I’m waiting for actual photos of the event from the official photographer, but for now I’ll make do with what can be found on the Internet. For those who don’t know, the Oxford Union is the top of the food chain for scholarly debate. This is a significant win.
Founded in 1823 at the University of Oxford, but maintaining a separate charter from the University, The Oxford Union is host to some of the most skillful debates in the world. Many eminent scholars and personalities have come and either debated or delivered speeches in the chamber. Monckton was invited as part of the formal Thursday debate.
It is described as follows:
The Union is the world’s most prestigious debating society, with an unparalleled reputation for bringing international guests and speakers to Oxford. It has been established for 182 years, aiming to promote debate and discussion not just in Oxford University, but across the globe.
Here is a view inside from a previous debate:
From the SPPI Blog, an account of the debate:
Oxford Union Debate on Climate Catastrophe
Source: SPPI
Army of Light and Truth 135, Forces of Darkness 110
For what is believed to be the first time ever in England, an audience of university undergraduates has decisively rejected the notion that “global warming” is or could become a global crisis. The only previous defeat for climate extremism among an undergraduate audience was at St. Andrew’s University, Scotland, in the spring of 2009, when the climate extremists were defeated by three votes.
Last week, members of the historic Oxford Union Society, the world’s premier debating society, carried the motion “That this House would put economic growth before combating climate change” by 135 votes to 110. The debate was sponsored by the Science and Public Policy Institute, Washington DC.
Serious observers are interpreting this shock result as a sign that students are now impatiently rejecting the relentless extremist propaganda taught under the guise of compulsory environmental-studies classes in British schools, confirming opinion-poll findings that the voters are no longer frightened by “global warming” scare stories, if they ever were.
When the Union’s president, Laura Winwood, announced the result in the Victorian-Gothich Gladstone Room, three peers cheered with the undergraduates, and one peer drowned his sorrows in beer.
Lord Lawson of Blaby, Margaret Thatcher’s former finance minister, opened the case for the proposition by saying that the economic proposals put forward by the UN’s climate panel and its supporters did not add up. It would be better to wait and see whether the scientists had gotten it right. It was not sensible to make expensive spending commitments, particularly at a time of great economic hardship, when the effectiveness of the spending was gravely in doubt and when it might do more harm than good.
At one point, Lord Lawson was interrupted by a US student, who demanded to know what was his connection with the Science and Public Policy Institute, and what were the Institute’s sources of funding. Lord Lawson was cheered when he said he neither knew nor cared who funded the Institute.
Ms. Zara McGlone, Secretary of the Oxford Union, opposed the motion, saying that greenhouse gases had an effect [they do, but it is very small]; that the precautionary principle required immediate action, just in case and regardless of expense [but one must also bear in mind the cost of the precautions themselves, which can and often do easily exceed the cost of inaction]; that Bangladesh was sinking beneath the waves [a recent study by Prof. Niklas Moerner shows that sea level in Bangladesh has actually fallen]; that the majority of scientists believed “global warming” was a problem [she offered no evidence for this]; and that “irreversible natural destruction” would occur if we did nothing [but she did not offer any evidence].
Mr. James Delingpole, a blogger for the leading British conservative national newspaper The Daily Telegraph, seconded the proposition, saying that – politically speaking – the climate extremists had long since lost the argument. The general public simply did not buy the scare stories any more. The endless tales of Biblical disasters peddled by the alarmist faction were an unwelcome and now fortunately failed recrudescence of dull, gray Puritanism. Instead of hand-wringing and bed-wetting, we should celebrate the considerable achievements of the human race and start having fun.
Lord Whitty, a Labor peer from the trades union movement and, until recently, Labor’s Environment Minister in the Upper House, said that the world’s oil supplies were rapidly running out [in fact, record new finds have been made in the past five years]; that we needed to change our definition of economic growth to take into account the value lost when we damaged the environment [it is artificial accounting of this kind that has left Britain as bankrupt as Greece after 13 years of Labor government]; that green jobs created by governments would help to end unemployment [but Milton Friedman won his Nobel Prize for economics by demonstrating that every artificial job created at taxpayers’ expense destroys two real jobs in the wealth-producing private sector]; that humans were the cause of most of the past century’s warming [there is no evidence for that: the case is built on speculation by programmers of computer models]; that temperature today was at its highest in at least 40 million years [in fact, it was higher than today by at least 12.5 F° for most of the past 550 million years]; and that 95% of scientists believed our influence on the climate was catastrophic [no one has asked them].
Lord Monckton repeatedly interrupted Lord Whitty to ask him to give a reference in the scientific literature for his suggestion that 95% of scientists believed our influence on the climate was catastrophic. Lord Whitty was unable to provide the source for his figure, but said that everyone knew it was true. Under further pressure from Lord Monckton, Lord Whitty conceded that the figure should perhaps be 92%. Lord Monckton asked: “And your reference is?” Lord Whitty was unable to reply. Hon. Members began to join in, jeering “Your reference? Your reference?” Lord Whitty sat down looking baffled.
Lord Leach of Fairford, whom Margaret Thatcher appointed a Life Peer for his educational work, spoke third for the proposition. He said that we no longer knew whether or not there had been much “global warming” over the 20th century, because the Climategate emails had exposed the terrestrial temperature records as defective. In any event, he said, throwing good money after bad on various alternative-energy boondoggles was unlikely to prove profitable in the long term and would ultimately do harm.
Mr. Rajesh Makwana, executive director of “Share The World’s Resources”, speaking third for the opposition, said that climate change was manmade [but he did not produce any evidence for that assertion]; that CO2 emissions were growing at 3% a year [but it is concentrations, not emissions, that may in theory affect climate, and concentrations are rising at a harmless 0.5% a year]; that the UN’s climate panel had forecast a 7 F° “global warming” for the 21st century [it’s gotten off to a bad start, with a cooling of 0.2 F° so far]; and that the consequences of “global warming” would be dire [yet, in the audience, sat Mr. Klaus-Martin Schulte, whose landmark paper of 2008 had established that not one of 539 scientific papers on “global climate change” provided any evidence whatsoever that “global warming” would be catastrophic].
Lord Monckton, a former science advisor to Margaret Thatcher during her years as Prime Minister of the UK, concluded the case for the proposition. He drew immediate laughter and cheers when he described himself as “Christopher Walter, Third Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, scholar, philanthropist, wit, man about town, and former chairman of the Wines and Spirits Committee of this honourable Society”. At that point his cummerbund came undone. He held it up to the audience and said, “If I asked this House how long this cummerbund is, you might telephone around all the manufacturers and ask them how many cummerbunds they made, and how long each type of cummerbund was, and put the data into a computer model run by a zitty teenager eating too many doughnuts, and the computer would make an expensive guess. Or you could take a tape-measure and” – glaring at the opposition across the despatch-box – “measure it!” [cheers].
Lord Monckton said that real-world measurements, as opposed to models, showed that the warming effect of CO2 was a tiny fraction of the estimates peddled by the UN’s climate panel. He said that he would take his lead from Lord Lawson, however, in concentrating on the economics rather than the science. He glared at the opposition again and demanded whether, since they had declared themselves to be so worried about “global warming”, they would care to tell him – to two places of decimals and one standard deviation – the UN’s central estimate of the “global warming” that might result from a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentration. The opposition were unable to reply. Lord Monckton told them the answer was 3.26 plus or minus 0.69 Kelvin or Celsius degrees. An Hon. Member interrupted: “And your reference is?” Lord Monckton replied: “IPCC, 2007, chapter 10, box 10.2.” [cheers]. He concluded that shutting down the entire global economy for a whole year, with all the death, destruction, disaster, disease and distress that that would cause, would forestall just 4.7 ln(390/388) = 0.024 Kelvin or Celsius degrees of “global warming”, so that total economic shutdown for 41 years would prevent just 1 K of warming. Adaptation as and if necessary would be orders of magnitude cheaper and more cost-effective.
Mr. Mike Mason, founder and managing director of “Climate Care”, concluded for the opposition. He said that the proposition were peculiar people, and that Lord Monckton was more peculiar than most, in that he was not a real Lord. Lord Monckton, on a point of order, told Mr. Mason that the proposition had avoided personalities and that if Mr. Mason were unable to argue other than ad hominem he should “get out”. [cheers] Mr. Mason then said that we had to prepare for climate risks [yes, in both directions, towards cooler as well as warmer]; and that there was a “scientific consensus” [but he offered no evidence for the existence of any such consensus, still less for the notion that science is done by consensus].
The President thanked the speakers and expressed the Society’s gratitude to the Science and Public Policy Institute for sponsoring the debate. Hon. Members filed out of the Debating Chamber, built to resemble the interior of the House of Commons, and passed either side of the brass division-pole at the main door – Ayes to the right 135, Noes to the left 110. Motion carried.
Sponsored IT training links:
Planning to take on MB2-632? Get complete set of 70-272 practice questions including 000-377 test demos for fail safe exam preparation.
The Met Office can take credit for this, by consistently mis-predicting their seasonal forecasts on the high side. Anyone in the UK with an IQ greater than 50 should understand by now that the models are nearly useless at making predictions more than three days out.
That was a Question for Moncton.
Hear! Hear! Three cheers for Lord Monckton!
Sorceror’s please.
==========
I love the Brits. Bloody well done.
I wonder how many warmists he can “Brench” press….;-)
Turning the corner. It is still going to be a long haul. Stay stubborn. stay relentless.
To bad there were no scientists or economists in the debate. See: http://www.oxford-union.org/term_events/economic_growth_debate
Were the debaters allowed to use Google? Here is one survey on what scientists think:
http://stats.org/stories/2008/global_warming_survey_apr23_08.html
Scientists agree that humans cause global warming
Ninety-seven percent of the climate scientists surveyed believe “global average temperatures have increased” during the past century.
Eighty-four percent say they personally believe human-induced warming is occurring, and 74% agree that “currently available scientific evidence” substantiates its occurrence. Only 5% believe that that human activity does not contribute to greenhouse warming; the rest are unsure.
Sincere congratulations to Mr. Monckton (his lordship apparently brought into question and I have no specific knowledge one way or the other).
The one thing that distresses me, however, in the larger global warming debate being carried out in the various countries around the world is what has been the result of climategate. It would seem to me that the voices on the side of raising the warming alarm have learned that it is ok to say whatever they want. So far nothing has really come of climategate. I see a trend toward simply ignoring that it ever happened and to continue on with the same arguments they were using before. And they are getting away with it.
The strategy seems to be remain quiet, allow the storm to blow over, and then continue on. And while discoveries are made concerning the accuracy of the data or the lack thereof, the rank and file citizens are kept in the dark. Yes, there are places like this where one can find such information if they go looking for it, but the “push” media, the information that simply appears on your car radio or on your television or your doorstep set hasn’t changed and never seems to inform the population about the realities of the situation. An example would be an article in the paper that I read yesterday about a man who swam across a glacial lake at the foot of Mt. Everest. The final paragraph was all about how the glaciers were melting away and he had to do this while he still could in order to “raise awareness” of the problem. It didn’t matter that the entire notion that the Himalayan glaciers were in danger of disappearing has been completely debunked. Most people are completely unaware that the glaciers are, in fact, quite healthy.
This disinformation is spread in articles that have nothing at all to do with climate and such articles are more beats on the drum in a constant cadence that is heard in schoolhouses, in the media, in popular culture, and in higher education. Yet the debunking of it gets no exposure.
We need more than just sites like this one (good as it is). We need more awareness in the push media to get the word out to people that it just isn’t so.
Outstanding! Thought Milord had been off the radar for a while but clearly not!
Prepare for complete ignorance from the MSM.
Monckton is one wicked debator. Climategate was the turning point against AGW fear-mongering, and the snowball is just growing in size.
In 20 years, AGW will equal The Red Scare in terms of silliness. Mr. Gore was right – the debate is over, and his side lost.
The result is about right as far as the general public, but I thought intellectuals were more brainwashed than that. Great stuff ‘and measure it.’
“”Mike says:
May 24, 2010 at 4:53 pm
To bad there were no scientists or economists in the debate. See: http://www.oxford-union.org/term_events/economic_growth_debate
Were the debaters allowed to use Google?”‘
Trix are for kids.
Scientists, economists, and Google can’t answer those questions either, that’s the point…………
The real significance of this result is that the Oxford Union (and its Cambridge counterpart) are where many ambitious young politicians hone their debating skills. It suggests that the next generation of British politicians will contain a considerable number of people who reject global warming alarmism.
It seems that Ms. McGlone was citing the Precautionary principle without reading the the internationally accepted meaning as given in the Rio declaration principle 17. The precautionary principle as stated in the rio declaration ” where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reasoning for postpoing COST EFFECTIVE measures to prevent environmental degradation”. It is not irregardless of the cost as reported in this blog. Are the measures in place today cost effective?
Things like this give me hope for Western Civilization….
But not this:-actually happened to me today.
This AM I was confronted with a Goreist Co-Worker who boldly
stated:”the reason it has been so cold is due to the unstable nature of the atmosphere
that hot and cold cycles are reversed! and the current cold snap in the west is due to that HUGE El Nino in the Pacific!” “That is a function of Global Warming.” I retorted-“Where did you get _that_, Dude?” “Why AlGore’s Books!” “He uses real science!”
I said “Ok Nino just croaked in the Pacific. The North Pacific appears to be cooling off
and a possible LaNina later on.” Dude retorted” Well that’s a part of it! it’s all interrelated!” I said” So sayeth the Profit?”
“Yes. AL’s a Modern Prophet!” “We need to heed his words!”
When this is all over Dude’s gonna need reprogramming and a Counselor…
Mike it’s no wonder that 84% of grant getters would like to keep getting their grants.That solves it for me, like the Monkees, “I’m a believer”.
From STATS Scientists surveyed;
Only 29% express a “great deal of confidence” that scientists understand the size and extent of anthropogenic [human] sources of greenhouse gases,” and only 32% are confident about our understanding of the archeological climate evidence.
The fact that 1000 scientists think “A” is right and 10 scientists think “B” is right is a mentally challenge reason to believe “A” is right.
Lysenkoism is a perfect example of the bandwagon effect run amuck just as Catastrophic Anthropomorphic Global Warming [CAGW] has.
Lysenkoism was a scientific concept that acquired traits could be passed from parent to child. We now know this cannot be true but all scientific societies in Russia at one time endorsed this flawed concept.
Learned papers were written and awards given for those that favored Lysenkoism and writing a paper or doing an experiment that might disprove Lysenkoism was a way to end a career.
A list of a dozen learned societies which endorsed Lysenkoism would be easy to compile since they all depended upon the government for funding and the government was in love with the theory.
The head of Russia [Stalin] was behind it 100 % and since the state was the main source of funds for research studies were done that validated the theory. Those that were skeptical of the theory were “branded deniers” or tools of the capitalists [big oil].
Since only studies which validated the theory were done and since all studies showed what was wanted lysenkoism became more and more accepted.
The parallels between lysenkoism and global warming are so obvious that only the blind cannot see them. The scientific process can be and has been bent to the will of the politicians by the simple use of money and fame.
The Army of Light and Truth won 245, to Forces of Darkness 0 for wit and sense of humor too. ROTFLMAO
Mike says: May 24, 2010 at 4:53 pm “Eighty-four percent say they personally believe human-induced warming is occurring, and 74% agree that “currently available scientific evidence” substantiates its occurrence.”
Mike, how many believe “…the notion that “global warming” is or could become a global crisis.” ?
I have yet to see an economic justification of trying to halt AGW that didn’t require a very low return on investment to justify it (like 1%), and a lot of moralistic argument trying to justify why 1% is a GOOD rate of return.
Someone needs to look at this blatant discrepancy immediately and report it
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.html
and this
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2010/anomnight.5.24.2010.gif
whio is right or who is lying/manipulating this?
Just look at Europe’s SST!!!
Please!!!
The (unrelated) claim in this post that Peak Oil has been postponed by massive discoveries is wrong. We’re still burning much more than we’re finding (quite apart from the recently graphically illustrated difficulties associated with recent finds). The public is also losing patience with plans to cover the countryside with renewable energy industry. Nuclear power is the only answer that will work. I recommend Dr David MacKay’s talks, e.g. http://today.caltech.edu/theater/item?story_id=44542 (note that he isn’t explicitly pronuclear, but he sure makes the difficulty of renewables obvious).
“”” Mike says:
May 24, 2010 at 4:53 pm
To bad there were no scientists or economists in the debate. See: http://www.oxford-union.org/term_events/economic_growth_debate
Were the debaters allowed to use Google? Here is one survey on what scientists think:
http://stats.org/stories/2008/global_warming_survey_apr23_08.html
Scientists agree that humans cause global warming
Ninety-seven percent of the climate scientists surveyed believe “global average temperatures have increased” during the past century.
Eighty-four percent say they personally believe human-induced warming is occurring, and 74% agree that “currently available scientific evidence” substantiates its occurrence. Only 5% believe that that human activity does not contribute to greenhouse warming; the rest are unsure. “””
Well the issue is not whether global average temperatures are warming (how would we know since it is impossible to measure); but whether such observations of global temperature anomalies are outside the bounds of natural variability.
And as for human effects; well Heisenberg tells us that simply trying to observe the state; results in changing that state; so what else is new. The more important issue is whether it is possible for the earth temperature system to go into runaway heating that leads to a hot Venus State. The last 600 million years of proxy data on Temperature, and CO2 says that it is not possible (based on observations to date) that earth’s (average) Temperature can exceed 22 deg C; let alone reach anything like the 450 deg C of Venus’ surface.. I’ll go out on a limb (or thin ice) and say it is not possible for earth mean global temperature to even reach 100 deg C; let alone 450. If the entire earth surface was an ideal black body; you might get to 72 deg C higher than the present +15 deg C; that is if nothing triued to stop you.
That projection is based on the assumption that the present earth is an isothermal surface at +15 deg C, and that it uniformly radiates at a constant 390 W/m^2 (Trenberth’s Number) and the BB total emittance for a +15 deg C black body.
If instead the average emittance of the surface were to be increased to 1000 W/m^2 matching the present AM-1 surface solar insolation max; which is exactly 2.56 times Trenberth’s number; well the square root of that is 1.6 and the square root of 1.6 is 1.25; so the temperature would increase by 25% (of 288K) which is 72 deg C increase.
Oops we only get 1000 W/m^2 in the hottest places and for a part of the day.
Good luck on getting to 87 deg C global average; no matter how much CO2 you have.
Besides that CO2 by itself cannot push your through the short wavelength edge of the CO2 15 micron absorption band, and get you over to the 4.0 micron CO2 band which is active on Venus.
This was a hugely entertaining write-up. I’d love to see a video of the entire event.
The Brits are damned funny, especially when they’re not trying to be. Good on us, and great for our side — by that I mean the rational side.
One should never engage in a battle of wits unarmed.
Monckton can slice and dice virtually all comers. It’s actually quite easy when you have the facts and truth on your side. Still…I worry about the 110 who voted the other way.
“”” crosspatch says:
May 24, 2010 at 4:56 pm
Sincere congratulations to Mr. Monckton (his lordship apparently brought into question and I have no specific knowledge one way or the other). “””
Well ignorance is no excuse for attacking any debater. Not all Lords are members of the House of Lords. But Viscounts most certainly are Lords (in the British scheme of things) and Christopher Monckton most certainly is the Third Viscount Monckton of Brenchley; and his title is; or at least was a hereditary title; earned by his grandfathter the First Viscount Monckton of Brenchley. And the hair stands up on the back of my neck any time I think about what this world would be like today; absent the contribution to history of Lord Cristopher Monckton’s Grandfather. We should all (‘mercans too) be thankful ; not only for Christopher Monckton’s contributions today; and for those of his illustrious ancestors.
As an earth science graduate of St. Andrews I am extremely proud that this was the first undergraduate debate (last year) to reject the AGW hypothesis. And it is absolutely fantastic to see the loss of control of the politically correct brigade in important fora such as the Oxford Union. The tide has truly turned.
I am currently busy reading Andrew Montfords (another St. Andrews grad) new book – The Hockey Stick Illusion. As well as being a damning piece of writing, it is amazing that this story makes such totally compulsive reading. It is impossible to put down …. bizarre since its a story about a graph ! I recommed anyone who hasn’t read it to get it !!!
@ Mike
Wow, there really must be a lot of scientists out there. If those numbers are correct and the current 31,000 scientists that signed the Oregon petition is anywhere close to being right, then there must be about 620,000 “scientists” in the U.S. alone that we’d take at their word without thinking critically. I don’t know about you, but me, I don’t believe there was a comprehensive polling of the “scientists”. You should read the methodology section at the bottom of your “poll”. 489 respondents. Could it be, that real scientists are more engaged with conducting science and less concerned about a show of hands by people that think the science is “settled”? I certainly hope so. They didn’t state how many questionnaires they sent.
Here’s something you conveniently left out of the article.
“The proportion of scientists who have a great deal of confidence in our understanding of the human-induced sources of global climate change rose from 22% in 1991 to 29% in 2007. Similarly, the proportion voicing confidence in our understanding of the archeological climate evidence rose from 20% to 32%.” …………….Uhmm,?,??,,?? Care to explain the converse? Probably not. Just sit and type, THERE’S A CONSENSUS!!!! As we starve mankind from energy and food: A man’s gotta feel good about that. “I’m helping save the world!!!!!” How many of our infirm and elderly in the U.S. alone have to die every summer and winter (having to chose between the increased cost of food and energy) before you say the cost is too high?
The Oxford Union has an interesting record. Possibly O/T but here goes:
From Wikipedia: ‘The King and Country debate was a discussion at the Oxford Union debating society on 9 February, 1933 of the resolution: “That this House will in no circumstances fight for its King and Country”. It was passed by 275 votes to 153, and became one of the most well-known and notorious debates conducted in the Union.’
Six years later, WWII broke out,
Mother Nature is the ultimate adjudicator – Lord Monckton’s debating form will not determine whether we will get CAGW, lukewarming, or another ice age.
UK center of climate change skeptics!
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/science/earth/25climate.html?hp
Some one PLEASE tell me this was recored on video.
chris1958,
You are making a serious error in presuming that this debate was about science. It was not. It is about politics and public perception. And the omens are not good for the purveyors of the CAGW scam.
“Scientists agree that humans cause global warming
Ninety-seven percent of the climate scientists surveyed believe “global average temperatures have increased” during the past century.
Eighty-four percent say they personally believe human-induced warming is occurring, and 74% agree that “currently available scientific evidence” substantiates its occurrence. Only 5% believe that that human activity does not contribute to greenhouse warming; the rest are unsure.”
And any scientist would also agree that when a match has been struck in the basement of a home in Minneapolis in January that it does, in fact, warm the house. However, there is no need to dismantle the furnace…
Well, as I said above, the Question was friendly to the pro-skeptic side, particularly at this point in history with a 2+ year economic crisis that is at least in the neighborhood (and is not over yet) of the Great Depression.
One could wonder how a question like “Resolved: Global Warming will be a serious threat to humanity before the end of the current century” would have come out.
One suspects that would have required entirely too much science for the audience. Also, any question that poses addressing an immediate thread vs addressing a longer-term threat inherently favors the side that wants to address the immediate threat first.
I do not mean in any way to take Lord Moncton’s laurels away –but he was probably purring like a tiger who’d just had a tummy rub over the form the Question took.
Oops. I mean ‘Referees, please’.
==============
chris1958 says: “…….Mother Nature is the ultimate adjudicator – Lord Monckton’s debating form will not determine whether we will get CAGW, lukewarming, or another ice age.”
Neither will a computer model or an alleged show of hands by the apparent 489 scientists Mike represented as a truism. The most laughable prospect of this entire CAGW “debate” is the premise that mankind won’t be able to adapt. In my perspective, that doesn’t sit well with Darwin’s model nor with the history of mankind. Maybe he was FOS after all.
