While we are on the subject of the APS and their consideration of their stance on climate, this statement came to me today via Philip Bratby in comments. I thought it presicent and worthwhile sharing, since once again there is great concern in the alarmosphere about the levels of Arctic sea ice this summer.
‘It will, without doubt, have come to your Lordship’s knowledge that a considerable change of climate, inexplicable at present to us, must have taken place in the Circumpolar Regions, by which the severity of the cold that has for centuries past enclosed the seas in the high northern latitudes in an impenetrable barrier of ice, has been during the last two years greatly abated. This affords ample proof that new sources of warmth have been opened, and give us leave to hope that the Arctic Seas may at this time be more accessible than they have been for centuries past, and that discoveries may now be made in them, not only interesting to the advancement of science, but also to the future intercourse of mankind and the commerce of distant nations.’
President of the Royal Society, London, to the Admiralty, 20th November, 1817, Minutes of Council, Volume 8. pp.149-153, Royal Society, London. 20th November, 1817.(from) http://www.john-daly.com/polar/arctic.htm
If that quote seems familiar to you, it is because it was previously published here on WUWT as part of a larger article on Historic Variation in Arctic Sea Ice.
That quote was also in a letter sent to the current president of the Royal Society, Lord Rees, on 18 July 2009.
The full text of the letter penned by R.C.E. Wyndham to Lord Rees is available here as a PDF. While I do not agree with some things said in the letter, it is worth a read for the humorous writing style. I doubt very much that Lord Rees will respond.
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Ron de Haan (18:09:34) :
Smokey (06:50:33) :
“Craig Allen (05:55:42) :
For how many years would the Arctic ice have to trend down before it would be considered to not be a short term fluctuation?
If you are discussing global warming, you must include the Antarctic: click.
As you can see, global ice cover is increasing”.
Well first of all I think the so called scholars had better look at the figures from mid 1950’s. In those days the Antarctic (and one of the years Arctic) ice decreased much more than now. But it grow in 60’s to 70’s….
Look closer at the warnings for sea-trade in those areas during 50’s.
But it’s even more complicated. In the Arctic there are, as anyone who studied Geology-courses here in Sweden in order to become teacher of Geography MUST have read four main forces that change the subjectively observed extension of Arctic Ice:
* In the Arctic the Ice can be of two different types: drift and pack ice. The two are due to the Centrifugal force as well as other forces: Wind and Temperature erosion. Not heat but cold wind make more pack ice which for for a non-trained eye looking at for example NASA’s photos might seem like a decreasing taking place when it isn’t…
* The Centrifugal force has larger impact on ice at sea that on ice in glaciers partly or soly on land. Look for the information we teachers teach regarding the tectonic plates movements due to Centrifugal force. (Students I have had age 13-15 have had better knowledge of Centrifugal force impact on tectonic plates as well as the impact on ice in Arctic, than many of the so called scholars speaking for Global warming today)
* Wind erosion. That chapter was one of the thickest to be read in one of the books we had to know in order to pass the didactiv course for teachers teaching geography. Almost none of the so called scholars, I can’t find better name since they forgotten all they should have learnt in subject Theories of Science, also forgotten the impact of wind erosion combined with centrifugal force and the currants GLACIAL SEA stream, Greenlandic Stream not to mention the other streams in the region….
* Temperature erosion. The impact on Arctic Ice of a rising +1 to + 2 degrees Celsius aren’t much even if it looks like it due to the relation changes from drift to pack ice and back to drift ice. In fact we would have needed a temperature rising over all Arctic region with + 5 to +7 medium each year to have an impact of warming! However the temperature differences during a day in Arctic summer and temperature difference during a week in Arctic winter has a large impact-curve correlating to the transformation of drift to pack ice as well as the other way round. As most who studied the subject knows the temperatures during one single day in many of the areas where science HAVE studied frequently, but hardly none of the stations are used by the so called scholars – one of the used ones were put in place March this year but have been in reports for over a year 🙂 – those temperature differences can be well over 20 degrees… I guess you all know that the over all medium temperature in the Arctic regions has been minus 5-8 degrees Celsius IN ARCTIC SUMMERTIME the last years as well as the last 50 years. First science expedition measuring this didn’t reach the inner part of Arctic before 1959. Not to mention that you do need stations each 10 km to get a good picture of temperature. Not the few used by the so called scholars today…..
