Monckton tour: a sellout with extra dates in Perth, Sydney

Christopher Monckton’s tour here has been so successful that extra dates have been booked for Perth (now Monday night and Tuesday night this week) and also a huge final show in Sydney on Friday with none-other than Alan Jones as MC. (For people not in Australia, Alan Jones is one of the most popular talk-back radio celebrities here). All up, Monckton will has spoken to around 6000 people live, and countless thousands through a packed schedule of radio interviews around the country.

UPDATE: Sydney has become a hot debate with Tim Lambert aka Deltoid  (see below). You must pre register to avoid disappointment for the Sydney final event on Friday. (download PDF!) The email to: ‘[email protected]’ OR FAX: (02) 4861 2029

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Monckton has played to packed houses everywhere, this one was in Newcastle. Photo: Thanks to Stefan.

Videos from one of the Melbourne speeches are linked below in two parts–they are excellent quality footage. Thanks to Case Smit and John Smeed for bringing the man and his wife Juliette this far around the world. Kudos to Ian Plimer for accompanying him.

Melbourne Part II

In Noosa, his talk was so popular that 350 people were left in the car-park unfortunately. When he found out, Monckton came outside to apologize personally, and gave them a 15 minute synopsis right there in the car-park.

Sofitel Audience Christopher Monckton

Sofitel Audience Christopher Monckton

PERTH

Monday 8 February

Luncheon Parmelia Hilton Hotel,

18:00 Public Lecture, Parmelia Hilton Hotel – ARGYLE ROOM now (capacity 690), Swan Room for the overflow. Download PDF

contact: Daphne Dimitri for Gina Rinehart, daphne_dhimitriAThancockprospecting.com.au

RSVP by Feb 3, Donation $10 at the door. (Insanely cheap!)

UPDATE 3: Well over 1000 people came, so people were sadly turned away. It was simply not possible to fit everyone in. Packed Packed Packed. Was an excellent event!


Tuesday February 9th, 6 – 8pm Download PDF

NEW! Thanks to the Australian Institute of International Affairs (WA)

Westfarmers Lecture Theatre, Business School, University of Western Australia

Hackett Drive (off Stirling Highway at Matilda Bay) Crawley.  Car Parks 8 and 9 (Accessed via Hackett Entry 4 and 3 respectively.)

$20 at the door, (please bring a $20 note) cash payment for admission, no bookings! (No food or drinks included). Doors open at 5pm.

UPDATE 4: The Room was overfull, but no one had to be turned away. Another great success.

SYDNEY

NEW! Debate with Deltoid (Tim Lambert). YOU MUST PREREGISTER! This will book out.

Friday February 12th, MC, Alan Jones

12:30 – 2:30 Grand Ballroom, Hilton Hotel, 488 George St Sydney

$30 at the door, cash payment for admission, You must PRE REGISTER so final numbers can be arranged and people won’t have to be turned away. Venue capacity is 1200. (But that’s how many came to the first event in Sydney!) No food or drinks included.

download NEW DEBATE PDF!

Monckton Jon Faine Interview Melbourne

Monckton at the Jon Faine Interview, Melbourne

Radio Australia Interview

The Radio Australia Interview

Monckton Melbourne interview ABC

Monckton preparing for a Melbourne interview with the ABC

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Passionately signing books in Newcastle -- Professor Ian Plimer

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Getting ready for the Newcastle presentation

Video’s of the Monckton Tour

Melbourne Part I

Melbourne Part II

To see the full slide show of the car-park event in Noosa visit Agmates.


UPDATE: Monday night
The first Perth event was a total sell-out tonight with well over 1000 people trying to get into a room that holds less than 700. The event started at 6pm, but even by 4.30pm there were no tickets to the main room left. The overflow room was also fully booked by 5.30, so people arriving after that were sadly turned away.

The room tomorrow only has a capacity of 380. Shame it’s not bigger!

Monckton and Plimer are both polished performers, and the slide show was absolutely packed full of information. I didn’t know that satellites show that Greenland ice has gotten thicker in the last half century.

Strangely though, the description of the shows I saw in the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age, didn’t seem like I saw the same show…

10 out of 10 based on 2 ratings

293 comments to Monckton tour: a sellout with extra dates in Perth, Sydney

  • #
    Phillip Bratby

    We need more Viscounts Monckton of Brenchley and fewer Princes Charles of Idiotland.

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    RES

    It does the heart good to see so many in the english speaking world kicking back at the petite tyrants. STAY IN THE FIGHT GOOD PEOPLE.

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    J.Hansford

    I like Lord Monckton. He strikes me as a man of integrity and compassion. I also have the utmost respect for his intellect, the vast store of knowledge he has and his outstanding ability to recall it.

    However, it is one thing just to have a vast knowledge base, Lord Monckton also possesses the wisdom to apply it reasonably, contextually and with devastating logic.

    I was going to finish with, ” It is good to have him on our side.”….. However Lord Monckton is only on the side of facts and scientific method… It would be impossible for him to be on the other side at all:-)

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    Baa Humbug

    In my 50yrs, I’ve never had a “hero” as such. Until now.
    Viscount Monckton of Brencheley, you are my hero.

    On another topic, those who would like to read a great summary and obituary of the IPCC should log onto American Thinker. “International Pack of Climate Crooks”.

    great read.

    Also, watch out at Andrew Bolts blog tomorrow (Monday Oz time) for DroughtGate (hopefully)

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    Hi Ms. Nova,

    IS there any chance you could put links to monckton’s interviews in Australia on radio and other related media – TV etc either on your site or youtube if you have them? I’m finding it quite difficult to find anything about his Australian appearances on the Web. I’m in New Zealand so i’m unable to attend mr. monckton’s lectures but i find him very entertaining and informative and it sure beats watching Kiwi TV. i’m an expat aussie braving the cultural void that is christchurch if that explains anything.:)

    Regards, mark

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    Baa Humbug

    The Australian Prime Minister said Monckton was part of a Worldwide Conspiracy of Skeptics.

    Hey folks, that’s us. WE ARE PART OF A CONSPIRACY, worldwide no less. TAKE A BOW lol

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    Baa Humbug

    Seeing these thousands of people (not to mention the multitudes turned away) must send a SHIVVERRR down the spine of our Prime Minister. There’s votes in them thar meets.

    20

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    janama

    Unfortunately people like Mike Carlton in the SMH feel the need to abuse him as do the comments to his piece.

    http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/debunking-the-myths-behind-the-pontificating-potty-peer-20100205-nikc.html

    What these people fail to realise is that Lord Monckton IS a showman, he uses his title only for effect, he decorates his charts with a peerage symbol for copyright purposes and claims his Peace prize as a joke. Margaret Thatcher wouldn’t assign some idiot to her policy group and designing a complex puzzle that baffles mathematicians is not the pastime of a “low-level drone”

    In fact if you check out Mike Carlton’s report you will find that it contains more errors than he accuses Lord Monckton of.

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    Baa Humbug

    What a great slide show at agmates. What a considerate gentleman to do the impromptue talk in the car park.

    10

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    Rod Smith

    Monckton: A practiced speaker, witty and erudite, with a great sense of humor and apparently a mind for storing facts modeled after a steel trap! And that description only scratches the surface.

    His father was an officer in the 5th Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards at the battle/evacuation of Dunkirk and later attained the rank of Maj. General. (As in the US military, for some strange reason, a Lt. Gen outranks a Maj. General. ???)

    It is hard to fathom the type of person who would comment on YouTube following the second video segment saying, “People just don’t come any more uneducated than this guy.”

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    Steve Schapel

    Mark (#5)…

    As another ex-pat Australian in New Zealand, allow me to point you to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGXngQDgAPY which is the first of a 9-part series, being a debate in Brisbane last week involving Monckton and Plimer, kinda devastating the “opposition”. I sat through the full 9 parts last night, and enjoyed immensely.

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    Mohib

    Full video of his presentation of Lord Monckton in St. Paul in October 09. 1 hour 35 mins. Probably similar in many regards to his Australia tour, but is pre ClimateGate, GlacierGate, etc.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stij8sUybx0

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    OT. This post “ABC present a climate time line or is that a climate time lie…” might interest. I particularly like the ABC’s take on the medieval warm period and Al Gore’s movie (apparently comments by a British judge are not considered part of history).

    ABC present a climate time line or is that a climate time lie…
    http://abcnewswatch.blogspot.com/2010/02/climate-time-line-or-time-lie.html

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    […] Monckton tour sellout, New green bureaucracy already operating, Science has rarely ever been about facts, […]

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    Denny

    Hi Joanne! I’m envious of you guys “down under” with Lord Monckton doing his “thing” and a great job in doing so I must say….Just for a head’s up, a computer scientist has found an error in the CRUTEM! Check this article out! http://www.globalwarminghoax.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?1883.last

    Here’s an article on “more” errors from the IPCC Report being found….
    http://www.globalwarminghoax.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?1877.last

    Well, have to get ready for the Super Bowl…Go Colts!!!! 🙂

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  • #
    Trevor Bock

    Interesting story in the Australian a couple of days ago…..
    A Vatican of the laboratory.
    THE recent climate science scandals have been revealing. For those of us who have had the experience of environmentalists accusing us of being “deniers” and “doubters of The Science”, as if science is a gospel truth that you question or ignore at your peril, they have also been enjoyable.

    Click here

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    Billyquiz

    The next time any warmist starts trying to insinuate that skeptics are funded by Big Oil you might like to mantion this:

    “It has also emerged that Teri’s (Pachauri’s Energy and Resources Institute) biggest single sponsor, BP India, which has provided £6 million, paid for dinner and drinks at an event publicising Dr Pachauri’s debut novel. A BP spokesman said it was entirely legitimate to fund the dinner, the company having enjoyed a ‘long association with Dr Pachauri’.”

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7177323/Climate-change-research-bungle.html

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    Bulldust

    O/T but I see The West is coincidently running a climate-related story today. It is now claimed that the decreased rainfall in the WA southwest is likely due to man-made global warming

    Now colour me foolish, but I thought cyclic changes like the decreasing rainfall in WA accompanied with increased snowfall in the Antarctic might be related to ocean current and associated wind cycles. But the Tassie CRC for Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems claims this is driven by increases in trace gases in the atmosphere.

    I quote from Dr van Ommen in the article:

    “This pattern has strengthened in the past 30 years and some of the computer models that reproduce this are showing that it looks like it has happened because of greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide – and also ozone (being depleted).

    “We wouldn’t claim on the strength of this that it is proven in black and white, but it’s another piece of evidence.

    “This is strong evidence that human climate change does make a contribution to the West Australian drought.”

    Anyone else feel this is a reasonable line of argument? Apart from the good doctor that is… I guess models = scientific proof these days.

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    Mark

    Saw m’lud Monckton on APAC on Saturday. Brilliant, just brilliant. Even had a go at his host, the Press (peanut?) Gallery, for failing in their duty to properly inform their readership.

    This video is 73 minutes but is well worth the time. Some snippets have been on view previously and while someone has probably linked to it before, there are always new visitors here who would not have seen it.

    http://www.documentarywire.com/great-global-warming-swindle

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    I don’t expect this post to last more than a few minutes but here goes. On the first video:
    0:15 “Now we are facing a problem today manufactured by the [IPCC]…”
    [A long and unfunny joke ensues, but this is nothing more than an ad hominem attack.]

    1:25 “The mere fact that warming has occurred does not tell us anything about what caused that warming…”
    [Followed by a correlation between sun spot activity and republican senators. This shows either a misunderstanding of the science, or a deliberate strawman. Physics tells us about causation. The correlation does not.]

    3:25 “DDT, the only effective agent against the mosquito…”
    [This has been thoroughly debunked elsewhere, including http://timpanogos.wordpress.com/2009/12/31/climate-change-and-ddt-moncktons-inconvenient-and-inaccurate-history/ Monckton’s ability to get away unchallenged with repetition of such lies says much about his supporters…]

    6:10 “We’re all gonna lie!”
    [Ad hominem attack. I don’t recognise the quote and would not be surprised if it’s well out of context but will reserve judgement.]

    6:25 “We’re all gonna lie! [2]”
    [Ad hominem attack. There is nothing wrong with the quote – it is accurate to say that GLOBAL warming is compatible with a SPECIFIC LOCALE becoming colder or drier or wetter. Or warmer.]

    6:45 “Nahn Lahs”
    [Ad hominem attack. Criticism of Gore’s exaggeration and misattribution is valid but doesn’t change the current state of climate science knowledge.]

    7:32 “Now we have as scientific phrase, we scientists, for this…”
    [Monckton is NOT a scientist. Not by education, nor profession.]

    8:45 “…appears to be, and in fact is, a statistically significant decline in temperature”
    [Only if beginning and end dates are cherry picked.]

    9:40 “… that was pretty good, but I don’t think they heard it in Canberra. Do we want an emissions trading scheme?”
    Audience (louder now) “NOOOO!!!”
    [WTF is this? An Anthony Robbins seminar FFS?]

    10

  • #

    “Monckton’s ability to get away unchallenged with repetition of such lies says much about his supporters…”

    I withdraw the word “lies” – please consider it replaced with “claims”

    10

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    Trevor

    To follow the latest climate developments look at http://www.icecap.us
    It is updated daily (Mon-Fri) and provides the latest information relating to climate change and real science associated with climatology. It is very up to date and has exposed all the scandals associated with Climatgate.

    10

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    Bulldust

    “Banned” Gleibitz:

    The Great Global Warming Swindle is fairly easy to debunk, but it was pitched at the level (and presumably directed as a response to) Al Gore’s infamous Inconvenient Truth. Now we are well aware of the exaggerations and outright mistruths in the latter, so this is really a case of pot-kettle-black.

    As for your favourite web site, I note one of the first resources they link is Al Gore’s film, so they have no problem whatsoever linking to resources which have been shown to contain untruths. This issue was settled in court in the UK.

    Real Climate has lost most of the credibility (assuming they had much to start with) they ever had. Schmidt, Hansen and Mann operate directly through that site, and they long since left the field of science in favour of advocacy.

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  • #

    “we are well aware of the exaggerations and outright mistruths in the latter, so this is really a case of pot-kettle-black”

    The same fallacious argument was made when I pointed out that spamming school-children with “The Skeptic’s Handbook” is WRONG (hey, Gore did it, so… shuttup).

    A similar fallacious argument abounds here, where scientists are called out for ad-hominem attacks but Monckton is lauded (and :rolleyes: ‘m’Lorded’) for same, ditto Plimer and others, and they sure abound in the comments.

    Two wrongs make a right? Not in my book. I think a rational person can be critical of Al Gore AND critical of Monckton. An irrational person will pick a side and back their man until the end…

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    “I note one of the first resources they link is Al Gore’s film”
    No, they link to their own critique of Gore’s film INCLUDING criticism of its errors and exaggeration. Not what I wrote about a rational person in my previous post.

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    ^- “Note”, not “not”

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    Roy Hogue

    Banned Gleibitz,

    I long ago gave up on looking for any kind of objectivity on realclimate. When I look into anything controversial I notice a big difference between an honest pro or con position and an advocate. An advocate usually just dismisses — mostly with extreme prejudice — anything that doesn’t agree with his position. Someone with a position reached from honest evaluation of facts may disagree with you but usually will not dismiss you. In fact they are generally willing to debate the matter. There are far too many of the former and not nearly enough of the latter.

    Now which attitude do you think I find on realclimate.org? The question answers itself.

    10

  • #

    “In fact they are generally willing to debate the matter. There are far too many of the former and not nearly enough of the latter.”

    Have you tried raising a question or debate point with the scientists or climate-literate other folk on realclimate.org? I find them to be very open to debate (and thorough debate regularly occurs in the comments section of the blog posts).

    Compare that to HERE where I have been silenced by thumbs-downs, and banned by Ms Nova for not providing the specific evidence she demanded (false evidence at that: that CO2 historically preceded temperature increase in the interglacial record; that her specific version of the tropospheric “fingerprint” exists).

    I think you need to pull off the blinkers. Give realclimate.org a go, rather than assuming them to be close-minded.

    10

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    Bulldust

    Banned…. Eric Steig absolutely fawns over Al Gore’s film in the review. Don’t say that this was a critical review mate because it was far from it. I shall quote you typical comments from Steig hereuner:

    How well does the film handle the science? Admirably, I thought. It is remarkably up to date, with reference to some of the very latest research. Discussion of recent changes in Antarctica and Greenland are expertly laid out.

    and

    For the most part, I think Gore gets the science right, just as he did in Earth in the Balance. The small errors don’t detract from Gore’s main point, which is that we in the United States have the technological and institutional ability to have a significant impact on the future trajectory of climate change.

    But at the start we see the real motivation for the positive review of this highly discreditted film:

    Since Gore is rumored to be a fan of RealClimate, we thought it appropriate to give our first impressions.

    The couple of errors they quote are so incredibly minor by comparison to the glaring untruths that proliferate the picture. Perhaps Eric Steig was not well enough researched to spot them all, but this does not detract from the fact that Real Climate proudly links this as a “Highlight” on their web site. Here is The Times’ take on the judgement (the judge didn’t have time to address more than the 9 errors – there were something like 30 presented if memory serves):

    http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article2633838.ece

    I would hardly call this “For the most part, I think Gore gets the science right…” No, for the most part Al Gore put in a lot of emotional claptrap and got a lot of major points wrong. You may as well base US Health Care reform on the folm “Sicko.” (I should note that I enjoy Michael Moore’s films, but do watch them with several pinches of salt handy).

    The climate change swindle film is an easy target mate… a complete red herring. Plenty of garbage has sprouted on both sides of the debate, but whereas you appear to want to focus on the easy targets, you have no interest in tackling the tough scientific questions. You brush them aside with casual comments and absolutely no solid references.

    BTW I suggest you look up “ad hominem”… I don’t think it means what you think it does judging by your misuse of the term on several occasions above. For example, when someone is lying and they are called out for it, that is not an ad honinem attack… it is merely pointing out the fact that they are lying.

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    janama

    Banned Gleibitz:

    “doesn’t tell us anything about what caused that warming” – well “Trenberth it’s a traversty that we can’t” doesn’t know either, so do you?

    You are very much like Tim Lambert in his criticisms of Lord Monckton and Ian Plimer in that put up a series of criticisms yet they are all superficial. Nowhere do you actually challenge the science he presents.

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    In Noosa, his talk was so popular that 350 people were left in the car-park unfortunately. When he found out, Monckton came outside to apologize personally, and gave them a 15 minute synopsis right there in the car-park.

    Under all that education, his ability to speak, and his grip on the subject we find out that this man’s really a class act.

    We need a few more like him.

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    Bulldust

    Banned

    Are you aware that Real Climate “moderates” most comments that do not support their arguments? I have had serious critical questions moderated into the bit bucket many times on that site.

    Only after Climategate blew the lid off their deception did they start to allow more comments on their site. I have also been moderated post-Climategate BTW… so it is purely at the whim of the hockey team what appears and what does not.

    Skeptics, by and large, long since stopped posting at RC because of this. It is no longer a serious debate when only one side talks.

    This is not just me, and every single banned post was polite. Many other serious posters at other sites have commented on this behavious at RC. It is hardly surprising in retrospect because they apply tyhe same sort of moderation to the peer-reviewed literature where they can.

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    “BTW I suggest you look up “ad hominem”… I don’t think it means what you think it does judging by your misuse of the term on several occasions above.”
    Point to one misuse. Here are your four options:
    1] Mockery of the IPCC (rather than criticism of their product)? Ad hominem (attacking the man rather than the message).
    2 & 3] “We’re all gonna lie” 1&2? Ad hominem (attacking the man rather than the message).
    4] “Nahn lahs” and on-going ridicule of Gore’s accent is PURE ad-hominem (attacking the man rather than the message) despite the later valid criticisms.

    Which of the four is misuse? Perhaps you are the one who needs do a bit of latin learning?

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    Bulldust

    In light of the UK court decision for a guidance document to be read prior to screenings of “An Inconvenient Truth” in UK schools, I am not sure what point you fail to understand. A lie is a lie, regardless of whether he says lie or lah in the slides. It is not an ad hominem attack to state it thusly, unless perhaps you are splitting pedantic hairs and saying “lah” is making an ad hom mockery of his accent. The latter would be a ridiculously weak argument for an ad hom attack, but hey… most of your arguments to date have been unsubstantiated and weak. Perhaps you consider this an ad hom LOL

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    “unless perhaps you are splitting pedantic hairs and saying “lah” is making an ad hom mockery of his accent.”
    Yes, of course mocking a person’s manner of speech (continuously, if you’ve watched the video) is ad hominem. Not maybe. Not pedantically. Blatantly.

    That Monckton repeatedly relies on such lame attacks throughout his presentation reflects poorly on him, regardless of your fawning defence. I make a point of it because you lot are so constantly put-out by what you see as ad hominem attacks on denialists but accept them unquestioningly (along with baseless and absurd claims) from your latest pinup boy…

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    Monckton says he can provide sources?

    He lies when he says annual deaths from malaria were at 50,000 a year. It’s a crass lie, absolutely untrue, and certainly not in the case of DDT. When DDT use was at its apex, we had as many as 2 million people die each year from malaria. Today, with bans in places where DDT is no problem, we have about one million deaths each year from malaria — lower than at any time since DDT was released to be used against mosquitoes.

    Furthermore, the man who invented DDT didn’t get a Nobel prize, ever. A fellow who, 40 years later, discovered DDT was effective as an insecticide got the award. It was awarded largely because of DDT’s effectiveness in fighting typhus, not malaria (the award was given in 1948, prior to widespread use of DDT against malaria).

    By the way, there never was a WHO ban on DDT. Kotchi didn’t “lift” any ban in 2005 — he merely put out a press release. It was necessitated by the fight against modest DDT use by African businesses, not environmentalists.

    Now, Monckton is a urine-impoverished scientist, so I don’t expect him to understand DDT (which he obviously does not), but his degree is in the classics and we might expect him to get the history right.

    I hereby challenge Monckton to put up his citations for his false claims about DDT (the clip you have makes it impossible to know whether he is still telling the fantastic lies about President and Mrs. John F. Kennedy that he soiled Canada with in his recent tour there; but if he did, he’s a coward and a liar).

    Since he cannot possible provide evidence to things that are not true, he should just shut up.

    Will he give refunds to any of the people who paid $20 to hear him, to whom he lied, without shame?

    Will a man who lies without shame about dead women (Rachel Carson and Jackie Kennedy are two I know about), tell the truth about global warming, when he’s being paid tens of thousands of dollars to say something else?

    Do you have any agency in Australia that chases people for false advertising?

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    Speedy

    Ed (39)

    I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this blog tends to discuss the climate debate quite a bit. Can we take it, by your silence on the matter, that you agree with Lord Monckton that increased CO2 concentrations will increase global temperatures, but that the effects, in practice, are neglible?
    To help your deliberations, perhaps you could refer to the Cambrian era climate and atmosphere… Where it was about 15 times more than today, and all it did was make the trees grow.

    I understand that this rather simple scientific fact is the point and the thrust of Monckton’s visit.

    Regards,

    Speedy.

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    In light of the UK court decision for a guidance document to be read prior to screenings of “An Inconvenient Truth” in UK schools, I am not sure what point you fail to understand. A lie is a lie, regardless of whether he says lie or lah in the slides. It is not an ad hominem attack to state it thusly, unless perhaps you are splitting pedantic hairs and saying “lah” is making an ad hom mockery of his accent. The latter would be a ridiculously weak argument for an ad hom attack, but hey… most of your arguments to date have been unsubstantiated and weak. Perhaps you consider this an ad hom LOL

    The judge in that case said Al Gore was right on the big questions. In fact, Justice Burton said:

    “Al Gore’s presentation of the causes and likely effects of climate change in the film was broadly accurate.”

    A lie is a lie, indeed. It’s a lie to say the judge said Al Gore’s movie was wrong.

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    Roy Hogue

    Banned,

    Let’s get down to earth here. For all the years (about 10) that I’ve spent studying global warming, the skeptics have been not only been willing to debate but anxious to debate. “Let’s debate this on the merit of the evidence supporting the claim that CO2 is warming or even can warm the planet.” They have been refused at every request. Why? Are warming proponents afraid of something? Do they have something to hide? You tell me! After that goes on for a while they begin to look just plain dishonest on account of that refusal all by itself.

    You come along here and your demeanor is basically hostile. You post things that are not supported by empirical evidence then complain when Jo asks you for it. She will not let me do that any more than she will let you or anyone else do it.

    This may be old, over used and trite but it’s true nevertheless. You can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar.

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    “You post things that are not supported by empirical evidence then complain when Jo asks you for it.”

    No, I complain that the ONLY EVIDENCE SHE ACCEPTS is that which has been repeatedly debunked by the scientific community. Specifically: that CO2 historically preceded temperature increase in the interglacial record; that her specific version of the tropospheric “fingerprint” exists.

    THAT is the evidence she insisted I provide, which I am unable to provide, and which is absolutely irrelevant to the question of man’s impact upon the climate.

    And for this, I was banned? Yep.

    This post will disappear along with so many others…

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    Bulldust

    O.o A link to Deltoid… won’t even comment on that one. Try going to the source mate, rather than a blatantly activist blog. You inconveniently dropped off what the judge said next:

    “He agreed that Mr Gore’s film was “broadly accurate” in its presentation of the causes and likely effects of climate change but said that some of the claims were wrong and had arisen in “the context of alarmism and exaggeration.”

    No one has ever debated that CO2 causes some warming (I have said it before in this very blog), but what is highly contentious and not proven is the feedback mechanisms in the climate system as a whole.

    CAGW types argue warming of the order of 3-6 degrees in the next 50-100 years or whatever. The skeptics say this is alarmist and contains too many unfounded assumptions about feedback mechanisms not scientifically proven. In fact some, such as Prof Lindzen, argue the feedbacks are negative and not positive as the IPCC models would assert.

    On this most important of points the science is certainly not settled, and not even close to being thus.

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    Speedy

    Ed

    Sorry old son; I’m sure Al Gore got some of the facts right, but he stuffed up big time (somewhat “conveniently”) on the big issues. Like the over-arching conclusion, for instance, that increased man-made CO2 emissions into the atmosphere will have a significant and harmful effect on the climate. If that’s wrong – and it is – then it relegates the rest of the movie to the fiction/fantasy aisle.

    Do you still agree that Chris Monckton is right – namely that increased CO2 doesn’t, hasn’t and never will have any significant impact on the climate? (Apart from that first 50 ppm that mops up almost all of the 14.5 micron wavelength, of course.)

    We all agree CO2 is a greenhouse gas – its just that its miniscule incremental effect at levels beyond 300 ppm makes it irrelevant.

    Regards,

    Speedy

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    Baa Humbug

    Ed Darrell:
    February 8th, 2010 at 1:57 pm

    “I hereby challenge Monckton to put up his citations for his false claims about DDT.”

    By all means, but why do it here? Why not log onto the SPPI Blog HERE and put out the challenge. You can then let us know what the response was. “but if he did, he’s a coward and a liar”. Don’t leave out the good bits OK?

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    Baa Humbug

    Banned Gleibitz:
    February 8th, 2010 at 10:59 am

    “I don’t expect this post to last more than a few minutes but here goes”.

    It’s been 4hrs and your post is still up. Care to make a comment on this and your consequent reflections on this blog and Jo?

    p.s. the word denier is creeping into you posts again. Short memory?

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    Baa Humbug

    Ed Darrell:
    February 8th, 2010 at 2:19 pm

    “A lie is a lie, indeed. It’s a lie to say the judge said Al Gore’s movie was wrong”.

