Readers may recall this piece Monckton’s Schenectady showdown in which he schools a number of students despite “en-masse” collections (to use Donald Rodbell’s words) of naysayers. Mr. Rodbell and Erin Delman, pictured below, wrote this essay (which I’ve excerpted below) in their student newspaper The Concordiensis, citing their angst that Monckton was speaking.
A lord’s opinion can’t compete with scientific truth
Erin Delman (left), President of the Environmental Club, debates with Monckton – photo by Charlotte Lehman | Department Chair and Professor of Geology Donald Rodbell (right) asks Lord Christopher Monckton a question at the event on the “other side” of global warming. – photo by Rachel Steiner, Concordiensis
By Donald Rodbell and Erin Delman in Opinions | March 7, 2012
As Earth scientists, we were torn. The College Republicans and the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) were hosting Lord Monckton, a globally recognized climate skeptic, on Mon., March 5, and we were not quite sure how to respond. Frankly, the sentiment vacillated between utter disgust and sheer anger. On one hand, it seemed ludicrous to give Monckton a second of time or thought. On the other, however, dismissing him and allowing his speech without rejection risked that he would have an impact, and a dangerous one at that.
And thus, the college environmentalists – including Environmental Club members, the leaders and members of U-Sustain, concerned citizens, and renowned Earth scientists with PhDs from prestigious research institutions – decided to oppose the presence of Lord Monckton on our campus. We collected en-masse before his presentation to make it unambiguously clear that we would not allow such erroneous discourse to go unnoticed.
…
Lord Monckton does not stand alone in his beliefs on this issue; however, 97 percent of scientists overwhelmingly oppose his viewpoint. He kept asserting that this debate must follow a rigorous, science-based approach, and that the consensus of experts is, by itself, an insufficient basis on which to decide the veracity of the evidence for significant human-induced global warming.
…
Serious scientific debate cannot be carried out in the blogosphere, nor in highly charged and politically motivated presentations either by Lord Monckton or by Al Gore. The fact of the matter is that science has spoken, the overwhelming bulk of the evidence has shown very, very clearly that global warming is occurring and is at least mostly caused by humans. While scientific consensus can be wrong, it most often is not.
[end excerpts]
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Sigh, there’s that ridiculous 97% figure again. You’d think these “educated” people would bother to check such things before mindlessly regurgitating them and making themselves look like sycophants. And then there’s this: “Serious scientific debate cannot be carried out in the blogosphere…” well, then, PLEASE tell that to the RealClimate team so they stop trying to do that on the taxpayers dime.
It seems Erin Delman is training to be a professional enviro-legal troublemaker…
She is interested in pursuing a joint Ph.D. and law degree in geology and environmental law and is considering a career in environmental policy, particularly involving water rights.
…so I suppose I’m not surprised at this article. With that California background and water rights bent, I predict she’ll be joining the Pacific Institute to supplement Gleick’s mission.
Full article here: A lord’s opinion can’t compete with scientific truth
===============================================================
Monckton responds in comments to that article
Monckton of Brenchley March 16, 2012 at 2:34 pm | Permalink
Oh, come off it, Professor!
By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
Professor Donald Rodbell’s personal attack on me in Concordiensis (“A Lord’s Opinion Can’t Compete with Scientific Truth”) deserves an answer. The Professor does not seem to be too keen on freedom of speech: on learning that I was to address students at Union College, he said that he “vacillated between utter disgust and sheer anger”. My oh my!
The Professor should be reminded of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States: “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech”. I exercised freedom of speech at Union College. The Professor may disagree with what I said (though his article is lamentably unspecific about what points in my lecture – if any – he disagreed with); but, under the Constitution, he may not deny or abridge my right to say it.
He and his fellow climate extremists ought not, therefore, to have talked of “opposing the presence of Lord Monckton”: for that would be to abridge my freedom of speech. It would have been fair enough for the Professor to talk of opposing my arguments – yet that, curiously, is what his rant in Concordiensis entirely fails to do.
The Professor says it is certain that “the world is warming, climatic patterns are changing, and humans are a driving force”. Let us look at these three statements in turn.
– The world is not warming at present. It has not been warming for almost a decade and a half, though it has been warming since 1695. In the 40 years to 1735, before the Industrial Revolution even began, the temperature in Central England (not a bad proxy for global temperatures) rose by 4 Fahrenheit degrees, compared with just 1 F° in the whole of the 20th century.
