Guest essay by Eric Worrall
“He’s making us all look like idiots” – are greens losing their grip in the EU? Greens are in shock that MEP Stuart Agnew of the climate skeptic United Kingdom Independence Party was selected to write a key European Union Parliament climate report.
Ukip MEP sparks outrage with report denying human role in climate change
Report blames climate change on cosmic ray fluctuations and sunspot activity, drawing derision from climate scientists
A European parliament report that blames climate change on cosmic ray fluctuations, sunspots and planetary gravitational pulls, is so hackneyed and ill-informed it would “make the dinosaurs blush,” climate scientists say.
The non-binding opinion written by Ukip MEP, John Stuart Agnew, has shocked EU lawmakers for its dismissal of climate science – and the support he received to write it from mainstream rightwing and liberal political blocs.
Green MEP Molly Scott Cato said their choice of Agnew, a Norfolk farmer, as parliamentary rapporteur by the agriculture committee, was a “truly scandalous” fiasco that illustrated a growing populist threat. A rapporteur is elected to shepherd EU proposals through the European parliament and, after negotiations with the European commission and EU states, into law.
The Agnew report calls for a €5.45bn green fund called Life to be used to prepare “for an impending Maunder Minimum” – or a period of low sunspot activity.
It deletes the European commission’s proposals for funds to be spent on clean energy infrastructure, references to climate mitigation and obligations under the Paris agreement.
…
Agnew has long campaigned against what he terms “the global warming scam”. He has also drawn attention for claiming thousands of pounds in CAP payments for his Norfolk farm every month, according to his members’ declaration.
He told the Guardian that “I threw my hat in the ring to do this [report] fully expecting to be thrown out of court,” but that he then received wide support, “to my genuine astonishment”.
A spokesman for the European People’s Party said their backing for Agnew was due to bidding procedures and not an endorsement of his climate politics.
…
Click here to see a draft copy of the report. (if anyone can find a more up to date version please post in comments).
The following is a video of UKIP’s Stuart Agnew discussing his report in the European Parliament;
Agnew, who is a farmer by trade, was once a climate advocate. According to Agnew, for fifteen years he took the advice of the nearby University of East Anglia on what crops to plant, and most of those fifteen years experienced crop failures due to frosts which were no longer supposed to happen.
The Guardian’s recommended response to Agnew’s stir is the rather pathetic strategy of “refusing to debate”.
My MEP (Molly Scott Cato) is right to disparage Agnew for not presenting the establishment viewpoint. It should be heard for completeness.
But Agnew is right to point out the alternative viewpoints. There is no conclusive evidence either way. As the Guardian concedes by refusing to debate and present any such evidence. Which they would do, if they had any evidence to present.
We should welcome debate and consider all possibilities.
From a policy perspective, not preparing for any change is foolhardy. But only preparing for one sort of change is equally foolish.
No sorry I think you’re wrong. The establishment view, as you call it, is rambling self-contradictory and voluminous to the point of obsfucation and is contained in the IPCC reports over the last 30 odd years. In fact all that purposely complicated verbiage can be distilled to a single scientific statement, a single hypothesis, embodied in the massed models of co2 driven climate. As is now abundantly clear, that hypothesis has been falsified through reliable satellite derived measurements. That, as Richard Feynman would say, is that, you’re wrong. In fact the hypothesis was tremendously unrisky and thus its falsification is all the more damning – please refer to Karl Popper for why that is.
So Agnew was merely pointing out these facts in his way from his perspective. He stated some simple facts that none of the other speakers even cared to address. The game is clearly up when all these people have is personal insults to their arguments.
Sorry. Richard Feynman, and its etc. I’m writing on my phone…and edited : )
‘There is no conclusive evidence either way”
Not exactly. In science, falsification is sufficient to remove possibilities and the possibility of an ECS as high as even the lower bound claimed by the IPCC can be trivially falsified. In fact, any presumed effect that results in more than 2 W/m^2 of surface emissions per W/m^2 of forcing is impossible given the semi-transparent atmosphere that currently results in only 1.6 W/m^2 of surface emissions per W/m^2 of forcing. Even the IPCC’s lower limit of 0.4C per W/m^2 requires surface emissions to increase by more than 2 W/m^2. So while there may be no conclusive evidence either way in the recent temperature record, there’s conclusive evidence from basic physics and trivial arithmetic that the alarmists viewpoint is absolutely wrong, moreover; there’s conclusive evidence in the paleo record that nothing about the current rate of change is unusual, except that it’s typical of the average rate of change.
“We should welcome debate and consider all possibilities.”
Yes, so why is it that the preferred way for alarmists to respond to skeptics is to refuse to debate?
BTW, that was a rhetorical question and the answer is that those with whom a debate would be most revealing are afraid to debate because they know that they can’t be right.
M Courtney
“There is no conclusive evidence either way…….”
The man presented empirical evidence of his personal experiences based on his former acceptance of the religion of CAGW.
There was indeed CAGW for him, in that he believed what he was told, without question, and suffered crop loss thanks to the predictions of catastrophe year on year.
That’s not just a crime against him, it’s a crime against humanity if farmers across the world are suffering losses because of imposed CAGW dogma by politicians.
And it was clear from this video, this is a man with vast experience in farming telling people who know nothing of the subject, that climate change dogma is killing people by depriving them of food and costing everyone who cares to adhere to it, a great deal of money. Then he’s ridiculed and undermined by career politicians with no interest in anything but toeing the party line to secure their own jobs.
