Sceencaps of the video follow, link to the video below the “Continue reading” line. Last night in London, to a packed room, a panel of people convened to talk about Climategate.
Steve McIntyre (L) and Doug Keenan(R) represented the skeptical side.
The Guardian’s EcoBlogger, George Monbiot, chaired, and sat next to Steve McIntyre.
People attending expected a furor, given such odd juxtapositions as we see below.
But the only sparks seemed to be Piers Corbin being threatened with ejection by Monbiot for some apparently out of line comments.
Link to video and audio here:
‘Climategate’ debate: less meltdown, more well-mannered argument
I was there, did my comments, just posted get stuck in a moderation queue or filter?
Dear Amino Acids,
thanks a lot for your amusing compliment but I wouldn’t agree, and not only because non-native speakers like mine would be in a visible disadvantage. 😉
With all my respect to Steve McIntyre’s work, talents, and values, I do agree with you that he is essentially an AGW believer – or at most a completely undecided agnostic.
Best wishes
Lubos
McIntyre was like a Spaniel and Keenan a Rottweiler
I was pleasantly surprised both at Monbiot’s fair chairing and the number of well-informed sceptics in the crowd
Michael Mann uses Sarah Palin as an adversary so he can ridicule scepticism
He wouldn’t have been able to do that with a Guardian audience
Monbiot will no longer be able to say ‘the science is settled’ – at last that lie is being nailed
Keenan’s quote from Linus Torvalds about microkernels was apropos
I used to work in research in the field of ‘artificial intelligence’
When I discovered there ain’t no such animal, they told me to shut up
We were getting millions from a daft EU scheme to ‘discover’ A.I.
The process where funding goes to whatever sounds plausible to legislators and the electorate is well described in ‘Taken by Storm’: http://takenbystorm.info/
Before anybody criticise me, I put a $100 into Climate audits Tip Jar, to help pay for Steve Mcintyres trip to LOndon… (so put up everybody, donate here, or climate audit)
Some of the comments here, give the pro camp good reason to question the sceptics.
The Guardian did not invite Steve as such (they all ready had Doug Keenan) it was the climate audit commentors, that invited him over by offering donations to pay for the trip… and the Guardian were pleased to have him, and surprised about the donations. Over 200, Steve Mcintyre told me on Wednesday in London.
George Monbiot was actually a very good chair overall..
And I have been VERY, very critical of George.
You do really need to see listen to ALL of the audio, to see how bad the UEA’s Trevor Davis was, especially how, the admission that PHil Jones was not seen by Muir Russell after the enquiry panel had formed, was dragged out of him…
I think the Time journalist, asked for confirmation from Davis, whether Mcintyre account was correct, ie the head of the enquiry, had not the head of the department (Phil Jones) to be formally interviewed, after the panel had formed.
George to his credit, did not allow Davis (UEA) to get away with anything, stonewalling after Steve Mcintyres, filleting of the enquiry, George pursued the question, with Davis, until after much note shuffling, not sures, mumbling, refering to notes, Davis eventually mumbled Phil Jones,- met Muir Russell in January, Steve Mcintyre said, ‘confirming’, BEFORE the panel had formed.
Bob Watson’s admission, that he had only read a FEW emails was just laughable, given the debate…
Fred Pearce did come across very well (Fred and George came across as journalists)
Keenan was very concise and tough, maybe overstepped the mark, saying all climate science was rubbish (assuming man made kind)
What may be lost because he said that, is he talked about the human ‘cost’ of it all, hundreds of millions of poor affected, because we ‘must’ do ‘something’ about AGW,even as the uncertainties get bigger for AR5.
His other valid point, that struck a chord, was how there is no processes, for challenging academic fraud, incompetance, no way to hold anybody academic to account,(fraud/incompetance) Citing an example, (not climate science) that he was pursueing, where the university, said no method to do this.
Keenan I think impressed the journalists, like Fred George Roger Harrabin, The Times, etc with his conciseness, and interest in accountability of academia, no ‘waffle’.
Former IPCC man Bob Watson, could only keep repeating, CO2 is a greenhouse gas, 95% scientists agree, very superficial platitudes, that just did not work in a debate, where every one was knowledgable.
Roger Harrabin (bbc) asked him a question from the audience, and the response from Bob was very poor, totally not answering the question, whijh I heard at least one of the journalists present, saying Bob did not answer the question.
Fiona Fox asked a question, pretty much attacking the Guardian journalists, for being irresponsble for reporting about climategate.
