
Holds up to ridicule? In intro.
What bothers me is that the second bullet of the Royal Society’s ‘five strategic priorities’ is to ‘influence policymakers with the best available scientific advice’
Influence policymakers? Is their organizational stated goal (second in importance) to become a lobby group?
“Inequality destabilizes societies and leads to environmental degradation through ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ and the hedonic treadmill effects. We must strive for a post-consumerism and post-materialist society.”
Ba ha ha, to a crowd of $1000 dollar suits and corporate expense accounts, that will sink right in I’m sure. /sarc
Jimmy Haigh. says: March 24, 2012 at 9:55 pm
Early days of the Royal Society
1768
The Royal Society backs an expedition to observe the transit of Venus from Tahiti. The vessel Endeavour, commanded by Lieutenant James Cook, reaches Australia and New Zealand.
That reminds me – there is a transit of Venus this year, on the 6th June.
___________
A transit of Venus across the Sun takes place when the planet Venus passes directly between the Sun and Earth, becoming visible against (and hence obscuring a small portion of) the solar disk. During a transit, Venus can be seen from Earth as a small black disk moving across the face of the Sun. The duration of such transits is usually measured in hours (the transit of 2004 lasted six hours)… …Observations of transits of Venus helped scientists use the principle of parallax to calculate the distance between the Sun and the Earth.
Transits of Venus are among the rarest of predictable astronomical phenomena. They occur in a pattern that repeats every 243 years, with pairs of transits eight years apart separated by long gaps of 121.5 years and 105.5 years.
A transit of Venus took place on 8 June 2004 and the next will be on 6 June 2012.
(wiki)
___________
Thank you Jimmy.
Franz Kafka might have appreciated this scenario:
The Fellows of the Royal Society are metamorphosed by the transit of Venus in 2004. The 1450 Fellows of this ancient and esteemed scientific Society are intellectually metamorphosed into a swarm of insects, infested with global warming mania. They become a nuisance and an embarrassment, and risk being swept into the dustbin.
But, there is hope: The Fellows of the Royal Society regain their senses in June 2012, when Venus again transits the Sun. Sorry – at this point in the story, it just gets unrealistic and silly.
mitchel44 says:
March 25, 2012 at 9:17 am
We must strive for a post-consumerism and post-materialist society.
Cell phones, iPads and laptops will be collected at the door and distributed amongst the needy in developing nations.
I do not understand how any intelligent informed person could support the extreme AGW ideological position. There appears to be a pathological block to independent analysis and thought.
The science unequivocally supports the so called “skeptics”.
Billions upon billions of dollars are advocated for carbon trading scams, conversion of food to biofuel scams, on wind farms scams, and so which will result in no significant reduce in carbon dioxide emissions. Back of the envelop engineering and economic analysis can be used to show the schemes are scams, that fail due to fundamental issues.
There is an astonishing lack of basic reasoning and diligence by those persons advocating the extreme AGW position. Ignorance of the scams is no defence.
There is no CO2 climate crisis. The crisis is a suite of scams that will bankrupt Western countries; result in food shortages in the third world countries, and will result in inefficient use limited energy resources.
The following is a very clear simple explanation of why the “skeptics” are correct. There is no climate crisis.
http://www.climate-skeptic.com/
http://blogs-images.forbes.com/warrenmeyer/files/2012/02/gw1.gif
http://blogs-images.forbes.com/warrenmeyer/files/2012/02/15yr-temps.gif
“The problem for global warming supporters is they actually need for past warming from CO2 to be higher than 0.7C. If the IPCC is correct that based on their high-feedback models we should expect to see 3C of warming per doubling of CO2, looking backwards this means we should already have seen about 1.5C of CO2-driven warming based on past CO2 increases. But no matter how uncertain our measurements, it’s clear we have seen nothing like this kind of temperature rise. Past warming has in fact been more consistent with low or even negative feedback assumptions.”
36. Ahead of the summit meeting of the G8 industrial nations at Gleneagles in 2005, the Royal Society was signatory to a public challenge to political leaders. Although the Society’s press release declared that this was an unprecedented step,26 the document was in essence little different from the joint academies letter of 2001 (see above). The new statement was endorsed by the academies of all the G8 countries, plus China, India and Brazil, and declared that the evidence of the cause and effect of global warming was now highly persuasive: …the scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to justify nations taking prompt action.
