Guest post by WUWT moderator Andi Cockroft
I wrote the other week of an Evening With His Lordship – aka Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley – in which I outlined his presentation made here in New Zealand.
Many commenters seemed to take issue with my spelling of “sceptic” – which of course is correct for an Anglo Saxon such as I, or some berated my referral to Christopher as “His Lordship” – which of course is equally correct for an Anglo Saxon – it is simply courtesy after all.
I do point out that most of my adult life has been spent developing computer “programs”, which read and write to “disk” (although I do sometimes rebel and use a disc) – and when the painful necessity arises, I can even spell “initialize” – so I am quite adaptable to US English when needed.
Hopefully here though, attending a presentation by Catherine Leining, one of New Zealand’s only two disciples of Al Gore, should prove less contentious – with I suspect very few real sceptics in the auditorium.
I had hoped to report quite dispassionately and simply compare the arguments put forward by Christopher and those by Catherine – but regrettably that is just not possible.
The two presentations could have not be further apart in technique had they tried.
Whilst Christopher mixed wit, scientific argument and many citations, the pitch by Catherine was primarily emotive.
Introduced by Wellington’s Green Mayor, Celia Wade-Brown, the first 25 minutes were spent on who Catherine was. The presentation proper started just before 6pm.
But none of the scientific papers, charts, graphs, comparisons etc of Monckton – no – here was weather in all its forms: floods, droughts, winds, snow – you name it – suddenly it is “weather is climate”.
Plenty of quotes – Hansen, Trenberth et al but surprisingly no mention of Mann ! None of which said anything other than “it’s worse than we thought”
Prof James Renwick was there to lend support, a leading light at NIWA in earlier times, now an associate Professor at Wellington’s Victoria University
From left to right: Mayor Celia Wade-Brown, Catherine Leining and James Renwick
But I digress. There was a slide with a couple of graphs on there, and I can report that not only is the hockey stick alive and well, it has a twin!!!
I wasn’t quick enough on the camera to capture the image, but the ever-so-typical Mannian flat-line with the uptick to infinity was shown above an almost identical graph showing CO2 concentrations in ppm – also heading skyward to infinity.
Of course this was followed almost immediately by the graphs comparing historic 10 (or was it 20) millennia temperature versus CO2 concentrations. The granularity of which was totally incapable of allowing any interpretation of what preceded what.
More CAGW threats followed, with the typical underwater Maldives stunt, and dire warnings of “likely” temperatures around the globe if we fail to act.
At no time was there any attempt to discuss or explain Climate Sensitivity, Albedo (other than briefly during Q&A), ENSO, Ocean Heat, Aerosols, Proxies, Solar Maxima… the list of missing discussions is almost endless
Towards the end, I was quite surprised that there were no “tipping points” – but in quick successions these were three – but so monumental were they that I forget what they were – something about public opinion I think.
A long presentation on what must be done (but not why it should be done), with windmills, solar, battery cars for all, self-sufficiency for Africa, Carbon Trading, bio-fuels, no more coal, no more bad oil – although apparently “Z” (a brand-name for Shell Petroleum over here) are the good guys and Exxon the bad guys
Towards the end, a series of “red herrings” – it’s the Sun (apparently not), warming has stopped (apparently not), there is no consensus (oh yes there is – 98% climate scientists agree), it’s all based on models (no it’s not), CO2 is a beneficial gas (no it’s not it’s harmful) and a few others.
In all, a very different style of presentation from His Lordship’s more scientific fact-based presentation, this one based primarily on assumptions that the CO2 theory is already fact and that we must act – but no justification of the underlying science to prove the affirmations.
Q&A was interesting – I asked why NIWA (responsible for the Climate record in NZ) was reporting temperature increases twice the global average – according to James Renwick no it’s not – it’s only about 10% above average – I’ll check that one.
Interesting discussion around polar temperatures (and this is where albedo was touched on), and apparently Antarctica is thawing just as much as the Arctic – it just has more ice so will take longer.
Finally, I knew it had to happen. NZ emits about 47% of its GHG’s from agriculture. A fervent Vega sitting in the gallery insists that if we all took Vitamin B12 supplements, we could all relinquish our addiction to beef and save all that flatulence.
On that note, I left. But since I had missed my evening meal to attend this presentation, I stopped off for a curry on the way home – if that doesn’t add methane to the atmosphere I don’t know what will.
Andi
M Kelly gave us “ghiti” I can’t help thinking that there’s something fishy about it!