– Climatic patterns are indeed changing. But they have been changing for 4,567 million years, and they will go on changing long into the future. However, the fact of climate change does not tell us the cause of climate change.
– Humans are indeed exercising some influence. Indeed, though the Professor implies otherwise, I stated explicitly in my lecture that the IPCC might be right in saying that more than half of the warming since 1950 was caused by us. However, that tells us little about how much warming we may expect in future. My best estimate is that the CO2 we add to the atmosphere this century will cause around 1 C° of warming by 2100. But that is not far short of the IPCC’s own central estimate of 1.5 C°.
Next, the Professor asserts, without any evidence, that “97% of scientists overwhelmingly oppose [Monckton’s] viewpoint”. Overlooking the tautology (the word “overwhelmingly” should have been omitted), as far as I am aware there has been no survey of scientists or of public opinion generally to determine how many oppose my viewpoint. I am aware of two surveys in which 97% of scientists asserted that the world had warmed in the past 60 years: but, in that respect, they agree with my viewpoint. No survey has found 97% of scientists agreeing with the far more extreme proposition that unchecked emissions of CO2 will be very likely to cause dangerous global warming. And, even if there had been such a survey, the notion that science is done by head-counting in this way is the shop-worn logical fallacy of the argumentum ad populum – the headcount fallacy. That fallacy was first described by Aristotle 2300 years ago, and it is depressing to see a Professor trotting it out today.
Science is not done by headcount among scientists. It is done by measurement, observation, and experiment, and by the application of established theory to the results. Until Einstein, 100% of scientists thought that time and space were invariant. They were all wrong. So much for consensus.
Next, the Professor says I made “numerous inaccuracies and mis-statements”. Yet he does not mention a single one in his article, which really amounts to mere hand-waving. He then asserts that I have “no interest whatsoever in pursuing a truly scientific approach”. Those who were present, however, will be aware that I presented large quantities of data and analysis demonstrating that the principal conclusions of each of the four IPCC climate assessments are defective; that the warming to be expected from a doubling of CO2 is 1 C°; and that, even if 21st-century warming were 3 C°, it would still be 10-100 times cheaper and more cost-effective to do nothing now and adapt in a focused way later than to try to stop the warming by controlling CO2.
The Professor goes on to say that “the fundamental building block of all science is peer-reviewed publications”. No: rigorous thought is the cornerstone of science. That is what is lacking in the IPCC’s approach. All of its principal conclusions are based on modeling. However, not one of the models upon which it relies has been peer-reviewed. Nor is any of the IPCC’s documents peer-reviewed in the accepted sense. There are reviewers, but the authors are allowed to override them, and that is not peer review at all. That is how the IPCC’s deliberate error about the alleged disappearance of all Himalayan glaciers by 2035 was not corrected. Worse, almost one-third of all references cited in the IPCC’s 2007 Fourth Assessment Report were not peer-reviewed either. They were written by environmental campaigners, journalists and even students. That is not good enough.
Next, the Professor says that, in not publishing my own analysis of “global warming” in a reviewed journal, I am “fundamentally non-scientific”. Yet he does not take Al Gore to task for never having had anything published in a reviewed journal. Why this disfiguring double standard? The most important thing, surely, is to shut down the IPCC, whose approach – on the Professor’s own peer-review test – is “fundamentally non-scientific”.
The Professor goes on to say, “It is impossible to scrutinize [Monckton’s] methods, calculations, and conclusions without a complete and detailed peer-reviewed publication that presents the important details.” On the contrary: my slides are publicly available, and they show precisely how I reached my conclusions, with numerous references to the peer-reviewed literature and to the (non-peer-reviewed) IPCC assessment reports.
Next, the Professor says that “rather substantial errors” were pointed out to me at Union College. Yet in every case I was able to answer the points raised: and, here as elsewhere, the Professor is careful not to be specific about what “errors” I am thought to have made. I pointed out some very serious errors in the documents of the IPCC: why does the Professor look the other way when confronted with these “official” errors? Once again, a double standard seems to be at work.
