From the GWPF and Dr. Benny Peiser
Met Office Gets A Roasting Over ‘Wet Summers’ Forecast
Science does not respect consensus. There was once widespread agreement about phlogiston (a nonexistent element said to be a crucial part of combustion), eugenics, the impossibility of continental drift, the idea that genes were made of protein (not DNA) and stomach ulcers were caused by stress, and so forth—all of which proved false. Science, Richard Feyman once said, is “the belief in the ignorance of experts.” So, yes, it is the evidence that persuades me whether a theory is right or wrong, and no, I could not care less what the “consensus” says. –Matt Ridley, The Wall Street Journal, 6 July 2013
This week’s World Meterological Organisation’s report “The Global Climate 2001-2010: A Decade Of Climate Extremes,” attracted little publicity. This is probably a good thing as it is one of the most muddled and inaccurate reports I have ever read from an international organisation. It is about ‘climate extremes’ in the last decade which it claims are unprecedented. The WMO thinks ten years are enough to detect climatological weather effects with certainty. It seems to fit a recurrent pattern amongst some climate analysts that ten years is enough to see what you want to see, but not long enough to see what you don’t. –David Whitehouse, The Global Warming Policy Foundation, 5 July 2013
Britain was this weekend basking in sunshine — just three weeks after the country was warned to prepare for a decade of soggy summers. Britons could be forgiven for some scepticism, given predictions by the Met Office last month that wet summers might last for a decade or more. The Met Office has struggled with long-term weather predictions — notoriously predicting a “barbecue summer” in 2009 before heavy and prolonged rainfall. Tourism managers called for the Met Office to concentrate on accurate, short-term forecasts. Mark Smith, director of tourism at Bournemouth council, said: “People are totally confused. One minute they are told global warming is going to result in hotter summers and the next minute they are told it is going to be soggy. We want accurate, short-term forecasts.” –Jon Ungoed-Thomas, The Sunday Times, 7 July 2013
A pillar of global-warming alarm has come under criticism from a country with more than most at stake. The Netherlands called for reform of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the creature of the United Nations and World Meteorological Organization considered by many to offer the final word on climate science. With its credibility and authority under question, the IPCC now hears from the Dutch government that it should adjust its focus and organization to policy and societal needs. –Bob Tippee, Oil and Gas Journal, 5 July 2013
It’s particularly trendy among politicians and members of the media to be worried about climate change. When President Obama recently spoke before a crowd in Berlin, he said that climate change “is the global threat of our time.” But that’s not true. Just a cursory glance around the world reveals that, given the enormous problems facing our planet, it would be surprising if climate change cracked a list of the top 10 immediate concerns. What the average person in the Westernized world considers to be a big problem is rarely aligned with reality. Instead, our concerns are more of a reflection of what our culture and the media say our concerns should be. –Alex Berezow, RealClearScience, 8 July 2013
One of the curiosities of this Government in this area is that we have not one energy policy, but two. This Bill represents one of them. Calling it an energy Bill is somewhat misleading; it should have been called a decarbonisation Bill, or maybe an anti-energy Bill. Nevertheless, ostensibly it is an energy Bill. That policy is out of date, if it ever was in date. The only way in which you can make sense of these two conflicting energy policies is if you think that the purpose of developing our resources of indigenous shale gas — we cannot use it here because of this Bill — is for it to be exported to our competitors so that they can have the benefit of the cheap energy that we are forgoing. That is the only way in which you can reconcile the two policies. Of course, it is complete rubbish, complete nonsense. It is the economics and the politics of the mad house. –Nigel Lawson, House of Lords, 2 July 2013
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It would be wrong to forget another scienciness classic: “You cannot prove that humans do not significantly alter the climate.” Not my hypothesis, not my job. I just have to poke holes in YOUR theory.
Anthony, why do you keep citing contental drift as an hypothesis that was rejected and has been accepted as correct?
Continental drift is not plate tectonics. Some of the evidence and observations for for each is the same but they are not the same theories. Continental drift theory failed because the proposed mechanism for the movement of the continents was incorrect.