Human Person Jr says:
“The Brits are damned funny, especially when they’re not trying to be. ”
Not sure that everyone else knows exactly when we are trying to be funny.
LOL< ICECAP carried it as "Forces of Goodness and Light" 135, "Forces of Darkness'" 110
That's appropriate, I think.
To clarify, in most cultures it seems usual to signal, unconsciously or not, that you are trying to be funny, especially if you are being ironic, understated, surreal or self-deprecating and there is the possibility that you might be taken seriously. I think that’s largely true of the US, for example.
In Britain, irony, understatement, surreality and self-deprecation are just taken for granted, often not signalled, and someone not very familiar with the culture could easily be mistaken about what is or isn’t intended to be serious.
Mike says:
Scientists agree that humans cause global warming
Ninety-seven percent of the climate scientists surveyed believe “global average temperatures have increased” during the past century.
Eighty-four percent say they personally believe human-induced warming is occurring, and 74% agree that “currently available scientific evidence” substantiates its occurrence. Only 5% believe that that human activity does not contribute to greenhouse warming; the rest are unsure.
Yeah, and . . . ?
Well, gosh. I believe every one of those things. So does Anthony. And so does Lord Monckton! So do the great majority of all skeptics, for that matter.
At one point, Lord Lawson was interrupted by a US student
Had to be an American. Thanks a lot!
….the majority of scientists believed “global warming” was a problem [she offered no evidence for this]…
They never do.
“irreversible natural destruction” would occur if we did nothing [but she did not offer any evidence]
They never do. Unless it’s a climate model.
Moncton Rules! So does the Sun.
….the world’s oil supplies were rapidly running out [in fact, record new finds have been made in the past five years]
And there’s plenty in Alaska.
“netdr says:
[…]
Lysenkoism was a scientific concept that acquired traits could be passed from parent to child. We now know this cannot be true but all scientific societies in Russia at one time endorsed this flawed concept.[…]”
The funny thing is that sometimes it can, see Methylation, Paramutation, Epigenetics:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetic_inheritance
Lord Whitty sat down looking baffled.
As he should have.
Lord Monckton, a former science advisor to Margaret Thatcher during her years as Prime Minister of the UK, concluded the case for the proposition. He drew immediate laughter and cheers when he described himself as “Christopher Walter, Third Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, scholar, philanthropist, wit, man about town, and former chairman of the Wines and Spirits Committee of this honourable Society”. At that point his cummerbund came undone. He held it up to the audience and said, “If I asked this House how long this cummerbund is, you might telephone around all the manufacturers and ask them how many cummerbunds they made, and how long each type of cummerbund was, and put the data into a computer model run by a zitty teenager eating too many doughnuts, and the computer would make an expensive guess. Or you could take a tape-measure and” – glaring at the opposition across the despatch-box – “measure it!” [cheers].
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
He was in his element!
They are not factoring in the “kid” factor.
All of the people pushing global warming are old geisers to these kids.
“don’t trust anyone over 30”
Kids like to rebel and feel like they are doing something new, making their own way.
Now this is old, tired, and something their parents generation pushed to them.
Not to mention all of their old geiser teachers.
I think it’s just about run it’s course, and time has run out. It’s no longer cool.
“”For what is believed to be the first time ever in England, an audience of university undergraduates has decisively rejected the notion that “global warming” is or could become a global crisis.””
And the second it’s no longer perceived as cool….
@Mike: Regarding the survey at: http://stats.org/stories/2008/global_warming_survey_apr23_08.html
Note the sample size. n = 489. That gives you a margin of error of about five percentage points. Note that the non-response rate among the more than 50,000 members of AMS and AGU is not mentioned anywhere.
Anyway, with n = 489, the margin of error is about 4.4 percentage points. Therefore,
should be stated as “the scientists who responded to the survey are about equally split as to whether the warming measured over the last hundred years is not “within the range of natural temperature fluctuation.”
Further, with a margin of error of 4.4 points, I would not put much stock in the statement that
either given the my doubts about sample selection bias induced by non-response.
Dr. Dave says:
May 24, 2010 at 5:37 pm
Still…I worry about the 110 who voted the other way.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
It was “an audience of university undergraduates”. That is an age group that leans heavily toward believing in “manmade” global warming. It was not a group of 40 to 70 year olds. Be happy. This vote is noteworthy.
To Lord M., four marks
Entertaining article, and I am encouraged by the result, but one thing caught my eye: “CO2 is rising by a harmless 0.5% per year”, or words to that effect. 20 years of such an increase would lead to levels 10% higher than today. I think that’s unlikely to be harmful, but it’s not valid to pretend that such a change is just noise in the signal. If you have a basis for stating that’s harmless, then fine, trot it out. Otherwise, you’re making an argument by assertion, which is exactly what the Goracles do all the time. Best to avoid their tactics.
> Stephan says:
> May 24, 2010 at 5:26 pm
> Someone needs to look at this blatant discrepancy immediately and report it…
Actually, as near as I can figure out by looking at the two images they show similar results. The problem as I see it is the NOAA site uses shades of yellow then red to show warmer than normal temperatures while Unisys uses shades of green for the first degree – up to around 2 degrees positive, then shifts to yellow and then red. Also Unisys puts temperatures measured in some of the warmer (and cooler) spots so one has an idea of what exactly one is looking at, NOAA seems to overlook this point…
It could depend on what each of their respective funding models are based on – if they need to alarm then using yellow (and then red) starting at 0.5 degrees makes sense – these are universal warning colours. If, on the other hand, you are trying to present the data calmly and accurately and perhaps are not so worried about funding sources then you would explain the results better and use a wider range of colours to help folks see the graphical results more accurately. What do you think?
(unless, like 10% of males – myself included – you are colour blind/deficient to red/green so can’t see the different shades as easily – if at all. For example, I can see the shades in the legend but not descern them as easily on the NOAA chart, the Unisys chart is much easier to see – the colours are more separated in tone.)
John :-#)#
I found this fascinating and entertaining.
And it got me to thinking. Anthony, could you help us out and print the transcript from the debate Al Gore participated in at the Oxford Union. You know, the one where he defended his position and made a strong argument for the catastrophic global warming case. Where he subjected himself to the give and take of a true debate and responded forthrightly to the challenge of an informed opposition. The one where he stood his ground and triumphed in the end through superior knowledge and argument. I can’t seem to find a copy of the transcipt anywhere.
This is a debating society, The vote should be made on the basis of who were the best debaters; not whether the motion was correct or not. A famous debate was on the motion the “There are fairies at the bottom of our garden”. This was in pre-war Britian, when “fairies” had only one meaning.
So dont get the impression that the skeptics won the debate, The debaters won the debate by their eloquence.
Bravo:
chris1958 5:50 pm May 24 “Mother Nature is the ultimate adjudicator […]”
James Sexton 6:09 pm May 24 “[…] doesn’t sit well with Darwin’s model […]”
Surely you realize there have been substantial updates since Darwin. Example: Ever heard of DNA?
Al, baby, when ya gonna accept Lord Monckton’s challenge? Huh? Yeah, that’s what I thought, coward.
It’s the mad skillz that Lord Monckton displayed that keeps the likes of AlGore and his fellow believers in their cocoons. Far easier to preach to the choir than actually put your beliefs in full view, open to debate.
Dr. Dave says:
May 24, 2010 at 5:37 pm
Still…I worry about the 110 who voted the other way.
I’d like to see a breakdown by major.
DirkH says:
May 24, 2010 at 6:36 pm
Epigenetics is going to force a lot of rethinking on the part of a lot of people.
At least for those capable of realizing the implications.
it is depressing that, apart from james delingpole’s blog, no media in UK reported the Oxford Union Debate (btw the media often does cover them).
the reuters summit linked below is more appealing to the media, even tho u could well argue that BBC’s Pension funds are more at risk because they are following Stern’s advice:
1 May: Licence fee to plug BBC’s £1bn pension hole
An individual close to the BBC who is aware of the findings said the deficit is £1.5billion “give or take £100m”. ..
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/tv_and_radio/article7114129.ece
24 May: Reuters: Pension wealth at risk as climate priority slips
Pension funds must shift more capital into low-carbon energy to drive long-term returns, British academic Nicholas Stern told Reuters Global Energy Summit….
“Investing long-term in dirty technologies is actually risking their clients’ money,” said Stern…
Stern said one way to tilt the balance in favor of low carbon technologies may be a carbon price floor, which would boost cap and trade schemes meant to penalize fossil fuels.
A future carbon price of about $50, for example, may be needed to support carbon capture and storage — a technology meant to bury the greenhouse gases emitted by coal plants – compared with about 15 euros ($18.55) in Europe now.
One problem for governments implementing such advice was the added cost for populations facing rising unemployment, since utilities pass on added, “green” costs to consumers.
“The price per unit of electricity might have to go up by 15 or 20 percent, over time,” he said…
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64N2Y620100524
This is the most refreshing article WUWT has run in MANY weeks. Thanks for the welcome flashback. Vinegar & hot pepper are ALWAYS welcome in a nourishing meal – (but nevermind the BS – no one wants or needs crap in a healthy meal).
John Q Public says:
May 24, 2010 at 4:57 pm
“In 20 years, AGW will equal The Red Scare in terms of silliness.”
This may be OT, but the Red Scare was anything but silly. The Soviets built the largest tank armies the world has ever seen, far larger than anything NATO had, and pronounced publicly and often that they intended to bury the West. Fortunately for us, they spent themselves into the grave.
“Mother Nature is the ultimate adjudicator – Lord Monckton’s debating form will not determine whether we will get CAGW, lukewarming, or another ice age.” – Chris
Yeah… but maybe just maybe it will help prevent a bunch of counterproductive laws and taxes in the mean time.
While this is very welcome and it’s true that Oxford students are likely to make up many of the next generation of politicians – and heads of eco organizations for that matter – they are no real indication of what is “cool”. They are also very unrepresentative of their age group or even students as a whole.
Paul Vaughan says:
May 24, 2010 at 7:20 pm
James Sexton 6:09 pm May 24 “[…] doesn’t sit well with Darwin’s model […]“
Surely you realize there have been substantial updates since Darwin. Example: Ever heard of DNA?
Yep, sure have. Please explain to me how the discovery of DNA significantly changes the theory. As I understand it, according to recent theory, DNA, also, evolves. This could be reflective of evolution or the cause for evolution, or it all could be a bunch of bs. In any case, I’m really interested in how you believe DNA prevents us from adapting to our environment.
RE: Mike
May 24, 2010 at 4:53 pm
I think you missed the point. The question of whether global average temperatures have increased over the last century is meaningless in the big scheme of things. So is the assertion that humans contribute to warming. Asking less than 500 self identified members of the AMS or AGU (because of course there is no world outside of america) their opinion on these two questions is also largely meaningless. I’m sure that most sceptics would agree with those two statements, I certainly do.
The important question is how much warming and what is the climate sensitivity to CO2. Alarmists seem to love bringing up the meaningless points and trying to stick to them because they don’t seem to have many substantial points beyond that.
As soon as you start to try and engage alarmists in a meanigful discussion it all of a sudden becomes ‘consensus’ and ‘you don’t believe in gravity’ and ‘so’s your face’.
Slammed!
I’m a 9th grader in NYC, and I’m interested in interviewing someone (by phone or in person) about their views about human-caused global warming. If you’re interested, please contact me at jstevenso@stuy.edu.
Mike
Since when is science decided by a vote. Science is decided by evidence. So produce evidence that humans are causing the warming which is predicted by the models and the IPCC.
Most sceptics do not deny warming they are simply unsure of its cause.
Lord Monckton said that real-world measurements, as opposed to models, showed that the warming effect of CO2 was a tiny fraction of the estimates peddled by the UN’s climate panel.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
So WattsUpWith climate models? Richard Lindzen likens them to Ouija boards:
Remember that the effect of CO2 on temperature is logarithmic. A doubling (sans any forcing) will increase temperatures about one or two degrees (sorry, I can’t remember and I’m too lazy to look it up). Therefore a 10% increase (one tenth of a doubling) will have an insignificant impact.
Not sure if this has already been posted, but let’s add another variable to the climate mix: Bacteria for Cloud Seeding (see http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/science/25snow.html?ref=science)
Don’t you wish more scientists would echo the last line of the article: “There’s more work to do,” Dr. Sands said. “It’s a great big complicated picture.” Priceless!
Meanwhile, NorCal is getting ready for MORE rain & snow (in the Sierras)…This is wreaking havoc with my backyard project (and delaying my already-late tomatoes).
Mike makes a common mistake.
It is the way the survey is conducted that determines the outcome.
A survey people choose to respond to cannot present reliable data.
This is a great article. Is there a video of the debate? I’d love to watch it.
My impression is that the warmists’ side was unprepared and not adept at debating, and therefore that their side would have won if they’d brought their A team (Alas.)
It’s odd that they didn’t, because the post-debate analysis of the St. Andrews confrontation came to the same conclusion: i.e., that the warmists were poor debaters and poorly prepared.
Not sure how important it is – yet hear Bonham’s drum intro to “When the Levee Breaks.”
Mike says:
May 24, 2010 at 4:53 pm
The survey is biased into giving a bland output not contradicting AGW.
I am a strong advocated that the Anthropogenic in Global Warming is wildly exaggerated in the IPCC reports and the media, and that there are no decisive data on the subject, both due to Climategate and bad science ( surface stations). Nevertheless I would be in the positive answers , because of the way the questions must have been asked. The world has been warming ever since the little ice age, green house gasses have an effect, humans in general affect the environment etc.
Where is the answer to the question: is CO2 the main culprit of the observed warming?
To the question of catastrophy there is the bland :
“The proportion of scientists who have a great deal of confidence in our understanding of the human-induced sources of global climate change rose from 22% in 1991 to 29% in 2007. Similarly, the proportion voicing confidence in our understanding of the archeological climate evidence rose from 20% to 32%. “
On the principle: the glass is 1/3 full and not 2/3 empty.
After twenty years of media blitz and the indoctrination peddled by general science magazines, like Sci American and National Geographic, and lite peer reviewed Science and Nature, ( most scientists are informed about other than their own field from such outlets) the percentage rose only 10%?
And that is interpreted as most scientists are convinced?
pat says: May 24, 2010 at 7:35 pm
“..even tho u could well argue that BBC’s Pension funds are more at risk because they are following Stern’s advice:..”
http://www.iigcc.org/index.aspx
“The Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC) is a forum for collaboration on climate change for European investors. The group’s objective is to catalyse greater investment in a low carbon economy by bringing investors together to use their collective influence with companies, policymakers and investors. The group currently has over 50 members, including some of the largest pension funds and asset managers in Europe, and represents assets of around €4trillion. A full list of members is available on the membership page”.
Remember the phrase “to use their collective influence with companies, policymakers and investors”
http://www.iigcc.org/membership.aspx
Members of the IIGCC include (I trimmed the list a bit):
BBC Pension Trust
Bedfordshire Pension Fund
BT Pension Scheme
Corporation of London Pension Fund
Environment Agency Pension Fund
Greater Manchester Pension Fund
Kent County Council
London Borough of Hounslow Pension Fund
London Borough of Islington Pension Fund
London Borough of Newham Pension Fund
London Pensions Fund Authority
South Yorkshire Pensions Authority
The Church Commissioners for England
The Church in Wales
Universities Superannuation Scheme
West Midlands Metropolitan Authorities Pension Fund
West Yorkshire Pension Fund
To be a bit more specific as to the BBC AGW Bias:
http://www.professionalpensions.com/professional-pensions/news/1440290/iigcc-calls-urgent-changes-encourage-institutional-investment
“Professional Pensions | 19 May 2009 | 01:00
Categories: Investment
Carbon markets need urgent changes in order to encourage institutional investment and the development of a low-carbon economy, the Institutional Investor Group on Climate Change says.
The group is calling for strong price signals and caps on carbon emissions that will encourage scarcity and demand.
IIGCC chairman and BBC head of pensions investment Peter Dunscombe said: “The credibility of emissions trading schemes would be greatly improved with a robust price signal as well as clear and frequent communication from the regulator on trading data and improved transparency over direct government participation in schemes.”
”
Did you catch that: “IIGCC chairman and BBC head of pensions investment Peter Dunscombe…”
The BBC is the Chair of this Carbon Trading driven investment scheme!
Recall: “to use their collective influence with companies, policymakers and investors”
Dr Dave
“Still…I worry about the 110 who voted the other way.”
This bothers me too. 45% remain convinced after being so thoroughly trounced. It’s like trying to persuade “Beloved Leader” that North Korea’s political system is not the world’s best.
Still, it’s a start.
[snip – off topic politics]
To me the most significant aspect of this debate triumph is that it was voted by an audience composed of university undergrads. Given the demographics of undergrad populations this means that virtually all of them have spent their entire lives immersed in an ocean of CAGW propaganda. The schools they attended, the entertainment and entertainers they idolized, almost every element of life they have ever been exposed to, has been mobilized to convince them that to “save the planet” they must reject the demon carbon and embrace “greenness” as the ultimate good. Aspects of their education that would enhance their ability for critical thought have been minimized and the notion that it is not what an idea or statement makes you think, but how it makes you feel that is of ultimate importance in judging its merit has been the mantra of their lives.
If the CAGW crowd can’t convince that jury on the merits, it really is “much worse than they thought.” The young have always been the primary targets of the collectivist establishment, often to the point where, if you had attempted similar brainwashing on your own children, in your own home, on less politically correct topics, you’d have found yourself the subject of a child abuse investigation in many venues of the western world. If they are losing among the young and are coming to realize that fact, it might provide some explanation for the increasingly bizarre episodes of press release science we have been showered with in recent weeks.
Of course that doesn’t mean that they are likely to concede their position. It is obvious from recent events that the will of the people will not deter them from their plans as long as they maintain the political power to inflict them on us unhindered.
The one halfway admirable quality that adherents of the statist mindset have demonstrated is their willingness to be in it for the long haul. If, when faced with ultimate loss, the adherents of individual liberty and freedom aren’t willing to show even greater endurance we will deserve our fate and the curses our descendants and posterity heap upon our cowardice.
netdr said (May 24, 2010 at 5:13 pm): “The fact that 1000 scientists think “A” is right and 10 scientists think “B” is right is a mentally challenge reason to believe “A” is right. Lysenkoism is a perfect example of the bandwagon effect run amuck just as Catastrophic Anthropomorphic Global Warming [CAGW] has.”
Your history is flawed. Lysenko’s theory – which was about gain crops not people – was endorsed and enforced by the Stalinist state. People who opposed it were sent to Siberian labor camps or worse. They weren’t afraid of losing their grants! They were afraid of losing their lives. There was no bandwagon effect.
If you read this blog you’d know that many papers that minimize the likely effects of AGW are published and researchers do not lose their funding or jobs for this. Most of the research points toward AWG as real and serious. In the survey I cited “41% of scientists believe global climate change will pose a very great danger” while “44% rate climate change as moderately dangerous.” They are not all marching in lock step. Since 85% of our best minds think our present course is moderately to greatly dangerous it makes sense for us to consider ways to mitigate climate change as well to find ways to adapt to it. Climate change is not going to wipe out humanity, but it is likely AGW will inflict significant hardships. So, let’s look at ways to reduce GHG emissions – we cannot eliminate them. While the cost of doing this is real it is smaller than the likely costs of doing nothing.
George Smith: No one has projected that Earth will end up like Venus, not even Heisenberg.
Jim Cripwell says:
May 24, 2010 at 7:13 pm
Did we read the same article?
Anthropogenic, not Anthropomorphic. Big difference.
chris1958 says: ‘The Oxford Union has an interesting record. Possibly O/T but here goes: From Wikipedia:…[yatta-yatta]”
Say no more. I’m sure, based on your opening, that you are proposing yet another OT ad hominem argument, one that has zero relevance to the subject at hand. Nor do I particularly care about your Wankapedia quotation.
Finally the warmists decide to actually debate. Bravo! It’s about time.
I’m especially glad they decided to not hold back their true ad hominem colors in such a public way, so typical. Generalities, baseless arguments, blind authority, blame and insult. The young people, even children, can see right through it.
As stated in http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/science/earth/25climate.html?hp
As you can tell there is no longer logic in their statements, there is no overwhelming scientific agreement, and the world has awaken to it. They almost had the public lulled asleep, myself included a few years ago, but never again. Just be glad they talk so much, for without being able to hear their words and tone of their thoughts, many might have never suspected what is really going on.
FijiDave says:
May 24, 2010 at 8:48 pm
Dr Dave
“Still…I worry about the 110 who voted the other way.”
Do you fellows not understand that a year or two ago this number would have been double what it is today? This is a victory of the highest order. The undergrads are in the “belly of the beast” and yet the majority voted against the beast.
Mike,
Why is the likely cost of eliminating climate change lower than the cost of adapting to climate change? Humanity has been adapting to climate change for thousands of years at affordable cost. We’ve made it through larger swings in the past.
If anything, the hardest thing to survive will be the next ice age.
Dave Wendt says:
May 24, 2010 at 9:06 pm
You said it much better than I could. Cheers !!!
Matta said (May 24, 2010 at 8:09 pm): “Mike[:] Since when is science decided by a vote. Science is decided by evidence. So produce evidence that humans are causing the warming which is predicted by the models and the IPCC. Most sceptics do not deny warming they are simply unsure of its cause.”
Matt, evidence has to be evaluated. In a complex area evidence will not uniformly point toward the same conclusion. So, panels of scientists with our National Academy of Science have been formed to review the evidence and assess it. They have concluded that human GHG emission are beginning to cause changes to Earth’s climate and that if our GHG emissions continue it is very like to lead to severe climate change imposing serious hardships on humanity.
There are many places where you can read some of the evidence, but you are not likely by yourself to be able to assess all of it and determine if the bulk of the evidence supports AGW or not. There is just too much to sort through and assessing it requires expertise in many different fields. That’s way Congress has asked the NAS to do this review. Their reports can be found here:
http://www.nationalacademies.org/morenews/20100519.html
“May 19, 2010 — As part of its most comprehensive study of climate change to date, the National Research Council today issued three reports emphasizing why the U.S. should act now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and develop a national strategy to adapt to the inevitable impacts of climate change. The reports are part of a congressionally requested suite of five studies known as America’s Climate Choices.”
Similar review panels have come to basically the same concludes in dozens of different countries. IPCC is simply an international review panel. If you want to know the IPCC’s evidence, read their report. It is not perfect, nothing is. But that is where you can find the evidence you seek. http://www.ipcc.ch/
MrPete said (May 24, 2010 at 9:27 pm): “Mike [wrote] “While the cost of doing this is real it is smaller than the likely costs of doing nothing.” Why is the likely cost of eliminating climate change lower than the cost of adapting to climate change? Humanity has been adapting to climate change for thousands of years at affordable cost. We’ve made it through larger swings in the past. If anything, the hardest thing to survive will be the next ice age.”
Economics is not an exact science. All I can say is this the conclusion most economic studies I have seen come to. Here is one study on the costs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stern_Review. According to it, “the benefits of strong, early action on climate change considerably outweigh the costs. It proposes that one percent of global gross domestic product (GDP) per annum is required to be invested in order to avoid the worst effects of climate change, and that failure to do so could risk global GDP being up to twenty percent lower than it otherwise might be.”
However, if the cost of reducing GHG turns out to be very high, we can back off and try something else. We are not jumping off a cliff. I will add that this is an area I do not know a great deal about, but I am trying to learn more. As of now I support cap-and-trade, but I may change my mind as I learn more.
While humans experienced major climate changes in the past these occurred gradually. Furthermore, human civilization has not experienced the rate of change in climate conditions that we are very likely to experience. Do keep that in mind.