The Professor ends by saying that “science has spoken” and that, “while scientific consensus can be wrong, it most often is not”. Well, the eugenics consensus of the 1920s, to the effect that breeding humans like racehorses would improve the stock, was near-universally held among scientists, but it was wrong, and it led directly to the dismal rail-yards of Oswiecim and Treblinka. The Lysenko consensus of the 1940s and 1950s, to the effect that soaking seed-corn in water over the winter would help it to germinate, wrecked 20 successive Soviet harvests and killed 20 million of the proletariat. The ban-DDT consensus of the 1960s has led to 40 million malaria deaths in children (and counting), 1.25 million of them lasts year alone. The don’t-stop-AIDS consensus of the 1980s has killed 33 million, with another 33 million infected and waiting to die.
The climate “consensus” is also killing millions by diverting billions of dollars from helping the poor to enriching governments, bureaucrats, bankers, landowners, windfarm scamsters, and environmentalist racketeers, and by denying to the Third World the fossil-fueled electricity it so desperately needs. It is time to stop the killing. If arguing for a more rational and scientifically-based policy will bring the slaughter of our fellow citizens of this planet to an end, then I shall continue to argue for it, whether the Professor likes it or not.
He should be thoroughly ashamed of himself.
wfrumkin says:
March 17, 2012 at 11:43 pm
This comment thread ties together some important points about CAGW as a belief system.
1. Most humans are harming Gaia
2. A few enlightened people undetstand the price to be paid will need to be a culling of the unworthy
3. Deniers have forfeited their right to live on mother earth
4. Since Malthus predicts that most of the human race are fated to starve anyway, banning carbon will only speed up the inevitable (hopefully) limiting the damage to Gaia.
5. Of course, we the enlightened get to survive and keep our private jets and waterfront mansions in the new sustainable world we create.
/bitter sarc.
==========================================================
wfrumkin, you didn’t need that ‘/bitter sarc.’ The way you called it down through #5 is pretty much how I see it.
I for one do not welcome our CAGW spouting malthusian overlords.
johanna says:
March 18, 2012 at 5:15 am
>Michael, let’s just clear up straightaway that selectively breeding cattle for bulk or sheep for wool or dogs for the shape currently in favour with show judges is not the same as eugenics.
>I am not confusing ethics and science.
Yes you certainly are confusing ethics and science. Mistakes were certainly made in associating some traits and diseases with genetic origins but there were also instances where there was no mistake. Huntington’s disease is a prime example of no mistake. Today genetic testing can be cheaply and easily done to identify individuals who carry the gene for it before they are old enough to reproduce and before diagnostic symptoms show up in middle age. Testing and sterilizing carriers would be eugenics and it would work to at least some degree in reducing the incidence of Huntington’s. Whether or not that should be done is an ethical question not a scientific one. Eugenics as practiced 80+ years ago would not have had the precision it would have today but would have still worked as well as it does in animal breeding. Wolves didn’t turn into dogs voluntarily yet the big difference between a livestock guard dog and a wolf is entirely mental. Dogs that attacked the livestock were killed and those that attacked wolves and protected livestock were bred. It works and would work for humans too on a purely technical basis. It’s the moral implications that are unpalletable although that moral objection appears to be more a matter of fashion than anything else as eugenics was readily embraced by “good” Christian Americans in the day.
What I would like to see
I would like to see Lord Monckton in a debate with some of our leading alarmists. I wonder what it would take to get a Dr. Mann to share the stage with Lord Monckton in a televised (or Internet streaming) debate in front of an audience of journalists. (much like what happened once down-under as reported by JoNova)
It might be more fun even to have a team debate with 3 on a side. I am sure that our kind host of WUWT would make a great second to the Lord. Who for a third? (so many good choices out there!)
How many faster than light measurements must one ‘cherry pick’ to show that relativity is wrong?
Excellent reply Lord Monckton.