Volunteers to take the green, in the green shirt, outside for a talking to!
Traditionally, government reports present the government’s viewpoints.
It’s time to stop pretending that these things were ever supposed to be fair and balanced.
Very interesting that not one speaker was able to counter anything Mr. Agnew said. One speaker said that Mr.Agnew made them look like fools. I completely agree. The reason is that ; they are fools for believing in a climate change/global warming scam.
“There is no conclusive evidence either way” actually it is getting conclusive that CO2 sensitivity is low and is conclusive that the planet is greener because of it.
“There is no conclusive evidence either way” simply points to the simple fact that much more research must be done on a terribly complex subject. The current evidence does not support the leftist AGW (climate change) as their so-called predictions have failed for several decades. Logic and evidence points to external factors such as solar, orbital dynamics and galactic interactions which are way beyond our control. About the only thing CO2 concentrations affect is the speed of plant growth. The main source of CO2 is from the oceans. The warmer the oceans the more CO2 boils off to support plant growth; while the colder the oceans (ice ages), the more they absorb CO2 out of the atmosphere because there will be less plant growth. The natural system performs a perfect regulator.
One of the Greens who responded to Mr Agnew accused him of making the Parliament look like cretins. I can assure him that we don’t need Mr Agnew for that purpose. Simply listening to the responses of EUSSR MEPs is sufficient: vacuous rhetoric without a shred of evidence-based rebuttal.
“There is no conclusive evidence either way.”
A few people have made negative comments regarding this statement. It is not for science to provide evidence to refute a hypothesis. The burden of evidence lies solely with those who advance the hypothesis. Were this not so we would do little but construct endless refutations of each and every crackpot hypothesis.
Also we have had much discussion about the “debate” here at WUWT of late. There is no debate. CAGW or whatever is your chosen acronym for the hypothesis that man and his emissions are driving the climate to higher temperatures is precisely that – a hypothesis – and a completely unsupported hypothesis at that. When some evidence is presented in support of that hypothesis then we will have a debate about it. Until that time, should it ever arrive, there is literally nothing to debate. It is nothing more than idle coffee-time speculation about some people’s opinions. It is entirely inappropriate to enoble this trivial chin-wag with the ostentatious title of “debate”.
Sorry, Cephus0, I think you are wrong also, when you say:
“It is not for science to provide evidence to refute a hypothesis.”
Yes, it is, that is what science is. Scientific knowledge is advanced through the falsification of hypotheses. Basically you can’t prove something is right in all cases, purely because you haven’t seen all cases. But you can show something is wrong in one case.
“The burden of evidence lies solely with those who advance the hypothesis.”
No it doesn’t. A hypothesis stands on its own right, independent of anyone. Take for instance the many attempts that have been made to falsify hypotheses that have been made up by people who are now dead.
“Were this not so we would do little but construct endless refutations of each and every crackpot hypothesis.”
Well… it turns out that hypotheses are often rather easy to ‘refute’ . Anyhow, one doesn’t have to construct refutations, but rather make observations of nature which falsify the hypothesis. If a hypotheses can’t be falsified it stands as potentially true – crackpot or not.
I don’t believe it has even risen to the level of hypothesis yet, it can’t even get basic heat transfer right! It’s merely idle speculation at this point. And the Greens trying to dress it up as a solution looking for a problem should elicit exactly the eyeroll that Mr Agnew’s report gave it.
Errrr the geological record?
So a farmer found the University of East Anglia’s long term weather predictions useless, and no longer believes in their authority? Bad boy!
The UEA is based in Norfolk: apparently they can’t even get the local weather right!
Tom Halla
A farmer presenting empirical evidence to politicians?
Of course he’s wrong, because most politicians wouldn’t know what a farm was if it jumped up and bit them on the arse!
The farmers I knew in my youth could smell weather before the MET office got out of bed.
They ken what a farm is! A farm is where you install wind turbines. Green doesn’t pop up, it showers down.
For you sae douce wha sneer at this,
Ye’re not but senseless asses, O!
The wisest man the world e’er saw,
He dearly loved the lasses, O!
Green grow the rashes, O
Green grow the rashes, O…
– R Burns
Crispin in Waterloo
All this time and I had no idea you had good Scot’s blood coursing through your veins. 🙂
As I like winding my mum up with bad Scots
“It’s a broad bricked moon licked nicked nick the noo”
My mum was born and brought up on the East coast of Scotland.
James Bull
‘Bricht’ and ‘nicht’ please – you’ve got to sound that H!
Susan
I think that’s the point. He’s not guttural nor rolling his ‘Arr’s’. That’s why his Mum gets wound up.
Like ‘Lock’ Lomond, instead of ‘Loch’ Lomond. ‘Rrrrabbie’ Burns, ‘Inverrness’.
Oooh! “A growing populist threat”. How frightening is that. Heaven forbid that a democratic institution should actually have the will of the populace inflicted on it.
We The People … hmmm, where have I heard that before? SHAME on those REVOLUTIONARY… people. Democracy is only invoked when The People use it to remove warmist, Globalist, elites from power. When Democracy is actually exercised in its purest form … it is somehow called a “breach” of Democracy. I swear, the left are so severely deluded that they don’t even hear themselves speak, and start believing their own crop manure.
Notice how many of the group of people within the European parliament are socialist or greens.
Who was it who said, “If a people fear its government, you have tyranny, but if a government fears its people, you have democracy!”
Its been variously attributed to Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Adams, and Thomas Paine.