Good night!
robert smart – peak oil ? are you kidding ? the athabasca oil sands in northern alberta contain somewhere between 2.5 and 3 trillion barrels of oil ; the bakken oil shale formation straddling the border between canada and the usa contain another 800 billion barrels. all that is needed is the technology and political will to develop them. eo – irregardless is not a real word : it is regardless.
Given the framing of the debate, “This House would put economic growth before combating climate change,” and the expertise of the opposition, I’m surprised the vote was so close.
Framed a different way, “This house would take action to combat climate change,” and more knowledgeable debaters, I would expect a different outcome.
The Oxford Union web site (see below) doesn’t give much information. I couldn’t find the outcome of debates . Does anyone know a source for this information?
http://www.oxford-union.org/term_events/economic_growth_debate
George E. Smith says:
May 24, 2010 at 5:44 pm
We should all (‘mercans too) be thankful…
Good Sir, I must respectfully ask you address me and my fellow US citizens as “basket weaving capitalist monkey brain colonials with the attention span of a herd of cats in denial of reality”
Your attention to this matter in the future is most appreciated. K?
crosspatch says:
May 24, 2010 at 4:56 pm
Sincere congratulations to Mr. Monckton (his lordship apparently brought into question and I have no specific knowledge one way or the other).
===================================
If you have the arrogance and lack of respect to manually change his name from “Lord” to “Mr”, based upon somebody else’s accusation, does your opinion then really matter on this subject?
It doesn’t.
And given his accomplishments, international pedigree, and razor-sharp wit and mind…I will take HIS word on who he is, and not yours.
I’ve got a better idea…if you have your doubts enough to insult him in print…why not show a little honor and ask him directly.
I’ve got his email and he is good about responding. Email me at sharkhearted@gmail.com
To Lord Monckton: I cheered in my own living room reading the account of the debate.
BRAVO!! Keep up the good work.
Chris
Norfolk (not East Anglia) VA, USA
chris1958 says:
Lord Monckton’s debating form will not determine whether we will get CAGW, lukewarming, or another ice age.
=============================
Whoever the hell ever said…that it would??
Non sequitur.
Of course Mother Nature is the ultimate adjudicator. (duh).
Some people, though, are more concerned about the truth, rather than politics politico-science, and are not afraid at all…to debate.
Lord Monckton has proven himself to be one of those [and he does it with such bravura and eloquence!].
In this case, he won the debate.
And chances are…for the rest of his life….whatever Mother Nature is doing…I think its a firm bet that he will be trying to figure her out…and be on HER side of the “adjudication”.
Unlike some of the other politically and greedy economically driven counterparts, like Al Gore….who, incidentally, has run the other direction every time Lord Monckton offered to debate him in public!
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Mike says:
May 24, 2010 at 9:06 pm
“Climate change is not going to wipe out humanity, but it is likely AGW will inflict significant hardships. So, let’s look at ways to reduce GHG emissions – we cannot eliminate them. While the cost of doing this is real it is smaller than the likely costs of doing nothing.”
What exactly do you see as the significant hardships that await us in the future.
Catastrophic weather? Almost everything I’ve seen suggests hurricanes, cyclones, tornadoes, droughts and floods have been flat to declining for the period of supposedly unprecedented warming in the decades of this controversy.
Sea level rise? If you double the already doubtful presently claimed trend and straight line it out to 2100, you get 22 inches, as opposed to the 7-9 inches per century that has been occurring for millenia without anyone much noticing.
Disappearing ice? The ice in the Arctic has been declining and we are evidently supposed to view that with great alarm, although the only real detriment claimed for the disappearing ice is possible greater warming, which since we have recently experienced a summer minimum fully 80% of its potential range of decline with no real evidence of this enhanced warming occurring my own reaction remains “so what”
Ocean “acidification”? Ocean dealkalinizing is more correct and there is evidence that mean PH has reduced slightly, but well within the range of its cyclical variability. And since ocean PH is widely variable both temporally and spatially over ranges that are many orders of magnitude greater than any predicted decline in the mean PH claims of catastrophic consequences to species which must deal with that variability to survive seem wildly exaggerated.
You also claim that the cost of suppressing Co2 will be small compared to the potential costs of these looming disasters. I suggest you get yourself a good Econ 101 text, I recommend Thomas Sowell’s, and study the chapter on “opportunity costs” until you can really grok the concept. In a world of finite resources, the choice to do one thing always involves the choice not to do a wide assortment of other things. Bjorn Lomburg and Indur Goklany have both done quite revealing work on how this relates to the proposed GHG solutions.
If none of this still convinces you, consider this. Given the highly unpredictable nature of the future we face, what we will need to maximize to best insure our prospects of survival and prosperity is our adaptability and efficiency. The UN and multinational bureaucracies that we are being enjoined to grant nearly total sovereignty over are lives too, have repeatedly demonstrated themselves to be the least adaptable, least efficient institutions humanity has ever created and putting any part of our future in their hands is a gauranteed recipe for disaster, even if the sacrifice of liberty and prosperity that they demand was somehow found to be tolerable.
Congratulations! It makes sense. I hope that from the students, public, etc., this new way of rationality will spread to higher layers, too.
And this debate took place LAST WEEK ! ! ! !
No mention on the BBC radio or TV or anything in my local paper.
The forces of darkness still prevail here in the UK. 🙁
Wet blanket Larry thinks that a better title for the article would have been:
Alarmists have lost every debate in front of a voting, educated audience
Schlesinger loses to Christy
Gavin Schmidt et al loses to Michael Crichton et al
http://www.crichton-official.com/video-iq2debate-part1.html
What kind of “undergrad” goes to a debate?
Shouldn’t they be out drinking beer, someplace?
Dave Wendt says:
May 24, 2010 at 11:14 pm
=============================
Your post was so damn good I saved it for future reference. Well said!
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
I’m sorry to say that the Oxford Union debate is an irrelevancy. Nobody cares about it any more. It is less significant than the boat race.
The most famous (or nototious) Oxford Union debate in history occurred in 1935. The motion was “That this House will in no circumstances fight for its King and Country”.
The proposition was voted as having been accepted by 275 to 153. It made headlines around the world. Soon afterwards a Member of Parliament was in Germany and wrote this:
I remember very vividly, a few months after the famous pacifist resolution at the Oxford Union visiting Germany and having a talk with a prominent leader of the young Nazis. He was asking about this pacifist motion and I tried to explain it to him. There was an ugly gleam in his eye when he said, “The fact is that you English are soft”. Then I realized that the world enemies of peace might be the pacifists.”
Four years later England was at war. it would be interesting to find out how many of the 253 reacted to the coming of the conflict.
I am sure Mother Nature was listening and takes it as a vote of no-confidence in her stewardship of the climate.
Three Cheers for M’Lord Monckton!
Hip Hip Hurray
Hip Hip Hurray
Hip Hip Hurray!!
There is some sanity left in Merry Old England… (may the 1/3 or so of my family that is still there find happiness and freedom after all).
@Mike
“Scientists agree that humans cause global warming
Ninety-seven percent of the climate scientists surveyed believe “global average temperatures have increased” during the past century.”
Luckily for us, Science is not a matter of “belief” nor of “agreement”. The notion of “Scientific Consensus” is an absurd oxymoron. Do I really need to run down the litany of wrong things that nearly 100% of scientists believed prior to their being tossed out as trash? Leaches. Cupping. Aether. Static continents. My personal favorite “the Expanding Earth” theory ( there really was a theory that the continents spread due to the earth expanding… where the matter came from being unasked) and such others as Newton being an alchemist and astrologer. Oh, and do remember that Newton was wrong. Einstein showed that he missed a term on the equation that matters at high speeds. And Einstein was shown to be wrong (he did not “believe” in quantum mechanics). And everyone knew the earth was the center of the universe too…
Yes sirrah and sirree, that “belief” and “consensus” method can sure get you into a lot of trouble…
Also, per your economic arguments: Reminds me of that time honored tradition in economic justifications:
“Given these conclusions what assumptions can I draw?”
A standard in most government studies and an essential for all grant requests…
You may be missing the point. The debates are about debate, not right or wrong answers.
Kermit the Frog, controversial television host Jerry Springer, model Jerry Hall and Leonard Nimoy – Star Trek’s Captain Spock – have all addressed the union. Barry White on weighty issues and Richard Nixon on political honesty.
Footballer Diego Maradona famously juggled a golf ball on his foot during his stint while former footballer-turned-presenter Gary Lineker debated the motion “this house would rather participate than commentate”.
The debates are wonderful venues for free speech, but try not to read to much into the results, the debates are fun, but not an academic forum.
A superb extract from the debate at http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2010/5/24/global-warming-debate-at-oxford.html
“that temperature today was at its highest in at least 40 million years”
Show that idiot the Greenland temperature record. I have added last century and the allegedly anthropogenic contribution made in green.
http://i45.tinypic.com/2uzz32v.jpg
“Lord Whitty was unable to reply. Hon. Members began to join in, jeering “Your reference? Your reference?” Lord Whitty sat down looking baffled.”
More a case of a sincerely held belief being contradicted than a reaction by a member of a political movement engaged in a nefarious conspiracy. Countering sincerely held stupidity is the most difficult of all tasks.
Does anyone know of a good analysis of the politics of energy in the world?
I know it is a big question but somewhere to start…
I’ve been waiting a few years now for real evidence of serious AGW (even flawed models could have been right/lucky) but it just doesn’t materialise. I’m now left concluding it is all about energy and politics.
Lord Monckton debate 24. maj in Cross Talk on Climate at Russian Today
@Mike, I think that you’d have gotten roughly the same answers from sceptics that you got from the scientists. Most sceptics believe the temperature has been rising and that some of the rise in temperature could have been caused by human activities. But let’s get to the nub of the issue, a doubling in CO2, all other things being equal, will give a temperature rise of around 1C. The leap in faith for the believers is that this will be amplified to around 3-5C by water vapour, and this will result in the poles melting, the seas rising, and bizarrely more frequent and violent weather events. Is there any scientific proof for this?
@Human Person Jr:
“The Brits are damned funny, especially when they’re not trying to be. ”
You will never hear a Brit say – “not” to demonstrate they are being funny. Go look at their blogs, no one says “/sarc off”. So you either have their humour and recognise it without neon signs saying “I’m being funny” or you don’t and assume they’re funny when they’re not trying.
Meanwhile back Downunder we were treated to the following ‘intellectual’ discourse reported by Adam Morton …
Climate debate ‘almost infantile’
“A SCIENCE adviser to the federal government has described the debate in the media over the basics of climate change science as ”almost infantile”, equating it to an argument about the existence of gravity.
Speaking at a Melbourne summit on the green economy, Professor Will Steffen criticised the media for treating climate change science as a political issue in which two sides should be given a voice.
While there were uncertainties about the pace and impact of change, he said, the core of climate science – that the world was warming and the primary cause since the middle of the last century had been industrial greenhouse gas emissions – should be accepted with the same confidence as the laws of gravity and relativity.
”It’s a no-brainer. If you go over the last couple of decades you see tens of thousands of papers in the peer-reviewed literature, and you have less than 10 that challenge the fundamentals – and they have been disproved,” Professor Steffen said after an address at the Australian Davos Connection’s Future Summit…”
ADAM MORTON May 25, 2010
http://m.theage.com.au/
http://m.theage.com.au/national/climate-debate-almost-infantile-20100524-w81e.html
Thanks WUWT for reporting the Oxford Union debate as I bet we won’t see that given as equal ‘time’ in the MSM as Professor Steffen’s.
Cheers Jack
In the Oxford Union debate:
Mike Mason – Managing Director – Climate Care
could only resort to abusin Lord Monckton personally:
“that Lord Monckton was more peculiar than most”
Who owns Climate Care:
JPMORGAN – follow the money – SELLING you your carbon offsets!!!
—————————————————————————
http://www.jpmorganclimatecare.com/about/our-organisation/
The ClimateCare team has been a part of J.P. Morgan’s Environmental Markets group since April 2008.
Mike Mason, Managing Director – Innovation
Mike founded Climate Care in 1997 pre-Kyoto and since then the company has become a market leader in the origination, development and retail of voluntary and compliance carbon offsets, pioneering methodologies and project standards in a number of areas and supplying everyone from consumers to some of the world’s largest brands. Mike also founded Biojoule, previously Climate Care’s sister company developing radically new biomass technologies
———————————–
Buy your carbon offset certificate from these guys!!!
http://www.jpmorganclimatecare.com/media/documents/pdf/Example%20Certificate.pdf
A useful tool… Carbon Calculator – on the JPMorgan Climate care website
Get you ClimateCare Certificate – I might just buy one to Frame.
http://www.jpmorganclimatecare.com/about/carbon-offsets-explained/
Next time Jeremey Irons (6 homes, 1 castle) preaches about being green, (or any other celeb, or reporter, activist, politcian, etc)
Put some figures in the Climate Care carbon calculator about their lifestyle compared to yours.
My 12 year old TVR Griffith 500 sports car.
in its TOTAL lifetimes mileage ’emissions’ so far.. (well over 350gco2/km)
Has produced less ’emissions’ than a single (one way) trip to Australia by plane..
As I haven’t been in a plane (or my family) for 9 years anywhere,
my carbon footprint (if you believe all that) is TINY compared to:
Al Gore’s house/private jet, etc
the BBC’s Harribans trip to the Heartland conference,
all the politicians/ green activists private jets to climate change conferences (sorry – jollies)
the environment teams globe trotting,
or ANY celeb or activist that preaches, evil sceptic to me…
And I recycle.. care about biodiversity, loss of rainforest, save the whate, etc.
As I haven’t visited my family in Australia, surely I can sell this right to emit that I haven’t emitted, to someone that needs to offset their emmissions. That should bring several thousands pounds my way 😉
That’s how these schemes (scams) work,
oh I can’t!
Why not?
Oh, I see,
only the likes of JPMorgan, Al Gore, President Obama (chicago scheme) and bilionaire corporations are allowed to profit from that idea. 😉
Barry Woods
netdr says:
May 24, 2010 at 5:13 pm
The fact that 1000 scientists think “A” is right and 10 scientists think “B” is right is a mentally challenge reason to believe “A” is right.
Lysenkoism is a perfect example of the bandwagon effect run amuck just as Catastrophic Anthropomorphic Global Warming [CAGW] has.
Lysenkoism was a scientific concept that acquired traits could be passed from parent to child. We now know this cannot be true but all scientific societies in Russia at one time endorsed this flawed concept.
********
And what was once the TRUTH, has often been shown to be in error.
I am old enough to have learned the scientific dogma from the experts.
Continents do not move (a couple years lather Plate Techtonics was the in story)
Massive floods do not happen (look at the scablands of Washington)
The Inert Gases do not form compounds (you can make them in a kitchen — I was a F2 chemist)
The Soviets were all wet with their genetic ideas. (their SF stories had to toe the line and were quite amusing)
But new data has turned up that paint Darwin and Mendel in a bad light. Mendels notebook appears to have been written not about actual experiments but about the theoretical results he would have achieved. He did work, but his publishings were not true data.
And it appears that all Darwin saw on his voyage was the results of epigenetics at work on the finch bills, not true mutations. And an epigenetic change can occur in one generation, breed true for a 100 generations and then change back in ONE when the environment changes.
The surest sign that a theory may be in error is that the old established experts support it.
Earl
In the Oxford Union debate:
Mike Mason – Managing Director – Climate Care
could only resort to abusing Lord Monckton personally:
he said “that Lord Monckton was more peculiar than most”
Who owns Climate Care:
JPMORGAN – follow the money – SELLING you your carbon offsets.
—————————————————————————
http://www.jpmorganclimatecare.com/about/our-organisation/
The ClimateCare team has been a part of J.P. Morgan’s Environmental Markets group since April 2008.
Mike Mason, Managing Director – Innovation
Mike founded Climate Care in 1997 pre-Kyoto and since then the company has become a market leader in the origination, development and retail of voluntary and compliance carbon offsets, pioneering methodologies and project standards in a number of areas and supplying everyone from consumers to some of the world’s largest brands. Mike also founded Biojoule, previously Climate Care’s sister company developing radically new biomass technologies
———————————–
Buy your carbon offset certificate from these guys!!!
http://www.jpmorganclimatecare.com/media/documents/pdf/Example%20Certificate.pdf
A useful tool… Carbon Calculator – on the JPMorgan Climate care website
Get you ClimateCare Certificate – I might just buy one to Frame.
http://www.jpmorganclimatecare.com/about/carbon-offsets-explained/
Next time Jeremey Irons (6 homes, 1 castle) preaches about being green, (or any other celeb, or reporter, activist, politcian, etc)
Put some figures in the Climate Care carbon calculator about their lifestyle compared to yours.
My 12 year old TVR Griffith 500 sports car.
in its TOTAL lifetimes mileage ’emissions’ so far.. (well over 350gco2/km)
Has produced less ’emissions’ than a single (one way) trip to Australia by plane..
As I haven’t been in a plane (or my family) for 9 years anywhere,
my carbon footprint (if you believe all that) is TINY compared to:
Al Gore’s house/private jet, etc
the BBC’s Harribans trip to the Heartland conference,
all the politicians/ green activists private jets to climate change conferences (sorry – jollies)
the BBC’s environment teams globe trotting,
or ANY celeb or activist that preaches, evil sceptic to me…
And I recycle.. care about biodiversity, loss of rainforest, save the whate, etc.
As I haven’t visited my family in Australia, surely I can sell this right to emit that I haven’t emitted, to someone that needs to offset their emmissions. That should bring several thousands pounds my way 😉
That’s how these schemes (scams) work,
oh I can’t!
Why not?
Oh, I see,
only the likes of JPMorgan, Al Gore, President Obama (chicago scheme) and bilionaire corporations are allowed to profit from that idea. 😉
Barry Woods
“He glared at the opposition again and demanded whether, since they had declared themselves to be so worried about “global warming”, they would care to tell him – to two places of decimals and one standard deviation – the UN’s central estimate of the “global warming” that might result from a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentration. The opposition were unable to reply. Lord Monckton told them the answer was 3.26 plus or minus 0.69 Kelvin or Celsius degrees. An Hon. Member interrupted: “And your reference is?” Lord Monckton replied: “IPCC, 2007, chapter 10, box 10.2.” [cheers].”
Epic Win. Absolutely epic.
Fact is that the CO2 levels are up and probably continue so. Unproofen or not known is that CO2 levels cause global warming. However, every one should be aware that the deforestation on this planet is reaching gigantic levels, compared to a few centuries back. A full grown tree binds 6 kg of CO2, reduces dust, filters air and produces about 5 kg of O2.
Just for that reason we need to reforest again! It will certainly also help to prevent erosion and preserves wild life!
A 100 year old spruce tree has bound 1.8 t of CO2, therefore plant more trees!
Start on your OWN property!
Mike says:
May 24, 2010 at 9:43 pm
However, if the cost of reducing GHG turns out to be very high, we can back off and try something else. We are not jumping off a cliff. I will add that this is an area I do not know a great deal about, but I am trying to learn more. As of now I support cap-and-trade, but I may change my mind as I learn more.
Let me illustrate very simply the cost of cap and trade, or carbon tax, or restriction of coal and oil energy.
Let us hypothesize that the AGW crowd is correct and that CO2 is the grand culprit of the 0.7C warming we have seen the past fifty years. CO2 went from 280 in the end of the 19th century to 380ppm now.
Saying humanity has to go back to 280ppm CO2 by reducing energy coming from burning fuels to that level, means that the 6 billion or so people on earth will now have to make do with the energy used by the 1billion people 150 years ago.
Even ignoring that the consumption per capita was smaller in the 19th century, would you be willing to cut your energy needs by 1/6th?
Willing to kill off 5/6ths of the human population in order to keep your energy level?
That is what it will take to go back to 280ppm.
So even if the Chicken Littles are correct and the sky is falling, adaptation is the only humane and rational option.
The numbers are simple.
While humans experienced major climate changes in the past these occurred gradually. Furthermore, human civilization has not experienced the rate of change in climate conditions that we are very likely to experience. Do keep that in mind.
Humans adjust within the year to temperature changes of 20 and 30C.
Within a month to tide changes of 2meters.
What do you mean by rapid? 2C per century is slow, as well as 60cm sea change per century. You easily walk away from it.
Jim Cripwell, good debate requires more than eloquence. The AGW team couldn’t back up their open ended claims with evidence when challenged. The other side could.
No one has projected that Earth will end up like Venus…
Really?
Stephen Hawking warns about warming
Celebrity cosmologist says Earth could end up as hot as Venus
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13485170
“crosspatch says:
May 24, 2010 at 4:56 pm
Sincere congratulations to Mr. Monckton (his lordship apparently brought into question and I have no specific knowledge one way or the other).”
There was a reform made to the House of Lords by that nice Mr Blair (House of Lords Act 1999) which reduced the number of hereditary peers sitting in the legislature to 92 who are selected by ballot by the other hereditary peers. Lord Monckton is a hereditary peer who does not sit in the legislature . So yes he is a “real live lord” with letters patent and grant of arms etc etc but he is not a member of the House of Lords.
This may have been the point that the tosser in question was trying to make….:-)
“chris1958 says:
May 24, 2010 at 5:50 pm
The Oxford Union has an interesting record. Possibly O/T but here goes:
From Wikipedia: ‘The King and Country debate was a discussion at the Oxford Union debating society on 9 February, 1933 of the resolution: “That this House will in no circumstances fight for its King and Country”. It was passed by 275 votes to 153, and became one of the most well-known and notorious debates conducted in the Union.’”
I think we have to consider the previous generation of students had been wiped out in the first world war [tiddlywinks 11 only had one survior if I recall – and I think he bought it eventually] so to vote for war at that time would have been like turkeys voting for Xmas. Place things in context.
cheers David
“Mike Mason – Managing Director – Climate Care
could only resort to abusing Lord Monckton personally:
he said “that Lord Monckton was more peculiar than most”
Sad. He gets a few of these attacks. We need to remind ourselves that Lord MoNckton suffers from Graves disease which gives him that peculiar stare but other symptoms include irritability and sensitivity to heat etc. Give the guy a break.
cheers David
Lord Monckton a real lord??
I am not an expert in this, but the contention is that he is not a ‘real’ Lord because he cannot sit in the House of Lords (Britain’s upper house).
However, he is a Viscount, and as such his formal address is “My Lord”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viscount
I think the challenge is somewhat technical, as his aristocratic credentials are far higher than some garbage cleaner who has been raised to the House of Lords by our previous woeful government. Perhaps he should call himself Viscount Monckton, to which you reply “Good afternoon, my Lord”.
REPLY: That’s exactly how I’ve seen his title “The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley”. Not that it matters. It’s like asking Al Gore if he’s a real politician -A
.
—
There have been comments made regarding Mr. Monckton’s title of nobility, and to offer my own perspective on the matter, permit me to observe that since I first began to review his work – which began about a year prior to the Climategate de-pantsing of the CRU correspondents – I’ve been referring to him as “Mr. Monckton.”
For a conscientious American, hereditary titles are problematic. Unless one is breeding beef cattle or show dogs, the persistent and perpetual appreciation of an entity’s genetic complement (or alleged genetic heritage; remember, there’s a whole lot of sexual promiscuity in both human history and the human character) detracts from attention which should be paid to the individual himself.
Besides, I cannot escape cognizance of Tom Paine’s characterization of the United Kingdom’s Second Estate as having descended from A French bastard landing with an armed Banditti and establishing himself king of England against the consent of the natives….”
—
netdr says:
May 24, 2010 at 5:13 pm
… Lysenkoism was a scientific concept that acquired traits could be passed from parent to child. We now know this cannot be true but all scientific societies in Russia at one time endorsed this flawed concept.