It never ceases to amaze me how frankly unsophisticated (thick?) alarmist academics seem to be -in the structure and depth of the arguments they offer up. Hand-waving indeed! This fellow shouldn’t only feel a sense of shame at the needless deaths occurring worldwide on account of the CAGW scam – but he ought to be thoroughly embarrassed at the frankly kindergarden-level intellect he has displayed on these pages – to the rest of the world. If I was a paying student on any of his courses, I would now be asking for a refund…
From personal experience that observation is by no means rare. It is remarkable how shallow – intellectually-speaking- many of the leading lights of climate alarmism tend to be. Two examples – here in Australia:
In 2005, one lunchtime, I found myself sitting at a dining table at the Sydney Opera House next to a geographer with the name badge – Prof Andy Pitman. I had never heard of him and although the talk was on CAGW (by someone else) it wasn’t a particular area of interest. The was by the head of research at a large German reinsurer. After the presentation, at question time, I asked the presenter what was the level certainty that precluded variation in solar output as the/ a primary cause of the warming trend observed… after a hand-waving type of answer (“..vee are absolutely sure it is not responsible” – something like that) Pitman lent across toward me and sneeringly declared (rather loudly) that the possibility had been thoroughly proven to be of little if any significance… Up until till then I hadn’t been particularly interested in the AGW debate but Pitman’s (unsolicited) response and his tone rang a big alarm bell for me – it just seemed, well, so unscientific.
The second similar occasion involved a certain Prof TIm Flannery – the Australian paleontologist. Again at an insurance lunchtime gathering (in 2008) – and again it was the thoroughly dismissive tone – almost verging on kind of scathing disgust (perhaps at being surrounded by so many capitalists!) and the idea that an explanation other than man as a driver of climate on Earth was somehow so easily dismissed… and again, the same sense one had of being so, well, under-whelmed by the intelligence of the person…
Since then I have become very interested in the CAGW escapade and I have to say my initial gut feelings of these people have been found to be correct – the more I have read of their work and their discourse. And it is no surprise to me that these most under-whelming ‘scientists’ (I use that term very loosely) are unwilling to front-up to a public debate when challenegd by those who are clearly well-read in climate science and the data – these intellectual pygmies know they aren’t up to the task They have, i’m sure, at least that much insight…
Keep-up the good work Chris!
Best Regards
Sam Geoghegan says: March 18, 2012 at 2:46 am
“I’d like to re-state my CAGW comment as ‘I’m equally as certain that there are plenty of people here who don’t find AGW bunk’. That at least encompasses guys like McIntyre, Pielke Jr. and Lucia, -Probably Anthony Watts as well.”
Absolutely classic bait & switch.
Since when has CAGW = AGW.
I dare say that they all do believe that AGW is not bunk, but not Catastrophic AGW.
Constitutionalist says: March 18, 2012 at 5:44 am
[US citizens enjoy 1st amendment protection. Monckton is not a US citizen.]
I guess some men were created more equal than others.
In response to a few commenters who have questioned my statement that there has been no statistically-significant warming over the past decade:
1. The statement is true.
2. The significance of the recent decade and a half of statistically-insignificant warming lies in the influence so long a period without warming has on the longer-run trend. Since 1950, the linear-regression trend on the Hadley Centre’s monthly global mean surface temperature anomalies is equivalent to 1.2 Celsius degrees per century: yet the IPCC’s central estimate (taken as the mean of its projections of manmade warming over the 21st century) is 2.8 Celsius degrees per century. In my talk I showed a slide illustrating this discrepancy, which I call the IPCC’s credibility gap.
3. I did not show only the temperature record of the past decade. I also showed or discussed the warming that has occurred since the IPCC’s first Assessment Report in 1990; the warming since 1950; and the warming since 1850, when the global instrumental record began.
4. I also discussed the very rapid warming in the Central England Temperature Record from 1695-1745 (at a rate of 3.9 C/century, many times the 0.7 C/century observed in the 20th century); and the three identical rates of rapid warming during the global instrumental record, at 0.16-0,17 C/century, from 1860-1880, from 1910-1940, and from 1976-2001.
5. I considered the paleoclimate temperature record going back 750 million years.
6. I stated that it was quite possible that the IPCC was right to find that more than half of the warming since 1950 was manmade, and cited Dr. Scafetta on the matter.
Let us be clear. Since 1950 there has been warming – though it was well within the natural variability of the climate and needs no further explanation. Adding CO2 to the atmosphere causes warming and it is possible that some of the warming since 1950 – perhaps more than half of it – was caused by us. But it is the rate at which the manmade warming has occurred, and the rate at which future manmade warming may occur, that is the crucial scientific question. Even the IPCC takes just 1.5 C as its central estimate of the warming that may occur by 2100 as a result of the CO2 we add to the air this century. It should be remembered that this, therefore, is the maximum quantum of warming that we could prevent if we were to have ceased emitting CO2 altogether since 2000. The 0.7 C of warming from non-CO2 sources, and the 0.6 C of previously-committed warming, that the IPCC additionally assumes for the 21st century will not be prevented by existing measures targeted at the reduction of CO2 emissions.
