![UBristolCabot[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/ubristolcabot1.png?quality=75)
This post was published while I am on an airplane headed back to California (isn’t technology wonderful?). I am very indebted to all of my good friends in the UK, and especially Nic Lewis, who arranged an extraordinary meeting while I was there. That one event will bear more fruit than any other part of the trip. The other meetings, such as the Mann and Cook meetings, were far less extraordinary, and mostly “heard it all before”. The Mann meeting was little more than an hour long dissertation on some out of date science plus a LOT of politics, complete with an “enemies list” of head-shot visuals, followed by what looked to be a prearranged Q&A sequence of 5 questions from the audience (with audience microphone privileges orchestrated from the stage by Stephan Lewandowsky who looked like a traffic cop pointing out who got to ask questions), followed by a book signing with a University police guard (I kid you not).
Readers in attendance are welcome to post their recollection and experiences here.
I’ve somehow lost my USB data cable for my phone, so I can’t get the photos off until I return home. It appears the Cabot Institute filmed the entire event, and when/if that video is available, I will advise. Again, my sincere thanks to the Cabot Institute for their assistance with my hearing impairment.
One thing that really stuck in my craw was that at the end of his lecture, Dr. Mann put up a photo of his daughter with a polar bear behind glass at a zoo, citing the usual “we must do this for the future and our children” meme and then commented that “this [photo] will probably be up on blogs within hours”.
No, Dr. Mann it won’t, at least not here, nor would it ever have been. While you may not have scruples about using that photo as a prop for public discourse in the first place, I most certainly do.
Josh was there and did a live-tooning of the event, and I expect he’ll have his new cartoon ready after colorization on Thursday. And, my sincere thanks to him for the lift from Bristol to Heathrow as well as for the “bangers and mash”, which was splendid. Richard Drake deserves my thanks for his tour assistance on my one day off, Monday, where I was able to stand on the prime meridian at Greenwich, something I wanted to do since primary school. Also thanks to Caroline K, for opening her home to a small horde of skeptics for a pre-Mann event meeting.
And last but not least, I thank the readers of WUWT, for enabling me to get there in the first place.
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WUWT reader *Loudzoo* wrote in with these impressions, which I concur with.
Initial impressions of Mann’s lecture in Bristol on Tuesday 23rd September 2014
Having attended Professor Michael Mann’s lecture at Bristol University on Tuesday I thought I’d summarize some immediate views on the event.
On the slides presented:
I was astonished that Mann continues to use such old, inappropriate data. On his chart of climate model performance vs recorded temperature his data only went up to 2005 and he used land based thermometer readings – not the satellite record. Very weak given how widely available up-to-date data are. I suspect he did not want to highlight the current hiatus in positive annual mean temperature anomalies and divergence from climate models
He glossed merrily over the “established science” of the greenhouse effect. No comment on positive and negative feedbacks, transitory sensitivity, the role of evapotranspiration, water vapour, clouds, ozone etc. I guess that’s because nobody has good parameters for these variables . . . and they fatally undermine the paradigm of the “established science” being simple and uncontroversial.
He presented no proxy data before 1000 CE. Presumably the Roman Warm Period, let alone the Holocene Climatic Optimum would have undermined his argument.
He referenced all the normal claptrap on extreme weather, drought, heatwaves, flooding unprecedented sea level rise, arctic ice melt (no mention of the Antarctic – other than the west Antarctic ice shelf) but presented no data on this. He also inferred that climate change is loading the dice in favour of extreme weather but made no mention of land use, water management, agriculture etc. As a Geography graduate of Oxford University where I specialised in Climatology and Quaternary Environments I find this bizarre. On the basis of this presentation Prof Mann would not pass Geography degree finals examinations!
There was very little discussion on the hockey stick graph itself (what the proxies were, how there were selected, what statistical methods were used, how the proxies were calibrated etc.) The divergence problem in tree ring analysis was mentioned but was glossed over and used as an excuse for the “hide the decline” comment in the Climategate emails.
There was a huge emphasis on his battles with Republican politicians. This is all very well but not a contribution to the science of climate change. Quite frankly, as a Brit I didn’t pay much attention to this part of his presentation.
