Two biology and environmental academics from Schenactady and Rensselaer Polytech New York were apparently concerned that their young prodigy might be lost from the religion of global warming (and misled by “Deniers”) so they put together together a guide to help others facing the onslaught of common sense and reason. The piece titled “Effective Strategies to Counter Campus Presentations on Climate Denial” was published in Eos.
What they didn’t do, was put forward empirical evidence. (If only they’d thought of that?)
The source of their angst? Christopher Monckton (of course) who spoke at Union College (thanks to CFACT), with help simultaneously from none other than Ivar Giaever (the Nobel Prize winning physicist we saw yesterday) who spoke at Rensselaer. (Imagine the very idea of a Nobel prize winning physicist speaking on campus about uncertainties of predicting the weather?)
Eos , Vol. 93, No. 27, 3 July 2012
Effective Strategies to Counter Campus Presentations on Climate Denial
Jeffrey D. Corbin and and Miriam E. Katz [PDF]
Assuming the world copied the Australian Carbon Tax… it will cost $2,000 trillion to cool the planet by one degree.
Monckton send this reply (below) to Eos, but while the magazine will publish name-calling illogical pieces it does not always find the polite reply as appealing.
The cost of the Australian carbon “tax”
Christopher Monckton saute’s and dices the usual fallacies, but also calculates the cost-benefits of the Australia Carbon Tax, should it be reproduced on a global scale. He assumes that not only will the Carbon Tax achieve what Ms Gillard intended (emissions wise), but also that the exaggerated unvalidated climate models of IPCC fame are completely correct. With these cavernous caveats, he estimates it will cost $2,000 trillion to cool the planet by one degree, and that’s the best case scenario.
“…carbon trading in Australia will cost $10.1 bn/year, plus $1.6 bn/year for administration (Wong, 2010, p. 5), plus $1.2 bn/year for renewables and other costs, a total of $13 bn/year, rising at 5%/year, or $130 bn by 2020 at n.p.v., to abate 5% of current emissions, which represent 1.2% of world emissions (derived from Boden et al., 2010ab). Thus the Australian measure, if it succeeded as fully as its promoters intend, would abate 0.06% of global emissions over its 10-year term. CO2 concentration would fall from a business-as-usual 410 to 409.988 ppmv by the end of the term. Forcing abated is 0.0002 W m–2; warming consequently abated is 0.00006 K; mitigation cost-effectiveness, which is the cost of abating 1 K global warming by measures of equivalent cost-effectiveness, is $2,000 tr/K. On the same basis, the cost of abating all projected warming over the ten-year life of the policy is $300 trillion, or $44,000/head, or 58% of global GDP over the period. The cost of mitigation by such measures would exceed the cost of climate-related damage consequent upon inaction by a factor of approximately 50.”
There is an excellent write up of Moncktons original talk in Schenectady on Watts Up, which I enjoyed reading.
—————————————————————–
Christopher Monckton: Right of reply
We are grateful* to the editors of Eos for this right of reply to Corbin and Katz (Effective Strategies to Counter Campus Presentations on Climate Denial, Eos, 2012 July 3), a 1200-word melange or smørgasbord of the shop-worn logical fallacies of argument ad populum, ad verecundiam, and, above all, ad hominem.
The authors, arguing solely from consensus (ad pop.) among scientific experts (ad vcd.), say without evidence that speakers like us “intend to muddy the waters with respect to climate science” (ad hom.); they serially cite politicized websites and tendentious non-peer-reviewed presentations by non-climate-scientists against us as though they were authoritative (ad vcd.), while omitting to cite published rebuttals (e.g. Monckton of Brenchley, 2006, 2010) to these dubious sources (ad hom.); they accuse us of misrepresentation, distortion, and flawed analysis without adducing a single instance (ad hom.); and they four times brand us as “climate change deniers” (ad hom.) – a hate-speech comparison with Holocaust denial. Because these irrational allegations are so serious, we have insisted upon this right of reply.
The authors also say we attempt to discredit their research when, as philosophers of science from al-Haytham via Huxley to Popper (1934) make clear, error-elimination by questioning of hypotheses is essential to the scientific method. They describe “strategies” to counter us – including “public displays” and “social media” – which surely belong more in the realm of political propaganda than of scientific discourse.
Our argument against the Party line is that catastrophic manmade global warming has not been occurring at anything like the predicted rate; that there is no sound scientific reason to expect that it will; and that, even if it did, future adaptation would be at least an order of magnitude more cost-effective than heavy spending today.
In the generation since 1990, the observed warming rate has turned out below the least estimate projected by the IPCC in that year. The models agreed with one another, but events have proven the consensus wrong. Despite rapidly-increasing CO2 concentration, there has been no statistically-significant warming for a decade and a half. The post-1950 warming rate, as the least-squares trend on the Hadley/CRU surface temperature series (HadCRUt3, 2011), is just 1.2 K/century. Yet IPCC (2007, table SPM.3 and fig. 10.26) implicitly predicts as the mean of all six emissions scenarios that Man’s influence, including an increase in CO2 concentration from 368 ppmv in 2000 to 713 ppmv by 2100, will cause 2.8 K warming by 2100 – 0.6 K previously committed, 1.5 K from CO2 emitted in this century, and 0.7 K from other greenhouse gases. This predicted (though unalarming) more-than-doubling of the post-1950 warming rate depends upon at least three implausible assumptions: that other gases augment CO2’s contribution to warming by as much as 43%; that as much as half of the warming caused by our past sins of emission has not yet come through the pipeline; and, above all, that unmeasured and unmeasurable temperature feedbacks will near-triple the small direct warming from greenhouse gases. Therefore, two-thirds of the consensus warming is based on a guess: and that is a poor basis for consensus.
The first assumption lacks credibility now that methane, the most significant non-CO2 greenhouse gas we emit, has stabilized: its concentration grew by only 20 parts by billion over the past decade. The second and third assumptions imply a volatility in surface temperatures that is belied by the paleoclimate record, which – allowing for great uncertainties –indicates that absolute temperature has not fluctuated by more than 3% or 8 K either side of the mean in the past 64 million years (Scotese, 1999; Zachos et al., 2001). That is enough to cause an ice age at one era and a hothouse Earth at another: but the inferred temperature variability is far too small to permit the closed-loop feedback gains of as much as 0.64[0.42, 0.74] that are implicit in the projected warming of 3.26 [2, 4.5] K per CO2 doubling (IPCC, 2007, p. 798, box 10.2). In process engineering, where the mathematics of feedbacks adopted by climate science has its origins (see Bode, 1945; Roe, 2009), electronic circuits intended to be stable are designed to permit closed-loop gains of no more than 0.1. Given the Earth’s formidable temperature stability, the IPCC’s implicit interval of loop gains is far too close to the singularity in the feedback-amplification equation to be credible: for across that singularity, at a loop gain of 1, strongly net-positive feedback becomes as strongly net-negative. Yet the inferred paleo-temperature record shows no such pattern of violent oscillation. Empirical evidence (e.g. Lindzen and Choi, 2009, 2011; Spencer and Braswell, 2010, 2011), though hotly contested (e.g. Trenberth et al., 2010; Dessler et al., 2010, 2011), indeed suggests what process-engineering theory would lead us to expect: that feedbacks in the temperature-stable climate system, like those in a well-designed circuit, are at most barely net-positive and are more likely to be somewhat net-negative, consistent with a harmless continuance of the observed warming rate of the past 60 years but inconsistent with the far greater (though not necessarily harmful) warming rate predicted by the IPCC.