However, the most likely source of this quotation appears to be a series of debates on socialism published in 1914, in which John Basil Barnhill said, “Where the people fear the government you have tyranny. Where the government fears the people you have liberty.”
As always, we see the totalitarian lurking under a thin veneer in every Socialist or Green.
A theat to the EU tyranny!
When your political party is threatened by the Populace, you have bigger problems then who doesn’t believe your Religion.
~_~
Schitzree
This is the EU. And people wonder why more than half the British population voted to distance themselves from this corrupt, self seeking organisation which accepts no criticism and invites no self examination.
Brexit lit the blue touch paper. Trump rolled the grenade.
I am hoping May follows through with Brexit with all the calls for another vote on the matter and the threat of being back-stabbed by her own party.
The difficulty is that May does not want Brexit (and, I suspect, would dearly love a job as an EU Commissioner in due course)
I agree. She was “hired” by the EU to “do a job” on Brexit. Forget the fact the vote was in favour of Brixit.
And Doug Ford is getting out the blowtorch.
If the UK stays in the EU then the UK will have a puppet government no matter which party is in “power”.
Well, we’ve had one of various hues since 1973 when we joined! The duplictous bastards who took us in, Conservative, Labour, Liberal, ALL knew wht the EEC as it was then known, & what it intended to become over time!
Alan the Brit
Is absolutely correct, the step by step plan for a ‘United Federal’ Europe (Communist by any label you please)
is known as the Kalergi Plan.
It was fully disclosed to the British Macmillan Government in the 1950’s. It was decided to follow the same route taken by the plan and all other European Governments involved and disclose only the ‘Common Market’ portion (the ‘baited’ hook), to the British People.
Every British Government since knew this and every one applied to join. Thankfully it was held back by the Anglophobe President De-Gaulle, which certainly delayed the planned ‘Union’.
Edward Heath (Conservative) finally took GB in with the EEC act of 1972.
It was not long before the creeping interference in National Politics lead many of us to demand withdrawal, however Harold Wilson who succeeded the disastrous Heath (and lead the country into even greater economic disaster), held a referendum, in which the Government fooled enough of us (including my young self) into believing that our National Sovereignty was sacrosanct, that we narrowly voted to remain.
Below is a link to one online source regarding the Kalergi Plan, there are plenty of others.
https://www.disclose.tv/the-kalergi-plan-the-real-reason-that-the-european-union-is-so-hostile-to-donald-trump-311329
GB’ s decision to ‘Brexit’ (which leaves Germany as the only major net payer), and the engineered mass-migration of ME & African Islamics into Europe, now threatens to bring the whole Totalitarian plan crashing down, as Poland, Hungary and others refuse to allow their nations to become ‘mongrelised’ as the plan requires
Alan the Brit
It was the Common Market was’t it, with a promise of no political union as far as I can recall. No wonder it’s old gits like me who voted out. We have the rare luxury of hindsight and the memory of those broken promises over the past 40 years.
Our children (at least mine) can’t comprehend that travel across Europe was little more difficult than is is today. They don’t understand that open borders means fair competition for jobs is undermined by immigrants undercutting the citizens of a wealthy country. An overly simplistic perspective perhaps, but its a natural consequence of unregulated immigration.
If immigrants are so valuable to our country, fine, I’m happy with that, but why not just regulate the numbers and the quality instead of kicking open the door?
I wish more than half of the population of the Netherlands would do the same.
They’ll be quoting Caligula next…………..”I wish the people had but one head!”
It’s probably best to avoid having to produce an alternative hypothesis. It’s better merely to point out that the CO2 hypothesis is demonstrably wrong.
It is far more powerful to point out the many crop failures caused by frosts that weren’t supposed to happen any more. It anchors the discussion in reality.
Sex and rivalry make lizards blush … so, dinosaurs were turned on by climate science. Who knew?
Mate now before the climate changes and wipes us all out!
Susan
I’ve gone all flush. That’s almost a proposal. 🙂
My heart can’t take it at my age.
One must usually check to see if the night is still in play with the queen before mating.
Knight, not “night”
Just make sure you don’t mate before the bishop…
Sorry, seems I rook this joke a bit too far.
In today’s society, the bishops might be the ones mating both queens.
Wasn’t that a poem? Once upawn a mid-knight’s clear, I dreamt of fair maidens aglee
What Agnew said in the report:
“By mentioning the concept that reducing CO2 levels will serve to take action against an unsatisfactory climate, the Commission is ignoring the factors that really do change our climate.
1. The galaxy: in the form of Cosmic Ray fluctuations. Can induce changes of 10o C over millions of years.
2. The solar system: Gravitational pulls can induce changes of 2-3o C.
3. The sun: Its variations of orbit and tilt along with its five separate documented cycles can the cause earth’s temperature to vary by up to 5o C.
4. Ocean Currents.
5. The ‘Greenhouse’ gas: Water Vapour, in the form of cloud cover.
The other Greenhouse gases, CO2, Methane and Nitrous Oxide have a negligible effect on our climate. CO2 is, however, an irreplaceable plant food. Methane degrades into CO2 and H2O; NOx gases eventually change into Nitrates.”
They call this “hackneyed” meaning old-fashioned and boring, unlike the spiffy, trendy ideas from IPCC. Agnew is just being realistic instead writing science fiction.
Definition of hackneyed
Yep. Nothing there about actually being wrong or anything like that. It was just thrown in as an insult … pure ad hominem and nothing better.