For these reasons, the implicit (and, from Professor Rodbell, explicit) allegation that I cherry-picked the data does seem unjustifiable.
Many scientists could benefit greatly by studying the Lord Monckton’s way of dealing with those who oppose either the process or the more general concepts of science. Some scientists go into undignified rant when confronted with data that may conflict with their beliefs. Here are some I encountered:
Leif Svalgaard: ‘ you are danger to society’
on http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC2.htm
Gavin Schmidt: ‘do you have some magical mechanism…. climate homeopathy perhaps’.
on http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NFC1.htm
Grant Foster (so called Tamino): ‘ you are * # ’’…’
on http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-Jun.htm
Chris Colose: ‘…….counting the cows of Idaho …”
on http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET1690-1960.htm
Now, compare any of the above to the Lord Monckton’s way of dealing with my somewhat provocative post:
‘Not the least of many reasons is that he has done what I lack the skill to do: he has been able to….’ etc,..etc.
It’s always good to learn from those who do it better.
Christopher Monckton of Brenchley,
Excellent address to the Union College professor. He appears lazy on his climate science, probably due to believing the PR from the cause ‘team’.
My advice to the prof is to come play in the open venue blog sites focused on correcting CAGWist ideology of the scientists gaming the political (not scientific) body that is called the IPCC.
John
Garymount
“If CAGW was proven, or even had a shed of evidence supporting it, the number of people believing in it would be about as equal as the number of people that believe in gravity. The reason there is so much skepticism is because most people aren’t gullible, and instead they are highly intelligent and educated, and it is not because of ideological reasons. You may be correct that the press has something to do with skepticism, as many news organizations goal is to inform people.”
I mean, come on, if I thought CAGW was true, I would want something done about it, and I would be doing something about it. I wouldn’t be denying it because I “don’t like change”, or I think “the economy is too bad right now” or whatever imagined excuses warmists are coming up with to explain skepticism.”
———————————————————————————————————————————
People are strange. In one respect, they bitch and moan about their elected leaders, but also look to them for guidance on issues of economics, defence, entitlements and morality. Ultimately, when there’s a problem, we inevitably ask our overlords to fix it with more bureaucracy and entitlement handouts. That to me negates all our efforts exercising our autonomy.
Partially what makes Monckton attractive is his non-conformity,and rejection of political centralisation, and yes-he’s eloquent and educated but slightly sinister in my opinion.
Secondly, the internet is a vibrant marketplace of ideas that has rendered traditional news media redundant as far as truth goes.
So yeah- people are on the right track but you need to be less puritanical-which is very much rooted in ideology. I don’t think you should use phrases like ‘shred of evidence’ for example, or suggest that only sceptics are intelligent and highly educated. Many AGW proponents are also.
-That kind of talk promotes the partisanship that I find disconcerting.
Constitutionalist, you seem to have the same problem as Palmer. Genetics and breeding techniques are not at issue. The issue is that the eugenics we are discussing is not a neutral and potentially legitimate field of study, but a historically specific and obviously disgusting scam which started around the 1900s until it was shamed back into the sewers after Auschwitz. While it pretended to be part of the sciences, it was actually a system which began as a racist philosophy and took a piggy-back ride on the back of of grenetics to legitimize its concocted premises. Those who operated under those premises did not produce science, but fraudulent and harmful junk which they managed to float mainly because of their social and political connections, because they wore lab coats and had letters after their names. It was not the science, but their ability to satisfy popular prejudices and to suck up to money and power that convinced the public and “policy makers” of their credibility.