Even if we assume ad argumentum (and per impossibile) that our unmitigated emissions will greatly accelerate the observed warming rate, the very high cost of measures intended to mitigate CO2 emissions exceeds the likely cost of climate-related damage arising from our failure to act now. To take a single topical and typical example, carbon trading in Australia will cost $10.1 bn/year, plus $1.6 bn/year for administration (Wong, 2010, p. 5), plus $1.2 bn/year for renewables and other costs, a total of $13 bn/year, rising at 5%/year, or $130 bn by 2020 at n.p.v., to abate 5% of current emissions, which represent 1.2% of world emissions (derived from Boden et al., 2010ab). Thus the Australian measure, if it succeeded as fully as its promoters intend, would abate 0.06% of global emissions over its 10-year term. CO2 concentration would fall from a business-as-usual 410 to 409.988 ppmv by the end of the term. Forcing abated is 0.0002 W m–2; warming consequently abated is 0.00006 K; mitigation cost-effectiveness, which is the cost of abating 1 K global warming by measures of equivalent cost-effectiveness, is $2,000 tr/K. On the same basis, the cost of abating all projected warming over the ten-year life of the policy is $300 trillion, or $44,000/head, or 58% of global GDP over the period. The cost of mitigation by such measures would exceed the cost of climate-related damage consequent upon inaction by a factor of approximately 50.
The very high costs of CO2 mitigation policies and the undetectable returns in warming abated imply that focused adaptation to any adverse consequences of such warming as may occur will be far more cost-effective than attempted mitigation today. CO2 mitigation strategies inexpensive enough to be affordable will be ineffective: strategies costly enough to be effective will be unaffordable. The question arises whether CO2 mitigation should any longer be attempted at all.
Readers of Eos may now decide for themselves to what extent the unsupported attack upon our reputations by Corbin and Katz was justifiable, and whether the editors of any respectable scientific journal of opinion should ever have printed it. True science is founded not upon invective and illogic but upon reason. Lose that: lose all.
References
─ CHRISTOPHER MONCKTON OF BRENCHLEY, Chief Policy Advisor, Science and Public Policy Institute, Washington, DC, USA; [email protected].
——————————–
h/t Joseph Bast Heartland
* Obviously, CM would have been grateful had Eos published this.
There can be NO CO2-AGW because as the Earth emerges from an ice age, the CO2 concentration passes the ‘self-absorption level’, ~200 ppm in 1 Atm dry air at ambient temperature, at which its thermal emissivity levels off.
Self-absorption is well established physics, particularly in analytical spectroscopy in the visible light range. The IR data for GHGs were proved experimentally 60+ years ago and are used to design metallurgical furnaces. The basic data were replicated in the 1970s so can be considered fact.
As that 200 ppmV level is passed, IR in the 4 and 14 micron bands from the Earth’s surface increases thermal emission from the atmosphere in those bands towards the surface. It’s done by reducing the number of unexcited GHG molecules near the Earth’s surface thus reducing the self-absorption.
This extra IR flux to the Earth’s surface is in radiation terms extra ‘Prevost Exchange Energy’. It reduces the 4 and 14 micron IR emission from the Earth’s surface. That means the Earth radiates more in the ‘atmospheric window’ ensuring the GHE is controlled.
A similar effect occurs at clouds where thermalisation of the pseudo-scattered upwards’ IR takes place. That energy spreads to the ‘atmospheric window’. However, it has to be minor because its intensity is set by the emission from the atmosphere away from the Earth’s surface.
The conclusion is that the GHE is set to a constant level by the water vapour content in the atmosphere. Other GHGs are also self restricting. This physics has apparently been completely missed by climate science.
10
In short – more CO2 doesn’t matter because once we get to 200 ppm CO2 there’s nothing left of the infrared wavelengths it is tuned to absorb. Or so little as to make no practical difference anyway.
Funny enough, history has already shown this. In the carbonaceous period, when the CO2 levels were 15 times higher than today, all that happened was that trees grew. And, obviously, we didn’t see an “irreversible” global warming or “tipping point”.
Pity there’s no government money in prophesying non-problems.
Cheers,
Speedy
10
But the beauty of this simple physics is that it doesn’t matter what the concentration of a GHG is, they all self limit. It’s the water vapour that’s key because it has so many bands therefore the onset to no more GHE is gradual.
There’s also a balance between vapour and clouds which gives the bimodality of ice ages so it’s not a simple issue. However, I hope I have put the CO2-AGW argument to bed once and for all so those bozos crawl back to their scientifically-Neanderthal caves and with them all the stoopid hangers on like Bain and the even more stoopid politicians like Joolliaaar and David C.
10
I’m not sure what your point is because it is obvious that clouds both reflect heat back into space but they also trap heat from the hearth by reflecting it back down.
So you haven’t really proved anything.
10
The argument here is that Carl Sagan’s aerosol optical physics is wrong. I have corrected this by putting in a second optical effect. This explains the bimodality from a difference of the structure of clouds between ice ages and the interglacial, from biofeedback.
A paper is ready but has to bypass pal review. The IPCC’s claim of 2.88 W/m^2 GHG ‘forcing’ to explain Holocene warming from the LGM is really a reduction of 3.5% of cloud albedo. It’s quite simple once you accept the GHE effect is constant and there is no GHG-AGW, Bit of a wrench fro climate science but they have been living in a dream of teenage physics.
00
Where is the IPCC? has anyone heard from them??
00
The IPCC modelling was always wrong, possibly fraudulent. All you have to do is a simple energy balance [take the imaginary IR DOWN at TOA from the imaginary recycled ‘back radiation’ UP at BOA and it leaves 94.5 W/m^2 excess energy over reality [ http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/trenberth.papers/TFK_bams09.pdf doesn’t show the 238.5 W/m^2 DOWN, but I assure you they use it because they wrongly assume Kirchhoff’s law of Radiation applies to a non-equilibrium situation and that the atmosphere is a black body].