I’ve wondered for sometime why NOx gases turning into nitrates doesn’t get more coverage. I would find a debate as to whether this is an overall positive or negative for the environment interesting. Fixing an atmospheric Nitrogen is important for plant growth.
“It’s probably best to avoid having to produce an alternative hypothesis. It’s better merely to point out that the CO2 hypothesis is demonstrably wrong.”
It is best to point out that CAGW is wrong.
It’s notable that no climate scientists are actually credited with the dinosaur statement.
If you go to the linked Guardian article, about half-way down the page it’s credited to “Dave Reay, professor of carbon management at Edinburgh University”. What exactly is a “professor of carbon management”? and how does that qualify one to be described as a Climate Scientist (as the Guardian does earlier in that same article when they claim the Dinosaurs line as being something “climate scientists say”)
Shall sanity reign? And shall the bane of imagined looming catastrophe be thrown into the landfill of history? I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
Ooh no, you nustn’t put into landfill, that’s wrong & un-environmentally friendly! 😉
So much the better.
But if it is incinerated instead, infelicitous particles in infinite immeasurable quantities will be emitted.
Surely?
Auto
May there be many more that get a voice!
So he took the weather advice of The University of East Anglia and all his banana trees and pineapples died.
Your attempted mockery falls flat.
Apparently, so did the banana trees….
The pineapples fell upside-down.
James I can see you didnt transcend the designer-brain education of the past few generations. I suspect Agnew planted grain, potatoes, and the like and lost those – people who dont know anything useful about climate craft advising a farmer to plant a couple of weeks early. Sheesh.
A farmer who had to ask 13 times, and failed 13 times is not a farmer.
A ”farmer” would have gone bust a decade prior .
Mr Agnew is a ”Gentleman” farmer, obviously still profited from EU subsidies.
I’m UKIP and Trump through and through, i’m also a country boy, and Mr Agnew was bullshitting, however he was bullshitting bullshitters with mainly facts, and i’m gonna like him.
Gary – a wise farmer does not put all his eggs in one basket. No doubt Agnew offset the risks with other crops and strategies.
R
Someone somewhere in the EU hierarchy has more of a grip on reality than I expected
WARNING! Exploding heads are not appropriate viewing for children under the age of 16.
It deletes the European commission’s proposals for funds to be spent on clean energy infrastructure,
However, I love seeing socialists heads explode. Almost as good as watching the 4th of July Macy’s fireworks display.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skW6krOLL20
Speaking of exploding heads,.. a good watch,..
As I pointed out at the time, like many others, what was so hilarious about blowing a child’s head off, let alone those of adults? Whoever came up with this was a sad, sick, demented creature, & claimed it was just “a bit of fun!” The clear indication that if you do not comply, you will be terminated!!!! Nice.
“so hackneyed and ill-informed it would “make the dinosaurs blush,”…..
….”that illustrated a growing populist threat.”
It sure is easy to rattle their cages…since the science is settled and all
For some science, that’s been going around for over 100 years….seems like they would have some tiny little bit of proof by now
Nevermind proof. They havent added anything new to Tyndall’s formula in a century and a half. Tyndall is the Moses of climate science.
Gary, Tyndall made a machine which demonstrated the weak force of EMF. He also found he had to cool the receiver because that force is a vector force. That is, it only flows from hot to cold. That fact demonstrates the base falsity of AGW and it was Maxwell who noticed this and incorporated it into his ‘Theory of Heat’ (read Hockeyschtick on this). Maxwell it was who saw that an atmosphere of any unconfined gas specie combination, followed the Gas Laws and Poisson Relationship ie Ideal Gas Law. That is, the gases react in concert to energy input because their degrees of freedom allow them to. Unlike solids, their intermolecular spacing is enough for this. So simple, and borne out by solar system body data from NASA, ESA, Soviets. Even Sagan eventually admitted this…..
Ha! Climate experts. Top scientists. Really Top people. Top. Provided advice leading to crop failure from cooling … not warming as predicted. And they call Agnew’s report “hackneyed”? The temerity of the self-proclaimed elites is stunning.
You remind me of Indianna Jones in “Raiders”, when the Ark is seized by the US Special Security Services, for their “Top people” to study it, because they are “Top People!” 😉
I watched the whole thing. I have to hand it to Mr Agnew – and a very Happy Birthday indeed – he referenced more data than his myriad of fulminating opponents who failed to answer a single one of his observations. It was like watching the college of cardinals respond to Galileo. It was as if they had never heard of somebody simply saying “My experience does not support what you are saying. Please dispute my data.”
It was actually quite amusing – like a scene from “Yes, Minister”. Where is Humphrey when he is sorely needed?
Amazing to observe the European governing process. What is even more amazing is how few actually listen to the common sense of a farmer who seems to know the natural cycles that affect the weather and his crops. Most people are terribly disconnected from what it takes to grow their food, much less what time it actually is.
To borrow a phrase from our allies the Brits, bully bully for Agnew!
‘By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes’.
The rot in East Anglia started when solar power generators started to market solar panels in Norfolk , yet no one seemed to mind.
Norfolk, my birthplace was , and still is, a land where tolerance was taught and practiced.
This farmer, year after year, put crops in confident that the advice he was given was scientific and sound, only to find it was not.
Perhaps CO2 is not so powerfull that it can increase night time ground temperatures to the place that models predict.
Perhaps the CO2 levels above croplands are much higher than the well mixed levels in the Pacific?
Maybe they often are, even in East Anglia?
That such doubts arise put any doubt in perspective, his livelihood was on the line.