REPLY: take it up with the author of the essay, this is simply a collection of news article snippets – Anthony
I suspect that Dr. Feynman is turning over in his grave fast enough that if you could hook him to a generator you could power a fair sized city. We sorely miss his commentary on all of this, perhaps some might pay attention, but if they ignore Dyson probably not. OTOH perhaps it’s best he’s not around to witness the sorry state to which science has sunk in this post normal world.
“We sorely miss his commentary on all of this, perhaps some might pay attention, but if they ignore Dyson probably not.”
There was a NYT or New Yorker article a few years ago on Dyson, where the writer of the piece called him dumb and senile because Dyson didn’t buy into everything the consensus dictates..
‘When President Obama recently spoke before a crowd in Berlin, he said that climate change “is the global threat of our time.”’
Not to put too fine a point on it (ok, what the heck, I will put a fine point on it) I actually think Obama is the global threat of our time. I mean, c’mon, he’s supposedly the leader of the free world (yes, I know that’s becoming an antiquated notion) and we don’t even know what his real name is. Is it Barrrrak, or Baaaark, or Baraaaak? Even he hadda guess how to pronounce it. Or, is it Barry? Is it Dunham, or Obama? He used to go by Barry Dunham. See what I mean? Even he doesn’t know what his name is. The most powerful man in the world (yikes!) and we don’t, and he doesn’t, know his name.
I think I’d get that right before I started talking about climate change (oh, have I grown to hate that term), and policies for the whole world.
Succinct. Masterful use of English.
Also, I don’t normally go for Josh cartoons, but the ’50 Shades of Grey Literature” hits the spot.
When the Met Office said to prepare for wetter summers I warned everyone to expect hotter, drier summers. Lo and behold:
This is how you deal with Met Office forecasts beyond 10 days.
The sorry state of science indeed Severian.
I resent the debasement of my hard-earned science PhD by these duplicitous self-serving charlatans who have managed to infect the very upper echelons of learned societies. You can get any piece of claptrap published by linking it, somehow, to climate change. I used to think doing association work, usually at the expense of your employer, was just self promotion. Guess I was right.
Sounds to me like the Dutch are telling the IPCC to pull off the mask and quit pretending climate science is a hard science rather than a socil science. Quite consistent then with both the original intentions of the Brundtland Commission and with the push being put together , at our expense, by the Future Earth Alliance.
We could simply shorthand it all as Ready to Rule Now as Governments globally give up the game of controlling the direction of the economy for their benefit. Plus obsequious cronies which every Big Business is now pressured to be to survive.
Anthony–I think you would like George Gilder’s new book Knowledge and Power and his belief that Silicon Valley simply does not understand the physics of green energy. That information cannot override physics if physical production is the whole point.
Tom J says:
July 8, 2013 at 8:52 am
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I throw a “Soetoro”-gauntlet before you, too.
Anthony says ” take it up with the author of the essay, this is simply a collection of news article snippets – Anthony”
Sorry, I saw it posted by you and did not recognize that it reflected blog postings of others.
More exciting news from the UK !
Today saw the announcement of a new curriculum for primary and secondary schoolchildren in England
http://news.sky.com/story/1112734/schools-national-curriculum-changes-unveiled
In science, the emphasis will be on hard facts and “scientific knowledge”
However, political correctness is redressed by the inclusion of climate change in the geography syllabus for secondary schools
Prime Minister Cameron hailed the proposed changes, saying “This is a curriculum to inspire a generation and it will educate the great British engineers, scientists, writers and thinkers of the future”
A steady stream of right-thinking future recruits for the UK Met Office is thereby assured
How is Britain going to cope with intermittent “green” energy????????
http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=84095
“On 5 July 2010, the company asked Redcar and Cleveland District Council to approve to approve a 20MW “standby small scale embedded power plant” near Grangetown. It was to employ 52 diesel generators. Approval was given on 2 September 2010″
Seems they’re popping up everywhere
“A month later, the Birmingham-based company was awarded a 15-year Short Term Operating Reserve (STOR) contract with National Grid to develop a series of twelve, diesel-powered 20MW generating plants.”
