Opinion by Anthony Watts
There has never been a time at WUWT that I’ve used the word “slimy” in a headline. This is a special case. I thought of about a half dozen words I could have used and finally decided on this one. I chose it because of precedence in a similar situation where Steve McIntyre wrote his rebuttal to a similar piece of amateur journalism entitled Slimed by Bagpuss the Cat Reporter.
Last week, the Guardian invited me to participate in their new online story forum. They were seeking the input from climate sceptics on issues they were writing about. They especially wanted my input. I said I’d consider it, but was a bit hesitant given the Guardian’s reporting history. But, after some discussion with one of the reporters, it seemed like a genuine attempt at outreach. I suggested that if they really wanted to make a gesture that would make people take notice, they should consider banning the use of the word “denier” from climate discourse in their newspaper. Nobody I know of in the sceptic community denies that the earth has gotten warmer in the past century. I surely don’t. But we do question the measured magnitude, the cause, and the scientific methods.
Now, any progress that has been made in outreach by the Guardian has been dashed by the most despicably stupid newspaper article I’ve ever seen about climate skeptics. The Guardian for some reason thought it would be a good idea to print it while at the same time trying to reach across the aisle to climate skeptics for ideas. Needless to say, they’ve horribly botched that gesture with the printing of this article.
Here’s the headline and link to the Guardian article:
Climate sceptics are recycled critics of controls on tobacco and acid rain
It’s full of the kind of angry, baseless, stereotypical innuendo I’d expect Joe Romm to write. Instead, the writer is Jeffrey D Sachs. who is professor of economics and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, home to NASA GISS.
And it’s not just the Guardian. Apparently this article has been shopped around. It made it into The National in Abu Dhabi which you can read here. Apparently the article from Columbia’s Sachs was distributed by an outfit called The Project Syndicate.
A check of their website show the author list, some of the stories they are pushing to media, and they seem to be rather vague about where their money comes from. In their contact and support page all they offer is a PO box for their HQ in Prague:
Project Syndicate PO Box 130 120 00 Prague 2 Czech Republic
So much for transparency.
Back to the article. After reading it, one can see that Sachs is simply repeating the same sort of drivel we get from trolls every day on climate science discussions. Baseless accusations of being involved with deep pockets, connections to tobacco, denial of links to cancer, and other assorted decades old slimy talking points that have nothing to do with the real issue at hand: scientific integrity in climate science.
It is clear that professor Sachs didn’t do any original research for this article, he simply repeated these same slimy talking points we see being pushed by internet trolls and NGO’s like Greenpeace. He provided no basis for the claims, only the innuendo. It’s a pathetic job of journalism. It’s doubly pathetic that the Guardian allowed this to be printed at a time when they were reaching out to skeptics.
It seems incomprehensible to Sachs and others like him that people like myself, Steve McIntyre, Jeff Id, Joe D’Aleo, John Coleman, and others who write about climate science issues might have original thoughts and do original research of our own. It seems impossible to him that an “army of Davids”, such as the readers and contributors to CA and WUWT, could shake the money bloated foundations of climate science today with daily blog posts, FOI requests, and commentary. No it had to be big money funding these skeptics somewhere.
Newsflash: It’s worse than you thought. It’s a growing revolution of like minded people worldwide that want to see the climate science done right and without the huge monied interests it has fallen prey to.. Tobacco, big oil, and other assorted contrived boogeymen haven’t anything to do with skeptics that question CRU, GISS, NOAA, etc.on these pages and the pages of other blogs.
Oh sure they’ll say “but you went to the Heartland convention, and they took money from Exxon once, they defended smokers rights, that makes you complicit.” Bull. I’ve made my objections loudly known to Heartland on these issues, but the fact is that no other organizations stepped up to help skeptics with a conference to exchange information. While people like Sachs were denouncing “deniers”, and Al Gore was leading multimillion dollar media campaigns saying we were “flat earthers” and “moon landing deniers”, no scientific organizations were stepping forward to ask the tough questions, or to even help regular people like you and me who were asking them. Had any such scientific organization had the courage, you can bet that skeptics would have flocked there. Instead these organizations all got on the consensus bandwagon.