This is 40% of the 238.5 W/m^2 solar input energy and an increase in IR of 400%. The modellers have invented a fanciful way of justifying it but no professional physicist or engineer agrees.
They then hide this imaginary feedback by various cloud exaggerations including double real low level cloud optical depth. These imaginary data are used to fit the models to past history. The result is the models cannot predict climate.
00
Yep.
Totally agree with this: “The modellers have invented a fanciful way of justifying it but no professional physicist or engineer agrees.”
True models are always tested against reality at every stage of development.
The so called, “Climate Models” have never been through this stage of development which is essential to deal with the “black box” effect of this extremely complex system.
Poor science, fraudulent politics and a poorly educated population, in terms of science, give you a scammers paradise.
Have commented before that Climate Scientists will not have their work checked by experts in the various field like chemistry, physics and thermodynamics and engineering because they know they have falsely used science to give the appearance of a solution rather than the solution itself.
The fact is, the world is in a very remarkable state of equilibrium and our greatest danger is not the one being pushed so hard.
Our biggest fear should be that the Earth will lose too much of the energy currently present in the Earth’s biosphere and we will go into the next ice age which will be induced by effects related to orbital mechanics, not CO2 production.
00
Poor science I agree with, fraudulent politics I agree with, poorly educated population is true to an extent, but the population also suspected a scam even if they couldn’t put their finger on it.
There has been perhaps tacit support from the population if you take the poles at face value (though there is good evidence the pole questions are leading questions in order to slant the vote count). But there has not been population support for taxing the crud out of us for some nebulous reason that it might do something in a hundred years time.
00
Hi Greg
The infectiousness of the do-gooderism that blights our politics is presnt even in my own family.
My long suffering wife who has heard me raving on about the global warming scam for the last few years is very smart,but not scientifically.
The incessant media campaign by the CAGW crowd has left her with a very vague concept of Global Warming and one very strong association.
She associates anything to do with the “fixing the climate” campaign with a noble cause namely Helping the Planet, because ” it can’t do any harm”.
The fault lies not with her but with those who have a duty to run our country for the betterment of all and the natural environment.
She is unable to separate out the concept of real chemical pollution (which is ignored by warmers) from the “CO2 as pollutant” scam and this is not good.
When somebody so smart is caught by the emotional entrapment of the “save the planet” meme we are in trouble as far as exposing the scammers.
You are right about the poor science.
Nobody should be expected to be totally skilled in every area of life, that’s why we have experts.
Trouble is some of our experts in Climate Science have been bought, others have been blackmailed and so we have serious misinformation about the topic.
The fault lies with politicians who have a duty to use the best information about each aspect of their job to run our country.
They are hiding things to maximise votes.
Even Tony Abbott will use the CO2 scam but in a different way to Labor; what hope have we got.
00
KinkyKeith, you’ve highlighted the problem precisely “do-gooderism”. For a politician (and most anybody else) in a public arena, it is near impossible to state anything other than; environment = a good thing to have.
For any given problem, the protection of the environment is a primary consideration. The problem for public speakers, fliers, adds, information brochures ect, is that there are always conditions which are outside of the practical limits, which remain unstated but exist in a practical sense.
May I respectfully suggest your wife is not a common representative of the community? Of all of my friends, only one wants to believe CO2 will cause catastrophe, but he refuses to discuss the matter. At work, I work with about 20 people. I know a couple of them absolutely do not believe the global warming meme, the rest have never expressed an opinion (I take that as meaning, they are not strong believers).
The core problem for public speaking is that everybody wants to protect the environment, but it’s the boggy details (ifs and buts) which are too tedious to express in a news-bite. So you are left with expressing an over simplified generalised view rather than a more accurate and detailed view.
00
Hi TBA
It’s summer in New York now so they are probably enjoying themselves and will get back to work later when Julia sends the next bucket load of our tax money over.
00
I asked on another thread whether this is in addition to Beers Law diminution of CO2’s ‘effect’, but you had moved on. Could you comment?
I find this concept amazing; it puts paid to an enormous, fraudulent industry. There must be a paper somewhere on this and if not, are you going to write one?
00
Beers law and its asymptotic effect on CO2 emissivity and therefore capacity to thermalise is discussed by Michael Hammer here. A shorter paraphrasing of Michael’s piece is here at comment 376.
‘Prevost Exchange Energy’ is discussed at one of the Science of Doom’s critiques of Miskolczi. This is heavy going. The crucial issue is the Miskolczi eqn Aa=Ed.
Aa=Ed refers to Miskolczi’s conclusion that the radiation leaving the surface to the atmosphere [Aa] is = the radiation leaving the atmosphere to the surface [Ed]. This would mean no further AGW as the system is in equilibrium. Turnedoutnice, if I understand correctly, is syaing that Aa=Ed after 200ppmv, and no further Greenhouse effect can occur.
This rather refines Beers Law.
00
Only thought of this last Thursday. No-one, and I repeat no-one until me has set out to really think what is happening. I have become increasingly ashamed at academics who imagine that modelling without experimental proof is science. It ain’t, it’s to science as painting by numbers to fine art.
So, I set out to think the problem through. The GHE is bistable but fixed in those two domains [wrote a paper last year but having to split it because Carl Sagan was wrong and that will take some time overturning]. Also there can be NO CO2-AGW because the absorptivity/emissivity levels off at ~200 ppm in a long optical path and any increase in IR suffers strong negative feedback as its emission sites are switched off.
It’ all very simple: GHGs above self-absorption force the Earth’s IR emission into the atmospheric window, the Miskolczi control system. Will you tell all these bozos in climate science that they can find new jobs?
00
Hi, T.O.N, speedy, K.K & others, when it comes to science I admit I am not the sharpest tool in the toolbox, the brightest bulb on the shelf or any other self effacing phrase I can think of.
It is therefore with gratitude I thank all of you for your contributions here at jo’s and to others at a multitude of sites.
However my most earnest thanks go to a former radio presenter (Luke Grant) at 2hd in Newcastle who by chance I heard interviewing Bob Carter. From that interview I found some youtube presentations given by Prof Carter, this in turn lead me to sciencespeak.com which in turn brought me here to jonova from where a whole new world of information opened up for me.
So again I thank you all who bring your life experience and qualification to sites such as this for the likes of myself with little scientific training to take advantage of.
Bob
00
And, of course, the warmist argument is founded on the premise that colder is more desirable. If so, then why do they insist on having their love-fests in tropical locations?
Cold is the killer, not warmth. History proves this again and again.
Cheers,
Speedy
00
I love the Lord Monck!!
PS. I am not Gay !! But, I love the Monck…
…two-thirds of the consensus warming is based on a guess: and that is a poor basis for consensus.
Consensus? What consensus, oh the consensus that got us a Carbon Tax.
The fact that this tax will cost billions for no return is madness.