Observational evidence does not support the extreme AGW paradigm.
http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175%2F2009JCLI3461.1
Why Hasn’t the Earth Warmed as Much as Expected? Stephen E. Schwartz, Robert J. Charlson, Ralph A. Kahn, John A. Ogren, Henning Rodhe Issued January 19th, 2010
The observed increase in global mean surface temperature (GMST) over the industrial era is less than 40% of that expected from observed increases in long-lived greenhouse gases together with the best-estimate equilibrium climate sensitivity given by the 2007 Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Possible reasons for this warming discrepancy are systematically examined here. The warming discrepancy is found to be due mainly to some combination of two factors: the IPCC best estimate of climate sensitivity being too high and/or the greenhouse gas forcing being partially offset by forcing by increased concentrations of atmospheric aerosols; the increase in global heat content due to thermal disequilibrium accounts for less than 25% of the discrepancy, and cooling by natural temperature variation can account for only about 15%. Current uncertainty in climate sensitivity is shown to preclude determining the amount of future fossil fuel CO2 emissions that would be compatible with any chosen maximum allowable increase in GMST; even the sign of such allowable future emissions is unconstrained. Resolving this situation, by empirical determination of Earth’s climate sensitivity from the historical record over the industrial period or through use of climate models whose accuracy is evaluated by their performance over this period is shown to require substantial reduction in the uncertainty of aerosol forcing over this period.
There is evidence of criminal negilegence of those advocating these policies.
Biofuels ‘crime against humanity’
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2008-04-14/biofuel-production-a-crime-against-humanity/2403402
Biofuels ‘crime against humanity’
Massive production of biofuels is “a crime against humanity” because of its impact on global food prices, a UN official has told German radio. “Producing biofuels today is a crime against humanity,” UN Special Rapporteur for the Right to Food Jean Ziegler told Bayerischer Runfunk radio. Many observers have warned that using arable land to produce crops for biofuels has reduced surfaces available to grow food. Mr Ziegler called on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to change its policies on agricultural subsidies and to stop supporting only programs aimed at debt reduction. He says agriculture should also be subsidised in regions where it ensures the survival of local populations. Meanwhile, in response to a call by the IMF and World Bank over the weekend to a food crisis that is stoking violence and political instability, German Foreign Minister Peer Steinbrueck gave his tacit backing.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1725975,00.html
The Clean Energy Scam
The U.S. quintupled its production of ethanol–ethyl alcohol, a fuel distilled from plant matter–in the past decade, and Washington has just mandated another fivefold increase in renewable fuels over the next decade. Europe has similarly aggressive biofuel mandates and subsidies, and Brazil’s filling stations no longer even offer plain gasoline. Worldwide investment in biofuels rose from $5 billion in 1995 to $38 billion in 2005 and is expected to top $100 billion by 2010, thanks to investors like Richard Branson and George Soros, GE and BP, Ford and Shell, Cargill and the Carlyle Group.
But several new studies show the biofuel boom is doing exactly the opposite of what its proponents intended: it’s dramatically accelerating global warming, imperiling the planet in the name of saving it. Corn ethanol, always environmentally suspect, turns out to be environmentally disastrous. Even cellulosic ethanol made from switchgrass, which has been promoted by eco-activists and eco-investors as well as by President Bush as the fuel of the future, looks less green than oil-derived gasoline.
Meanwhile, by diverting grain and oilseed crops from dinner plates to fuel tanks, biofuels are jacking up world food prices and endangering the hungry. The grain it takes to fill an SUV tank with ethanol could feed a person for a year. Harvests are being plucked to fuel our cars instead of ourselves. The U.N.’s World Food Program says it needs $500 million in additional funding and supplies, calling the rising costs for food nothing less than a global emergency. Soaring corn prices have sparked tortilla riots in Mexico City, and skyrocketing flour prices have destabilized Pakistan, which wasn’t exactly tranquil when flour was affordable.
The Royal Society of Post Normal Science.
From NoFracking…
“Still another blog post was written by Eva Flinkerbusch, who edits the newsletter and manages the website for the Global Water System Project. She refers to the “alarming state” of freshwater resources declares that the “problem of water scarcity is going to escalate worldwide in the foreseeable future” and discusses “the need for changes in…governance systems..
What I want to know is – When will we hit Peak Water? More importantly, When will all the water run out? We must be drinking lots of it and this can’t go on forever – soon we will have drunk the last lake!
PR professionals are included. This isn’t surprising and reflects the continued theme of CAGW believers that the reason people don’t believe in CAGW is that scientists haven’t communicated it properly. Of course, the real problem is that forecasts of almost all climate-related issues have been overstated and have not occurred. Of course, one or two of the ~20 GCMs come close to fitting the real data just by chance (have you noticed what a broad range the models cover?!), but then there are the ocean level predictions, which now aren’t even going in the “right” direction.