    Ed you seem to be well versed in the subject of AGW.
    Can you tell me if you are aware of any “lies” from the pro AGW side?

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    Bulldust and Speedy, shall we keep score? There were 36 charges of “error.” The judge found no errors.

    0-36 for your side.

    The judge said 9 claims in the film might colorably have some political opposition, and that opposition should be noted. You claim “error.”

    9 “let’s have a debate,” you call ’em “WRONG!”

    Falsehoods against Gore 9, accurate claims, 0.

    Then you trot out Monckton, who claims John Kennedy came back from the grave in 1970 to create the EPA (seven years after Kennedy was shot), and that EPA only tackled DDT because Jackie Kennedy read Rachel Carson’s book, thereby insulting two dead women in one swoop.

    Fact is that WHO discontinued DDT use in Africa in the middle 1960s when mosquitoes became resistant and immune to it (read the full story in this great profile of malaria fighter Fred Soper in the New Yorker)

    Were Monckton right that CO2 has trivial effects on climate, our planet could not possibly be warm enough for life. CO2’s powerful greenhouse effect is what makes this planet warm enough for life to exist. Overdoing it is like overdoing any good thing — it quickly turns dangerous. A pure oxygen environment blinds newborn babies, and it can make adults forget to breath. CO2 is an essential gas that chemically reminds us to breath, but also can upset the acid balance in our body and cause kidney and heart failure and death.

    In the wild, CO2 warms the planet enough for life. But powerful enough to do that, it’s also powerful enough to wreak havoc if in much greater concentrations. Monckton’s so far outside the playing field on this topic he’s not even wrong — scientists now debate whether we’ve gone so far that disaster can’t be stopped, or whether there is still time. Monckton wants to debate the number of vowels in “disaster.”

    Moncton’s right, you know: Disaster has five vowels in it, if we do as Monckton asks and count “s” as a vowel.

    Give him his victory, small, unconsequential and silly as it is, and get him off the stage. He’s fiddling while the planet burns. Your grandchildren, if they survive, will wonder why you didn’t assassinate the guy if you had the chance, were we to listen to him. What will you tell them?

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    Baa Humbug

    This is good. Here is one of the more popular Superbowl ads of this year. Click here

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    tide

    Ed Darrell @39 said:

    Since he cannot possible [sic] provide evidence to things that are not true, he should just shut up.

    Since the warmists have not produced (real) evidence of man made global warming would you offer the same advice to them?

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    Speedy

    Baa Humbug

    I’m struggling to think of any Pro-AGW lies – only stuff to do with FOI files, Hockey sticks (Pt 1 & 2), Himalayan glaciers, Rajendra Pachauri’s tax payments, 20 foot sea level rises, runaway greenhouse levels at 480 ppm, anything to do with polar bears, climategate, peer review being an open process, increased CO2 having a significant impact on global temperatures once it gets beyond 300 ppm. Al Gore. Feedback forcing factors, etc etc.

    Now you mention it, they have told a few whoppers, haven’t they?

    Cheers,

    Speedy.

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  • #

    Can you tell me if you are aware of any “lies” from the pro AGW side?

    Errors, yes, lies no. It’s great news that the Himalayan glaciers should last 300 years longer than we predicted — arsenic-instilled and dirty, polluted rivers with too little water in them still plague all of Asia, demanding action now. The hockey-stick chart Monckton likes to make fun of predicted the warming we saw in the last ten years, but not until ten years from now — so warming is proceeding much faster than the pessimists thought.

    The biggest errors were partly stupid and partly unforeseen. We should have expected companies like Exxon-Mobil to spend the billions they have on propaganda to sucker people into thinking there is science controversy where there is not (and it’s scary as hell to me to see my old nemeses from the tobacco wars no cranking out press materials for the climate contrarians, saying there is controversy over whether tobacco causes cancer humans cause warming — all they had to do was change a few words in the press releases). It was error to think that expensive propaganda campaigns would not be conducted.

    And we seem to have forgotten Barnum’s Law. Ben Franklin said truth wins in a fair fight. Consequently, we should have expected that, with the stops pulled out of the money coffers to plant “doubt,” masses of the public would fail to discern the facts.

    You’re in Australia? Have you stopped for ten minutes to consider why it is there seem to be more, and more serious, wildfires in the past decade? Do you really think Al Gore personally persuaded the migratory birds to change their habits, just to support his political goals?

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    Sandy

    I agree with J. Hansford’s comment,above
    I was fortunate enough to hear Lord Monckton speak at Newcastle on 28th Jan.
    There was no political malice in his delivery.
    He was a total gentleman and a pleasure to listen to.
    He delivered …facts…
    He then encouraged the audience to go home and research for themselves..
    This is what all Australians should be doing at present.
    Everyone wants to hear ALL the facts associated with CC/GW/ETS/..Weather Variability(correct terminology)
    Unfortunately the censored media and pitiful Labor/Green Government(everyone should start linking these TWO as ONE and the SAME)…are preventing ordinary Australian’s domocratic right to learn and debate this topic.
    After all, it is OUR future direction that is more at stake here, than any debate on, “if the planet is hotting up”…..which of course it isnt.
    Even my 86yr old father tells me he experienced 50c temps when he was a boy..and birds were falling out of the sky..dead.!!

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    I’m struggling to think of any Pro-AGW lies – only stuff to do with FOI files, Hockey sticks (Pt 1 & 2), Himalayan glaciers, Rajendra Pachauri’s tax payments, 20 foot sea level rises, runaway greenhouse levels at 480 ppm, anything to do with polar bears, climategate, peer review being an open process, increased CO2 having a significant impact on global temperatures once it gets beyond 300 ppm. Al Gore. Feedback forcing factors, etc etc.

    FOI files, no lies about science — and so far, the official investigations (which exhonerated Michael Mann of the stuff you crudely charge him with) have not verified any wrongdoing. I’d go so far as to challenge you to produce any evidence of wrongdoing in the e-mails, at least on the side of the scientists who document warming. I read them, and the only evidence of science fraud I found was on somebody doctoring a paper to contest warming. Will you support prosecution of the offenders?

    Hockey stick? It’s a projection. And as you know, the projected temperatures for 1995 to 2010 were lower than the actual measured temperatures. Are you willing to admit that those who said warming wasn’t happening are liars, and should be considered so?

    Looking at the rest of the list you’ve produced, I’ve got to say: Barnum was wrong. He was way, way too optimistic.

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  • #

    There was no political malice in his delivery.

    Then you won’t object when I note that Monckton is a bedwetter, right? Just political talk, no malice.

    He was a total gentleman and a pleasure to listen to.
    He delivered …facts…
    He then encouraged the audience to go home and research for themselves..

    When you wish to check out his claims about DDT, you can start here: Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub, about 100 posts on DDT, malaria, and the science

    I list Monckton’s errors on DDT, individually, with links to where you can see he was wrong on the history and the science.

    And I don’t know about you, but I consider it malice when he goes after the reputations of dead women for fun, as he does Jackie Kennedy and Rachel Carson. Were he a man of manners, he’d pick living targets who can respond.

    Which is why he won’t debate me. It’ll be interesting to see what whoppers he tells to win the audience in his debate with Tim Lambert next week — but be assured, there will be whoppers from Monckton.

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    Tide, come on out to Texas. We had a man-made disaster here called the Dust Bowl. You’re too young to remember — but you do have history books in Australia, don’t you?

    There are others — The Aral Desert (formerly sea), the continuing growth of the Sahara, the destruction of the forests of Lebanon (now desert), the destruction of the farming plains around Babylon, the deforesting of New Hampshire, and dozens of other examples.

    Santayana said those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat. Those who refuse to heed the past, however, drag the rest of us screaming into disaster.

    You owe it to your grandchildren not to be a lamb to the slaughter.

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    Speedy

    Ed

    Time to take a calm pill and book the anger managment class.

    Conspiring to delete FOI files. Phil Jones et at.

    And who gave Michael Mann the clean bill? His grandma probably – the “investigation” would have been as bent as the peer review process was shown to be at Climategate.

    The “Read Me Harry” file and the “VERY artificial” factors applied to the temperature record.

    Medieval warming period, lack thereof – according to Mann and Briffa. (Better tell the Vikings of Newfoundland)

    Temperatures of the 2000’s going sideways, CO2 going up. No evidence of correlation. Just like the 1940’s.

    Take the blinkers off Eddie – warming has been going on since the end of the Little Ice Age (see Hockey stick etc.) Temperatures have been up and down like a harlot’s tweeds, whatever the CO2 has done. What’s so different now?

    Cheers,

    Speedy

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    tide

    Ed,

    I’ll take your comments on age to be a compliment though I’m probably older than you are.

    However, your comment speculating on the existence of history books in Australia is rather insulting of our good friends down under and you should apologize for it. And, of course, our (U.S.) history books are being transformed into mindless, diluted and politically correct drivel.

    But to the point, not one of the examples of climate change you cited give any indication of what caused that change. The term “natural variability” would seem to be appropriate.

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    Baa Humbug

    here is what Michael Crichton said about DDT

    I can tell you that DDT is not a carcinogen and did not cause birds to die and should never have been banned. I can tell you that the people who banned it knew that it wasn’t carcinogenic and banned it anyway. I can tell you that the DDT ban has caused the deaths of tens of millions of poor people, mostly children, whose deaths are directly attributable to a callous, technologically advanced western society that promoted the new cause of environmentalism by pushing a fantasy about a pesticide, and thus irrevocably harmed the third world. Banning DDT is one of the most disgraceful episodes in the twentieth century history of America. We knew better, and we did it anyway, and we let people around the world die and didn’t give a damn.

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    Baa Humbug

    Ed Darrell:
    February 8th, 2010 at 3:29 pm

    Why are you lecturing about the environment? Are you assuming the people who take part in discussions on this blog are anti-environment?

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    Bulldust

    Ed Darrelll

    Have you even read the Guidance Notes for AIT*? What part of a 7m sea level rise accurately portrays the scientific consensus? In the timeframe Gore posits it… none. That’s a lie. He followed this with dramatic shots of simulated city drownings… come on now.

    What part of polar bears dying out is in line with published reports? None… the population of polar bears as a whole is increasing, with only a minority of heards (packs? whatever) decreasing. Another lie. Four drowned polar bears were proof? That was a storm FFS.

    What part of malaria-bearing mosquitos being able to inhabit areas with a wide range of temperatures is not understood? Hence Gore’s claim that a slight warming means dramatic encroachment into populated areas… a lie. They are already there.

    I could go on… but I think the point is made here. AIT is grossly inaccurate even by IPCC standards.

    If you focused a little more on facts and proper references (rather than one blog which you repeatedly link to – spam much?) you might gain more traction here.

    As for Michael Mann being exonnerated… I think you’ll find they are still investigating him, to wit:

    “Decision 4. Given that information emerged in the form of the emails purloined from CRU in November 2009, which have raised questions in the public’s mind about Dr. Mann’s conduct of his research activity, given that this may be undermining confidence in his findings as a scientist, and given that it may be undermining public trust in science in general and climate science specifically, the inquiry committee believes an investigatory committee of faculty peers from diverse fields should be constituted under RA-10 to further consider this allegation.”

    Besides, it was a Penn State University investigation… what verdict did you think they were going to come up with when there is so much funding in climate research? Seriously… I am sure they will deliver a light slap on the wrist on point 4 and go back to business as usual.

    Unfortunately for them, political pressure can be brought to bear on Penn State University because they are a State-funded university (as are all universities in the US called “University of {statename}” or “{statename} state university”).

    * An Inconvenient Truth

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    Baa Humbug

    Ed Darrell:
    February 8th, 2010 at 3:29 pm

    Santayana said those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat. Those who refuse to heed the past, however, drag the rest of us screaming into disaster.

    So lets look at the past shall we.

    “We must deal with climate change now.We simply cannot afford to gamble by ignoring it. We cannot risk inaction. Those scientists who say we are merely in a period of climatic instability are acting irresponsibly. The indications that our climate can soon change for the worse are too strong to be reasonably ignored”.

    I’m sure you’ll agree with the above won’t you Ed?
    That was an extract from a book by Lowell Ponte pp 237 “The Cooling” 1978

    Greatest Threat in History

    “History offers no example of a parallel threat on a global, national or even local scale. To “wait and see” invites disaster. Only the long term threats of global warming, oxygen loss, exhaustion of other basic resources in the oceans and continents as well as the eventual possibility of an earth-asteroid collision demand worldwide action on a similar scale. A worldwide strategic mobilization similar to the effort required by WW2 must be developed in the weeks ahead”.

    1998 UN Working group on Informatics (Y2K remember?)

    I think we know who has learned and who has not from history don’t we Ed?

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    “I think we know who has learned and who has not from history don’t we Ed?”

    You do realise that scientific opinion WAS NOT behind the ice-age scare though, don’t you? Despite what the deniers would have us all believe:

    “A survey of peer reviewed scientific papers from 1965 to 1979 show that few papers predicted global cooling (7 in total). Significantly more papers (42 in total) predicted global warming (Peterson 2008). The large majority of climate research in the 1970s predicted the Earth would warm as a consequence of CO2. Rather than 1970s scientists predicting cooling, the opposite is the case.”
    http://www.skepticalscience.com/ice-age-predictions-in-1970s.html

    A lie, repeated, does not become true.

    MYTH: BUSTED!

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    Baa Humbug

    Bulldust:
    February 8th, 2010 at 3:56 pm

    Bulldust you’re misunderstanding Ed. Telling tales, manipulating, distorting, torturing and agonizing facts IS NOT LYING. Lying is what “contrarians” (god I love that word) do. Responsibly alerting the general populace with manipulation, exaggeration, moulding and stretching facts IS NOT LYING. Don’t you get it Bulldust? Are you brain dead or what? Now say sorry to Mr Ed 🙂

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    janama

    here’s the history of DDT

    http://www.mitosyfraudes.org/Ingles/Jukes.html

    Lord Monckton, as Baa Humbug correctly states, uses the DDT story as an example of science gone wrong which is what he believes is happening all over again with AGW.

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    Baa Humbug

    Banned Gleibitz:
    February 8th, 2010 at 4:09 pm

    You need to try and understand what’s being said rather than just read words and sentences.

    The point of the matter is A L A R M I S M. Over and over again about a variety of things, hence my referral to the Y2K situation.

    So, your “Peer Reviewed” consensus of 42 papers said earth will warm ha? It’s now 45 years since 1965, thats 2 generations. We’ve all been doomed for 45 years. 5 generations of poar bears have come and gone, we’re still waiting waiting waiting. Antarctic ice is still there, waiting waiting waiting. Glaciers are still there (at least until 2035 anyway lol) waiting waiting waiting. Amazon hasn’t turned into a savanna, waiting waiting waiting. Sahara hasn’t expanded,(infact it has shrunk) waiting waiting waiting.

    “Hey Leonardo, whenna r you gunna finnish ha?”

    Look here you two, I don’t need a couple of amateur snake oil salesman cutting and pasting from alarmist web blogs to tell me about the future of my grand kids. Far far better alarmists in Hansen Gore Flannery Brown Rudd Karoly have tried. You two light weights are just a bit of fun for me. Rather like the god salesman who come knocking at my door.

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    Bulldust

    Thanks Baa Humbug… I got it. It does sadden me how many people try to devide the populace and play these debates as two widely disparate camps. The truth is sadly lost from view in such firestorms. I am always amazed how the likes of Anthony Watts and Steve McIntyre manage to stay cool when attacked on multiple fronts by the CAGW beast in its various guises. I wish I had their temperance at times 🙂

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    Fancy a strawman with that scarecrow? :rolleyes:

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    Baa Humbug

    Ed Darrell:
    February 8th, 2010 at 3:29 pm

    By the way Santayana didn’t say “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat”.

    He said…

    “You gotto change your evil ways, baby
    Before I stop lovin’ you
    You got to change, baby”……

    Now get it right next time.

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    “So, your “Peer Reviewed” consensus of 42 papers said earth will warm ha? It’s now 45 years since 1965, thats 2 generations. We’ve all been doomed for 45 years. 5 generations of poar bears have come and gone, we’re still waiting waiting waiting.”
    No, not doomed. We’ve been warming, just as the scientists said would happen. Not waiting, warming.

    I’m no doom-monger, I’m a realist. But the crap you’re peddling is a gross misrepresentation of where the science is at. As I said, it’s a strawman, pure and simple (mostly the latter).

    If you want to talk about reality, stop drawing your silly cartoons, okay?

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    Anne-Kit Littler

    You’re pretty good with strawmen yourself, Banned. Yes, we’ve been warming. About 0.7 degrees C since the end of the Little Ice Age. Well within natural variance. You may now untwist your knickers.

    Next!

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    Cement a friend

    Banned (43)you should respect that Jo allows you to post at all when you repeat unscientific nonsense from biased sites which do not allow free discussion.
    With regard to CO2 lagging temperature in ice core records, look at the following on this site http://joannenova.com.au/global-warming/ice-core-graph/ . Then have a look at some of the peer reviewed papers which are linked.
    If you want more recent information based on actual measurements look at the following http://www.biomind.de/realCO2/papers.htm
    The CO2 data in years prior to 1960 in the Keeling graph of CO2 is a fiddle similar to the Briffa tree ring proxy data for temperature.
    There has been no proof offered from basic scientific or technology theory to the hypothesis that “man emitted CO2 causes a significant change in atmospheric temperature” . On the other hand the hypothesis has been falsified by a number of different ways in peer reviewed published literature. The falsification include considerations of thermodynamics, spectra and CO2 absorptivity, solar cycle identifications, global circulation patterns, global heat balances, satellite temperature and gas concentration measurements and evidence that temperature leads CO2 (the opposite of the hypothesis)
    From my observations the people who are most outspoken and defenders of the global warming belief have no scientific or technical qualifications to make an assessment of the technology such as heat transfer or thermodynamics. In some countries, and some states of countries, these people could be breaking the law by not being registered and not being competent in areas where they are giving advice to the government and/or the public.

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    Anne-Kit Littler

    Ed # 53: “arsenic-instilled and dirty, polluted rivers with too little water in them still plague all of Asia, demanding action now” And this has relevance to AGW … I’m sorry, how – exactly?

    “The hockey-stick chart Monckton likes to make fun of predicted the warming we saw in the last ten years, but not until ten years from now — so warming is proceeding much faster than the pessimists thought.” ??? Firstly, what warming? Even your side acknowledges the lack of warming in the last decade. Secondly, if warming is predicted ten years from now, how can you possibly know that warming is proceeding faster than anyone thinks? This statement of yours simply makes no sense.

    “You’re in Australia? Have you stopped for ten minutes to consider why it is there seem to be more, and more serious, wildfires in the past decade?” Seem to be, Ed? Are we going on hunches and feelings now? What, no peer review?

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    Baa Humbug

    So Gleibitz was formerly banned, so he shall be nick named DDT

    Ed repeats the alarmists mantra ad nauseum whilst waving the flag, just like a politician. mmmm politician, repeating like a parrot. So he shall be nick named Pollie

    Wanna hear a joke DDT? Pollie?

    Man takes a woman to his place for the first time.
    Wanting to impress her, he takes her over to his parrot and says…
    “Pollie want a cracker?”

    Parrot replies…

    “Crack her yourself, you brought her here”

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    J.Hansford

    Banned Gleibitz:February 8th, 2010 at 11:02 am

    “Monckton’s ability to get away unchallenged with repetition of such lies says much about his supporters…”

    I withdraw the word “lies” – please consider it replaced with “claims”

    No… You already said it BG and it shows very eloquently what you are. A Partisan who engages in ad hominem attacks on Lord Monckton… and probably any person skeptical of AGW’s catastrophic claims.

    What you need to consider BG, is the science… Not the politics.

    You also said this…

    [Monckton is NOT a scientist. Not by education, nor profession.]

    which I found to be enlightening about your character. Lord Monckton is a trained mathematician. He is trained to apply his mind logically to seeking answers to explain observations…. That is all a “scientist” does. Your beef with him is that he is not recognized or credentialed in a field of science. It’s just another ad hominem attack on him instead of rebutting his claims.

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    Black Duck

    Folks,

    PLEASE don’t feed the trolls. It’s impossible to provide facts to counter propaganda.

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    MattB

    top photo, to the gent 4th from right front row:
    “WHY ARE YOU WEARING A SINGLET AND BOXER SHORTS???” How embarrasing.

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    Bulldust

    MattB @ 78:
    It was at Newcastle. Had he done a talk in Kalgoorlie I would have expected much more blue singlet action 😀

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    Baa Humbug

    The “Drought-Gate” article I mentioned in my post last night is now up on Andrew Bolts blog HERE

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    Faye Busch

    I was touched by a little incident where Lord Monckton showed his humanity and empathy – his desire to reach out and make another human being feel worthy.

    It was at the Brisbane Irish Club, Friday 29 January 2010, and it was during questions from the audience to Lord Monckton and Professor Ian Plimer.

    After several questions, a gentleman (from where I was seated, I could not see and hardly heard) ask his question to the moderator of the session. The moderator answered “Was that a comment?” and after a reply said “We will treat that as a comment.” That was the end of that.

    The moderator was about to ask the next question when Lord Monckton jumped in and asked this gentleman “Where are you from?” The fellow said “Poland” whereupon Lord Monckton beamingly greeted him in Polish. Lord Monckton then proceeded to tell us all of the significance of Poland’s part in the downfall of communism in Europe.

    That man probably had lived through what most Australians would not have a clue about. Three cheers for Lord Monckton.
    Faye

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    Anne-Kit Littler

    Yes that’s a mark of a true gentleman. I’m off to secure a good seat at the Hilton for the talk tonight! See some of you there 🙂

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    Speedy

    MattB

    Oi! For your information, that bloke is me! And you’ll notice that the singlet has been ironed specially for the occasion…

    Cheers,

    Speedy

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    Phillip Bratby

    Banned: “Have you tried raising a question or debate point with the scientists or climate-literate other folk on realclimate.org?”

    Answer: yes. As an old-time scientist I pointed out to them a better way of doing something and asked why they didn’t do it that way. I was told I didn’t know what I was talking about. I followed up with a response that I had many years experience in the topic and did know what I was talking about. My response did not appear and I was banned from further comments.

    Is that what you call debate?

    The attitude at realcimate speaks volumes to me and thousands of honest scientists.

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    With due respect Mr Bratby, I suspect that may be bullshit. However, evidence of censorship on this site here is overwhelming. Feel free to call it ‘proof’. 😉

    [The Empirical evidence (see this comment?) suggests your claims about “overwhelming” censorship … are as delusional as the IPCC claims of “evidence”. You want to get banned, obviously, but succeeded only in getting your comments held until you show either evidence or manners. if you interpret that to be banned, that says something about your evidence, and your manners…. –JN]

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  • #

    Firstly, what warming? Even your side acknowledges the lack of warming in the last decade. Secondly, if warming is predicted ten years from now, how can you possibly know that warming is proceeding faster than anyone thinks? This statement of yours simply makes no sense.

    Even the most ardent science denialists tend to admit that 1998 is either #1 or #2 for warmest year on record. The “cooling” you refer to is a minor fluctuation below 1998’s record heat — in short, it’s no cooling at all. The past decade, that is one year after 1998, is the hottest decade ever recorded.

    So, if you cheat and take 1998 as your baseline year, you can argue we’ve seen cooling. If you don’t cheat, we’ve seen dramatic warming that kept us near the record hot year for more than a decade.

    Now, the chart you try to dismiss made some predictions about where the temperature would be, with warming. The predictions were low. Actual temperature readings were higher than the chart predicted. So when anyone claims that there is some “problem” about “false predictions” from IPCC, I have to wonder if they know how to read a thermometer.

    You’re right, the IPCC predictions of the 1990s did not perfectly track what we actually saw in temperature readings from 1995 through 2009. But instead of those temperatures showing a cooling trend, they were much higher than the IPCC charts indicated.

    So, while you call it cooling, it’s hotter than predicted, and hotter than any other time in history.

    Even in Polish, that makes Monckton’s claims untrue. Especially in Polish.

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    janama

    Black duck’s right – let’s stop feeding the trolls – you know who they are.

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    Seem to be, Ed? Are we going on hunches and feelings now? What, no peer review?

    You don’t even have a master’s thesis, unpublished, to document claims of cooling, nor to rebut any fact posited in the IPCC report.

    In your cleverness to avoid answering the question, you reveal the heart of the problem contrarians have: No leg to stand on.

    A hunch documented in the newspaper beats a complete lack of data any day. Peer review? Yeah, there are papers on it. You didn’t know?

    Here, check out this April 2001 paper from Climatic Change; note that, contrary to the completely unevidenced claims that rising CO2 levels are harmless, the scientists find that rising CO2 especially increases fire danger in Australia.

    Climatic Change, Volume 49, Numbers 1-2 / April,2001; pp. 171-191
    The Sensitivity of Australian Fire Danger to Climate Change

    Allyson A. J. Williams 1, David J. Karoly 2 and Nigel Tapper 1
    (1) Department of Geography and Environmental Science, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia, 3168
    (2) CRC Southern Hemisphere Meteorology, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia, 3168

    Abstract: Global climate change, such as that due to the proposed enhanced greenhouse effect, is likely to have a significant effect on biosphere-atmosphere interactions, including bushfire regimes. This study quantifies the possible impact of climate change on fire regimes by estimating changes in fire weather and the McArthur Forest Fire Danger Index (FDI), an index that is used throughout Australia to estimate fire danger. The CSIRO 9-level general circulation model(CSIRO9 GCM)is used to simulate daily and seasonal fire danger for the present Australian climate and for a doubled-CO2 climate. The impact assessment includes validation of the GCMs daily control simulation and the derivation of lsquo correction factors rsquo which improve the accuracy of the fire danger simulation. In summary, the general impact of doubled-CO2 is to increase fire danger at all sites by increasing the number of days of very high and extreme fire danger.Seasonal fire danger responds most to the large CO2-induced changes in maximum temperature.

    You could check out Google Scholar, and you may be surprised that there really are a lot of peer-reviewed publications backing the discussions of climate change — none that Lord Monckton has ever seen, but that’s his veracity problem, not yours or mine. The truth is out there. Alas, the truth does not appear to be in Monckton.

    And any peer reviewed paper saying there is no harm?

    Now answer my question without snarking, please: Have you considered why it is that there seem to be more, and more serious, wildfires in Australia? What evidence have you turned up?

    10

  • #

    Someone asked:

    Have you even read the Guidance Notes for AIT*? What part of a 7m sea level rise accurately portrays the scientific consensus? In the timeframe Gore posits it… none. That’s a lie. He followed this with dramatic shots of simulated city drownings… come on now.

    That’s one the judge reviewed. He thought the time-frame was fuzzy. I’ve listened to the thing a couple of times, and I thought Gore was clear that it’s a near-worst-case scenario. Such a sea rise will occur if Greenland’s ice sheets hit the sea.

    By the way, you are aware that warming in Greenland is about two decades ahead of where IPCC feared it would be in their 1990s reports, aren’t you? Water tunneling is moving the ice sheets much faster than they had been moving before. Moving to the sea.

    So Gore was right. That you thought you heard him say it would happen soon isn’t really his fault.

    There is absolutely no one who claims that Greenland’s ice would produce no disasters. You have no competing data to offer. (Though, were you fair, you’d try. Give us the peer-reviewed stuff that says sea-level rise is no problem, and if Greenland goes, everything’s hunky-dory.)