With the state of the comtemporary American education system, most Americans remain clueless about American English.
As I understand it, only the US and the Philippines follow US spelling rules; all other English-speaking countries, including our neighbor Canada, follow British spelling rules.
The Philippines advertises itself as the second-largest English-speaking country, and nearly everybody there is fluent in English, although there are probably more people in India that speak English as their first language, or equally natively as they do another language.
On another point: New Zealand does tax farm animal flatulence. One would think that to enforce this, you would have to have inspectors standing behind each farm animal holding a balloon to catch and measure the gas each time the animal farts. That would overjoy the people who want to grow bureaucracy to infinity. But I’m guessing that some blatherskite did some “research” to establish grossly exaggerated parameters for CO2 and CH4 production by animals – just as the Australian government is doing with water usage, to compel farmers to surrender their water rights as punishment for “excessive usage.”
The persistence of the AGWers’ mendacity in the face of such overwhelming proof of its fecal character, and their evident utter allergy to reasoned discourse and immunity to the truth, make you wonder whether it will ever be possible to stop them by any means short of superior physical force.
jorgekafkazar says:
April 29, 2013 at 11:19 am
Most Americans are clewless about British English.
I know. The English invented the language, you’d think they know it better ;^)
GlynnMhor says:
April 29, 2013 at 12:04 pm
“Ah, yes… curried methane.”
Kind of what it smells like….
G.S. Williams says:
April 29, 2013 at 1:24 pm
Good one. You got it. ghiti can be pronounced like fish. gh as in enough, i as in it, ti is the sh sound as in the -tion like in nation.
The English may have created the language, but Americans perfected it.
I believe the original circumphonetic spelling was GHOTI, with an O: GH as in LAUGH, O as in WOMEN, TI as in MOTION = FISH.
Somehow, still more logical and scientifically defensible than AGW.
Renwick looks like he is being dressed by St Vincent de Paul. Doesn’t Victoria University pay its faculty?
Richardcourtney, Sorry Richard a debate is a formal arguement and you can never win an arguement with an idiot or three. sarc/
Thanks Andi. Well done.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“It’s a small mind that can only think of one way to spell a word.”
Andrew Jackson
johninoxley:
I am giving a serious reply although I noticed your sarc.
As you say, it is not possible to win an argument with AGW cultists.
However, the vote said we won the debate in the views of the students.
As I said in my report of the debate
And as I also said
It was that assumption and lack of evidence of which I was reminded by the above report by Andi Cockroft.
Richard
PS For convenience of anyone who wants to find it, the link to my report of the debate is
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=2938
@ur momisugly mkelly
LOL, yes, in Finnegans Wake, James Joyce wrote, “Gee each owe tea eye smells fish.”
Have you noticed that New Zealand, itself, is a Hockey Stick?
I’m confident Celia Wade-Brown will be on her bike following October’s election.
Thanks for the fine report from the front lines, Andi. And, thank you for making the fun subject of English useage NOT off topic. Delightful comments were elicited.
@ur momisugly Dave B. [1633 on 4/29/13] good! Say… is “on her bike” New Zealandish for “hit the highway” (in “American”)? [#:o)]
Or does it just mean she’ll be unemployed, thus unable to afford gas, er, I mean petrol, anymore?
MattS
Most people mistakenly think that ‘ize’ is correct in American (and Filipino) English and ‘ise’ correct in British English. The correct answer is it depends on whether the root of the word was originally Greek (ize) or Latin (ise). Hence I might denationalise organisations on my way to democratizing a country. And, yes, I am an English major.
Only problem is, hardly anybody knows the origins of the words they use. (Latin helps.) So we stick by the conventions of ‘ize’ in America and ‘ise’ pretty much everywhere else.
I enjoyed hearing Lord Monkton at his second to last New Zealand Venue in Gore. He gave a brilliant and humourous presentation that was well received by the 50 or so attendees. One comment he made really shows the Gore effect is not just limited to warmists. From late last year right through to the start of this month New Zealand had been suffering from a severe draught. He noted that every place that he attended had its first significant rain as soon as he arrived. I rode my motorcycle 2 hours from draught stricken Central Otago to torrential rain in Southland. Next time he should come a month earlier and also visit Central Otago.