Even worse are the absolutely ridiculous papers attributing every change under the sun global warming. My favorite is using unvalidated regional climate models (which, according to Pielke Sr., do not work) to obtain output that is fed into a model of crop production, the output of which is fed into a third model to predict migration (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 2011 108 (33) 13432-13437). The bottom line is that the authors conclude that millions of Mexicans will migrate to the U.S. due to climate induced food shortages. Maybe you noticed that this paper did not incorporate any observational data, so if any of the dozens of assumptions in these three models are wrong, the results will not only be wrong, but potentially harmful, if governments use them for planning. I cannot think of any other field of research in which something like this would even be tried, let alone published. Until climate scientists stop accepting mathematical speculation as real science, all the PR in the world will not help.
@ Robbie says:
The dodo, huia, great auk, passenger pigeon etc etc. are just some of the thousands of examples. Let’s also not forget on what scale we destroyed many natural habitats on this planet. Having at least some effect on local climate as well. You people want facts. Well there are some.
Umm… just ASSERTING that there are lots of examples isn’t a fact. As I recall, we have discovered more species than have been destroyed every year for the past century, so it’s quite conceivable that the number of extant species is going UP. But maybe you believe that evolution isn’t happening any more, so no species should ever die out?
Skeptic’s also agree that climate will warm up with the increase of CO2. Has CO2 increased lately? Answer: YES!
Well, yes. Unfortunately for the CO2 assertion, the temperature has been going DOWN recently – quite a lot! Why didn’t you mention that?
Paul Crutzen and Mark Stafford-Smith have presumed to declare a geological era, based on presumed powers that have not been delegated to them. In their hubris and arrogance, they have but donned the Emperor’s New Clothes.
Ouch!
[My bold]
“On no one’s word” my buttt. The corruption of money has reached the very ‘highest’ echelons of scientific understanding. Sad really.
They should be re-named
The Royal Society For the Preservation of Government Funding.
William Astley says: March 25, 2012 at 10:04 am
Thank you William for your post.
I agree with your conclusions.
Food-to-fuel is generally a counterproductive concept, and corn ethanol is the worst, imo. Although the 45 cent per gallon US ethanol subsidy has recently been revoked, the ill-advised mandates requiring US fuel marketers to include ethanol in their gasoline remain, and these mandates should also be immediately revoked. Regrettably, this is unlikely to happen.
You are correct that the evidence strongly supports the Climate Skeptics position and tends to falsify the CAGW (Very-Scary Global Warming) Hypothesis.
As you mention, one of the methods used by the CAGW alarmists to try to bolster their very weak case is to “fudge” their climate computer models by using aerosols to help “hindcast” past climate, particularly the global cooling that occurred circa 1940 to 1975, the same time that the combustion of fossil fuels greatly accelerated. The big problem for the warmists is that they had to FABRICATE their aerosol data to fudge their models – they literally “made it up from thin air”. 🙂
If they had used actual aerosol data, as available from D. V. Hoyt and others, their models would show a much lower “climate sensitivity“ to atmospheric CO2, and their very-scary global warming story would disappear, and would closely resemble the climate skeptics’ position. Feedbacks to increased atmospheric CO2 would be zero or more likely negative, and there would be NO catastrophic manmade global warming crisis.
Please see below re D. V. Hoyt and aerosols:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=755
Douglas Hoyt:
July 22nd, 2006 at 5:37 am
Measurements of aerosols did not begin in the 1970s. There were measurements before then, but not so well organized. However, there were a number of pyrheliometric measurements made and it is possible to extract aerosol information from them by the method described in:
Hoyt, D. V., 1979. The apparent atmospheric transmission using the pyrheliometric ratioing techniques. Appl. Optics, 18, 2530-2531.
The pyrheliometric ratioing technique is very insensitive to any changes in calibration of the instruments and very sensitive to aerosol changes.
Here are three papers using the technique:
Hoyt, D. V. and C. Frohlich, 1983. Atmospheric transmission at Davos, Switzerland, 1909-1979. Climatic Change, 5, 61-72.
Hoyt, D. V., C. P. Turner, and R. D. Evans, 1980. Trends in atmospheric transmission at three locations in the United States from 1940 to 1977. Mon. Wea. Rev., 108, 1430-1439.
Hoyt, D. V., 1979. Pyrheliometric and circumsolar sky radiation measurements by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory from 1923 to 1954. Tellus, 31, 217-229.