    What part of polar bears dying out is in line with published reports? None… the population of polar bears as a whole is increasing, with only a minority of heards (packs? whatever) decreasing. Another lie. Four drowned polar bears were proof? That was a storm FFS.

    Or you could listen to the polar bear experts, who point out that polar bears are in trouble. No, they don’t rely on four floating carcasses — though any sane person would note that’s highly unusual and indicative of a serious problem for a swimming champion like the polar bear. Here’s the most recent press release from the Polar Bear Study Group. It will get you to their site and give you access to their reports over the last 35 years, including the most detailed analysis of each population of polar bears. The short story: Ending hunting of the bears has helped them a lot; shrinking ice means that, despite some populations having more bears, those bears are less healthy, smaller, and too frequently die (not in the water, but on land).

    You have understated the threat to polar bears, and you overstate their general health as a species, based on no documentation that you can offer. I’ll take the view of the experts on this one, and I’ll beg you to check with them before you make claims about bears again.

    What part of malaria-bearing mosquitos being able to inhabit areas with a wide range of temperatures is not understood? Hence Gore’s claim that a slight warming means dramatic encroachment into populated areas… a lie. They are already there.

    I’ll defer to the mosquito experts, who note that the usual winter die-off of anopheles mosquitoes in the U.S. doesn’t occur. This increases dramatically the chance that they will again carry malaria, if they only get a chance to find a human infected. Already we have a dramatic rise in dengue fever around the world, as annual cold cycles that used to control the populations, no longer occur. In Gore’s film, he notes that the warming means vector species may now move into highland areas of east Africa where they had generally not held sway before — significant now because millions more people now live around cities in highland areas, where no one had lived when malaria was much worse in the 1950s. Mosquito experts and malaria experts tell me you’re wrong. Can you cite a source for me? I have extensive posts on malaria and mosquitoes at my blog; feel free to come to Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub and explore, and learn.

    I could go on… but I think the point is made here. AIT is grossly inaccurate even by IPCC standards.

    It’s good that you don’t go on. Children may be reading here. Three claims by you, three claims noted as false. AIT isn’t the inaccurate one here.

    10

  • #
    Baa Humbug

    To DDT and Pollie

    In all honesty, I admire your efforts for the globes environment, I really do. But in your efforts to help the planet, you two discount the politics involved. I am surprised that you trust your politicians so much.
    Do you not give any thought to the possibility that the beurocrats of the UN and EU will be rewarded with trillions of dollars? They will pass some of this off to the poorer nations (less their admin cuts) to gain their support (what Copenhagen was all about) and have global laws under the guise of environmentalism that will affect you me and everybody.
    this is NOT a CONSPIRACY, it’s just global politics.

    Wake up and smell the coffee. I too wish to look after the environment (I live on 20acres and look after it quite well) but I will NEVER accede to the demands of some faceless beurocrats from Europe, home of most of the worlds ills since the dawn of civilization.

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  • #
    Baa Humbug

    And before you both get into me about the science etc, i would give you credit if the IPCC’s brief was to research the globes climate. It isn’t and never was. It’s brief has always, from the very beginning, been to blame CO2. There never was a brief to look into anything contrary, that’s why NOT A SINGLE CONTRARY PAPER of any substance has been cited in any of the published reports from the 1st to the AR4.

    Surely even you two would accept that there are SOME peer reviewed papers out there.

    Having said that, I’ll say no more. You be the judge.

    10

  • #
    Phillip Bratby

    Banned “With due respect Mr Bratby, I suspect that may be bullshit.” Feel free to give me due respect and to have your suspicions. I just tell the truth.

    PS Not that it makes any difference, but it’s Dr Bratby (physics)

    10

  • #
    Scott

    Now answer my question without snarking, please: Have you considered why it is that there seem to be more, and more serious, wildfires in Australia? What evidence have you turned up?

    Its due to greens and other do good wankers stopping backburning creating more fuel than the past. add that to idiots starting fires.

    The recent Royal commission into the black saturday fires raised this and many greeny conciles had their backburning and scrub removal bans overturned this summer.

    10

  • #
    matty

    About Ed Darrell:

    Greenies everywhere are starting to panic. Expect even more desperate flagellations from the warmers who are not only seeing their de-carbonized utopian vision evaporate, they are also having their claims to righteousness ripped from their hands. Oh the emptiness.

    Our own Christine Milne(Australian green politician) just claimed on Q&A that the Oregon petition was fraudulently concocted, with one wave of the hand! They are in a cognitive spasm and getting worse. Expect plenty of human wreckage aout of this one. I’ve said it before; belief in AGW is a kind of affliction and the mental state of these people will be a real concern as the cult collapses.

    10

  • #
    Robinson

    Sorry if someone has already said this, but I hope at least one of his presentations is recorded and put on youtube.

    10

  • #

    Do you not give any thought to the possibility that the beurocrats of the UN and EU will be rewarded with trillions of dollars?

    That’s such a bizarre plot that it hasn’t even been used in James Bond movies yet.

    No, I don’t see any mechanism by which Australia will roll over and cough up all of its money to unknown Malaysians, Argentinians and Egyptians in the UN bureaucracy. You probably haven’t looked around, but I can assure you that the Israelis, Germans, British, Canadians, Mexicans, South Africans, Indians, Pakistanis and Uzbekis aren’t going to roll over for a UN one-world monstrous government. Nor does the UN have authority to fine polluters, nor play any other uber-governmental role in cleaning the air. Under the UN Charter, such a thing would be impossible. Under all the proposals, that’s not going to happen

    But go ahead and spin that yarn. It might be a script you could sell to . . . oh, maybe the Power Rangers or Pokemon franchises.

    What? No one is making those shows any more?

    Well, then the script is worthless, unless it’s a good tale. Just how do you think such a thing could work, under the UN Charter, with the U.S. Constitution, with the French Constitution, etc.

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  • #

    Greenies everywhere are starting to panic.

    Here in Texas we pay $1,000 a year extra in homeowners insurance due to global warming. We have droughts in one end of the state due to warming phenomena, and floods in the other end. Sometimes we have both drought and flood in the same week. We’ve seen the 100-year storms come through a couple of times in a year, and two of the 500-year storms. We’ve got the hail, the tornadoes, the snow, rain and baking sun. The weeds are moving, the mosquitoes are moving, the birds are moving, the coastline is eroding, and our rivers are in trouble. Crops won’t grow where they used to. Exotic weeds and exotic pests are moving in.

    It’s not panic. It’s hard-headed grit to try to survive. You Aussies have it easy, not having any of those things going on in your continent.

    Or, if you do have those things, being so drunk or dense as not to notice.

    Facing these problems takes courage. Refusing to recognize they exist is mental disease.

    10

  • #
    Phillip Bratby

    Ed Darrell: A word of advice. Don’t panic. The world has gone through droughts, floods, tornados, pestilence, erosion, snow storms etc etc. You name it. It’s called nature, natural climate change if you like. Or don’t you believe in history either.

    On the other hand you could provide us with some evidence to show the climate was stable before man arrived and it’s now all due to human emissions. Show us the evidence please.

    In the UK we pay extra insurance too. It’s due to idiots building houses and factories on flood plains. In the old days people were sensible. They farmed the flood plains and built on higher ground.

    10

  • #

    […] Jo Nova has lots details and pics and vids […]

    10

  • #
    Bulldust

    Oh my Ed… will you start putting in references? Hmmm perhaps not. Over and over you state we must justify our arguments but your statements are as hollow as our KRudd’s policy agendas.

    So where were we? Ahh sea level rise… nope you said nothing there. By IPCC sea level rise estimates Al Gore is anywhere up to 100x their estimates of sea level rise. Where on earth is that realistic? “time-frame was fuzzy”… pull the other one mate.

    Polar bears – population estimates are at 20-25,000 (according to your source). Given that they bottomed out at 5-10,000 in the 1970s that is an improvement in my book. Is 20-25k a healthy number? I don’t know, but that wasn’t the debate. Al baby said they would become extinct and the populations have increased over the last few decades. Busted again.

    Experts tell me I am wrong on mosquitos and you have plenty evidence where? Oh a blatant self-blog-plug AGAIN. If you have handy access to all these expert resources, feel free to link them here. I have no interest in visiting a blog that you feel needs to be plugged in most posts you make.

    You make many grand statements Ed but sadly they are almost never backed up with any reference of substance (a self-promoting own blog link is hardly that). BTW your comments of 100-year and 500-year storms happening regularly… do you even proof what you write? By definition these are not events of the time-based magnitude you state. But once again we see no links of evidence. Feel free to put them in. You are big on talk but very shy with robust references. Oh and quick with the ad homs too I see… nice one pardner.

    10

  • #
    matty

    More on the AGW “affliction”, or fried consciousness as characterized by Ed Darrell #97

    Ian Plimer, flanked by Monckton, was confronted by an unscripted question from the floor from another mentally scrambled eco-warrior. “what about the nine billion paid in subsidies to the fossil fuel industry every year in Australia” she cried. Plimer understandably wanted to know her source, but enter the realm of the anti CO2 cultist where anything muttered by someone with a tie dye shirt over a bong becomes gospel. Good old Christine Milne has rejected out of hand that there has been no warming this decade. “That is wrong” she exclaimed in protest to Andrew Bolt. If that is not an affliction what is. Their vision was becoming real, right before their eyes, until now. They are in a bad way.

    10

  • #
    berfel

    I missed it. Quite sad.

    10

  • #
    Baa Humbug

    “Facing these problems takes courage. Refusing to recognize they exist is mental disease.

    hmmmmmm facing problems that DONT exist is…is…is neurosis, or is it paranoia? Hey!! Oi!!! can someone get me a peer reviewed paper on neurosis please!!!

    10

  • #

    OK Ed Darrell, sorry if you think that you can repeated post such illogical baseless stuff here.

    [snip List of the effects of global warming….]
    Or, if you do have those things, being so drunk or dense as not to notice.

    Ed, you need to show you can reason and are here for an honest conversation. I do hope you can. You can acknowledge, can’t you, that all the things you point to as evidence of carbons “nastiness” are just evidence that the world has warmed, but show nothing of the cause?

    All you have to do is cut and paste this statement below and send it back in a comment and you may keep posting:

    “OK, I recognize that any cause of warming would melt glaciers, change weather patterns, and shift crops etc etc. None of these things is evidence that carbon is the cause of that warming. I was mixing up cause and effect. Point taken. Sorry for calling you drunk or dense or suggesting you have a mental disease.”

    10

  • #
    Anne-Kit Littler

    Mr Ed, you still haven’t answered my first question in #74

    10

  • #
    Roy Hogue

    Ed Darrell @89,

    I’m a reasonable guy. So you insist that Polar Bears are in such bad shape and I say, “Roy do a little research to see what you can find.” And it’s very interesting.

    The Canadian Wildlife Service maintains a registry of endangered species, all very nicely ordered so you can easily find what you’re looking for. They break it down into 4 categories: extirpated, endangered, threatened and special concern. I looked just a few minutes ago and the Polar Bear is not in any of those categories. Oops!

    After Al Gore made such a propaganda mess out of 4 Polar Bears drowning I decided to get the truth right from the horse’s mouth. So I sent email to the CWS contact address and simply asked about the status of the Polar Bear. It took a while for my request to reach the right place but then I got back the following response (which I paste here verbatim) from Virginia Poter, Director General, Canadian Wildlife Service, Environment Canada. You can see the date as my message was passed up the ladder (2008). And note please that on the same day I sent my request the Polar Bear was not on their registry of endangered species. It is now 2010 and they still do not see any reason to get into a sweat over the poor Polar Bear. Can we now bury this issue 6 feet down where it belongs?

    ———————————-

    Dear Mr. Hogue,

    Thank you for your email message of April 24 concerning the status of the polar bear.

    Canada is home to about 15 000 polar bears, which is two thirds of the world’s total population. For management purposes, there are 13 units of polar bears in Canada, of which three are shared with Greenland and one with the United States. Populations in some of these management units are declining, some are considered stable, and others are increasing.

    The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada, an independent scientific committee, has recently assessed the polar bear in Canada as being a species of special concern based on the best available information on the biological status of this species, including scientific knowledge, community knowledge and Aboriginal traditional knowledge.

    The Committee will submit its assessment to the Minister of the Environment in late August 2008. At that time, the status report for the species will be made publicly available through the Government of Canada’s Species at Risk Public Registry. Following the process set out in the Species at Risk Act, the Government of Canada will then determine whether to add polar bears in Canada to the federal List of Wildlife Species at Risk. Northern people, provincial and territorial governments, and wildlife management boards will be consulted before a listing decision is made.

    The management of polar bears is the responsibility of the provincial and territorial governments, and the wildlife management boards of areas in which this species occurs. However, Environment Canada is involved in many efforts to protect polar bears in the Canadian North. For more than 30 years, the Government of Canada has worked with scientists and others on polar bear research and conservation. Canada has also signed the 1973 international Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears, an international agreement to protect polar bears and their habitat. Environment Canada has also recently agreed to work toward the long-term protection of Canada’s polar bears with the United States Department of the Interior. In order to facilitate and enhance coordination, co-operation and the development of partnerships between the two countries, a Memorandum of Understanding for the conservation and management of shared polar bear populations was signed. Polar bears are also protected within Canada’s national parks, and the provinces and territories have special areas that protect these bears and their habitat. Regardless of listing decisions, Environment Canada is willing to work with responsible jurisdictions to develop additional conservation measures that will be nationally consistent.

    Further information on polar bears is available on the Hinterland Who’s Who website at http://www.hww.ca/hww2.asp?id=99. To find out more about Canada’s efforts to protect and conserve wildlife at risk, I invite you to visit the Species at Risk Public Registry at http://www.sararegistry.gc.ca.

    We appreciate your interest in Canadian wildlife.

    Yours sincerely,

    Virginia Poter
    Director General

    Canadian Wildlife Service

    Environment Canada

    ——————————————————————————–
    From: Hickson,Mark [NCR] On Behalf Of Enviroinfo [NCR]
    Sent: April 24, 2008 2:18 PM
    To: COSEWIC [NCR]; Cadieux,Josee [NCR]
    Subject: FW: AVR 496-MH Status of the Polar Bear in Canada

    Hi,
    For your information & consideration….perhaps an updated status report can be provided to the client?

    With Thanks
    Mark, Inquiry Centre, [email protected]

    ——————————————————————————–
    From: Roy Hogue [mailto:*******]
    Sent: Sunday, April 20, 2008 8:38 PM
    To: Enviroinfo [NCR]
    Subject: AVR 496-MH Status of the Polar Bear in Canada

    If you have any kind official report or statement on the status and future outlook for the Polar Bear in Canada I would appreciate receiving a copy or being pointed to the right place to obtain it. There is a great deal of debate over the Polar Bear but no one seems to have substantial information to offer. In view of the claim by some that the bears are drowning because of melting ice caused by global warming and claims by others that they face no danger at all, I would like to have the actual facts from you who know the bears better than anyone else.

    Thank you!

    Sincerely.

    Roy W. Hogue

    10

  • #

    “Gleibitz”
    “”You post things that are not supported by empirical evidence then complain when Jo asks you for it.”

    No, I complain that the ONLY EVIDENCE SHE ACCEPTS is that which has been repeatedly debunked by the scientific community. Specifically: that CO2 historically preceded temperature increase in the interglacial record; that her specific version of the tropospheric “fingerprint” exists.

    I didn’t say that was the only evidence I would accept, I just want empirical evidence. You have provided none. You don’t even have to provide any evidence to be able to continue posting, you just need to acknowledge that you were wrong to claim there is overwhelming evidence and admit you cannot name a single paper with empirical evidence that carbon will lead to more than 2 degrees C of warming.

    Remember “overwhelming evidence” means there should be dozens of papers you can claim right? Dozens…

    And “my” version fingerprint is the same version as Ben Santer’s and the CCSP’s. Santer 2008 “found” fog in the data and stretched the error bars.

    THAT is the evidence she insisted I provide, which I am unable to provide, and which is absolutely irrelevant to the question of man’s impact upon the climate.

    And for this, I was banned? Yep.

    This post will disappear along with so many others…”

    Yawn.
    We’re just waiting for you to provide evidence to back up your claims, OR to show manners, and as soon as you do, you may continue to post.

    OH and BTW: You did provide an incorrect e-mail address the first time; I e-mailed you, and it bounced. So this then is your warning saying that you still haven’t provided any evidence to back up your repeated claims of your first Gleibitz incarnation. We’re just asking for polite honest responses.

    10

  • #
    average joe

    Banned Gleibitz:

    If you wat evidence for CO2 lagging temperature . Just log into science mag. online.
    Search for Callion et. al. or Fisher et.al. You will find it there.

    Temperature first, then CO2…6-800 year lag.

    10

  • #
    average joe

    Link to Callion et.al. in Science;

    http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/299/5613/1728.pdf

    You will need username and password.

    10

  • #
    average joe

    Ed:
    “We’ve got the hail, the tornadoes, the snow, rain and baking sun.”

    Aha, so global warming, made by man is causing both snow AND rain? Both hail AND sun?

    Is’nt that a bit illogical?

    Ed, how many percent CO2 is it in the athmosphere?

    Do you know?

    10

  • #
    janama

    The ABC have finally posted the Monckton/Brook Brisbane debate – as a bloody mp4 file!!

    http://www.abc.net.au/tv/fora/stories/2010/02/08/2811681.htm

    10

  • #

    UPDATE:
    The Perth event was a total sell-out tonight with well over 1000 people trying to get into a room that holds less than 700. The event started at 6pm, but by 4.30pm there were no tickets to the main room left. The overflow room was fully booked by 5.30, so people arriving after that were sadly turned away.

    The room tomorrow only has a capacity of 380. Shame it’s not bigger!

    Monckton and Plimer are both polished performers, and the slide show was absolutely packed full of information. I didn’t know that satellites show that Greenland ice has gotten thicker in the last half century.

    Strangely though, the description of the shows I saw in the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age, didn’t seem like I saw the same show…

    10

  • #
    janama

    Media Watch had a go at the Lord Monday night.

    http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/

    First was his claim that Teri Europe was being investigated for tax avoidance charges – so they asked them and of course they denied it.

    here is the correspondence

    http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/1001_houghton.pdf
    http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/1001_charity.pdf
    http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/1001_teri.pdf

    well they would deny it wouldn’t they.

    Then they accused him of misrepresenting GBR temperatures when they have been rising according the scientists. – Oh really!

    http://mclean.ch/climate/GBR_sea_temperature.htm

    Then they went on a witch hunt about an article by Jamie Walker in the Australian saying the GBR was healthy – of course they asked the scientists at the GBR Marine Authority who said the GBR faced gloom and doom which doesn’t match this interview by Alan Jones with Prof Peter Ridd.

    http://www.2gb.com/podcasts/alanjones/alanjonesridd040210.mp3

    10

  • #

    Another name banned. Weren’t you folk opposed to censorship earlier in this thread? How about protesting to Ms Nova now?

    =======================================================================

    “If you wat evidence for CO2 lagging temperature . Just log into science mag. online.
    Search for Callion et. al. or Fisher et.al. You will find it there.

    Temperature first, then CO2…6-800 year lag.”
    No shit. But it’s only the deniers (Ms Nova among them) who claim this proves that CO2 doesn’t cause temperatures to rise.

    As I’ve said before, that is tantamount to claiming that fires preceded the invention of matches, therefore matches don’t cause fires. It’s stupid, thoroughly debunked, yet the denier morons still trot it out like it’s a trump card that proves their case.

    It doesn’t. If you would only take off your tight little conspiracy theory blinkers and read more widely–beyond the mere conspiracy and anti-science found on this site and others–you’d realise that the rest of the world has moved on and left your understanding and knowledge in the dark ages.

    On the other hand, feel free to stay in the age of ignorance…

    [Yes, gleibitz, we’re still waiting for you to back up your claims of what we deny or for a sudden attack of good manners or good reason to hit you. “Deniers” is baseless namecalling, we have higher standards. You are still in moderation until you meet such standards. IF you want to save the planet, why is it so difficult to stop speaking like a kindergarten bully?–JN]

    10

  • #

    Average Joe continues: “Aha, so global warming, made by man is causing both snow AND rain? Both hail AND sun?

    Is’nt that a bit illogical?”

    No, it isn’t. If you’d actually looked into it (instead of spending time getting your prejudices reinforced on conspiracy theory sites), you’d find it’s not at all.

    Try google: global+warming+hydrologic+cycle

    When you’ve got yourself educated, maybe come back here and share knowledge with the others, because I’ve seen plenty who think like you do (out of ignorance, not from a position of knowledge).

    You’re welcome.

    10

  • #
    average joe

    Gleibnitz;

    Its up to you to prove AGW, not opposite.

    The CO2 lag proves that CO2 didnt cause temperature rise.

    Right?

    Not up to me to prove the opposite? Right?

    10

  • #
    average joe

    Gleibnitz;

    I forgot to mention; The Callion et.al. paper is a peer reviewed paper in Scince magazine.

    It is ROBUST and Peer Reviewed, and not from Simulations in some computer.

    So, do you have a link to a peer reviewed paper that proves AGW?

    10

  • #
    Scott

    Man made global warming must be true

    Man adjusted the temperature data to show warming where it is not
    Man adjusted the temperature data to show cooling where it is not
    Man deleted the temperature stations to remove cooler stations
    Man created climate models hard coded to give the desired warming
    Man created fudge factors to account for the lack of warming in their models
    Man wrote papers that cherry picked data points to show there was man made warming
    Man lost the MWP (god knows how they did that)
    Man lost the hot spot
    Man made up papers to meet his warming hypothisis
    Man made up references to papers and twisted any meaning to make believe warming was happening
    Man makes up statistics to suit his warming Hypothesis
    Man attributes natural disasters to man made global warming (bushfires What a dick)

    Global warming must be man made right, surely I am right aren’t I

    10

  • #
    Scott

    I should have numbered them so we can apply them to posts that sprout hysteria instead of science. imagine the time that would save.

    10

  • #
    BurnTheBooks

    “The CO2 lag proves that CO2 didnt cause temperature rise.
    Right?
    Not up to me to prove the opposite? Right?”

    READ MY POST AGAIN.

    Slowly if you must. Then put it in context. Then try to engage your brain before you next try to engage me in debate, if you can.

    Joanne Nova claims that 1 of 2 ‘proofs’–SOT* but proofs are a mathematical concept, not a scientific one where EVIDENCE is sought–required to support man-made global warming is:

    That the temperature record LAGS CO2 in the glacial history.

    You are batting on her side here.

    Yet serious scientists have dealt with and dismissed this, and as I have repeatedly pointed out, Joanne Nova’s claim is tantamount to claiming that fires preceded the invention of matches, therefore matches don’t cause fires. And telling somebody who believes matches cause fires to either shut up or prove that there were no fires before matches.

    It’s stupid, stupid, stupid. Yet you folks blindly follow her, choosing to remain ignorant and irrelevant, parroting her irrelevant and ignorant quips. The inanity of it is astounding.

    * Somewhat Off Topic, but the repeated calls for “proof” are yet another sign of local ignorance.

    10

  • #
    Roy Hogue

    Gleibitz,

    You complain a little too much. It’s been obvious for some time that you’re just here to argue. Take a good cold hard look at yourself — you are pathetic!

    When 13 and 14 year old boys carry on as you do I understand why. But you are an adult, at least chronologically. And you don’t have an excuse in this world for your attitude.

    Weren’t you folk opposed to censorship earlier in this thread? How about protesting to Ms Nova now?

    OK. Jo, I hereby protest about censorship on your site! So please – please don’t ever start doing it.

    Now with that out of the way…the problem here is that what’s happening to you is not censorship. It’s removal of a constant irritant that contributes nothing useful and uses up a lot of time and space doing it. There’s a big difference. Jo owns the site and gets to make the rules. They’re pretty straight forward and simple. But rules like good manners and having something to actually contribute don’t seem to be in your lexicon.

    10

  • #
    Scott

    Maybe just a general number for hystercal rambling

    Maybe 666 would cover it

    for example

    @ Burn the Books – 666

    10

  • #
    Falling For You

    Here are some papers that demonstrate the (EMPIRICALLY ASSESSED) warming properties of CO2:

    The Infrared Absorption Spectrum of Carbon Dioxide – Martin & Barker (1932)
    Rotation-Vibration Spectra of Diatomic and Simple Polyatomic Molecules with Long Absorbing Paths – Herzberg & Herzberg (1953)
    Total Absorptance of Carbon Dioxide in the Infrared – Burch et al. (1962)
    Absorption Line Broadening in the Infrared – Burch et al. (1962)
    Line shape in the wing beyond the band head of the 4·3 μ band of CO2 – Winters et al. (1964)
    High-Temperature Spectral Emissivities and Total Intensities of the 15-µ Band System of CO2 – Ludwig et al. (1966)
    Absorption of Infrared Radiant Energy by CO2 and H2O. IV. Shapes of Collision-Broadened CO2 Lines – Burch et al. (1969)
    Investigation of the Absorption of Infrared Radiation by Atmospheric Gases – Burch et al. (1970)
    Collision-induced scattering in CO2 gas – Teboul et al. (1995)
    On far-wing Raman profiles by CO2 – Benech et al. (2002)
    Collisional effects on spectral line-shapes – Boulet (2004)
    Spectra calculations in central and wing regions of CO2 IR bands between 10 and 20 μm. I: model and laboratory measurements – Niro et al. (2004)
    Near infrared spectroscopy of carbon dioxide I. 16O12C16O line positions – Miller & Brown (2004)
    Spectroscopic challenges for high accuracy retrievals of atmospheric CO2 and the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) experiment – Miller et al. (2005)
    Line shape parameters measurement and computations for self-broadened carbon dioxide transitions in the 30012 ← 00001 and 30013 ← 00001 bands, line mixing, and speed dependence – Predoi-Cross et al. (2007)
    Spectroscopic database of CO2 line parameters: 4300–7000 cm−1 – Toth et al. (2008)

    Okay, so we now understand (from EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE) the process and properties related to CO2 induced warming. In other words, we understand the MECHANISM by which warming might be occurring. Now let’s check if this process translates into the real world (Again, using EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE and AVOIDING straight temperature because the conspiracy theorists around here claim that all temperature records have been faked as part of the global conspiracy).

    Wang, K., and S. Liang (2009), Global atmospheric downward longwave radiation over land surface under all-sky conditions from 1973 to 2008, J. Geophys. Res., 114, D19101, doi:10.1029/2009JD011800.
    Rolf Philipona, Bruno Du¨rr, Christoph Marty, Atsumu Ohmura, and Martin Wild (2004), Radiative forcing – measured at Earth’s surface – corroborate the increasing greenhouse effect
    W.F.J. Evans, North West Research Associates, Bellevue, WA; and E. Puckrin (2006), Measurements of the Radiative Surface Forcing of Climate
    Murphy, D. M., S. Solomon, R. W. Portmann, K. H. Rosenlof, P. M. Forster, and T. Wong (2009), An observationally based energy balance for the Earth since 1950, J. Geophys. Res., 114, D17107, doi:10.1029/2009JD012105.

    Yep, the EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE shows that the mechanism is occurring in the real world, just as our understanding of the science to date and basic physics told us it would. Now we should measure the impact this mechanism is having on the earth (EMPIRICALLY).