If only I could swap a Red Dalek for a Time Lord…
That would get our country back on track… hmmmm…
00
Hmm. If confirming you are, is a “coming out”, is affirming you are not, a “going in”?
Some curious people might like to know 🙂
00
Name a tax that shows any return.
00
Monckton, has an awesome ability to dismiss fools.
For today, my wish is for a PM with some signs of synaptic activity. In fact, some politicians who had not failed science at high (or primary) school.
Even with poor training, one would expect a smattering of deductive reasoning to obliterate the AGW cult.
00
Some experienced engineers would be useful in Parliament. Very pragmatic folk, engineers. Did you know that they actually worry about people being injured or killed as a result of their actions? Unbelievable in this age of consensus feel-good non-science, and authoritarian “get stuffed” politics.
00
“Very pragmatic folk, engineers. Did you know that they actually worry about people being injured or killed as a result of their actions?”
We try. anyway.. gees, when we design roads, railway carriages, buildings etc.. we even try to make them comfortable for y’all. You know.. make them so they actually work 😉
00
Hey, I resemble that remark
Actually I have been quite vocal with the IEEE about their continuance with this foolishness given that any Engineer worth his/her salt can disprove CAGW in 5 Minutes. Particularly by observing that the IPCC assumption assumes a Net Loop Gain of +0.64 and a feed-forward gain (Positive Feedback) loop gain of +0.95 or so to acheive. Any engineer, should be able to deduce that the climate system would be grossly unstable to transients such that even the Sun going down would lead to massive oscillatory behaviour. Electrical Engineers represented by the IEEE should recognise that in a heartbeat.
No Engineer looking at the situation realistically sould fall into the Believer camp.
I might write a Spectrum article …. Hmm.
00
right on bobl
00
Good luck with getting that published.
00
Any article would have to have signatures from each region and multiple chapters. Working through industry contacts might do the trick … or perhaps just getting people interested at a major conference … Just thinkin’.
00
[Some experienced engineers would be useful in Parliament.]
The Australian MP that introduced Australia’s ETS to parliament has a first class Honours degree in Mining Engineering.
00
Well that rules out Tony Abbot because he thinks carbon dioxide is weightless.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/he-says-she-says-in-a-faux-election-campaign-20110715-1hhx3.html#ixzz20linZPSG
00
Jo,
The word “together” is repeated in the first paragraph.
Perhaps it should read, “so together they put together a guide”? 😉
00
$2.000,000,000,000,000 to cool the planet by 1C. And that’s assuming that feed back is neutral. There is much to suggest that feedback from the major feedback villain, “water vapour” is actually negative. Maybe we can legitimately ask: $2000,000,000,000,000 for what?
00
The truly sad part is the politicians are unaccountable for their actions.
I work in civil engineering (public roads). My designs are based on multiple design standards, reference manuals, and accepted practices. They are checked by other competent designers. Signed by a certified engineer. And if it still goes bad any/all of us are held to account.
How about the politicians put in law an equivalent accountability for themselves? They make a decision, put it into practice, it all goes sideways, and they are held accountable for spending millions/billions for projects which did more harm than good. (exibit A: desalination, B: traviston dam [900 million dollars spent and not a sod of soil turned, project cancelled]).
I’ll snip myself, God they make me angry.
I’ll snip myself, God they make me angry.
00
GC #7
“The truly sad part is the politicians are unaccountable for their actions.”
Furthermore, personifying an inability to learn from history, they appear doomed to repeat it.
In the so called ‘climate consensus’ underpinning the artifice of CO2 taxation, the political class demonstrates its ineptitude, self-interest and assurance of the lack of accountability.
Nevertheless, I wonder why it is that they have undertaken political suicide, by implementing the CO2 tax? They surely cannot be blind-sided by their own green zealotry to have ignored the likelihood of their political demise?
00
If you wanted to steal a great deal of money, which would buy you a permanent, all expenses paid, job with the United Nations, you really only have three choices;
1. You could set up a scheme whereby you stole less than a cent from every financial transaction that occurred, over a long period of time, and hoped that nobody figured out what you were doing; or
2. You could set up a scheme whereby you could steal hundreds of millions of dollars in one enormous heist; or
3. Say “bugger it”, and do both.
The question is, would Australian Politicians be attracted to plush jobs with the United Nations, and if so, which method would they be likely to choose to finance it?
00
Hi RW
You ask: “The question is, would Australian Politicians be attracted to plush jobs with the United Nations, and if so, which method would they be likely to choose to finance it?”
You might have to talk to people like gareth gareth who has been over there for a while now.
KK
00
I think it may be more insidious than RW suggests. I believe that ‘persuasion’ and ‘enticement’ perhaps with a compelling vision of a new UN centered World order, complete with the intoxicating immortality of leading the way to the grand eco-socialist implementation of Agenda 21 may hold considerably more appeal than mere pecuniary advantage. Being at the helm of a developing totalitarian bureaucracy amongst friends at the centre of the Universe is heady stuff, indeed heady enough to reverse an electoral promise and install CO2 taxation.
The following took place in 2008, before Ms Gillard became PM.
00
Well, they are accountable. At the federal level we get to vote every 3 years on whether or not we want to keep our MP or elect someone else.
When was the last time you were up for re-election in your job?
00
Ah … but it is the unelected bureaucrats that are the real problem.
I think I can speak for most people in the private sector that we are evaluated at least once per year at a minimum and can be dismissed at any time if we break the rules or stuff up really badly. Politicians get a three year gig (usually) regardless of how incompetent they are.
As usual the Adam Smith comment is ignorant of the reality that applies to most of us.
00
OMG! I can’t believe he asked that question.
00
Somehow I just knew somebody would come up with a question like this.
That is not accountability for ones action (or inaction). The rest of professional society are held to account by the law, and the possibility of compensation to said victims and possibly jail time (in engineering it’s more often a failure to make safe).
The politicians may loose their job/position for a couple years for being inept. This is a LONG way from being accountable. No comparison. They keep their superannuation, they keep their social standing (often upgrade their position), they keep their dignity, they keep their money. All they have lost if the support of the public.
And I’m sure MarkD and other did a /facepalm when they read your statement. Everybody employed can/will be sacked if they display a hundredth of the ineptitude some of our beloved politicians display.
00
Jo, in the comments thread on this topic at WUWT there is a discussion of the ‘hotspot’ between Monckton and a warmist which is difficult to unravel. I wonder if you would consider doing a post ‘refereeing’ this discussion and maybe putting it into terms that the less technical could understand. In particular the warmist quotes Richard Lindzen as agreeing that the hotspot is independent of the type of forcing and that the data must be at fault. I remember seeing that quote by Richard some time ago and it puzzled me then. Could you comment on that?
00
.
