By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley in Rio de Janeiro
“BUT what about the ickle birdies?” wailed the ancient, off-blonde representative of the planet’s indigenous peoples in the shapeless, grimy, crumpled eco-sackcloth shift that is de rigueur this season among the female of the species here at the shapeless, grimy, crumpled Rio conference center.
“Don’t you care? Because of global warming the ickle wormies that the ickle birdies eat won’t hatch out at the right time for the ickle birdies to eat them and the ickle birdies will all die! Don’t you even care about all the millions of humans that are running away from all those droughts and floods and things? It’s all our fault!”
She got up untidily and flounced out (insofar as it is possible to flounce convincingly while wearing hemp flip-flops and a shapeless, grimy, gray eco-sackcloth shift).
One imagines the ickle wormies would be happy about global warming if it saved them from the ickle birdies. But I’m being unfair to this gallant champion of the ickle birdies and humans. She did not really talk like an infant. But she might as well have done. For the intellectual content of what she said was little better than baby-talk.
On the whole, I liked the cut of her jib (though not of her sackcloth). She had had the guts to come to a press conference given by the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, the sole environmental group recognized by the UN that does not believe the ickle birdies and humans will come to much harm as a result of warmer weather.
She had been courageous enough to speak up for her point of view. Nevertheless, if one really cares, mere self-indulgent, hand-wringing emotionalism is not enough. Rational thought is essential.
It is hard not to be dismayed by the feeble-mindedness of the useful idiots who are the cannon-fodder of Greenpeace, the World Wide Fund and suchlike sinister, corrupt, stinking-rich, taxpayer-subsidized environmentalist mega-corporations that cynically profit from the doom-laden falsehoods they so artfully but mendaciously peddle to the ignorant and the innocent.
As I watched the indigenous person trying not to catch her eco-sackcloth shift on the door as she did her best to flounce out, I wondered – not for the first time – whether it would ever be possible to find arguments clear enough to pierce the dark, dense cloud of unknowing in which so many of the drones of the environmentalist movement seem to dwell.
And then I thought of Table SPM.3 and Figure 10.26 in the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report, as one does. An idea began to form.
Why is it that these true-believers truly believe the untrue and the unbelievable? Surely it is because they find it comfortable, and safe not to question whatever they are told is the Party Line (now excitingly rebranded as the “consensus”). To convince the shiftless, shift-wearing, sandal-shuffling enviro-zombs that the climate scare is nothing to be scared about, it will be desirable to demonstrate to them that what the scientific consensus holds to be true is in fact harmless.
This is where Table SPM.3 and Figure 10.26 come in.
Please write down on a piece of paper the IPCC’s current central estimate in Celsius degrees of the global warming that will occur by 2100 as a result of the carbon dioxide we add to the atmosphere this century.
That’s what it’s all about, right? Warming that does not happen until beyond 2100 is not a problem because we shall have plenty of time to adapt and adjust. It is the notion of rapid warming this century that is alarming, because damage may arise before we have the time to react. Besides, if warming is slow this century, there is no good reason why it should accelerate in subsequent centuries.
So, is the IPCC “consensus” looking at 3, 4, 5 or even 6 Celsius degrees of warming by 2100 as a result of the CO2 we add to the atmosphere this century?
Remarkably, no, it’s not. Nothing like. Be prepared for a welcome surprise.
Table SPM.3 in the Summary for Policymakers shows the manmade warming to be expected over the next 100 years on six distinct “emissions scenarios”. But the IPCC says each of the scenarios should be accorded equal weight, so we shall do just that by taking the unweighted average. It is 2.8 Celsius degrees.
But look more closely. Of this predicted warming, 0.6 C° is supposed to be locked-in or “committed” warming that will arise as a result of our past sins of emission. However, after a decade and a half without any statistically-significant warming, it is becoming questionable whether we can expect much warming as a hangover from the last century. In any event, if that warming really is “committed warming”, we cannot now do anything about it. So let us deduct it, for it is not policy-relevant.
That leaves 2.2 C° of warming predicted for the 21st century. From this we must deduct the contribution to global warming from greenhouse gases other than CO2. This is where the graphs in Fig. 10.26 are helpful. They are the size of postage-stamps, but they allow us to calculate that, on each scenario, the IPCC reckons non-CO2 gases will account for 30% of all 21st-century manmade greenhouse warming.
In reality, other greenhouse gases will contribute far less than this. The concentration of methane, the only significant non-CO2 greenhouse gas, has risen by just 20 parts per billion in the past decade, and that would cause a mere 1/350 C° of warming over the decade, or a quarter of a degree by 2100, so there is no need for what Jim Sensenbrenner calls a “cow-fart tax”.
Be that as it may, the IPCC’s implicit central estimate of the warming by 2100 driven by the CO2 we add to the atmosphere this century is 70% of 2.2 C°, or just 1.5 C°.
Now retrieve your piece of paper. Was your central estimate of the IPCC’s central estimate anything like as small as that? If so, be careful. You have been thinking for yourself, and that is dangerous to your reputation, I can tell you.
Check the result by another method. First, recall the IPCC’s view that the radiative forcing from a change in CO2 concentration is 5.35 times the logarithm of the proportionate change. Multiplying this forcing by an appropriate climate-sensitivity parameter gives the warming to be expected over any chosen period.
By combining the data from Table SPM.3 and Fig. 10.26, one deduces (for the IPCC makes none of this explicit) that its favored climate-sensitivity parameter for the 20th and 21st centuries together, on each of the six scenarios, is 0.5 C° per Watt per square meter of forcing. However, we are concerned only with 21st-century warming, so one should reduce this to, say, 0.4 C° W–1 m2.
The CO2 concentration predicted by the IPCC for 2100, taken as the average for all six emissions scenarios, is 713 parts per million by volume, compared with 368 ppmv in 2000. So the CO2-driven warming of the 21st century, excluding any hangover of committed warming from the previous century, is 0.4(5.35 ln 713/368), or 1.4 C°. This result from Fig. 10.26 broadly agrees with the 1.5 C° implicit in Table SPM.3.
But wait. There has been no warming during the first one-eighth of the 21st century. So it could be argued that the equation should read 0.4(5.35 ln 713/392), or less than 1.3 C° of warming to 2100 caused by the CO2 we add to the atmosphere this century.
Now for a real-world observational fact-check, just like what real scientists used to do. What has been the measured rate of warming since 1950? I choose that year for two reasons. First, it was from then on, as the world rebuilt itself after the Second World War, that manmade CO2 emissions became potentially significant. Secondly, 62 years have passed since 1950, and a complete warming and cooling cycle of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation takes about that long, so that choosing that time-frame cancels out a major potential natural distortion.
The rate at which the world has warmed since 1950, taken as the least-squares linear-regression trend on the Hadley Centre’s monthly temperature series, is equivalent to 1.2 C° per century. One would not expect much acceleration in this observed rate of warming, because even though Man’s CO2 emissions will rise quite sharply over the 21st century the consequent forcing and warming will respond logarithmically: each additional molecule of CO2 will have less warming effect than its predecessor.