Then this might have been forgotten: (as well as so many other reality facts)
” Arctic Sea Ice Thickness Remained Constant During the 1990s. For information please read
http://www.whoi.edu/science/PO/people/pwinsor/pdfs/winsor_2001.pdf ”
There is more to be said but I rest my case.
Martin W – you must stop being dazzled by titles and position.
RW
John Finn (15:21:48) :
“Fair enough, but there are too many readers of this blog who jump on the merest hint of a solar link and start issuing ludicrous predictions about imminent cooling. I think they’re wrong, but worse than that they are backing themselves (and other sceptics) into a corner. ”
I don’t suppose I am alone in the perception that I have frequently learnt more in a short time from realising that I have been wrong, than from 20 years of being right.
Someone once ACCUSED, yes accused, the economist John Maynard Keynes of changing his mind on an important issue. His reply was:
“When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, Sir?”
I don’t vouch for his theories, but he was evidently an honest man. We have a debate because there is a paucity of facts. We will all, no doubt, be found only partially right or wrong. So where is the corner? In excess optimism, perhaps.
I fear you are too much a politician.
Message incoherent.
RW
rbateman (20:08:32) :
John Finn (09:09:30) :
Central England is regional, the Dalton spread to much further and wider than Merry old England, finding Europe and China. And I already gave you the references some time back.
De Bilt and Uppsala suggest Europe wasn’t affected. I don’t remember seeing anything on China. Any chance these might be thermometer records. The thing is among all this ‘evidence’ I see absolutely nothing in any temperature record. Somehow the cold in the Dalton Minimum managed to avoid those locations which had thermometers. Wouldn’t you know it – just our luck.
John Finn
Go to
http://rimfrost.no/
They have long term world temp data.
Something to ponder…
The quantity of water within the confines of the earth, that is, the total amount of water anywhere in the world, never changes. It is constant (it evaporates in one place and rains in another ad infinitum).
Now the total number of people in the world is not a constant figure. The number keeps growing ever larger. The human body contains anywhere from
60 to 80 percent water so therefor humans are re-distributing water from it’s earthly environs to the human body.
Question: Does this redistribution affect the tidal changes over time?
Joseph (04:58:50) :
Can anyone point me to a short list of reasons that man-caused global warming is so much fake-science?
Yes, I think so.
1. The first requirement of any scientific hypothesis is that it should be plausible – superficially at least. The AGW hypothesis is entirely predicated on the so-called “greenhouse effect”, with greenhouse gases taking the role of the glass (a) absorbing infra-red reflected from the earth and (b) radiating it back again in UV in an unceasing game of ping pong. [For this purpose, kindly note the word “radiate”, ie not “conduct” or “convect”.]
2. Overwhelming emphasis is vested in the supposed role of CO2. CO2 is a mere trace gas – 0.038% of the atmosphere. It is not even the most significant ghg. That honour falls to water vapour. So already, as an explanation of putative global warming, subsequently mendaciously morphed to “climate change” (The Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research: Working Paper No. 58 – The Social Simulation of the Public Perception of Weather Events and their Effect upon the Development of Belief in Anthropogenic Climate Change – Dennis Bray & Simon Shackley, Sept. 2004), the greenhouse effect is starting to look shaky.
3. But why choose CO2 in the first place. The reason is simple but flawed in at least three major respects. The simple part is that CO2 absorbs infra-red. The flaws are (1) that it does so only to an extremely limited extent – ie primarily over the 15 micron waveband, (2) because of this it quickly becomes saturated such that the relationship between CO2 concentration and putative warming effects are not linear in character but logarithmic and (3) in radiating energy back to the Earth’s surface it can do so only as to a minute fraction of the energy it has supposedly absorbed.
[To provide some indication of the effect of this logarithmic relationship, one or two numbers are illuminating. The first 20 ppm of atmospheric CO2 give rise to roughly 1½ºC of warming. The next 1½ºC requires a further 400 ppm, and the next 1ºC calls for a further 1000 ppm. We are currently standing at about 380 ppm.]