Peter,
There is nothing difficult about the Tropical Tropospheric Flop Spot (where old global warming theories go to die).
There isn’t one.
.
More to the point, if you scroll up to the end of the article above (or indeed, any of Jo’s articles), just above the start of the “comments” section, you will find a permanent link to an article Jo did in the past. It looks like this:
The short killer summary: The Skeptics Handbook. The most deadly point: The Missing Hot Spot.
The link is embedded in the text.
00
I accept that there is no hotspot and I have used this fact in my arguments to warmists but I am trying to understand the implications of Richard Lindzen’s statement (referred to by Joeldshore in the WUWT comment thread) Lindzen did make such a statement because I remember reading it and being puzzled at the time. As far as I can remember he seemed to be saying ‘if there was a hotspot it would be there regardless of natural or man-made forcings, therefore it’s absence cannot be used to disprove the CAGW theory.’ Monckton seems to be saying that the IPCC predicts different signatures for the two different causes, which begs the question do we see a natural hotspot but not a CAGW hotspot? I would like to resolve this apparent contradiction
00
1. In theory a hot spot will occur for any cause of warming (if anything warms the oceans they will give off more water vapor) but the CO2 role is so dominant in IPCC models that their models absolutely ascribe the cause of a hot spot (if it were found) to be due to CO2 induced warming. The hot spot is not directly due to CO2 – it’s labeled “greenhouse gases” by the IPCC because it’s really due to water vapor that’s supposedly increased because of CO2 induced warming.
2. Lindzen argues that the hot spot theory probably is right, and the reason we haven’t found it is that the world hasn’t warmed as much on the surface as surface stations estimate. Either way it’s curtains for team CAGW. Which way do they want it – either the models are wrong, or the world hasn’t warmed that much. Lose-lose.
3. I need to read the WUWT post comments. See the link in point one above. I really do explain a lot there.
00
Thanks very much Jo. I do remember now thinking at the time that what Richard meant was what you just explained. I now remember asking him if that was what he meant but he never replied. It does seem to be a killer blow.
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Jo, williamcg, a knowledgeable guy who has written extensively on Miskolczi and the failings of AGW generally, puts forward an interesting view on this thread at SoD. William says this:
That would suggest a THS is impossible.
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Er can we have that one again?
Beautifully put and in plain language, what is there that can now be said for CAGW – who will still stand up and defend the indefensible?
Not a lot and nobody.
QED: end of man made presupposition.
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Christopher Monckton is a gem.
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Yes I agree Monckton is a gem, the article that Jo links to is really worth reading, I loved the last 2 paras, a bit of cut and paste
The Age of Reason … gone from our Unis for a time but thankfully not from all scientists
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Slightly OT but this article from Andrew Bolt’s blog illustrates to me a major difference in the approaches and communication skills of the two sides to this “debate”. On one side you have Jo , Chris Monckton , Anthony Watts , Steve McIntyre etc and on the other you have people like this guy Prof. Karoly , Mann, Jones etc.
Is Karoly’s ego getting the better of him or are they having trouble correcting the mistakes in the paper Steve McIntyre and others pulled them up on ?
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/this_is_not_the_way_a_warmist_should_debate/
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The “Effective Strategies to Counter Campus Presentations on Climate Denial” is behind a pay wall for most here. Yet most call this a balanced debate!
All I can sight here is the response from Monckton – this side of the pay wall from here. A gish gallop of opposing viewpoints.
Factual stuff – hardly as it is full of ad hom argument. Grandiose thinking of the highest order.
I doubt anyone here has read the publication. This is not skeptical science.
Unbalanced. I have sighted the article. It is nothing like what is claimed as “pop” science here.
Seriously – is this really pop science? In your opinion what follows is one of the authors that was attacked with loadings and servings of AD HOM.
http://www.geo.umass.edu/courses/geo763/ScienceNew%20Series%201999%20Katz.pdf
Come on – fairness is not your game plan here.
“Rinse, dry and put in cupboard”.
Ross J.
00
.
So let’s see if I’ve got the logic right here, Ross.
The AGU puts out a hit piece via EOS allegedly trashing Monckton, Ivar Giaever and others, and hides it behind a “members only” paywall. Conversely, Monckton makes his reply freely available and yet somehow he’s the bad guy?
Even worse, Jo Nova reprints Monckton’s freely available reply, but doesn’t buy the paywalled article (at her own cost), and reprint it – for your benefit and in contravention of copyright – and somehow she’s the one not being “balanced”?
Tell me Ross, where did you learn about ethics? From Peter Gleick at the Pacific Institute perhaps?
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Exactly right MV; how can CM or Jo be at fault; their response is made public and the initiating attack is not. This must be an example of that legendary consensus we keep hearing about!
What does AGU and EOS have to hide? What does Ross have to hide?
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Ross you are such an annoying old coot. If this was so important to you, why didn’t you spend 5 mins on google looking for the paper LIKE I DID.
Now that you can read the whole paper FOR F&%$%# BALANCE, I expect you to comment in detail. I’ll give you one hour….no wait, this is Ross…I’ll give you 3 hours.
Effective strategies to counter campus presentations on climate denial
Although 97%–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field accept the basic tenets of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) findings [Anderegg et al., 2010], there is a consistent undercurrent of doubt among the general public (A. Leiserowitz et al., Global warming’s six Americas in May 2011, online report, 57 pp., Yale Project on Climate Change Communication, Yale University, New Haven, Conn., 2011).
To some extent, this doubt is fueled by high- profile climate change deniers who offer “the real view†of climate science [Oreskes and Conway, 2010]. Our campuses recently hosted two such speakers: Ivar Giaever at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and Christopher Monckton (also known as Lord Monckton) at Union College. (Monckton’s presentation can be seen at http://union.campusreform.org/group/blog/live-webinar-lord-monckton-at-union-college.)
While such speakers often intend to muddy the waters with respect to climate science [McCright and Dunlap, 2010], the effect at our campuses was to galvanize our students and colleagues to highlight the widely accepted facts of climate change and the nature of expert scientific consensus on this topic. This communication was achieved using social media and followup events that raised the profile of climate change discussions. These events proved to be so successful that we offer our experiences so that others can capitalize on similar visits by climate change deniers by converting them into “teachable moments.â€
It is our intention neither to address the content of the lectures nor to expand on the extensive rebuttals to their arguments
[e.g., Nordhaus , 2012] (see also http://www.realclimate.org/wiki/index.php?title=ChristopherMonckton and http://courseweb.stthomas.edu/jpabraham/globalwarming/Monckton/Monckton%20Presentation%20June%2022/index.htm).
Instead, we describe the successful use of multiple strategies to present an accurate picture of climate science. The attention and publicity surrounding the presentations by the climate change deniers almost certainly engaged both of our institutions in a discussion of climate science to a far greater extent than would have occurred if controversial speakers were not brought to campus.