Neither Joanna, nor Lord Moncton are confusing ethics and science. The ethics are certainly horrific, but the science sucks as well. In any case, fraud, carelessness, politicised science, these are not only ethically wrong, but scientifically null and void. So, it really isn’t as complicated as you and Palmer are pretending it is in your obvious attempts to whitewash eugenics: Attacking pseudosciences is not attacking science. Get it through your cranial armour, people, attacking eugenics is not attacking the spcifics of animal husbandry you two are babbling about. If I think Erich von Daniken is a mendatious nutcase, I’m not attacking archeology; if I think homeopathy is quackery, I’m not questioning modern, science-based medicine; if I laugh at astrology or alchemy, I’m not trashing astronomy or chemistry; and if I’m attacking “warmism,” I’m not attacking climatology. In fact, I think I can make a good argument that climate alarmism is in fact a continuation of the eugenics scam, a pick up on an inertia “rudely” broken up by a genocide and the disgust with series of horrific population experiments in the West. The “science” behind eugenics and warmism is bad and it’s irrelevant to the actual goals, namely grabbing power, prestige and public money by mediocre and ethically challenged technocrats. Both pseudosciences are a stretch, an unfalsifiable claim made with authoritarian chest-beating, under the guise of humanitarian necessity and under dire threats and both need to be aggressively challenged by genuine scientists and a public which has yet to lose its right to question and ridicule.
Wonderful reply, but I wish people would stop quoting the first amendment and freedom of speech for private squabbles. It doesn’t apply.
Eugenics was an interesting example that is appropriate, I think,but for subtler reasons that hinted at in the reply. The eugenics movement was attempting to establish a program that established the preferable traits of human beings and then rid the gene pool of the unwanted traits. It was wholly monstrous on an ethical level, but the science was sound… but that is where the real parallel comes in.
At the time the scientific field of genetics was still wrestling with what actually amounted to a genetic trait, and in trying to establish these traits they made poverty, and other social issues, genetic traits. So their “scientific conclusion” was to limit or stop the procreation in the lower classes. Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood got it’s start working to keep the poor from breeding… and in truth it hasn’t really strayed from that plan in the last 96 years.
In the end eugenics was a wholly myopic, damaging and morally bankrupt endeavor based on bastardized science executed with the best of intentions…. just like climate science is today.
Constitutionalist says:
March 18, 2012 at 5:44 am
US citizens enjoy 1st amendment protection. Monckton is not a US citizen. He has the right to behave himself while a guest in our country or the right to pack his bags and leave.
———————————
Mister, you’re about as good of a constitutionalist as you are a defender of junk science. The audience, presumably composed of Americans has the right to hear an opinion be it from a native-born or a guest, especially one that in no way violates your Constitution, laws and mores. In what way did Lord Monckton “not behave himself”? By making idiots out of his detractors? Your problem is of a general nature, I’d say; you just don’t reason too well.
However, not one of the models upon which it relies has been peer-reviewed.
Peer review must be done by a team of computer modellers from every sphere apart from climate science. There should be representatives from climate science merely there to provide clarification of intent where required and a defence from any wrong interpretations, but no more. No member of a review panel should have any known connection with the production of the material or it is not a review at all.
There should also be teams from specialists other aspects of the natural CO2 cycles to ensure that the models cover all aspects of the creation and use of CO2 by the natural systems backed up by accurate and verified data. The models must clearly show that natural systems will not just rebalance at precisely the same levels regardless of man’s activities.
Climate science needs to learn the difference between crony support networking and peer review. Their idea of reviewing does not meet the standards required elsewhere in science or engineering and the public should be aware of this before blindly accepting their word.
Constitutionalist, you seem to have the same problem as Palmer. Genetics and breeding techniques are not at issue. The issue is that the eugenics we are discussing is not a neutral and potentially legitimate field of study, but a historically specific and obviously disgusting scam which started around the 1900s until it was shamed back into the sewers after Auschwitz. While it pretended to be part of the sciences, it was actually a system which began as a racist philosophy and took a piggy-back ride on the back of of grenetics to legitimize its concocted premises. Those who operated under those premises did not produce science, but fraudulent and harmful junk which they managed to float mainly because of their social and political connections, because they wore lab coats and had letters after their names. It was not the science, but their ability to satisfy popular prejudices and to suck up to money and power that convinced the public and “policy makers” of their credibility.