    Catia M. Domingues, John A. Church, Neil J. White, Peter J. Gleckler, Susan E. Wijffels, Paul M. Barker & Jeff R. Dunn (2008), Improved estimates of upper-ocean warming and multi-decadal sea-level rise
    von Schuckmann, K., F. Gaillard, and P.-Y. Le Traon (2009), Global hydrographic variability patterns during 2003–2008, J. Geophys. Res., 114, C09007
    Earth’s Energy Imbalance: Confirmation and Implications
    James Hansen, Larissa Nazarenko, Reto Ruedy, Makiko Sato, Josh Willis, Anthony Del Genio, Dorothy Koch, Andrew Lacis, Ken Lo, Surabi Menon, Tica Novakov, Judith Perlwitz, Gary Russell, Gavin A. Schmidt, Nicholas Tausnev (2005), Earth’s Energy Imbalance: Confirmation and Implications
    Kevin E. Trenberth, John T. Fasullo, and Jeffrey Kiehl (2009), Earth’s Global Energy Budget
    Global Trends of Measured Surface Air Temperature – Hansen & Lebedeff (1987)
    Dynamic patterns and ecological impacts of declining ocean pH in a high-resolution multi-year dataset – Wootton et al. (2008)
    pH variability and CO2 induced acidification in the North Sea – Blackford & Gilbert (2007)
    A large discontinuity in the mid-twentieth century in observed global-mean surface temperature – Thompson et al. (2008)

    That’s just a quick sample of the EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE for the AGW case.

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    average joe

    Hmmmm. Still no link to a paper proving the AGW theory.

    As I said, scientifically speaking, its your job to prove it.

    Not opposite.

    CO2 cannot have caused the temperature rise in the historical record.

    How would that happen, if it took 800 years for CO2 to rise?

    After temerature rising?

    How?

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    Spanning the Divide

    Here are some papers that demonstrate the (EMPIRICALLY ASSESSED) warming properties of CO2:

    [Cut and paste long repetitive list of papers…that was posted #123]

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    average joe

    Sorry, but those papers doesnt prove that the human part of the tiny amount of 0.04% of the
    athmosphere, which is CO2, can possibly be a dominant force of the temperature.

    Is much more water vapour up there, and vater vapour is a stronger greenhouse gas.

    CO2 forcing is debunked.

    Clouds, Im afraid, is much more important.

    The unfortunate thing is that it would be silly to tax clouds.

    Trenberth and company, which you list up there has admitted (in the climategate emails)
    that they dont understand whats going on at all.

    Thats why they introduced forcing in their models.

    To make’em fit with reality.

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  • #
    Joe Spencer

    Sydney is now a Debate with Tim Lambert

    Waoow…

    Don’t expect a debate so as much as an all out assault on Monckton, to send him home with a bloody nose.

    If Monckton was disturbed by the chanting youths in Copenhagen, how will he deal with an AGW stormtrooper.

    Why won’t any of the Scientists from that centre of excellence, the Uni. of NSW Climate Change Centre engage him ? Instead they send in their attack dog.

    Have they given up on the Science altogether ?

    Expect nothing but shameless bluff & bluster at best, ‘though it could turn rather nasty.

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    Spanning the Divide

    Oh dear. Looks like Joe Average has his very own kind of “reality”…

    Clouds CANNOT be a driver of long-term global warming, as you’d discover if you bothered to educate yourself (or just think it through for a minute). They can respond to other drivers, such as CO2 forcing (which is well understood and a real, observed phenomenon).

    I do love how you can dismiss a wealth of evidence with the throwaway and unsupported line “CO2 forcing is debunked”. Let’s review the 3 debunks you’ve had this morning:
    – Your claim that CO2 must precede historic warming otherwise increasing CO2 today cannot cause future warming. DEBUNKED!
    – Your claim that clouds are behind the observed warming. DEBUNKED!\
    – Your claim that the observation of “both snow AND rain? Both hail AND sun?” shows that AGW is not occurring. DEBUNKED!

    Come on, through me another one, will you?

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    Belinda Arnold

    I sure liked seeing Media Watch rip into Monckton last night. Did anybody else see it?
    http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s2813459.htm

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    janama

    yes I did Belinda – check post 119.

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    Belinda Arnold

    janama, I checked #119. WTH are you talking about?

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    average joe

    “Clouds” or should we say water droplets and ice-crystals can have both effects.

    Cooling and warming.

    Have you read this very interestic article here?

    http://www.drroyspencer.com/research-articles/satellite-and-climate-model-evidence/

    There has been lot of interesting work done since around 1998 when AGW took off, you know.

    Im not throwing anything, no need to be so aggressive.

    Still cannot see that you have debunked the fact that CO2 level was lagging with 800 years,
    and therefore cannot have caused the the temperature rise in the historycal record?

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    BanTheBooks @ 119: …proofs are a mathematical concept….

    Yes but they are also a logical, rational, rhetorical, philosophical, and scientific concept as well.

    Proof is not only deduction from first principles or a set of arbitrary propositions, it is also reduction to the facts of reality. This latter process is what is being asked for when we ask for PROOF of man caused significant and ultimately catastrophic global warming – in particular by his CO2 emissions.

    That the earth is warmer than it would be without the atmosphere is not at question. That it’s slightly warmer than it would be without the presence of the trace so called greenhouse gasses is also not at question. What is at question is the trace of a trace of the so called greenhouse gasses that man adds to the atmosphere has a significant and likely or even potentially catastrophic effect.

    Simply showing that warming has occurred from the depths of the little ice age is not proof. Showing that CO2 et.al. can have an effect of some warming by some possible mechanism in isolation is not proof of a significant warming let alone ultimately catastrophic effect upon the climate system. Even showing that there is a correlation between CO2 and temperature on a less than geological time scale does not prove it either. Even the listing of countless “peer” reviewed articles that say that man produced CO2 is or will cause it, is not proof. Finally, a computer model is not proof of anything other than the model itself. It doesn’t even enter into the realm of real world evidence let alone proof.

    What proof here means is to present the MEASURED evidence in full context of the full climate system that unambiguously shows that man emitted so called greenhouse gasses not only can result in some warming but that it IS causing significant warming that is at risk of going out of control. Present also the physical mechanisms that are at work in the climate system, show they are consistent with the basic laws of physics, and show they are actually in operation. This has not been done. Especially, it has not been done by you.

    Stand and deliver.

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    janama

    I thought it was self explanatory Belinda

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    janama

    sorry – Belinda – my mistake – I meant post 113

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    janama

    Here are the trustees of TERI Europe

    http://www.terieurope.org/trustees.htm

    Sir John Houghton is listed as an adviser.

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    Belinda Arnold

    “sorry – Belinda – my mistake – I meant post 113”
    Okay, I read that one too now. Still, WTH?

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    Lara Bickle

    Lionell Griffith writes:

    “present the MEASURED evidence in full context of the full climate system that unambiguously shows that man emitted so called greenhouse gasses not only can result in some warming but that it IS causing significant warming that is at risk of going out of control. Present also the physical mechanisms that are at work in the climate system, show they are consistent with the basic laws of physics, and show they are actually in operation. This has not been done. Especially, it has not been done by you.”

    Indeed it has.

    That you choose to ignore the overwhelming weight of evidence supporting anthropogenic global warming is entirely a problem of your own faulty logic or ignorance. Not an issue of absent evidence as you claim.

    Here are papers that demonstrate the (EMPIRICALLY ASSESSED) warming properties of CO2:

    The Infrared Absorption Spectrum of Carbon Dioxide – Martin & Barker (1932)
    Rotation-Vibration Spectra of Diatomic and Simple Polyatomic Molecules with Long Absorbing Paths – Herzberg & Herzberg (1953)
    Total Absorptance of Carbon Dioxide in the Infrared – Burch et al. (1962)
    Absorption Line Broadening in the Infrared – Burch et al. (1962)
    Line shape in the wing beyond the band head of the 4·3 μ band of CO2 – Winters et al. (1964)
    High-Temperature Spectral Emissivities and Total Intensities of the 15-µ Band System of CO2 – Ludwig et al. (1966)
    Absorption of Infrared Radiant Energy by CO2 and H2O. IV. Shapes of Collision-Broadened CO2 Lines – Burch et al. (1969)
    Investigation of the Absorption of Infrared Radiation by Atmospheric Gases – Burch et al. (1970)
    Collision-induced scattering in CO2 gas – Teboul et al. (1995)
    On far-wing Raman profiles by CO2 – Benech et al. (2002)
    Collisional effects on spectral line-shapes – Boulet (2004)
    Spectra calculations in central and wing regions of CO2 IR bands between 10 and 20 μm. I: model and laboratory measurements – Niro et al. (2004)
    Near infrared spectroscopy of carbon dioxide I. 16O12C16O line positions – Miller & Brown (2004)
    Spectroscopic challenges for high accuracy retrievals of atmospheric CO2 and the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) experiment – Miller et al. (2005)
    Line shape parameters measurement and computations for self-broadened carbon dioxide transitions in the 30012 ← 00001 and 30013 ← 00001 bands, line mixing, and speed dependence – Predoi-Cross et al. (2007)
    Spectroscopic database of CO2 line parameters: 4300–7000 cm−1 – Toth et al. (2008)

    Okay, so we now understand (from EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE) the process and properties related to CO2 induced warming. In other words, we understand the MECHANISM by which warming might be occurring. Now let’s check if this process translates into the real world (Again, using EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE and AVOIDING straight temperature because the conspiracy theorists around here claim that all temperature records have been faked as part of the global conspiracy).

    Wang, K., and S. Liang (2009), Global atmospheric downward longwave radiation over land surface under all-sky conditions from 1973 to 2008, J. Geophys. Res., 114, D19101, doi:10.1029/2009JD011800.
    Rolf Philipona, Bruno Du¨rr, Christoph Marty, Atsumu Ohmura, and Martin Wild (2004), Radiative forcing – measured at Earth’s surface – corroborate the increasing greenhouse effect
    W.F.J. Evans, North West Research Associates, Bellevue, WA; and E. Puckrin (2006), Measurements of the Radiative Surface Forcing of Climate
    Murphy, D. M., S. Solomon, R. W. Portmann, K. H. Rosenlof, P. M. Forster, and T. Wong (2009), An observationally based energy balance for the Earth since 1950, J. Geophys. Res., 114, D17107, doi:10.1029/2009JD012105.

    Yep, the EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE shows that the mechanism is occurring in the real world, just as our understanding of the science to date and basic physics told us it would. Now we should measure the impact this mechanism is having on the earth (EMPIRICALLY).

    Catia M. Domingues, John A. Church, Neil J. White, Peter J. Gleckler, Susan E. Wijffels, Paul M. Barker & Jeff R. Dunn (2008), Improved estimates of upper-ocean warming and multi-decadal sea-level rise
    von Schuckmann, K., F. Gaillard, and P.-Y. Le Traon (2009), Global hydrographic variability patterns during 2003–2008, J. Geophys. Res., 114, C09007
    Earth’s Energy Imbalance: Confirmation and Implications
    James Hansen, Larissa Nazarenko, Reto Ruedy, Makiko Sato, Josh Willis, Anthony Del Genio, Dorothy Koch, Andrew Lacis, Ken Lo, Surabi Menon, Tica Novakov, Judith Perlwitz, Gary Russell, Gavin A. Schmidt, Nicholas Tausnev (2005), Earth’s Energy Imbalance: Confirmation and Implications
    Kevin E. Trenberth, John T. Fasullo, and Jeffrey Kiehl (2009), Earth’s Global Energy Budget
    Global Trends of Measured Surface Air Temperature – Hansen & Lebedeff (1987)
    Dynamic patterns and ecological impacts of declining ocean pH in a high-resolution multi-year dataset – Wootton et al. (2008)
    pH variability and CO2 induced acidification in the North Sea – Blackford & Gilbert (2007)
    A large discontinuity in the mid-twentieth century in observed global-mean surface temperature – Thompson et al. (2008)

    That’s just a quick sample of the EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE for the AGW case.

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    Lara Bickle

    Apologies for the double post. The first disappeared into the ether (the moderation/banination bin) so I posted the second from another location before the first showed up.

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    speedy

    We went last night. What a spectacle! An hour and half’s worth of mental fireworks covering the spectrum of science, history and policy. Described in enough detail to give you a reasonable quantitative idea of the concept and the depth of the argument. The best thing was, in his words, “Don’t believe me!” What a refreshing alternative to the self-proclaimed guru’s who would like to claim ownership of our minds and souls!

    There are two more presentations – grab your member of parliament / senator and get there!

    Cheers,

    Speedy.

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    speedy

    PS: Thank you Lord!

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    Belinda Arnold

    Speedy writes: ‘The best thing was, in his words, “Don’t believe me!”’

    I completely support that. Whether you look at:
    1] His nonsense graph (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/05/moncktons-deliberate-manipulation/) which still features prominently in his presentation
    2] His bogus DDT claims and figures.
    3] His claim that he is a scientist (he isn’t).
    4] His claim that he is a Nobel laureate (he isn’t)
    5] His bogus quotes from the The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s2813459.htm
    6] His claims about Houghton http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s2813459.htm

    Yeah, I reckon you’d do well to follow his advice and not believe him. Go find out for yourself what’s really going on. realclimate.org

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    Belinda Arnold

    Nobleman is no Nobel man
    NICK O’MALLEY AND LEESHA MCKENNY
    January 26, 2010
    Christopher Walter, the third Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, has conceded that his claim to have won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 was a joke.

    Lord Monckton, a prominent climate sceptic, is on a sponsored speaking tour to undermine support for carbon emissions cuts. Quizzed about his alleged Nobel status by the Herald yesterday, the British peer said ”it was a joke, a joke” and never meant to be taken seriously.

    The jocular admission was made several hours after he had said with a straight face on the Alan Jones radio program that he had been awarded the Nobel – a claim Jones did not question.

    Lord Monckton is apparently yet to let his colleagues at the conservative US think tank the Science and Public Policy Institute in on the gag. Last night the Nobel award was still proudly ascribed to Lord Monckton, the think tank’s chief policy adviser, on its website.

    http://www.smh.com.au/national/the-diary/nobleman-is-no-nobel-man-20100125-muky.html

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    Lara Bickle @ 138:

    Our argument is not that there is lack of evidence, it is lack of substantial proof. The so called evidence might be “overwhelming” for you but its very underwhelming by the standard of proof necessary.

    We are not talking civil suit proof by preponderance of evidence, nor criminal proof by evidence beyond reasonable doubt. We are talking about evidence that can only be interpreted according to the hypothesis and no evidence contrary can be found though carefully search for.

    That CO2 absorbs photons and gets hotter is not surprising nor questioned. That the man emitted CO2 can be warmed sufficiently, while embedded in the atmosphere, to cause the proposed alarming AGW effects is at question.

    That sufficiently warmed CO2 can radiate long wave radiation in all directions, even downward, is not in question. That the man emitted CO2 can be warmed sufficiently, while embedded in the atmosphere, to cause the proposed alarming AGW effects is at question.

    That the proposed alarming runaway greenhouse of AGW has not happened is evident that we are having a conversation on the internet. The current temperature is not particularly high when compared to the geological record nor is the CO2 level high compared to that same record. In fact, the CO2 level is very low compared to some periods in which life was abundant and luxurious as well as during some ice age periods when life was on the brink. Full context here MEANS geological history as well as the history since 1950 or so.

    Yes, you have pointed out possible mechanisms and that they are somewhat at work in our current atmosphere. Missing is, as I have said before, the evidence that the warming effects of man emitted CO2 or any other man emitted so called green house gas can and will cause the proposed catastrophic atmospheric runaway greenhouse effect.

    Your proof is still far from complete. It is not at all clear that we are causing significant global warming. Neither is it clear that we can do anything about it except adapt to whatever happens. Thereby following as life has done since it got started.

    Certainly the level of proof offered falls far short of that required to justify stopping the primary source of energy that powered the industrial revolution and currently powers modern technological civilization.

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    janama

    Belinda – if you’d attended any of his speeches you’d know that his Nobel Peace Prize line is a joke! It was awarded to him , as a joke, by a group of IPCC scientists in appreciation of him pointing out a mojor error in the IPCC report.

    He actually studied classical architecture which you probably know involves some serious math. He went on to develop the Eternity Maths Puzzle followed by Eternity II that both has had mathematicians baffled for hours and weeks.

    His reference to TERI and Dr Pachauri and Sir John Houghton come from this article from the British Press.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7007891/The-curious-case-of-the-expanding-environmental-group-with-falling-income.html

    His chart for the great Barrier reef reference probably came from the chart I posted earlier.

    http://mclean.ch/climate/GBR_sea_temperature.htm

    which shows no temperature rise at the GBR according to NOAA data.

    DDT was banned in the US and world wide under the Stockholm agreement. he was warning us about making the same mistake today as we did back then when we make major changes based on shonky science. He’s dead right IMO!

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    Dave N

    Bogus quotes from GBRMPA? Apparently they don’t know “where his figures come from”. My guess is from here:

    http://www.gbrmpa.gov.au/corp_site/key_issues/climate_change/management_responses/reeftemp

    While Rupert might have been right that the GBRMPA don’t measure the temps themselves (perhaps the BOM or CSIRO do), they’re pretty much deeply involved in it.

    I’d like to see a citation of Monckton’s where he claims to be a Nobel laureate. I’ve seen quotes taken seriously out of context where he infers that he should be, since he found errors in AR4 that were corrected.

    Interesting that Houghton completely dodges that although he is not a trustee, he *is* involved with TERI and is listed on their trustees page:

    http://www.terieurope.org/trustees.htm

    I don’t think we’ll see an apology from Monckton; perhaps a slight clarification.

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    Mark

    Lara & Belinda

    “We can’t account for the lack of warming and it’s a travesty that we can’t”.
    Kevin Trenbirth.

    What parts of that don’t you both understand?

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  • #
    The Professor

    I have doctorates in physics, chemistry, meteorology and climatology. I have nearly 30 years of intensive painstaking research work under my belt.

    After much blood, sweat and tears I discovered the true cause of global warming. I’ve tested my thesis for several years and it holds up nicely. Yes, global warming is happening right now folks, right under our very noses. And it’s caused by all the hot air emitted by those global warming pushers bloviating so loudly day and night. I have developed a bloviator thermometer to aid in this research. And applying it to this thread over the last 2 days I find the hot air at a record high temperature, well over 56 C. So be kind and don’t stir up these visitors with the ever changing names. Otherwise we really are going to be fried. And it will be because of CO2 after all since that’s the hot stuff they exhale, about 40 times as much as they inhale. So I think you didn’t know how bad it is. But I forgive you!

    So next time someone tells you global warming is bunk you’ll be able to tell them the truth, all nice and pretty like a birthday present. Just think of how many lives you can save by getting out the word.

    I’ll be publishing my research soon.

    Oh, did I mention that I also speak 14 languages?

    Ta – ta for now!

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    Pete

    Belinda Arnold:
    February 9th, 2010 at 9:36 am

    Have you actually watched the interview where Monckton joked about the Nobel prize? Apparently O’Malley and MCKenny did not even try to find it. I have watched it and it was just a jocular remark made by the good Lord. He was simply taking the mickey out of Gore.

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    D Bonson

    Could people please stop using realclimate as a source? Their views and beliefs are tarnished beyond repair by Steve McIntyre, the whole Climategate affair and even some of their own colleagues that believe in man-made global warming.

    Using realclimate to support global warming is like using Tony Blair and Dick Cheney to defend going into Iraq based on the (non)intelligence reports of WMDs.

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    MattB

    His (Monckton’s) official biography at the SPPI where he is Chief Policy Advisor says: “His contribution to the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report in 2007 – the correction of a table inserted by IPCC bureaucrats that had overstated tenfold the observed contribution of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets to sea-level rise – earned him the status of Nobel Peace Laureate. His Nobel prize pin, made of gold recovered from a physics experiment, was presented to him by the Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Rochester, New York, USA”

    So I think you’d want that updating before you claim the Nobel claim is some kind of in-joke.

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    janama

    MattB – he says it was a joke!

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    MattB

    Yes – so he should instruct it be removed from his official Bio on a non-joke SPP website. Maybe he should have told the SPPI it was a joke.

    He also says the planet is no longer warming, that he has invented a cure for a range of diseases, that he is a Mathematician (I’d have no probs with amateur mathematician), that DDT was banned full-stop worldwide, and that said ban is responsible for a massive amount of deaths particularly children… shall I go on? Oh yes and that AGW is some sort of communist plot to install global government.

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    MikeO

    “Banned Glitzbits” I refer to your comment about Monckton on malaria. Giving a link someone who just has an opinion does not add any weight to the argument. Monckton says do not believe him research it your self. Here is what the world health organisation says http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2006/pr50/en/. You have flooded this site with your comments I will not bother reading any more but I will give the thumbs down on any of yours I see you are a troll!

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    Baa Humbug

    MattB:
    February 9th, 2010 at 4:11 pm

    ECCENTRIC
    Departing from a recognized, conventional, or established norm or pattern. Synonym, STRANGE.

    Yes the Monck is a bit eccentric, strange even. Usually people full of chit and lies are easily rebutted.

    I no not seeum any rebuttin here bowanna

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    Baa Humbug

    Don’t be so naive Matt. SPPI know all about the gold pin and the Nobel prize.

    Even serious web sites exercise some form of parody, irony if you will. In this case, Pachauru the Love Guru getting a Nobel with Gore. Heck, there are lots of people who detailed errors in the IPCC reports, they deserve a share as well I guess.

    I think Monck and SPPI are rightly pointing out the folly of giving such a prestigious award (well, it used to be) to “thousands of scientists”.

    Moncktons got unusual eyes, he speaks with that british “peer” accent, he is quite eccentric. We know all that so just get on with some stuff of substance shall we.

    Many are testifying that the man is an utter gentleman, courteous and seems to know what he is talking about.
    If you disagree with any of his stuff, hop on to SPPI blog and email him. He answers lots of questions there. Get it from the horses mouth instead of whinging about it here.

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    Brian H

    Bulldust and others who concede that CO2 causes warming: it did once, but no more. The 1st 20 ppm blocked as much IR as the next 400 ppm. IOW, saturation was reached billions of years ago; no addition or subtraction by mankind can or will now have measurable effects.

    Unfortunately; at some point we’re going to need some warming. Maybe setting off the methyl hydrate deposits on the seabeds would help.

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    MattB

    I’m not whinging – I just contributed to an existing discussion on this site about the Nobel Prize?

    Your comment about the SPPI is quite frankly bullshit by the way. Any casual reader would take from it that Monckton has a Nobel Prize, which is clearly incorrect. There is no joke, and no irony in the SPPI website’s false claims. It is false and should be corrected.

    This is also an interesting post at RealClimate to a Private Eye article, referring to the use of the House of Lords Logo which is in one of the photos on this blog (I think). Yes there it is 6th photo from the top…

    “With his latest shenanigans in the US, Monkton managed to catch the attention of Private Eye (a satirical current affairs magazine in the UK).

    In the latest issue 1235, they noted several things (quite apart from his dodgy science).

    One is his reference to himself as “a member of the Upper House of the United Kingdom legislature” in a letter to two American senators. He is not of course and never has been. As Private Eye notes: “Since inheriting the title, Christopher has stood at a “by-election” for a hereditary Tory seat in the Lords, following the death of Lord Mowbray and Stourton two years ago. He received precisely zero votes.”

    The other thing Private Eye notes is his logo, which he is using on his graphs and letters – a portcullis topped with a crown, bearing a striking resemblance to the insignia of the House of Parliament. This is also very dodgy indeed as the official parliamentary guide states very clearly that “the usage of the crowned portcullis was formally authorised by Her Majesty the Queen for the two Houses unambiguously to use the device and thus to regulate its use by the others. The emblem should not be used for purposes to which such authentication is inappropriate, or where there is a risk that its use might wrongly be regarded, or represented as having the authority of the House”

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    janama

    Oh Fer Cris sake MattB – Monckton acknowledges the Nobel peace prize joke etc – how about you direct your concern to his message instead of trying to belittle the man! You warmists are the masters of attacking the man instead of the ball!!!!!!!

    mate If I invented a mathematical puzzle that took a team of computer scientists to unravel and sold 500,000 copies I’d call myself a mathematician – wouldn’t you?
    DDT was banned world wide under the Stockholm agreement – How many f**kin times do I have to print it????

    sheesh! you charade is up mate – get used to it!

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    Baa Humbug

    MattB:
    February 9th, 2010 at 4:11 pm

    There is no joke, and no irony in the SPPI website’s false claims. It is false and should be corrected

    Like I said, If it bothers you, contact SPPI and tell them instead of whinning about it here.

    This is also very dodgy indeed as the official parliamentary guide states very clearly that “the usage of the crowned portcullis was formally authorised by Her Majesty the Queen for the two Houses unambiguously to use the device and thus to regulate its use by the others. The emblem should not be used for purposes to which such authentication is inappropriate, or where there is a risk that its use might wrongly be regarded, or represented as having the authority of the House”

    Don’t you think if the logo contravened UK parliament rules they would do something about it? Ask the Monck how that logo was designed, he has an explanation.

    One is his reference to himself as “a member of the Upper House of the United Kingdom legislature” in a letter to two American senators. He is not of course and never has been.

    Actually, technically he is, he just can’t vote in the house.
    Again, instead of relying on some satire blog or 3rd party, if these issues worry you enough to whine about them here, take a few mins to ask him directly and hey presto issue fixed one way or the other.

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    Roy Hogue said:

    And note please that on the same day I sent my request the Polar Bear was not on their registry of endangered species. It is now 2010 and they still do not see any reason to get into a sweat over the poor Polar Bear. Can we now bury this issue 6 feet down where it belongs?

    Why not pay attention instead to the letter you got back? Porter answered you:

    The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada, an independent scientific committee, has recently assessed the polar bear in Canada as being a species of special concern based on the best available information on the biological status of this species, including scientific knowledge, community knowledge and Aboriginal traditional knowledge.

    Now, you can take that at face value or not — but since you choose not to, may I ask why you don’t believe her? Canada is one of the contributing members to the Polar Bear Specialist Group [oops! I think I’ve been calling it “Study Group” — my apologies] — you can see their latest work, and the opinions and data of the experts on Canada’s populations of bears (they do not have all the polar bears in the world), here. Canada is probably the most aggressive nation on Earth in polar bear management for the benefit of the species — so it’s no surprise that most of the populations considered either healthy or stable are in Canada. And, because the Canadian scientists are so on top of things, I think we should take them at their word when they tell us that the populations are threatened by warming.

    The PBSG renewed the conclusion from previous meetings that the greatest challenge to conservation of polar bears is ecological change in the Arctic resulting from climatic warming. Declines in the extent of the sea ice have accelerated since the last meeting of the group in 2005, with unprecedented sea ice retreats in 2007 and 2008. The PBSG confirmed its earlier conclusion that unabated global warming will ultimately threaten polar bears everywhere.

    The PBSG also recognized that threats to polar bears will occur at different rates and times across their range although warming induced habitat degradation and loss are already negatively affecting polar bears in some parts of their range. Subpopulations of polar bears face different combinations of human threats. The PBSG recommends that jurisdictions take into account the variation in threats facing polar bears.

    These are the same guys who provided the information to your Canadian official for her report to the commission, and letter to you. Why not take them at their word here, too?

    [The PBSG have been infiltrated by WWF. Their last meeting was an unscientific farce which I personally exposed in September. They ousted the top researcher of Polar bears because he spoke his mind on climate change, and allowed in activists instead, they didn’t discuss climate change, but they issued a press release with statements about the topic they didn’t discuss. It’s an excellent example of how meaningless any declaration by any committee can be. Read that post: Exile for non-believers.