The announcement of each upcoming lecture was a cause for concern for us and our colleagues because—let us be clear—there is damage to be done by such (misre)presentations. Educating the public so that people understand the science of climate change,
including its causes and potential consequences, is a difficult task. By distorting the scientific process or attacking the legitimacy of scientists, such as those involved in the
presentation of the United Nations’ IPCC reports, these speakers have a chance to undo much of the work we have done.
It was neither practical nor desirable to block either speaker from making his presentation at our campuses. Giaever, for example, is a member of the RPI faculty, and neither speaker received speaking fees from our institutions for his appearance. Furthermore,
colleges and universities exist for the very purpose of exchanging ideas. Rather, the most effective way to counter such distorting presentations is to provide a more accurate picture of climate science and to point out flaws in the speakers’ analyses.
We did this along with a diverse coalition of students and faculty from a variety of departments. Strategies included public displays with information and illustrations related to climate change science, the use of social media sites such as Twitter and Reddit to exchange information and ideas, and the organization of follow-up events that focused on the science of climate change.
The follow- up events, in particular, were essential to our efforts’ success. The RPI event, called The Science of Climate Change, took place approximately 2 weeks after the presentation by Giaever (http://approach.rpi.edu/2012/03/09/the-big-picture-of-climate-change-science/).
The format was close to that of a lecture, with an opportunity for members of the approximately 150-person audience to ask questions. The Union College follow-up event was mostly organized around questions from the more than 60 students who attended. Significantly, Monckton came to the Union College follow-up and sat in the first row. This forum allowed students to ask questions of various members of the Union College faculty and carry on a high-level discussion of climate change, the threats it poses, and possible solutions. They were also able to engage Monckton in extensive exchanges about his arguments.
The principal lesson from our experiences is that our students are some of the most effective counters to such presentations by climate change deniers. Largely on their own, students at each of our institutions organized sophisticated campaigns to present a coherent message about the science of climate change. They engaged with each speaker during the question- and-answer periods that followed the lectures, used social media to communicate with one another and with their peers, and organized alternative forums in which the science of
climate change was effectively presented.
They displayed highly sophisticated critical thinking skills and the passion and energy to organize, to engage with the speakers, and to rebut arguments that misrepresented the state of climate science.
On the other hand, faculty involvement in the presentation of climate science can be critical as well. It is likely too much to ask that students shoulder the entire burden of rebutting prominent speakers who have wellpracticed arguments. Even in the case of the student-organized question-and-answer forum at Union College, two members of the faculty, along with one student, moderated the discussion. Faculty members from several other departments were also in attendance to help answer questions.
The final challenge, and the one for which we were least prepared, was to deal with postevent publicity. While we had effectively used social media tools to organize and communicate within our own communities, the Union College event was subject to a well-organized
campaign that used those same tools to discredit our efforts. (See comments at http://www.concordy.com/article/opinions/march-7-2012/a-lords-opinion-cant-compete-with-scientific-truth/4222/,
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/10/moncktons-schenectady-showdow/,and
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2012/04/20/aristotles-climate/.)
Such campaigns have been mounted against a variety of other communicators of climate science as well [e.g., Mann , 2012]; yet we would have been far better prepared for the postevent publicity if we had anticipated that Twitter and other Internet tools can effectively nationalize discussions that take place even at small colleges.
The time and, more important, the expertise required to mount such an organized challenge can be daunting. The need for skills in social and media communications that typically fall outside scientists’ graduate training is well described [e.g., Bowman et al., 2010; Moser , 2010; Pidgeon and Fischhoff, 2011].
Yet, when we faculty engage climate science deniers, we make clear to our students and the entire community that we believe that much is at stake. If we yield the argument to speakers who attempt to discredit our research and contradict what we teach in our classes, then we risk giving the impression that scientific literacy and public awareness of climate science are of little importance to us.
References
Anderegg, W. R. L., J. W. Prall, J. Harold, and S. H. Schneider (2010), Expert credibility in climate change, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., 107 (27), 12,107–
12,109, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1003187107.
Bowman, T. E., E. Maibach, M. E. Mann, R. C. J. Somerville, B. J. Seltser, B. Fischhoff, S. M. Gardiner, R. J. Gould, A. Leiserowitz, and G. Yohe (2010), Time to take action on climate communication,
Science , 330 (6007), 1044, doi:10.1126/science .330.6007.1044.
Mann, M. E. (2012), The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches From the Front Lines, Columbia Univ. Press, New York.
McCright, A. M., and R. E. Dunlap (2010), Antireflexivity:
The American conservative movement’s success in undermining climate science and policy, Theory, Cult. Soc., 27 (2–3),100–134,
doi:10.1177/0263276409356001.
Moser, S. C. (2010), Communicating climate change: History, challenges, process and future directions, Wiley Interdiscip. Rev.: Clim. Change,1 (1), 31–53, doi:10.1002/wcc.11.
Nordhaus, W. D. (2012), Why the global warming skeptics are wrong, N. Y. Rev. Books, 59 (5), 32–34.
Oreskes, N., and E. M. Conway (2010), Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues From Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming, Bloomsbury, New York.
Pidgeon, N., and B. Fischhoff (2011), The role of
social and decision sciences in communicating
uncertain climate risks, Nat. Clim. Change, 1 ,
35–41, doi:10.1038/nclimate1080.
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Well Done Baa Humbug. That was a good post and find as well representing the article being attacked. It is not really the actual article which is indeed behind a paywall. You have however have posted a good find/summary of the events that surround this debate at the University in question.
I note the following:
The format was close to that of a lecture, with an opportunity for members of the approximately 150-person audience to ask questions. The Union College follow-up event was mostly organized around questions from the more than 60 students who attended. Significantly, Monckton came to the Union College follow-up and sat in the first row. This forum allowed students to ask questions of various members of the Union College faculty and carry on a high-level discussion of climate change, the threats it poses, and possible solutions. They were also able to engage Monckton in extensive exchanges about his arguments.
The principal lesson from our experiences is that our students are some of the most effective counters to such presentations by climate change deniers. Largely on their own, students at each of our institutions organized sophisticated campaigns to present a coherent message about the science of climate change. They engaged with each speaker during the question- and-answer periods that followed the lectures, used social media to communicate with one another and with their peers, and organized alternative forums in which the science of
climate change was effectively presented.
They displayed highly sophisticated critical thinking skills and the passion and energy to organize, to engage with the speakers, and to rebut arguments that misrepresented the state of climate science.
While such speakers often intend to muddy the waters with respect to climate science [McCright and Dunlap, 2010], the effect at our campuses was to galvanize our students and colleagues to highlight the widely accepted facts of climate change and the nature of expert scientific consensus on this topic.