4. Why? Because radiation, by its very nature, emits not in a single direction only but in every direction. In short, for every unit of energy being reflected back to Earth other comparable units will be reflected back “upwards” into space or sideways wherever. Ditto water vapour, but with the difference that H2O accounts for 95% of any ghg effect.
5. Could this be why satellites measure Earth’s aborpsion of solar energy at around 148 watts per sq. metre, if memory serves, as well as why, surprise, surprise, they measure about the same quantum of energy being returned to space?
6. Moreover, all this supposed energy transfer does not take place close to the global surface. Rather the drama is enacted at the level of the troposphere – let’s call that six or seven miles over our heads. Big problems here, however. (a) Average temperatures at that height are around a constant minus 21’C. (b) To comply with the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics heat can flow only from the hot to the cold. As the surface of the earth is substantially warmer than the troposphere – well, why go further?
7. The central issue, however, is that the idea that GHGs are warming the planet starts to look even more questionable. But, of course, questions for AGW groupies are not an option.
8. We then come to the even more highly implausible proposition that it is human induced GHGs (especially CO2) that are warming the planet. Humans emit about 5% of all annual emissions of CO2; the rest emanates from the biosphere, volcanism and, probably the biggest of all, the oceans. The latter, of course, also absorb CO2. What the balance is nobody quite knows – at least as far as I’m aware.
8. What the foregoing does demonstrates beyond rational contradiction is that climate is chaotic and vastly complex. The attempt to reduce it to the manipulation of a single variable, and an insignficant one to boot, is a priori not simply implausible, it is plain absurd.
Naturally much else can be said, and has been said by sources vastly more informed than I. But, to revert to Joseph’s question, enough has been proposed here, I suggest, at least as to indicate why AGW is widely and justly labelled “junk science”. Added to this, the fanciful catastrophism and the crude conduct of its proselytisers provides its own commentary as to the underlying legitimacy of what they profess.
Finally, someone in this string has stated that Christie (I think) and Lindzen have conceded that 20% of increases in global mean temperatures might perhaps be attributable to human activity. Well, even if true, that would account for 0.14°C of the the .74°C gmt rise in the last 150 years or so – scarcely measurable. Secondly, it says precisely nothing about causation – eg CO2 or changes in land usage. Thirdly, for many reasons – war, pestilence and famine being not the least among them, the land based temperature record is anyway haphazard, unreliable and flawed. It is now also pro-actively manipulated and misrepresented. Of course, Hansen, GISS, Jones and Hadley don’t want to use satellite; they might encounter Incoventient Truths.
RW:
No reasonable grounds for suspecting AGW “science.”? Hardly!
Norm, good heavens. Answer these:
On what island can the entire human population stand shoulder to shoulder?
What species has proven to be the most destructive to plant life, and therefore animal kingdom life?
“Dazzled by titles and position” ?
Wyndham – for myself, that could hardly be further from the truth, and you should not presume to make that judgement. Perhaps we differ on the best means to persuade key people. I tend to think that for them, measured argument will be the way, but maybe in other circumstances a stronger approach is better. At any rate, I shall be content if I live to see the end of the present delusional climate scare that has so many in its grip.
Ref:”On what island can the entire human population stand shoulder to shoulder?”
In 1968 that would have been the Isle of Man. The projected population for next year would have to move over to the the island of Zansibar.
But what does this have to do with the re-locating of water?
I wasn’t trying to be facetious with my observations…just inquisitive.
Norm
MartinW (09:38:44) :
“Dazzled by titles and position” ?
“Wyndham – for myself, that could hardly be further from the truth, and you should not presume to make that judgement. Perhaps we differ on the best means to persuade key people. I tend to think that for them, measured argument will be the way, but maybe in other circumstances a stronger approach is better. At any rate, I shall be content if I live to see the end of the present delusional climate scare that has so many in its grip.”
For the benefit of readers of this blog, maybe you could provide one instance in the last two or three decades in which, without recourse to insolence and ad hominem innuendo, The Royal Society or any other warmista institution has been willing to engage in debate in open forum. And, for the avoidance of doubt, I do not mean simply with informed laymen; I mean with physicists and climatologists of great distinction. I’d be content to have you offer just one example.
