Bishop Hill reports:
…there was a debate at the Fisher House / Von Hugel Institute seminar “Global Warming & Equitable Development: the Ethical and Political Priorities” last night, and MIT’s Dr. Richard Lindzen was invited.
Chaired by Rowan Williams, with a panel of: Lord Deben, Prof Sir Brian Hoskins, Prof Richard Lindzen, Prof Peter Wadhams (Prof Physics & Head of Polar Ocean Physics Group, Cambridge), Professor Sir Colin Humphrey (Cambridge), Prof John Loughlin Von Hugel Institute), Prof Chris Whitty (long job title – govt advisor) & Peter Lilley (late addition, not advertised), plus a paper by Prof Emeritus Tony Kelly (Cambridge) read by his son as he was unwell.
I’d expected this to be a bit of a greenfest with Lindzen as the token denier but it wasn’t at all. The panel was quite balanced in representation of “warmist” and “denier” viewpoint as was the audience, and it was quite a civilized affair.
That is, until Bob Ward got onto Twitter afterwards…..
Twitter / ret_ward: .@mehdirhasan But why have …
Bob Ward @ret_ward .@mehdirhasan Yet another example of the media hosting a falsely balanced debate about climate science instead of covering the real issues.
Mehdi Hasan Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan @ret_ward 1) Not true at all. Its not a ‘balanced debate’. Its a fair but tough interrogation of his views. I’m not neutral on this.
Bob Ward Bob Ward @ret_ward .@mehdirhasan But why have you made Lindzen the focus of the debate? He no longer contributes to the science and is irrelevant to policy.
Mehdi Hasan Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan @ret_ward But he’s not irrelevant to the world, is he? You (and me) not liking his views doesn’t make him disappear, does it? Or his claims?
Mehdi Hasan Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan @ret_ward Which ‘sceptic’ would you like me to interview? He’s more credible than the rest. Or is your position, no intvs with them, ever?
Ben Pile Ben Pile @clim8resistance Oh, look, Bob Ward @ret_ward trying to close down debate and discussion again. The self-appointed censor has no shame. @mehdirhasan
Richard Lindzen – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Richard Siegmund Lindzen (born February 8, 1940) is an American atmospheric physicist and Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Lindzen is known for his work in the dynamics of the middle atmosphere, atmospheric tides and ozone photochemistry. He has published more than 200 scientific papers and books.[1] He was a lead author of Chapter 7, ‘Physical Climate Processes and Feedbacks,’ of the IPCC Third Assessment Report on climate change.
Bob Ward – Grantham Research Institute on climate Chnage and the Environment
Background
Bob joined the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) from Risk Management Solutions, where he was Director of Public Policy.
He also worked at the Royal Society, the UK national academy of science, for eight years, until October 2006. His responsibilities there included leading the media relations team.
He has also worked as a freelance science writer and journalist.
Bob has a first degree in geology and an unfinished PhD thesis on palaeopiezometry.
He is a Fellow of the Geological Society.
Thanks to Tom Nelson for spotting these.
UPDATE: Bishop Hill writes in with a clarification.
These are actually different debates. Bob Ward is trying to punish Mehdi Hasan and Al Jazeera for hosting Lindzen at the Oxford Union tomorrow. The Cambridge event was yesterday.
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Piezometers are small boreholes used for measuring groundwater level and pressure, often with an electronic pressure sensor. A piezometric map is a kind of topographical map of groundwater presssure. Very commonly used in hydrogeology to help assess the direction and rate of groundwater flow.
Therefore, paleaopiezometry could be the study of groundwater levels and pressures in the geological past. But a bit of Googling indicates it can also referr to the study of historical pressures in the rocks – eg. the pressures that caused massive deformations.
In any case, some kind of proxies are required. Thus, I think Bob Ward could call on Professor Mann to help him complete his PhD thesis.