Tolerance gave way to sanguine enquiry.
Hence his looking for answers.
The UK just made the mistake of failing to plan for Brexit.
What if the IPCC is right and the World continues to ignore it?
What if the IPCC is wrong and the world continues to ignore it?
The UK needs to plan for any eventuality.
It needs to learn from the mistake of its immediate past.
The future could include cooling or warming.
Warming will be good for the UK.
That’s the good news.
I always thought that UKIP members were several centuries behind the rest of society but I didn’t realise that their official position was that the sun went round the earth! The third of the proposed causes of climate change is apparently:
The sun: Its variations of orbit and tilt along with its five separate documented cycles
can the cause earth’s temperature to vary by up to 5o C.
which would only be true if the sun orbited the earth rather than the other way round.
Except the sun orbits the galaxy. Perhaps this is the orbit referenced.
Nice of you to admit that the picking of nits is all you can do with this report.
Proves that over all it is quite solid.
Well no actually. The whole report such as it is is full of obvious mistakes or irrelevant information. The first figure for example claims that the atmospheric pressure one billion years ago was 20 times the current value. In comparison recent research shows that the
pressure was about 5 times less than the current value (see https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo2713).
Figure 1 is completely irrelevant to discussions about human timescales and impacts since the time intervals along the x-axis are 100 000 years. Similarly the first supposed cause of climate change operates “over millions of years” and is thus irrelevant to any discussion about change over the next 100 years.
The second cause is “gravitational pulls can induce changes of 2-3 degrees C”. There is no evidence for this or even a citation to any research. Nor is there any suggestion of timescales so again it would appear to be ridiculous.
The third cause is variations of orbit and tilt of the sun. I assume this refers to the Milanovitch cycles and again this works too slowly to be relevant to any discussion.
The 4th cause is “ocean currents”. Ocean currents do not cause climate change they are part of the climate and part of how climate change works.
The final cause is “water vapour in the form of cloud cover”. Again this is part of the climate and there is no evidence that cloud cover operates independently of the rest of the climate. At best this would be a restatement of the first cause about cosmic ray fluctuations rather than an additional cause.
The report then goes on to state that since there are no CO2 hotspots over Europe there is no problem. Which again completely misses the point since it is the global average of CO2 concentrations that matter not the concentration about Europe. Furthermore CO2 gets mixed in the atmosphere and so decisions by the EU effect the global CO2 concentration rather than just the local one.
Finally the report concludes by claiming that the EU should be preparing for a mini-ice age which might last 200 years. Again there is no evidence for this in the report or even a citation and I doubt you will find a single reputable scientist that thinks this is likely.
And your consensus has…what, that they can demonstrate. XBox climate on faith. If the science is essentially settled, why do these guys keep changing observed temperatures just before they retire.
Geologic history is irrelevant? Gravitational pull is irrelevant? Ocean currents, water vapor as well? But “global average of CO2 concentrations that matter”…hmm, sounds familiar….
Hello Percy, ahem, just because you don’t understand what someone is talking about please don’t further confuse yourself by thinking they don’t know their subject matter.
https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/barycenter/en/
this should enlighten you so you will not appear so dimwitted in the future
michael
Hi Mike,
Can you point to any evidence that barycentre motion effects the climate? And evidence that it can induce changes by 2 to 3 degrees over a suitable time period?
Percy,
My take is that Agnew misspoke, seemingly conflating Earth’s orbital and rotational mechanics and their effect on insolation, with direct solar effects.
Can you demonstrate any of the Cagw malarkey? I used to think it was real without having inspected the theory because science used have a good reputation. I am a scientist and engineer and I even studied paleoclimate in my geology courses a long time ago. My doubts arose from the terrible fudging of data and discovery of the political corruption of the science.
You, Percy, are not a scientist – the ‘tell’ is in the resort to lazy activist science “talking points” and trademark putdowns. Having said this, an intelligent arts major should still be able to examine the arguments, the projections and their actual outcomes 3-4 decades later. I encourage you to do so. Cagw doesnt need you to prosecute its case. We should all be sceptical. It is the fuel of scientific advancement.
Hello Percy, I don’t have to. The reference I made simply showed that you were not thinking clearly . Next if you paid attention you would have understood that “Orbit” was just one several possible factors that Mr. Agnew was suggesting.
As for the question as to the Barycenter effecting the climate; I never thought of it before. It may be something worth looking into. See the science is not settled, only minds made up and closed.
michael
It is far more likely that the big shiney ball thingy occasionally observed in UK skies, that possesses 99.9% of the mass of the Solar System, & being a rather large Fusion Reactor, would have an effect on the Earth’s Climate with the smallest of changes in its output. Please explain the receeding icecaps on Mars noted by NASA over the last few years! Astrophysicists admit that they don’t know what full effects the power of the Sun has on our climate, so to dismiss it as insignificant is sheer folly!
No one really knows what causes climate change . However anyone that is convinced it is CO2 is either a fool or a liar.
I suppose that “rent-seeking charlatan” covers most liars, but some CACA proponents must honestly believe their spiel, in which case, fools. But fools with much to gain.
The sun orbits the centre of gravity of the solar system, among several other orbits of the galaxy and its galaxy cluster…
“which would only be true if the sun orbited the earth rather than the other way round.”
Data please?
So many emperors ..so few clothes.
“making us all look like idiots” really?? Seems they are doing a pretty fine job of looking like idiots without Agnew’s help.
An opportunity missed if the final report doesn’t discuss mechanisms to fund research in concepts to force CO2 to 800-1200 ppm levels.