In none of these studies were any long-term trends found in aerosols, although volcanic events show up quite clearly. There are other studies from Belgium, Ireland, and Hawaii that reach the same conclusions. It is significant that Davos shows no trend whereas the IPCC models show it in the area where the greatest changes in aerosols were occurring.
There are earlier aerosol studies by Hand and in other in Monthly Weather Review going back to the 1880s and these studies also show no trends.
So when MacRae (#321) says: “I suspect that both the climate computer models and the input assumptions are not only inadequate, but in some cases key data is completely fabricated – for example, the alleged aerosol data that forces models to show cooling from ~1940 to ~1975. Isn’t it true that there was little or no quality aerosol data collected during 1940-1975, and the modelers simply invented data to force their models to history-match; then they claimed that their models actually reproduced past climate change quite well; and then they claimed they could therefore understand climate systems well enough to confidently predict future catastrophic warming?”, he close to the truth.
_____________________________________________________________________
Douglas Hoyt:
July 22nd, 2006 at 10:37 am
Re #328
“Are you the same D. V. Hoyt who wrote the referenced papers?” Answer: Yes.
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Royal Bladderfest, bed wetting convention for scientists.
Richard Black quickly earning his invitation to the “Blatherfest”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17488450
Dodgy Geezer says:
March 25, 2012 at 10:16 am
….What I want to know is – When will we hit Peak Water? More importantly, When will all the water run out? We must be drinking lots of it and this can’t go on forever – soon we will have drunk the last lake!
_________________________________
Peak water? – Never if the politicians would spend tax money on the infra-structure they are SUPPOSED to instead of buying votes and paying off donors.
Thorium and Desalinization Plants should make that topic a non-starter. Civilization’s limiting factor is cheap energy (and food) The only thing holding civilization back is the greedy Politicians/Regulating Class.
Alexander K says:
March 24, 2012 at 5:49 pm
The Royal Society has had occasional lucid moments in its long history; this is very definitely not one of them. This nonsense is similar in spirit to the long-ago attempt by the RS to delay the promised payment of substantial prize monies owed to the village carpenter and self-taught clockmaker Harrison for solving the navigational problem of establishing longitude, on the grounds that ‘Harrison was not a gentleman’.
1/21
If you would believe them, you would be happy they are going to do something about it – save the world etcetera.
If you look at what has been done till now, you see even with all the money spend nothing substantial has happened. Even mainly targeting CO2 for years now, CO2 it is still rising happily. So they are powerless. Yes they can create bureaucracies and rules to no effect – that’s about all they can.
The astonishing fact is not they believe in CAGW, but they still think they can do something about it. They should be happy with the “skeptics”. It would relieve them from an unbearable responsibility.
The Doctors of Alarmism have obviously prescribed a placebo to be administered PR by Nurse and others to further the cause. The therapeutic effect evoked may not be as expected. Some may expect the effect to be similar to that of a glycerine suppository, but in reality it may cause symptoms consistent with those of a bowel obstruction; initially constipation (psychogenic cause due to anticipating conversing with ‘the Brotherhood’), followed by projectile verbal faecal matter emanating from the oro-pharynx this will be accompanied by an offensive malodour that sceptics may be particularly sensitive to.
Delegates will also be expected to don their ‘holistic paradigm thinking caps’ (same shape as a dunce cap).
The result of the placebo effect will be hourly alarmist indoctrination bulletins on BBC NEWS 24 (The BBC version of subliminal advertisements).
No change really then.
Hopefully this may eventually lead to the Queensland effect…
Anybody remembers “The age of aquarius”? And a song of the Mamas&Papas?
Is this over now and we enter the Mannocene….? Any Mannocene song
……its time….
Robbie says:
March 25, 2012 at 7:59 am
Come on! Face it: We entered the ‘Anthropocene’ long time ago.
How many plant and animal-species would have survived if humans weren’t there in the first place?
How many plant and animal species went extinct long before we arrived on the scene?
You people want facts. Well there are some.
Skeptic’s[sic]also agree that climate will warm up with the increase of CO2.
That’s not a fact — that’s wishful thinking. What we agree on is that CO2 levels rise *in response* to warming — correllation is not causation.
This strange claim can be traced back to informal musings a decade ago by atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen.
———-
Looks like Ray is an anal retentive for whom metaphor is just too sophisticated an idea to grasp.
Let’s just take a wild guess here. No one is seriously suggesting that anthropocene is an official geological age.
I believe there was a typo or something…
Should anthropocene actually be anthropomorphism?
Which I think is when the attribution of humans or human traits is carried too far.
I think Blatherfest has a nice ring however.
The RS is no longer a Scientific Societry. It has been turned into a Missionary Society.