If other greenhouse gases had indeed contributed 30% of the 1.2 C° warming since 1950, then CO2’s contribution was equivalent to just 0.8 C° per century. But if half of the warming since 1950 was natural (within the consensus range given by the IPCC), make that 0.4 C°/century.
The results of this inquiry:
| Mean predicted CO2-driven 21st-century warming (SPM.3) | 1.5 C° |
| Mean predicted CO2-driven 21st-century warming (10.26) | 1.4 C° |
| 10.26 adjusted for no global warming from 2000-2012 | 1.3 C° |
| Observed rate of warming per century since 1950 | 1.2 C° |
| Observed rate per century since 1950 from CO2 alone | 0.8 C° |
| Observed warming rate from CO2 if half was natural | 0.4 C° |
Every line of this unalarming table is mainstream, consensus science. I have merely made explicit what is implicit but carefully unstated in the IPCC’s predictions. One can only get faster warming than this by assuming improbably large contributions from greenhouse gases other than CO2 and from previously-committed warming.
Notice that the observationally-based CO2-driven centennial warming rates in the table are below the rates predicted by the IPCC’s model-derived data and methods.
Nearly all current mitigation strategies concentrate exclusively on CO2. The table shows that the most warming we could possibly forestall by these strategies, even if all worldwide CO2 emissions had ceased in 2000, would be just 1.5 C° by 2100, and it may well be considerably less than that.
I did not get the chance to make this entirely consensus-based argument to the indigenous person in the sackcloth shift, but I have tried it on other true-believers here, and it does make them worry just a little less about the ickle birdies.
###
Here’s a video summarizing Rio+20
Succinct and well put as always.
I liked the traffic-light tendency…”The Greens are too yellow to admit they are red.”
Environmentalism is a safe harbor for the intellectually challenged. The qualifications for being an environmentalist are less than that of being a couch potato.
These cretons at the summit are not a bunch of new age hippies, but rather a gathering of low achieving freeloaders that push through penal taxes on the public at large, to pay their high salaries, their exotic travels and all inclusive 5* summits.
On the one hand I count my blessings that I can vote for this man, along with Nigel Farage, by voting for UKIP.
On the other hand I despair that so many people in this country still vote for the tried and failed mainstream parties.
Christopher Monckton and Anthony Watts are the outstanding communicators of scientific honesty and integrity of our age. Their writings manage to combine scientific analysis with wit, erudition and humanity – which means they are accessible, enjoyable and educational to read. Monckton’s larger-than-life persona also makes him a hugely attractive media figure but, of course, he never appears on the BBC. This tells you all you need to know about the BBC.
Nearly all current mitigation strategies concentrate exclusively on CO2.
They don’t, but all you hear about is CO2. CO2 taxes and trading are based on ‘CO2 equivalents’. A large proportion of the international trade in carbon certificates is for schemes to reduce non-CO2 gases, particularly CFCs in China.
Currently here in Australia there is a bit of a kerfuffle about the carbon tax being applied to council dumps. This is because a molecule of methane is considered equivalent to 25 molecules of CO2.
Ignored by the media because it would confuse the masses, is that the problem is that these dumps don’t emit enough CO2. They way they can avoid paying the carbon tax is to capture and burn the methane they produce, emitting CO2 instead.
You mentioned “The Cloud of Unknowing” This is the title of one of my favourite books written during the medieval period by an unknown cleric. Very apt referring to a person dressed in sackcloth who wants to send us back to the dark ages.
Nice try, Lord Monckton, but there are some people that you just can’t convince that there are no monsters under the bed.
Thanks for the bulletin from the front line. No one else seems to be covering it.
What has to be recognised, is that the policies being put forward to protect the environment, were in so many cases, indistinguishable from classical Marxist-Leninist doctrine. That may appear to be a harsh assessment, but when you take a hard look at those policies, it’s plain to see. They just changed a few names, but the underlying policies being advocated were and are exactly the same.
Compulsive and obsessive control had to be exerted on all individuals, right down to what lightbulbs they were to be permitted to use in their own homes. It was about saving the very planet. Given such a historic mission, any dissent with the official orthodoxy was not to be engaged with, but instead ruthlessly suppressed by any and all means.
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2012/06/08/how-environmentalism-turned-to-the-dark-side/
Pointman
Than you Lord Monckton your closing statement say’s it all ” The game is up”
Now that the knife has been plunged into this beast it is encumbent upon us to twist it where ever and when ever possible to ensure this dragon stays slayed.
I do so hope you’re right, Lord Monckton. However, as an Australian who’s about to be lumbered with a $23 per tonne carbon tax next week, I’m not quite so sanguine. And you don’t mention “sustainable development” which seems to be the new catchcry. Certainly, in my place of employment its on the top of the agenda at Board meetings, the new HSSE in fact. This is nothing more than an even less precise phrase for the same thing. Anything they want it to be.
I completely agree that what is needed is for the money tap to be turned off and, sad to say, this is more likely to be the result of the world economic turmoil than the powers that be returning to their senses. However, there are still far too many vested interests, useless and even harmfull money splashing projects and brainwashed politicians holding the reins of power. And, as you say, its bleeding into government at all levels. Like a huge ship, once it gains momentum its very hard to check.
Well said, but that is the problem with the lumpen proletariat that make up the bulk of the CAGW cult; their mantra is: “Don’t confuse me with the facts, my mind is made up.” They are being financially milked just as efficiently as their counterparts in extremist religious sects.
“It is hard not to be dismayed by the feeble-mindedness of the useful idiots who are the cannon-fodder of Greenpeace, the World Wide Fund and suchlike sinister, corrupt, stinking-rich, taxpayer-subsidized environmentalist mega-corporations that cynically profit from the doom-laden falsehoods they so artfully but mendaciously peddle to the ignorant and the innocent.”
I’m with Walt Disney, can someone freeze me and wake me up when sane people are in charge.
Then again I could be frozen for a long-long time.
Reblogged this on Climate Ponderings and commented:
Christopher Monckton of Brenchley…CUTS though the carp with ACTUAL MATH
indigenous peoples……
Unless you were born in Ethiopia…The Garden of Eden…or where-ever the center of civilization is supposed to have originated from?
Where the Lakota Sioux indigenous o the Dakotas? You’d have to ask the Ojibwas who the Sioux defeated and repossessed.
We are a migratory species.. .. We might be long term residents.
The Lord deserves a knighthood – oops he’s already a Lord, so how about a prize? Now THAT would be truly “Nobel”….[Some body just whispered to me that Big Al already has one – perhaps he might give it to the Lord as a gesture of good will?] /sarc
I understand ickle birds actually like warm weather, please don’t worry them.
Previous was Jean Parisot, not Jean
I’ve successfully used this approach–quoting directly from IPCC 2007–in past arguments with irrational and ill-informed “believers”.
I was at a party a couple of months ago, and encountered one such individual. She was a marketing and communications consultant who advised on sustainability and claimed to have been “personally trained by former US Vice President and Nobel Laureate Al Gore to educate the public about the science and impacts of climate change” as part of his Climate Reality Project.
So, I asked her for her mid-point estimate (explaining that this meant picking a number which had a 50% likelihood of reality being either higher or lower) of how much sea-level was expected to rise by the year 2100.