Fred Pearces reply was perfect, comparing to how reporting MP’s expenses was referred as attacking democarcy initially, but long term better fro democarcy (cf climate science)
Fiona Fox,(director Science and Media ) sounded to be like a very strident ‘activist’, really need to hear it for yourself.. (which the other journalists, surely picked up on)
Personally, it was good to finally meet people, Fred Pearce was very easy to talk to, glad to meet Roger Harabin, if only so that I could introduce him to ‘Josh’ and a couple of others. I was in 2 minds whether to say hello, as I had perhaps ‘bothered’ him enough with emails, Roger has been courteous to ‘engage’ many times.
The journalists present could not fail to see, what the Muir Russell enquiry was really about, following UEA’s and Bob Watsons poor performance here
George Monbiot, WAS a very good chair…
I had thought – oh huh, when he started of with the ‘Climate Change DENIAL community’, but it would be picky to highlight any detail.
He fulfilled the role of chair correctly. (if only he’s stop denial stuff in his blog – that totally alienates me, annd many others,)
He came across well, with a sense of humour saying:
“He was the ideal chair, beacuse he had managed to alienate, everybody!”
It was a good debate, with sceptic and pro AGW people chatting, getting to no one another, even I believe Bob Watson and Doug Keenan going to keep in touch..
Pires Corbyn came across very badly,
Hey I did an MSc in Cybernetics, big AI dept as well……………. Totally nowhere, I shut up, got my MSC..
Seriously, what is going on, I’ve just been lost in moderation by Real Climate, and 2 posts of mine at WATTS UP have not appeared.
Both about the debate, I was there, even helped pay for Steve’s trip, I’ll fax/email a copy of my ticket, if anyone is unsure..
Hopefully I’m just stuck in moderation somewhere, but other peoples comments are appearing?
Can someone rescue my comments, please
[Reply: your comment rescued from the spam folder and posted. ~dbs, mod.]
Rod McLaughlin said McIntyre was like a Spaniel. As much as I admire McIntyre, I have to agree. Too often his delivery sounded hesitant and bland. Presentation is too important. He needs to work on it.
By the way, an interesting coincidence (I think) just happened. While writing this, I queried Webword on a term (now replaced). This time it failed to operate normally and said, that before I could continue, I would need to answer a question. It asked whether I have taken more than one commercial flight this year. I naively answered in the affirmative. Another box came up and said that I have used more than my quota of CO2 and therefore could no longer use the free version of Webword. I swear that I read this just as I was listening to the applause at the end of the debate.
I wonder if Al Gore and Prince Charles are permitted to use the free version.
Luboš Motl
Steve McIntyre is a polite person. So saying anything that looks like criticism of him makes me look bad, I know. But it’s not just him, but Pielke and also Patrick Michaels that believe in manmade global warming. I don’t think any of them believe in the James Hansen/IPCC/Al Gore/ Mann/Santer/etc., etc., disaster scenarios.
I like Richard Lindzen’s approach: he doesn’t see anything unusual happening in the data. Everything is within the range of normal variability. So he isn’t alarmed about anything whatsoever, large or small.
Barry Woods. Of course Monbiot and Pearce (Ant & Dec) came across well. They were in control, but it has to be realised that they were on the same side as McIntyre and Keenan. The real target was those ………..’s at UEA whose dissimulation had so riled them all.
Is moderation here more rigid than the DT or Cif ? At least at Cif you usually know you’ve been ‘moderated’.
I hope the moderator could please change my two instances of “Webword” to “Wordweb”. If so, publication of this isn’t required.
Thanks,
Sean
Credit where it is due, I spoke to Fred Pearce afterwarsd, he is no doubt a sincere person in his beliefs,
You do not engage and cange people minds by shouting at them, but by being reasonable. EVEN if it takes a VERY long time.
If peopole shout back at you, when you are being ‘extremely’ reasonable, eventually the majority of people will ask, just who is the ‘extremist’ here.
As a Canadian, I could appreciate Steve’s monotone….
Generally, it was clear that the Steve and Doug presented facts and figures (including citations!) while the others mouthed platitudes for the most part and avoided the prickly issues.
I would hope that a new “series” of these presentations could be run, but with each “episode” dealing with one specific issue or topic. In that way, the platitudes run out and the issues must be debated factually. The CAGW camp would be hard pressed to demonstrate causality and CO2 involvement so would likely avoid such a situation.