The claims made that skeptics are connected to tobacco companies is ludicrous. It is especially ludicrous in my case.
So here’s my challenge to Professor Sachs. Give me ten minutes in a room with you. That’s all I need. I’ll tell you about my story related to tobacco. I’ll tell you how secondhand smoke most likely contributed to my profound hearing loss through a series of badly treated ear infections as a child, I’ll tell you about my efforts to get my parents to stop smoking , and then, I’ll tell you how I watched both of my parents die of tobacco related disease. I’ll tell you what I think of tobacco products and companies. I’ll tell you to your face. I promise you it won’t be pretty, I promise you that you’ll feel my pain caused by tobacco.
Finally, I’ll tell you what I think of you for writing this crap you market as journalism without asking leading skeptics any questions, but instead relying on this slimy innuendo that’s been repeated for years.
Professor Sachs, contact me by leaving a comment if you have personal integrity enough to hear it.
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Anthony,
You teaser. I can’t wait until Wed (Thur Taipei time).
Love your stuff and all your wonderful team.
Cheer up, there is a serious community around you. Though we all are sometimes (maybe most of the time) a little rufe around the edges, there is broad appreciate the things you have created.
Best wishes.
John
After reading up about Jeffrey Sachs for myself and seeing him on video I feel like I need a shower.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
ex: his solution for malaria in Africa—bed nets, and the development of medicines, no mention of the immediate solution DDT.
ex: his solution for jobs in America—on way: money from the government to GM to develop electric cars, “if” it that car can be done
ex: he is anti-military
ex: ‘prosperity is shared’, i.e, redistribution of wealth, advocates “Each economically advanced country will progressively increase its official development assistance to the developing countries….” enforced by the U.N.
ex: agrees with the WWF that ‘humanity is pushing the rest of the earth’s species off of the planet’.
ex: against mining of all fossil fuels
ex: is for government subsidies for alternate fuels, says the free market is not the solution but it is a problem
ex: wants people to stop eating meat to save on feed crops used on animals, i.e, less meat eaten less crops needed to feed those animals, no mention of ending biofuel programs for the same purpose.
………………………………………………………………………………………………….
He does not live in the real world, IMO.
I see self righteous environmentalists have come out to comment in this thread. After looking in to who Jeffrey Sachs is for myself I can see he is one of their biggest names. And he is just as unrealistic as they all are.
What we wish the world was like and what it is really like are two different things.
If environmentalists really do care about people then get the ban on DDT lifted all over the world. AND STOP ALL BIOFUEL PROGRAMS! Families are being broken up by it. And people are starving to death from it!
Another Brit (18:05:14) :
Sigh! This is politics as usual in the UK. (I can’t vouch for any other country).
If in doubt, attack the individual, not the issue.
Normally I’d agree, but not necessarily in this case.
You see, on one side of the argument you have every scientific body and every government in the world in unison. We’re being told it’s a “scientific consensus” and the “science is settled.” Very very few notable scientists are willing to disagree on record.
So when you see counter group form, it’s reasonable to be want to know who’s behind it. And it’s right to be suspicious. After all, if you’re going up against NASA, you’d want to know your stuff, right?
Is there is a special interest group funding it?
What’s in it for them?
Is there a conflict of interest?
is there a political spin to it?
What have they been involved with before?
Where they right about that?
Do they sound a bit like cranks?
Now in the case of Heartland, we know it’s taken a contrary stance against smoking legislation, and it tends to side with corporate interests. Many of us would and do, find its stances jarring and in some cases, fallacious. Take tobacco, for example. It doesn’t even matter whether it causes cancer. Making someone else breathe your smoke against their wishes is bad manners.
Straight away, this gives us a bad feeling, especially when we compare them to any of the scientific and academic bodies, some of whom are centuries old.