She paused for a while, and said she wasn’t very good with numbers. So I told her to picture herself standing on a beach by the ocean and then I asked her how tall she was. Given time to visualize a suitable frame of reference, I again asked her for her mid-point estimate of how much sea level rise we should expect in the next 88 years. She responded “uhm… 200 feet?”
My jaw dropped a bit, and I asked her to confirm in case I hadn’t heard her correctly. She replied with greater confidence… “Yes, around 200 feet, give or take.”
I pulled out my Blackberry and searched for the IPCC AR4 projections and showed her that their complete set of estimates for all scenarios ranged from 7 to 23 inches… a fair bit less than the 200 feet she was worried about. I also mentioned to her the University of Colorado’s reference page on sea level that showed the rate of rise as 3.1 mm / year and explained that if the trend continued then sea level might be 11 inches higher by 2100.
At that point she stopped talking to me. But I wasn’t surprised… I seem to have that effect on girls at parties.
This man is truly brilliant. It’s a shame what the aforementioned “true believers” have done to his reputation in certain left-leaning circles simply because the truth hurts.
Another masterful analysis. Lord Monckton should be compulsory viewing for students and politicians everywhere.
In an interview with The Guardian just prior to Rio+20 Kumi Naidoo, executive director of Greenpeace said:
“If we do not get an outcome of substance then I think what we will see is a further acceleration towards disaster and for those of us who are concerned, my main message is that we have to put this struggle on a war footing,” he said. “As a Greenpeace person, I do not like to use the word war but I use it quite advisedly. To be brutally honest, Greenpeace and other organisations are winning some of the battles but we are losing the war.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jun/19/greenpeace-rio-20-civil-disobedience
Now that Rio+20 has ended in failure for the Greenpeace agenda Kumi Naidoo wants to target financial institutions and pension funds:
“Our aim is to get all banks to say we won’t make loans to oil, coal, gas and deforestation-related activity. We want to shut off the flow of capital. The time is right because the banks are at their most vulnerable in terms of public legitimacy.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sustainable-business/rio-20-greenpeace-war-finance-sector?newsfeed=true
Given the threats now coming from Greenpeace, they are playing into the hands of politicians who want to impose restrictions on freedom in the name of security. Threats are treated seriously by the FBI:
“Outlook
Continued targeting of perceived symbols of capitalism imperialism and oppression
Continued use and exploitation of communication technologies
Anticipate increase in activity leading up to 2012 conventions”
http://www.greenisthenewred.com/blog/wp-content/Images/ACLURM026485-anarchist.pdf
I never get tired of listening to Lord Monckton. He has a clear understanding of what has been going on with the environmental & AGW movements over the years and can pick them apart as though it was child’s play. He operates with an intellect that is probably one or two levels above that of the average Joe — including our elected politicians in Washington and in state capitals. God bless him.
I guess baby talk is different in the UK. “Ickle birdies”? Cute.
And a very enjoyable read.
mfo says:
June 25, 2012 at 4:54 am
The answer is to fight fire with fire.
I regularly email companies telling them I am going to boycott their products because they do thinks I don’t like.
Recently, the supermarket chain I usually shop at put up a sign saying their seafood was endorsed as sustainable by the WWF.
My email in response was,
Dear sir/Madam,
I see that you now have the WWF endorse your seafood is sustainable.
I assume money changed hands to obtain this endorsement.
I view this as little more than extortion or protection money paid to keep a potential critic quiet.
I find this morally reprehensible and from now on will no longer buy seafood from your supermarkets, and should you extend this kind of endorsement to other product lines, I will no longer buy them.
This is unfortunate, because Coles is my preferred supermarket.
Regards
‘Why is it that these true-believers truly believe the untrue and the unbelievable? ‘
The most obvious reason, my Lord, is that society chooses to ostracise those who question the unquestioned mantras of the age, the centuries.
In my humble PhD days, when two medical charities paid me so poorly that they stimulated my lifetime risk of contracting cancer by about 6 fold (3 years of poor diet, weakening of the immune system, exposure to carcinogens and radioactivity etc etc), a mantra had grown up that a certain form of bovine cancer was an economic problem in Scotland. As a humble 1st year graduate student, it was not, I thought, my place to question what had been published in numerous ‘learned’ ‘journal articles’, there being more pressing matters to attend to, and hence, I opened my informal talk to my fellow graduate students with this mantra. One of my audience, who was a qualified veterinarian, said forthrightly: ‘Well, it’s not, actually’. It taught me aged 21 that lying was an Establishment trait, even in that most rigorous of disciplines, research science. The reason was obvious: that lie helped to cement continued research funding. I have noticed a rather distinct attitudinal difference toward lying by learned Professors and humble PhD students ever since……
In my days as an enthusiastic skier, that venerable organisation, the Ski Club of Great Britain, then run by families of no little standing in the UK, regularly informed its members that snowfalls would begin in November, that the biggest storms of the season would be in January and that as spring approached, things would become increasingly sunny and warm. You will understand that I was somewhat frustrated when for 4 or 5 years from 1982 onwards, the snow around Christmas time was somewhat thin on the ground, even in resorts situated at 1850m above sea level. It was also noticeable that every time I went ski-ing in March or early April (the Easter vac at Uni), that snow was plentiful, both on the ground and coming out of the air. Something strange was afoot. I spent the next 5 years researching and experiencing the weather and came to an understanding that held true for around 12 more years. I enjoyed fresh powder every time I went ski-ing for 7 years and helped friends avoid snowless regions also. I received no grants to do this research and profited to the tune of a couple of what were jovially referred to as ‘lardy cakes’ in the canteen of the medical research establishment I was then working in. I saw how the ‘global warming’ mantra was used to scare owners of real estate in the Alps and it interesting to note that there has not yet been an Armageddon of the ski resort industry in Europe. I was fairly brutally insulted when I shared my views on climate science on an SCGB blog in around 2008, which tells you that even in rather crusty, conservative organisations that mantras are more important than scientific analysis. No doubt, a few ‘well renowned’ scientists will change the mantra soon. I doubt it will be significantly different to what I said 5 years ago.
In my days as a fresh MBA graduate, I was asked to ‘do a strategic review’ of a company in a cash flow crisis. It was evident within 6 weeks that the biggest problem was the majority shareholder who was, in fact, my client. I used my penultimate communication to tell all and sundry the truth and then provided a ‘proposal’ to the Board which outlined ‘options’. Options I am happy to say were followed through on. It didn’t do my career any good telling the truth, though. I could have been CEO if I had lied to order. I chose not to.
When employed as a management consultant, I was asked to contribute on a project to do with ‘cluster development strategy’. I read to my great surprise that an Objective 1 region of the North of England was proposing to create 10 new life sciences companies each year. When I diplomatically opined, without threats, but in the humility of experience, that 1 was closer to the mark (3 would have been a stellar performance), I was seen as a threat and embarrassment, not a constructive worker. Fees were on the line, you see. My sound of silence on that project was noticeable, hoping to find more productive fare where truth might be more appreciated.