Says the man eating plant waiting in ambush.
More of this required.
….” he took the advice of the nearby University of East Anglia….. and most of those fifteen years experienced crop failures due to frosts which were no longer supposed to happen.”
I am sure the UEA climate experts have subsequently apologized for their bad advice.
Have they not?
Steve,
Sadly, this has happened in my area of operation in NE Oregon.
Wheat ranchers here or investors on their land have put in grape vines, hoping to cash in on “global warming” and growth in the wine industry, only to lose their or their investors total stake from severe early frosts (November) in recent years. They expected global warming to make growing grapes at 1600 feet above MSL as easy as on Walla Walla series ancient river bottoms, with lots of rocks, at 800 feet.
Didn’t work out so well. As in, not at all. Putting in grape vines is expensive, labor intensive work. Add to that irrigation, and the capital expenditure is huge. Too bad that scientific malpractice can’t be sued. It should be actionable.
But misallocated resources forvinyards pales in comparison with the titanic losses from wind farms, solar arrays and the insectivorous birds and bats sacrificed on the altar of the Church of CACA. The world’s largest wind farms also pollute my AO.
Early frost in November! What? Trying for Ice Wine?
In the lower Yakima Valley, Gewürztraminer (some of it) was being picked August 28th. Elevation, about 900 feet.
Also, it has been common advice in the interior Pac. NW to not go above 1500 feet and, at near that, plant only grapes known to grow in such places. Radiation cooling at night happens easily in clear air at high elevation.
Can’t apologise, they’re too busy organising their retirement bashes on their over inflated salaries (taxpayers money of course!)
Everyone here assumes that advice came from climate change “scientists” which is most unlikely – would you, as a practicing farmer take advice from people predicting climate rather than weather? UEA in addition to CRU has a weather-predicting organization WEATHERQUEST. I also just can’t envision Phil Jones spending his precious time predicting best planting times to a Norfolk farmer. Also what’s a farmer doing taking (buying?) weather advice?
I fear our farmer is confusing weather and climate prediction.
To disconfirm a hypothesis, the only requirements are to show hypothetical projections are not consistent with empirical observations by a statistically significant disparity (more than 2 standard deviations) for a statistically significant duration (more than 15 years).
This criteria for disconfirmation has already been surpassed:
The above graph needs to be updated, because the August 2018 UAH temp anomaly was just announced to be just 0.19C… CMIP5’s projection was almost 1.2C by August 2018…
Every single one of the 102 CMIP5 model projections are now higher than observations, and 100 out of 102 CMIP5 model projection have consistently been higher than observations for the past 22 years…. What a joke…
To disconfirm the CAGW hypothesis, it’s not necessary for CAGW skeptics to propose alternative hypotheses to explain the 0.05C/decade of beneficial warming recovery we’ve enjoyed since the end of the Little Ice Age in 1850 to the present.
All that is required is to show CAGW’s catastrophic CO2 warming projections are completely devoid from reality, which they clearly are…
This devastating graph should be shown to everyone who still believes in CAGW.
Yes, and the balloon data and the satellite data are in agreement.
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/catalog/satellite/msu/comments.html
“A recent comparison (1) of temperature readings from two major climate monitoring systems – microwave sounding units on satellites and thermometers suspended below helium balloons – found a “remarkable” level of agreement between the two.
To verify the accuracy of temperature data collected by microwave sounding units, John Christy compared temperature readings recorded by “radiosonde” thermometers to temperatures reported by the satellites as they orbited over the balloon launch sites.
He found a 97 percent correlation over the 16-year period of the study. The overall composite temperature trends at those sites agreed to within 0.03 degrees Celsius (about 0.054° Fahrenheit) per decade. The same results were found when considering only stations in the polar or arctic regions.”
end excerpt
We sometimes have people who disparage the satellite temperature record as being not as accurate as the surface temperature charts, but as we see, the balloon measurements agree with the Satellites. It’s nice to have confirmation.
“a “truly scandalous” fiasco” and the CRU emails were what then?
All this about farming, long range weather predictions and “cosmic ray fluctuations, sunspots and planetary gravitational pulls”? This must be a supporter of Piera Corbyn’s WeatherAction then. This is AFAIK the only publicist busy with this combination to the degree of actually supplying predictions to quite a few farmers.
The only question I have is why they decided not to name him. Then again, I think I know the answer.
Can somebody please enlighten me, just who are these deniers of observation facts? Finally somebody with a bit of guts!
Thank you for that I’ve not had so much fun watching EU parliamentary debates since Nigel was there, he like Mr Agnew makes it seem like the one sane person there talking sense and reason is a fool in a mad house or a Topsy Turvy world where everything is backwards.
One interesting comment from Luke Ming at 14.30 was one of only a couple that said hurling insults and questioning their support is not helpful although he stopped short of wanting to debate the information presented.
Watching green heads explode is quite fun though.
James Bull
As an addendum it was fun hearing them all try to talk about the Elephant that he had released into the room without actually mentioning it by name.
James Bull
A dysfunctional bureaucracy pleasuring itself and wallowing in lobbyists, seemingly estranged from actual public opinion and diverse sources of evidence is bound to get surprises like this….
Scott Cato is my MEP as well… and a real embarrassment – £65K a year plus what? – double that in expenses ? pfffft
If my smile was any broader right now, the top of my head might just fall off.
hahahaha
PS The Brecks (Cambs/Norfolk border) is a quite interesting place – also the Cambs Fen.