No, I’m afraid that the call for rational, courteous discourse was rejected by fascist environmentalism long ago. And with good reason. This is not about science, truth or beauty; it’s about politics and money. It’s just that you hadn’t noticed. Well, if you didn’t like the Rees smoke signal you’re certainly not going to like this one either:
19 July 2009.
Sir Ivor Crewe
Master
University College
Oxford
OX1 4BH
Dear Sir Ivor Crewe
Thank you for your letter of 5 June, in which you seek financial support from college alumni.
It comes about a year after a similar letter from your predecessor. Let me begin then by drawing attention to my reply written at that time – copy enclosed for ease of reference. Of course, Robin Butler sent a courteous response in which, inter alia, he pointed out that the appointment of King as Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and Environment was a University decision, in which the College was not involved. He also stated that the University was broad church in which all manner of views were tolerated – and necessarily so, no doubt. As a general statement of the ideal one cannot disagree with this. Albeit temperately expressed, it was nevertheless a little disingenuous was it not? After all, on the issue of putative climate change we are supposedly dealing with rigorous science with stupendous consequences flowing from it. But the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis (what one distinguished Japanese physicist has recently described as “being equivalent to astrology”) is no more soundly based scientifically than is intelligent design. And I don’t imagine that the University has a chair of Creationism. Or does it? More trenchantly, his observation would have been more persuasive had there existed even the slightest sign that warmist proselytisers were minded to engage with dissenters – many, after all, climatologists and physicists of great distinction. And, by the way, reluctance to engage in scientific debate embraces David King as well!
So, since my letter to Robin Butler, in one sense nothing has changed. That is to say, I still have my waifs to look after in Thailand, a commitment which, by the nature of things, is unlikely to ease for quite some time; the youngest child is only eight, as I recall.
In another sense, of course, everything has changed, has it not? In particular, the election of a mountebank and a poltroon as a fellow sends a message that cannot be misunderstood. It is that, in choosing to follow the path of financial expediency as opposed to the more arduous pursuit of truth, the College has followed in the steps of the University. How sad, how pusillanimous, how shameful, how dishonourable!
No, in any circumstances, that is not supportable. If the College has climbed aboard that particular gravy train, one thing is abundantly clear and that is that it requires no further funding from anyone.
Yours sincerely
R.C.E. Wyndham
PS Also enclosed is a letter sent in the last twenty four hours to the President of The Royal Society. It is relevant.
Cc: Sir David King Lord Rees Prime Minister Ed Miliband MP David Cameron MP Nick Clegg MP Julia Goldsworthy MP Lord Lawson Lord Leach Mark Thompson As the spirit moves
Vaclav Klaus is right. AGW is not a battle about scientific integrity; it is a battle about intellectual and personal freedom. And we’d all better realise it!
Let me make a suggestion. Remove the rose tinted spectacles. Title and status will start to look less alluring.
RW
Rupert Wyndham
I think this quote sums up the intent behind all manner of things including AGW, terrorism and the financial crisis.
“H.L.Mencken wrote:The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
By the way, great letters. I think the Royal Society is way beyond the point where it should be treated with the reverence it thinks it deserves.
You might also enjoy this extract from Pepys, made the same year as the Royal Society was founded.
” January 1660/61:
It is strange what weather we have had all this winter; no cold at all; but the ways are dusty, and the flyes fly up and down, and the rose-bushes are full of leaves, such a time of the year as was never known in this world before here.”
Tonyb
Give Rees credit for his diligence in correspondence – he replied with dispatch and courtesy to my European WSJ op-ed on an RS PR-apparatchik’s efforts to curtail the funding of inconvenient climate science.
Ref:”Douglas DC (08:00:39) :
I read many years ago-during the great Ice Age scare,that it was postulated that the Arctic was Ice-free,giving a source of water vapor for the great ice sheets.Also the colder it got,(which wasn’t much) themore the polar ice retreated.-Feeding the Ice sheets.-Anyone ever hear of this,I can’t cite the source as i don’t recall where I read it.