Where I did wake-up again was where he revealed his victim-complex when numerously subpoenaed for his email, and research notes. Having had a career in finance for the last 17 years I find it very strange that he thought this was unfair. The organisations (mostly governmental) funding research with huge socio-political implications should have access to emails and research notes. The regulators of the finance industry have access to the equivalent in the banking industry by law!
There were at least two slides involving pictures of polar bears floating on small icebergs. Whilst he did say that such appeals hadn’t helped the public realise how close to home the impacts of climate change might be – he still used them!
The Q&A session:
This was a joke! Unless I got confused Prof Stephan Lewandowsky was in charge of selecting which people could ask questions!! Surprisingly enough he managed to pick people who were entirely sympathetic: One regarding the inconsistency of the actions of Republican Christian Right vs their religious views as caretakers of God’s creation; one on how to deal with / debate climate sceptics and the final one was from a chap who works for Avaaz (who organised the ”peoples’” climate marches last weekend). As someone who has had to plant and harvest questions at presentations throughout my career – I can fairly say this was an amateur job. It was so obvious!
All of this was a shame if for no other reason that Rich Pancost (the Director of the Cabot Institute) who’d enthusiastically made the presentation introduction did seem genuinely keen for a discussion. Sadly that was never really on the agenda.
Some Concluding thoughts:
There was nothing new or controversial here – but alluding to Anthony’s report on the Cook Lecture it was very interesting to be in the room and see the Mann in the flesh. It has reinforced something I’ve had an emerging view on for some time. Whilst there may well be small pockets of collusion and conspiracy in the field of climatology this is not the reason why the “science” has been so abused. Furthermore, I’m sure the competition for research grants is fierce and that can play into the reinforcement of an incorrect scientific paradigm. But what I took away from this lecture more than anything else is that Mann genuinely believes he is right and that his work will save the world. It seems that this is far more powerful motive for him (and I suspect many of the front line academics, politicians and activists) to ignore the evidence against, the problems and the holes in his hypothesis / theory.
They genuinely believe the Earth needs saving and that they are the ones to do it irrespective of the cost. In human history this combination of beliefs has often been exceptionally dangerous to the public in general but in particular to the poorest and neediest.
As others may have said before the story of CAGW will one day be told in the same breath as the fables of The Emperor’s New Clothes, and of King Canute (even if the latter is commonly completely misrepresented!)
UPDATE: Bishop Hill has some thoughts http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2014/9/24/mann-at-the-cabot.html
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Robert A. Heinlein described the deep desire of some to regulate others pretty well in “The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress”:
“Must be a yearning deep in human heart to stop other people from doing as they please. Rules, laws–always for other fellow. A murky part of us, something we had before we came down out of trees, and failed to shuck when we stood up. Because not one of those people said: “Please pass this so that I won’t be able to do something I know I should stop.” Nyet, tovarishchee, was always something they hated to see neighbors doing. Stop them “for their own good”–not because speaker claimed to be harmed by it.”
On a related note, National Review and CEI filed their replies in the anti-SLAPP appeal. Both are quite good. CEI mentions the published hockey stick graph Mann claims he had nothing to do with, even though he’s credited and it’s listed on his CV. NR has a lucid discussion of the difference between an opinion and a specific factual allegation.
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Doesn’t Mann know that when John 3:16 says that “God so loved the world” it’s not talking a Ma’ Gaea.
God sent Jesus Christ to save Man, not the whales.
But even if a Christian’s responsiblity is to be a “caretaker of God’s creation”, how would adopting what Mann and the rest of the CAGW meme espouses be being a responsible caretaker of anything?
I’d almost like to hear Mann’s answer but chugging a bottle of IPeCaC would probably produce the same results.
(IPeCaC © Monckton of Brenchley)
Given the enormous, unnecessary suffering that people in the 3rd world have, and will, go through as a result of being denied cheap, abundant energy by the CAGW movement, it’s pretty doubtful that Jesus Christ approves of it.
CAGW puts the earth above mankind, puts animals at the same level (and sometimes ahead of) mankind, and considers some portions of humanity as of less value/importance less than others. That isn’t Christian in the least. It actually can be described as fundamentally evil.