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    janama

    I repeat – You warmists are the masters of attacking the man instead of the ball!!!!!!!

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    Farmer Dave

    Having been one of the fortunate 700 who stood to attention, in an atmosphere of up to 2,000 ppm/v of CO2, for nigh on 90 minutes before gainging entry to the Parmelia rooms, I would like to add some evidence to the debate on carbon; the devil in all elementary forms!
    I am a retired chemist (ie earn no income from chemistry)who just happens to own a small farm in the great southern where we have a property whose area is 38% habitat trees, planted in the early ’90s, and the rest arable land of various soil types. I happen to love “C” and do not like it’s condemnation as a pollutant.
    Consider this. In a good year, I will seed around 90 kg per Hectare of oats. The variety used contains oil & protein and is about 40% carbon.
    In such a good year I can expect to harvest 3.5 to 4.0 tonnes per Hectare, of seed. In other words, my 90 kg per Ha (36 kg of C) will return something like 1,500 kg of carbon,per Ha, in the grain alone! Add to this a similar amount captured in the stubble and roots and we are looking at sequestering around 3,000 kg of carbon or 83 times the level of carbon seeded!This carbon has all come from the CO2 component of the atmosphere.
    But wait, there’s more. If I had more CO2 in the atmosphere, the crop described above would have an increased yield due to an excess of water in the photosynthesis stoichiometry currently unmatched by CO2 levels. Not only would the crop have better hectolitre yield, the sugar and energy levels would be higher. This translates to fewer pest problems (less pesticide)and a more efficient conversion of reactants (water, CO2 and sunshine) into FOOD!
    With less CO2….you draw the conclusion.

    Oh, by the wa,four years ago I was an agnostic on AGW but am now firmly, and defiantly, in the Skeptic camp. Call me a heretic, denier or what you will. That won’t change fundamental chemistry or the logrithmic relationship between additional CO2, added to the atmosphere, and the diminishing return of temperature increase.

    I could become distracted by all the garbage being pedalled by the AGW camp and mount a political campaign against the liars we elected in 2007. If I choose to, look out Keventy O’seventy…..your number’s up!

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    Farmer Dave

    Having been one of the fortunate 700 who stood to attention, in an atmosphere of up to 2,000 ppm/v of CO2, for nigh on 90 minutes before gainging entry to the Parmelia rooms, I would like to add some evidence to the debate on carbon; the devil in all elementary forms!
    I am a retired chemist (ie earn no income from chemistry)who just happens to own a small farm in the great southern where we have a property whose area is 38% habitat trees, planted in the early ’90s, and the rest arable land of various soil types. I happen to love “C” and do not like it’s condemnation as a pollutant.
    Consider this. In a good year, I will seed around 90 kg per Hectare of oats. The variety used contains oil & protein and is about 40% carbon.
    In such a good year I can expect to harvest 3.5 to 4.0 tonnes per Hectare, of seed. In other words, my 90 kg per Ha (36 kg of C) will return something like 1,500 kg of carbon,per Ha, in the grain alone! Add to this a similar amount captured in the stubble and roots and we are looking at sequestering around 3,000 kg of carbon or 83 times the level of carbon seeded!This carbon has all come from the CO2 component of the atmosphere.
    But wait, there’s more. If I had more CO2 in the atmosphere, the crop described above would have an increased yield due to an excess of water in the photosynthesis stoichiometry currently unmatched by CO2 levels. Not only would the crop have better hectolitre yield, the sugar and energy levels would be higher. This translates to fewer pest problems (less pesticide)and a more efficient conversion of reactants (water, CO2 and sunshine) into FOOD!
    With less CO2….you draw the conclusion.

    Oh, by the way,four years ago I was an agnostic on AGW but am now firmly, and defiantly, in the Skeptic camp. Call me a heretic, denier or what you will. That won’t change fundamental chemistry or the logrithmic relationship between additional CO2, added to the atmosphere, and the diminishing return of temperature increase.

    I could become distracted by all the garbage being pedalled by the AGW camp and mount a political campaign against the liars we elected in 2007. If I choose to, look out Keventy O’seventy…..your number’s up!

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    Perhaps my first submission of the apology for offending didn’t come through?

    [No. But two others where you ignored it did. JN]

    Ms. Nova said:

    OK Ed Darrell, sorry if you think that you can repeated post such illogical baseless stuff here.

    [snip List of the effects of global warming….]
    Or, if you do have those things, being so drunk or dense as not to notice.

    Ed, you need to show you can reason and are here for an honest conversation. I do hope you can. You can acknowledge, can’t you, that all the things you point to as evidence of carbons “nastiness” are just evidence that the world has warmed, but show nothing of the cause?

    I’ll thank you to police your guys as well, yes? In the name of comity

    There’s that nasty habit of the one guy to call everyone who has a Ph.D., “bedwetters.” And there are the constant insults to scientists, Americans, and anyone who works for clean air.

    Wholly apart from reason, which reasonable people may disagree about being in display here, can you police the nastiness in the discussion? I’ll be happy to participate in a cleaned up debate.

    Would you start with Lord Monckton? He does a grave disservice to all nobles with his inaccuracies and condescension.

    All you have to do is cut and paste this statement below and send it back in a comment and you may keep posting:

    “OK, I recognize that any cause of warming would melt glaciers, change weather patterns, and shift crops etc etc. None of these things is evidence that carbon is the cause of that warming. I was mixing up cause and effect. Point taken. Sorry for calling you drunk or dense or suggesting you have a mental disease.”

    Done.

    I didn’t offer those effects as evidence of the carbon connection, however, you no doubt noticed. I offered them as evidence of warming.

    Point taken, though — sorry if I offended. I wish you were so careful about facts as offense to contrarians, and I’d appreciate policing of the contrarians with an equal vigor.

    Fair?

    You may want to start here, with your first comment in this thread:

    We need more Viscounts Monckton of Brenchley and fewer Princes Charles of Idiotland.

    Fair?

    And as a committed free-marketeer, I particularly resent the calumny with regard to “big government” and regulations, especially when completely without any foundation, and wholly gratuitous:

    About Ed Darrell:

    Greenies everywhere are starting to panic. Expect even more desperate flagellations from the warmers who are not only seeing their de-carbonized utopian vision evaporate, they are also having their claims to righteousness ripped from their hands. Oh the emptiness.

    Fair?

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    […] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Kathie, Kathie, Jackie , Justin Lee, Garth Godsman and others. Garth Godsman said: RT @justinlee76 Monckton Tour-Sellout with Extra Dates in Perth, Sydney http://bit.ly/9rmveL #agw #climategate #alot #tcot #sgp @JoanneNova […]

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    vg

    I am a bit disappointed that much larger venues have not been organized by now

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    MattB

    Janama in 159 – it does not matter how many times you lie, it is unlikely to change my assessment of the facts.

    And Humbug – how about you just get in touch with the IPCC instead of whinging on this blog?

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    MattB

    And Janama – and please read this slowly so you have half a chance of understanding:

    You posted in 145 “Belinda – if you’d attended any of his speeches you’d know that his Nobel Peace Prize line is a joke! It was awarded to him , as a joke, by a group of IPCC scientists in appreciation of him pointing out a mojor error in the IPCC report.”

    After which I joined in just pointing out that the SPPI website cites the nobel prize prominently in Monckton’s Bio. Demonstrating with evidence that it is not just a jokey 1-liner he somtimes uses in his talks.

    That is not “playing the man”… it is countering lies and propaganda spread by yourself.

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    Bulldust

    Brian H: @ 157
    I think you’ll find that the relationship between temperature and CO2 concentrations in the air is logrhythmic ceteris paribus (all else being equal). The number I see tossed around is that under current conditions a CO2 concentration doubling would lead to about 1.1C increase in temperatures globally (assuming nothing else changes).

    Personally 1 degree change doesn’t bother me, and I am sure it would have very little impact (positively or negatively globally). So, yes, most of the temperature increase from CO2 comes at very low concentrations, but there is some impact at higher concentrations too.

    My argument is that other effects would dwarf this one degree due to CO2 increases, so the IPCC fixation with CO2 as the main variable of concern is misplaced. Consequently the billions of dollars aimed at proving the IPCC conclusions are misplaced. Thorwing money at the IPCC doesn’t seem to make them any less wrong. It only seems to embolden them…

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    Roy Hogue

    Ed Darrell,

    I see nothing alarming in the message I received from Virginia Poter. They did not list the Polar Bear as endangered then and they still do not as of my message that you refer to from just days ago.

    Looking at the chart I see 5 declining populations out of 19 they list. Others are “thought” to be in various unfavorable states. Yet other populations are increasing.

    I’m not impressed with what can only be an opinion of what the future state of some populations will be.

    Only the United States rushed in to declare the Polar Bear an endangered species without even looking at their status. The Canadians seem to be a bit wiser and since they have many species of all sorts listed, I have to assume that if they were really worried about the bears they would be listed also.

    In case you think I don’t care, forget it. I do. It would be a damned shame to lose the Polar Bear, a species that is literally an icon for Canada. So I’ve been glad since I got the reply from Virginia Poter that they’re working to preserve the Polar Bear. But I will not go into a panic under the current circumstances.

    There are many much more urgent problems we need to work on and I don’t believe that climate change is human caused, much less caused by CO2. So please don’t go on about either of these things to me. I’m simply worn out from pointing out why CO2 is not a problem and now, why I think I’ll not worry about Polar Bears unless their situation gets considerably worse. And I find it hard to swallow when human activity is blamed for every conceivable thing someone notices going wrong. Are there no other possibilities for a declining Polar Bear population?

    I appreciate that you feel strongly about these things. But so do I. And I’m just as able to do my homework as you are.

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    Inline reply to Darrell.

    The polar bear committee is not doing “science”.

    The PBSG have been infiltrated by WWF. Their last meeting was an unscientific farce which I personally exposed in September. They ousted the top researcher of Polar bears because he spoke his mind on climate change, and allowed in activists instead, they didn’t discuss climate change, but they issued a press release with statements about the topic they didn’t discuss. It’s an excellent example of how meaningless any declaration by any committee can be. Read that post: Exile for non-believers. http://joannenova.com.au/2009/09/exile-for-non-believers/

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    Roy Hogue

    Suspicions confirmed — the PBSG has an agenda.

    I wish I had been able to follow you in more detail than I have. I would have been able to point out your excellent expose.

    Thanks for shutting off Ed’s Polar Bear alarm.

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    Ed Darrell,

    Others do get to slip in insults, and if I was to do a full proper and 100% complete moderation effort I would need to charge about $5 a comment because it would be a full time job: 16,000 comments in 12 months (and I would hire someone). The reasons I get tough on some and let others through:

    1. You’ve made close to libellous allegations, without references. (Also known as “Cheap Shots”.)
    2. You’ve made 14 comments.
    3. Name anyone else on this thread who has exceeded your record for irrelevant rude remarks?

    You ask me to clean up the nastiness when you start out calling Monckton a liar, launching ad hom attacks, insults, you demand evidence from Monckton (as if he would bother to reply to someone so rude?) The pedantic difference between nine “errors” in Al Gores’ movie and … nine errors? You’re kidding right, or possibly paid to waste our time?

    Noting how much you’ve paid me for the right to throw baseless insinuations, feel free to say “thanks” anytime a wave of politeness overcomes you.

    We’re happy to explain the science you don’t seem to know, but we aren’t going to take the bait from cheap shots.

    “You’re in Australia? Have you stopped for ten minutes to consider why it is there seem to be more, and more serious, wildfires in the past decade? “

    Consider what would happen to a continent managed by firestick farming for thousands of years, with all the adaptations of the flora and fauna, and then imagine what happens in 30 years of artificial Green-“un-management”? No more large herbivores to graze, no more humans back-burning, no even common-sense allowances for people to chop down the 50-ton highly flammable gum next to their house? Fuel-loads that have probably never been exceeded since humans first arrived were a firestorm waiting to happen. Sure it was man-made, but nothing to do with CO2.

    You are free to post again, but you need to lift your standard of logic and evidence. No more baseless lines, and if you refer to us being “funded” without any evidence of that funding, you’ll be stuck in the fly-trap of moderation again.

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    Ms. Nova, if I’ve run afoul of Australia’s libel laws, it is only because they are so strange. However, I don’t think you’ve gone that far from the old English version. Nowhere have I defamed anyone without truth to back up the claims. And with the possible exception of Monckton, whose manifold transgressions have been thoroughly documented at the links I’ve provided, there is not a chance of defamation that I can see.

    Wildfire in forests and grasslands is an area in which I’ve studied extensively over the years, for official purposes (Utah and western wilderness designations, for the U.S. Senate and for the State of Utah; I’m also a past member of the Beltwoods Management Committee for the State of Maryland, and I have taught conservation for several decades in 501(c)(3) groups). I am fully aware of the claims that an area managed by fire can overgrow when managed by Smokey the Bear (ask, if you don’t recognize it). However, very few places has that ever been found to be the cause of increased wildfire — and Australia is not one of those places in general. I noted the science findings in an earlier post here:

    Here, check out this April 2001 paper from Climatic Change; note that, contrary to the completely unevidenced claims that rising CO2 levels are harmless, the scientists find that rising CO2 especially increases fire danger in Australia.

    My logic is this: Who asserts should prove, and absent data to support the assertion, is rude to keep asserting.

    This entire thread is a paean to Christopher Monckton, whose credo appears to be “say what gets laughs and what you can get away with, and try to pick non-discerning and uncritical audiences.” When you start out defending a serial teller of rude fictions, it’s an exercise in irony meter destruction to complain about my minor barbs.

    Besides which, I have given the benefit of the doubt. Intoxication or ignorance (regardless the cause) offers an excuse. The alternative is “evil.”

    Monckton’s campaign is unholy, to the point that it inures his audiences to things like the nasty barb at the crown which starts out this thread — pure insult, full of malice, completely devoid of any attempt to back it up, unenlightening, completely devoid of any redeeming social value.

    I don’t really expect you to police the blog perfectly. I’d settle for fair, with a greatly increased vigilance on fact, and less tolerance toward malicious fiction. Over in the U.S., and at my blog, we find it best generally to let people run. Idiots expose themselves. Truth wins in a fair fight, Ben Franklin said, and while you may be within your political rights to resent Franklin for other actions, he was right about that.

    It would also be nice if you would distinguish between your critics. I do not recall having made any mention of your funding anywhere. Nor can I find a reference here, now. Whatever are you talking about?

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    ANGRY

    SUBJECT: IPCC Admits It Doesn’t Do Science

    This admission (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/10/ipcc-reform) by an IPCC lead author in the UK’s Guardian is simply stunning:

    “The Nobel prize was for peace not science … government employees will use it to negotiate changes and a redistribution of resources. It is not a scientific analysis of climate change,” said Anton Imeson, a former IPCC lead author from the Netherlands. “For the media, the IPCC assessments have become an icon for something they are not. To make sure that it does not happen again, the IPCC should change its name and become part of something else. The IPCC should have never allowed itself to be branded as a scientific organisation. It provides a review of published scientific papers but none of this is much controlled by independent scientists.”

    READ MORE HERE:-

    http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/12721

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    ANGRY

    SUBJECT: AL GORE’S BEACH HOUSE

    Isn’t it interesting that the head of the Church Of Al Gore owns a beach house!

    WHAT ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING AND ALL THOSE RISING OCEANS?

    ===============================================================
    FIGURE EIGHT ISLAND REAL ESTATE
    This private, peaceful ocean side haven offers bright blue waters and long stretches of beach, and is home to notables like Al Gore, John Edwards, and others who relish seclusion and natural surroundings. This 1,300 acre 5 mile island does not offer hotels, shopping centers, and tourism. However if bird watching, quiet walks and sunbathing is your strong suit you may find life here appealing. There are only 441 homes, no condos, but it does offer proximity to activity rich Wilmington, NC. Enjoy the myriad architectural styles of neatly cared for properties if you can get onto the island. If this is your style, Figure 8 Island may be your place.

    http://www.joepascal.com/figure-eight-island.html

    ———————————————————————————————–

    Figure Eight Island is one of the places in North Carolina that is home to many celebrity houses. Celebrities like John Edwards and former Vice President Al Gore own houses on this island. The island has beautiful views as it is located between the Intracoastal Waterway and the Atlantic Ocean. The entire island only has about 440 houses making it an ideal place for couples and individuals to relax. It is also home to many beautiful exotic animal species. If you are looking for a vacation house, check out the Figure Eight island real estate. Wrightsville beach real estate also offers many bargains and great houses.

    http://wilmingtonrealestatehome.com/561/figure-eight-island-real-estate-and-wrightsville-beach-real-estate/

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    berfel

    vg @169

    I am a bit disappointed that much larger venues have not been organized by now

    There’s cricket at the WACA. 🙂

    Larger venues take longer to arrange.

    I blame it on the warmists: They keep telling us that there are so few sceptics. 😉

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    Roy Hogue

    Truth wins in a fair fight, Ben Franklin said…

    Ed,

    And so it does, even when the fight has been fixed against it for so long. But the ineptitude and dishonesty of the global warming alarmists (outright lies) has caught up with them. The IPCC has been caught with its pants down. Al Gore doesn’t know what to do next. Phil Jones is depressed to the point of having considered suicide. IPCC insiders are admitting that they didn’t do any science. The whole house of cards is coming unglued. The EPA will be forced to disclose the basis for their finding that CO2 is a danger to humans and they’ll have nothing to support themselves.

    Now whatever you think of Monkton is yours to think. But must you say it over and over and over…?

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    The EPA will be forced to disclose the basis for their finding that CO2 is a danger to humans and they’ll have nothing to support themselves.

    Weird you’d pick that.

    Take a look at this story about the U.S. Supreme Court ordering EPA to do its duty under the law. The science was settled enough in 2007 that the Court felt comfortable with that ruling.

    The court majority said that the EPA clearly had the authority to regulate the emissions and that its “laundry list” of reasons for not doing so were not based in the law. “We need not and do not reach the question whether on remand EPA must make an endangerment finding. . . . We hold only that EPA must ground its reasons for actions or inaction in the statute,” Stevens wrote.

    Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote one dissent, which was joined by Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr., Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. He said that global warming may be a “crisis,” even “the most pressing environmental problem of our time,” but that it is an issue for Congress and the executive branch. He said the court’s majority used “sleight-of-hand” to even grant Massachusetts the standing to sue.

    Scalia wrote another dissent, which Roberts and the others also joined, saying the EPA had done its duty when it considered the petition and decided not to act. He said the court “has no business substituting its own desired outcome for the reasoned judgment of the responsible agency.”

    But reaction from even staunch supporters of the EPA’s actions seemed to reflect a recognition of the changed political currents and a belief that Congress and the administration must now confront the issue, rather than leaving it to agencies or the states.

    “The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers believes that there needs to be a national, federal, economy-wide approach to addressing greenhouse gases,” said the alliance’s president, Dave McCurdy, whose group had supported the EPA’s position.

    Here is the case decision, Massachusetts, et al., Petitioners, vs. Environmental Protection Agency, et al. 549 U.S. 497 (2007).

    “Forced to disclose?” Here in the U.S. we conduct this business in the open. The entire process is published, action by action, in the Federal Register, with public comments at each step of the process. By law. Again by law, if there is no scientific basis for such a regulation, it will be struck down by the courts.

    You can read EPA’s press release disclosing the reasoning (harm to human health is the chief reason, one of the key areas of action under the Clean Air Act). Here’s EPA’s longer explanation. Here’s the Federal Register with the proposal. And, again at this site, you can get a link to all eleven volumes of public comment, and answers to the comments where appropriate.

    EPA also noted national security implications of climate change:

    In addition to threatening human health, the analysis finds that climate change also has serious national security implications. Consistent with this proposed finding, in 2007, 11 retired U.S. generals and admirals signed a report from the Center for Naval Analyses stating that climate change “presents significant national security challenges for the United States.” Escalating violence in destabilized regions can be incited and fomented by an increasing scarcity of resources – including water. This lack of resources, driven by climate change patterns, then drives massive migration to more stabilized regions of the world.

    Who told you this decision was not required by law, and who told you it was not out in the open?

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    Isn’t it interesting that the head of the Church Of Al Gore owns a beach house!

    Gore’s a Baptist, and a good man.

    God allows good men to have beach houses, too. God’s in favor of solar energy, and human uptake of same.

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    Roy Hogue

    I see. God and the flag are on your side.

    I don’t think so! You fight reality you lose. Use God to justify yourself here and you get dismissed.

    Good by…

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    berfel

    Godd synopsis Roy Hogue @182

    The whole house of cards is coming unglued.

    They’ve only managed to get this far by cheating.

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    Brian H

    Is that not the very beachfront where wind turbines offshore are not to be installed lest they interfere with the view? And bother the sandpipers and seagulls?

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    Lambert says SMH.com will be carrying a live feed. I’m hunting around for the feed so my readers can watch and chat. If you have any idea what the feed html might be, let me know! Thanks.

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    average joe

    Ed, a majority of the reasons for the EPA stuff has been found to be lies.

    Have’nt you read about it? Its been all over the news in the UK.

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    Roy Hogue

    Seems like Ed hasn’t stuck around.

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    Ed, a majority of the reasons for the EPA stuff has been found to be lies.

    Have’nt you read about it? Its been all over the news in the UK.

    That’s untrue, of course. Here in the U.S. we have a thing called “rule of law.” In the case of the EPA, it works like this: Decisions that create regulations must be justified, in the case of the EPA, justified on science. So, were the findings of the EPA in error, they would be challenged in court, and struck down, were they in error.

    There are enormous corporations with huge legal budgets and better attorneys than I am on retainer, champing at the bit to get a case where EPA screws up, to sue them and get the rule overturned.

    You, average joe, probably know this, but you hope that no one else knows, and so will take your bluff. But those who do know would like to see your evidence: Where are the science studies that show the error? (You can’t produce them, of course — rumors, nothing more.) Where is the lawsuit by the U.S. companies who would lose out, Exxon-Mobil, Duke Power, SoCalEdison, etc.? (You can’t show us those suits, either — they don’t exist. The regulation is solidly based on science, and even lawyers on retainer can’t figure out how to overturn them.)

    None of the reasons for the EPA stuff has been found to be anything other than accurate.

    Shame on you for telling such fables.

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    Roy Hogue

    I guess Ed is still around after all.

    About the EPA, they have based their decision on the work of the IPCC. But the IPCC hasn’t a leg to stand on after recent revelations, including an admission by an insider that they did no science.

    How far do you think they will get with that?

    I’ll leave you to do a little research. The work will be good for you.

    The Supreme Court, by the way did not say they had to rule any particular way. Only that they had the legal authority to make a ruling.

    Now, do you have any idea how many like you have hit this site before you came along? I can’t count them all. And they all use the same kind of stuff you do to justify their position. In other words, we’ve seen your case before and it just doesn’t fly. If you want to know what evidence we’ve all been waiting for someone to show us, try The Skeptic’s Handbook available on this site. It explains the whole thing nicely.

    Have a Nice day!

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    Brian H

    Ed @184;
    Deliberately non-responsive response.

    The point, Eddy, is that if the Goracle really believed his Warmist sea-rise hooey, he’d never buy beachfront property due to be swamped by tsunamis of ocean water. Capisce?

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    SamG

    Alan Jones…

    pretty much a no brainer that he’s a skeptic.
    I really dislike camps.

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    Roy Hogue

    I should modify my statement at 192 about the Supreme Court decision. They actually said that the EPA had to justify its decision to regulate or not regulate based only on statute.

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  • #

    I will NEVER accede to the demands of some faceless beurocrats from Europe, home of most of the worlds ills since the dawn of civilization.

    And just what has any “faceless bureaucrat from Europe” ever demanded you do?

    Why do you think any bureaucrat, other than your town’s zoning board, could ever “demand” you do anything on your 20 acres? There is no such proposal, no way to make such a proposal work, and no one advocating such.

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    Roy Hogue

    Why do you think any bureaucrat, other than your town’s zoning board, could ever “demand” you do anything on your 20 acres? There is no such proposal, no way to make such a proposal work, and no one advocating such.

    Listen to the man who supports the EPA regulating CO2 — which, when carried to it’s necessary conclusion will require greater restrictions than private property has ever faced up to now — saying no one will mess with your 20 acres.

    By the way Ed, you never address any previous post addressed to you when it might be difficult to deal with. So what about the evidence that CO2 is doing something, anything harmful? What about the fact that all the warming anyone can show so far is too small to notice and could easily be as large as the error in the measurements? Oh! Excuse me! I should have said error in the model predictions.

    My friend, you need to get a life!

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    average joe

    The bureaucrats are capable of doing anything, regardless of a well-meaning law.
    Thats why we need a constitution to protect us against well-meaning politicians.

    By the way, I think all of you need to see this fantastic presentation of the Miskolczi
    paper;

    First in the Examiner;

    http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-7715-Portland-Civil-Rights-Examiner~y2010m1d12-Hungarian-Physicist-Dr-Ferenc-Miskolczi-proves-CO2-emissions-irrelevant-in-Earths-Climate

    Then the youtube presentation;
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ykgg9m-7FK4

    If he is right, Science is in the loop again!

    Noone has debunked this paper yet.But they have tried.

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    average joe

    I forgot to mention that this is particulary interesting, with reference to Trenberths
    Climategate email;

    On Oct 14, 2009, at 10:17 AM, Kevin Trenberth wrote:

    Hi Tom
    How come you do not agree with a statement that says we are no where close to knowing where energy is going or whether clouds are changing to make the planet brighter. We are not close to balancing the energy budget. The fact that we can not account for what is happening in the climate system makes any consideration of geoengineering quite hopeless as we will never be able to tell if it is successful or not! It is a travesty!

    Kevin

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    Roy Hogue

    Joe,

    Don’t tell Ed Darrell, he’ll have a heart attack!

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    Brian H

    Roy;
    No, not likely. He seems quite immune to data, doubt, or disagreement.

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    Baa Humbug

    Ed Darrell:
    February 14th, 2010 at 3:46 am

    And just what has any “faceless bureaucrat from Europe” ever demanded you do?

    Why do you think any bureaucrat, other than your town’s zoning board, could ever “demand” you do anything on your 20 acres? There is no such proposal, no way to make such a proposal work, and no one advocating such.

    How can anyone with so much education be so naive?
    here is a list of the gasses covered under the UNFCCC protocol that countries like Australia are willing to sign..

    Direct Global Warming Potentials (mass basis) relative to
    carbon dioxide (for gases for which the lifetimes have been
    adequately characterised).
    Gas Global
    Warming
    Potential
    Time
    100 years
    Carbon dioxide CO2 1
    Methane CH4 23
    Nitrous oxide N2O 296
    Chlorofluorocarbons
    CFC-11 CCl3F 4600
    CFC-12 CCl2F2 10600
    CFC-13 CClF3 14000
    CFC-113 CCl2FCClF2 6000
    CFC-114 CClF2CClF2 9800
    CFC-115 CF3CClF2 7200

    That’s not all, there is another 84 listed HERE at UNFCCC’s own site.

    What this means is, everything we do, EVERY. THING in modern life is covered. How does this give control of our lives to the UN? Read this again from the UNFCCC’s own site.

    In the case of the enforcement branch, each type of non-compliance requires a specific course of action. For instance, where the enforcement branch has determined that the emissions of a Party have exceeded its assigned amount, it must declare that that Party is in non-compliance and require the Party to make up the difference between its emissions and its assigned amount during the second commitment period, plus an additional deduction of 30%. In addition, it shall require the Party to submit a compliance action plan and suspend the eligibility of the Party to make transfers under emissions trading until the Party is reinstated.