______________
Pretty well sums up the effect and effectiveness of Climate Change D****rs.
Many on this side “of the coin” have never properly investigated good exposes of the claims or even read them. They are taken at face value which is not way of good mental enquiry.
A series of videos gives Monckton his fair commentary in context and videos follow of sound refutation of ALL those claims.
http://whatsupwiththatwatts.blogspot.com.au/2012/01/wuwt-champions-and-cheers-moncktons.html
The above link contains sufficient exposure to sound reasoned alternative viewpoint.
______
Ross J.
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Complete drivel.
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Ross, you highlight the following …
The really sad thing for you Ross is that you cannot see what is wrong with this statement. Students learn by doing observations, checking the evidence, testing theories both with positive and negative tests. It is not the role of a learning institution to “galvanise” students of them to blindly follow “widely accepted facts”. Einstein did not come up with relativity by following the “widely accepted facts” of Newtonian physics. Learning institutions should be encouraging students to challenge beliefs and to challenge current thinking so that society as a whole can benefit.
Epic fail for you Ross … again.
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Ross stop the dribbling and come up with a more substantial argument instead of the usual clap trap you pedal. Jo has given you information, use it and stop making the pseudo ad hom attacks.
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Thank you Jo and friends, I just dropped in for a little honest sanity, as usual, I was not disappointed. Yes Lord Monckton really is a gem, and I wish him nothing but great success in his quest.
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So this is the same Monkcton who said he has a cure for AIDS , the same Monkcton that was caught telling those who attended one of his lectures that the media need to run a propaganda campaign and try and set up a dedicated station to do so …
The same Monkcton that has been shot down in flames for everything he has ever spoken about on climate change…
He is certainly not credible , certainly not qualified and certainly no Lord either ..nothing true about him
—
REPLY: And this is another example of hate-mail ad homs from believers whose religion is failing. You can not fault Monckton with real quotes, in context. Typical. He’s never said he can cure AIDS. Never told us to run a propaganda campaign (I was there that day at THAT meeting). Never been shot down without slaughtering the would-be attackers in scathing responses that you never read. Yawn. –Jo
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This is “Christopher Monckton who spoke at Union College . . . , with help simultaneously from none other than Ivar Giaever (the Nobel Prize winning physicist . . .)”
His grasp of global climate change seems superior to that of the UN’s IPCC, but consistent with those of geology Professor Ian Plimer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VDDNgl-UPk
More references on this topic are posted here http://omanuel.wordpress.com/ to http://omanuel.wordpress.com/about/#comment-555
With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel
Former NASA Principal
Investigator for Apollo
http://www.omatumr.com
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John you sound so certain of your post but don’t provide any references so I will clarify a little for you:
1. To be honest it’s the first time I’ve read of Monckton saying he has a cure for AIDS, but I was able to find the source. It came from a BBC4 TV series called “Meet the Climate Sceptics” which included long interviews with Lord Monckton who explained that he had suffered from Graves Disease and had undergone a series of operations which saved his life. After years of suffering he says he has cured himself with an invention which has the possible potential to cure other diseases such are MS, HIV/AIDS and Malaria. Monckton states the “cure” acts on two very different auto-immune disorders, a retrovirus and on a unicellular parasite”. But other than climate bloggers loving to sneer at the supposed claim by Monckton that he has cured AIDS (something he never says), I have found no other references which leads me to believe either Monckton no longer believes the cure has the potential it once had, or that his cure is undergoing the painstakingly slow process required to test and prove such things. Either way, that would be nothing new to medical science. How many times have we all read “Scientists believe they may have found a cure to cancer”, only to see the story fade into oblivion?
2. There was a video of a meeting of sceptics where they were brainstorming ideas to help get the ‘sceptics’ view across against the tide of main stream media group-think in Australia. Lord Monckton noted the success of the Weather Channel in the US. Proposes the possibility of something similar in Australia. The video of the meeting was shown publicly. He was not “caught telling those who attended one of his lecture blah blah blah…”
3. I have watched the video of Lord Monckton debating Climate Science at the National Press Club in Australia with Dr Richard Dennis. Monckton made Dennis look like an idiot and shot a couple of journalists down in flames at the same time. I don’t know anyone who suggested Dennis won the debate. Perhaps you could refresh your memory: http://joannenova.com.au/2011/07/the-real-monckton-debate/
There’s also been much coverage of Lord Monckton winning the Oxford Union Debate there are so many references to this you can google them for yourself. You will get to read articles about debates with: “LORD Christopher Monckton, imperious and articulate, won yesterday’s climate change debate in straight sets.” While some Climate Alarmists may have a grudge against Monckton and claims he made, I couldn’t find any dredible reference to him being “shot down in flames” John.
4. You say Lord Monckton is not credible, or qualified. I’d happily hold up Lord Monckton on both those points against two of the high priests of climate alarmists, Al Gore and Tim Flannery for instance.
5. Finally you claim Lord Monckton is no Lord. I’m sure the Queen would be interested to see your evidence on this claim, as would I.
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Jaymez,
John Shirvington is a Google kiddie. You type the name into Google, you get about a million and a half hits, and then you go through and find all the times when he has been mis-quoted. (OMG – instant scandal – not).
And to judge the veracity of the other statements, one only needs to refer to the authority for all things to do with the nobility in the UK: Burke’s Peerage, where you can type in the surname, “Monckton” and press the search button. Christopher Monckton is listed at number 5.
“No number of facts can prove John Shirvington right, but it only takes one fact to prove him wrong”. (with apologies to Albert Einstein).
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There is no known cure for Graves Disease, the best that can be done is treatment of the symptoms. If Monckton actually has a cure for it he should publish it in a peer reviewed journal so that his cure can be used to help other people.
The fact you are willing to believe that this treatment has the potential to cure such a range of unrelated illnesses such as MS, HIV and Graves disease suggests that your scepticism stops when Monckton starts saying things. Why aren’t you sceptical about his unbelievable claims?
Well forget about HIV/AIDS for a second. His claim that he has a CURE for Graves Disease is unbelievable enough because there is no known cure for that disease.
This is more a criticism of journalism than science. It doesn’t matter how much medical sciences qualify promising results into cancer research you can be assured that journalists will report it as “new cure for cancer discovered”.
But this is very different to Monckton’s claim that he cured himself of Graves Disease which is as definitive you can get, yet contradicts medical science.
Well actually Dennis’ point that Monckton was proposing a conspiracy that includes Margaret Thatcher, John Howard, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Malcolm Turnbull was a pretty persuasive way of pointing out exactly how extreme Monckton’s views are.
I completely agree with you that Monckton is a formidable debater, but that of course doesn’t mean that his views are supported by evidence. In fact when you do actually look at the work he references he normally quotes things out of context, completely alters the meaning, or on some occasions just makes things up.