The reality of the world is that the acquisition of power is not always, not in fact very often, accompanied by a dedication to the truth. If it has not been, then the exposure of that lack is intensely threatening to those in power, hence it requires those of equal power to oust them, short of a long period of suffering on the part of those warriors fighting on courage and spirit alone.
You’ll find the same amongst some of your capitalist friends too I’m afraid.
It’s not capitalism or socialism that is the problem, it’s how they are applied. One espouses competition, the other co-operation. They are part of the same duality of truth. I prefer co-operation not because I am a socialist, but because I was always beaten up at school for no good reason. I couldn’t stop those ‘competitive’ people doing it, all I could do was try and find a way to avoid it. I always wished to work with people I broadly agreed with, because I don’t enjoy constant battles for the sake of it. Others are different.
I have met wonderful capitalists and wonderful left wingers. I have also met left-wingers who behave like fascists and capitalists with an unusual sense of philanthropy.
At the end of the day, it is all about what different people value.
Thing is, different people ascribe different values to the same things, so the conflict will forever be with us.
It’s just the outrageously unreal values which tend to have finite lifetimes of existence.
How apropos – ICAO airport codes* en route to Rio Summit: ” MAD GIG “!
.
.
.
* Madrid Airport, MAD – http://www.world-airport-codes.com/spain/madrid-4336.html
*.Rio De Janeiro Airport, GIG – http://www.world-airport-codes.com/brazil/rio-de-janeiro-6296.html
.
With the stated goal of 2 C temperature rise by 2100 we’re well ahead of schedule and should thus suspend all measures designed to throttle CO2 emissions until observations show that we are coming in above that goal.
IF CO2 were able to ‘capture or redirect’ Outgoing Longwave Radiation and somehow magically warm the planet, which is can NOT do, there would still be a decreasing ‘problem’ with increasing concentrations. It is doubtful the humans could ‘double’ the atmospheric concentration of CO2, but we certainly could NOT double the OLR. Since we are near the ‘absorption’ saturation, the entire paradigm is a fractured fairy tale from the tyrants handbook.
Regarding the cow-fart tax… I seem to remember that termite farts are a much larger problem? Do I have that correct? If so, wouldn’t massive deforestation help to starve the nasty li’l buggers? Well, no, I’m not really suggesting that as a solution, but it *is* an interesting aspect to how interactions can work in unexpected ways.
– MJM
“the game is up”.
For Marxists, the game is never up. If they have actually lost this particular round of using CAGW to build political power, they are, at this moment, looking/inventing some new way of doing it. Where they will turn next is the issue for the 21st century. The game will be played again on a different field, with different players but it will be the same old game.
Alas, too much arithmetic “to pierce the dark, dense cloud of unknowing in which so many of the drones of the environmentalist movement seen to dwell.” Nice summary, though, even given some of the assumptions.
It’s not capitalism or socialism that is the problem, it’s how they are applied. One espouses competition, the other co-operation. They are part of the same duality of truth.
Rhys Jaggar, you make insightful observations, but you misunderstand capitalism/markets. The essence of capitalism/markets is that your opinion doesn’t matter. It’s the other guy who gets to decide who succeeds and who fails .
As someone once observed, “In the market, every dollar votes.”
How apropos – ICAO airport codes* en route to Rio Summit: ” MAD GIG “!
Had it been located in Helsinki, anyone routed through Singapore, would have been going from SIN to HEL.
Lord Monckton, this paper comes within a few pejoratives of being brilliant. A movement is afoot to remove insults from the debate, and while yours are largely harmless and capable of bringing a smile, the bar has been raised, and by us, so it is ours to get over at each opportunity. And thank you for giving us another tool of logic and fact to work with in the ongoing debate.
Christopher … what have you and Anthony done?
Apart from a daft story that global warming is causing the sea level around California to rise (which admittedly may seem to be entire earth to some) … well there’s isn’t any news today.
Rio, must be one of the worst investments any News Editor ever made. What was the point in sending any journalists there?
The Guardian sums it up:
A catastrophe if global warming falls off the international agenda.
…. putting that through the GlobalWarmistdecrapifyer we get:
It is a catastrophe because global warming has fallen off the international agenda.
This calls for a celebration! We should organise a worldwide sceptic party. Anthony could organise this … just give us a date, add the words “Sceptic Party – bring your own bottle”, and then at the appropriate time add the words “It’s started … have fun” (and ideally turn off moderation for an hour).
Can you imagine going up against Lord Monckton in a debate? Scary!
I like the paragraph that starts “It is hard not to be dismayed by the feeble-mindedness…”, spot on! Amazingly Christopher Monckton still gets labelled a denier despite continually accepting that CO2 will cause warming.
…and Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people’s money. –Margaret Thatcher.
But a successful capitalism makes more money through the industry it generates.
So your statement claiming “duality of truth” of the two systems obviously fails.
Or put another way, of what value would there be in going to a Belmont Stakes if all the horses were co-operating to cross the finish line at the same time? In such a world, would there be any incentive to cross the finish line at all?
Aye, there’s the rub.
I wonder why Christopher Monckton of Brenchley often feel the need to talk down to, or ridicule, other people in his writings. I fail to see how he contributes in a positive way, and why he is compared to people like Anthony Watts.
Addendum (I said there was no news … but this is hot off the press … and very pertinent to Scotland’s best known Sceptic)
UK Environment: Scotland world leader on climate change
Scotland’s reputation as a world leader in climate change has been reinforced at the UN Summit on Sustainable Development in Rio.
Environment and Climate Change Minister Stewart Stevenson met with the Mexican Government to discuss the importance of climate change legislation for sustainable development, and he praised Mexico’s commitment to tackling climate change.
http://www.egovmonitor.com/node/51526
Scotland, this banana republic of Global Warming nonscience, need your help!
Rhys Jaggar says:
June 25, 2012 at 5:47 am
“It’s not capitalism or socialism that is the problem, it’s how they are applied. One espouses competition, the other co-operation. They are part of the same duality of truth.”
Bull crap. Even among socialist there is competition as to who can be the most pure of socialists. Cuba or China. Socialism gets human misery as a purposeful outcome.
“Regarding the cow-fart tax… ”
For a while it seemed this had been headed off in Australia, cows having some effective PR (unlike feral camels). Now it’s back. Move cattle onto a paddock before 1st July, take them off after 1st July, $47 per head is payable.
“I seem to remember that termite farts are a much larger problem? Do I have that correct? ”
Probably. “Termites may produce up to two litres of hydrogen from digesting a single sheet of paper, making them one of the planet’s most efficient bioreactors.” [Wikipedia]
“If so, wouldn’t massive deforestation help to starve the nasty li’l buggers? Well, no, I’m not really suggesting that as a solution, but it *is* an interesting aspect to how interactions can work in unexpected ways.”
LOL. However – you never know …
Termites will not only consume any cellulosic material, they will chew through soft plastics, plaster, rubber, sealants such as silicone rubber and acrylics, even some soft metals. It turns up in the mounds. They can work through minute cracks in concrete, One nail driven through ant-termite mesh and then pulled out is enough to create an entry. Just down the road from me they decided to attack the underground electric cables, ate the wrap and sleeving, first noticed when the lights started flickering.