Zeke September 24, 2014 at 4:04 pm
Mike H,
Believe it or not, I am actually trying to help the Baby Boomers, if that is possible, to recognize the paradigms which they have developed for the past five decades.
The Anthropocene Age Paradigm, with its “tipping points” (including AGW), is the full embodiment of the Boomer generation’s philosophies and attitudes. To illustrate my meaning, their views on the following subjects are now considered unassailable and scientifically incontrovertible…
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Zeke
Bovine excrement.
Just a guess, but I’d bet the majority of non-troll readers on this site are, too.
(and, oh yea, I’m a boomer, if that’s important).
I’m a Boomer and am embarrassed that my generation is largely behind the farce of manmade global warming.
ooops – should have read: the majority of non-troll readers on this site are Boomers, too.
Jeez – that’s an embarrassing mistake.
Interesting Anthony’s comment on the data and calculations by academic scientists.
For forty-five years I have been working in international development under contract with companies, governments and international organizations. Every contract I have ever signed contains clauses concerning ownership and dissemination of information, data and findings.
The Asian Development Bank for example is very specific about what must be held in their archives: the spreadsheet used to calculate the costs and financing plan on which the loan amount and the government counterpart funding are based and the supporting engineering estimates. The figures prepared by consultants must be agreed by government representatives from the relevant ministries and by the bilateral and international funding agencies. Consultants mostly work under contract to governments and are responsible to the host government rather than to the Asian Development Bank or to the World Bank etc.
By contrast, in climate science, recipients of public money for research operate under the belief that the nations of the world should implement measures costing trillions of dollars on the say-so of 50 or so senior climatologists. To me it is both mind-boggling and morally repugnant that a recipient of public research money would say that he has exclusive proprietary rights to the data and program used for data processing.
We who work professionally in international development as engineers and financial specialists do not much welcome academics as colleagues. The level of self-discipline needed to work with data for projects on behalf of clients seems to be foreign to the way most academics work. This is a generalization that may be unfair to many academics. It is based on personal experience of studying and working at five universities and project work with academics from a dozen or so universities. Exceptions, would be research officers in university laboratories and those academics who actually teach research methods and insist on rigorous methods.
As for professionals working in government labs, the situation depends a lot on how the lab is administered. NASA accounts well for the data it collects and holds in its archives. I am not so impressed with some of the data products of the NOAA.
The Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia seems to operate as if they work in a different century or a different planet. Allegedly, the CRU wiped climate data from a hard drive because it became full instead of buying another drive. (My possibly overly-jaundiced view of the CRU and its data products arises also from having read in its entirety the Climategate README_HARRY file, written by the computer specialist who assembled the global data file.)
Data processing for final terrestrial climate products is quite variable. BOM in Australia has followed US practice in adjusting and homogenizing temperature data for the purpose of gridding. Ditto New Zealand. As a consequence of homogenization, historical terrestrial temperature data seems now to be so unrelated to the real world that I suspect an academic scientist must have designed the methodology for use by other academics.
For the Q&A session to be fixed the way it was reflects badly on the reputation of Bristol University, Lewandowsky should be ashamed.
Should, buthe has no shame, and that approach has been highly profitable for him so why change ?
Prof Mann showed slides of extreme weather events as the result of global warming, including one of our wet winter of 2014, this is what our Met Office has to say;
“As yet, there is no definitive answer on the possible contribution of climate change to the
recent storminess, rainfall amounts and the consequent flooding. This is in part due to the
highly variable nature of UK weather and climate.”
Perhaps he should delete the slide from his presentations; after all he is a scientist and would not like to be accused of propagating falsehoods?
I was hoping to ask him about how he determined scientifically if extreme events were linked to climate change, but apparently they were running out of time after only 4 questions, curiously only questions that supported AGW. My own plots on control charts suggest that the UK weather is just that. They are on my website, any observations welcome.
It was nice to see some of the famous names in the Skeptic world in person.
much is being made that were not many sceptics willing to ask questions. someone on twitter makes this point.
Sean Inglis @mrsean2k
@BarryJWoods Why *would* skeptics refrain from questioning climate science’s most litigious man, moderated by its least ethical defender?