‘ I can even spell “initialize” ‘
The OED (the One True Dictionary) is full of “ize” spellings for English (as distinct from American) words. But during the second world war, many of the zeds in Europe were destroyed. Since European languages (and especially Eastern European languages) are heavily dependent on this letter, Britain hastily began exporting as many as it could. This left a major shortage of zeds in Britain, so the British took to using esses instead. The US could not help, since it only had zees, which, of course, would not do at all.
The “ise”spelling seems to have totally taken over Australia.
“apparently Antarctica is thawing just as much as the Arctic – it just has more ice so will take longer.”
Unfortunately for them, no it isn’t. According to UAH, the region 60 to 85 degrees South is showing a decided cooling trend. See http://kenskingdom.wordpress.com/2013/04/19/the-missing-fingerprints-of-greenhouse-warming-part-2/
Dave B says:
April 29, 2013 at 4:33 pm
I’m confident Celia Wade-Brown will be on her bike following October’s election.
—————————————–
I gotta tell you Dave watch out. I thought the same thing about Obama.
Usually if the economy is bad the sitting prez gets ousted.
Obama beat the odds.
Did he end the wars?…No!
Did he fix immigration?…No!
Did he fix gay rights?…No!
Did he kill the XL Pipeline?…No!
Did he get Cap and Trade?…No!
I figured he was doomed from his own supporters.
Democrats held Both Houses of Congress and the Oval Office.
But he still got out the vote.
Republicans put up one of the few people Obama could get the average person to dislike, distrust and even hate. A 1%er.
Also, someone many independents would not get off the couch to vote for.
Good luck.
cn
Canada is the language (and measurements) hybrid I guess. We keep our nice u’s but the ultimate test of a language is whether they go to inane lengths to say al-you-min-eeum rather than aluminum. You don’t have to pronounce extra u’s at least. I didn’t know the Phillipines were so English speaking. Interestingly the guy I met from there was at the same company that I learned about aluminium from an Irish guy.
I didn’t take issue with your spelling, but with your claim that sceptic was the correct spelling, which you knew thanks to your classical education. I quoted Fowler in rebuttal, who observed that the word comes from the Greek, in which the “k” is used. Webster’s dictionary went back to that root, which is why Americans spell it his way. It makes sense to do so, as Fowler pointed out, for the sake of better agreement between spelling and pronunciation.
I think you meant “Britisher,” not “Anglo-Saxon.” Anglo-Saxons in the US spell it skeptic.
Here’s Fowler:
Ah, well, in the UK, it is spelled ‘ghoti’, where the ‘o’ is pronounced as in ‘women’, who sometimes like to style themselves ‘wimmin’.
The following is offered for the particular amusement of the cognescenti (a word underlined by the pathetic foxed word checker in use on this site) of Erudition. (A person is said to be erudite, when instruction and reading followed by digestion and contemplation, have effaced all raw, untrained incivility).
Those without the necessary mindset to enjoy a gentle ribbing should read no further. As Willis would have it, “You have been warned”.
American spellings are dysgenic. English spellings map the route by which words from other languages became incorporated into English. Greek, Latin, French and Hindi, all loaned words to English. By deliberate diminishment of the intellectual level of the content of schooling , spelling and education, as posited by Rhoda R says: April 29, 2013 at 11:29 am, Noah (Know all) Webster & the American founding fathers apparently forgot that second generation immigrants to the colonies would have no more difficulties in learning English “as she is spoke” than all the migrants to the British Isles over the previous centuries. I suggest that the contradictions of Webster’s lexicography arose because the poor bastard could not spell “Etymology”, which, as everyone knows, is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time. The word etymology is derived from the Greek etymon, meaning true sense and the suffix -logia, denoting the study of.
Americanisms take second place to a much more important consideration, not mentioned previously. English, according to Wikipedia, is the THIRD mostly widely spoken language, after Mandrin Chinese and Spanish. I suggest that the jolly old US of A is on a slippery downhill slope to where the nation’s ability to speak with clarity to other nations will be even more sorely compromised than it is at present. Obummer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language
Ça par exemple, oOoo, VAY, & DOOBBLE VAY in foreign and YOU, VEE & DOUBLE YOU in English. The French mispronounce W as V, hence it’s Vagon Lee rather than Wagon Lits and Ouest for west and Guillaume for William. However, to return 350 million literary savages to the languages of Chaucer Milton and Shakespeare is akin Samuel Johnson’s observation; “Sir, a woman preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.”
I applaud all those who made it to here without apoplexy. Those who feel constrained to protest, I suggest a cold bath.