The same, but to a lesser extent, applies to the plethora of Libertarian think tanks, heavily defended in here by those who see this as a battle for the Right. They do us little favour, merely alienating those we need most to convince that we’re not all selfish greedy capitalists who don’t care about (…well, you fill in the rest). If you play to petty political bigotry, you stand to lose by the same sword. And the other side has far better press.
So I plead, once again, think about who this campaign most needs to convince, and see it from their side of the political fence and not your own.
3×2 (18:53:51) :
UK Sceptic (10:42:18) :
I’m an archaeologist with a Holocene onset Quaternary leaning.
It can be treated these days. Excellent recovery rate or so I am led to believe.
The need to eat and pay my mortgage cured it. 😀
‘ Robert (12:55:35) :
I would urge anyone to think twice before exposing themselves and their families to that kind of rage.’
Nonsense. People who use their real name think a bit more before writing. It just takes some courage.
Nobody, really nobody would take the trouble to write “Robert” a nasty email.
To me, the only suitable comment:-
IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
‘ Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)
Keep up the good work Mr Watts
Robert (17:29:22) wrote: “Most climate scientists would state the main points” and
“1. There is a warming trend (>99.9%)
2. CO2 levels are rising and humans are the cause (>99.9%)
3. CO2 and other GHG emissions, along with minor contributions from things like black soot and deforestion, are mostly responsible for the warming trend (>90%)”
However Robert the rest of your post failed to provide any evidence, direct or otherwise, for claim 2 that “humans are the cause” of the “warming trend” or claim 3. Simply stating your “beliefs” or summarizing the arguments isn’t what it takes to prove a hypothesis as that is just an explanation not evidence, what it takes is hard evidence that can successfully survive open vetting and auditing and falsification that counter evidence provides.
Hard evidence is needed that C02 causes the alleged warming of the alleged AGW hypothesis.
Without a causation link that can withstand scrutiny you’ve got nothing but a vague correlation and soothsaying of doomsday scenarios that are all over the map, literally as well as figuratively.
“Bad explanations are easy to vary while good explanations are hard to vary.” – David Deutsch, physicist.
“The key issue with an theory whether it’s a myth or a scientific theory is that not only must it have testable predictions but more importantly it’s “explanation” of objective reality must be hard to vary; in other words, there can’t be many or any variations of the explanation. The narrower the explanation that has success making predictions the closer that hypothesis (theory) is to objective reality. The more variants to the hypothesis (theory) that have as accurate (or inaccurate as the case may be) predictive power the less likely those hypotheses (or theories) have to do with objective reality.” -pwl
http://pathstoknowledge.net/2009/12/05/bad-explanations-are-easy-to-vary-while-good-explanations-are-hard-to-vary
Wow, the alleged AGW hypothesis sure has a whole lot of variations with all kinds of wild predictions that have just about everything happening on the planet being either a direct man made cause of or the direct effect of the alleged man made global warming climate change.
So where is the hard evidence that has survived open review without any valid counter evidence? Where are the papers, peer reviewed or otherwise, that prove beyond any doubt that man has caused the alleged AGW climate change?
pwl
http://PathsToKnowledge.net
Robert,
“1. What do you think are the three best arguments in favor of the theory of AGW?”
I will have a go, but I intend to preface each point with my own comments.
(1.a) CO2 has radiative properties that absorb IR radiation. However, The forcing due to CO2 doubling is known to be about 3.7 W/M^2 and solving the Sefan-Boltzman equation for this, yields a compensatory rise of 1.2 degrees C. The effects of clouds and water vapour feedback are poorly understood and we don’t know whether overal feedbacks are positive or negative.
(1.b) Some studies have attempted to show stable temperatures for thousands of years with an “unprecedented” rise in the 20th century. This is a necessary pre-requisite to the theory of AGW. Without it, you cannot reject the null hypothesis that states that current warming is mostly natural.
However, these hockey stick studies have been thoroughly debunked and stand in direct contradiction to the mountain of evidence that testifies to the medieval warm period being global and warmer than today.