Richard Siegmund Lindzen (born February 8, 1940) is an American atmospheric physicist
Why is an atmospheric physicist referred to as a climate expert? He is a specialist in one tiny aspect of climate and has zero knowledge of hydrology, volcanic factors, biological factors or even more basically, pattern analysis to understand whether the climate deviations are real or facile oversimplifications based on linear trends as they were told a quarter of a century ago. This is even before flaunting their ignorance regarding equating the ideas of stability in feedback systems showing no system incorporating forcing is compatible with life on even starting to exist on earth.
The whole climate fraud is based on this con by this tiny and utterly blinkered subset of climate expertise claiming the right to classification as the font of wisdom from the dozens of areas that are truly the factors involved.
As a geologist Ward should know better than be a warmist.
David Cage says:
March 8, 2013 at 1:13 am
Richard Siegmund Lindzen (born February 8, 1940) is an American atmospheric physicist
…. (rant or sarc, it’s hard to tell) ….
And your point would be? (in particular regarding Richard Lindzen)…
Have a look at the credentials, papers, etc. listed by Poptech above…
Poptech says:
March 7, 2013 at 6:53 pm
Lets determine if Professor Richard Lindzen is credentialed enough
and has contributed to climate science (even recently)…….
Your first mistake was/is trusting Wikipedia’s take on things/people….
Beware LORD DEBEN, family ties to all sorts of green agendas, also Tim yeo.
I believe I’ve heard about Bob Ward’s amazing cred.
Wasn’t Bob a graduate of Chief Climate Scientist Bill Nye’s in-depth climate training course.
Bill Nye has proven the earth will burn up in….. oooohhhhh………I don’t remember the exact date but……….wasn’t it two weeks from last November?
I think I recall Ward was an honor student.
My information may be out of date.
Oops my error….It appears Ward quit that program, too.
Too much difficult palaeopiezometry science?…………….NAH!
“Was there just no honor in Bill Nye’s teachings?” asks I.
Maybe it was Peter Gleick who was the climastrology professor….I’ll check.
Nope. Gleick’s not teaching honor either.
Looks like Bobby may have developed his scientific knowledge plus his honor and honesty from Al Gore or Michael Mann or Phil Jones or Henry Waxman or……….?
cn
Bill Ward of Black Sabbath knows more about climate than Bob Ward….
Bob Ward is a scientific non-entity, a clever journalist or PR man. I am sure he has done well for the Grantham Institue, for this research body has lived well off the global warming scare and decarbonisation efforts across a whole range od disciplines. Both efforts are now nearing their end and new research issues must be found. Debating with Lindzen was therefore a positive sign, but also an insult to people like Ward who have investd so much in green ideology and scare mongering. It might also be an admission of doubt and possibly failure by the world of policy.
A quick search of AMS (American Meteorological Society) site for Richard Lindzen gives this, http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/publication.html , not the AMS that I searched a while ago, and found many papers by him; I’ve downloaded a few, some ten, technical papers where he’s dealing with specific scientific issues which are not obviously about AGW, but about interesting questions in meteorology, past and present. The AMS site does not make searching easy, but here’s the result of searching articles by Richard Lindzen: http://journals.ametsoc.org/action/doSearch?type=simple&filter=multiple&searchText=Richard+Lindzen&categoryId=allJournals&history=
How dare a mere journalist dismiss him?! 244 citations on a great variety of topics, mostly technical.
“David Cage says: Richard Siegmund Lindzen… Why is an atmospheric physicist referred to as a climate expert?”
Because he is, climatology is a sub discipline of atmospheric sciences. So how did you determine Dr. Lindzen has, “zero knowledge of hydrology, volcanic factors, biological factors or even more basically, pattern analysis” and where did you get such pseudo-criteria anyway?
Bob Ward … reminds me of the old TV series Kung Fu (David Carradine) … where Bob is “Grasshopper” talking to his “Master” (Richard Lindzen)!