Actually, epigenetics has now shown that it is true and Lysenko was only mostly wrong. Unfortunate that he didn’t do actual quality research, while not disproving genetics, he could have added a lot to man’s knowledge of it. Today’s climate scientists could take a lesson from history.
“Serious observers are interpreting this shock result as a sign that students are now impatiently rejecting the relentless extremist propaganda taught under the guise of compulsory environmental-studies classes in British schools, confirming opinion-poll findings that the voters are no longer frightened by “global warming” scare stories, if they ever were.”
Probably more to do with UK being crushed economically by a green EU than any systematic rejection of climate change. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
HE HAS MORE BRAINS AND WIT THAN ANY SCIENTISTS THAT WE KNOW
Nice. Very nice. Although judging from the play-by-play, the opposition was so inept it is discouraging they garnered 110 votes. Not surprising, though, as religion is very effective at resisting logic.
As an hereditary peer, Monckton is a “real” Lord, in fact, he’s of the “original kind” of Lord. However, since the reform of the House of Lords some 10 years ago, only a very small number of hereditary peers can actually sit and vote in the House of Lords. As far as I know, Lord Monckton may eventually be elected to be one of those (if the House of Lords isn’t reformed further), but at the moment, he’s not one of them. So he’s perfectly in his right to refer to himself as Lord Monckton and to call himself a “real” Lord. He’s in far muddier ground when he calls himself “a member of the House of Lords” or “of the upper house of Parliament”, and I think he should avoid the issue.
What does gradually mean?
Imagine if the following were to happen today:
Yet they spoil it all and guarantee more funding with:
While this was interesting and the outcome from the skeptical and rational side was pleasing, the real problem going forward is that a loss such as this merely pushes the “True Believers” towards more radical actions. We’ve seen this before and the path is well worn.
We are not dealing with rational people in this. At some point in the not too distant future, I expect there will be those who will “martyr themselves for the cause”. We already have experience with “eco-terrorism”, and it’s a small step from where they are now to strapping on an explosive vest, or car bombing a refinery. It’s been said that: “In this game, the most committed wins”.
Mike says: May 24, 2010 at 4:53 pm
To bad there were no scientists or economists in the debate. See: http://www.oxford-union.org/term_events/economic_growth_debate
Were the debaters allowed to use Google? Here is one survey on what scientists think:
http://stats.org/stories/2008/global_warming_survey_apr23_08.html
Scientists agree that humans cause global warming
Ninety-seven percent of the climate scientists surveyed believe “global average temperatures have increased” during the past century.
Eighty-four percent say they personally believe human-induced warming is occurring, and 74% agree that “currently available scientific evidence” substantiates its occurrence. Only 5% believe that that human activity does not contribute to greenhouse warming; the rest are unsure.
94.31428% of people who read this blog agree with all your points. We base our viewpoints on observable data, like land use change, cooking fires, pollution, temperature change since the last ice-age, deforestation, etc. We see no evidence for CO2 induced warming, and plentiful evidence that warming is good.
If we look back through history, it is so clear to see that Cold is our greatest problem, and that warmer times have been times of prosperity and security. Did this get overlooked? forgotten? not by me, not by Lord Lawson either. It will become urgent that we get our priorities right in the next few years.
Here is more abrupt stuff contrary to your statement. [Also larded towards the end with AGW’s main ingredient “might”.]
So Mike, do you still stand by your statement:
—
The questionable lord may have served as an advisor to Margaret Thatcher’s policy unit some thirty years ago, but with all his debating skills was unable to sway the Prime Minister’s view on climate change. Margaret Thatcher remains an active supporter of anthropogenic global warming causes.
I is scary how easy it has become to beat these people, all they have is ad hominem attacks and “everyone just knows”. Everyone just know the earth is flat and is in the center of the universe. Everyone knows that continents are way too big to move. Everyone know a lot that is not true.
George E. Smith,
May 24, 2010 at 5:31 pm
I can’t let you get away with that one. While reasonable for a BB, it is reasonable for even an isothermal simplistic model of the Earth. It should be obvious from venus that it is possible to have a very high surface temperature under some conditions. Earth has an albedo that rids us of around 30% of that incoming solar which is around 1360 w/m^2 average value for Earth’s orbit and blankets a spheroid even though the Earth forms an apparent disk for the solar radiation to hit – leading to an average of 1/4 of that 1360 w/m^2. That means actually, we’ve got around 238w/m^2 coming in and for balance, it means we’ve got 238 w/m^2 leaving, despite our 390 w/m^2 of surface emission. That means about 39% of the surface emission must be absorbed or blocked by the atmosphere. Actually, it’s a lot more than that as cloud tops also emit continuum radiation at colder temperatures and we can’t be losing more than that 238 w/m^2 total from Earth.
From this you should be able to infer that on Earth and on Venus, there is more than just incoming top of atmosphere and outgoing surface radiation at work in determining the numbers. Even though Venus has more TOA incoming solar, most of it doesn’t get into the atmosphere and heat the planet and even though the surface is over 400 C, most of the emissions from the surface don’t make it out as it has a balance point that is less than that of Earth’s. Of course by climate definitions, it would seem Venus doesn’t actually have a greenhouse effect going on as there’s practically no incoming solar power hitting the surface.
Three cheers for Lord Monckton! Folks like him give me hope for my children’s future.
“What kind of “undergrad” goes to a debate? Shouldn’t they be out drinking beer, someplace?”
Believe me, there’s plenty of beer in the Oxford Union.
Grumbler says:
May 25, 2010 at 4:06 am
chris1958 says:
yada yada;
In addition to the points made by Grumbler, I would add the following;
WWI was fought by Great Britain “for King and Country”. There really was no valid strategic reason for Great Britain to enter that war, other than that every one else was in the war, and if England waited too long, their strategic interests might suffer. Truly fought for no other reason than Kind and Country.
WWII was far from a war of choice by GB; if they didn’t defend themselves, they would cease to exist. Not for King and Country, but for continued right to exist as a people with self determination and a modicum of freedom. Nevil Chamberlain never understood the difference either.
So do not compare the notorious K&C debate (and it’s seeming errant nature of the discourse) to this one; Monckton had the relevant references and made logically valid points from those references. Pro-AGW pundits would do well to study his efforts. In the mean time; real science continues to be subverted by a corrupt peer review process, and stymied by real world data; more snow, recovering ice caps and snow packs, and satellite data that continues to diverge from the interpolated and manipulated surface data of GISS and NOAA. If climate science continued to be science, we would have many more such debates, not fewer.
Fascism is not science, and science is never decided by consensus, and is almost never settled at all.
Mark says:
May 25, 2010 at 12:28 am
I’m sorry to say that the Oxford Union debate is an irrelevancy. Nobody cares about it any more. It is less significant than the boat race.
====
Which may be why the debates get so little coverage in the main stream media.
@ Geo Flynx.
Margaret Thatcher is a very old lady, has been for some time and at her stage in her life is unlikely to change her views. Perhaps if you read a little history, you may stumble on the idea that the ‘Iron Lady’s’ determination to rid the UK of the coalmining unions may have had a little to do with her conveniently embracing the theory that burning coal (and other fossil fuels) is bad for the environment.
LOL
Labor’s Environment Minister in the Upper House, said that the world’s oil supplies were rapidly running out …
Just repeat this in the Gulf of Mexico. LOL!!, bring me a diaper!
Ulric said, “If we look back through history, it is so clear to see that Cold is our greatest problem, and that warmer times have been times of prosperity and security. Did this get overlooked? forgotten? not by me, not by Lord Lawson either. It will become urgent that we get our priorities right in the next few years.”
Good point. Dr. Iben Browning once indicated that is has been estimated (back in the 1980’s) that for each degree of average temperature drop in the northern hemisphere the growing belt would move 300 miles south over time. This would put Canada and Russia in a food pinch to say the least, since neither does too well now in that department. The mini ice ages of the recent past subsequent to large volcanic erutions caused famines, plagues and wars. From the the archeological and geologic records available, on the other hand, it appears as if flora a fauna did quite well during warmer times.
Wren says: May 24, 2010 at 10:33 pm
Given the framing of the debate, “This House would put economic growth before combating climate change,” and the expertise of the opposition, I’m surprised the vote was so close.
Framed a different way, “This house would take action to combat climate change,” and more knowledgeable debaters, I would expect a different outcome.
Aaah Wren. Where was this assertion when polls say that X% believe the earth is warming and it’s humans fault (we all believe that-to some degree. And your question “This house would take action to combat climate change,” is equally uncertain. How about “This house…………………………change by planting a tree. Next time you bring up a consensus poll, I will remind you of your disingenious contention of biased questions.
the media is still in lockdown mode over agw. there is an article in the new york times today decrying the public’s repudiation of global warming, especially in great britain. yet nary a word about this debate. in fact the article presents climate alarmism as the norm and skepticism as denial.
whenever i hear someone dredge up the old…”but 90 something percent of CLIMATE scientists believe in global warming…” i can’t help but be reminded of the last giant scientific quackery that overtook the “rational, scientific” world. EUGENICS. huge numbers of scientists of the day were easily led into believing this tripe as did the politicians who set in motion the very policies that the scientists were scaring them into enacting(hundreds of thousands of people sterilized worldwide to start). the twisted thinking of these men of science eventually influenced the mind of a very influential austrian in the 20’s. what happened next? well, i guess you’ll have to read about it….let’s just say that it didn’t end well.
bonus question. who funded the eugenicists? hint…same organizations funding anthropogenic global warming….
Hooray for Christopher Monckton! I sometimes wish he was American so we could elect him as president.
Mike says:
May 24, 2010 at 4:53 pm
“Scientists agree that humans cause global warming
Ninety-seven percent of the climate scientists surveyed believe “global average temperatures have increased” during the past century.
Eighty-four percent say they personally believe human-induced warming is occurring, and 74% agree that “currently available scientific evidence” substantiates its occurrence. Only 5% believe that that human activity does not contribute to greenhouse warming; the rest are unsure.”
Statistics, statistics statistics… a survey conducted in 2007, according to your link.
This was a poll mailed to randomly selected members of the American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union. Results depend on the wording of the survey.
I would have to agree with the 84% and the 74% that I believe human activity can be scientifically connected to warming, although I doubt that it is the only cause of climate change, and on whatever proportion of warming results from human activity. Also I don’t have a lot of faith in the measurement of any increase in temperature, because of methodology that tends to accentuate the warming. So the amount of warming is in question, and why it’s not steadily increasing, like CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.
You have, like so many in the debate, only used quotes supporting your side. Here is another snippet from the same article:
“However, the survey finds that scientists are still debating the dynamics and dangers of global warming, and only three percent trust newspaper or television coverage of climate change.”
Well I’m impressed that a debate was called and members of both sides actually responded. The alarmists seldom agree to a debate, the reason is simple they almost never win. The alarmists are making the AGW claims and so it is up to the alarmist side to provide the evidence. The skeptics aren’t really making any claims so it’s much easier to be a skeptic/denier of AGW than a proponant. And can you imagine taking on Lord Moncton in a climate debate? Good luck.
Ninety-seven percent of the climate scientists surveyed believe “global average temperatures have increased” during the past century
“Belief” , off course, is a controlling factor in religlon and has no valid role to play in science. More, it is quite damaging to the study of science.
Then too, who exactly were those scientists surveyed, and what was the selection process used to determined who would be polled? Those in the scientific community who make an excellent living by obtaining government funding and who would have to go looking for a job (no where near as lucrative) without such government funding have a clear and powerful motive to outwardly and vocally profess belief in order to keep the funding coming their way, whether they actually hold such a belief at all.
I offer the following lyrics from one of my favorite lyric writers (with tongue not firmly in cheek at all), Tom Lehrer (once math professor, Harvard University):
Selling Out is easy to do,
It’s not so hard to find a buyer for you.
When money talks, you’re under it’s spell,
ah, but what do you have when there’s nothing left to sell?
Selling out (I’d rather call it compromise)
is easy to do (sometimes you have to close your eyes)
It’s not so hard (being rich is no disgrace)
to find a buyer for you. (put on your shoes and join the race)
When money talks, (it has a very soothing voice)
you’re under it’s spell, (its up to you to make the choice)
ah, but what do you have when there’s nothing left to sell?
[over] (before you know it there’ll be nothing left to sell!)
You can’t always break the rules, people who try are fools,
When you get older, maybe then you will see.
I’ve always found ideals, don’t take the place of meals,
That’s how it is and how it will always be!
It’s so nice to have integrity, I’ll tell you why,
If you really have integrity, it means your price is very high.
So remember when you start to preach, and moralize,
That we all are in the game and brother it’s name is compromise!
~ Tom Lehrer
Scientists are every bit as human as the rest of humanity!
Ref – Mike says:
May 24, 2010 at 9:43 pm
“MrPete said (May 24, 2010 at 9:27 pm): “Mike [wrote] “While the cost of doing this is real it is smaller than the likely costs of doing nothing.” Why is the likely cost of eliminating climate change lower than the cost of adapting to climate change? Humanity has been adapting to climate change for thousands of years at affordable cost. We’ve made it through larger swings in the past. If anything, the hardest thing to survive will be the next ice age.” While humans experienced major climate changes in the past these occurred gradually. Furthermore, human civilization has not experienced the rate of change in climate conditions that we are very likely to experience. Do keep that in mind. Good night!”
_______________________________
The beginning of an interglacial is more catastrophic than the beginning of a glacial. Humans will have little problem going into the next ice age. In fact we may be doing just that now. Human civilization, to our knowledge, has never gone into or come out of a glacial period. Civilization is a human invention of the current interglacial.
In attempting to isolate the root cause of the concern we hear these days about “climate change”, might it not be a justifiable fear of the failure of our precious “civilization”, and the death of billions of the civilized, should anything change –I mean anything at all– that might shake the foundations and bring it all crashing down upon our heads? The fear of the unknown is our most challenging condition. Yesterday it was AGW, today it’s Recession moving toward Depression, tomorrow it might be another war and the tipping of the political power scales more toward wherever.
College undergrads count for nothing and everything. The debate was little more than a good show to them. They’ll gravitate toward the money when they’re out and about and paying their own way in the world. And their greatest fear will ever be the great unknown.
Green is nothing more than a hammer to beat you and the rest of humanity into feudalism and servitude,as they will decide who will and who won’t emit evil carbon dioxide 🙂 .
Wake up you warmist idiots and get with the program before it is too late.
The agenda has nothing to do with the environment none of the globalists give a stuff about the environment if they did surely they wouldn’t be blowing the middle east etc to kingdom come?
Looking after the environment is a great idea, taxing the western world (not china and india etc) for C02 emissions will have zero benefit on temperature just make Al Gore and his carbon trading derivative crooks even more wealthy as they laugh at you paying silly amounts for green energy.
The hysteria is over, the hoax is dead…now onto world war three please I am getting impatient.
Monckton is an absolute blockbuster. He’s a brilliant debater AND extremely well informed. He can deliver a Brittanica of facts on the fly, while simultaneously spinning verbal circles around his opponents, and slapping them silly from 6 different directions. Very few people have this kind of skill.
It’s so good now to see more sceptics arrive at a level of confidence to call this theory what it is – an outright fraud. An unmitigated Scam. Monckton has always had that confidence. Every American owes this man thanks. When we get our country back, we need to honor him appropriately.
The most devastating argument against MMGW is that its advocates steadfastly refuse to provide *any* negative case. That is, they will not, and cannot be compelled to say, under what measurable circumstances “global warming” is *not* happening. By doing so, they in effect say that *everything* “proves” global warming.
This is exacerbated by their extremely difficult to prove basic assertion, that mankind’s total contribution of CO2 to the atmosphere, a tiny fraction, of a trace gas, will somehow cause a self-reinforcing amplification of a natural system that generates far more CO2 than mankind could possibly produce, not countered in any way; which in turn will cause a remarkable increase in temperature, though there are immense natural influences already at work, causing normal temperature fluctuations far greater than their proposed theory could possibly bring about.
In short, they are trying to assert that the “butterfly effect” will cause global warming, and refusing to state any condition where the butterfly’s wings will not have that eventual outcome. For which reason, we must give them enormous power and wealth, and impoverish ourselves.
“Margaret Thatcher remains an active supporter of anthropogenic global warming causes.” – GeoFlynx
Maggie Thatcher wanted to break the out of control coal unions in the UK, and I beieve that she is dead. Her death also preceded most of the debate regarding CAGW.
Hi Layne-I hope America is taken back by the republic and rescued from the brink of socialism,bankruptcy leaving in its wake a digital neo feudalistic police control grid that has been delivered at break neck speed by Obama (Real Name: Barry Soetoro Born Kenya) and his Wall Street Fraudsters and Climate Communists…good luck with the fight U.S.A !!
Oh No !! They now have a portable echo chamber !!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Wren says:
May 25, 2010 at 8:10 am
Mark says:
May 25, 2010 at 12:28 am
I’m sorry to say that the Oxford Union debate is an irrelevancy. Nobody cares about it any more. It is less significant than the boat race.
====
Which may be why the debates get so little coverage in the main stream media.
“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?”
– Maurice Strong, founder of the UN Environment Programme
“A massive campaign must be launched to de-develop the United States. De-development means bringing our
economic system into line with the realities of ecology and the world resource situation.”
– Paul Ehrlich, Professor of Population Studies
“The only hope for the world is to make sure there is not another United States. We can’t let other countries have the same number of cars, the amount of industrialization, we have in the US. We have to stop these Third World countries right where they are.”
– Michael Oppenheimer, Environmental Defense Fund
“Global Sustainability requires the deliberate quest of poverty, reduced resource consumption and set levels of mortality control.”
– Professor Maurice King
“We must make this an insecure and inhospitable place for capitalists and their projects. We must reclaim the roads and plowed land, halt dam construction, tear down existing dams, free shackled rivers and return to wilderness millions of acres of presently settled land.”
– David Foreman, co-founder of Earth First!
“Complex technology of any sort is an assault on human dignity. It would be little short of disastrous for us to
discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy, because of what we might do with it.”
– Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute
“The prospect of cheap fusion energy is the worst thing that could happen to the planet.”
– Jeremy Rifkin, Greenhouse Crisis Foundation
“Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun.”
– Prof Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University
“Our insatiable drive to rummage deep beneath the surface of the earth is a willful expansion
of our dysfunctional civilization into Nature.”
– Al Gore, Earth in the Balance
“The big threat to the planet is people: there are too many, doing too well economically and burning too much oil.”
– Sir James Lovelock, BBC Interview
“My three main goals would be to reduce human population to about 100 million worldwide, destroy the industrial infrastructure and see wilderness, with it’s full complement of species, returning throughout the world.”
-Dave Foreman, co-founder of Earth First!
“Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class – involving high meat intake,
use of fossil fuels, appliances, air-conditioning, and suburban housing – are not sustainable.”
– Maurice Strong, Rio Earth Summit
“All these dangers are caused by human intervention and it is only through changed attitudes and
behaviour that they can be overcome. The real enemy, then, is humanity itself.”
– Club of Rome, The First Global Revolution
“Mankind is the most dangerous, destructive, selfish and unethical animal on the earth.”
– Michael Fox, vice-president of The Humane Society
“Humans on the Earth behave in some ways like a pathogenic micro-organism, or like the cells of a tumor.”
– Sir James Lovelock, Healing Gaia
“The Earth has cancer and the cancer is Man.”
– Club of Rome, Mankind at the Turning Point
„A cancer is an uncontrolled multiplication of cells, the population explosion is an uncontrolled multiplication of people. We must shift our efforts from the treatment of the symptoms to the cutting out of the cancer. The operation will demand many apparently brutal and heartless decisions.“
– Prof. Paul Ehrlich, The Population Bomb
„A reasonable estimate for an industrialized world society at the present North American material standard of living would be 1 billion. At the more frugal European standard of living, 2 to 3 billion would be possible.“
– United Nations, Global Biodiversity Assessment
“A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal.”
– Ted Turner, founder of CNN and major UN donor
“… the resultant ideal sustainable population is hence more than 500 million but less than one billion.”
– Club of Rome, Goals for Mankind
„One America burdens the earth much more than twenty Bangladeshes. This is a terrible thing to say in order to stabilize world population, we must eliminate 350,000 people per day. It is a horrible thing to say, but it’s just as bad not to say it.“
– Jacques Cousteau, UNESCO Courier
“If I were reincarnated I would wish to be returned to earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels.”
– Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, patron of the World Wildlife Fund
“I suspect that eradicating small pox was wrong. It played an important part in balancing ecosystems.”
– John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal
“The extinction of the human species may not only be inevitable but a good thing.”
– Christopher Manes, Earth First!
„Childbearing should be a punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a government license. All potential parents should be required to use contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen for childbearing.“
– David Brower, first Executive Director of the Sierra Club
“In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill.”
– Club of Rome, The First Global Revolution
“We need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination… So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts… Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.”
– Stephen Schneider, Stanford Professor of Climatology, lead author of many IPCC reports
“Unless we announce disasters no one will listen.”
– Sir John Houghton, first chairman of IPCC
“It doesn’t matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true.”
– Paul Watson, co-founder of Greenpeace
„We’ve got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy.“
– Timothy Wirth, President of the UN Foundation
„No matter if the science of global warming is all phony, climate change provides the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world.“
-Christine Stewart, fmr Canadian Minister of the Environment
„The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity. It is also our greatest opportunity to lift Global Consciousness to a higher level.“
– Al Gore, accepting the Nobel Peace Prize
„The only way to get our society to truly change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe.“
– emeritus professor Daniel Botkin
„We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis.“
– David Rockefeller, Club of Rome executive manager
„Humanity is sitting on a time bomb. If the vast majority of the world’s scientists are right, we have just ten years to avert a major catastrophe that could send out entire planet’s climate system into a tail-spin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have ever experienced – a catastrophe of our own making.“
– Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth
„By the end of this century, climate change will reduce the human population to a few breeding pairs surviving near the Arctic.“
– Sir James Lovelock, Revenge of Gaia
„Climate Change will result in a catastrophic, global seal level rise of seven meters. That’s bye-bye most of Bangladesh, Netherlands, Florida and would make London the new Atlantis.“
– Greenpeace International
„Climate change is real. Not only is it real, it’s here, and its effects are giving rise to a frighteningly new global phenomenon – the man-made natural disaster.“
– Barack Obama, US Presidential Candidate
„We are close to a time when all of humankind will envision a global agenda that encompasses a kind of Global Marshall Plan to address the causes of poverty and suffering and environmental destruction all over the earth.“
– Al Gore, Earth in the Balance
„In Nature organic growth proceeds according to a Master Plan, a Blueprint. Such a ‘master plan’ is missing from the process of growth and development of the world system. Now is the time to draw up a master plan for sustainable growth and world development based on global allocation of all resources and a new global economic system. Ten or twenty years from today it will probably be too late.“
– Club of Rome, Mankind at the Turning Point
„The concept of national sovereignty has been immutable, indeed a sacred principle of international relations. It is a principle which will yield only slowly and reluctantly to the new imperatives of global environmental cooperation.“
– UN Commission on Global Governance report
„Democracy is not a panacea. It cannot organize everything and it is unaware of its own limits. These facts must be faced squarely. Sacrilegious though this may sound, democracy is no longer well suited for the tasks ahead. The complexity and the technical nature of many of today’s problems do not always allow elected representatives to make competent decisions at the right time.“
– Club of Rome, The First Global Revolution
„In my view, after fifty years of service in the United National system, I perceive the utmost urgency and absolute necessity for proper Earth government. There is no shadow of a doubt that the present political and economic systems are no longer appropriate and will lead to the end of life evolution on this planet. We must therefore absolutely and urgently look for new ways.“
– Dr. Robert Muller, UN Assistant Secretary General
„Nations are in effect ceding portions of their sovereignty to the international community and beginning to create a new system of international environmental governance as a means of solving otherwise unmanageable crises.“
– Lester Brown, WorldWatch Institute
„A keen and anxious awareness is evolving to suggest that fundamental changes will have to take place in the world order and its power structures, in the distribution of wealth and income.“
– Club of Rome, Mankind at the Turning Point
„Adopting a central organizing principle means embarking on an all-out effort to use every policy and program, every law and institution, to halt the destruction of the environment.“
– Al Gore, Earth in the Balance
„Effective execution of Agenda 21 will require a profound reorientation of all human society, unlike anything the world has ever experienced – a major shift in the priorities of both governments and individuals and an unprecedented redeployment of human and financial resources. This shift will demand that a concern for the environmental consequences of every human action be integrated into individual and collective decision-making at every level.“
– UN Agenda 21
„The earth is literally our mother, not only because we depend on her for nurture and shelter but even more because the human sepcies has been shaped by her in the womb of evolution. Our salvation depends upon our ability to create a religion of nature.“
– Rene Dubos, board member Planetary Citizens
I jumped the gun with the Maggie Thatcher is dead thing. I was conflating it with Reagan’s death. I also can’t find any evidence that she is some kind of “climate change,” Cap & Trade, or Al Gore advocate to this day. Arguably she did get the CAGW band wagon rolling in her efforts to fight the coal unions.