    You can read more HERE

    Our local, state and federal governments MUST adhere to the UNFCCC rules by enacting laws to do so. (in fact my own state of Queensland has already done so regarding buying and selling of homes)Every aspect of our lives is affected.
    If you believe this is not so, you are more naive than I tought. All the more pity for the rest of us because it’s people like you who encourage our governments to cede our laws and our freedoms to these faceless beurocrats from Europe.

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    Roy Hogue

    Sorry, just my feeble attempt at humor. His mind has been made up for so long that intellectual rigor mortis has set in.

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    Brian H

    Here’s a new take on including the “extended peer group” in the review process, especially when inherent uncertainty must be dealt with as a matter of policy or practicality:
    Post-Normal Science (Normal science, so-called here, is routine lab/experimental testing which gives firm answers to defined questions, monitored by “insiders” for quality.)

    Abuse of “normal” protocols in this kind of fuzzy non-laboratory investigation (climate change) has lead to “plausibility bootstrapping”, essentially the kind of insider “pal” review process pyramided into appeal to self-appointed authority based on non-public data and obfuscation. Post-normal science acknowledges the right of those with relevant skills like McIntyre to challenge and vet and break up the closed-shop processes, especially when public funds and politics and survival are on the line.

    The internet and blogging has finally provided a fast and effective “pooling” technology to bring isolated skeptics, doubters, and challengers together in a way which can keep fixers’ feet to the fire — and makes the actions of whistle-blowers like the Climategate email exposer actually have teeth. Very informed prior challenges had been consigned to the ‘ozone’ by simply ignoring them.

    Listen to the audio link, too. (½ hr., well worth it.) In the interview, the philosopher/author J. Ravetz compares the process to the Reformation, when common language Bibles broke the exclusive Latinate clergy’s control. He warns it could be just as messy. (Though, probably, not as long and drawn-out a process!)

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  • #

    At #202: Oh, my! The Faceless Bureaucrats have “demanded” that you personally reduce your use of CFCs? And you’re hot about it?

    You probably didn’t notice when the CFCs went away, and I’ll wager you can’t tell us anything you could do with them that you can’t do without them. Your hairspray still comes out of the can.

    And the government involvement? There was none from the U.N. They asked nations to sign on to reducing the stuff.

    Penalties for not reducing the stuff: Harrumphs! And for repeat offenders, VERY LOUD harrumphs!

    If that’s oppression, we should all be oppressed.

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    Our local, state and federal governments MUST adhere to the UNFCCC rules by enacting laws to do so. (in fact my own state of Queensland has already done so regarding buying and selling of homes)Every aspect of our lives is affected.
    If you believe this is not so, you are more naive than I tought. All the more pity for the rest of us because it’s people like you who encourage our governments to cede our laws and our freedoms to these faceless beurocrats from Europe.

    And what happens if some group refuses to follow UNFCCC rules?

    UN has no enforcement capability, as you know.

    What happens then?

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  • #
    machina.sapiens

    I just read through a large part of this turgid “debate”.
    It’s astounding stuff.
    Ed Darell provides case after case after case of detailed references from the scientific and legal debates and the rest of you run around squawking “show us the evidence” over and over again as if you don’t understand that what he is writing IS providing the evidence.
    Do none of you actually speak english? Can’t you read? Do you not understand the concept of providing evidence, or are you not bothering to comprehend, just shouting him down? That’s about the only conclusion I can draw.
    And then the person who runs this blog leaps in and bans people for refusing to agree with her… Well, I suppose it’s her blog and her ball and if you don’t play by her rules, you can just go home…
    Unbelievable, really.

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    Farmer Dave

    Dear Machina.Sapiens.
    You seem to be a little upset.
    I understand that Ed is a lawyer; if so then providing case after case of detailed references from the scientific and legal debates does not represent evidence of any sort.
    Ever heard of a null hypothesis?
    I smile at your assessment of this blog as it mirrors our own politicians who shout loudly across the chamber accusing the other side of what they, themselves, are guilty of.

    Pax.

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  • #

    Machina,
    I see you’re faking it right from the start. If you’d read the whole “debate” you’d know that Ed has been pinged for many things, including relying on the PSBG, and even had to apologize for baseless insults.

    Ed:
    ““OK, I recognize that any cause of warming would melt glaciers, change weather patterns, and shift crops etc etc. None of these things is evidence that carbon is the cause of that warming. I was mixing up cause and effect. Point taken. Sorry for calling you drunk or dense or suggesting you have a mental disease.”

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  • #

    I clearly should have been more clear.

    I didn’t mean to imply mental disease where it doesn’t exist. However, denialism may well be a symptom of disease. Warming denialism is like all tinfoil hattery, not so much a political stand as a symptom of something underlying. Mental disease? Perhaps.

    Yes, any cause of global warming would melt glaciers, change weather patterns, and shift crops. None of this is, alone, evidence that carbon causes the warming. However, there is no more likely culprit than the set of greenhouse gases that cause such global warming. Cause and effect are not necessarily the same thing — the scientific evidence points to the increase in human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases as creating the mess we’re heading into.

    Sorry for calling you drunk if you’re not. Sorry for implying you have disease if you don’t. That leaves only genuine skepticism, not politically motivated, or stupidity, or evil intent. Drunk or dense might be the better and more polite excuse, but Nova doesn’t believe it.

    I got here on a link showing the astounding lies of Christopher Monckton about Rachel Carson, Jackie Kennedy and DDT. Since I can’t say Monckton was drunk or diseased, and since he lacks the science or history chops to be an informed skeptic, we must assume him to be evil. Why Nova promotes his statements escapes me.

    I apologized for baseless insults, but cannot apologize for those with firm foundation.

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  • #
    YODA - Moderator

    Ed Darrell,

    Your latest comment has been put into moderation. Jo will review it and make a decision accordingly

    YODA – Moderator

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    Roy Hogue

    Ed Darrell @205,

    It’s now quite illegal to sell or install CFCs in the United States. It’s a federal crime with penalties attached.

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  • #
    machina.sapiens

    A couple of responses – although I have no intention of engaging in this discussion on a sustained basis. Life is too short. I don’t have the patience – unlike Ed Darrell, who seems to have limitless reserves of patience and politeness in dealing with the frequently abusive and nonsensical responses to his calm, respectful, logical, and evidence-based comments.
    Farmer Dave says that I “seem a little upset” – an interesting rhetorical trope – place yourself in a superior, condescending position and devalue your opponent’s words by implying that they are the result of excessive emotion rather than rationality – it’s a flavour of ad hominem technique, I suppose. That trope certainly seems to get a substantial use in this arena – maybe it’s in someone’s “Big book of hints on how to derail discussion when you have no actual arguments” – like the one that goes “ignore any evidence that anyone provides and just keep chanting ‘show us the evidence'”.

    You (jonova)say that

    Ed has been pinged for many things, including relying on the PSBG, and even had to apologize for baseless insults.

    .
    (I presume you mean the PBSG) – I guess if relying on the statements of actual scientific bodies is a justification for blocking someone, i shouldn’t be expecting rationality… I haven’t read all of the discussion – but I see no evidence of you blocking anyone other than people who disagree with you, no matter how abusive and irrelevant your supporters get. When discussion gets mildly robust, it always leaves scope to fabricate those sort of charges against those who disagree with you, while ignoring the sins of your own supporters. I guess it’s easy to get away with that kind of patent intellectual dishonesty when you’re only singing to the choir.

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    MadJak

    Machina,

    I’m sorry I have to haul you up on the comment that Ed Darrel was using

    reserves of patience and politeness in dealing with the frequently abusive and nonsensical responses to his calm, respectful, logical, and evidence-based comments

    Ed started on this blog with a wild accusation of Jo’s choice in graphic for another topic where on his own Blog he ranted and rave and didn’t even mention any of the content. I have seen enough of Eds comments to know that your statement with respect to him obviously shows you haven’t been following his comments on this site for very long.

    You may be interested to know that comments here are only moderated if they contain baseless accusations. This is actually in stark contrast to other, AGW blogs where any posting that doesn’t tow the party line never even makes it up. This is actually why you actually see a debate happening here (which is more than one could say for many of the other bblogs out there).

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  • #
    machina.sapiens

    If posts here were being “moderated if they contain baseless accusations.”, there’d hardly be any left to see, and most of those would be by Ed Darrell, on the evidence of this discussion.

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  • #
    MadJak

    Machina,

    I am sorry, but the following statement by Ed is a blatantly racist stereotype:

    You Aussies have it easy, not having any of those things going on in your continent.

    Or, if you do have those things, being so drunk or dense as not to notice

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  • #
    machina.sapiens

    @MadJak: Last time I looked, the yanks and us were mostly of the same race, or selection of races.
    And your response is almost a textbook example of outrage confected to score a debating point.
    That is: no-one could possibly be stupid enough to genuinely think that, while still being sufficiently coherent to type a sentence, so I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you’re simply dishonestly trying to invent a marginally plausible reason to give your opponent a whack.

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  • #
    MadJak

    Machina,

    Not very nice though was it?

    I found his comments offensive. I also found his comments on his blog offensive as well. he came here looking for a brawl and found one.

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  • #
    machina.sapiens

    You’d have to be a seriously delicate little flower to find that mild, if a little exasperated, comment offensive, particularly given the normal robust quality of the discussion on this blog – I don’t think anyone comes here expecting comments constrained to the genteel standards of a conservative vicar’s 1950’s Mother’s Union morning tea – although they seem quite willing to pretend that they do, in the interests of attacking the enemy.. So forgive me if I refrain from believing that the outrage directed at his comments is anything more than artificial hype.

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    Denny

    Roy Hogue: Post 211,

    It’s now quite illegal to sell or install CFCs in the United States. It’s a federal crime with penalties attached.

    Roy, I think you have to be MORE clear in that statement…True, if your not a HVAC Technician certified…CFCs are still being sold here in the U.S and STILL being used on old systems…I know this because I’ve done this as my career since 1976.

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    Baa Humbug

    Ed Darrell:
    February 17th, 2010 at 6:02 am

    And what happens if some group refuses to follow UNFCCC rules?

    UN has no enforcement capability, as you know.

    What happens then?

    I’m talking about what the UN wants, what our governments want to sign up to. So lets get it from the horses mouth shall we.

    In a statement announcing his departure, Mr. de Boer expressed disappointment that the December climate change conference of nearly 200 nations in Copenhagen had failed to produce an enforceable agreement to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases that climate scientists say are contributing to the warming of the planet.

    “Copenhagen did not provide us with a clear agreement in legal terms, but the political commitment and sense of direction toward a low-emissions world are overwhelming,”

    If the rest of us were also lemming like, Copenhagen would have been a success, there would have been an “enforceable legal agreement” to control emissions.

    I have no objection to anybody who wants some faceless beurocrats to control their lives. It’s their right. It’s a free world in the west. But I don’t want it.
    Any objections to that?

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    Roy Hogue

    Denny,

    Freon is certainly being used in old systems, including mine. But I have been told that if I ever need replacement — I believe it’s R22 — I’ll not be able to get it and will have to buy a new system. That’s all I know about the matter. I’m puzzled about why I would get two different stories from two different professionals. It would please me very much to be able to replace the stuff if I ever need to.

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  • #
    MadJak

    Machina,

    Take a look at the tone of the conversation on this very blog post right up until Ed pulled the stunt he did. It was actually very civil and Jovial.

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  • #
    Baa Humbug

    machina.sapiens:
    February 18th, 2010 at 10:04 pm

    Ed Darell provides case after case after case of detailed references from the scientific and legal debates and the rest of you run around squawking “show us the evidence” over and over again as if you don’t understand that what he is writing IS providing the evidence.

    Either you haven’t read all the comments or you are willfully avoiding some of them.
    I commented on Eds cited peer reviewed paper and showed the paper did not say what Ed thought it said. See #77 at the “Great Collapse of the Global Warming Myth” thread.
    I also provided a “peer reviewed” paper and asked Ed to comment on it both here and at his web site. His response? Here, I’ll quote it..

    “I’m not sure what response would be appropriate. I’d prefer to discuss serious matters”.

    See also #137 at the same thread.

    What’s that saying about not seeing the forest from the trees?

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  • #
    machina.sapiens

    @MadJack: Actually I’ve just reviewed the conversation up to that point. Part of it was certainly “very civil and Jovial.” – hardly surprising since that part consisted almost entirely of people vociferously agreeing with themselves, patting themselves righteously on the back, and contemptuously dismissing the common enemy – but then your other antagonist, (@Banned Gleibitz) weighed in and the tone from the rest of you got decidedly frostier, well before Ed came on the scene.

    @Baa Humbug: Unfortunately the Barnett and Pierce paper that you both refer to, (and the Lockart et al one as well), seems to be inaccessible at the moment, so I can’t comment on that – only the press release from the Scripps institute about it is accessible.
    On the other hand, your comments seem to be only referencing the press release, not the paper itself, so maybe a response is in order:
    When you say that you “showed the paper did not say what Ed thought it said”, I would have to say that your claim overstates the situation just a tad.
    You
    – quoted a couple of lines from the press release;
    – provided a tortured and unlikely interpretation

    Assuming the above isn’t in any order of importance, a reader MAY conclude that of the 1 million a/f of water deficit could be attributed in any combination. e.g. 900k due to human demand, 99k due to natural forces and 1k due to HECC.

    – went on draw immense significance from a careful caveat which actually seems to imply that the team went out of its way to not overstate the projected effect of climate change :

    The team based its findings on the premise that climate change effects only started in 2007,

    – and then leapt in a spectacular grand jete of non sequiteur to a completely unsupported conclusion:

    So in citing THIS RESEARCH, we would have to conclude THIS RESEARCH finds the current changes are NOT due to human caused climate change. What other researchers CONSIDER human caused changes in climate may have LIKELY started decades earlier is irrelevant and not precise enough to make a scientific conclusion from.

    Not surprising that Ed D didn’t think that attack was serious enough to warrant a response.

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  • #
    Roy Hogue

    machina.sapiens,

    I’ve ignored you up to now. But you need a lesson in the facts.

    When Ed Darrell first appeared here he was calling us names and doing character assassination. That didn’t go on for very long before Joanne Nova, who owns this site and makes the rules, called him to account and blocked his additional posts until he apologized and agreed to clean up his act. The rules are where you can find them easily if you’re interested.

    So he apologized and was allowed to post but then still managed to go overboard and get blocked yet again.

    The material he uses to support his position amounts to proof by authority — enough people with the right credentials say it’s true so it must be true. This is a logical fallacy and we don’t go in for that kind of thing here.

    Next, it has been characteristic of Ed that when asked a question he doesn’t answer. He evades, even changing the subject hoping no one will notice that he didn’t give an answer. Your own example is a perfect case in point. He just dismissed the questioner. This is a violation of common courtesy. If you post here you are a participant in a conversation about the topic of the thread and if asked a question, the very fact that you posted something implies an honest interest in answering the question if asked.

    Everyone here will agree with me on this last point.

    You are way off base and appear to be a pawn of Ed Darrell for some reason. You have yet to contribute anything useful and no one takes you seriously. Why are you wasting our time?

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  • #

    […] At Joanne Nova’s site, I’ve dropped quite a few information bombs, in comments.  Well, they treat information as if it would kill them, and I have hopes it might at least leak through into their minds, so I continued for a couple of days. […]

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  • #
    Denny

    Roy Hogue: Post 221,

    Freon is certainly being used in old systems, including mine. But I have been told that if I ever need replacement — I believe it’s R22 — I’ll not be able to get it and will have to buy a new system. That’s all I know about the matter. I’m puzzled about why I would get two different stories from two different professionals. It would please me very much to be able to replace the stuff if I ever need to.

    Roy, it’s true that R-22 is being phased out. The Government is forcing dealers to sell the new systems with a SEER rating of 13 or more now..If you check around with different dealers and depending on what problem you have with your system, they might have R-22 in reserve or be able to reuse “only” if there’s been “no loss” of Refrigerant. R-410A is the major replacement for R-22. There are some others but relatively new in use..Question of performance!

    I was mainly responding to your statement

    “It’s now quite illegal to sell or install CFCs in the United States.”

    Well, it’s NOT illegal to sell or install CFC’s. It’s ILLEGAL to improperly dispose of them. It’s ILLEGAL without proven certification to handle Refrigerants and it’s ILLEGAL not to have a Recovery Machine/with a proper storage tank, with you when you ENTER a Refrigerant system… These are illegal.

    Roy, the bad thing since the Montreal Protocyol was passed, rules with HFC’s reductions, has started, the Industry has had to find a new “oil” to replace with CFC’s. They are come up with Polyester oil in replacement of Mineral oil.. I hate this oil because it holds moisture within the refrigeration system..It DOES NOT release from the oil when a vaccum is put upon it…Mineral oil does..Moisture in any Refrigeration system is NOT good! If it has alot of moisture the system turns into an acid. Hence todays problems! The only way is to change the “filter Drier” on the system a number of times to remove the moisture…A lot more money involved…

    So shop around first…if they all are doing what your Tech has stated then you have no choice but to upgrade your system when the time comes…

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    Steve Meikle

    First of all I would express my disappointment that he is not coming to NZ. Having just spent thousands on resurfacing the roof on the house i just inherited I am broke, so flying to Oz is out of teh question

    I was extremely impressed with Lord Monckton’s science. I still am, and I subscribe to his website.

    But I am a little troubled by his apparent tendency to ascribe criminal conspiracy to the AGW people. (And I am horrified by his politics)

    I am one of the few whose opinion on AGW does not align with his political affiliation. I am liberal left wing, always have been and always will be. But people from my background tend to regard conspiracy theorists as cranks.

    What are your thoughts here. Do i have to believe his accounting for the error of AGW as being a conspiracy? Or is it simply a fad and a delusion, lazy and sloppy science now clung to out of mere ego?

    I accept the error of AGW as being error, and applaud Viscount Monckton for confirming my instinct on this matter. But must I *account* for the error of AGW ( a separate issue IMO) by appealing to conspiracy?

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      MadJak

      Hi Steve,

      I am on the centre/Right hand side of the equation and I also find the AGW situation deplorable. I think it’s important to not think of things as far as lef tthis or right that a much as possible. I agree with you about egos probably playing a large part in all this also.

      I think it’s important for everyone to focus on the matter at hand without allowing ourselves to be distracted by left wing this or right wing that. At the end of the day, if you disagree with something, work to counter it (and provide an alternative solution, if possible).

      I am sure you would be familiar with how people who agree on a common cause have disagreements over others – this is, after all a sign of truly independent thinking. Just look at some of the tension among environmental circles over issues like nuclear power and clearfelling old forests being AGW friendly.

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    Roy Hogue

    Denny,

    Thanks for the better info.

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    Roy Hogue

    Denny,

    Not being a pro it occurs to me to ask how one opens up the “filter Drier” without then having to add more refrigerant and oil. The answer’s probably obvious and I just don’t see it.

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    Steve Meikle

    Re 229

    I may have misunderstood your reply, or you may have missed my intention in the original question i raised. It was not about left or right wing per se, but about how do we account for the erroneous belief of AGW.

    Is it, a Monckton has said repeatedly (I am sufficiently a fan of his to have watched quite a few videos of him) a conspiracy, whereby the response would be to bring criminal charges

    OR

    as I tend to hold, merely a fad, a delusion, an idea that a clique has fallen in love with even with good intentions?

    We know AGW is false. WHY do they beleve it is true? Malice? Or laziness linked with ego investment? These are two separate questions, and the second of them has two answers

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    Steve Meikle

    Quote Ed DArrell

    This entire thread is a paean to Christopher Monckton, whose credo appears to be “say what gets laughs and what you can get away with, and try to pick non-discerning and uncritical audiences.”

    Steve: the fact that Monckton is a raconteur and a wit who can raise laughs will only detract from the solid, almost pedantic logic of his rational argument in the eyes of those who refuse the logic and seek to focus on the style. IOW this is an ad hominem attack. His style makes him memorable, and good teachers know this, but his style is no substitute for his substance.

    His Lordship actually said so, in words to that effect, in the video: he could offer full attestation for EVERYTHING he said. Were you not listening?

    (If I had his patience as a scholar I might have pursued an academic career and be on post doctoral work by now, instead of being an ex musician who works as an unskilled wood worker!!)

    For shame, sir. You CANNOT in justice accuse Lord Monckton of the trickery you seek to lay at his door

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    Farmer Dave

    Steve,
    Like you I am in need of an understanding as to “why” the AGW line is being pushed so. The constant iterations of Rudd, Wong,the Greens and media, including “science” journalists, is amazing when considered against the light of recent revelations.
    Is there a conspiracy? The “clubby” associations of Mann, Jones, Bradley, Wigley, Schmidt et.al. reveal a common approach to the subject, based on a belief in AGW. When this belief is challenged the response is a heavy defence of the dogma. That the “conspirators” have invested so much of their lives, and vanity, in the AGW belief, it is impossible for them to retreat without condemming so much of themselves.
    As for the IPCC’s guiding hand, I had a look at the Expert Review Comments, First Order Draft, of the Fourth Assessment Report, of Working Group 1 from November 2005.
    The document is 274 pages of reviewers’ comments of Chapter three, with a response from the Editor(?).
    On more than one ocassion the editor rejects comments with comments such as: “Agree but not the purpose of the IPCC” or “It would be helpfull but not the purpose of the IPCC”.

    Reviewers [Alan Robock],[Konstantin Vinnikov] requested the inclusion of a paragraph pointing out “….analysis that found no tends in climte variabilty: Vinnikov and Robock (2002) have analysed trends of a few large scale climatic indicies todetermine whether the observed climate is getting more variable. The observed 1901 – 2000 New York City sea level variations, US annual average precipitation, US annual averages of the Modified Palmer Drougt Severity Index, All-India Monsoon Rainfall index, the Southern Oscillation Index have been studied. The trend showed that the observed 20th Century global warming trend has been accompanid by trends in the first statistical moments og some, but not all, climatic indicies. Contrary to their expectation, no significant trends in the second, thirs and fourth moments of the statistical distributions of five selected climatic indicies have been found. This means that there is no statistically recognisable trend in variabilty of any of these climatic indicies for the past 100 years.”

    The response? ” Rejected. There are others who presented new techniques that we didn’t include because we assess change, not analysis techniques.”

    I’ll leave you to form your own conclusion.

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    Steve Meikle

    Dave, re 234,

    It seems to me there is nothing here to indicate criminal conspiracy, only vanity fed delusion. Coming from a religious background (charismatic fundamentalist) I have seen this kind of thing before. . . you know what I mean? devils lurking in every amulet or charm, or even bubble gum wrappers. Words have supernatural power toi these people, real curses going down family trees being responsible for familial depression . . . . .

    Of course it drove me mad, literally, and it has taken years to recover sanity

    I do not hold that a commonly held delusion is a conspiracy . The thing is Monkcton claims this AGW business is a One World Government conspiracy imlying that they know they are wrong and a fomenting deliberate lies in order to terrorize people into submitting to a one world government.

    And you wil have seen on video Lord Monckton’s citing a one world government plan coming out of AGW

    When a fundamentalist in my twenties (I am now 51) I came across a nutcase conspiracy theorist by the name of Barry Smith, since deceased, who preached one world conspriacy theory, illuminati, bilderburg, the whole nine yards.

    I thought he was crazy then. when i ask if AGW is conspiracy rather than dogmatically held delusion that is I mean

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    Denny

    Roy Hogue: Post 231,

    Not being a pro it occurs to me to ask how one opens up the “filter Drier” without then having to add more refrigerant and oil. The answer’s probably obvious and I just don’t see it.

    Roy, it depends. If it’s a residential system, you close the liquid Line Service Valve and pump down the system into the Condenser. All filter driers are solder or brazed in the liquid line. If it’s commercial, the filter drier systems have replacable cores. Sporlan makes a great drier system using bolts and seals with multi core replacements that come in a air tight can, moisture free. Again you close the liquid line service valve and energize the liquid line solenoid valve to let the refrigerant pump into the Condenser. When your done, just open the valves. Yes, a small amount of oil is lost but not enough to cause problems.

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  • #
    machina.sapiens

    @Roy Hogue
    Some commentary on your rhetoric:

    I’ve ignored you up to now. But you need a lesson in the facts.

    Here you seem to be trying to position yourself as a superior being, condescending graciously to correct my error by “instructing” me in the “facts”. That sort of vainglorious posturing just makes you sound like a prat, basically – except to the cheer squad, of course. If you had any serious interest in logical argument, or in talking to anyone anyone who didn’t agree with you already, you wouldn’t start off like that.

    When Ed Darrell first appeared here he was calling us names and doing character assassination. That didn’t go on for very long before Joanne Nova, who owns this site and makes the rules, called him to account and blocked his additional posts until he apologized and agreed to clean up his act. The rules are where you can find them easily if you’re interested.

    So he apologized and was allowed to post but then still managed to go overboard and get blocked yet again.

    Cf my earlier post (#212), addressed to JoNova : “I see no evidence of you blocking anyone other than people who disagree with you, no matter how abusive and irrelevant your supporters get.”

    The material he uses to support his position amounts to proof by authority — enough people with the right credentials say it’s true so it must be true. This is a logical fallacy and we don’t go in for that kind of thing here.

    I think you’re making a fundamental, and probably fairly common category error here. ” Appeal to authority” is when you simply say The Pope (or the King or the Leader or some other authority figure) says x, therefore x is true”. That’s a basic logical error, although all of us are subject to it to varying degrees, and in many cases it’s not a bad rule of thumb – if you trust someone’s nous, it saves time to appeal to their statements, and none of us can afford to think everything through back to basic theory ourselves. That leads to paralysis of action.
    What Ed and others are doing here is actually better characterised as ” Appeal to expertise” – that is, he is saying ” I refer you to a selection of scientific papers which support my argument, prepared by people who have recognised expertise in the area, and supported by the peer-review process, which gives me confidence that, on the whole, they are are a reliable support for me having confidence in statement x”
    That’s quite different, and I’m sure that you actually rely absolutely on that kind of appeal to expertise all the time – every time you go to the doctor, or step on an airplane, for instance, I don’t think you insist on sitting down and repeating all of the scientific and engineering work underpinning the design of that aircraft, or repeating all of the double-blind testing that the drug company did on the drug that the doctor is prescribing for you – you just rely on the expertise of the professionals involved in the chain of expertise that is delivering the product to you. Not that that is a perfect process, of course, but you only die a sufficiently small number of times that you are prepared to take the risk.

    Next, it has been characteristic of Ed that when asked a question he doesn’t answer. He evades, even changing the subject hoping no one will notice that he didn’t give an answer. Your own example is a perfect case in point. He just dismissed the questioner. This is a violation of common courtesy. If you post here you are a participant in a conversation about the topic of the thread and if asked a question, the very fact that you posted something implies an honest interest in answering the question if asked.

    I think you’re having yourself on here. Questions asked by critics in this discussion are vary rarely honoured with anything resembling a serious answer – The only people I see responding thoughtfully, as opposed to providing a stream of political grandstanding and simple-minded recitation of a position, are Ed D and the Banned chap.

    Everyone here will agree with me on this last point.

    I don’t – does that mean you don’t count me as a person? Is that an appeal to authority, which you affect to eschew?

    You are way off base and appear to be a pawn of Ed Darrell for some reason.