Check the ‘New Bedford River’ and mull over what effect it may have had on water, drainage, soil moisture, plant growth and hence, Climate.
The effect it did have was that the windmills originally installed to pump water couldn’t work after just a few years because the peat bog (moss) over about 95,000 acres shrank so much. Steam (coal-powered) pumps arrived just in time to save the day.
And those muppets in Brussels think CO2 changes the weather – they have GOT to be stopped.
“And those muppets in Brussels think CO2 changes the weather”
Actually they think nothing of the kind. They know it’s bullcrap, we know it’s bullcrap, they know that we know, we know that they know we know! That’s the summary of the whole scam! It’s was merely a Socilaist device of manipulation & control, to make everyone feel guilty about living in the 20th/21st centuries! May God damn the Club of Rome & all its hangers on!
It is refreshing to read that such a report was made to the EU parliament by a member who will soon no longer be a member. The EU parliament will be much worse without such members who may help to reform the organisation for all of us.
But sadly it appears that the UK is going to continue headlong over the cliff in the trainwreck of Brexit. I compare the average Brexiteer with the average warmist – usually from opposite side of political spectrum but with a poor grip on real reality.
Each relies on the acceptance of the idea in the past by a majority who were not fully informed of all the information and insist that the debate is now over. The UK’s Brexit referendum merely showed Cameron’s naiveté. In Ireland we have voted against two EU treaties. But on each occasion the government stayed in power and went back to Brussels looking for concessions. After a few fig leaves and clever political campaigning majorities of nearly 2/3 in favour were returned in the rerun.
All Cameron had to do was accept he might lose with people voting against the government for a variety of issues not all EU related. After losing all he had to do was go to Brussels and have a strong hand to demand real EU reform. Instead he threw all his toys out the pram.
Now we are sliding towards this disaster for Britain and its closest neighbours because much like the warmists the Brexiteers are saying the debate is over.
Yawn!
Forgive me, but you must be incredibly naive! The EU will never reform, collapse maybe, but never reform its Totalitarian ambitions as they are almost there anyway! It is unelected, undemocratic, unaccountable, & unsackable! The EU Parliament & its useless limp-wristed MEPs are mere tokenism, a showpiece of alleged democracy tofool the peasantry who pay for the lot!!!
Troll.
We knew we wanted w@nkers like you out, and common sense back home to roost.
It is you that keeps failing to ”understand” what we voted for.
We already know the establishment viewpoint, we’ve had it rammed down our throats for the last 30+ years, why should have to hear it one more time for completeness? On top of which the UN cronies have admitted Climate Change has nothing to do wth the environment or saving the planet, it is to create the conditions to establish a Globul Guvment, unelected, undemocratic, unaccountable, & more importantly, unsackable!!!!
It’s good that Stuart Agnew has pulled this stunt.
What if climate in the next couple of decades confirms his prediction?
Then it will be harder for the Climateriat to say “actually we predicted this all along”.
Since their opposition to Agnew’s report will be on the record.
“Then it will be harder for the Climateriat to say “actually we predicted this all along”.”
Maybe not so much. The UK Wet Office covered their arses a few years ago when they snuck a little announcement under the radar, informing us that we may “be facing colder than usual winters over the next 30-35 years as a result of reduced Solar activity, but it won’t affect overall warming due to the emissions of greenhouse gases!”
These guys are unbeleavable. Itruly suspect that many in the upper eschalons of The Wet Office will be retired as said elsewhere on nice fat taxpayer funded pensions, so nobody will be held accountable! Simples! I dare say ditto for the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, oh & not forgetting my beloved EU!!!!!
Excerpts from the article:
“HE’S (MEP Stuart Agnew) MAKING US ALL LOOK LIKE IDIOTS”… Greens are in shock that MEP Stuart Agnew of the climate skeptic United Kingdom Independence Party was selected to write a key European Union Parliament climate report.
…
Agnew, who is a farmer by trade, was once a climate advocate. According to Agnew, for fifteen years he took the advice of the nearby University of East Anglia on what crops to plant, and most of those fifteen years experienced crop failures due to frosts which were no longer supposed to happen.
[end of excerpt]
First of all, many of not most Members of the European Parliament ARE idiots, or alternatively are corrupted scoundrels.
The EU’s energy policies have been a costly and ineffective failure, and this was easily predictable – and in fact WAS PREDICTED in an article written by my-co-authors and me in 2002, as follows:
“THE ULTIMATE AGENDA OF PRO-KYOTO ADVOCATES IS TO ELIMINATE FOSSIL FUELS, BUT THIS WOULD RESULT IN A CATASTROPHIC SHORTFALL IN GLOBAL ENERGY SUPPLY – THE WASTEFUL, INEFFICIENT ENERGY SOLUTIONS PROPOSED BY KYOTO ADVOCATES SIMPLY CANNOT REPLACE FOSSIL FUELS.”
Source:
DEBATE ON THE KYOTO ACCORD
PEGG, reprinted in edited form at their request by several other professional journals, the Globe and Mail and La Presse in translation, by Baliunas, Patterson and MacRae.
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/KyotoAPEGA2002REV1.pdf
Wind and solar power do NOT contribute significant economic (dispatchable) electric power to the grid. This is a simple, proved fact, yet tens of trillions of dollars have been wasted globally on this green energy nonsense, much of it in the EU.
16 YEARS AGO, WE TOLD YOU SO – YOU EU IDIOTS! Since then, skyrocketing energy costs have increased fuel poverty and contributed to more than a million Excess Winter Deaths across the EU.