(1.c) Computer models are unable to account for 20th C warming without CO2 forcing + feedbacks. However, to argue that as evidence for AGW is clearly a tautology.
Conclusion – evidence weak and circumstantial at best.
“2. If you are in error in rejecting the theory, what kind of evidence would make you think you were in error?”
I would expect to see heat accumulating in the system. No, that is not the same as air temperature. According to Hansen, AGW leads to a radiative imbalance that will average 0.85 W/M^2 by 2010 which will, among other things, warm the oceans. By our best instrumentation to date – the Argo network, measuring down to 700M – there has been no accumulation of ocean heat since 2003. Yet, by Hansen’s own calculation, there should be an anomaly over the past decade of 1 * 10^22 joules.
Furthermore, I would expect to see clear evidence with high confidence intervals that the outgoing radiation decreases when surface temperatures increase. I would also expect to see the tropical mid troposphere hot spot, as predicted the GCM’s. And finally, I would expect to see temperatures to exceed the MWP and Roman warm periods over the coming decades.
3. If you are in error, and AGW is a big problem, how would you suggest that society address it
This is a leading question. You are conflating the issues of AGW with CAGW. You should first ask, if AGW is real, will it be catastrophic? Based on the geological past, I believe it will be beneficial, for here is an area of study that has been most corrupted by IPCC.
What do YOU think are the 3 biggest arguments in favour of AGW? What would convince YOU that you were in error?
The Guardian has a circulation of 450,000 copies, ten times smaller than the UK’s most popular daily. It is the newspaper of the “intellectual left” and is popular with a range of left-wingers ranging from Liberals to Stalinists. It is also popular with public sector workers looking for jobs, as this is the newspaper used by the British government to advertise employment opportunities. It is technically bankrupt, but is kept on life-support by a Trust fund that uses profits from a used-car magazine called “Autotrader” to keep it afloat.
Basically the Guardian is the dying mouthpiece of a dying policital movement in the UK. It’s one current claim-to-fame is “Comment is Free” (CIF) on the web, a political blog popular with both left-wingers and right-wingers as a place to blow off steam. With reference to AGW, CIF provides a fascinating insight into the levels of group-think and suggestibility of AGW proponents indicating that many AGW supporters are the kind of people easily influnced by demagogues and charasmatics. An analysis of comments by AGW supporters on CIF will show a strong tendency to regurgitate the statements of more prominent AGW campaigners and to repetitively use stock phrases such as “there is overwhelming evidence of mankind’s contribution climate change”. There is little point in engaging such people in dialogue since they rarely tackle the arguments head-on, but it acts as a place to observe the thinking (or lack of thinking) behind the AGW movement, the way it propagates itself through mantras, and the mind-set of the individual supporters. If you frequent CIF over a longer period of time you will observe there are many such examples of group-think around key issues of our time, all of which seem to be sustained by the repetitive regurgitating of mantras, many of which are long past their sell-by date. Sadly, it is all about the brainwashing of “useful idiots” and is about the most de-humanised place on the internet.
climate science is the same as anti-tobacco science all psuedo and propaganda to further a political agenda of socialism……..game over witch doctors
He is just repeating the party line …
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/global_warming_contrarians/exxonmobil-report-smoke.html
Green Sand (02:01:54) :
IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
That’s odd, Green. I thought the first two lines were:
IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming C02…
Kay wrote:
It only seems like there’s an increase because we have instant information at our fingertips. 20 years ago, stories like these would never have seen the light of day globally–they would be local news, yes, but outside of that, no one would know.
Does that mean that you ignore it? Surely that’s cherry picking data? Is that skeptical or scientific? I’ll admit I was naughty and unscientific to post that comment but couldn’t resist as someone had put ‘Moscow has worst snow since 66’ in a congratulatory manner. This suggested the raging ‘climate war’ blog was being won by Mother Nature herself showing show all the ‘warmists’ were a bunch of raving loons. When in actual fact – parts of the world are still sweltering in extreme temperatures – and it is extreme weather events that are on the increase.