    The conventional usage of “pawn” would be to suggest that the person so labelled is in some way under the control of the person identified as the “pawn-master”. I’ve always thought of that as a curious metaphor, really, because in chess the pawn actually moves independently, if in a very limited way – at least as independently as any other piece on the board.
    But I digress – As my only contact with Ed D is through reading his contributions to this thread (and then looking up his own blog), I think the idea that I am under his control is drifting into tinfoil-hat-land. But you’ll have to trust me on that, I suppose, since “baseless accusations” like that are difficult to either sustain or demolish, as I’m sure you are aware.

    You have yet to contribute anything useful and no one takes you seriously. Why are you wasting our time?

    Because I enjoy religious disputation and splitting hairs with heretics? Isn’t that enough reason? Isn’t that what blogstreams are about? Do I need your permission as well?

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    Ed Darrell, I’m getting help to manage the hundreds of comments coming in. We’re still working out a system, so your comment has been released from moderation.

    You however still appear irrational.

    You make assumptions and we have asked you to back them up:
    “the scientific evidence points to the increase in human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases as creating the mess we’re heading into. ”

    You cannot provide any other evidence other than climate simulations, and I have already explained why these are inadequate. We need empirical evidence.

    Before you can post again, please explain:
    1. Are you still calling us “deniers”?
    If “yes” then you may not post again since this is delusional as you cannot provide any evidence we deny and have not acknowledged that your past effort to provide evidence was woefully inadequate.
    If “not” then talk of deniers applies to some other group, it’s not appropriate here. Go talk there.
    OR
    2. You may apologize for wasting my time, and posting comments of sub-par logic along with baseless insults.

    You may not post again until we resolve this. Unfortunately I have to discriminate against the mentally deficient who throw insults. There is only one of me, I’m trying to lift standards on logic and reason and cannot offer free therapy for those who are simply, possibly due to no fault of their own, unable to reason.

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    Roy Hogue

    machina.sapiens,

    If the shoe fits wear it. You picked it up and put it on so it must fit.

    Your sophistry impresses only yourself.

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    machina.sapiens

    If the shoe fits wear it. You picked it up and put it on so it must fit.

    Your sophistry impresses only yourself.

    Are those examples of the logical argument of which you so proudly speak? Read more like playground taunts to me.

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    machina:

    “Argument from expertise” IS “Argument from authority”.

    Science is not like law or sport where “experts” have some power. It doesn’t matter how many nobel prizes you have, the clouds don’t part for anyone.

    And as for “Ed-can-reason”, recall that Ed’s arguments are Ad hom from the start. He’s the kind of guy who thinks that if Monckton was wrong on DDT, then Monckton isn’t… “trustworthy“. Therefore his climate sensitivity figures are wrong, and ERGO The Planet Is Warming Due to CO2!

    Did you follow that? Does that mean that if I bother to reply to him and categorically (with a small thesis) show that Monckton is exactly right on DDT, then it will follow deductively that therefore Monckton is also right on climate sensitivity. Ta Dah! Don’t think so. I could waste hours proving Monckton was right on a side issue, and, of course, I would prove nothing about carbons effect on our troposphere.

    In other words, it’s a cheap shot from a non thinker and the only thing I could achieve by taking his illogical bait is to waste hours of my time.

    So the problem for me is that there are infinite side-tracks out there and thousands of people who want to throw these flimsy irrational accusations at me. How do I deal with it? I just ask people to back up their claims and be polite.

    Funny how such a small task rules out so many unskeptical scientists.

    BTW: Ed Darrell has had 39 comments to win us over with reason, and to post evidence to back his case. And he calls that “censorship”.

    “Censorship” from those who call us baseless names is just the last bleat when they’ve run out of things to accuse us of.

    NOTE – Just in case anyone missed it. The sum total of Ed’s effort to post evidence…was in #66 http://joannenova.com.au/2010/02/the-great-collapse-of-the-global-warming-myth/ and my reply was in #114. He was not even close to the standard of discussion we had on this blog in my third post.

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    Roy Hogue

    machina.sapiens,

    I’ll let Jo’s post speak for me regarding Ed.

    You have been begging to be told your own list of sins and I finally did it. Notice that I didn’t use any name calling, ad hom attacks, etc. Whatever you think of me and whatever you or Ed put up on “Bathtub” are not going to bother me a bit. When you continue to defend the indefensible you eventually run headlong into a brick wall.

    As I said, you picked up the shoe and put it on so it must fit. No one made you respond to me. You did that yourself. Frankly, in your place I would ignore someone like me. But I knew you wouldn’t. It’s not in the nature of someone being intellectually dishonest. And that is exactly what you’re doing.

    Need I mention that if you were being honest you’d never get any criticism or run into me at all.

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    Anthony Watts

    Jo,

    My advice on Ed Darrell is to simply ignore him. His opinion is both nonsensical and inconsequential, as well as rooted in hate. Let him rant till the cows come home, nobody takes him seriously.

    Anthony

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    average joe

    Ed Darrell:
    February 19th, 2010 at 6:02 am

    “….. However, denialism may well be a symptom of disease…..”

    Hmmm….In Stalins Soviet Union they put many socialist-deniers into asylums.Its a dangerous path.Who shall decide which one will go an asylum, and which one shall not? And who will guard those who decide?

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    Steve Meikle

    “….. However, denialism may well be a symptom of disease…..”

    Steve:

    I for one reject psychiatry as a matter of principle for being quack medicine. Even if, for the sake of argument, AGW were true, denying it, even to the point of delusion, is not symptomatic of a disease of medical relevance, because the simple fact of the matter, taken from the anti psychiatric literature, is that no evidence correlating brain state with behaviour or belief **in a causal manner** has ever been observed.

    Psychiatry is also dehumaizing and reductionist. In their world no one makes moral decisions in response to real events, or even wrong and foolish moral decisions, they are victims of brain chemistry, This is very good to sop the consciences of abusive parents etc, and it keeps quack doctors, who treat what is not illness as if it were illness (one of the very definitions of quackery), in work

    Medical judgements of a psychiatric nature are simply denunciations clothed in pseudo scientific language

    Calling one’s opponents mentally diseased is an insulting and rationally irrelevant ad hominem attack which is as void as the term “schizophrenia” is itself.

    Medicalization of dissent, no matter what the dissent is, is the royal road to a new totalitarianism, and i hope to be lolng dead berore western society ever gets there

    call us fools, call us evil, if you like.

    but call us diseased in a medical sense AND I WIL CALL YOU FILTH AND LEAVE THIS SITE

    DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR?

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    MadJak

    Steve,

    The Quote about being diseased came from Ed Darrell @210. I think Ed Darrell was the only one throwing around that line. Ed was throwing that accusation aroud at anyone who doesn’t believe that Al Gore is 100% right, as far as I can tell.

    So the line was directed at myself also. I think it’s more likely that Ed Darrell will leave this site, so I wouldn’t worry.

    As mentioned earlier, I too am interested in the actual motivations for the scientists involved and the continuing seemingly irrational defence of AGW we are seeing.

    Like you, I don’t really subscribe into the full conspiracy thing…

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    Steve Meikle

    To the warmists here:

    my case against AGW is not particularly founded on science, though i am pleased to see that the science properly done refutes AGW.

    But i am not overly concerned about the interpretations of men and women peering at ice cores and the like.

    My case is founded on history. There was a medieval warm period as men at the time, eye witnesses, left written reports that they grew grapes in england, that greenland was green and was settled by vikings, and that europe flourished. the europe of the 12th century wes not the dark, violent, fearful and superstitious place that it was in the 15th century. in fact around this tiome the catholic church declared that belief in witchcrat wa a superstition, which his a far cry from believing that ewitchcraft was real and witches were to be burned.

    it was a benign climate that produces the surplusses that enables the cathedrals to be built at this time

    and likewise the mini ice age has written records attesting to it – the Thames froze many times where it has not in nearly two hundred years. teh chimney was invented to prevent heat loss through the traditional hole in the roof, and likewise it seems that the black death was associated with the COOLING that started early in the 14th century

    you can refute the scientists all you like. But you cannot refute the written recoreds of eye witness through the centuries.

    and if the AGW’s deny the medieval warm period they can only do so out of corrupt motive, for the simple fact it that the very nature of the medieval warm period and the mini ice age that followed it show they were parts of natural cycles for the simple reason that there WAS NO INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY at this time.

    Go and read some history.

    it is one of my complaints about scientists in general that they suffer from myopia and tunnel vision.

    there is more to reality than what can be observe today. there is the historical record written by people as eye witnesses.

    It is all there if you care to look.

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    Steve Meikle

    re 247,

    yes, i was only speaking of the warmists here who did that, and i knew that no skeptic, or rather climate realist, a term i prefer, had sunk to that level here. having been once diagnosed in psychiatric terms because of the religion that drove me mad, i had a terrible flash of anger when writing post 246, but my principled rejection of psychiatry is the only way i came to recover from the suffering the shrinks called illness

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    machina.sapiens

    Hmmm…. So much nonsense and “argument” in bad faith, so little time. Oh well, here goes….

    “Argument from expertise” IS “Argument from authority”.

    Don’t think so. As I remarked earlier, there is a fundamental difference between deriving your confidence in the probability of a proposition from the authority of the individual who made the proposition on the one hand, and on the other having confidence in a proposition because it fits into the interlinked web of theories which is science, and is supported by peer-reviewed research and debate. If you reject the idea that it is reasonable to proceed on the basis of relying on a consensus (pro tem) reached through peer-reviewed research, then you are essentially rejecting all of science, because that’s how it works. And as I also remarked earlier, I’m sure you’re happy to rely on the consensus of scientific opinion when you step aboard an airplane, so why not in this?
    None of this, of course, is to deny that scientific theory is always wrong or that paradigm changes don’t occur – just that the consensus tends to represent the current best story that we have at the moment – and the fact that paradigm change sometimes happens doesn’t mean that every ignored idea is just a paradigm shift waiting patiently for the conspiracy against it to dissolve, the sky to open and its originator/s to be recognised as the true genius. Most of them are just what they seem – junk.

    Science is not like law or sport where “experts” have some power. It doesn’t matter how many nobel prizes you have, the clouds don’t part for anyone.

    Actually, my understanding is that in law, it’s law that has the power, and in sport it’s sporting expertise. Not sure where you get the idea about “experts” having “power” (whatever that means) in either of those fields, but it doesn’t sound convincing to me. And since I didn’t make any claims about special precedence deriving from individual authority in science,it has nothing to say to me. I believe that’s what’s called a straw man argument.

    And as for “Ed-can-reason”, recall that Ed’s arguments are Ad hom from the start. He’s the kind of guy who thinks that if Monckton was wrong on DDT, then Monckton isn’t… “trustworthy“. Therefore his climate sensitivity figures are wrong, and ERGO The Planet Is Warming Due to CO2!

    I don’t see Ed D making any argument of the kind. He was certainly suggesting that anyone would be wise to take anything the con-man Monckton proposes with a grain of salt, and examine it thoroughly before being taken in by its superficial plausibility, given his track record of unreliable statement (using the DDT stuff as an example), but his “scientific” work stands or falls by itself.
    I guess that falls into the straw man category too?
    There are plenty of other Moncktoniana that would give any unbiased observer cause for caution – the false claims about his cv are almost a classic marker of the con-man. I suppose the cheer squad will sing the chorus that goes “Oh, but they’re just jokes” – they certainly aren’t presented as jokes in context – I wonder how many of his “scientific” lines will suddenly turn out to have been jokes as well?

    Did you follow that? Does that mean that if I bother to reply to him and categorically (with a small thesis) show that Monckton is exactly right on DDT, then it will follow deductively that therefore Monckton is also right on climate sensitivity. Ta Dah! Don’t think so. I could waste hours proving Monckton was right on a side issue, and, of course, I would prove nothing about carbons effect on our troposphere.

    Indeed you wouldn’t.
    A small thesis from you wouldn’t have a lot of weight, of course – you might need to refer to actual science from respectable (peer-reviewed) research to have much effect.

    In other words, it’s a cheap shot from a non thinker and the only thing I could achieve by taking his illogical bait is to waste hours of my time.

    …See above.

    So the problem for me is that there are infinite side-tracks out there and thousands of people who want to throw these flimsy irrational accusations at me. How do I deal with it? I just ask people to back up their claims and be polite.

    Funny how such a small task rules out so many unskeptical scientists.

    As opposed to your cheer squad and yourself, of course, who have no such politeness rules applied to them (“Did you follow that?”, “flimsy irrational”, “a non thinker”?), and no requirement to back up their claims with anything in particular.

    BTW: Ed Darrell has had 39 comments to win us over with reason, and to post evidence to back his case. And he calls that “censorship”.

    No, I don’t think so. I think that when he says “Censorship”, he’s referring to the ones that you did block, and to your repeated statements that he wasn’t allowed to post again unless he agreed with you, and apologised for ever having doubted your omniscience. (I don’t think that was the exact wording, but that was the burden of the song.

    “Censorship” from those who call us baseless names is just the last bleat when they’ve run out of things to accuse us of.

    That’s just more playground taunts, really.

    NOTE – Just in case anyone missed it. The sum total of Ed’s effort to post evidence…was in #66 http://joannenova.com.au/2010/02/the-great-collapse-of-the-global-warming-myth/ and my reply was in #114. He was not even close to the standard of discussion we had on this blog in my third post.

    I’ve just quickly reviewed Ed’s comments in this and the other one you mentioned, and that’s not what I see – I see him providing lots of references and attempting to argue in a rational way. His enthusiasm has a couple of times got away with his tongue, but he’s not in the same league in terms of invective as your cheer squad, who remain un-corrected.

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    Roy Hogue

    machina.sapiens,

    More sophistry! And you’re just repeating yourself as well. Why are you bothering?

    In any case this statement hangs you by your own necktie:

    If you reject the idea that it is reasonable to proceed on the basis of relying on a consensus (pro tem) reached through peer-reviewed research, then you are essentially rejecting all of science, because that’s how it works.

    This is not the way science works my friend. Science demands that something be established as fact by experiment or observation, repeatable by anyone who wants to try it and see if the result is the same. You and Ed champion only opinion, claiming that the sheer number of scientists in agreement makes it so. Sorry, but the truth is not a matter of majority opinion. And at this point claims of warming are stretched beyond the breaking point. In case you haven’t noticed, Phil Jones (you have heard of him?) has admitted that there was no significant warming at all. You can easily find the interview if you’re interested. Unproven, much less now debunked science is not a worthwhile basis for political action — you and Ed notwithstanding.

    Next, never try to bullshit an old pilot about what I’m relying on when I get on board an airplane.

    And as I also remarked earlier, I’m sure you’re happy to rely on the consensus of scientific opinion when you step aboard an airplane, so why not in this?

    There is no consensus of scientific opinion involved. Every aircraft type is made to prove it’s airworthiness by actual very rigorous testing. Its design is reviewed by people who would love nothing better than to find a big hole in the engineering and point that out to the manufacturer. The same goes for the test results. The standards are entirely objective and very thorough. Here in the U.S. we call those people the Federal Aviation Administration — FAA for short. In other words, the aircraft type has been made to prove it’s airworthiness in actual ground and flight testing. That’s science pal, not consensus. In addition to that, before every flight every aircraft system is inspected and checked. There are long check lists. If anything is not working that airplane never leaves the ground. I once cooled my heels at Travis Air Force Base for 12 hours beyond our takeoff time while some problem with the airplane was fixed and tested. When I was renting airplanes I rejected more than one because something was not working right.

    You simply don’t know what you’re talking about — not how science works — not a thing about aviation either.

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    Roy Hogue

    machina.sapiens,

    At first I decided to ignore your use of the term “pro tem” even though it makes your case even worse. But it deserves to be pointed out that using pro tem means you’re arguing that even though we know the current consensus is temporary, hence as likely as not that it’s incorrect, we should go ahead and make policy based on it anyway. Forgive my saying it but you have a fool’s faith in the opinion of a bunch of scientists if that’s what you believe. But then you have unshakable faith in those scientists anyway.

    While on miscellaneous subjects — the possible meanings of your alias are not lost on me. Are you claiming to be a God in human form (quite a stretch) or are you claiming to be someone who conveniently dropped in here to show us how to solve our otherwise unsolvable problem? Either way, don’t you think that’s just a little bit arrogant?

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    machina.sapiens

    This is not the way science works my friend.Science demands that something be established as fact by experiment or observation, repeatable by anyone who wants to try it and see if the result is the same.

    Yes. Sort of. Facts are the basis of science, not the results of it. The results are hypotheses and theories which have explanatory and predictive power.
    You do your experiment and observation. You form and test a hypothesis which seems to have explanatory and predictive power. So far only you know about it. That’s not much use to anyone. What do you do then?
    Well… you publish your results in a peer-reviewed journal. Peer-reviewing provides a basic junk-filter – a few reasonably expert researchers in your own field check the paper to make sure it makes sense, and hasn’t committed any fundamental errors of method, or ignored previous results. They put their pawprint on it – their “authority” – which doesn’t prove your hypothesis, just flags to the rest of the community that it’s worth reading… Then other researchers read your paper, come up with objections, repeat your experiment/observations, devise other experiments and observations which serve to either confirm or disconfirm your hypothesis, and publish their results in the same peer-reviewed journals..
    Eventually, if your hypothesis is a good one, (ie other people’s work supports it), it becomes part of … the consensus… and what that means is that new work can then proceed from there, assuming your hypothesis as a base, with confidence that it’s likely to be right – they don’t have to start from the beginning again.
    And none of that means that it’s “the truth”. Someone can always come up with a new hypothesis that knocks yours out of the water, but it has to go through the same reasonably objective process of testing before it replaces yours in the consensus.
    That’s the theory, anyway. Obviously, since the the participants in this process are humans, it’s susceptible to all sorts of political and other influences – it’s not a perfect process, it’s just the best possible one, with built-in checks and balances that protect it to some extent. It’s biased against crackpot theories, but it also has a certain inertia – if you have a genuinely good new theory, but accepting it requires dumping some other theories which are fairly well established and central to a lot of other work, it’s difficult to get your idea accepted – that’s what the paradigm change idea is about – a radical new idea is slow to be accepted, but then changes a whole lot of the consensus with a big bang.

    You and Ed champion only opinion, claiming that the sheer number of scientists in agreement makes it so. Sorry, but the truth is not a matter of majority opinion.

    No – and I make no such claim, of course – neither does Ed D, as far as I can see. But I’m not about to sit down and repeat all of the basic research myself, and I presume you aren’t either, unless you’ve got a century or two to spend on it and unlimited funds. Faced with two theories in an area that you’re interested in, you have to decide which one is more probable. And if one of them is supported by a substantial majority of the people who have expertise in the field, I’m likely to go with that one, myself. Especially if I have no particular expertise in the field myself, so my assessment of the question is not likely to be informed by the kind of deep knowledge required. That’s what seems sensible to me. That doesn’t “prove” that it’s “true”. But only religionists are deluded enough to think they can “know” the “truth”. The rest of us have to be satisfied with assessing probabilities.

    And at this point claims of warming are stretched beyond the breaking point. In case you haven’t noticed, Phil Jones (you have heard of him?) has admitted that there was no significant warming at all. You can easily find the interview if you’re interested.

    — So now you’re relying on authority, is that right? And you’re even happy to rely on a rather tortured interpretation of a press interview, rather than insisting that you have to go back to the basic science and repeat everyone’s experiments. Yes? [And in any case, that’s not what he said.]

    Its design is reviewed by people who would love nothing better than to find a big hole in the engineering and point that out to the manufacturer. The same goes for the test results. The standards are entirely objective and very thorough.

    …And what’s the result of all those reviews and testing? … It’s a consensus on the part of those with expertise, that we all trust (within reason) because of their scientific and/or engineering qualifications and because of the rigorous processes that they go through to develop their testing, like peer-reviewing for example, that the airplane is safe. Or have you repeated those design reviews and flight tests yourself for each airplane that you’ve stepped aboard?

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    machina.sapiens

    Roy:

    At first I decided to ignore your use of the term “pro tem” even though it makes your case even worse. But it deserves to be pointed out that using pro tem means you’re arguing that even though we know the current consensus is temporary, hence as likely as not that it’s incorrect, we should go ahead and make policy based on it anyway.

    All science is provisional – proper respectable scientific activity is carried on in the knowledge that all theories are subject to revision or falsification, so the consensus that supports them is always “pro tem”. I prefer to be careful with my statements, qualify them with reason, and not over-state the case.. As I remarked to your friend above, only religionistas are deluded enough to think they Know the Truth. Science is more rational and less arrogant.
    That doesn’t mean that you can just sit and do nothing and wait for enlightenment or perfect knowledge before you do anything, because your understanding is inherently and always partial, provisional, and uncertain. That’s just the way it is. You have to act on the basis of the best theories that you find currently supported by respectable processes and collectively-certified expertise. That’s all you’re ever going to have. Chasing certainty is a fool’s errand.

    Forgive my saying it but you have a fool’s faith in the opinion of a bunch of scientists if that’s what you believe. But then you have unshakable faith in those scientists anyway.

    My faith is in the method and the collective, not the individual humans, and it’s justified by the fact that I can fly to Los Angeles whenever I feel like it.

    While on miscellaneous subjects — the possible meanings of your alias are not lost on me. Are you claiming to be a God in human form (quite a stretch) or are you claiming to be someone who conveniently dropped in here to show us how to solve our otherwise unsolvable problem? Either way, don’t you think that’s just a little bit arrogant?

    machina.sapiens is meant to be a little joke about scientific nomenclature. Not related to deus ex machina, which I presume is what you’re referring to. It’s a variation on homo sapiens. It means “intelligent machine” (sort of). It’s a version of a genus/species name that you might use to refer to a computer – or perhaps to mean our species, if you really want to emphasise our mechanical nature. It might even be a joke on myself, because a number of my friends would probably feel that “computer” is a not entirely inaccurate description. A poor thing, but my own.

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    Farmer Dave

    Machina,

    Your comments on the similarity of airworthiness and peer review is absolute, udiluted, pure…..crap!
    If you had bothered to take a step back and do a little research you would be aware that before every flight, of EVERY type of EVERY aircraft, the pilot (or second Joe) conducts a “walk around” inspection to ensure that all is how it should be. Add to this inspections, at various intervals, of airframe, engine and avionics that go deep, you have not a peer review but a test/retest to ensure that the approved design has maitained it’s integrity.
    Your style of argument is not only tiresome it is a case of “never mind the quality, feel the width”. I should pause to head off a charge of ad hom; please note that I am not attacking you, just your comments.
    A river of drivel posing as logic is still drivel.
    While undergraduate style blather might cut the mustard down at the student union after a few beers, it is hardly contributing anything of substance to a debate that calls for evidence and not the “outed” and corrupted peer review process of the IPCC.

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    Roy Hogue

    machina.sapiens,

    You’ve used the word consensus 7 times in what you post here. You always mean it to say that the opinion of a bunch of scientists who report that they observe “A” has happened and therefore “B” must be responsible for it are correct. “A” is something observed about the weather or the climate and “B” is always CO2. Yet never once has a link between “A” and CO2 ever been shown. Not once! I’ve seen this argument in print: we don’t know what else could cause it so it must be caused by CO2. The truth is that all the meaning you can ascribe to, we don’t know what else could cause it, is that they don’t know what causes it.

    Warmers have published the evidence they themselves say would be there if CO2 was doing any warming. But they can’t find it. Skeptics have agreed that their evidence is correct and still no one can find that evidence. It’s all available on this very site.

    Your use of consensus shoots you down and supports us every time.

    You’re full of bull about airplanes. The criteria are strictly objective hard science learned over more than 100 years of experience with powered flight and have nothing to do with consensus.

    Mistakes may be made in aviation and in other fields and you learn from them. But that’s not the same as polling X number of scientists to see what they think the climate is controlled by or what the requirements for a safe aircraft are. Sorry about that.

    Do you want to know why we’re so sure of ourselves here? It’s because we’ve seen so many of you and Ed Darrell that we can’t count them anymore. Their arguments are always the same logical fallacy that you use. It never changes.

    You cannot win this argument here!

    Rave on if you want to. But I’ll not be here. You can’t be reached with the truth.

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    MadJak

    Machina,

    Engineering standards and systems for the manufacturing and maintenance of aircraft are extremely rigorous.

    Quality Standards like D0178B are a good example of this. Take a look at this stuff and you should feel more safer flying to LA in a pressurized aluminum can.

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    machina.sapiens

    Farmer D:

    Your comments on the similarity of airworthiness and peer review is absolute, udiluted, pure…..crap!

    Yes – I’ve always been very impressed with the level of logical argument presented by Jo’s cheer squad on this blog. As she says often, it’s clear which side is presenting its position in the form of logical argument… Isn’t it?

    If you had bothered to take a step back and do a little research you would be aware that before every flight, of EVERY type of EVERY aircraft, the pilot (or second Joe) conducts a “walk around” inspection to ensure that all is how it should be. Add to this inspections, at various intervals, of airframe, engine and avionics that go deep, you have not a peer review but a test/retest to ensure that the approved design has maitained it’s integrity.

    And why does the pilot (or second Joe) have confidence that the tests and checks that he or she goes through validate the safe condition of the plane? He or she has confidence because the tests and checklists are based on a consensus of experts in the field that those checklists and tests make it highly probable that the plane is fit to fly. And that consensus is based on a whole lot of practical experience, and on scientific and engineering theory, which forms part of the general scientific web of consensus.
    That’s what consensus means in the scientific context. It has nothing to do with voting, or gathering opinions.

    Your style of argument is not only tiresome it is a case of “never mind the quality, feel the width”. I should pause to head off a charge of ad hom; please note that I am not attacking you, just your comments.
    A river of drivel posing as logic is still drivel.

    So you’re suggesting that all complex issues can be disposed of with a couple of quick careless soundbites and a taunt or two? That sustained discussion is just a waste of time? Is that because you’ve already locked your mind into one position, so it’s pointless to try to understand any others? Actually… it has occurred to me that people other than the cheer squad might well browse through this discussion from time to time, so perhaps your olympian rulings on what it’s appropriate for me to say may not be the last word.

    While undergraduate style blather might cut the mustard down at the student union after a few beers, it is hardly contributing anything of substance to a debate that calls for evidence and not the “outed” and corrupted peer review process of the IPCC.

    Thank you for that vote of confidence. It’s a very long time since I frequented any student unions, but I’m glad to think you still see in my comments that openness, interest in ideas, and keenness to follow arguments to their logical conclusion irrespective of received opinion that characterises student discussion. I do try. Thanks again.

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    machina.sapiens

    Hi Roy

    You’ve used the word consensus 7 times in what you post here.

    ? That’s because the concept of scientific consensus is what I’m talking about (at the moment).

    You always mean it to say that the opinion of a bunch of scientists who report that they observe “A” has happened and therefore “B” must be responsible for it are correct.

    I have no idea why you think that’s what I mean. That has not the slightest resemblance to what I’ve been saying. Have you read it?

    “A” is something observed about the weather or the climate and “B” is always CO2. Yet never once has a link between “A” and CO2 ever been shown. Not once! I’ve seen this argument in print: we don’t know what else could cause it so it must be caused by CO2. The truth is that all the meaning you can ascribe to, we don’t know what else could cause it, is that they don’t know what causes it.

    Warmers have published the evidence they themselves say would be there if CO2 was doing any warming. But they can’t find it. Skeptics have agreed that their evidence is correct and still no one can find that evidence. It’s all available on this very site.

    Your use of consensus shoots you down and supports us every time.

    What’s available on this site is opinions, which you tell me you think should be ignored. What’s available in scientific journals is experimental and observational evidence, underlying theories and models, which hangs together to form a consensus view. Given a choice, I know which one I’d put more trust in.