Thanks to all those that helped Steve get across the pond to contribute. Had Doug been the only voice of reason, he might have been swamped seeing as he was less interested in the science and more interested in the process. Both areas require significant attention.
If the process is broken, what does that say about the science which is based on that process? They still seem to think that they can just fix the process, slap a few hands, and all will be well. It’s a good start, but they have a long way to go.
Fred Pearce said “climategate is not a conspiracy, it’s a tragedy”. That’s a false dichotomy, of course. Scientists behaved badly, in a number of ways, but I don’t think many call it a conspiracy. But, “tragedy”? This implies that it was something that “just happened”, that no one was at fault, really. Individual scientists do need to be held accountable for their actions.
More than anything, Climategate, as well as the IPCC-gates are simply a symptom of a scientific process which is corrupt and rotted to its very core. Doing a patch-up job isn’t going to fix it.
Sean McHugh.. you should have read the licence terms for Wordweb! LOL!
Emphasis (and loud guffawing) mine.
Barry Woods, you were there. Are you British? This gentlemanly attitude — which scorns an “activist” reporter and demands friendliness even when there is a stench suggesting a dangerous epidemic — is a real problem to this American and to someone who wants scientists to be practicing science.
The Climategate matter is fundamentally not about policy, but about the science that backgrounds that policy. If it ain’t science — if the data are changed, if the interpretations are false due to rigged data, if scientists are prevented from publishing in peer reviewed journals because the review is rigged, if…, if…, if…, there ought to be a whole lot more “shouting.”
Cut out the politeness cr*p and demand the truth. Engage in vigorous discussion, even if it includes anger, but make it about real data and real analyses. I’m with Lubos Motl and Theo Goodwin. There is no climate science. Fire the scientist-imposters — they are making a joke of all science. It doesn’t matter which position re AGW you take — make it about the science and silence the prevacators and those on the take.
Barry Woods;
I do believe that being there is so important.
Your analysis of the event was excellent.
Thanks.
@pyromancer
Like Barry, I was there. Shouting and screaming and generally acting like an oik would have been entirely counterproductive and would have been roundly condemned by 98% of those present. That sort of behaviour was entirely inappropriate for the meeting.
Piers Corbyn may have had some good points to make, but his petulant and ill-mannered heckling meant that they fell on stony ground.
If you have a meeting at Penn State with Mikey Mann, feel free to act like a spoilt kid. But not in London, please.
Closely guarded secret…Doug Keenan is also a Canadian though living in the UK.
I can’t watch the video. The sound of Monbiot’s voice as he pretends to care about the environment or planet makes me sick. If he wants an authoritarian government he should just say so instead of beating around the bush trying to get the public to accept it via backdoors.
It seems every issue which comes to light about the science in MSM is prefixed with the caveat “though it doesn’t affect the overall science…”
It doesn’t cut it any more. The failings in climate sciences, the lies and concealments, the clear and present intrusion of advocacy steering scientific endeavour, the science assessment panel that didn’t assess the science.. so many of these issues emanating from the core activities of those who purport to lead the science. Something here is fundamentally wrong. It’s not just circling wagons and siege mentality, it’s not just about getting defensive even though there’s nothing to hide. There’s SO MUCH to hide, still so many issues outstanding, so many urban myths surrounding matters of climate science that have circumvented critical examination and instead passed from folklore into scientific “law”.
How can we possibly trust that the science is good, when there is so much evidence to suggest that the science is bad? DOES this all affect the core findings of research? It HAS to. It’s like admitting that Schiaparelli’s eyes were bad and his telescope was weak, but arguing that this doesn’t affect the science behind the canals of Mars. It’s ludicrous to suggest that we can place confidence in a science where uncertainties have been concealed by people in which we plainly cannot place confidence.
It strikes me that there really is something rotten in the state of Denmark and I don’t want to be a Rosencrantz or a Guildenstern, I want out of this damned boat.
Pyromancer
I understand very well your impulse to shout. I’ve done it too. I too know the science has not yet started to be unravelled. However, now think of how most bridges have been built: each end built from whatever is safe to build on, at that end. So too with Climate Science. Come and shout to us here and just watch and appreciate the bridge being built from the other end. Transform your shouts into scientific conciseness. Teach yourself to hit the nail on the head in one – channel that shouting impulse into concentration on the key science points, and on honing the accuracy all the time – as Monckton has done, as Smokey continues to do.