The smart money is on the termites …
Re Anders Nygaard: +1!!! I agree, ridicule adds nothing to the debate and only makes people already in agreement feel self satisfied for scoring another point, while driving away anyone else trying to look at the facts. This article is a big loser as far as furthering the discussion goes.
CAGW is dead but sustainable development (thats NO development for those who do not speak eco-speak) with BIODIVERSITY from and centre as its poster child is the next GLOBAL CRISIS.
Don’t believe me just watch. The same tax schemes will be pushed to deal with the pending global collapse of biodiversity.
RockyRoad:
…and Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people’s money. –Margaret Thatcher.
There’s speaks the Lady who gave global warming credibility just because it suited her short term battle with the UK miners.
There speaks the Lady who wrecked the UK manufacturing sector and gave our economy to the bankers … who then gambled it leaving the UK one of the most indebted nations in Europe.
There speaks the Lady who made it a criminal offence to live … if you couldn’t afford it. And who were so contemptuous of the Scots that she tried this “Herodian” tax on Scotland first … and the Scots have almost never returned a Tory politician the British parliament since. And more than likely, she laid the hatred that is leading to the break-up of the UK.
The only way Thatcher was a success … was that she was marginally better than the abysmal labour politicians at the time.
IR Spectroscopy much?
(You’re swimming against the tide, son.)
.
A word to the warmers it is difficult to exaggerate something that is not happening and be believed. And worse to get caught.
The use of the word hangover is a work of art.
As for the girl in the gunny sack she even missed the image she was trying to make. When women used the cloth from grain bags to make their clothes the companies selling grain decorated the sacks to attract women who told their husbands to buy the grain in the sacks they liked. It was good business and pleased the women. For sure farmer’s wives and daughters never talked like that even as children.
kim2ooo says:
June 25, 2012 at 3:36 am
indigenous peoples……We are a migratory species.. .. We might be long term residents.
Some people are self-appointed indigenes. Sorta like Elizabeth Warren.
FYI, she got an early birthday present:
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/06/elizabeth-warrens-birthday-gift-from-gop-an-ancestry-com-account/
“I wonder why Christopher Monckton of Brenchley often feel the need to talk down to, or ridicule, other people in his writings.”
He’s a smart enough guy to realize he’d have greater impact if he’d refrain from belittling others, and would stop making reference to the English Lord thing.
The most effective communicators cut out anything that distracts from the main message.
Martin Clark says:
June 25, 2012 at 8:14 am
One nail driven through ant-termite mesh and then pulled out is enough to create an entry. Just down the road from me they decided to attack the underground electric cables, ate the wrap and sleeving, first noticed when the lights started flickering.
The smart money is on the termites …
Raise pangolins and rent them out to the utility company.
I’ll help you start a rumor that they’ve been successfully trained to eat cane toads, too…
Lord Monckton just illustrated why UNESCO has targeted rational thought itself and dramatically changed its definition of literacy over the last several decades. It is literally pushing the idea that there should be no distinctions made between rational thought based on facts and beliefs purely grounded in emotion. They should all be treated merely as personal perspectives.
Learning to Be. Learning to Do.
All we are to be allowed under the UN vision. No room for human ingenuity. Might not follow the script.
fredb says:
June 25, 2012 at 8:20 am
Re Anders Nygaard: +1!!! I agree, ridicule adds nothing to the debate and only makes people already in agreement feel self satisfied for scoring another point, while driving away anyone else trying to look at the facts. This article is a big loser as far as furthering the discussion goes.
You’re concentrating on the sizzle and ignoring the steak.
Yes Martin Clark,
Termites as a host and their internal symbiont together function to break down ligno-cellulose into fermentable monosaccharide glucose.
Termites with their symbiont’s cellulases and hemicellulases will save the planet when green enforcers mandate money so bugs make bio-mass into bio-ethanol.
Just have to watch out for anti-social termites playing with matches.
“If other greenhouse gases had indeed contributed 30% of the 1.2 C° warming since 1950, then CO2’s contribution was equivalent to just 0.8 C° per century. But if half of the warming since 1950 was natural (within the consensus range given by the IPCC), make that 0.4 C°/century.”
Which begs the question, what is:
England’s contribution to the 0.4 C°/century?
Australia’s contribution to the 0.4 C°/century?
After all, these countries lead the way in the great leap to the low carbon economies.
At the risk of offending some or all of my fellow WUWT-ers, people continue to believe this gjuff because environmentalism is, in a very real sense, a religion. Not just figuratively as has been stated ad nauseum. We are all taught how to think critically, how to weigh evidence, how to question any conclusion or position – with the notable exception of instruction in religion. In religion, one is not allowed to raise certain questions. One does not question the authoritative conclusions. One is dicouraged from thinking critically. One is derided, and an outcast if one questions the consensus view (for those fellow Americans here, I challenge you to go to a public assembly and openly refuse to utter the Pledge of Allegiance because it had the words ‘under god’ inserted into it in about 1954. Watch the reaction of well over half the other people in the room). Questioning or opposing religious doctrine is not in the mindset. You just go along regardless – unquestioningly, un-thinkingly. And if someone disagrees, you shout them down.
Environmentalism IS a religion. People tithe to the alters of eco-terrorists. They gladly become missionaries to spread the word and convert the heathen, they refuse to even listen to a reasoned argument that something is just not possible. They listen to the sermons of the high priests of environmentalism with rapt attention and go out to inflict their own view on anyone else whether they want it or not, and they prey for the destruction of their enemies by heavenly dispatch (remember the climategatre e-mails celbrating the death of James Daly and the fervent prayers that some mayhem shold be perpetrated agains Patrick Michaels?).
These are Old Testament, fire and brimstone, evangelical eco-zealots and no amount of rational argument is going to persuade them. They would be willing martyrs in another time.
One word of avdice to Lord Monkton. Take a lesson from Richard Dawkins – refuse to debate with those people. You can not win. In the evol@#*& wars (I will not write it out for fear of spam filtering) scientists have virtually stopped any and all debates with anti’s. It is a lose-lose situation and does not convince ANYONE, because people’s minds are already made up. Continue to educate government officials and policy-makers, debate with other scientists, go on lecture circuits, continnue to write exposes. But the one-on-one, or even one-on-100, debates with eco-zealots is just emotional masturbation – it feels good but no-one of import notices or cares.
Some commenters insist Lord Monckton has written too scathingly about the eco shift and the emotional arguments used by the activist at Rio + 20. Have a look for yourself at a few more of these attendees:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/9350678/MPs-have-no-idea-how-to-meet-the-carbon-target-they-voted-for.html
and while you are there, make a study of the consequences for England of the Climate Change Act, which commits that small Western nation to get 80% of its energy from worthless intermittent renewables in the next few decades, while spending billions of pounds annually on the implementation.
The article here is just fine the way it is, because the little activist in the sackcloth has counterparts in the UKs MPs, nearly all of whom cannot answer the questions about the destructive bill they have past.
Dude, it’s the Blackberry. Get a ‘Droid or something. 😀
And then I thought of Table SPM.3 and Figure 10.26 in the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report, as one does.
Indeed, one does. Doesn’t one?