Good job Lord Monckton – well done!
I would have thought that students were too young to understand the vagaries of the weather. Anyone who experienced the changes over the last 60 years realises that what we experience today isn’t unusual. People also get more sceptical of those in the pronouncements of those in authority as they get older.
This was a very very good result for the sceptics cause – lets all keep up the pressure.
@ Mike May 24, 2010 at 4:53 pm:
Wow.
They BELIEVE.
Is it a church? A temple? A cult?
Belief has as much to do with REAL science as the color of a seal’s fur has to do with corn yields.
I thought the Royal Society got religious points of view out of science 350 years ago.
This is climate “scientists” Mike is referring to. I can see some level of “belief” if the poll was taken on non-climatic scientists, because scientists in one speciality accept that the ones in other disciplines have done due diligence. It is both professional courtesy and an assumption that assertions are based on proven facts. But within climate science itself, what could they possibly be thinking, saying they “believe”? If they are actual scientists, either they know, or they shut their yaps. They don’t go around professing to “believe.”
Believe? Spare us, please!
Wow! 45 % of the future UK political class think action on climate change is more important than economic growth! Given that for these guys economic growth is the Holy Grail, that is a truly epic result. The outcome was never in doubt – the shock is the slimness of the majority.
@Human Person Jr May 24, 2010 at 5:32 pm:
Oh? Do you think that they for a second are not trying to be funny? Of course they are! That is half the purpose of the debates – to mock the opposition, to “jawn” them, to belittle them with dryness – and to see if the audience gets it.
Do you not think Lord M was aware how funny that cummerbund thing was?
Of course he did.
I’m totally with [Feet2the Fire] on this …
” Ninety-seven percent of the climate scientists surveyed BELIEVE “global average temperatures have increased” during the past century.
Eighty-four percent say they personally BELIEVE human-induced warming is occurring … Only 5% BELIEVE that that human activity does not contribute to greenhouse warming; the rest are unsure. !
Belief is nothing to do with Science – Belief Systems are RELIGIONS – nothing more and nothing less – Science demand evidence \ data \ postulates \ rigour and the process of challenge & debate …
As to oft-spouted ‘there is a Consensus’ – well, if it’s a Consensus, it’s not Science – and if it’s Science, it’s not a Consensus …
I’ve been convinced of the fallacy of the ‘AGW’ viewpoint for some 15 years now – watched the groundswell of hysteria become official policy \ accepted orthordoxy – I’m so glad it’s now being beaten down …
Phil-Given that for these guys economic growth is the Holy Grail, that is a truly epic result.
That is old school economic growth is going to be impossible as we enter into the next globalist phase. When they get Dr Rajendra Pachauri (globalist green fraudster)to shut down Steel Plants up North and Ship the same company to india producing the same emissions and billions are exchanged then it is time to wake up-or be raped into servitude.
Corus is owned by Tata Steel of India. Recently, Tata received “EU-carbon-credits” worth up to £1bn, ostensibly so that steel-production at Redcar would not be crippled by the EU’s “carbon-emissions-trading-scheme”. By closing the plant at Redcar – and not making any “carbon-emissions” – Tata walks off with £1bn of taxpayers’ money, which it will invest in its steel-factories in India, where there is no “carbon-emissions-trading-scheme”.
There’s more. The EU’s “emissions-trading-scheme” (ETS) is modelled on instructions from the “International Panel on Climate-Change” (IPCC) of the United Nations Organisation. The Chairman of the IPCC is one Dr Rajendra K.Pachauri, a former railway-engineer, who obtained this post by virtue of his being Chairman of the “Tata Energy-Research Institute” – set up by Tata Steel.
What was that line about you could get a spotty teenager to cook up a dodgy computer model, or you could get real world data?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8700000/8700472.stm
Jason
I was a substitute high school science/math teacher for 5 years beginning about 14 years ago while my kids were still in school. It was enjoyable and I had the time, at that time, plus wanted to know what my kids were being told. Even in a conservative state such as WY, the curriculum was spun way to the left and “green” science was replacing real science. As an engineering school grad and MBA, I could actually teach many of the courses as opposed to baby sitting and can tell you that the indoctrination in our schools is heavy due to the control of our teaching colleges by the left. There is little wonder that people can be bamboosled so easily, even the smart ones, as kids tend to believe what their teachers teach. When my youngest son graduated HS, in spite of my input, he would give the commonly accepted responses to arguments regarding environmental issues. “Even if there is no global warming we still need to cut back on fossil fuels or we’ll run out soon” etc. By the time he graduated from engineering school and understood research and statistics much better and saw what a hoax was being foisted on the public, he became, and is now, even more outspoken on the global warming issue than many who visit this site. Unfortunately the downside for smart kids like him, who obtain a real education in the sciences, there is a factor of discust now involved and extreme skepticism regarding any and all scientific theories. But perhaps this is a good thing as long as it does not result in complete throwing out of the baby with the bath water. After all there are many who are skeptical of string theory, dark matter/energy, etc even though they are now the generally accepted theories in that field. Even Einstein is being questioned!
In addition to the extreme social/environmental views such as you indicate, which are, indeed, being pushed on our children, there is complete lack of accurate history, proper English and appropriate mathmatics emphasis. But after all, an ignorant population is much easier to control.
Jim G says:
May 25, 2010 at 11:22 am
Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
@ Jason says:
May 25, 2010 at 9:59 am
RE: All those quotes from Club of Rome, etc.
It seems obvious to me, and likely to others, that the context of these statements is that the authors are automatically exempting themselves from these draconian measures, and view themselves as the “Untouchable Engineers” of global management. Quite a God complex they have going there, wouldn’t you say? I have a significant problem with that, as I suspect you do also.
If humanity is fated to become a poor shadow of our current existence, I expect – no I DEMAND – that everyone has their name in the hat and that the lottery be conducted per the usual rules of survival and evolution. No exemptions.
Monckton certainly talks a good game but . . .
http://newenergynews.blogspot.com/2010/04/climate-crock-of-week-lord-monckton.html
“”” Mike says:
May 24, 2010 at 9:06 pm
…………………
George Smith: No one has projected that Earth will end up like Venus, not even Heisenberg. “””
Well you never heard me say that anybody has projected that either. Perhaps you can then educate us all, and explain to those of us that don’t get it; just why the MMGWCC crowd then keep on mentioning ad nauseum that Venus is a fiery furnace due to CO2 global warming. If they are not intimating that might happen on earth; why the hell are they even mentioning it. I don’t see the AGW crowd ever mentioning who is the current challenger of record for the next Americas Cup Challenge; so why do they even mention something else equally irrelevent; as the Planet Venus ?
“”” cba says:
May 25, 2010 at 7:29 am
George E. Smith,
May 24, 2010 at 5:31 pm
I can’t let you get away with that one. While reasonable for a BB, it is reasonable for even an isothermal simplistic model of the Earth. It should be obvious from venus that it is possible to have a very high surface temperature under some conditions. Earth has an albedo that rids us of around 30% of that incoming solar which is around 1360 w/m^2 average value for Earth’s orbit and blankets a spheroid even though the Earth forms an apparent disk for the solar radiation to hit – leading to an average of 1/4 of that 1360 w/m^2. That means actually, we’ve got around 238w/m^2 coming in and for balance, it means we’ve got 238 w/m^2 leaving, despite our 390 w/m^2 of surface emission. That means about 39% of the surface emission must be absorbed or blocked by the atmosphere. Actually, it’s a lot more than that as cloud tops also emit continuum radiation at colder temperatures and we can’t be losing more than that 238 w/m^2 total from Earth.
From this you should be able to infer that on Earth and on Venus, there is more than just incoming top of atmosphere and outgoing surface radiation at work in determining the numbers. Even though Venus has more TOA incoming solar, most of it doesn’t get into the atmosphere and heat the planet and even though the surface is over 400 C, most of the emissions from the surface don’t make it out as it has a balance point that is less than that of Earth’s. Of course by climate definitions, it would seem Venus doesn’t actually have a greenhouse effect going on as there’s practically no incoming solar power hitting the surface. “””
So just who is getting away with what cba ? What is it, that your essay has to do, with my mental thought experiment ?
First of all, Earth is NOT Venus; so we do not have a Venus like atmosphere; and we aren’t likely soon to acquire a Venus like atmosphere; so whatever happens on Venus is of no consequence to what could happen on earth (or couldn’t).
The only reason that I even mentioned Venus, was simply to point out that the principal CO2 absorption of IR radiation on Venus is NOT the same as on Earth. Yes the 15 micron band should still be active; but at Venus surface temperature the 4 micron band is right at the IR spectral peak.
And yes I know that none of these things radiate like Black Bodies; but they all do radiate continuum thermal radiation that is bounded by the appropriate Black Body spectrum as an envelope limiting their emissions as a function of the Temperature or the range of Temperatures involved. And I am thoroughly familiar with all of those numbers you cited. I don’t necessarily agree with all of them. I do take 1366 W/m^2 as my nominal value for TSI, although I grew up with 1353.
My 1000 W/m^2 number was simply the common practice value assumed for Air Mass One ground level solar insolation; which derives from ordinary atmospheric absorption including water vapor; and is unrelated to Albedo.
My Infra-Red handbook gives a TSI spectral peak value of 2.2 (kW/m^2/um); or 2.0 for the best fit 5900 K BB curve (1353 based); and it gives a peak of 1.5 for the ground level Air Mass One peak; and 1000 is about 3/4 of 1353; so you can scale it for 1366 if you like; isn’t necessary for my thought model.
I don’t buy the 1/4 of 1366 model; sorry. At any moment slightly more than one hemisphere of the earth is receiving solar radiation; and the portion directly under the noonday sun that is receiving something like that 1000 W/m^2 at the surface is also getting a damn side hotter than it would if it were only receiving Trenberth’s 168 W/m^2. And to me that is an important distinction; since I consider one of the principal misunderstandings in all of this, is the notion that somehow the earth cools from the polar regions; whereas it is the very hottest desert midday temperatures that result in the greatest cooling effect; even under direct sunlight.
The very hottest desert surfaces radiate at more that 10 times the emittance of the coldest ploar regions; and moreover they do so with a spectral peak more like 8.7 microns. than 10.1 at 288 K or even 15 microns at the very coldest Vostok Temperatures.
So the effectiveness of the 15 micron CO2 band is greatly reduced at the desert highs; and with often much lower humidities, the H2O bands around the 8-10 micron window are also less absorptive.
Anyone who arms themselves with a Universal Black Body Radiation graph (normalized ) and the visible and near and far IR spectra of CO2 and H2O along with the AM0 and AM1 solar spectra can see for themselves, that it simply is not possible for any amount of CO2 that could enter the present earth atmopshere, to cause enough heating to shift the temperature to where the 4.0 micron band of CO2 becomes the principal warming mode. The demand for ever higher “forcing” from CO2 to raise the surface temperature gets stymied by the ever diminishing effect of the CO2 15 micron band; and it never does make it to the 4 micron band.
So the idea of a CO2 driven thermal runaway is just plain silly.
And for the record, I eat, sleep, breathe, and absorb by osmosis, this stuff for at least 10 hours a day, five days a week; unless it wakes me up at night to do some more.
So I am not getting away with anything; and I am not going to post a PhD thesis on thermodynamics or black body radiation or optics of EM radiation; just to make a simple point that any 8th grade high school science student can understand.
I’m hoping; (maybe erroneaously) that anything I post, might be of some assistance to readers here who are not physicists or maybe have any science training at all; but who are hoping to read something that they can understand; and anybody can understand this stuff; but they don’t have to learn it or commit it to memory; just know that it exists.
If somebody wants to get into the Quantum Chromo-dynamics of Rainfall; I don’t think this is the forum for doing that.
Mike,
Your quoted statistics are wonderful. 97% of all “climate scientists”, eh?
First question, just what the heck IS a “climate scientist”??
Second question, is there a single college or university in existence that offers a degree in “climate science”? (Oh, I thought not…)
So, why don’t you ask some REAL scientists for their opinions instead.
Fact #1: 97% of all “climate science” is made up of whole cloth.
Fact #2: 84% of all data put into models by “climate scientists” is either made up, faulty, or fudged badly.
Fact #3: 74% of climate scientists would have ZERO grant money coming in if they did not parrot the belief that CATASTROPHIC ANTHROPOGENIC global warming is real (I am sure this is a BIG motivator for them to toe the party line on this issue, since otherwise they would be jobless and broke).
Fact #4: Only 5% of all “climate scientists” have a degree in anything that actually gives them a basic understanding of weather, let alone something as complex as “climate”.
Somehow I think your statistics are a joke when you are only quoting the opinions of “climate scientists”… Climate science isn’t even a recognized or recognizeable science, and those that practice it are wholly 100% dependent upon the government teat for their ever last dollar. If the government tells them to believe that climate change is real, you had better believe that 95% of them believe it!
But Lord Monckton always wins, usually by default, but also after having successfully educated the opposition in basic calculus. :p
Well done, Lord Monckton, very good news!
And let me second this:
I am reading Montfords book these days also. It is an amazing story that is extremely well written. It is written in a way that most people should be able to follow, but at the same time it has a lot of concrete information and a huge list of references. It is a must read.
I am a scientist – a practicing geologist – and know about 40-50 other scientists. Not one of these people believe in the alarmist philosophy of extreme climate change.
All my scientist colleagues believe the world has warmed a little over the last century, mostly due to natural causes. Most accept increases in carbon dioxide levels will cause minor warming, but that the concept of ‘forcing’ is complete BS. Why? If ‘forcing’ was real, it would have happened many times before in geological history – unfortunately for the alarmists, it hasn’t. If ‘forcing’ was real, then logically it would be an exponential effect – once started, it would be impossible to stop.
Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, all the scientists I know work in the private sector and therefore are not told what to think or say if they want to keep their jobs.
As for the Oxford Union Society, their conclusion represents yet another small step in the process of turning back the tide of false science, so beloved by the political left.
Feet2theFire says:
May 25, 2010 at 10:24 am
“@ Mike May 24, 2010 at 4:53 pm:
‘Ninety-seven percent of the climate scientists surveyed believe “global average temperatures have increased” during the past century.
Eighty-four percent say they personally believe human-induced warming is occurring… Only 5% believe that that human activity does not contribute to greenhouse warming; the rest are unsure.’
“Wow.
They BELIEVE.
Is it a church? A temple? A cult?
Belief has as much to do with REAL science as the color of a seal’s fur has to do with corn yields.
I thought the Royal Society got religious points of view out of science 350 years ago.
This is climate “scientists” Mike is referring to. I can see some level of “belief” if the poll was taken on non-climatic scientists, because scientists in one speciality accept that the ones in other disciplines have done due diligence. It is both professional courtesy and an assumption that assertions are based on proven facts. But within climate science itself, what could they possibly be thinking, saying they “believe”? If they are actual scientists, either they know, or they shut their yaps. They don’t go around professing to “believe.”
Believe? Spare us, please!”
I’m with you on this Feet2theFire, the whole contrived hoax is cargo cult science at its worst! An hypothesis which cannot be falsified has no merit.
johnhayte says:
May 25, 2010 at 12:09 pm
Monckton certainly talks a good game but . . .
Pete Sinclair of Depropaganda Blog? You’ve got to be kidding.
Pip, pip, and pass the Bollinger !
The Discount Mosley has persuaded some few undergraduates to vote against fighting for king country or planet .
Er, didn’t he go to Chrurchill College Cambridge?
Perhaps a poll should be taken there.
Michael Reed says:
May 24, 2010 at 7:42 pm
John Q Public says:
May 24, 2010 at 4:57 pm
“In 20 years, AGW will equal The Red Scare in terms of silliness.”
This may be OT, but the Red Scare was anything but silly. The Soviets built the largest tank armies the world has ever seen, far larger than anything NATO had, and pronounced publicly and often that they intended to bury the West. Fortunately for us, they spent themselves into the grave.
The Chinese have a far larger tank army than the Russians ever had. Population does that for you.
The Cold War is pertinant in that it often had people focussing on one number (the tank gap, the missile gap) just as now they focus on the ppm of CO2 and ignore everything else.
People seem to continually fail to see the bigger picture with its multitude of complexities. Back in the Cold War, Russians invading Western Europe was a silly idea, but grandly feared at the time. In that case it’s not the number of weapons, but the logistics that kills that idea. Similarly in the case of CO2, it’s rain that rains on that particular parade.
The devil is always in the details.
Mike says:
May 24, 2010 at 4:53 pm
To bad there were no scientists or economists in the debate. See: http://www.oxford-union.org/term_events/economic_growth_debate
Nigel Lawson is an economist. Also he used to be the Chancellor of the Exchequer, so hopefully he picked something up during his time there.
Were the debaters allowed to use Google? Here is one survey on what scientists think:
http://stats.org/stories/2008/global_warming_survey_apr23_08.html
Scientists agree that humans cause global warming
Ninety-seven percent of the climate scientists surveyed believe “global average temperatures have increased” during the past century.
And don’t forget, 8 out of 10 cats prefer Wiskas.
Unfortunately, people are blinded by “recent events syndrome” – it may have been even warmer in their youth, but they forget that and place greater emphasis on what has happened to them personally, recently.
I remember a radio station running a poll in 1999 to find the greatest music of the past millenium. Virtually all of the chosen pieces were pop songs.
Enneagram says:
May 25, 2010 at 11:51 am
Jim G says:
May 25, 2010 at 11:22 am
Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
This gets repeated over and again, but it’s untrue. When you can “teach” children not to drink, or smoke, or have sex – then I might start believing in it.
Justa Joe says:
May 25, 2010 at 9:40 am
“Margaret Thatcher remains an active supporter of anthropogenic global warming causes.” – GeoFlynx
Maggie Thatcher wanted to break the out of control coal unions in the UK, and I beieve that she is dead. Her death also preceded most of the debate regarding CAGW.
Mrs. Thatcher will be saddened to learn of her own demise.
In 1935, the Oxfod Union voted “It would not fight for King and Country”. The result greatly emboldened the Nazis who felt it showed how the British had grown soft.
Let’s give this 4 years also, and see how it looks from 2014.
Z: “Nigel Lawson is an economist. Also he used to be the Chancellor of the Exchequer, so hopefully he picked something up during his time there.”
Thank you for correcting me Z. I did not realize that.
@jim G says:
May 25, 2010 at 8:23 am
“The mini ice ages of the recent past subsequent to large volcanic erutions caused famines, plagues and wars. ”
You would be very hard pushed to find large enough eruptions within 2yrs of every cold episode through Maunder and Dalton. Its very curious looking at monthly temperatures on CET around all the coldest winters since 1659, there are well above temperatures within 3 to 4 months either side of most of these events. This is short term solar changes relative to the seasons at play, the real nature of climate change within the Holocene perspective.
Z says:
May 25, 2010 at 2:29 pm
“Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
This gets repeated over and again, but it’s untrue. When you can “teach” children not to drink, or smoke, or have sex – then I might start believing in it.”
These things were taught to children quite successfully for a long time. It is only recently that it has been assumed to be impossible, largely because for the most part we no longer even try. In fact most of the current cultural milieu seems to be constructed to teach them the exact opposite, a milieu which is primarily the creation of the same folks who are brainwashing them with the new puritanism of “green”. That might seem to be a logical contradiction, but it is typical of our present state where freedom is defined as license without responsibility in an environment of complete surrender to prevailing dogma and government control.
‘
Peter Miller said (May 25, 2010 at 1:36 pm):
“I am a scientist – a practicing geologist – and know about 40-50 other scientists. Not one of these people believe in the alarmist philosophy of extreme climate change.”
Let me guess, you work for a mining company? I’m just guessing of course.
“All my scientist colleagues believe the world has warmed a little over the last century, mostly due to natural causes. Most accept increases in carbon dioxide levels will cause minor warming, but that the concept of ‘forcing’ is complete BS. Why? If ‘forcing’ was real, it would have happened many times before in geological history – unfortunately for the alarmists, it hasn’t. If ‘forcing’ was real, then logically it would be an exponential effect – once started, it would be impossible to stop.”
Now I know you are not a scientist. Forcing does not mean something that can never stop. Here is a nice definition: “Climate Forcing: The Earth’s climate changes when the amount of energy stored by the climate system is varied. The most significant changes occur when the global energy balance between incoming energy from the Sun and outgoing heat from the Earth is upset. There are a number of natural mechanisms that can upset this balance, for example fluctuations in the Earth’s orbit, variations in ocean circulation and changes in the composition of the Earth’s atmosphere. In recent times, the latter has been evident as a consequence not of natural processes but of man-made pollution, through emissions of greenhouse gases. By altering the global energy balance, such mechanisms “force” the climate to change. Consequently, scientists call them “climate forcing” mechanisms.”
http://www.ace.mmu.ac.uk/eae/climate_change/older/Climate_Forcing.html
“Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, all the scientists I know work in the private sector and therefore are not told what to think or say if they want to keep their jobs.”
I have worked in industry. You can be fired for any reason. As an academic I have tenure and cannot be fired for expressing a contrary opinion. Your statement is so completely backwards that I suspect you know you are being disingenuous.
“As for the Oxford Union Society, their conclusion represents yet another small step in the process of turning back the tide of false science, so beloved by the political left.”
We shall see.
3 cheers for Lord Monckton!
Keep up the good work people. It’s going to get worse before it gets better. Uplift those around you. It is up to those who are aware of tyranny to inform those that are not. Sharpen your minds as the elite do…by only eating pure, organic non-GMO food, avoiding fluoridated water like the plague and purifying the air in your homes and work place. Do not take vaccines and avoid common table salt (replace it with pink Himalayan rock salt, for example). Throw out your microwave ovens and TV sets.
And watch the skies.. the trails those planes are producing just might turn into clouds before your very eyes…very deadly clouds.
Justa Joe said (May 25, 2010 at 9:40 am): “ “Margaret Thatcher remains an active supporter of anthropogenic global warming causes.” – GeoFlynx …Maggie Thatcher wanted to break the out of control coal unions in the UK, and I beieve that she is dead. Her death also preceded most of the debate regarding CAGW.”
The Iron Lady is not dead. Joe, do a little research before you hit send. However there are reports of her suffering from dementia so I am not sure how active she is these days.
See:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/thatcher_margaret.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Thatcher
http://www.margaretthatcher.org/essential/biography.asp
Here is her classic speech on the global environment:
http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=107817
It really should be required reading for everyone on this site. It makes a good case for action to prevent global climate change (although I don’t agree with her framing it as mainly an over population problem) and shows that whatever you opinion of the merits of AWG theory is, AWG is not a left-wing conspiracy.
George E. Smith says:
May 25, 2010 at 12:19 pm
“”” Mike says:
May 24, 2010 at 9:06 pm
…………………
George Smith: No one has projected that Earth will end up like Venus, not even Heisenberg. “””
Well you never heard me say that anybody has projected that either. Perhaps you can then educate us all, and explain to those of us that don’t get it; just why the MMGWCC crowd then keep on mentioning ad nauseum that Venus is a fiery furnace due to CO2 global warming. If they are not intimating that might happen on earth; why the hell are they even mentioning it. I don’t see the AGW crowd ever mentioning who is the current challenger of record for the next Americas Cup Challenge; so why do they even mention something else equally irrelevent; as the Planet Venus ?
George, you remind of students who do not do the reading before the lecture and then complain that the lecture is unclear. You see bits and pieces of news reports and blog posts, so of course you don’t have a coherent picture of the issues being debated. As to the particular question you asked: Venus is used as a classic illustration of the greenhouse effect, but no scientist thinks AGW on Earth will be anywhere near that extreme. There are environment nuts out there and some befuddled reporters who may have made stupid statements confounding the 2nd and 3rd plants. But don’t limp these together will actual scientists and responsible reporters. If you put them together into one “crowd” you will get confused.
Now go and do some serious reading:
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.html
Here you can even find a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T4UF_Rmlio
Good luck.
Like Peter Miller I am a scientist (PhD in Thermodynamics), and like Peter Miller I know many scientists very few of whom believe in Anthropogenic Global Warming.
My impression is that AGW belief is stronger among the “soft” scientists, and among the younger ones (i.e. those more indoctrinated during their education and less experienced).
For a true AGW zealot find a recent graduate in “Climate Studies” (usually with a Masters degree, since that allows them to sidestep the rigour a real science Batchelors). Although claiming to be a scientist their grasp of basic science will be feeble, as will be their grasp of scientific method and philosophy of science, and no amount of logic can impinge on their word perfect parroting of AGW dogma.
Mars Melt Hints at Solar, Not Human, Cause for Warming, Scientist Says
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html
IT’S THE SUN !!! Simultaneous warming on Earth and Mars suggests that our planet’s recent climate changes have a natural—and not a human-induced !!!
Man-made greenhouse warming has made a small contribution to the warming seen on Earth in recent years, but it cannot compete with the increase in solar irradiance .
>>A French bastard landing with an armed Banditti and establishing
>>himself king of England against the consent of the natives….”
Actually, to be more precise, William the Conquerer of Normandy was actually a Scandinavian Viking.
.
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51837
http://www.gasresources.net/index.htm
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/3952
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-09/07/content_6088611.htm
the supplied links should give food for thought to anyone who believes peak oil is a threat.
“The deep hot biosphere” by thomas gold further clears this misconception.
The trash spoon fed to us all via the msm more than puts me off debate – but pleased to see some progress!
“”” Mike says:
May 25, 2010 at 3:48 pm
George E. Smith says:
May 25, 2010 at 12:19 pm
“”” Mike says:
May 24, 2010 at 9:06 pm
…………………
George Smith: No one has projected that Earth will end up like Venus, not even Heisenberg. “””
Well you never heard me say that anybody has projected that either. Perhaps you can then educate us all, and explain to those of us that don’t get it; just why the MMGWCC crowd then keep on mentioning ad nauseum that Venus is a fiery furnace due to CO2 global warming. If they are not intimating that might happen on earth; why the hell are they even mentioning it. I don’t see the AGW crowd ever mentioning who is the current challenger of record for the next Americas Cup Challenge; so why do they even mention something else equally irrelevent; as the Planet Venus ?
George, you remind of students who do not do the reading before the lecture and then complain that the lecture is unclear. You see bits and pieces of news reports and blog posts, so of course you don’t have a coherent picture of the issues being debated. As to the particular question you asked: Venus is used as a classic illustration of the greenhouse effect, “””
“”” Venus is used as a classic illustration of the greenhouse effect, “””
Let me see if I have this straight. No sunlight reaches the surface of Venus (because of its dense atmosphere); but it is the poster boy for the “greenhouse” effect. That is a truly magnificent structure; complete suppresion of 6000 K solar spectrum radiation; thereby preventing the solar heating of the surface.
Ergo, the atmosphere which is blocking the solar radiation from the surface; must itself be heated by that solar radiation; so any heating (continuous) of the surface would have to be by direct conduction from the heated atmosphere.
If there is no solar spectrum radiation reaching the surface, there can be no “green house effect” at all, which converts short wavelength solar spectrum energy into longer wavelength thermal radiation.
Since Venus has no oceans (so far as I am aware) there isn’t any water feedback as we have on earth.
So which is it; is Venus the definitive example of “greenhouse effect” warming (spectrum shift) or is it just a mundane case of direct atmospheric heating from the outside; resulting in conductive heating of the surface. It surely can’t be both.
Yes I am familiar with students who have to be hit between the eyes with a 2 x 4 before anything sinks in; that’s because they have never been taught critical thinking.
The man in the street has been trained by the news media reports of statements by the peer reviewed scientific “experts” to believe that earth will experience a runaway thermal meltdown and end up like Venus; if they don’t change their lightbulbs to compact fluorescents.
Those very same scientific “experts” have found it convenient to not make it their responsibility to see that such misconceptions are corretced and to do so in each and every instance where the “media drop the ball. Well if the public knew the truth; the gravy train would come to a screeching halt wouldn’t it Mike ?
Yes; that which we erroneously call “the greenhouse effect”; but that we do understand the proper mechanisms for; is certainly active on planet earth; whether or not any such process occurs on Venus or anywhere else.
BUT !! On earth we do have oceans; and the physical/chemical, and biological properties of the H2O molecule act in all three phases of normal matter to totally disrupt whatever the “greenhouse effect” is trying to do.
In which case the role of CO2 is somewhat irrelevent to earth’s climate stability. We can get a free demonstration of the ineffectual nature of CO2 “warming” by simply sleeping out under the stars in some high desert location; such as Mojave California for example. If we had to rely on CO2 for warming of the planet, we would all freeze.
Mike says:
May 25, 2010 at 3:15 pm
(quoting Peter Miller said (May 25, 2010 at 1:36 pm):
“Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, all the scientists I know work in the private sector and therefore are not told what to think or say if they want to keep their jobs.”
Mike’s comment:
I have worked in industry. You can be fired for any reason. As an academic I have tenure and cannot be fired for expressing a contrary opinion. Your statement is so completely backwards that I suspect you know you are being disingenuous.
—…—…—
So, that means as an “academic scientist” you (like Mann, those in the UK who distorted their results, and others so vigorously defended and whitewashed by the academic society) cannot held liable or accountable for your (deliberate ?) propaganda, deception, mis-appropriation of funds and (deliberate ?) skewing of scientific results?
How comforting.
Now, name a AGW advocate who has been censured or had his funding cut for spewing the party line. Funny: I can find many who have been fired and cut off of grants and research for NOT following the propaganda, but who DID have the courage to follow their conscious and morals in speaking out AGAINST the AGW (socialist) line. The AGW community protects and covers up its own most successfully.
How much funding have you returned because you knew you were going to wasting my children, grandchildren, and their grandchildren (tax-payer-stolen) money? How many children in Africa cannot get malaria treatment because Mann is taking 1.8 million dollars to put in Penn State’s coffers to create more AGW propaganda?
Ralph says:
May 25, 2010 at 4:29 am
Ralph,
He’s a Lord. Can you deal with it? The Queen made him a Lord. Until the Queen un-Lords him he’s a Lord.
And, by the way, do you have anything significant to say?
Wren says:
May 24, 2010 at 9:06 pm
[snip – off topic politics]
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
I’m sure he/she couldn’t help him/herself. IPolitics is all poor Wren knows.
Mike says:
May 25, 2010 at 3:34 pm
“The Iron Lady is not dead. Joe”
You got me, but I’ve already copped to that error almost immediately after hitting send. See above. I deserve the rebuke for not verifying. As Reagan once said trust but verify. Your link dates to a speech that Thatcher gave nearly +20 years ago. I’d be curious to know if Thatcher was still in command of her faculties if she would still be on board the CAGW band wagon in terms of the “solutions” that are being proposed and/or implemented.
I must admit that I did not know how deep Thatcher was into the green deal. She was apparently a believer in the ozone hole, the rain forest deal, and CAGW. I think even you will concede that the rain forest scare was way overblown.
We’re told that many of the what passes for conservatives in the UK are heavily into CAGW. On that basis one cannot say that CAGW belief is exclusive to the left, but when one looks at it the solutions proposed for CAGW they are a leftist’s wet dream.
George M. Smith needs to do his integrals- he has woefully underestimated how absorption shifts can alter upward welling irradiance as GHG line and band spectra move relative to the blackbody peak with temperature changes- an order of magnitude separates the flux from +50 to -50 C
He also seems oblivious to ground, sea surface and cloud albedo interactions with evaporation rates and levels of cloud cover and aerosol IR activity.
Mike should note that some of us AGW proponents are as actively involved in the defense of the America’s Cup as we are skeptical of climate hype and the pretensions of unemployable TV weathermen and House Of Lords rejects.
If he knows of a challenge , he should hold his peace, as disclosing the fact before the GGYC acknowledges it would be as deplorable as reading other people’s e-mail.
Epistemic Closure,
You are a fool.
Monckton kicked ass on your incompetent believers in CAGW. He rubbed their ignorant noses in the playground sand, and all your impotent protestations won’t change that fact.
And George M. Smith has forgotten more physics than you will ever learn — while you sound like some coddled Ivy League tenured know-it-all, who advanced only through progressive butt-kissing.
Provide solid, testable, empirical evidence that what we are observing today is outside the limits of past climate parameters. Otherwise, your silly CAGW conjecture is debunked.
Mike: Are you serious?? Did you read who they polled in the stats?? It wasn’t a cross section of scientists. It was a cross section of scientists known to believe that global warming is occuring. It is a completely useless survey.
How about dealing with the 30 000 scientists who do not believe man-made global warming is occuring vs the “489 self-identified members of either the American Meteorological Society or the American Geophysical Union who are listed in the current edition of American Men and Women of Science”
Jason says:
May 25, 2010 at 9:59 am
“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?”
– Maurice Strong, founder of the UN Environment Programme
————
Thanks for compiling that most revealing string of quotes. pretty much sums up what’s behind the AGW curtain. This ‘global crisis’ demands a global serfdom, apparently. I have copied your list for future reference.
Feet2thefire: “They BELIEVE.”
Since surveys of this type measure opinion they are by necessity couched in terms of belief or similar.
An opinion survey cannot credibly claim that a certain percentage of its respondents “know” that X is occurring, while a certain percentage of respondents “know” that X is not occurring.
In this respect, as in many everyday situations, “I believe” is similar in meaning to “I think that such and such is the case”, and “belief” is more or less synonymous with “opinion”, “viewpoint” etc.
As for the Oxford Union debate, these sorts of occasions are primarily contests of rhetorical skill rather than content.
In regard to his Lordship’s title, Monckton is a hereditary peer (whose lineage goes all the way back to 1957), so he inherited the title by accident of birth. This is not to detract from his substantial career achievements, but becoming a hereditary peer requires little skill, rhetorical or otherwise.
Go! Lord Monckton Go!
I made a compilation of documentary films about the global warming scam for free online viewing at this blog.
Check it out here [scroll down to view]:
http://globalwarmingscamfilms.blogspot.com
In re Robert Smart,
See also David MacKay’s book, downloadable online, Sustainable Energy – Without the Hot Air.
George E. Smith –
Criminy! Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle applies only to atom-sized and sub-atomic particles. It is too small of a phenomenon to apply to macroscopic objects, let alone climatic systems. It does not create any barrier to measuring global temperature.
George E. Smith again –
If the atmosphere were full of sufficient massive quantities of GHG (eg. like 88 atmospheres of CO2, or tens of atmospheres of water vapor), these could block a very large fraction of the IR leaving the surface. In this way, the surface could radiate tens of thousands of W/m2 (as does Venus), while the atmosphere absorbs and reradiates back downward the same tens of thousands minus the hundreds of watts/m2 that make it out to space from the top of the atmosphere.
As altitude increases, temperature falls. Each higher layer of the atmosphere radiates less energy up and down, until finally at the highest layers, there is little GHG for the radiation to pass through and the hundreds of watts/m2 escapes into space. (While at the same time hundreds of w/m2 are reradiated back downward.)
This is how the surface of a planet can radiate much more energy than the solar radiation coming in at the top of the atmosphere. It is a very basic principle of GH warming.
If I understand correctly, the vote by the undergrads was NOT about whether AGW is real or whether temperatures will climb by 2 – 4C (global average) by the end of the century but
about whether or not we should spend lots of money to stop it.
“This house would put economic growth before combatting climate change.”
That is not a repudiation of climate change.
Bill Gates is one of the brightest businessmen of the last century. He has amassed one of the largest personal fortunes in history with his economic acumen.
How has he decided to spend his fortune? Erecting hundreds of windmills and thousand of acres of solar panels to prevent suffering of people not even born yet, that may occur the better part of a century from now and may be more costly to adapt to than dodge?
Or is he spending his fortune trying to wipe out diseases that the for-profit health care system blithely ignores, helping to alleviate the suffering of hundreds of millions who are alive today and now?
Damn that HTML!
>>Amino Acid
>>He’s a Lord. Can you deal with it? The Queen made him a Lord.
>>Until the Queen un-Lords him he’s a Lord.
>>And, by the way, do you have anything significant to say?
He is a Viscount. And the point IS significant.
The ad hominem attack was that Monckton is not a lord, and yet his formal address is ‘My Lord’. Thus the warmists were not only wrong with their data, but wrong in their abuse.
.
Jbar says:
May 26, 2010 at 3:41 am [ … ]
Agree, it is not the job of private companies to spend their capital to alleviate the suffering of people in other countries. That is a function of government.
Private [ie: publicly traded] companies have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to provide a return on investment. They can be sued for wasting shareholder assets on expenditures that are the responsibility of governments, not private companies.
Bill Gates is spending his own money as he sees fit. Good for Gates. And anyone can emulate him, on a smaller scale. It benefits no one to be critical of how others charitably give their money away, when you can set your own good example by giving away your personal assets, albeit on a smaller scale.
Today, the main beneficiaries of government ‘charity’ are government bureaucrats — not the poor who, as always, get the crumbs. Despite $4 trillion having been spent on the War on Poverty since the Johnson Administration, the poverty rate percentage in the U.S. is essentially unchanged.
“Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
May 25, 2010 at 8:12 pm
Ralph says:
May 25, 2010 at 4:29 am
Ralph,
He’s a Lord. Can you deal with it? The Queen made him a Lord. Until the Queen un-Lords him he’s a Lord.”
The Queen can’t “un-Lord” him, “un-Lording” requires attainder and since 1870 (abolition of attaint by confession, verdict and process in the 1870 Forfeiture Act) this has to be done by act of parliament. He could relinquish his title under the 1963 Peerage Act, or it could become extinct on his death if their is no direct heir depending on how the original writ or letters patent creating the title and its succession are written.
Is there anymore clarity you require from “Pedants-R-us” on this topic?…..:-)
(Not that anyone is still reading this far down the page)
Oil will be around for centuries, I’m sure. The problem is supplying it in enough quantities against a burgeoning population intent on driving cars etc. Allied to that, is the fact that over 85% of reserves is state-controlled, and not all of them particularly friendly to the West.
Plus, oil is much more difficult to extract (deep and wide) and refine (tar sands et al) these days. Plus, plus, plus…
Athabasca et al (tar sands) the saviour? Behave! The world consumes around 30bn barrels/year. How much does Athabasca produce?
So, Mike.
a. Since when was science conducted by consensus?
b. how many scientists of those surveyed were climate scientists?
c. what was the sample size?
d. was the sample selection random?
e. Where was the sample taken
I am a scientist. I’m not an AGW believer but I’m a biotechnologist, so what do I know?
A tea party activist has introduced a bill to the Grand Junction School Board to try to ban global warming proselytizing in public schools.
Push to teach “other side” of global warming heats up in Colorado’s Mesa County
By Nancy Lofholm
The Denver Post
I won’t link – the site is riddled with cookies. But there are quite a number of opinionated commenters on both sides on the Post’s forum.
Interesting how all the people to whom you refer have actual names, now including, thankfully, the embarrassed e-mailers.
“Interesting how all the people to whom you refer have actual names, now including, thankfully, the embarrassed e-mailers.”
Yes, and it should be kept in mind that public funds – including U.S. taxes – paid for those CRU emails.
Brendan H:
“As for the Oxford Union debate, these sorts of occasions are primarily contests of rhetorical skill rather than content.”
Read the article. The Viscount destroyed the opposition with facts.
Good grief; Don’t they teach simple things like perturbation theory, or the principle of virtual work anymore. Seems like you PhDs learn more and more about less and less.
Well having 20 years experience as an apprentice through Master Mechanic working at the Ford Mustang Assembly line ; Bolt 39 will not land you a job as an auto repair mechanic at the local agrage; where they might expect you to be able to do the brakes on a Volkswagen or change out the four Oxygen Sensors on a Ford Taurus as well.
So let’s work through this again; for the benefit of Mike and cba ; and now it seems like Epistemic Closure and jbar also want to join in too.
First the legal disclaimer; in keeping with the finest traditions of the Intergovernmental Propaganda on Climatic Concensus; and in the interests of Scientific Robustness; everything that follows is presumed to have error guardbands of +/- 50 % leading to the obligatory 3:1 fudge factor such as is found in things like the SI Unit of “Climate Sensitivity”; which is 3 +/- 50 % .
Also for these purposes pi = sqrt(10) = 3
So first of all, Earth does not have 88 atmospheres of atmosphere; or even of CO2; so whatever jbar was talking about is not on message.
So we start where I started before; with Trenberth’s model of an isothermal planet having a black body surface at a Temperature of 288 K (15 deg C, 59 deg F) which uniformly emits 390 W/m^2 of (presumably) BB radiation according to the Stefan Boltzmann Law, along with the Planck Radiation Law, and the Wien Displacement Law. So the emitted LWIR has a spectral peak at 10.1 microns wavelength; so 25 % of 390 W/m^2 is emitted below 10.1 microns, and 75% above. 99% is emitted above 5.05 microns, and only 1% is emitted above 80.8 microns. This is in Robust agreement with the Trenberth Cartoon of Earth’s radiation budget; as promoted by NASA/NOAA/whoever.
And we have a starting assumption that TSI is 1366 W/m^2 at AM-0; and take the standard assumption of solar energy engineering texts that the ground level AM-1 is 1000 W/m^2. CO2 is at 0.04 % by molecular abundance (I don’t do volumetric analysis in a volume that is the entire known universe minus the volume occupied by planet earth’s land and seas).
Since I’m a generous person, I’m going to allow you in your runaway scenario to have up to 100 times the present level of CO2 or 4 % maximum Which is 7 doublings of the preferred earth CO2 abundance that the greens will accept as having served for the entire duration of the existence of the genus Homo; up until the Bush administration fouled that up.
So the predicted; excuse me, projected increase in earth mean surface temperature is 7 x 3 = 21 deg C taking us to 36 deg C or 309 K ; well according to Climatologer extraordinaire Dr Steven Schneider.
But now I want to perturb that system (radiatively). And no; I am not going to forget about conduction and convection or evaporation or whatever; I’m quite aware and up on all of those things. They just aren’t germane to this stick in the sand exercise; nor is the Internet, or Google or Wikipedia; and we don’t need any Cray Comouters or even the Playstation that Peter Humbug uses; well maybe he uses an X-box.
So now starting from that origin; I want to make one very slight almost negligible perturbation; nothing like suddenly importing 88 atmospheres worth of CO2 and oodles of Sulphur Dioxide or whatever to make opaque reflective sulphurous clouds.
I’m simply going to raise the surface insolation (solar spectrum) to 1000 W/m^2 everywhere on that uniform Black Body surface; that produces 390 W/m^2 at 288 K Temperature.
Unless Leif has something sunlike in the works that he hasn’t toled us about, this can’t actually happen (without help) but we’ll do it anyway.
Since 1000/390 = 2.56 and the 4th root of 2.56 is 1.25 =5/4 this is going to raise the steady state Temperature of the surface (due only to radiation increase) by 25% or 72 deg C up to 360 K at which point the surface (BB) will be emitting a Black Body LWIR thermal spectrum having a total emittance of 1000 W/m^2 and also a spectral peak wavelength of 8.08 microns per Wien’s Displacement Law. The peak spectral emittance will be increased by a factor 1.25 ^5 which is also about 5/4 x 2.56 or 3.2 times what it is now, in W/m^2/micron. The present value as I recall is 25 W/m^2/micron; so the reader can multiply that by 3.2 to get 80 W/m^2/micron.
So now where are we ? The surface is emitting 1000 W/m^2 peaking at 8.08 microns (probably 8 if you use robust mathematics), so 250 W/m^2 is emitted below 8 microns and 750 W/m^2 above 8 microns. Only 2.5 W/m^2 is emitted below 4.04 microns ; and also above 64.64 microns.
At the 15 micron CO2 molecular bending modes, we have gone from 1.5 times the spectral peak where the spectral emittance is 70% of the peak value (17.5 W/m^2/micron) up to 1.875 times the peak wavelength where the Spectral Emittance is now only 40% of the peak or 0.4 x 80 = 32 W/m^2/micron.
So the total surface emittance has increased by a factor of 2.56 but the spectral emittance at the CO2 15 micron band is only 1.83 times its present value. So the effectiveness of the CO2 15 micron band has been substantially reduced by the Wien Displacement shift in the LWIR spectrum.
Now we must be fair to the Warmistas and point out that if the atmosphere is in contact with this hotter earth, that the atmosphereic Temperature has likely increased as well due to radiation /conduction/convection/evaporation/precipitation/whatever ; no I haven’t forgotten anybody, so I’ll take it that the atmospheric Temperature (including the CO2) also went up by 25%; adn since the molecules have a Maxwellian distribution of mean particle velocities, then we can assume that the Doppler broadening of the CO2 15 micron band (or individual lines) has increased by the square root of the Temperature and sqrt of 1.25 is about 1.125 so the spectrum energy that might be captured by CO@ is about double what it was before; maybe 2.05 or so.
So by increasing the solar “Forcing” to 1000 W/m^2 we increased the total surface emittance by 2.56 but the amount captured by CO2 is only doubled; so the amount of surface LWIR escaping past the CO2 hole goes ub substantially.
Actually the situation is even more dramatic than that.
The Spectral peak emittance increased from 25 W/m^2/micron up to 80 W/m^2/micron; 3.2 times but it also moved from 10.1 microns down to 8.08 microns; and there is that Atmospheric Window going from around 7 microns up to that CO2/H2O 15 micron region; and since 3/4 of the energy lies above the peak wavelength; we find ourselves with a 3.2 x peak spectral emittance that is spectrally moved even further into the atmospheric window and away from the CO2 15 micron band.
So the radiative cooling situation has improved substantially; while the Green house blocking by CO2 has been diminished as a fraction of the Total energy captured. Yes there’s an ozone hole in that window.
Now let us not forget that only 1% of the available LWIR spectrum has reached the 4.0 micron band of CO2.
So the 15 micron band has been significantly turned off; while the 4.0 micron band hasn’t even started to become a factor.
Well my arms are getting tired holding this blow torch that is irradiating the entire earth at 1000 W/m^2; to produce all this radiative mayhem; so I’m going to turn the job over to your CO2.