Neither Joanna, nor Lord Moncton are confusing ethics and science. The ethics are certainly horrific, but the science sucks as well. In any case, fraud, carelessness, politicised science, these are not only ethically wrong, but scientifically null and void. So, it really isn’t as complicated as you and Palmer are pretending it is in your obvious attempts to whitewash eugenics: Attacking pseudosciences is not attacking science. Get it through your cranial armour, people, attacking eugenics is not attacking the spcifics of animal husbandry you two are babbling about. If I think Erich von Daniken is a mendatious nutcase, I’m not attacking archeology; if I think homeopathy is quackery, I’m not questioning modern, science-based medicine; if I laugh at astrology or alchemy, I’m not trashing astronomy or chemistry; and if I’m attacking “warmism,” I’m not attacking climatology. In fact, I think I can make a good argument that climate alarmism is in fact a continuation of the eugenics scam, a pick up on an inertia “rudely” broken up by a genocide and the disgust with series of horrific population experiments in the West. The “science” behind eugenics and warmism is bad and it’s irrelevant to the actual goals, namely grabbing power, prestige and public money by mediocre and ethically challenged technocrats. Both pseudosciences are a stretch, an unfalsifiable claim made with authoritarian chest-beating, under the guise of humanitarian necessity and under dire threats and both need to be aggressively challenged by genuine scientists and a public which has yet to lose its right to question and ridicule.
Wow! Serious alarmist asskicking going on in the comment section of the article. I wonder how long after Monday morning the comments will stay there….
Look at “judgemental” and self righteous posture of that young blonde lady confronting Lord Monkton as she harumphs all over the poor guy. Somehow I don’t think Dana Carvey is going to make her the subject of his comedic mockery though.
Paul Coppin says:
March 17, 2012 at 7:11 pm
Yet, perhaps out of misplaced loyalty to your professor, you raised your hands in denial of the truth. Never do that again, even for the sake of appeasing authority.
As I’ve previously written in other threads about Moncton’s visit, I believe this is by far the most salient, and damaging, point of his entire speech, and the point about which Redbull and Dulman are most upset about.
———————————————-
I second that Paul. In my view the importance of the point Lord Monckton makes here far outweighs the importance of the technical debate concerning AGW (and don’t get me wrong, the AGW debate is pretty darn important). All science demands integrity and dedication to truth, not just climate science. Sine qua non.
“Greg House says:
March 17, 2012 at 9:01 pm
May I take this? Thank you.
This is easy. Two things I have already done, see above, about “the temperature in Central England (not a bad proxy for global temperatures)” and the absence of correlation between CO2 and the temperature.
The third one is the thing about warming having stopped 12-15 years ago. I’ll just give an example. Look at this “warming”: 1-2-3-2-3-4-5-4-5-6-7-6-6-6-6-6-6-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13. You can see, may “warming” stopped for a while, but then…
The problem is, he uses not only valid arguments, but also invalid ones.”
=======================================================================
Certainly Greg I’ll be glad to analyze your 3 points.
1. – Central England. Note the word Proxy in there. What Lord Monckton is referencing is that we now have more than a century of world wide data. During that time we have not seen any temperature anomalies in other parts of the world. In other words if it was a warming trend in Central England then there was a warming trend in the rest of the world and if there was a cooling trend in Central England there was a cooling trend in the rest of the world. So because of this we can look at the records back to the 1600’s and make general conclusions about what was happening in the rest of the world. Conclusions such as this by Lord Monckton just a few comments above this one.
“I also discussed the very rapid warming in the Central England Temperature Record from 1695-1745 (at a rate of 3.9 C/century, many times the 0.7 C/century observed in the 20th century); and the three identical rates of rapid warming during the global instrumental record, at 0.16-0,17 C/century, from 1860-1880, from 1910-1940, and from 1976-2001. – Lord Monckton at WUWT”
2. Absence of correlation between CO2 and temperature. Lets see he hasn’t made such a claim at the Schenectady lecture so it is interesting you present it as a debunked point from there. I do believe he indicated that CO2 is known to lag temperature increases not precede them.
3. You claim that there has been warming n the last 15 or so years except …. There was a peak temperature in 1998 since that time the temperature has never gotten that warm again. The problem here is that in 1999 the temperatures plunged so relative to the 1999 peak we see warming but relative to the 1999 peak we have have not seen warming continue. The earth has indeed warmed and cooled since 1998 but the warming hasn’t recovered to the point it was at just a few years ago. You should have limited yourself to the last 10 years if you want to claim warming continues and even there you have to be very careful picking your start and end dates or the trend doesn’t do what you are asking it to do.
Greg I’m afraid that not one of your three easily debunked points holds up for you on analysis. Instead Lord Monckton’s points remain valid and hold up to checking.