Regarding weather forecasts, Mr Agnew says the Met Office and the University of East Anglia in the UK have consistently provided overly-warm weather forecasts, and his crops have suffered from these false reports. I accept that his hypothesis as probable for now, but has anyone documented it – this should be easy to prove or disprove.
I do know that in the USA and Canada, our weather offices have been spectacularly wrong when predicting warm winters. Here is one such example:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/05/climate-scientist-air-pollution-cleanup-may-be-major-driver-of-global-warming/#comment-2365792
[excerpt]
One of my friends and co-authors is Joe d’Aleo, an American Weather Forecaster who was the Founding Chief Meteorologist for the Weather Channel.
The National Weather Service (NWS) of the USA forecast a warm winter for 2014-15 and Joe told me in October 2014 that the NWS forecast was seriously incorrect, and that the next winter would be particularly cold and snowy, especially in the populous Northeast. This was the second consecutive year that the NWS has made a highly incorrect (excessively warm) Winter forecast, in Joe’s opinion – and he and his colleagues at WeatherBell have an outstanding track record of accurate forecasts.
Joe and I had been working together on a paper on Excess Winter Mortality, and I suggested to Joe that this false “warm winter” NWS forecast was dangerous, especially if the country and its people were unprepared. Joe agreed, but did not know how to tackle the problem.
I proposed an approach, and we prepared a presentation for my friend at the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). At the EIA’s request, Joe then prepared his own Winter Forecast by month and by region, and the EIA re-ran their Winter Energy Demand calculations. Using Joe’s forecast, the EIA projected 11% more total winter energy required for the entire USA than the “warm” NWS forecast had projected. That is an awful lot of energy – mostly oil, natural gas and coal.
After that brutally cold and snowy winter, a back-analysis showed that the actual winter energy used was 10% more than the projection using the NWS weather forecast, and just 1% less than that using Joe’s forecast.
I’m not sure if we saved any lives, but I still think we did a good deed.
Regards, Allan
We need more goats for the volcano.
Certainly, by all means, let them decline to debate skeptics. Let them call us all names. We’ve already had an extensive public debate on what to do about CAGW, and the doomsayers have lost. Sure, they’ll get some governments here and there to waste enough money to earn their votes, but nobody is really going along with their hair-brained, futile gestures, or with their lame attempt to interrupt the global climate cycle. Whatever evidence they think may exist for their alarmism, it is insufficient to justify expensive measures to de-carbonize the global economy.
climate
scientists sayactivists bleat.Fixed it for you.
It is clear that this guy is absolutely ignorant of what he talks about, as usual with politicians. Perhaps he should stick to farming.
Did all the UKIP supporters come in or why the magnificient vote counts, even one for Javier for stating the obvious? The guy is not the brightest candle, but that is your MEP to you. They ARE all idiots.
I love you dude. Come again and say something!
Hugs said:
“why the magnificient vote counts, even one for Javier for stating the obvious?”
A lot of people want ideological affirmation. It’s a team sport.
“He’s making us all look like idiots”
no poppet, you did that all on your own. He’s just shown a spotlight on your idiocy.
It’s the sanctimoniousness that is so cloying. None of them care that the predictions have all been incorrect. None of them care that climate policy makes the poor poorer without having any effect on the climate. None of them knows that the catastrophists predicted a new ice age as late as 1977 (despite being reminded) because fossil fuels are purported to both warm and cool the planet by utterly guesstimated amounts that are manipulated to better match the current temperature chart.
The clincher lies in the ad hominem attacks
Underneath all of this lies the University of East Anglia’s fraudulent claims and subsequent attempt at covering up their misdeeds. Pure greed and financial motivations. Pity about their biofuel experiment.
No one wants to comment on this bit?
“The Agnew report calls for a €5.45bn green fund called Life to be used to prepare “for an impending Maunder Minimum” – or a period of low sunspot activity.”
Extremely rational use of the funds if you ask me.
“I threw my hat in the ring to do this [report] fully expecting to be thrown out of court,” but that he then received wide support, “to my genuine astonishment”.
That support didn’t just appear overnight. And there is no way that the finished report would have seen the light of day, if that wasn’t the intention of some one – or some group – within the EU.. Very Strange
In the interests of fairness, may I say that summer 2018 in SE England has been rather Mediterranean, however February and March were closer to Central European in nature, with frosts in late March delaying vegetable planting.
If we take an alternative hypothesis that solar inputs, oceanic modulations and geomagnetic influences create a climate demonstrating cyclical beats of differing amplitudes and frequencies, then we may ask a simple question:
Does an 18.6 year solar/linar beat bring extreme weather around once every 20 years and if so, may any useful predictions be made about winter 2018/19?
We in the UK recall the extreme winter of 1962/3, remember the record cold of December 1981, the extreme snowfall event in the Alps in February 1999 and wonder if anything might happen this year.
We compare the Easterlies of March 1962 and March 2018 and wonder if any similarities to winter 1962/3 are about to manifest themselves.
We remember that 1962/3 was close to solar minimum and note we are close to solar minimum right now.
All of this is simplistic correlation. Using the 18.6 year beat.
The 22 year beat saw cold winters in 1984/5 and 1985/6, around 22 years after 1962/3. December 2010 was 22 years after a very mild Uk winter…
Time will tell, but the hypothesis to be tested/refuted is that UK winter 2018/19 will maybe be cold and snowy based on the 18.6 year solar/lunar beat.