Sean Inglis @mrsean2k
@BarryJWoods it’s a total mystery
OldGifford,
That goes to the heart of Mann’s charlatanism. He claims, without a shred of evidence, that extreme weather events are caused by human activity. That is not only anti-science; if there were any evidence for that, it would have been the source of dozens, if not hundreds of peer reviewed papers.
Mann does the same thing when he claims that human activity is the cause of global warming. That has always been his central premise. But where is the evidence? Where are the measurements??
There is zero evidence for that assertion. There are zero measurements. If something is scientific, then there must be verifiable, testable measurements quantifying it. Science is nothing without measurements. But with AGW, there are none. It is no more than an evidence-free conjecture. An opinion. A belief.
In fact, that is all that AGW is. If I am wrong, then someone needs to post measurements quantifying the specific extent of human-caused global warming. It is accepted that there has been about 0.7ºC of global warming over the past 150 years or so, from all sources. Of that amount, how much is due to human activity? THAT is the central question in the entire debate.
But no one has ever produced any testable, verifiable measurements of the extent of AGW. They say, “Half”. Or “Most”. But they never produce testable measurements showing how many tenths, or hundreths of a degree of that 0.7º warming were produced by human emissions. Do they?
No, they don’t. No one has produced any such verifiable, testable measurements. Everything is always a conjecture; an opinion. They are happy to post endless charts showing global warming to tenths and hundreths of a degree. But they have never measured the human contribution specifically. It is always simply assumed that human activity is the cause of global warming. Why does anyone put up with that evidence-free presumption?
I really wish the hosts of this meeting had done just one thing:
The University should have insisted that questions would be entertained without being scripted. Everything Mann does is carefully controlled. No neutral person was permitted to call on questioners. Instead, the odious partisan Lewandowsky was Mann’s hand-picked stooge. This was no more than a Kabuki play. A dog and pony show.
Of course, Mann would not have agreed to attend if he could not completely control all events, including every question from what was preposterously called the ‘public’. That was a deceptive con, nothing more. Every question was scripted, to enable Mann the Charlatan to paint exactly the picture he wanted. The man has no honesty. Everything he does is a self-serving charade.
What transpired is not science, and it is not education. That was pure propaganda, and Bristol Uni should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves for being part of that charade. If Mann cannot answer questions about his specialty, then he deserves any embarassment that comes his way. This should have been for the benefit of the public. It was not. Instead, it only benefitted that deceptive, game-playing climate charlatan. The public was spoon-fed Mann’s propaganda.
Even if a university or similar venue has to insist on a neutral moderator at the last minute, they must do so. Allowing Lewandowski to select what were obviously vetted questions goes against everything that free and open discussion stands for. They played a mendacious game on people, nothing more.
This charade was disgusting. If this is what the ‘climate’ debate has come to, then it is rank propaganda. Anyone with the slightest influence with, or connection to Bristol U should make their objections publicly known. And any future dog and pony show like this should cause widespread insistence that a neutral moderator must run things. If Mann withdraws because he refuses to go where he cannot completely control everything from start to finish, then fine. Simply put out a press release showing exactly what happened, and let Mann try to explain. Playing along with him is just craven cowardice. The university sponsors should be ashamed.
I was there and I pretty much agree. It was interesting the see and hear Dr Mann speak but it was largely a book promotion exercise. I don’t think I learned anything new other than how scary some Republican politicians are.
I was astonished to see Lewandowsky acting as Mann’s point man. During the Q & A session he was very interesting to watch. One guy in the front row (presumeably a sceptic) had his hand in the air before anyone else. Lewandowsky stood directly in front of him about five feet away and scrupulously ignored him! He managed to avoid eye contact for the entire Q & A session while pretending to be giving serious consideration to who to select next before pointing out the next questioner to the lady with the microphone. Embarrassing to watch!
Hi Tony
That was me hoping to ask how extreme events could be proved to be the result of global warming, unfortunately I had asked a slightly off message question at the previous lecture so I was obviously not one of the people to be selected. Sorry I couldn’t make it to the pub afterwards.
Cheers, OldGifford
It is becoming ever more evident that sceptic blogs are becoming ever more sympathetic toward the more “moderate” membres of the scientific community who are taking ever larger sums of tax payer’s money, providing ever more support to government tax laws but are “joining” more and more often with the sceptics in a meaningless face à face communication exercise.