    You’re full of bull about airplanes. The criteria are strictly objective hard science learned over more than 100 years of experience with powered flight and have nothing to do with consensus.

    Mistakes may be made in aviation and in other fields and you learn from them. But that’s not the same as polling X number of scientists to see what they think the climate is controlled by or what the requirements for a safe aircraft are. Sorry about that.

    And “polling X number of scientists to see what they think the climate is controlled by or what the requirements for a safe aircraft are” also has nothing to do with the concept of consensus. Have you read any of my comments? Perhaps you’d like to address them with contrary views and arguments, rather than just chanting mantras.

    Do you want to know why we’re so sure of ourselves here?

    No, not really, but I suppose you’re going to tell me.

    It’s because we’ve seen so many of you and Ed Darrell that we can’t count them anymore. Their arguments are always the same logical fallacy that you use. It never changes.

    Yes – relying on evidence – the oldest trick in the book. How could we be so mean…

    You cannot win this argument here!

    Yes, I fear that’s true. But then I never expected to. I am pleased to see you acknowledge that you aren’t open to any contrary arguments, though.. Unexpectedly honest.

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    Roy Hogue

    computer.human,

    Since you persist and persist I’m beginning to understand you a little better. You’re willing to call those who will in significant numbers offer up a vagrant opinion — vagrant being one without visible means of support — and those who agree on the findings of hard science such as what it takes to make an aircraft safe to fly in, both holders of a “consensus”.

    But even allowing this interpretation which I will now do, you are wrong. When an airplane crashes there may be multiple opinions as to what caused it. But as in good science anywhere, opinion does not rule. It’s just a guide you can use to determine where to start looking. One must prove the point by — in the case of air safety — actual forensic work followed by testing of other aircraft of the type to see if the flaw exists there. It’s not easy (and no they don’t just crash another one to see what happens). Anyone coming along with some other opinion saying that accepted design practices are all wrong without being able to prove it would be laughed right out of sight.

    Your consensus consists to this very day of scientists who say we see this, that and the other thing happening and we can’t think of any other cause so it must be CO2. Now in spite of statements made about your being wrong, even some by me, our only claim is that you have never proved that CO2 has the slightest connection with anything harmful.

    In fact now that so many cats are out of the bag there isn’t even any good evidence that anything is really wrong. So it now begins to look like the whole CO2 thing was manufactured; evidence was simply trumped up to show a preconceived outcome; that CO2 is evil and needs to be regulated. It’s ready made for two causes. Governments can tax the hell out of people with punitive carbon taxes and environmental interests see the possibility of killing off large numbers of us by cutting off access to cheap energy thus saving their precious planet.

    Say what you must but this statement by Maurice Strong, a rather rabid environmentalist type is very telling. “Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?”

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    Steve Meikle

    What is all this nonsense about consensus?

    Once upon a time the consensus was that combustion was caused by some mysterious element called phlogiston. It was conclusively proved not to exist by experiment and observation by Lavoisier in the 18th century

    Another consensus was that rags left out would spontaneously produce rats, and meat left out would spontaneously produce flies. It was definitely Pasteur who conclusively proved by subtler observation than that which came up with this folk tale that abiogenesis does not exist, that flies laid eggs too small to be seen in dead meat and these hatched. IOW life comes from life.

    THIS IS NOT TRUE BECAUSE OF A CONSENSUS, but because it was observed, proved and could be repeated experimentally and at will.

    Likewise, something so established as to be beyond dispute, the sphericity of the earth, is not true because of a consensus but because it have been geometrically calculated and not only confirmed by every observation that confirms with its corollaries from it but is now directly observable by going up in a space ship and seeing it with one’s own eyes.

    A consensus might arise when a theorem is so conclusively proven and universallly accepted, but it is surely not true because of the consensus, but because of the evidence and data.

    To attempt to establish truth from a consensus is to put the cart before the horse.

    And as for AGW, talk of consensus is clearly nonsense, for there isnt one.

    I am not appealing to the numbers of scientists who dispute AGW as proof that AGW is false. That would be ad numeram fallacy. But the very fact of these numbers of people preclude any honest claim being made of a consensus actually existing.

    I am amazed. I spent my youth studying classical double bass and musical theory, but know more science that the warmists here

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    Brian H

    Roy H @174;
    Canuck here. Pops were declining till hunting was banned in the ’70s, then they rebounded fast. Geological evidence shows much higher pops in warm periods with little or no ice. Bears is smart and omnivorous; they adapt and make do with just about any food source, and there’s a much larger pantry in warm eras. They COPE with ice by outsmarting seals (lurking by breathing holes, e.g.) They do not drown, as they can swim almost 100 miles without ever leaving the water. Their bodies are quite buoyant.

    Their only threat to survival is the rifle.

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    Brian H

    Steve @229;
    Have you checked the actual content he references of the proposed COP15 enforceable treaties that all attendees (including the very enthusiastic Obama) were supposed to sign on to? They amount to wholesale transfers of sovereignty and funds to un-elected and un-accountable bodies, in perpetuity.

    Qui Bono? IOW, “follow the money”. You may not consider that these consequences were intentional, hence conspiratorial, but there is much evidence that they were. Start by looking up the statements and positions of my (much-to-be-regretted) compatriot, Maurice Strong, who was the eminence gris behind the creation of the IPCC, and many other initiatives EXPLICITLY intended to collapse industrial economies.

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    Brian H

    ms @253;
    The entirety of that near-latest sophistry hangs on the oft-repeated “peer review” standard.
    1) That’s a convenience for editors so they can get anonymous outside checks and balances on their decisions to print or not. That’s all.
    2) A prominent feature of the Climategate exposures has been revelation of the corruption of the peer review process in this instance, reducing it to a pal-review circle-jerk. One email refers overtly to “redefining the peer review process.”
    3) Peer reviewers do their best work when first recruited. By about 5 years in, the quality of their work has deteriorated significantly, and no amount of coaching or urging to better efforts helps or reverses the effect. The same lot have been reviewing each others’ papers in the “climatology clique” for about 20 years. The odds of a good result are negligible.

    Papers challenging the hypothesis credo in a genuinely peer-reviewed journal, the GeoPhysical Review, resulted in Jones, Mann et all pulling strings behind the scenes to get rid of the “inconvenient priest” (apologies to T.S. Eliot). Successfully. Everyone involved knew on which side the bread was buttered (and honeyed, and jammed).

    The devil is in the details, you see.

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    Steve Meikle

    Re 263,

    I think i was distinguishing, on one hand, between these political responses, which were clearly volitional, and, on the other hand, the “science” (for want of a better word).

    Perhaps I am naive, but maybe these were good faith responses, albeit screamingly irrational and ill considered, to poor science.

    But was the “science” conspiratorial? Or was the “science” simply a commonly held delusion. Did they “sex up” the data in the same way Bush and Blair knowingly did to justifiy a criminal war, or because they were deluded?

    I am not challenging you, just wondering out loud, so to speak.

    BTW I have lost most of what little respect I had for the Greens. I emailed our NZ green party with my reasons for rejecting AGW. I got no reply, of course, but i did warn of a backlash against them and against even their legitimate concerns once AGW is relegated to the dustbin of history.

    NOTE: If warmists start name calling here I will simply disregard them.

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    MattB

    Steve in 261 – you don’t seem to have decided if you think there is no consensus or if it doesn’t matter if there is consensus.

    Tell you what, I’ll do everything in my life based upon assuming the scientific consensus is always right, and you can do everything in your life based on assuming that scientific consensus is always wrong, and we’ll see who lasts longer.

    I’m off for a cuppa… maybe you’d like to put a spoon or two of dioxin in yours… p.s. scientific consensus is that you’ll be dead pretty soon but what the heck so called “consensus” used to think that flies grey out of rotting meat.

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    Brian H

    To be fair, the grotesque biases of the climatology clique’s publishing and reviewing habits have a somewhat more general cause:
    the positive result bias.

    Many have called for a Journal of Negative Results. Probably there needs to be one such parallel journal for every extant scientific publication.

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    Steve Meikle

    re 184

    Gore’s a Baptist, and a good man.

    God allows good men to have beach houses, too. God’s in favor of solar energy, and human uptake of same.

    Steve:

    you’re kidding. Surely?

    I mean, do you REALLY want to take the Holy and Terrible Name so flippantly?

    Don’t you know Who the Dread Lord and Mighty Sovereign, the Judge of the living and the dead, actually is?

    AS regards Gore, concerning the errors in his film, either he is incompetent, and thus no service to his ideology , or he is knowing, whereby he breaches the ninth commandment. You know the one? you shall not bear false witness, ie NO LYING.

    Note: I did not appeal to God to argue science but I hold all truth to be God’s truth, including the truth of the climate realist position on the fad which is AGW

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    Brian H

    Steve @265;
    Scientists are people, too, and subject almost a fortiori to “peer pressure”, unless they are amongst the elite (precious) few whose independence or arrogance insulates them from influence. Aside from that, it is notable, to the point of being incredible that it is not more noted, that ALL the errors in the data and reports are in the same direction:
    –Virtually very single “homogenized” weather station’s readings were adjusted UP, e.g.
    –The weather stations dropped from those surveyed and tabulated were all in the colder and higher altitude locations (even when, as in Canada’s case, their information continued to be retrieved and submitted assiduously; of 1400 stations, a couple of hundred continue to be tracked by NASA, GISS, CRU; of 100 above the Arctic Circle, ONE is used, and it is now within the town limits of one of the few very scattered settlements.)
    –New Zealand’s entire record of the last several decades was fudged to slope up instead of down.

    If you can imagine any way in which all that could be by “good faith” error, you’ve got a far better imagination than I.

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    Brian H

    Steve @268;
    Gore may be a Baptist, though I’d not take his word for it, but he is a profiteering lying conniving bastard, not a “good man”. As for his beach house, if he believed for an instant the ludicrous sea-level-rise claims he’s been peddling for decades, he wouldn’t buy a shack within miles of a beach, much less a multi-million dollar beach house.

    There is no truth in the man. None.

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    Brian H

    Further to the above, Gore has ignored or rejected every venue where he might be exposed to informed debate. A producer of the “Not Evil, Just Wrong” film somehow made it into a presser and asked some questions. Gore evaded at first, then handlers shut off the audience mike and hustled the man out. He was given a very ominous warning by an attendant policeman that he was now on a terror watch list.

    Gore is slime.

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    Brian H

    Further to the further, above:
    The movie was mis-titled, of course. It should have been, “Not Just Wrong, Evil!” By “evil” I intend and mean, “intentionally causing harm to others for personal gain.” Gore’s speaking fees and corporate speculations in firms benefiting from the climate scare and his speculations in carbon credits have gained him $100 millions, and stood to make $$billions if COP15 had succeeded.

    But, eventually, money sees which way the wind is blowing. Carbon dioxide offsets sold for $7.50 in mid ’08. They are now 10¢ and falling on the CHICAGO CLIMATE EXCHANGE (CCX). So he took a well-deserved hosing.

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    Brian H

    About CO2 offsets; I hope for the day, very soon, when their value goes negative! 🙂 That will mean a bonus or subsidy for every ton of CO2 produced. “Efficient” but overpriced plants will close, in favor of those which selectively take out toxins like mercury and sulphur, but leave the CO2 alone.

    The Chinese will still make out like bandits, of course, since they are building coal-fired plants like there’s no tomorrow! They are thus inadvertently doing yeoman’s work for Gaea. 😀 8) 😀

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    Farmer Dave

    Dear recent posters Brian, Matt, Steve, Roy, Madjak and Ed if he is listening.
    A little conspiracy humour for you all.

    The “iron lady” aka Margaret Thatcher, past PM of Old Blighty, faced off against the UK coal mining unions in the early eighties and beat them to death. A call to replace mines, and their productivity-sucking unions, with clean nuclear power was supported by her nascent opinion that the greenhouse effect along with it’s future problems was largely due to coal burning power stations. Her advisor at this time?
    Ta.. Daaa…Christopher Monckton (CM)!

    Now for the conspiracy. As a Thatcher advisor, he had to be of the Right. Right? Or a closet Carbonista?

    With such an obvious Right pedigree he attracts a huge following around the world of people from his side of the spectrum as well as those who harbour a serious enough doubt about what their governments are pedalling on AGW.
    Move forward to an imaginary time when CM is severely discredited, for a reason that calls into question his credibilty, honesty, standing and innocence. He is arraigned for treason and found guilty. In his defiance he calls on all “followers” to support his unjust treatment and they respond loudly and without fear, identifying themselves and their various associations.
    Gotcha!
    CM is not sent to gaol, but his “followers” are. The treasonous skeptics have been identified and removed from the scene while the evil UN, aided by CM, continue on it’s way to cripple and control the industrialised and prosperous nations of the so-called “Free World”.

    This scenario is fictitous and preposperous.
    What is not so weird is the prospect of the UN, a great big bureaucracy fed by tax dollars (donations from member countries) looking to validate it’s existance by assuming greater influence, or conrol, over what you and I want to do with the results of our individual efforts and privately owned assets such as land. We have it here in Oz where the Feds can simply pass a law preventing legal owners of land to develop it as they are legally and rightfully entitled to do.
    At present we have a draft Native Vegitation Framework up for public review and comment. Goal 3 is to “Maximise the Native Vegitation Benefits of Carbon Markets”.
    I’ll leave it to you to think about the implications of this and maybe reflect on the aims of the UN.

    Cheers,

    Dave

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    Brian H

    Steve, and Roy;
    there’s a # confusion, probably because of moderation effects. Message #185 is actually a quote/paste, by the late great Ed.
    While I’m on corrections, in #269, “Virtually every“; in #272, “$7.50/ton“.
    #271; the man was Phelim McAleer, with ‘is Oirish up! 😉

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    Farmer Dave

    My last post, 274, omitted Machina and Average Joe in the reference to recent posters. My apologies.

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    Brian H

    Matt @269;
    Bertie Russell, in “Problems of Philosophy”, said something I have slightly paraphrased for my own guidance:
    If the experts are all agreed, it is not intellectually safe to be certain of the opposite opinion. If the experts are disagreed, it is not intellectually safe to be certain of any opinion.

    For the kind of bucks and governance issues that are on the table, I’d like to have all the experts agreed. You can assert they are agreed only by resolutely ignoring some of the most prominent ones in the biz, including many who have abandoned prominent editorial and contributory roles in the IPCC reporting system because of objections to distortions of their work or refusal to contemplate or consider their quibbles. That is, at most, an illusion of “consensus”. That word, by the way, implies unanimity, not plurality or majority. It is risible on the face of it to assert unanimity.
    consensus
    noun agreement, general agreement, unanimity, common consent, unity, harmony, assent, concord, concurrence

    Collins Thesaurus of the English Language – Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002

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    average joe

    Brian H:
    February 22nd, 2010 at 6:16 pm

    I agree with that.But maybe it would be better with “Not Evil, just Carbon Cult Science”.

    Google Cargo Cult, its very interesting!

    Or read Richard Feynman on Cargo Cult;
    http://www.lhup.edu/~DSIMANEK/cargocul.htm

    Its dangerous to get interested in Feynman. You risk spending hours upon hours reading his books. He must have been a very interesting person.Observe that Feynman is
    very very hooked up to the notion that it is measurements in nature that is the thruth.
    Not your theory. If you prefer your own theory, thats one trait of Cargo Cult science.

    For example, a video where he talks about the great problem in physics;
    http://vega.org.uk/video/programme/48

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    MattB

    Brian – who are these “experts” that are opposed. And I mean experts, not some Inhofe list or whatever. they really are very few and far between.

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    Brian H

    Farmer;
    Yes, I was aware of the Thatcher connection, but the worst one could say about CM is that, after being exposed to enough information, he changed his mind. Many of the bitterest critics of AGW are those who resent having been taken in and/or used. Perhaps it’s something like the evangelical fervor of a recently saved ex-smoker (which I am, as it happens, trying to become! 😀 )
    But that’s just ad hom stuff, irrelevant to the basic case. I.e., just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you!

    🙂 8)

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    Brian H

    average,@278;
    Yeah, Feynman is one of the super-greats. But not exclusively and always correct, nor would he have claimed that.

    MattB;
    It would be rude to respond as that deserves. I will, however, point out that climatology is an invented cross-over discipline, with few or no “authorities”, notwithstanding CRU’s attempt to pose as such. (Meteorology comes closest, distinguished primarily by its honesty in admitting the severe limitations of its linear approximations of insolubly complex non-linear equations of state, not to mention the many-orders-of-magnitude inadequacy of any extant or possible data collection regime.)

    Only now are undergrad courses being cobbled together under that title, e.g. One can only shudder with horror at the drivel its first students will be fed, before the tide of incoming data washes away that particular sandcastle.

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    Brian H

    average;
    about the second Feynman lecture, it is very interesting that a new kind of semiconductor has been developed which apparently makes electrons massless. This is potentially very disturbing.
    http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2009-06/possible-silicon-replacement

    The Higgless electron? 😀 😉 8) 8) 8)

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    average joe

    Brian H:
    February 22nd, 2010 at 8:10 pm

    Undoubtly very interesting, BUT;

    Often, when reading such articles….if you call the source by phone, you will discover the article was set in motion just to create interest. Why? More funding.

    I have tried that when my mother got Cancer. Calling the researchers claiming this and that advancement in Cancer treatment. Again and again it was just to attract funding.

    Its the same with the AGW hype. Polar bears, penguins, ice, glaciers. All just press releases to attract funding. Nothing more.

    Press releases like that is misunderstood as NEWS by the ordinary reader.

    And, hence, global hysteria.

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    machina.sapiens

    @Brian H,
    A couple of minor quibbles, that you can perhaps clarify for me:
    …re your “response” in #281 to MattB’s request: I’m not surprised you couldn’t come up with many names as a response; I’m a little surprised that you couldn’t come up with any at all, and had to cover the absence with aggressive fluff – are there none at all that you can offer to support your statement?
    …and re your little lecture on the usage of the word consensus in #277; you say

    “consensus”. That word, by the way, implies unanimity, not plurality or majority. It is risible on the face of it to assert unanimity.
    consensus
    noun agreement, general agreement, unanimity, common consent, unity, harmony, assent, concord, concurrence

    Collins Thesaurus of the English Language – Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002

    Is it part of your standard methodology to use a thesaurus as a reference for the accepted usage of a word, rather than the more conventional dictionary? Given that a thesaurus is intended to provide lists of words with roughly similar, but not identical usages, I mean. What might be your justification for that approach? I find it intriguing. Dictionary.com, for example, provides (I’ve removed some pronunciation notes) :

    con·sen·sus
       /kənˈsɛnsəs/
    –noun,plural-sus·es.
    1.
    majority of opinion: The consensus of the group was that they should meet twice a month.
    2.
    general agreement or concord; harmony.

    http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/consensus
    Would you not agree that sloppiness like that, however minor, invalidates the general air of condescending intellectual superiority that you assume in your comments? Just asking.

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    Brian H

    Lots of experience with IETs (infinitely evasive trolls). One sovereign characteristic is the use of a tactic of repeating questions and assertions already dealt with earlier in a thread with a kind of gormless pretended ignorance of previous input, and perhaps slightly different wording. The intention is evidently to repetitively snarl discussion in fruitless circling of the same point, with no intention of ever responding on point.

    You qualify.

    Your class-action ad hom dissing of anyone who disagrees, in advance, as a by-definition-unqualified non-authority is a boring and juvenile logical trap. You “defer to authority”, but get to pick the authorities, none other need apply.

    Go away and onanate.

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    average joe

    machina.sapiens:
    February 22nd, 2010 at 9:53 pm

    Machina, forget about concensus and forget about the authorities ala politicians like Al Gore, the IPCC and journalists.

    Lets discuss the science instead shall we?

    Do you agree that the feedback issue regarding CO2 is the most pressing one?

    Do you agree that outputs from models is not science?

    I think we can agree on that?

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    machina.sapiens

    Hi Joe
    Why would I forget consensus? I think the misunderstanding, and misuse of the concept of scientific consensus is a central point in this debate, used by a lot of contenders to justify ignoring the science… However.
    If you were to review my commentary in this thread (I’m not suggesting that you should – there’s quite a lot of it – I’m trying to give thoughtful responses, rather than quick soundbites), you’ll see that none of it discusses the underlying science. Before I entered the debate at that level, I’d feel obliged to do a lot more reading through the scientific literature, to the point where I felt confident in having a supported position, and probably sit down first with a few textbooks on meteorology and other physical science to refresh my knowledge of the background science so that I would be confident of understanding what I was reading.
    On the whole, when I move outside my own area of knowledge, I tend to trust the expertise, process, and methodology of the scientific community, which has a track record of success in a wide range of research (and which is clearly on one side of this debate, and has been for a considerable time)
    – and since that comment will probably bring another flood of comments accusing me of argument from authority, I’ll just re-iterate that it’s not about “authority proves it’s true”, it’s about what it is reasonable to have confidence in, given that the scope of any individual’s knowledge and time is not unlimited.
    In general, what I’ve been chatting about, (and what interests me, which is why I’ve been doing the chatting) is a more theoretical/philosophical focus on how science works, and what constitutes good or bad logic and argument. Some of your friends have described what I’m doing as “sophistry” – beats me why they think that carefully analysing arguments, terminology and methods somehow constitutes trickery. I have a bit more confidence than they appear to have in the average person’s ability to understand complex ideas.
    A case in point – Brian H’s offering just above (#285), which I suspect is supposed to be some sort of response to my previous comment (perhaps I’m wrong?), but has no connection to anything that I’ve actually said – just a spray of wild generalities, with no examples or supporting argument, finishing with a bit of playground-level taunting. No logic there. It interests me that he obviously thinks that that is some kind of valid discussion tactic. I wonder why? It’s certainly unlikely to convince anyone who doesn’t already agree with him. Is it just preening? A display of arrogance to position himself as an alpha male? Is it just psychological? – intended to reinforce the bonding in the group of anti-AGW zealots who mostly comment here by excluding anyone who disagrees and trying to drive them away by abuse? I wonder..
    That sort of non-comment is almost dominant in these blog-based discussions, of course. (and I’m not just talking about this one, or this particular subject or political persuasion.) They almost always descend into fanboi (as they’re known in the more tech-y blogs where i can more often be found) posturing and name-calling, so that anyone interested in rational discussion of the actual ideas has to wade through screens of nonsense to get to anything thoughtful. A pity really, because there is such promise there. I suspect that given the new world of web 2.0, we really ought to be re-introducing the formal study of rhetoric in schools, to equip people better with the tools of argument.
    .. and no, I don’t agree that outputs from models is not science. Building models of physical systems of one sort or another in order to test hypotheses is one of the most common tools of science, given that you can’t always manipulate the parameters one by one in a controlled experiment (in this case, we don’t have a few spare Earths to to run tests on). The question is how good the models are, and how closely their predictions match reality. (ie, when you run your models against known events, which are not the events used to build the model, do their predictions match what actually happened?). It’s not easy, and the models constantly need to be reviewed and revised as new data becomes available, and the scientific community criticises and contributes to the model. But that’s just standard science.

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    Angry Reader

    Leave this machina.sapiens character alone to rot from inattention. He’ll suck you dry and never care a bit.

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    machina.sapiens

    Wow… That was impressively calm, rational, thoughtful, and adult. …Wasn’t it?

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    Farmer Dave

    Dear Machina,

    Your blogs are really very, very amusing. Please keep them up!
    Incidently, you appear to have a fantastic capacity to babble. Please don’t see this as a condescending or patronising comment, believe me it is not.
    You are incredible.
    Are you on something? If so, I’d like some too.

    Keep it up Kido!

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    Baa Humbug

    machina.sapiens:
    February 23rd, 2010 at 8:50 am

    Regards the subject of models, here are some quotes from Kevin Trenberth from his article titled More Knowledge, Less Certainty.
    I don’t wish to be accused of selective quoting, so please google the title to get the full commentary paper.
    I’ve selected pieces that I believe are relevant to the subject of “are climate model outputs empirical evidence.” (Empirical evidence being what most commenters on blogs like this one ask for).

    “In previous IPCC assessments, changes in the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouses gases and aerosols over time were gauged using ‘idealized emissions scenarios’, which are informed estimates of what might happen in the future under various sets of assumptions related to population, lifestyle, standard of living, carbon intensity and the like. Then the changes in future climate were simulated for each of these scenarios. The output of such modelling is usually referred to as a projection, rather than a prediction or a forecast”.

    Thinking out loud, I wonder what scenarios and projections a person living in the year 1900 would have made about the year 2000. How accurate would he have been? Has anyone ever been able to predict lifestyles or standards of living even 20yrs ahead?

    “Unlike a weather prediction, the models in this case are not initialized with the current or past state of the climate system, as derived from observations. Instead, they begin with arbitrary climatic conditions and examine only the change in projected climate, thereby removing any bias that could be associated with trying to realistically simulate the current climate as a starting point. This technique works quite well for examining how the climate could respond to various emissions scenarios in the long term”.

    Proving that models are only as good as the arbitrary data fed into them. Given the doubts cast on some scientists by the East Anglia emails, especially the Harry ReadMe file, I personally can understand the lack of confidence in these models. Certainly not enough confidence to initiate world wide legistlation.

    “Although important progress has been made in this area, the techniques are not yet fully established. In part because it takes at least a decade to verify a 10-year forecast, evaluating and optimizing the models will be a time-consuming process. The spread in initial results is therefore bound to be large, and the uncertainties much larger, than for the models in the last IPCC assessment. There are simply more things that can go wrong”.

    In the above, Trenberth is talking about the models to be used for the AR5. The model results are due by the end of this year. I’ll let his confidence speak for itself.

    “It has been said that all models are wrong but some are useful. A climate model is a tool, albeit a very sophisticated one that includes complexity and non-linearities in ways that are impossible to comprehend analytically. Ideally, a model should encapsulate the state of our knowledge. When that knowledge is incomplete, one strategy is to omit certain complex processes and to assume that they are constant, even when it is known that they cannot be“.

    The above is my strongest criticism of IPCC climate projections. As stated in their AR4 SPM climate sensitivity table (SPM1) The level of scientific knowledge for most of the climate forcings is listed as low. Some of the MOST IMPORTANT ones like clouds are ignored altogether by assuming they are constant as Trenberth states above.

    Hence my belief that climate models are a useful tool in learning about the earth system, but by no means are they a “science” per se that policy makers could use their output results (i.e. 2-6degC warming by 2100) as gospel. IMHO

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    average joe

    Have a look at what IPPC said about models in 2001;

    “Long term prediction of future climate states is not possible”

    That they change opinion from one year to another isnt surprising. Maybe you should search for authority among scientists, instead of among rock stars, politicians and journalists.

    Remember, IPCC is a political advocate beaurau for AGW, not a scientific body.(Crichton wrote “Jurassic Park” while studying for Dr.Med. degree)

    Scroll down 3/4’th of the page;

    http://www.michaelcrichton.net/speech-ourenvironmentalfuture.html

    And look at the predictions.Thats Cargo Cult science, not real science. I mean, talk about covering your a$$.

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    Brian H

    Baa;
    Excellent commentary. Once a ‘projection’/prediction has been generated by a model, you MUST wait out the period covered, and leave the model and its output untouched. You can’t continuously fiddle with its equations and variables to tune it to new conditions without starting the process all over!

    So at this point, the IPCC doesn’t even have a model that has successfully retro-casted conditions, much less matched current ones with an appropriate projection. It’s got nuthin’.

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