“Hugh Pepper says:
March 18, 2012 at 5:01 am
Let’s be clear. “Facts” are not ideas conjured through some intellectual exercise alone. “Facts” about the real world are established by a rigorous exercise of observation and measurement. There are accepted protocols which work to ensure that the practice of finding the truth is legitimate. If everybody follows the “rules”, this system works. It is legitimate for Al Gore, who you apparently have demonized, to quote research which has been apprpriately conducted by others. You are also free to follow this style as well, and I encourage you to do this.
The physics of climate science has ben well established for many years, and universally accepted. Read Michael Mann’s recent book, for example, for an authoritative summary of this basic work. But then, I suppose, he has also been thoroughly demonized.”
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OH Hugh really? You want to try a claim on facts? Though I note you are careful to to always put facts in quotes. At a guess this means you do realize that a huge number of the facts involved in climate science are of questionable value.
We know from the climategate letters and other sources that the KEY players in climate science have bent, massaged, and otherwise muddied the water of actual facts since Dr. Hansen’s summertime presentation in Washington on the hottest day of summer with the windows open and the A/C turned off. That right there set the stage for how the key players in climate research treated facts.
Science depends on repeatability of the research. By this I mean that I should be able to describe my research and how I did it and you should be able to independently duplicate my research. That is the very core of science. If you don’t have that then there is no science involved.
And the problem climate science has is that their research isn’t repeatable. Much of it is based on computer models and doesn’t match real world data instead existing in a world only as modeled on the computer. Worse the researchers have massaged and cherry picked their data to achieve results that they want. Again this isn’t how science is done. The whole point of the Climate Audit website originally was because the reported data didn’t match what could be seen just looking at the records and Steve McIntyre wanted to be able to follow their work something he should have been easily able to do since he had a background in statistics.
The fact that they held up the hockey stick for so long and in some cases still fight tooth and nail to retain it tells you how little regard the core group of climate scientists hold facts in.
So Hugh perhaps you should have run screaming for the hills before invoking your “Facts”. It would have been better for your cause err case.
Your view that climate science is non repeatable is just plain wrong. I mentioned in another post that the ground-breaking work of Mann et al has been repeated seven times. Each of the other researchers, in this instance, got a similar result, thereby conforming the original hypothesis. Science is all about repetition and the journals are full of this work, which is often confirming, but not always.
REPLY: Then provide citations to prove it, otherwise you are just babbling – Anthony
The literature is FULL of both confirming and disconfirming information. Everywhere you look you will finds this data, hundreds of relevant papers in any given month. I don’t think this needs specific citation.
Hugh Pepper refers to ideas “which have not been substantiated through the accepted processes, namely research which has passed through peer review.” I do wish this notion – that a paper that has been peer reviewed has been in some way authenticated or shown to be “right” – would go away. All that peer review is designed to do is to indicate that the work is not prima facie rubbish.
Sam Geoghegan says:
March 18, 2012 at 3:50 am
Sexton
He’s made the ten year ‘no significant statistical warming’ claim numerous times (It varies between 10-15 years and ‘no warming’ to ‘cooling’). If choosing start/end points over a decade has no weght on the overall history of climate, then why mention it other than to impress the audience? Your answer?
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Sam you can read Chris Monckton’s reasoning above.
Here’s why I think the warming abatement is relevant to bring up……. there is no explained mechanism for it. The IR energy travels at the speed of light. Supposedly, the earth’s energy output is at a near constant 392 w/m2. We’ve continued to increase atmospheric CO2 in that time period. If the hypothesis is correct, we should have seen an increase in temps.
Either the hypothesis is wrong, or there’s another mechanism controlling our climate, thus, making the hypothesis wrong. More details can be found here…. http://suyts.wordpress.com/2012/03/18/a-review-of-the-co2-correlation-and-a-discussion-of-warming-abatement/
Next time somebody warns you of the dangers of carbon dioxide, ask them if they can cite the definitive peer-reviewed study that incontrovertibly ties man to current climate warming. Al Gore’s books and movies don’t qualify, neither do IPCC reports which are mostly put together by politicians, but any peer-reviewed study that was used to produced them is fair game.
Expect … crickets.
Where can I send my kid to college that she won’t be subjected to mindless, historically illiterate, un-scientific “professors” such as this fellow? I really don’t want to waste her time and my money sending her to such a place.