The sky is falling cried al gore…………..
Climategate Meets the Law: Senator Inhofe To Ask for DOJ Investigation (Pajamas Media/PJTV Exclusive)
Inhofe intends to ask for a probe of the embattled climate scientists for possible criminal acts. And he thinks Gore should be recalled to explain his prior congressional testimony.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/climategate-and-the-law-senator-inhofe-to-ask-for-congressional-criminal-investigation-pajamas-mediapjtv-exclusive/comment-page-1/#comment-495197
Yes its a degree where I specialised in resource geology, paleoclimatology and also studied climate systems science. So I am pretty au-fait with ‘natural cycles’. This was luckily back in the 90’s before any of this got political. I studied various theories on climate change ranging from sun spots, Milankovitch cycles and the various climate forcings.
I also have an MSc in energy related studies so although I wouldn’t claim to be an ‘expert’ think I have some authority to speak in these matters. Could fellow bloggers who so willingly criticise everything I write also claim this? without really reading what I have written – I may add?? (Dave Watson for e.g. and the assumption I am some left wing hippy anti nuclear protestor!)
I agree with you Tony B about FOE and Greenpeace’s protests – all they do is alienate people and as they are so ‘anti’ everything its hard to take them credibly. However – can’t you also see that a lot of people on this blog are also guilty of the same things – albeit from the other side?
I suggested that retrofitting homes would be a sensible solution – nowhere did I advocate the use of PV – yet some of you immediately assumed that’s what I meant. Apologies – I did mean 2.7 billon/yr in winter fuel payments, a slip on the keyboard. However can you not see that this is a sensible solution – how much did it cost to bail out the banks? £850 billion? http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=495326&in_page_id=2
CRS, Dr.P.H. (15:24:47) :
I’ll kick this off…the science of climate change is incredibly complex
Agreed.
Climatologists have made a mistake by developing a “dose-response” relationship between carbon dioxide and temperature
I have no idea how one defines “dose-response.” Can you define that please?
ignoring huge inputs such as solar variation. Google the term “Maunder Minimum” for example, this was related to a mini-ice age.
You claim climatologists ignore solar variation and the Maunder Minimum? I disagree. Go to Sections 2.7 and 6.6 of the IPCC FAR. There is significant information there and many references. You may disagree with what their findings are, but that is not the same as ignoring the issue.
What happened to my original post made a.m. (GMT) 22nd Feb?
[ No idea. I see two prior postings from you. If it’s not one of them, I don’t see any in queue. -mod]
Mr WATTS, YOU ARE A HERO, FIGHT SACHS, YOU WILL BEAT SACHS WHO IS JUST A PAWN IN A GIGANTIC ACADEMIA, MEDIA & BUREAUCRACY MACHINERY THAT PROMOTES, THROUGH PSEUDO SCIENCE, GIVING EVEN MORE POLITICAL OPRESSIVE POWER TO POLITICIANS AND BUREAUCRATS. BUT YOU, MR WATTS, YOU ARE MAKING HISTORY AND WRITING THE BOOK ON HOW WE BEAT THAT PSEUDO SCIENCE ENSLAVING MACHINERY. FIGHT SACHS, YOU WILL WIN AS YOU ALREADY WON AGAINST CLIMATE PSEUDO SCIENCE!
They say prostitution is the oldest profession. Well, one could say too that making gargantuan amounts of wealth through obscene opressive political power is the oldest profession. They say that love is the oldest passion. Well, one could say too that getting inmoral opressive power over the people is the oldest passion, even fairy tales are full of tyrants that seek opressive power just for the pleasure of having it.