I am off doing research as usual and it appears that the UN’s use of sustainable development at Rio+20 is in part a renamed version of EF Schumacher’s Appropriate Technology movement from his 1973 book Small is Beautiful. Published then about the time of Stockholm.
New terms when it comes to the UN but never really new concepts.
Zeke – great link. I am confused though, that the femal leopard facing the camera has only two nipples and they are engorged 😉
Keep the peace, man,, and other appropriate post-modern hippie sign-off jargon
Bill Tuttle says:
June 25, 2012 at 9:23 am
fredb says:
June 25, 2012 at 8:20 am
Re Anders Nygaard: +1!!! I agree, ridicule adds nothing to the debate and only makes people already in agreement feel self satisfied for scoring another point, while driving away anyone else trying to look at the facts. This article is a big loser as far as furthering the discussion goes.
You’re concentrating on the sizzle and ignoring the steak.
Yes.
And my guess is, Monckton is aiming the “sizzle” at those who only recognize empty sizzle, while the “steak” is still clearly there for anyone actually willing to look. He shows how the core argument boils away to nothing, if we actually apply IPCC science in a very simple way. Bad as IPCC science is, we don’t even need to disagree with it here. But no greenie warmist or gravy-train politician can quote even the most basic figures they are proposing draconian legislation for.
Tom G(ologist) says: “Zeke – great link. I am confused though, that the femal leopard facing the camera has only two nipples and they are engorged ;-)”
Absolutely. Even more confusing is that Christopher Monckton clearly said that the sackcloth ecoshifts were “shapeless.”
The only way to explain this discrepancy is that after several days of wearing sackcloth and heaviness, the activist was then allowed to put of their sackcloth and put on the joyous garments of the Engorged Orange Funnel Breast with Many Rows, Supplying Government Solutions to All
outfit.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/9350678/MPs-have-no-idea-how-to-meet-the-carbon-target-they-voted-for.html
philjourdan says:
June 25, 2012 at 5:30 am
I guess baby talk is different in the UK. “Ickle birdies”? Cute.
And a very enjoyable read.
============================================================
If I may be so bold as to translate the baby-talk version of the Queen’s English into American English, the “ickle birdies” would be “widdle birdies”. Of course that would make the “ickle wormies” “widdle wormies”. And the widdle birdies would be making some of the widdle wormies widowed widdle wormies.
RockyRoad said @ June 25, 2012 at 7:39 am
There seems to be a misunderstanding here. Capitalism occurs in both socialist states and in free market states. Examples of capitalism at work include hospitals, cathedrals, sewage treatment plants etc, projects that exceed what the energy of any solitary individual can achieve. The capital for such projects can be amassed by coercion, such as under a Stalin/Mao Tse Tung/Frederick the Great [delete whichever is inapplicable, or co-operatively in a free society. I would argue that the latter, co-operative capitalism, is far more efficient than coercive capitalism.
Tragic news. I personally am hoping that the IPCC is right, and that we get a nice, balmy warming of 2.8°C this century. Longer growing seasons, more rain, less snow, more bio-productivity, more abundance, less want. Back to normative conditions for Planet Earth.
The real danger is cooling. Milankovitch cycles and all. Onset of the next glaciation. Two-mile-thick ice sheets on top of Montreal, Chicago, and other toddling towns. Mass death and extinction. Back to the caves. Etc.
Warmer is Better, for ickle birds, worms, people, and other living things. If our sack-cloth cohort needs to display emotion breakdowns in public, let them bemoan the ice. Ship them off to Antarctica to check it out. No ickle birds there, just a few temporary penguins on the extreme edge of that vast continent. Tears freeze before they reach the cheeks.
The next Global Enviro Summit should be held at McMurdo Station. The hemp sandal crowd needs a rude awakening.
Attn: Christopher Monckton
The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is reported for highly-purified, bone-dry air which is comprised of nitrogen, oxygen, the inert gases, and carbon dioxide and which does not occur in the earth’s atmosphere. Real air always contains water vapor which lowers the concentration of the aforementioned gases in portion to the mole fraction of water vapor in the mixture. There is no place on this earth were the absolute humidity is zero. Not even in the Atacama Desert in the Andes.
At a concentration of 390 ppmv, a cubic meter of dry air at STP has 17.4 mmoles of CO2. If standard dry air is heated to 333 K ( 60 deg C, ca. highest earth temp recored in Pakistan), there are 14.3 mmoles of CO2 per cubic meter but the concentration is still 390 ppmv. If standard dry air is cooled to 183 K (-90 deg C, lowest temp ever recorded at Vostok Stn), there 26 mmoles of CO2 per cubic meter but the concentration is still 390 ppmv.
In real air there is no uniform distribution of the gases as shown by weather maps. The mass of the air in any unit volume of atmosphere depends on temp, pressure and abs. humidity. These maps show no uniform distribution of these metrics. Thus there is no uniform distribution of the atmospheric gases and in paricular, the greenhouse gases.
The climate scientist say that the CO2 at top of the atmoshere is important in regulating OLR. However, at these heights it is so cold there are no peaks in the IR spectrum CO2 that absorb in thermal emission spectrum of this air.
What all of the above boils down to is this: These climates models are all fatally flawed and their “projections” worthless and cannot be used any policy decisions re global warming and climate change.
In addition to the above, rain can wash CO2 of the air and thus alter the local concentration of it.
Does anyone know where to find a list of the government pledges?
Bloomberg
UN Reaps Sustainability Pledges Worth $513 Billion In Rio
By Reed Landberg and Alex Morales – Jun 23, 2012 7:46 AM PT
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-22/un-gets-sustainability-pledges-worth-513-billion-in-rio.html
The 692 individual commitments from governments are for projects that cut fossil fuel use, boost renewable energy, conserve water and alleviate poverty, Sha Zukang, secretary- general of the UN Conference on Sustainable Development, said yesterday in Rio de Janeiro.
Bill Tuttle:
“Raise pangolins and rent them out to the utility company”
Echidnas are similar but hardly make a dent … and I guess the spines might introduce another hazard.
Don’t suppose Pangolins are any better at crossing the road …
If I turn out a termite colony I chuck it out in the open for my local kookaburra tribe. They are usually in attendance when I’m out in the yard.
gringojay:
“Termites as a host and their internal symbiont together function to break down ligno-cellulose into fermentable monosaccharide glucose. Termites with their symbiont’s cellulases and hemicellulases will save the planet when green enforcers mandate money so bugs make bio-mass into bio-ethanol.”
200 different species of microbes that inhabit their hindguts :-O
Tunnel-like galleries that provide air conditioning and control the CO2/O2 balance.
“Just have to watch out for anti-social termites playing with matches.”
They’d find a way 🙂
Maybe metagenomics / biomimicry will get us there eventually?
Dear Mr. Watts –
At the top of your web page, you have posted a sticky that complains about Dr. Bain’s use of the term “denier” – yet you post a piece by Monbiot which is filled with ugly racial and cultural stereotypes. Sadly, most people on this website are delighted – not unlike people at Daily Kos who delighted in using the term “LIEberman” during the Connecticut senators campaign in 2006 – annd referring to his supporters as slime and evil.