So crank your CO2 up by a factor of 100 to 4 % mole abundance and now let us see how you do at holding that position so I can let go.
Well you still have all that conduction/convection/evaporation/precipitation to put to work; and we have plenty of ocean water left to absorb whatever thermal radiation is emitted from your warmer atmosphere. Wow thinkg of all that evaporation that is going to transport tons of water up into the upper atmosphere along with all that latent heat. Some swamp cooler you have operating there. Don’t forget all the water clouds that are going to form; well unless you don’t like having clouds with your precipitation. So what will the cloud albedo go up to; we don’t have any ice and snow albedo; I already melted all of that and flooded Florida and Banglasdesh.
Those clouds are also going to block a lot of sunshine from the ground; so the sun is going to return to something more in line with Trenberth’s average of 168 W/m^2 absorbed by the surface.
Well there you have it; why don’t you all get together and tell us how your CO2 is going to maintain the hot house condition I set up for you; and then in the event that you actually can’t figure out how to do that with 4 % mole fraction of CO2 and pretty much ordinary atmospheric pressure on earth (forget about Venus); Explain how it would be possible for CO2 by itself; well I’ll be generous and toss in water feedback as a gift; to get the earth to that condition; or anything even approximating that.
Isn’t it annoying that H2O insists on making clouds that cool the surface; do let us know if you have a cloud pass between you and the sun and you find it suddenly warms up in that shadow zone.
But please don’t come back and tell me I am foregetting something; I probably am; but I’ll let you use whatever I forgot, to help you warm up the earth in a CO2 thermal runaway catastrophe.
Quick Question for Jbar; what is the value of the largest dimension where the Heisenberg principle of “Unbestimmheit” (mit ein umlaut) suddenly ceases to apply ? Don’t forget some non-wikpedler reference for where you found that.
I know for sure that Heisenberg’s principle makes some yellow LEDs work; well at least with acceptible efficiency.
Does anyone have a link to the video of the debate?
Thanks
And for Mike,
I have to say that if you get your science information from the sort of literature references that you cited for me to “do some serious reading” and silly you-tube videos such as that from some history biddy, with her husband sitting beside her telling us that global warming was discovered in 2004; then I am truly sorry for you. More importantly I’m very sorry for your students; since you offered the information that you have tenure somewhere. How nice to be formally protected from ones own foibles so that the measure of success no longer needs to apply.
I got out of Academia 50 years ago; to go to work to try and do some actual good for all of the peoples on this planet; by working for profit making private enterprises; whose only measure of performance is that their customers willingly; and of their own free will, take their own personal money out of their pocket, and put it down in exchange for some useful product that, may contain the fruits of my labors for the last 50 years.
I’m judged only by the extent to which my stuff and my ideas actually work in practice to achieve useful results. When you get to your first billion successful students graduating out of your classes; and start on your second billion; then tell us how nice it is to be fireproof. At least that many people have willingly exchanged their own money for the fruits of my efforts; and I am sure lots of institutions like your have also. And that is just for the most recent decade.
The teachers who had the most positive effects on my education didn’t have to take refuge behind any institutional immunity to failure. They kept their jobs because of the measure of success they ahieved through their successful students.
Don’t take this as a slam at you personally Mike; I take the high road; and I assume (without proof) that you actually are a good teacher at whatever you do teach (hope so anyway). But no teacher ever got fired for having successfully taught good students; so don’t get soft, and depend on your tenure for job protection; do the job that has been entrusted to you.
“””” Epistemic Closure says:
May 25, 2010 at 9:12 pm
George M. Smith needs to do his integrals- he has woefully underestimated how absorption shifts can alter upward welling irradiance as GHG line and band spectra move relative to the blackbody peak with temperature changes- an order of magnitude separates the flux from +50 to -50 C
He also seems oblivious to ground, sea surface and cloud albedo interactions with evaporation rates and levels of cloud cover and aerosol IR activity. “”””
Well Epistemic, I don’t need to do any integrals; and I haven’t woefully underestimated anything. Yes I have omitted some things from my simple (stick in the sand) mental exercise. You won’t find any String Theory; or General Relativity; no Organic, or inorganic Chemistry; there’s a whole raft of things I didn’t include. What qualifies you to attribute lack of inclusion to forgetfullness ?
You are welcome to unforget those items you mentioned and add them to my simplified analysis yourself; that way you can show us your prowess with the integrals.
Oh I do have a degree in Mathematics; both Pure Mathematics and applied Mathematics actually; so I can do integrals; even without having to Google up tables of integrals. Well I also have a degree in Physics too; well actually in Radio-Physics as well; you know; all that stuff about the Atmosphere and the Ionosphere, and Electromagnetic Wave propagation; Optical properties; I can even design the circuits used to measure and observe those phenomena; and no I don’t mean by picking subsystems out of an Agilent Inc Instrumentation catalogue; I mean as in starting with a silicon wafer and figuring out how and what to dope it with; to make whatever semiconductor devices I want. I’m quite happy with the III-V semiconductors as well, so if you want to make LED chips, I can do that for you too; and design the optics for the packaging therof. Well if you ask me nicely, I’ll even grow the single crystal substrate materials for you; and also deposit the light emitting epitaxial layers for you. I can do that even if you don’t have any reactors to make those materials in; because I can build you those as well. There’s actually quite a few things besides doing integrals that I actually can do. Sometimes I do get a bit forgetful though; like I just forgot that I also majored in Mathematical Physics; so if I really need to get down to do Electron Optics or Field theory, I do have some sort of tool kit to get started.
No they don’t pay me to do most of those things; they pay me because I can if they need to.
No I do not know what makes El Nino or his frigid sister work or PDO or AMO; I do get that last one a bit confused with AM-0 for the Optical Properties of the Atmosphere. There are other people who understand those; so I don’t need to.
But please don’t assume that I forgot something; simply because I didn’t mention it.
Smokey:” “Read the article. The Viscount destroyed the opposition with facts.”
Right. A joke about measurement and the “lawyers” question. Definitely rhetoric.
George: You took some undergrad math and science courses 50 years ago. Good for you. But you have burned out. You do not understand most of what you are typing.
Karim Dhanani says:
May 26, 2010 at 7:00 am
“So, Mike.
a. Since when was science conducted by consensus?
b. how many scientists of those surveyed were climate scientists?
c. what was the sample size?
d. was the sample selection random?
e. Where was the sample taken
I am a scientist. I’m not an AGW believer but I’m a biotechnologist, so what do I know?”
Read the article on the survey and you can answer your own questions. You are not a scientist. You are a “biotechnologist.” You probably have made some nice gadgets and saved a few lives. That’s great. Society needs people like you. But you are not a scientist.
(I’m not a scientist either if you want to be picky; I am a mathematician who is trying to better understand the science behind climate change and the complex issues it presents to us, but my own research is not in this area.)
Flask says:
May 25, 2010 at 8:42 am
“I would have to agree with the 84% and the 74% that I believe human activity can be scientifically connected to warming, although I doubt that it is the only cause of climate change, and on whatever proportion of warming results from human activity.”
No one has said all observed climate change is due to AGW. The mainstream scientific view is that most – I think about 70% is the estimate – of the rise in global mean temps is due to our GHG.
Jimbo says:
May 25, 2010 at 6:37 am
… “Here is more abrupt stuff contrary to your statement.” …
Thank you so much! I will read this carefully, I may indeed need to modify my views, but give me sometime to do more reading. I have printed the 24 page Executive Summary and will read it tonight. The great thing about be proven wrong that one gets to learn something new!
http://www.nap.edu/nap-cgi/report.cgi?record_id=10136&type=pdfxsum
It also says this: “Human civilizations arose after those extreme, global ice-age
climate jumps. Severe droughts and other regional climate events during the
current warm period have shown similar tendencies of abrupt onset and
great persistence, often with adverse effects on societies.” I hope others will take the time to read the whole document.
Why is it that there are no reports of this debate and its outcome in any newspapers?
Why the press silence?
The question is significant because , while I know the press is biassed, there are some people who don’t. and to get this information on lamentably influential internet websites it needs to be sourced in some printed media.
Who runs the Watts Up website? And who, by the way, is David Icke?
Several people have raised this question about Monckton’s title. He is a hereditary peer, and a few years ago the Labour government removed the right of hereditary peers to speak or vote in the House of Lords (replacing them with appointed peers like Lords Snape and Mandelson who are equally unelected and seriously corrupt). The right of a Viscount to go on calling himself a Lord has not changed.
Somebody else says there were no “scientists” in the debate. Monckton has a degree in archeology, which many people would classify as a science. Lawson is a respected economist and economics is certainly a science.
Serious doubts about AGW have been publicly raised by Britain’s top meteorogical scientists at the Met Office and the Hdley Centre. It was these British scientists who challenged the idiots at the IPCC to substantiate or withdraw their claims about the Himalayan glaciers melting, with the result that eventually the IPCC withdrew its claim earlier this year.
Climategate has not just been “ignored”. Worse than that, the Labour government paid for an “enquiry” (=a cover-up) led by people who have huge vested interests in keeping up the government subsidies of alternative energy. What a farce.
Brendan H says
May 26, 2010 at 11:58 am:
“Smokey says: Read the article. The Viscount destroyed the opposition with facts.”
Brendan answered: “Right. A joke about measurement and the ‘lawyers’ question. Definitely rhetoric.”
Brendan me boy, you are wrong again. Obviously you did not read the article, or you would have noticed the following facts:
The planet’s temperature “…was higher than today by at least 12.5 F° for most of the past 550 million years,”
And in response to the claim that Bangladesh is sinking beneath the waves: “…a recent study by Prof. Niklas Moerner shows that sea level in Bangladesh has actually fallen,”
And in response to the baseless claim that no new oil is being discovered: “…in fact, record new [oil] finds have been made in the past five years,”
As is the fact that “…every artificial job created at taxpayers’ expense destroys two real jobs in the wealth-producing private sector,”
And the fact that “…the Climategate emails had exposed the terrestrial temperature records as defective,”
And the fact that “…not one of 539 scientific papers on ‘global climate change’ provided any evidence whatsoever that ‘global warming’ would be catastrophic,”
And the fact that “…the warming effect of CO2 was a tiny fraction of the estimates peddled by the UN’s climate panel.” When challenged on that fact, Monckton promptly replied the reference is found in “IPCC, 2007, chapter 10, box 10.2.”
And the fact that “…shutting down the entire global economy for a whole year, with all the death, destruction, disaster, disease and distress that that would cause, would forestall just 4.7 ln(390/388) = 0.024 Kelvin or Celsius degrees of ‘global warming’, so that total economic shutdown for 41 years would prevent just 1 K of warming.”
There are lots more facts in the article. But Brendan is right about the rhetoric. His problem is that rhetoric was used in place of facts by the losing side. And that is why they lost: those pesky facts got in the way of a good scare.
By the way; WRT the silly claims that Lord Mockton is “not a real Lord”.
Well actually there are no real Lords; well not in the British scheme of things. Maybe Liecchtenstein or Andorra have “real Lords”
For the British “Lord” is simply a title of address much as would be “Sir” or “Mister”. But it is a title of address for only certain groups of persons. And those persons have Hereditary Peerages which pass from the holder to the eldest son; and among those groups of Peerages one does in fact find “Viscounts”; preceded in rank by “Earls” and followed by “Barons”.
I believe that Life Peerages are also “Barons”; but those Titles last only for the life of the individual. Life Peers are not members of the House of Lords. Some Hereditary Peers are members but not all are; and non membership in the House of Lords does not make one not a “Lord”, as to the proper form of address.
So just as Senator Ma-am Mrs Barbara Boxer worked her A*** off (possibly literally) to earn her various titles of address; so too is Viscount Monckton thoroughly entitled to be addressed as “Lord Monckton”; for that is the proper Titular address for all Viscounts.
Of course above Earls there are Princes and possibly other peers and presumably not all of them either, are members of the House of Lords.
I have actually exchanged a very few e-mails with Lord Monckton; hey who knows they may have been hacked; and I must confess, that I am quite uncomfortable in simply calling him Christopher; but I have done so; but I much prefer to acknowledge that he has a proper Title which I prefer to use.
‘Mercans simply don’t understand the concept of historical continuity ( and I is one; but not by citizenship) and that is a shame; since the history that has been handed down to us from the Founding Fathers, is no less worthy of preserving and remembering, than what the British (and I is one of those too; of the colonial branch) have carried forwards with them from as far back as the plains of Runnymede and beyond.
For we all stand on the shoulders of the giants who preceded us on this rock; and if we reject that Heritage; what purpose is there for us in life; do we want to just pass on to our children and grandchildren the current top three “artists” du jour on American Idol; or the latest, greatest Rock band since the Head Lice !
Why go to Washington DC to stand at the Lincoln Memorial ; or to London to watch the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace ? Maybe our reasons are hidden away in that word “Civilisation.”
So mock Lord Monckton, if you must; that of course is the very first mark of the failed debater; the “ad hominem attack”; closely followed by the “straw man” as a strategy for losing debating points.
But the fact remains he is a “Lord” just as Mrs (babs) Boxer is a “Senator”; so get over it.
“”” Mike says:
May 26, 2010 at 1:47 pm
George: You took some undergrad math and science courses 50 years ago. Good for you. But you have burned out. You do not understand most of what you are typing. “””
So you are a mind reader as well as tenure protected employee. Actually it was more like 55 years ago; but who is counting; back then you were actually expected to learn something in school; other than http://www.google.com
I like your debating style; very informative presentation of researched facts. Come to think of it; I don’t actually recall any actual researched facts in any of your posts; well science facts that is; you did tell us your were tenure protected; and I’m perfectly willing to accept that as fact.
George E. Smith –
Roughly speaking, Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle is that you cannot precisely measure both the momentum and the position of a particle because the energy of the photon that you use to make the measurement affects the result.
The larger the mass of particle you hit with a photon to measure it, the smaller the relative or percent uncertainty in the measurement.
For macroscopic particles, the percent uncertainty is vanishingly small, essentially zero.
Prithee, which vowel in Unbestimmtheit gets an umlaut?? [Ya left out a “t” there.]
and in the objective case, I think you meant to say mit einem umlaut. Nicht wahr?
No way I’m going to read that book you wrote on radiation balance or whatever it was.
Of course nothing in the next few 100MM years will cause a runaway greenhouse on this Earth. That would require the slowly increasing temperature and radiance of the sun to raise the temperature of the oceans to 100C. The number solar physicists throw around is about a billion years for that.
“”” Epistemic Closure says:
May 25, 2010 at 9:12 pm
George M. Smith needs to do his integrals- he has woefully underestimated how absorption shifts can alter upward welling irradiance as GHG line and band spectra move relative to the blackbody peak with temperature changes- an order of magnitude separates the flux from +50 to -50 C “””
So +50 C (izzat degrees) is 323.15 K and -50 would be 223.15 K (if that is -50 deg C)
So (323.15/233.15)^4 is 4.3977 (+/- 50 %) so Epistemic, I would suggest you have a systemic problem with 8th grade arithmatic if you think that is “”” an order of magnification separation “””
You might ask Mike for some help with your arithmetic; before you tackle the Integral Calculus; he’s a mathematician he says.
Somebody else actually already did the integration; so I simply had to apply simple laws of black body radiation Physics; standard 8th grade science stuff.
Good luck with that tutoring from Mike.
By the way even the peak of the BB spectrum from +50 deg C down to -50 deg C only changes by a factor of
6.368488 (+/- 50 %); so you can’t even fall back on claiming you meant the peak of the spectrum; rather than the flux.
“”” Jbar says:
May 26, 2010 at 6:31 pm
George E. Smith –
Roughly speaking, Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle is that you cannot precisely measure both the momentum and the position of a particle because the energy of the photon that you use to make the measurement affects the result.
The larger the mass of particle you hit with a photon to measure it, the smaller the relative or percent uncertainty in the measurement.
For macroscopic particles, the percent uncertainty is vanishingly small, essentially zero.
Prithee, which vowel in Unbestimmtheit gets an umlaut?? [Ya left out a “t” there.]
and in the objective case, I think you meant to say mit einem umlaut. Nicht wahr? “””
Hey I won’t laugh at your English; if you don’t laugh at my German. But many thanks for the speeling lesson; and the grammar too. Since I was never any good at any language, and had but a single year at German; and that was 50 years ago; I’ve gotten burned out on it in the meantime; besides what do I care how the type it; if Sieglinde sings it properly, I don’t even care if she can spell it either.
As to Heisenberg’s Principle; there was this traffic cop who gave me a speeding ticket in a 35 mile per hour zone. He told the judge that I took off like a scared rabbit from a traffic light that turned green and reached 40 mph before slowing to turn into a parking lot after going half a block. The judge told him to get lost, and said he couldn’t possibly have measured my speed in half a block. So the cop set up shop inside that parking lot; from where he could see all the way from that light to where the road made a bend , a quarter mile down the road, so he got himself a nice speed trap. A couple of months after that court appearance; he came barrelling after me again as I rounded that bend in the road; and he showed me his stop watch which he had stopped at 22.5 seconds; so he gave me another ticket for doing 40 in a 35 zone. (This was before hand held radars were in common use)
So I showed the judge a photo taken a bit more than halfway to the bend pointing out that the speed limit changed to 45 mph there.
So the judge asked the cop just where exactly I was when he measured my speed to be 40 mph as he had written on the ticket.
Cop said he did’t know for sure but it was somewhere in that 1/4 mile. Judge told him to get lost again; and also told him to stop using a stop watch speed trap; since he couldn’t prove that he had actually started the watch at the moment I started out from the light.
He never did ticket me again but he followed me several times afterwards; discovered I always remained below the posted limit by his speedo; and also below what would be considered a safe speed when conditions weren’t primo. Just doing his job of course; and we never had any subsequent reason to meet. I really think it was my silver painted (yuck) Jaguar XK-140 hard top coupe (1956) that got him following me.
But Heisenberg’s principle doesn’t apply to speed traps of course since they are macro objects.
So
Please pay me money, and my company will wave a magic wand and make the climate “stable”.
Smokey: “There are lots more facts in the article.”
And how many members of the audience had sufficient knowledge about the climate to verify or challenge Monckton’s claims?
As I say, these sorts of occasions are primarily contests of rhetorical skill.
Brendan H.: Your comment that this is simply a competition of ones ability to utilize rhetoric within the confines of a debate is simply not giving credence to the way the debate is established. This particular debate was to be argued by people who were to have ‘facts’ to support their claims in defense of their argument.
Clearly, and definetively, Monckton, had the facts, and with solid rhetoric, defended the facts. Clearly, the opposing side, had a lack of facts to support their argument, and thus could not win even with good rhetoric.
Mark says:
May 25, 2010 at 12:28 am
“I’m sorry to say that the Oxford Union debate is an irrelevancy. Nobody cares about it any more. It is less significant than the boat race.”
Unless of course the AGW proponents had won the debate, in which case it would be cited as more proof of the AGW consensus. You can’t have it both ways, if you accept the challenge of a debate you win or lose – you lost ! So accept it and admit that it is the AGW camp that is in denial.
Brendan H said:
“And how many members of the audience had sufficient knowledge about the climate to verify or challenge Monckton’s claims?”
That was the job of Lord Monckton’s opponents, but by lacking any convincing facts, they lost the debate.
Every fact stated by Viscount Monckton has been thoroughly discussed right here and repeatedly verified. The opposing side lacked the basic knowledge to respond, even if they had convincing facts, which they did not.
The claim that “climate change” is primarily the result of a rise in a minor trace gas has been thoroughly debunked time and again. In fact, natural variability completely explains the climate, with no need for any extraneous entities such as CO2.
Monckton won the debate fair and square — based on verifiable facts, not rhetoric. CAGW is a fraudulent, pseudo-scientific scam, based on the craving for increased tax revenues and fed by money and misplaced belief.
These young students have been beat over the head 24/7/365 with alarming visions of “climate change,” the evil “carbon,” and the endless drivel about fast rising sea levels, disappearing ice, oceans acidifying, toad exterminations, and the thousand other scare stories told and re-told by the media, by their professors, and by their chattering, Greenpeace-worshipping girlfriends.
But after hearing the facts, they came to the proper conclusion: that Lord Monckton was right, and his ignorant opponents were wrong. The students understood which side had the facts, and which side were the bovine fecal purveyance specialists — the very same things that we understand here.
So it is somewhat surprising, considering the unceasing, ubiquitous CAGW propaganda, that Lord Monckton did as well as he did in the post-debate voting. That’s what happens when people are exposed to the actual facts, versus bogus climate alarmism based on the emotion of fear.
To followup on Jimbo interesting find:
http://www.nap.edu/nap-cgi/report.cgi?record_id=10136&type=pdfxsum
The report makes clear that the possibility of abrupt climate change makes AGW even more dangerous.
The IPCC report does address this issue.
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch6s6-5-1-6.html#6-5-2
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/faq-6-2.html
”Climate has changed on all time scales throughout Earth’s history. Some aspects of the current climate change are not unusual, but others are. The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has reached a record high relative to more than the past half-million years, and has done so at an exceptionally fast rate. Current global temperatures are warmer than they have ever been during at least the past five centuries, probably even for more than a millennium. If warming continues unabated, the resulting climate change within this century would be extremely unusual in geological terms. Another unusual aspect of recent climate change is its cause: past climate changes were natural in origin (see FAQ 6.1), whereas most of the warming of the past 50 years is attributable to human activities. ”
George: I am not debating you. I am dismissing you. You had a question about Venus. I answered as best I could. Then you came back with some OT insults. Good bye George.
“”” Epistemic Closure says:
May 25, 2010 at 9:12 pm
George M. Smith needs to do his integrals- he has woefully underestimated how absorption shifts can alter upward welling irradiance as GHG line and band spectra move relative to the blackbody peak with temperature changes- an order of magnitude separates the flux from +50 to -50 C “””
Well Epistemic; in your very first phrase, you reveal that you don’t know anything about Black Body radiation. Unless one was trying to do an accurate calculation of the expected absorption of BB radiation by some very specific known absorption spectrum (of some molecule); there isn’t any need to do any integration; that was already done 100 years ago.
As I told Mike; when you go to school you are actually supposed to learn something; and if you happen to be studying BB radiation then you are supposed to remember the BB radiation curve. And given that for climatologers you don’t need better than +/- 50 % accuracy; you don’t need to remember much to store the whole thing in your head; and then you can do any calculations you need in your head since it is only 5th grade arithmetic.
So it doesn’t matter whether you want to know the BB radiation from a solar corona at maybe a million K; or the spectrum of the radiation from a cryostat at one micro- Kelvin; you can do it all in your head with no integrals needed.
And if you were lucky enough to go to the high school that I went to; well you would know it all before you ever went near any University. Unfortunately you won’t find such a school in the USA.
So forget the integral tables; just get yourself a stick that you can scratch some numbers down in the sand; that makes it even easie, so you can think about fishing or something else while you are doing the arithmetic.
But then Mike thinks that I don’t understand anything I am typing; it’s clear that he doesn’t understand anything I’m typing; or he would understand that he is not going to learn anything about how climate works using mathematics; well almost any branch of mathematics besides high school arithmetic.
There’s no magic statistical operation Mike; that will suddenly reveal how climate works; well all you can observe directly is weather anyway; and you are observing a totally chaotic system; so don’t expect any closed form formula for climate change.
But with a little bit of Physics; and/or physical Chemistry; you can probably figure a lot of it out. What they apparently teach today in Physical Chemistry was simply part of the Physics curriculum when I was in school. Well perhaps they teach some aspects of it in a bit more detail today, since it is somewhat more important to a lot of chemistry understanding. I never did any chemistry past high school; so I’ve had to pick what little I know up since. And I lost all my school and Uni text books 49 years ago; so I pretty much have to survive on what I remember since a lot of it isn’t in any modern texts that I have been able to find.