Bob Watson is a long time settled science man:
“When asked in 1997 at Kyoto, as the new IPCC Chairman, about the growing number of climate scientists who challenged the conclusions of the UN that man-induced global warming was real and promised cataclysmic consequences, he responded by denigrating all dissenting scientists as pawns of the fossil fuel industry. “The science is settled” he said, and “we’re not going to reopen it here.”
http://sovereignty.net/p/clim/kyotorpt.htm
He is also Al Gore’s favourite scientist, having worked for him when he was Veep.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8S7VQ280&show_article=1
“We need an advocate such as Al Gore to help present the work of scientists across the world,” said Bob Watson, former chairman of the IPCC and a top federal climate science adviser to the Clinton-Gore Administration. (that was at the Nobel presentation)
Gore was equally fulsome about Watson at Watson’s World Bank leaving party:
http://info.worldbank.org/etools/BSPAN/PresentationView.asp?PID=2129&EID=963
“Jack Gibbons, Watson’s former boss at the White House, read aloud a letter written to Watson by Al Gore. In this letter, Gore calls Watson his “hero of the planet,” commends him on his incredible career and contributions, and congratulates him on his new jobs. Gibbons also spoke about the challenges facing scientists whose scientific evidence is often viewed not as strict science but as efforts to steer policy.”
The new jobs, taken up shortly after a visit by Gore to the UK to meet the political parties, were Director of Strategy at the UK’s premier social engineering institution, the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and Chief Scientific Advisor to Defra, (UK environment ministry).
Comments from Watson at his leaving party, included these gems:
He stated that in five years he hopes the Bank has mainstreamed climate change as a consideration for any policy or lending operation.
Among his major challenges he mentioned the issue of making sure that nationally and internationally, environmental policy is actually based on sound science.
He frequently mentioned the difficulties of getting the message of climate change across in politics, and referenced David King’s recent conference on the issue of ensuring that scientists are allowed to speak the truth.
Tyndall is an offshoot of CRU, as are many other “climate institutes”, usually with a CRU scientist as Director. This is how UK politicians get their info and probably why we have the most hare brained legislation of any country in the world, although the US is trying to catch up fast.
Pyromancer
PS I thought of a title: “A Living Room Full of Elephants” – the strange and curious circumstances by which Climate Science doesn’t just have one elephant in the living room, it has a whole herd of elephants. To name a few:
CO2 greenhouse effect diminishes with rising CO2 level
Water vapour effects more than cancelling out CO2 effects
UHI effect
Worsening station siting issues
Station loss esp Arctic and Russia
Latex substitution for whitewash on Stevenson screens
Henry’s Law forgotten (temperature-dependent CO2 solubility)
Sheer size of area and volume of oceans overlooked
Effects of El Nino etc overlooked
Extreme fluctuations natural in polar regions overlooked
Correlation with solar cycles overlooked
MWP worldwide overlooked
Roman Warm Period and Holocene overlooked
Ice core CO2 levels untrustworthy…
…hey, there’s work for you! And I’ve only named some of the elephants from the pure science. Then there are the hidden, unrecognized knock-on effects of Maggie Thatcher’s redirection of research which I am extremely sure has had a highly cumulative effect like the Sorcerer’s Apprentice… to give just a taster of the rest…
…who’d a thunk that so many elephants could have descended on that living room all at once! yet this seems to be what happened…
I agree with Luboš Motl’s assessment (July 15, 2010 at 9:54 pm)
“…..But the important fact is that the current climate community is overwhelmingly corrupt and it can’t be fixed unless something like 80% of the people who are working in it today are fired together with the bad policies that got us into the current state.
“It’s just impossible to transform this discipline into a decent one while preserving all the people who have been dragged into the community by the very dishonest and purpose-driven activities that the panel may have tried to eliminate. It’s equally absurd as keeping all the communist leaders – at the global and local level – in their chairs after the fall of communism, expecting them to build democracy and the market economy. It just couldn’t work like that.”
In the British parlance: Here Here (or is that Hear Hear?)
Trevor Davies has been sent to the Russian front. Oh, sorry, it’s China.
http://www.pollutiononline.com/article.mvc/UEA-launches-Climate-Change-Collaboration-0001?VNETCOOKIE=NO
Professor Trevor Davies, Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research and Knowledge Transfer at UEA said: ‘It is a huge honour to enter this partnership with Fudan University. I see this collaboration as transformational for the Tyndall Centre, and Fudan sees it as potentially transformational for China”.
Professor Davies will be the Director of Strategy for Tyndall Centre Fudan.