So many people want to get opressive power that is not surprising how Big Academia, Big Media and Big Bureaucracy gives us such humongous amounts of fallacies , falsehoods and lies that promote giving even more opressive power to politicians and bureaucrats: Sachs is just another pawn in this enormous machine seeking oppressive power through pseudo science i.e. through falsehoods, fallacies, lies and through deliberately ignoring “INCONVENIENT TRUTHS” that prove their theories are false. Sachs and keynesians are the equivalent of warmists in the world of economics, they promote even more opressive power with pseudo science, they ignore the INCONVENIENT TRUTHS that prove their tehories false, as warmists do.
But you, Mr Anthony Watts, you are a HERO of the people, a HERO of the new era that emerges thanks to this wonderful internet. Not only you are a hero, Mr Watts, but you are one of the BIGGEST heroes: 100 years from now probably kids in schools will know who was Anthony Watts and what is wattsupwiththat.com, the man and the blog that defeated the climate pseudo science of megalomaniacal United Nations (U.N.) and big Academia & Big Media, but Sachs will be only remembered as one of these so many ivory tower academics that parroted pseudo science theories -like keynesianism- that pretended to justify politicians and bureaucrats oppresive power.
Keynesianism failed miserably in Japan in the 1990s; one “stimulus” after another never achieved the Japan recovery until they cut taxes in 2003. But Krugman, a keynesian like Sachs, keep saying that the “stimulus” had not failed and that you needed more “stimulus” even tough the crisis already was a decade long and it was totally obvious, excepting probably to ivory tower academics, that “stimulus” was POISON and not medicine. Keynesianism too failed spectacularily in the 1970s when it was unable to solve stagflation. It failed even more spectacularily in the 1930s, the Great Depression, the Hoover Years 1929-1933 were the years when Federal Spending increased spectacularily from about 3% of GDP in 1929 to about 10% of GDP in 1933 and Hoover made spectacular tax increases that created the Great Depession (tight money too, like there was before every recession since Great Depression excepting 1938 when there was horrifyin tax increases, was CRUCIAL in the Great Depression). Keynesians typically ignore the horrible damage done by higher taxes and they say Great Depression happened because of a Fall in Aggregate Demand: A crisis brings a fall in Aggregate Demand, so saying that is like saying that the cause of the crisis was… the crisis. So you see, it is obvious that they are clueless. So you see, it is obvious that they ignore these INCONVENIENT TRUTHS that show their opresive power seeking theories are false.
You are protecting us against people like Sachs, Krugman, Stiglitz and hundreds thousands others that seek to kill freedom, prosperity and happiness through pseudo science and political opression. You, a small David, you have been beating, one after another, the giant machineries of Academia, Media and Bureaucracy. You -and others- have been defeating United Nations (U.N.), one of the most dangerous bureaucracies that ever existed, since it seeks WORLD government, the MOST dangerous kind of government because freedom and prosperity exists today precisely because people could flee opressive places -like most european monarchies- to much less opressive places -like the free United States of the founding fathers that rapidly became the world superpower thanks to rule of a law that is custom and not imposition of a political class and thanks to the limitation of the power of government-. Small United States rapidly became a superpower, surpassing China in 1840. But U.N. seeks world unelected (!!) government who will seek universal opression, maybe not immediately but history has shown that unelected governments become tyranny. And elected governments arent that hot either, already in the USA every day you have a new opressive regulation, a new law,va new “duty” imposed by the political class and not by custom or by voluntary contract.
The small USA became the world superpower, the same thing is happenning with wattsupwiththat.com and others: Your integrity, your respect for truth and science, your permanent posting of the facts for and against the theories have won you the respect of millions: You are writing the book on how to beat the gigantic opressive power machineries run by people like Sachs that for milleniums conquered opressive power through pseudo science.
Fight Sachs, beating him will be easier than what you think because you fight with integrity and truth against that gigantic human slavery machinery that lied for milleniums but now thanks to the wonderful internet, thanks to people like you and blogs like wattsupwiththat, the pseudo science cannot go anymore.
You had a surprise victory against megalomaniacal U.N., you will also have a surprise victory against Sachs: You are eroding the power of those gigantic machineries, so you are a threath to their megalomaniacal opressive power dreams. Fight them, you will win!