And Mike says I’m burned out so that would probably get me to make some goofs now and then.
Fortunately; here at WUWT, I know I can pretty much take anything that Phil posts at face value; so I’m not worried about falling off any big cliffs.
Frankly I would be more inclined to guess that Phil could be some sort of teacher; than Mike. All the real teachers I have ever known are only too happy to help others to understand.
But Epistemic; I think you could use some remedial arithmetic; and you should hit the Physics books again and learn about BB radiation; sans integrals.
And I guess the good news of the day is that BP has pretty much stopped their oil leak. Of course Obama and his minions have leaped at the challenge and closed down all new offshore oil exploration. That’s a good move Mr President; now just try to tell the Communist Red Chinese to come and clean up their mess in Louisiana; when they have their next energy disaster drilling in that same gulf.
So he comes to California to visist one of our bay area clean green free renewable energy companies that makes non-silicon solar cell collectors; a company that already got something ove half a billion dollars off the taxpayers. So he picks the one company that is most unlikely (IMHO) to succeed in the soalr energy arena; they don’t seem to understand that area is king in solar; and their conversion efficiency is hardly spectacular. Meanwhile the most likely winner of the locals seems to get along fine without the taxpayer’s money; well except for their customers getting half the purchase price from taxpayers.
But good show BP; get a permanent lid put on that thing; and then help with the mess cleanup before the hurricane season stirs things up.
I’ve read that Stalin was preparing an invasion of Europe at the time of his death. (And also ramping up an anti-Semitic purge with his “doctors’ plot,” another indication of his madness.) Logistical concerns wouldn’t have stopped him. Apparently we had some inkling of his intentions. All it takes to start a war is a nut like that (or Mao, or Dear Leader) in charge.
If Stalin hadn’t been given Central Europe at Yalta, he’d have taken it anyway–and gone after the western part as well–and we knew it. (FDR and Truman just couldn’t say so publicly to the hard-liners who criticized them for their acquiescence.)
Mike quotes the the 100% political appointees writing propaganda for the IPCC:
Let’s deconstruct:
First, provide testable, empirical evidence showing that the warming of the past 50 years is due to human activity.
And if global temps are warmer than for the past 500 years, then nothing unusual is happening, because it’s all happened before pre-SUV. It’s called natural variability. And the MWP was also warmer than now, as was the Minoan Optimum.
There is also ample evidence that the Earth’s temperature as measured at the equator has remained within +/- 1°C over the past billion years. And equatorial temperatures have not changed over the past 50 years. [source]
But as one approaches the poles, the Earth’s temperature naturally begins to vary more and more from one area to another, and from summer to winter, and from one pole to another. The higher one gets in latitude, the bigger the temperature swings.
That’s why the current variability in the Arctic is nothing unusual. It is normal, and it has repeatedly happened. Greenland has very wide temperature swings, as is shown in the Greenland ice core samples, while Egypt is extremely uniform from year to year, from century to century, and from millennium to millennium. Egypt’s temperature is the same today as it was when Ptolemy and Cleopatra ruled.
When the equator starts warming beyond its normal, narrow range, wake me. Until then, what we’re seeing is simply natural climate variability… unless CO2 is steering clear of the equator. That’s always possible, I suppose.
Delingpole reports on the debate.
It’s ridiculous that Al Gore is preaching consumers on how to make changes in their lives to reduce global warming, but he does very little to backup his crusade.
He uses a private jet to promote his film, him and his wife Tipper live in 2 houses: a 20 room mansion, eight-bathroom in Nashville, a 4,000 square-foot in Arlington, VA and a 3rd home in Carthage, Tenn.
With that alone he uses more energy than 95% of the American public. For someone encouraging personal sacrifice, he demands very little from himself.
Easy Piano Lessons
__/__/__/__/__/__/__/__/__/__/__/__/__/__/
(Onion News Network) [Christian groups say
secular, socialist Big Government and liberal
fascist schoolteachers are confusing students
and the time has come:] “Biblical Armageddon
Must Be Taught Alongside Global Warming.”
__/__/__/__/__/__/__/__/__/__/__/__/__/__/
Funny how conversations go astray. In commenting on “whether humans changed the climate”, which is one of those “have you stopped beating your wife questions”; I offered that Heisenberg implied thatmerely by being an observer we change what we are observing:-
“”” And as for human effects; well Heisenberg tells us that simply trying to observe the state; results in changing that state; so what else is new. The more important issue is whether it is possible for the earth temperature system to go into runaway heating that leads to a hot Venus State. “””
So first off, Jbar jumps on that with this:-
“”” Jbar says:
May 26, 2010 at 3:13 am
George E. Smith –
Criminy! Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle applies only to atom-sized and sub-atomic particles. It is too small of a phenomenon to apply to macroscopic objects, let alone climatic systems. It does not create any barrier to measuring global temperature. “””
and this:-
“”” Jbar says:
May 26, 2010 at 6:31 pm
George E. Smith –
Roughly speaking, Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle is that you cannot precisely measure both the momentum and the position of a particle because the energy of the photon that you use to make the measurement affects the result.
The larger the mass of particle you hit with a photon to measure it, the smaller the relative or percent uncertainty in the measurement.
For macroscopic particles, the percent uncertainty is vanishingly small, essentially zero.
Well of course that is not true; Heisenberg’s principle applies to everything; including the speed trap situation I mentioned later. If you have a very short trap; so you know the car location quite well, the errors in your timing will make the velocity (and momentum) less accurate; and if you lengthen the trap to reduce the effect of timing errors; you know less about where the car was when it had the calculated speed. That is exactly the message of Heisenberg. What he did beyond that was show that there is a fundamental limit to how small you can make the product delta position x delta momentum which must be greater than h/2pi; h being Planck’s constant.
And that limit most certainly applies to an automobile speed trap; well unless someone wants to claim that in the case of the speed trap it is possible to reduce the error product below h/2pi; anybody want to take that position.
These measurment situations are fractal; and no matter the scale of the system there tends to be a relationship between the size of the system, and the amount of disturbance one must make in trying to observe it.
Certainly at the microscopic size of the small particle world; indeed the photon energy used to observe the particle will change the momentum by some un-knowable amount. And that momentum change does NOT depend on the mass of the particle; that is part of the source of the momentum. yes the velocity change will depend on the mass of the particle; but not the momentum.
One look at all the termoil that goes along with climatologers trying to observe the temperature of the earth;shoul indicate to anyone; that they themselves are altering their surroujndings in that endeavour; evn if it is just the Catlin nutcakes boring holes in the ice to measure its thickness; that will accelerate the melting; as will running an ice breaker through there so idiots can kayak in the arctic.
So what about this:- “”” runaway heating that leads to a hot Venus State. “””
Mike interprets that as a question asking for information about the Planet Venus; which he ‘attempted to supply’.
I never said a word about the planet Venus ; simply mentioned “a hot Venus state”. I could have said a “hot pressure cooker state” and evidently Mike would have offered information about pressure cookers.
yes later I did offer that CO2 has a 4.0 micron absorption band that we simply cannot reach via CO2 on planet earth; but it does operate on the Planet Venus; nowhere did I then ask for information on the Planet Venus; the conditions there; and what happens there have no relevence to the climate of earth. Of course the public media do keep trundling out that situation as a future earth environment; and of course the AGW crowd of scientists do nothing to dissuade them from thinking that is even remotely possible; well the way Hansen raves; you would think that is just around the corner.
But I’m quite happy to let anyone believe that Heisenberg’s principle has a cutooff size beyond which it doesn’t apply; that’s why I asked jbar what size that is; because as far as I know there is no system of any size where the product of the uncertainties in position and momentum (simultaneously) ever can be less that h/2pi; so as far as I am concerned it applies to everything from quarks to galaxies.
Well both of the heavy duty PhD Physicists in my Department; including my boss; say unequivocally that Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle applies to anything and everything no matter the size. Of course we are all in agreement that for most macro scale things the Heisenberg limit of h/2pi is way down in the noise; but all macro systems exhibit the same problem that certain parameters can only be measured with higher precision; at the expense of some other parameter.
The principle has practical everyday application in certain types of LEDs where light emission is generally of very low quantum efficiency; because they are indirect band gap semi-conductors. Materials such as Gallium Phosphide are indirect; whereas Gallium Arsenide is a direct gap semi-conductor; so efficient, (but Infra-red) LEDs can be made in GaAs; as well as alloys of the GaAl As system.
The GaASP alloy system is direct for low fractions of Phosphorous (45% P. Unfortunately you need greater than that for yellow LEDS and for pure GaP you have both an indirect gap and you still don’t get a real green (grellow instead)
For the non- experts, a direct gap semiconductor has the minimum energy gap occur at the same momentum value so a simple photon emission can occur to emit light. For indirect gap materials the minimum energy gap occurs with different momenum values; so you need to get both a photon and a phonon involved in the reaction to conserve energy and momentum; and that is a much lower probability occurrence. The Phonon of course just heats the crystal.
So to get around this problem; these indirect materials can be doped with so-called iso-electronic trap impurities; such as Nitrogen or a complex like Zn-O in pure GaP.
So Nitrogen substitutes in the lattice for Phosphorous; in effect creating a highly localised sample of Gallium Nitride; which has a somewhat larger band gap than GaP or GaAsP.
The N atoms form specific sites where an electron or hole can be captured. Since the location of the capture is now pegged within atomic dimensions; then per Heisenberg’s principle the momentum of the electron becomes more uncertain; so the electron “orbitals” I suppose you would call them, spread out in momentum space; so that the electron may now be found under the band gap minimum; and so make a direct transition to the valence band with the emission of a photon. This process results in high efficiency amber or yellow light emission from what was previously a low probability recombination process.
In pure GaP, the Zn-O complex performs the same function and yieds higher efficiency grellow light. Some of these things are now obsolete since the GaN and GaInN; or GaAlInN alloys are much wider band gaps, and mostly direct band gap materials to make green, blue Violet, and UV LEDs.
So Heisenberg really does manifest itself in everyday mundane things like LEDs; although that is still an atomic scale phenomenon.
“Army of Light and Truth 135, Forces of Darkness 110”
We are a wee bit disturbed to hear the Forces of Darkness came up with 110 nefarious votes! Meaning of course there remain 110 reasons to lift the lamp of light-ness.
Smokey: Every fact stated by Viscount Monckton has been thoroughly discussed right here and repeatedly verified.”
Testimonial evidence, Smokey?
“But after hearing the facts, they came to the proper conclusion: that Lord Monckton was right…”
To come to that conclusion they would have needed independent verification of Monckton’s “facts”.
Zane: “Clearly, and definetively, Monckton, had the facts…”
It’s the facts that are in contention. Claiming that Monckton won the debate because he possessed the “facts” begs the question in two ways. First, it assumes he did in fact possess the facts; secondly, it assumes his listeners knew enough about climate to verify his facts.
Neither of these assumptions can be established merely by pointing to the outcome of the debate.
Debates are an opportunity for people to present various viewpoints and for others to hear those viewpoints, so in that sense they have value. But debate per se cannot establish the facts, which are established by observation, experiment etc.
Brendan H,
That is so lame. All you have to do is show that any of the facts in the article are wrong. Or man up, and admit that Monckton won fair and square.
Instead, we get rhetoric, complaints and excuses.
Smokey: “All you have to do is show that any of the facts in the article are wrong.”
You would need to show why winning the debate shows that Monckton’s claims are right.
Mike says:
May 24, 2010 at 4:53 pm
“http://stats.org/stories/2008/global_warming_survey_apr23_08.html
Scientists agree that humans cause global warming
Ninety-seven percent of the climate scientists surveyed believe “global average temperatures have increased” during the past century.”
Mike, this is what is called in the trade a “selection effect” in that, if you want a predetermined result in your survey, you select who takes the survey so that you get the effects you desire.
It also suffers from the false proposition fallacy. Assuming that the contrary view is that no warming is caused by humans at all is false. Most everyone agrees that humanity has some contribution to climate change. The debate is over how much humans are responsible for. Those of us on the skeptical side of things tend to expect that at least half of warming of recent years is due to solar influences. Most of the other half is statistical noise and natural cycles like PDO, ENSO, NAO, etc. .. Any significant “human cause” is more likely caused by errors in the temperature record caused by poor surface station siting, as well as faulty statistical methods and other mathematical manipulations and massages that make the results completely useless for anything but selling a fraudulent proposition to gullible politicians and other useful idiots.
From the SPPI coverage, “Lord Monckton, a former science advisor to Margaret Thatcher during her years as Prime Minister of the UK”.
Monckton was never a science advisor to Margaret Thatcher. He worked in No 10 as an adviser on education policy.
Just a small point.
John Abraham investigated many of the ‘facts’ Chris Monckton presented. Worth a look:
http://www.stthomas.edu/engineering/jpabraham/
[snip]
Crumb,
You have put a lot of hard work into your presentation and still I am saddened by the lack of ability to distinguish between ‘models’ and actual science. You, in your presentation, continually misrepresent Monckton’s claims or say that he is misquoting a scientist. Simply because an author presents data does not necessitate that the conclusion about the data will be the same as anothers interpretation of the data. Nor does the data all interrelate to the conclusion. Thus far in your presentation all I see are scientists saying “antrhopegenic” global warming is occuring but none of them are providing any facts. Rather, their own findings on various issues are being tauted as evidence for man-made global warming when in fact their evidence is derived from the IPCC findings or ‘models’ dealing with future predictions.
I was eager to see something of significance in your presentation but seeing your quotes and emails from the scientists you contacted simply strengthens Monckton’s arguments and once again solidifies the arguments against anthropogenic global warming.
A note to all. Please watch this presentation and make sure to read the whole emails being quoted and also make sure to listen to Moncktons speech that he is referencing with the slides from Monckton. Once you do you will have a much better picture of how Monckton is shown to be more logical.
The issue is ‘model’ vs ‘science’. Many of the people making claims about antrhopogenic global warming base it off of ‘models’ not science.
OOPS, Crumb, thought you made that. John Abrams made it so please direct my comments to him not Crumb lol.
Smokey, Zane:
My response to your comments was rejected by the moderator… I used no profanity and it was a reasonable response. Looks like this site’s moderator doesn’t have the same high regard for open debate as Monckton does.
[Reply: Your post violated site policy: “Respect is given to those with manners, those without manners that insult others or begin starting flame wars may find their posts deleted.” Your post was deleted for repeatedly calling Lord Monckton – a contributor to this site – a “liar”. ~dbs, mod.]
FoGT has a different impression of this debate and hence its own article on their blog. Satellite measurements yield no cooling following Lodr Monckton’s win – both appear to be unrelated.
Crumb,
I received your response via email so I was able to read it. Thanks for taking the time to respond.
I might add the following about the famous 1933 (not 1935) ”This House would in no circumstances fight for its King and country” debate.
The proposer of the motion, Kenelm H. Digby said afterwards: “I believe that the motion was representative neither of the majority of the undergraduates of Oxford nor of the youth of this country. I am certain if war broke out tomorrow the students of the university would flock to the recruiting office as their fathers and uncles did.”. And so it proved: when World War Two broke out six-and-a-half years later, a recruiting board was organised at Oxford which invited undergraduates and resident postgraduates under 25 to enlist: nearly 90% of a possible 3,000 volunteered.
Mr Watts, you really shouldn’t get over-excited about this, and your statement that “For those who don’t know, the Oxford Union is the top of the food chain for scholarly debate. This is a significant win.” is frankly a bit silly.
Oxford Union debates have always been more about debating skills – and fun – than about the search for truth; and when the students do discuss something serious, they (a) like to enjoy themselves, and (b) they rather take pride in causing the occasional national furore, both by who they invite (violence-proposing Malcolm X, banned leading IRA man Gerry Adams, post-acquittal OJ Simpson), and by their decisions – as happened in no uncertain measure after the 1933 debate.
But a lot of the time it is just fun – among other past speakers at the Union have been Ron Jeremy the porn star, Michael Jackson (who spoke on child welfare), a Sun Newspaper page 3 girl (that’s a bare-breasted model for American readers)…and, um, Kermit the Frog.
I should listen to the thousands of boring old grown-up scientists in the field, not a small group of clever kids having a good time.
[snip]
Monckton quoted the recipe in the debate, 4.7 ln(390/388). It is a temperature rise of 4.7 C for a 2.718 times increase in concentration.
[snip]
[snip – All personal posts snipped wholesale. ~dbs, mod.]
Lord Monkton and most of the [snip] have no understanding of the basics of science, and often resort to blanket generalities that sound absurd to anyone with any semblance of critical thought. Let me start with this statement; Which is more likely? That a new cabal of secret moneyed interests wish to institute a new control scheme under the guise of energy efficiency and technological advancement, or That the already existing energy monopolies see the end of the commodity world quickly approaching and will fight to the death for even a few more decades of enormous profit? Now which really seems more likely to all of you common sense people.
To the science, CO2 increase temperature, its physics….cant deny that. Temperature fluctuations are part of the natural system…yes, and when there is sufficient ice melting to account for increases in air temperature, the overall increase will be near zero. For those of you who don’t follow this, go fill a glass full of ice and and watch the temperature remain at zero until all of the ice melts…another gem from science. So to conclude those two thoughts for all of you out there, it means that we will not see massive increases in surface temps until most if not all of the ice caps are gone, and this will happen slowly in cycles much as we see today. When the caps are really gone, the global conveyor will shut down and the upper ocean will stratify allowing much greater temperatures.
And to the future…something that none of the climate deniers ever has to bravery to tackle, what about the future? Well people on the green side say lets move away from dirty coal, oil, natural gas to clean things like hydro, wind, and solar, opponents state that its not always sunny, and the wind doesn’t always blow but guess what it? It does shine all the time, IN SPACE, and its always windy,IN UPPER ATMOSPHERE. We must simply invest in capturing these sources of energy where they are most economical. The technology exists to fast track much of the infrastructure, the only thing lacking is political will, and intelligence of the masses to see what is truly possible in the future.
The green future is this…..50 years from now, global energy is supplied by solar and wind, and tidal sources. Energy transmission tech is flourishing and the realization that all transportation and manufacturing costs will trend towards zero due to price of resources. The commodity world has ended and goods actually cost what they are worth, not some over inflated price including every energy cost from every step in the supply chain….this is the world you all are fighting, one in which game theory has taken its place, and the same greedy institutions that have governed our societies for centuries will have been exposed for what they really are, greedy people fleecing the ignorant.
If we aren’t the first to move in this direction believe me the Chinese will get there first, they have 1 billion reasons to make production cheap and free( I’m talking nanotechnology here). People of the world wake up to the bright future that awaits if you can only look past the lies that have run this world. Scarcity is a myth!
Alex,
Thank you for your comments but I must respectufly disagree. You once again claim that Monckton does not understand science and yet he is quoting actual scientific, peer reviewed papers that argue against man-made global warming. You then claim to understand politics beyond that of Monckton even though he has been in the political arena for decades and you use that as a defense of your argumentation?
You fail to provide supporting evidence that anthropogenic global warming is occuring. You merely state, “ice melts” but the temperature remains the same. Are you seriously utilizing this as a means of proving anthropogenic global warming?
I disagree with man-made global warming but I do agree with the goal of moving away from oil and other resources that are causing massive amount of erosion and damage to our planet. I am all for clean air, clean water etc. but that doesn’t mean I have to believe in something that has been proven false scientifically. Have to run.
Alex-global energy is supplied by solar and wind-You are talking out of your communist backside.
CO2/AGW Has no bearing on temperature we have a volatile ball of fire up in the sky and a world that keeps on turning.
Taxing CO2 will have no bearing on temperature-it’s the next round of fraudulent derivatives.
Stick your phoney wind farms, saving penguins, etc. and start planning for WW3 you deluded hippy socialist.
Isn’t winning a debate purely about who has the best oratory skills. Don’t debates often start with one side being given a viewpoint to argue at random, irrespective of their beliefs or facts?
A discussion irrespective of facts sounds like just the sort of thing Monckton could win!
If you are a climate change sceptic, you should see your hero’s claims and references being shredded one by one. Often by the authors of teh papers he is using to back up claims of no climate change.
“Isn’t winning a debate purely about who has the best oratory skills.”
No. Facts won this debate. Monckton had them, his opponents didn’t. The same facts are changing the global debate about whether a minor trace gas controls the climate, and the CAGW promoters are losing the argument because they lack testable facts.
I can’t improve on Zane’s comment @May 31, 2010 at 11:59 am above. Monckton used peer reviewed facts to win the debate. It is the same method he uses to win all his debates.
I ♥ CO2
“No. Facts won this debate.”
No, incorrect and unsubstantiated claims which misrepresented the papers and science quoted by Monckton won the debate. Check out the web- John Abrahams reply to Monckton. An hour well spent, as each major claim by Monckton is taken back to the original papers and science quoted, and it is shown that these have been totally misprepresented by Monckton. In many cases the original authors of the papers used by Monckton were contacted regarding the claims, and they confirmed that Monckton’s “intepretations” were actually the opposite of what was claimed by Monckton.
See John Abraham’s presentation on the failings of Monckton’s scientific claims
The link above is the same link posted up-thread. Repeating it does not give it any additional validity.
Related article, with comments debunking Abrahams: click
Facts won the debate, and the fact that Mr Abrahams never contacted Lord Monckton makes it obvious that Abrahams is putting out a hit piece, no?
Indulius, Smokey commented on a post further up on the list. This is part of that post:
You have put a lot of hard work into your presentation and still I am saddened by the lack of ability to distinguish between ‘models’ and actual science. You, in your presentation, continually misrepresent Monckton’s claims or say that he is misquoting a scientist. Simply because an author presents data does not necessitate that the conclusion about the data will be the same as another’s interpretation of the data. Nor does the data all interrelate to the conclusion. Thus far in your presentation all I see are scientists saying “anthropogenic” global warming is occuring but none of them are providing any facts. Rather, their own findings on various issues are being touted as evidence for man-made global warming when in fact their evidence is derived from the IPCC findings or ‘models’ dealing with future predictions.
I was eager to see something of significance in your presentation but seeing your quotes and emails from the scientists you contacted simply strengthens Monckton’s arguments and once again solidifies the arguments against anthropogenic global warming.
A note to all. Please watch this presentation and make sure to read the whole emails being quoted and also make sure to listen to Moncktons speech that he is referencing with the slides from Monckton. Once you do you will have a much better picture of how Monckton is shown to be more logical.
The issue is ‘model’ vs ‘science’. Many of the people making claims about antrhopogenic global warming base it off of ‘models’ not science.
Do the readers know that 95% of all statistics are made up ,and that of the 95% ,2% will be true,thats a FACT .
Well done Lord Monckton ,its time these Common Purpose saggy tited lezzers and spunkless men did the world a favour and departed these shore for la la land,
Better yet ,sell up move to Africa they will be happy with the help and we will be rid of 2 million parasites whose big job is more posters telling us what to do.
~SNIP~
While I’m sure this sort of nonsense will blow up deniers skirts what is this meant to prove, this is an event, that as this story states was funded by SPPI a denial group which also funds Monckton, as I post this (a month after the fact) SPPI have buried this as a story it gets no mention in the list of recent events on their main page going back to April. Neither SPPI or this site have even bothered to post further detail on this and a month after, were is the video, Monckton loves to be videoed and to post it on youtube, if he really had won such a debate I would have thought he would be falling over himself to show the world, he has boasted in the past that he can have such things done within days, so were’s the video.
See some interesting information, “Tyranny by Treaty”, at http://bit.ly/d8nXwW
Al Gore’s private jet is filled with chemtrails
I wish we had some of this common sense over here in America.
A victory of style over content. The science will out.