The worst of it that you are convinced that these people are “really” nice and that you have had some meaningful success. Well, I’ve got news for you. You are being used. Your sense of fairness, justice and generally “nice person” attitudes are being used to lull you back to sleep.
– – – – – – – – – –
Stephen Richards,
Yes, I am having a little nagging feeling in agreement with your concern, but . . . .
. . . but , suggesting and promoting one-on-one and face-to-face personalized interaction with those whom we have extremely radical differing intellectual arguments on climate focused science is not sympathetic nor compromising intellectually. It is a way to discuss better and reach people where other forms of dialog have so far been insufficient and ranting.
Nice doesn’t mean anything intellectually. But being nice / civil in any discussion allows for much fuller expansion of the points in discussion versus being insulting or abusive.
I do not see humanizing the radical intellectual antagonists in climate focused science discussions as making a skeptical argument weakened nor does it imply skeptic’s lack of fortitude or lack of integrity.
John
Just a few points.
• Polar bears survived an ‘ice-free’ Arctic during the Holocene Hypsithermal between 9,000 to 5,000 years ago.
• In 2008 a radio collard polar bear was clocked making a continuous swim of 687 km over 9 days.
• Polar bears survived the Medieval Warm Period which lasted a couple of hundred years.
• I have been assured by a polar bear expert that spring conditions are what really matter to polar bears
Following my experience of the lecture/sermon in Bristol on Tuesday I came away bitterly disappointed. I thought I was going to hear an argument on the science of climate change. There was no argument.
Having had some time to think about my experience, the NHS I think can sum it up far better than any words I could express.
“Schizophrenia is a long-term mental health condition that causes a range of different psychological symptoms, including:
• hallucinations – hearing or seeing things that do not exist
• delusions – unusual beliefs not based on reality which often contradict the evidence
• muddled thoughts based on the hallucinations or delusions
• changes in behaviour
Doctors often describe schizophrenia as a psychotic illness. This means sometimes a person may not be able to distinguish their own thoughts and ideas from reality.”
http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Schizophrenia/Pages/Introduction.aspx
Mann is utterly destructive to actual, scientifically based, environmentalism. What a disgrace.
Was the Q&A session fixed? I was at both the Cook and Mann events (gave my overall impressions earlier on both threads). That thought did run through my mind when the Mann session seemed to end so quickly. Do we know for sure, e.g. was anyone aware of any collection of questions before the event, or has Mann or Lewandowsky or those asking the questions confirmed or denied it? Presumably if they are honest scientists they should tell us. If it was rigged I think they would have a duty as scientists to tell us otherwise it would be unscientific or misrepresenting the expectations of Q&A.
My subjective impression watching Lewandowsky during the Cook Q&A was that he was selecting people for an ‘interesting discussion’. However, if 20 hands go up and we only have time for 5 questions then any selection could seem biased. I think the last question for Cook was whether he normally got this many sceptical questions, I think he said no but he was pleased and wanted lots more, perhaps he was well prepared with all the necessary responses and genuinely seeking the opportunity to use all those responses and dispel all sceptical arguments.
It would be interesting, with the help of WUWT, if we could do a little research and estimate for each lecture how many sceptics hands went up and if the recordings of the lectures are released we could estimate how many hands in total went up. If we get, say for both Q&A’s 10 readers confirm they tried to ask a sceptic question and we estimate a total of 15 hands we know at least 2/3 were sceptic questions, possibly more so the probability it was rigged was at least xx%. Or maybe it will be 12 confirmed sceptics hands out of 15 at Cook and 2 out of 30 at Mann in which case much less likely it was rigged in that way. I did not attempt to ask any questions at either Q&A.
If we could do that and the data appears to show I high likelihood of rigging the Q&A’s perhaps we could ask the Cabot institute if they were aware of it and what their opinion or policy would be.
Hi there,
I have not attended the seminar, so my judgement relies on the way it was presented here, but I am very reminded of the natives in Feynmans cargo cult .. if Mann and Co just mimicked a scientific discussion after the talk and basically avoided it, you can call it by the name: It’s Anti-Science!
Cheers, LoN