I think it was Scientific American,about 1975…”
The first Earth Day was celebrated on April 22, 1970, amidst hysteria about the dangers of a new ice age. The media had been spreading warnings of a cooling period since the 1950s, but those alarms grew louder in the 1970s… In 1975, cooling went from “one of the most important problems” to a first-place tie for “death and misery.” The claims of global catastrophe were remarkably similar to what the media deliver now about global warming (source: Fire and Ice).
see more here: Did scientists predict an impending ice age in the 1970s?
http://www.skepticalscience.com/ice-age-predictions-in-1970s.htm
norah4you (16:18:46)
You reply with a personal attack which is a sure indication you don’t want to discuss the issues. You cover your failure with an attempt at erudition and references, but it simply comes across as arrogance and nastiness. I posted information about the Royal Society letter and other information relating to early research on the subject as a courtesy. I also drew attention to Ogilvie’s work as a courtesy. There was no point being made but you rudely demanded to know what my point was.
You said I was wrong about the general measurable influence of a volcanic event being 8 to 10 years but provided no evidence to counteract my claim that is the result of almost 40 years of researching publishing and teaching climate, with particular interest on the influence of climate on history.
I am familiar with all the literature you reference, but then you clearly believe you are the only one that knows or understands anything. You make snide comments about scholars then cite their work as support for your position. Obviously it is only those scholars whose work you judge as correct. This approach is evidenced in your reply to other postings. I gather from your comments about a geology course required to become a geography teacher in Sweden that you are in that profession. I suppose your subjective judgments about scholars are a result of you marking high school papers rather than from publishing your own work.
Russell Seitz (20:05:00) :
Give Rees credit for his diligence in correspondence – he replied with dispatch and courtesy to my European WSJ op-ed on an RS PR-apparatchik’s efforts to curtail the funding of inconvenient climate science.
Hm, the thing about Rees is that he may reply once, but that will be it – hostages to fortune to do any more. Still, it would be interesting to see what the blighter had to say. At any time other than this, what would have been seen as astonishing and scandalous is the mere fact of the RS engaging in the sort activity you describe, or even thinking of doing so. As for courteous approaches, Tim Ball’s experiences described above make it clear that this is out of the question. Neither was his experience unique; it was entirely typical.
TonyB – thanks for the quote. Yes, interesting for several reasons, including possible inclusion in some future smoke signal. Am obliged.
RW
Tim Ball (23:22:30) :
norah4you (16:18:46)
You reply with a personal attack which is a sure indication you don’t want to discuss the issues. You cover your failure with an attempt at erudition and references, but it simply comes across as arrogance and nastiness. I posted information about the Royal Society letter and other information relating to early research on the subject as a courtesy. I also drew attention to Ogilvie’s work as a courtesy. There was no point being made but you rudely demanded to know what my point was.
Prof. Ball – entirely par for the course, as you probably know better than most. And there are still people who believe that it is possible to engage with these cultists civilly and rationally.
Amazing!
RW
“Tim Ball (23:22:30) :
norah4you (16:18:46)
You reply with a personal attack which is a sure indication you don’t want to discuss the issues. You cover your failure with an attempt at erudition and references, but it simply comes across as arrogance and nastiness. I posted information about the Royal Society letter and other information relating to early research on the subject as a courtesy. I also drew attention to Ogilvie’s work as a courtesy. There was no point being made but you rudely demanded to know what my point was.
Prof. Ball – entirely par for the course, as you probably know better than most. And there are still people who believe that it is possible to engage with these cultists civilly and rationally.
Amazing!
RW”
Prof. Ball, I have had the pleasure from 7 years old up to today to have had better scholars in this discussion than you around me. No matter what title Ph.D or Professor (spoke with one of them on phone minuits ago) or position Minister of Sweden or other politian (had an comment exchange with one less then a quater ago on my own blogg).
What I have learnt over the years, is that it isn’t the title or position that makes the man! Don’t try to call my comments regarding your assumptions and thesis for personal attack! IF you do believe in your theories and thesis, OF course you can and may present valid arguments and I will be willing to present an analyse of premisses needed for your argument to be true as well as valuate them. Up to now neither of you on your side have presented a work, analyse, article etc which is up to the standard called for on groundlevel in any of all the subjects I have studied. Akrebi as well as good knowledge of Theories of Science is needed no matter who you are or I am!
Steven Hill (05:27:13) :
“I have followed the issue since around 1974″
Interesting….in 1977 hansen was talking ice age, not global warming.
Actually he wasn’t, he was already publishing papers on the enhanced greenhouse effect on Earth.