Thanks for keeping fighting, thanks for protecting us against evil machineries, thanks for existing. Thanks!
Dawn Watson,
“Yes its a degree where I specialised in resource geology, paleoclimatology and also studied climate systems science. So I am pretty au-fait with ‘natural cycles’. This was luckily back in the 90’s before any of this got political. I studied various theories on climate change ranging from sun spots, Milankovitch cycles and the various climate forcings.
I also have an MSc in energy related studies so although I wouldn’t claim to be an ‘expert’ think I have some authority to speak in these matters. Could fellow bloggers who so willingly criticise everything I write also claim this?”
Yes Dawn, they could. Many visitors to this site are engineers and scientists with careers spanning decades, and judging by the quality of their postings, I would say they have every authority to speak on these matters. You yourself have not even offered any technical or scientifc evidence for AGW, if indeed that is what you believe, but have veered off into discussions of low carbon economies, home retrofitting and troops being sent to die for oil.
I am dubious about your claim of how cheap it would be to retrofit homes. I’m not sure what you have in mind. Anything more than cavity wall insulation and double glazing isn’t going to be cheap. If you say, £5,000 per home, that works out to £125 billion – hardly an insignificant amount.
I am dubious that the dash for wind will do anything for Britain’s energy security, and I am sorry, but all this about importing oil from evil regimes is just hogwash. We import food and raw materials from all over the globe, but nobody talks about the dangers of importing copper from here or aluminium from there. If we build all these wind farms to “decarbonise” the economy, we will be paying 4 times as much for energy as well as having to build fossil fueled powerstations to act as spinning backup.
If you are trully worried about importing oil from dicators, then I suggest you consider a more viable alternative. As an energy post grad, you must know that Britain sits atop a wealth of coal reserves that can last for many centuries. Shouldn’t we be developing that instead of tilting at windmills?
Dawn Watson – I think the reason you came under such heavy criticism is because you came in with guns blazing. As for your qualifications – they are impressive but you are in the company of other people equally or better qualified.
Constructive dicussion is always welcome but talking down to people with doctorates in physics and other science disciplines (of which I am not one, I hasten to add) isn’t the way to go. However, your views on making homes energy efficient has much merit. Saving energy is definately a sensible course to take. I know because I made my own home energy efficient three years ago. The greatest bugbear is cost because it cost me several thousand pounds and I live in a small bungalow. Many people in the UK that have already fallen into energy poverty cannot afford to install new windows etc. And since the current government has beggared us there isn’t enough money in the coffers to be able to afford the grants necessary to retrofit hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of homes. Householders having to bear the full brunt of the cost will struggle also in this uncertain financial climate especially since the banks are unwilling to finance many loans.
Of course, we might be able to fund such a thing if the government wasn’t spending billions on the CO2 fraud, bailing out banks and paying the EU danegeld.
Anyway, as a fellow Brit I welcome you to the WUWT blog. I hope your shaky start won’t put you off returning to comment on other threads. It’s always interesting to see an intelligent, alternative view. :0)
Re: Roger Carr (Feb 23 03:49),
Green Sand (02:01:54) :
IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
That’s odd, Green. I thought the first two lines were:
IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming C02…
Magic, Roger I like it! It is also a pertinent observation, there is definitely something in the air. The incidence of this type of ad hominem article has escalated in the last few days.
Not sure that it is CO2 though, as it is colourless, tasteless, and odourless. Whatever is in the air at present is definitely not odourless. There is a very unhealthy stench about.
Dawn,
On the increase of extreme weather events, I propose what we’re seeing is simply a Summer of the Sharks. If you’re no familiar with it, it was a year where all the news networks breathlessly reported every shark attack, freaking everyone out about a year that actually turned out to be below average. I have yet to see any convincing evidence that today’s “extreme” weather is, in fact, unprecedented.