It would appear that the green shortfall will be made up for by diesel,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/10163570/Our-lights-will-stay-on-but-it-will-cost-us-a-fortune.html
“Those operators already signed up can supply 3.2GW to the grid, and this is estimated to rise within a few years to 8GW (estimates of the potential supply from such stand-by generators are between 20 and 30GW)”
20 TO 30GW of diesel power, Now that’s what I call green.
We’re paying a heavy price for swapping Feynman for Krugman—bad deal all around.
Am not going to be to hard on the Met Office over this one.
There has been a running trend of the Polar jet moving southwards over the UK during the summers since 2007. lts only during this summer month where the jet has taken a wander further up to the north for a welcome change. But it looks like it won’t last into August as it looks like the jet will be moving back south again. With a return to cooler more unsettled weather. So the forecast should not be wrote off just yet.
The GWPF hits the headlines!
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/lord-lawsons-climatechange-think-tank-risks-being-dismantled-after-complaint-it-persistently-misled-public-8659314.html
97% of skeptics agree that science is not about consensus? 🙂
@John in L du B: great comment! With some of the stuff I see in climate science it does appear that doctorates can be obtained with significantly less rigor than I seem to recall.
@mwhite –
Here in the US, because of the unreliability of wind and solar, more fossil fuels are burned than would be if there were no wind or solar. This is because the wild fluctuations of power delivered by wind and solar have to be buffered by quick-start fossil generation, which burns up to 3 times as much fuel as busload generation. You can figure that for every one percent dropoff in wind and solar, you burn three times as much fuel as you could have if you were solely on fossil generation. Given that the realized wind capacity factor is actualy only about 8 percent – way below the advertised 30 percent, you are incurring a penalty of 44 times the fossil fuel consumption to generate that electricity that you would have had to burn if their were no
wind or solar.
And don’t let me get started on the devastating environmental effects of wind and solar power.
@blackadderthe4th:
An assault on free spe4ech, as well as science – typical of the alarmist mentality, and of der Fuehrer’s assault on constitutional rights here is the US.
Is it a crime in Britain to violate someone’s free speech rights” It is here, and I sure hope it is in the UK.
For the benefit of those who don’t read Bishop Hill (you should!). Blackadder is a frequent troll on BH’s blog.
I wasn’t sure which post this little tidbit would fit into. If the consensus is that it doesn’t belong here I’ll request that it be moved to RealClimate.
http://www.erh.noaa.gov/iln/wxhistory/wxhistory.html
Matt Ridley’s article was wonderful. I’m sorry to see him leaving WSJ.
Taphonomic says:
July 8, 2013 at 10:04 am
Anthony says ” take it up with the author of the essay, this is simply a collection of news article snippets – Anthony”
Sorry, I saw it posted by you and did not recognize that it reflected blog postings of others.
*
It’s right up the top. Right under “posted by Anthony Watts” and in larger print comes “From the GWPF and Dr. Benny Peiser.”
Let’s try again.
I have just had a ‘You’re posting too frequently’ card.
Red? Yellow? Grey?
Don’t know.
But have never seen that before [in maybe four years of comments, perhaps more].
Now, the Met Office has recently achieved a forecast success rate [here in England, at least] that is better than ‘like yesterday’ when applied to today.
‘Recently’ = last Wednesday, based on my Yamalian sample of two forecasts.
OK – here goes. Sarc/ off.
A bit. . . . . . . .
Realistically, forecasting weather in the British Isles is a mug’s game – at least out past five or six days.
The Met Office does, however, appear to give gainful employment to many bright folk, who might otherwise – life choices slightly different – have engaged in fraud on pensioners.
Or taxpayers.
Let us be grateful for (very) small mercies.
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I suspect I hear the creaking of moving goalposts. The whole concensus thing arose because certain ‘skeptics’ insisted that ‘the scientists’ couldn’t agree on global warming, there was no consensus, and that was important because it showed that global warming didn’t really exist. And now there is proven consensus, we’re told that it wasn’t important after all …