Wang, W.-C., Y.L. Yung, A.A. Lacis, T. Mo, and J.E. Hansen, 1976: Greenhouse effects due to man-made perturbation of trace gases. Science, 194, 685-690, doi:10.1126/science.194.4266.685.
Care to substantiate your statement?
Ron de Haan (06:28:07) :
GreenPeace, after reading the letter of the Royal Society to a ship and went to the Arctic Ice Sea to see the increddible melt with their own eyes.
Unfortunetly they were forced to flee when they got stuck in ice with a thickness of more then 6 meters:
Monday, July 27, 2009
Midsummer farce in the Arctic: Greenpeace flees ice “way thicker than anything we can break”
Climate Rescue Weblog
The helicopter gets off the deck at 0800. The ship’s main engine starts 20 minutes later.
…
The Arctic Ocean pack ice has invaded Nares Strait. It is old (called multi-year) sea ice, and averages six meters thick. This is way thicker than anything we can break with Arctic Sunrise. So before it can trap us in Hall Basin, we escape south.
Of course it invaded Nares Strait just as I said it would here. Nares Strait melted very early this year leaving only the ice bridge at its mouth, as it normally does this broke a couple of weeks or so ago leaving the old ice to enter Nares Strait. This results in further loss of the oldest multi-year ice, it’s not something to be pleased about!
It was covered here by the Canadian Ice Service
http://ice-glaces.ec.gc.ca/App/WsvPageDsp.cfm?Lang=eng&lnid=7&ScndLvl=no&ID=11931#latest
Pamela Gray (08:00:05) :
Some thoughts about ice measurement
1. Is it just me or has the Wilken’s Ice shelf re-constituted itself?
It’s your imagination, quite the contrary in fact.
Rupert Wyndham:
I disagree with your approach: as I said earlier, I believe it is likely to be counterproductive. I daresay Martin Rees deserves it; perhaps it made you feel better. But neither should impede the possibility of communication. It would be quite possible to unambiguously cover your (admirable) points plainly yet courteously and in a reasoned manner difficult to ignore, even by “cultists”; and especially when copied, as was yours, to other prominent people. Russell Seitz has demonstrated the truth of that.
When, a few years ago, I was CEO of a government agency reporting to the Permanent Secretary in the Cabinet Office, I dealt with many senior public people (including Robin Butler). In those days, such people felt obliged to deal fully with “awkward” but reasonably phrased letters, whereas intemperate letters such as yours were more easily consigned to the bin. I believe the same principle applies today.
In any case, the RS may not be quite so confident about the authority of “climate change science” as you appear to think. Look, for example, at the policy statement on its website:
“International scientific consensus agrees that increasing levels of man-made greenhouse gases are leading to global climate change. Possible consequences of climate change include rising temperatures, changing sea levels, and impacts on global weather. These changes could have serious impacts on the world’s organisms and on the lives of millions of people, especially those living in areas vulnerable to extreme natural conditions such as flooding and drought.”
This seems to be an organisation hedging its bets by staying politically correct while exhibiting some uncertainty by carefully avoiding a definitive scientific statement. Reference to consensus is weak (as I’m sure the RS is aware) and the statement doesn’t say that the RS agrees with it. Also weak is the use of “possible” and “could” thereafter. So a clear letter on the record, especially one that exploits that uncertainty by stressing (as you do) the proper application of scientific method and the undermining of scientific integrity, and most especially if copied to other RS Fellows, could be a serious embarrassment that might be difficult to brush aside.
And, yes, the RS deserves to be seriously embarrassed.
Phil, to what do you ascribe this melting? Please include an analysis of the weather events around the melting. Include a graph of the average and range of dates for this melt area historically. Please also describe the ocean currents that run through this area (there are two, one is a major current that is cold and runs South, the other is warm and travels North hugging the Greenland coast in this strait). Also indicate the condition of the jet stream at the time. Just so you can give us a complete picture of your understanding of how AGW adds to or is not a player in this scene.
Phil, now describe the Wilkin’s ice shelf. Is it formed by land ice pushed out to sea or is it land anchored sea ice? And what forces do these shelves of ice experience? Do sea-terminal glaciers push on them? Do oceanic oscillations impinge on them from underneath? What might tides do to these shelves? What wind forces are at play? And is AGW the major cause, adds to it, or is not a player in this scene?