Earlier, I had posted a short comment…[snip]
[Reply: Yes, you labeled the site owner an ignorant racist. I deleted that short comment. I will delete any further comments by you regarding racism or ignorance. ~dbs, mod.]
REPLY: “….you post a piece by Monbiot…” Where?
Martin C.,
“Gold Exploration in Niger Using Soils and Termitaria” (1989) already snitched on termites: “Experimentation has demonstrated that the minus 80 mesh (177 μm) fraction from the upper portion of the termite mounds is effective for gold exploration.”
Opportunity for Diggers awaits!
[SNIP: Egan, efforts by Monckton-haters such as yourself to fling mud and distract are going to be snipped. As Anthony is wont to say: “be as upset as you wish.” -REP]
I sat through the video. One question and ten minutes of pompous verbosity.
An interesting choice of jewellery as well.
Does he think by wearing a large crucifix the predominantly Catholic people of Brazil will see him as the “New Messiah”?
Or does he now believe he is the Archbishop of Canterbury???
REPLY: or maybe none of the above Shane, your hatred/bias is showing, why not tone it down a bit?
[snip. You were specifically warned to steer clear of those subjects. ~dbs, mod.]
I’m just informing you who I will be contacting.
I doubt Dr. Curry and Dr. Brown will be impressed with the fact that Anthony posted this Monckton piece. I also suspect that they might wish to temper their support for Mr. Watts if he chooses to publish such material in the future – – isn’t that the crux of his argument about the use of “denier”?
You can’t have it both ways.
REPLY: They can read just as well as you, but your threats to “expose” me to others are ridiculously hollow…as it’s right in front of everybody. For the record, neither Dr. Brown nor Dr. Curry “support” me in any way. They comment just like anybody else. Be as upset as you wish…meanwhile I’m laughing at your silliness. – Anthony
SPM says: June 25, 2012 at 7:01 pm
Instead of shooting your mouth off about what you think Christopher Monckton must be thinking, why not listen to his explanation instead?
http://www.infowars.com/count-cameron-bans-crucifixes-lord-moncktons-in-studio-report/
Mr Mod :
It would appear something happened to my last post. Lost in cyberspace perhaps.
Here it is again:
===========================================================================
There is no hatred or bias except in your imagination.
I just thought it interesting that Monckton has adopted the look of a clergyman, in what is a quite religious country. Maybe he felt the “look” would give him some credibility in a country where he has had little exposure.
I was raised and educated in a strong Catholic environment. I cannot recall a lay person ever dressing in such a way. My guess is he is trying on a bit of psychological manipulation. It was just too easy to see through.
To each his (or her) own.
Not at all Gunga.
Read the first line of my post.
It was just an observation.
I only wish I could tell you., but all my replies seem to vanish.
Strange.
Regards.
Submitted on 2012/06/25 at 8:29 pm
Gee it’s tough Mr Watts, when you can’t even post a response.
Will you please advise Robert and Gunga.
Thank You.
[Moderator’s Note: Several of SPM’s comments have been consolidated here. -REP]
[Moderator’s Reply: This is really my fault. A few years ago the Head Moderator here was Charles, who “moderated lightly” and was fairly quick in his moderating. Charles has since attained emeritus status and the Head Moderator now is ~dbs, who moderates lightly but moderates a bit more deliberately (uhhh.. his last e-mail from June 20 was: “…checking out a commenter’s report of Susquatch sighting in the Cascades… will clear comments when I get back…”) I tend to moderate a little faster and some commenters have come to expect instant gratification. So, I took a bathroom break this week… and this is the result. My apologies to all. -REP]
[Further Note: SPM: You are a hater. If you cannot address the thread without attempting to divert it to irrelevancies, don’t expect to get cleared. -REP]
[snip – sorry, just not interested in troll bait – Anthony]
@Egan and SPM
Did either of you read the intro and watch the video? None of your comments addressed any of his points. At best, only the way he introduced them.
Did he hurt your widdle feelings?
[snip]
I doubt Dr. Curry and Dr. Brown will be impressed with the fact that Anthony posted this Monckton piece. I also suspect that they might wish to temper their support for Mr. Watts if he chooses to publish such material in the future – – isn’t that the crux of his argument about the use of “denier”?
You can’t have it both ways.
REPLY: They can read just as well as you, but your threats to “expose” me to others are ridiculously hollow…as it’s right in front of everybody. For the record, neither Dr. Brown nor Dr. Curry “support” me in any way. They comment just like anybody else. Be as upset as you wish…meanwhile I’m laughing at your silliness. – Anthony
What material? Monckton tells an amusing, if sad, anecdote. Yes, he calls a particular person in his anecdote — whom he carefully refrains from naming — an idiot. Reading the anecdote, I agree. I even agree that she’s being an idiot and that it is not really her fault. She, like a rather unfortunate fraction of the human race, is incapable of actually looking for and finding out the facts for herself, and analyzing whether or not they make sense. She therefore trusts some mix of her instincts and whoever sells her the most appealing picture of herself, helping to save the world.
From what I read last week on slashdot, a very similar strategy is used by the individuals who use the Nigerian Scam to make money. People wonder: How can anybody still be taken in by the so-called Nigerian Scam? Every human on the planet has to have received a hundred pieces of this viral plague on all of the houses of the world. What possible benefit can the scammers possibly derive, from continuing it? Who would fall for it now?
The answer is — the very, very stupid. The Nigerian scam letter is basically a filter. Smart people who reply, or even not completely stupid, but only partially stupid people that reply are often a waste of time and risk of exposure to the scammer. The letters are written to appeal only to the terminally stupid, the old, the senile, the weakest and most gullible members of our society. They are deliberately absurdly unbelievable. That way only the easiest of fish, fish that virtually reel themselves in, field dress themselves, and in their dying breath throw themselves into the hot pan ever reply. Very efficient, very safe.
Sadly, the very very stupid are the moral charges of all of those people who aren’t. Left to their own devices, they’ll just hurt themselves (and often others). Monckton’s article above (which isn’t published in or intended for a scientific venue, where one presumes that he would use appropriate language and leave out the “idiot” designations and most of the politics) is trying to do the moral equivalent of slapping some sense into the senseless and gullible people who do not take the time to read the actual climate consensus laid out in the IPCC report in progress, but instead are content to let con men and grifters read it — and interpret it — for them.
The sad thing is, plenty of sensible people are in the same boat. Who has time to read something like that? Who (out of the many people of the world) can understand it if they do?
I will not comment on whether or not his sarcasm (probably born at least partly of a frustration of epic proportions) is an effective way to accomplish his goal. My own experience is that even when dealing with idiots it does not actually help to call them an idiot, and on a few sad occasions in my life I’ve been proven completely and diametrically wrong by — um — an idiot who turned out not to be. I therefore have developed perhaps a slightly greater tolerance for idiocy that can easily be mistaken for humility by those that don’t know me — but really it is just fear of being caught out in my ignorance and a secret suspicion that I might be a bit of an idiot myself, sometimes. Being married really helps with this, by the way, in case I ever forget and start to feel cocky.