On the home retrofit, by all means we want people to have efficient homes – it’s a win-win… but, when the government gets involved all sorts of fun things happen like a $1 CFL costing $3 and the government program wrapped around it has to install said CFL and “train” the homeowners on it… so for each CFL installed you wind up with a total cost of $15. Those numbers are off the cuff, but that story was reported here in the states.
There’s an old saying, from Reagan I think, along the lines of ‘there is nothing quite as frightening as hearing the words “we’re from the government, and we’re here to help”‘
That quote was meant to be tounge in cheek, and I do not think that government or government workers are evil, but as someone with an economics background working for a very, very big company I can say the following: if there is a way to bungle something, always trust a beaurocracy to do it, and to to do it most spectaclarly.
There are ways to accomplish things while minimizing the bungle-risk. Please see my comment earlier about addiction. If the greens really wanted to talk about CO2 reduction, a ban on coal and maybe even oil should be on the table and nuclear (which typically is not included as an option in the states in the green panacea of CO2 free energy surces) would be an option. This cap and trade deal will accomplish nothing, only exploit populations who have no control over the power plants that produce their electricity. I can only surmise from this little inconsistency that the greens are not really going after what they say they are (CO2 reductions), but something else and are thefore untrustworthy players in the discussion.
I think you’ll find that most here are actually pretty reasonable people, and not the knuckle dragging zombie corp for the Big Oil lobby we’re made out to be. I think as well you’ve also seen how open the conversations are here in the comments thread. Stick around a while, maybe we could all learn a little and be the better for it
Robert (17:29:22) :
[…]
That’s AGW. That’s all it is. Most climate scientists would state the main points with more conviction, for example:
1. There is a warming trend (>99.9%)
2. CO2 levels are rising and humans are the cause (>99.9%)
3. CO2 and other GHG emissions, along with minor contributions from things like black soot and deforestion, are mostly responsible for the warming trend (>90%)
“1. There is a warming trend (>99.9%)”
Over what time period?
The Earth is cooler now than it was 68 million years ago, during the Upper Cretaceous (>99%).
The Earth is cooler now than it was 130,000 years ago, during the Eemian (or Sangamonian) interglacial stage (>90%).
The Earth is warmer now than it was 20,000 years ago, during the last Pleistocene glacial maximum (>99%).
The Earth is cooler now than it was 8,000 years ago, during the Holocene Climate Optimum (>90%).
The Earth is cooler now than it was in 980 AD, during the Medieval Warm Period (>67%).
The Earth is warmer now than it was in 1600 AD, during the coldest part of the Little Ice Age (>99%).
The Earth is warmer now than it was in 1880 AD, the end of the Little Ice Age (>90%).
The Earth is warmer now than it was in the 1930’s to early 1940’s (~50%).
The Earth is warmer now than it was in 1998 (99.9%)”
CO2 levels have risen from ~330 ppmv to ~385 ppmv since 1960 (>99%).
Two thirds of the methods used to estimate pre-industrial CO2 levels (plant stomata and contemporary chemical analyses) show that CO2 levels have routinely fluctuated between 275 and 360-390 ppmv over the last 12,000 years.
44% of anthropogenic CO2 is taken up by carbons sinks each year. From 1996-2006, anthropogenic carbon emissions were equivalent to 37 ppmv CO2. Using an annual 44% decay rate, less than 5 ppmv of that 37 ppmv is currently in the atmosphere.
By every method of calculation or measurement, apart from the combination of post-1960 infrared spectroscopy (Mauna Loa) and ice cores, 330 to 380 of the current 388 ppmv CO2 is of non anthropogenic origin (85% to 98%).
CO2 levels are currently rising (>95%)… Humans are the primary cause (90%)”
Which warming trend?
It is physically impossible for anthropogenic GHG emissions to have played a significant role in any of the warming trends prior to the 1976-2003 warming trend. And… Anthropogenic GHG emissions have not been able to overcome the lack of warming since at least 2003.
Oops…
“The Earth is warmer now than it was in 1998 (99.9%)”… Sould be…
The Earth is cooler now than it was in 1998 (99.9%).