Being a teacher helps too, because in some sense every student is an “idiot” when they start out, only generally they’re really not, they are just ignorant and in need of instruction. Either you are patient and help them learn or you might as well go into politics or punditry or some other profession that requires a huge ego and little tolerance. Besides, every year some “idiot” student manages to teach me something about physics. Imagine that.
In the end, a major unstated point of Monckton’s article is that a lot of people who trust the very community that generated the consensus report generously interpreted by Monckton are being betrayed into behaving like idiots. In some sense it is the fault of that community, the community that writes the working group reports that are then rewritten to support the supposed “consensus” reports that catastrophe is at hand that the poor woman he describes is defending ickle birdies to the point of idiocy.
From what I’ve read — not being a participant myself — this has happened in just about every IPCC report. The actual scientific community has been comparatively reserved and balanced in their working group papers and far more cautious about concluding that anthropogenic warming will necessarily be catastrophic. Yet in the end the actual policy recommendations and the publicly stated conclusions are all extreme and draconian, maximally alarming, and without any trace of reserve or uncertainty.
How can this possibly happen? Given any number of senior paleoclimatologists who present(ed) reconstructions that clearly show the MWP and LIA, why is it that a very junior Michael Mann’s hockey stick makes it onto the front of the report? Why do the very scientists who (asked privately) often disagree with the IPCC projections and the accompanying recommendations (even if it is only in part) remain publicly silent? How is it that a climate scientist can tell me privately that mainstream climate science (57% of those polled) no longer accepts the scenario of catastrophic warming, tipping points we are likely to reach in two lifetimes, and so on, and not have this happy fact being trumpeted to the world in the IPCC report?
Or maybe it will be. Perhaps this is the one that will Do The Right Thing. Or even issue a minority report. Hell, the SCOTUS issues a minority opinion when the judges disagree, why not the IPCC?
If not, well, there is a plausible explanation for this — a rather sordid one involving preserving funding and avoiding social ostracism and maintaining a boom time for a profession that was all but forgotten two or three decades ago, or a still more plausible one of an international organization that is pursuing not a scientific agenda but a political one, one that wears the scientists like a cloak of respectability and just ignores those scientists once it has used them — again — to create idiots defending ickle birdies while legally picking our pockets. That of course, is Monckton’s real message, and how sad if it is true.
rgb
@ Russ R.
Where her initials JP?
Scottish Sceptic says:
June 25, 2012 at 8:34 am
I didn’t say she was “a success”; I just quoted her accurate take on socialism (it’s fine until you run out of other people’s money).
The Pompous Git says:
June 25, 2012 at 1:20 pm
I prefer the definition of “capitalism” found in the Merriam-Webster dictionary:
Definition of CAPITALISM
: an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market.
What you describe as “coercive capitalism” I would not; you might call it “state capitalism” just to include the word “capitalism”, but that’s a contradiction in terms (there being very little “private” or “free market” components in that form of enterprise). Certainly none of the “movers and shakers” you name were concerned with private enterprise or the free market–they were the antithesis of such.
My studies of a free-market state vs any other form show that once a country abandons a free market orientation, their GDP drops about 40% in just a few years. The incentive to be productive in such circumstances is the unintended victim, with the corresponding consequence a drastic reduction in production. I’ve lived in both capitalistic and socialistic countries and the difference in attitude of the people is palpable; I’ve also worked for market-based and public service-based companies in the US and find a similar difference in attitude and performance.
I agree with your assessment about co-operative capitalism, however. Free enterprise capitalism has been shown to be the most productive engine of wealth generation the world has ever known. (And no, China isn’t what it’s cracked up to be–they’re still fudging the numbers to make their system appear to be superior to the “West”; in fact their whole system is starting to sag under the weight of state control and inefficiencies.) Any other brand of “capitalism” is pseudo-capitalism.
[snip . . OT . . we welcome additions to the debate and our knowledge , this does neither . . kbmod]
Crispin in Waterloo says:
June 25, 2012 at 9:58 pm
@ Russ R.
Where her initials JP?
==================================
No, this was a different misinformed green, but I’m not surprised that you may have encountered others who fit the general pattern.
RockyRoad said @ June 25, 2012 at 10:30 pm
And I prefer the definition in The Oxford English Dictionary:
capitalism
and for completeness,
capitalist
I think we would both agree that a return to free markets would be A Good Thing.
The Pompous Git says:
June 26, 2012 at 3:54 am
Indeed, you are correct.
@Gunga Din says: June 25, 2012 at 1:01 pm
Gunga, thank you for the translation. It is helpful to have someone fluent in both languages to translate. 😉
Agree with the first commenter about liking the “traffic-light tendency” that Chris Monckton mentions in the video during discussion about the infiltration of the environmental movement (starts around 3:00 in).
I shall be using that. Thanks Chris for another great piece.
Let’s cut to the chase here and skip all the textbook definition nonsense of Communist, Socialist, Capitalist that so many fools get stuck on.
For all practical purposes there are two kinds of people in the world: Slaves and Free Persons. The former gravitate to any road that leads to diminished power to the individual and consolidated power to the state / government / institution / etc. Whether it is the welfare state, or socialized medicine, or AGW pseudoscience it is all the same. Slaves are simply children that are forever seeking an authority figure, a surrogate mommy/daddy, a complex that Freud would have loved to diagnose (if only Karl Marx had been lying on his couch).
These natural-born slaves will not stop at satisfying their own mental illness, no, they fully intend to impose their solution on all of us free persons as well. This is what makes them deadly and why all of us free persons react so dramatically when encountering their so-called theories and arguments. And this is exactly why we must exercise the power we all have and NEVER ever vote for a socialist or someone that expresses these tendencies under any circumstances. Our civilization depends upon it. Our children and grandchildren depend on us, It is time to grow up. Ridicule these red-green socialists, and cast them out.
It’s not capitalism or socialism that is the problem, it’s how they are applied. One espouses competition, the other co-operation.
Thing is, which promotes cooperation and which promotes competition are NOT the ones most people think they are. There is far more cooperation in free-market capitalism than there is in socialist economies.
All this snipping is starting to become annoying.
Especially when accompagnied by a comment like “sorry, just not interested in troll bait”.
Which then turns it into sniptease.
[Reply: Respond to the specific scientific points and avoid personal attacks, challenges, and ad-homs, and your comment will always be posted. And please, no argument on this. The internet is a big place if you’re not happy here. ~dbs, mod.]
That should be me … Blade … workarounds for stupid WordPress bugs …. (~sigh~)
Durr said: June 25, 2012 at 4:31 am
This man is truly brilliant. It’s a shame what the aforementioned “true believers” have done to his reputation in certain left-leaning circles simply because the truth hurts.
==========
Any damage to his reputation is completely self inflicted.
It’s good to know that Lord Monckton is busy protecting the common folk from the rich and the mega-corporations, and that WUWT provides a forum for the Lord to speak upon us.
I see two trolls have belatedly appeared at the end of this thread. As usual, not a single scientific argument between the two of them. Just snide ad-hom. And they wonder how come they lost the argument on the climate question. By these intellectually babyish attacks on the likes of me, they do not undermine but do underline the truth of what we who have dared to ask questions have been saying.