Hold him up to what? I’m as sceptical of some of the things Al Gore and Tim Flannery have said as I am of things Monckton says. I don’t quite understand why you aren’t willing to be sceptical of some of the outlandish claims Monckton has made. What makes him so special that you take what he says on trust?
Well actually the Queen’s secretary had to take the extraordinary step of writing a formal letter demanding that Monckton stop using the seal of the House of Lords on his official correspondence because it created the inaccurate impression that he is a member of the House of Lords when he isn’t.
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Well when I heard the story the word was “remission” rather than “cure”. A lot of difference, I will grant you, unless you are not familiar with the medical distinction.
But they are not unrelated. They all attack the auto-immune system, as does Malaria.
That is not a response to what Jaymez said, but rather an extrapolation of your previous paragraph, which I have shown was flawed.
Yes, yes, we have already discussed that. Repeating yourself is not a way of reinforcing your argument.
Oy vey, you have made the point already. The word “cure” was used instead of “remission”.
Dennis accused Monckton of a conspiracy. Monckton did not propose a conspiracy. In fact Dennis was the only person to use that word, and had Monckton chosen to sue, Dennis would have been on very thin ice.
And your evidence is … where? Because he might interpret the data in a different way to the establishment, does not automatically make him wrong. To claim it does is the logical fallacy of Argument by Popularism. I notice nobody in the establishment goes to the trouble of proving him wrong, and until they do, his hypothesis must stand alongside theirs, and with as much credibility.
Could it be because Monckton has this annoying habit of quoting papers, and facts, and calculations, and inviting his opponents to prove him wrong. Mockton’s facts must stand on their own. He has no appeal to authority. He has no appeal to consensus. So the real question must be, why haven’t the establishment shot him down already? If he is wrong, and they are right, it should be easy. So why do they hold back?
But that does not mean that he is not a Viscount, entitled to refer to himself as Lord Monckton. and is entitled to be addressed as, “my Lord”.
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Mate, come off it! Here is the video in question:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8yXZr3DDTw
He clearly says “I cured myself…”!
He doesn’t say “I’m now in remission…” what he says is definitive. According to Monckton, he has a cure AT LEAST for Graves disease and that may also be effective against malaria, HIV and multiple sclerosis.
If this is true he should publish his findings in a a journal and thus help other people that suffer from the same disease.
Mate! There is no such thing as an “auto-immune” system! An auto immune disease is a disease that causes the immune system to attack itself, thus leaving a person susceptible to other diseases that would normally be fended off if they had a properly functioning immune system.
This is why lots of people with HIV die of influenza or even a bad cold because they don’t have enough immunity left to fight the disease.
Malaria isn’t an auto-immune disease! It is a parasitic infection of the liver that then spreads to RED blood cells (those are the ones that carry oxygen around the body and have nothing to do with the immune system)!
Multiple Sclerosis is caused by degeneration of nerves in the brain and spine and has NOTHING TO DO with the immune system attacking itself!
So you are completely wrong. Malaria and HIV are completely different and MS is completely different as well!
No, clearly Monckton proposed a conspiracy including Margaret Thatcher, John Howard, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Malcolm Turnbull and a bunch of other people and organisations.
Oh and Monckton wouldn’t have had a chance in hell because what Dennis said was undeniably true which is an adequate defense in Australia.
Well gosh! The fact you need to even ask demonstrates that you aren’t very sceptical of anything Monckton says because you would’ve done your own research. But if you are willing to challenge yourself, what about watching:
This:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbW-aHvjOgM
This:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTY3FnsFZ7Q
This:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpF48b6Lsbo
This:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3giRaGNTMA
This:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRCyctTvuCo
But of course you won’t, because you leave your scepticism at the door when it comes to Monckton’s often bizarre, but amusing claims. You are only a part-time sceptic.
And he has been proven wrong repeatedly, but of course you don’t realise this because you are sceptical of everything except everything Monckton says.
Well probably because he is a pretty funny chap who isn’t in any position of real power so he isn’t worth worrying about too much.
When he does run for parliament hardly anyone votes for him anyway. He ran for election to the Scottish parliament last year for the UK Independence Party and managed to get a whole 1.1% of the vote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid_Scotland_and_Fife_(Scottish_Parliament_electoral_region)
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‘Adam’ it seems Rereke Whakaaro has beaten me to it By responding to most of your soft critique.
You really must have a lot of time on your hands but I’ll play along for the moment. But really I think you deliberately look for tenuous points in the hope that idiots who read what you write do not realise you aren’t actually addressing what you claim to be addressing. Therefore I am guessing your PhD is not in a science, maths, discipline, in fact it couldn’t be in anything which requires absolute accuracy. But there is no question you are creative (and bored).
1. Monckton himself says that Graves Disease is incurable but says he cured his. Notice I used “cure”, and assumed it is either going through the rigours of proper testing, or it has fallen by the wayside – how sceptical do you want me to be? I certainly didn’t endorse his claim, I was correcting John’s quote. Even Monckton only talked of possibilities for curing HIV/Aids, MS and Malaria.
I have two incurable chronic illnesses ‘Adam’. I am only too aware that ‘cures’ are claimed by people all the time, I will even try some ‘just in case’ they help me because unfortunately medical science doesn’t know everything just yet – as Barry Marshall and his mate proved.
2. You make a good point about the innacuracy of journalists. It works the same with climate science. A scientist reports that IF the global average temperatures increased as predicted by some IPCC climate model then the world might implode. They don’t question the veracity of the models they just report “Scientists predict world will end due to global warming”.
3. What Rereke Whakaaro said about Dennis’ point on conspiracies, In any event, it was just Dennis putting another way his argument from authority – surely all these people can’t be wrong? I felt embarrassed for the guy, I could have done a better job arguing his position.
4. Remember ‘Adam’ I was addressing the comments of John Shirvinton who claimed Monckton is not credible and not qualified. I was simply pointing out Monckton holds up very well against Gore where a UK court found that there were at least 8 (from memory) significant errors in ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ and ruled the film should only be distributed to schools with a list of those errors. Since then of course many other errors uncovered in the IPCC report and reported in Gores film have also come to light. With respect to Flannery, where do we start with all his wild predictions and he is a taxpayer funded Climate Commissioner – water lapping the eighth floor of a beach front apartment, any property with an ocean view is at risk, the dams will never fill, the drought is a permanent part of Australia’s new climate, Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide will run out of water. Talk about lacking credibility.
5. It wasn’t the Queen’s Secretary, I can’t remember the guys exact title but it was essentially the public servant who looks after the administration of the House of Lords. John Shirvington (if that’s his real name) claimed Monckton is not a Lord which is totally untrue. Monckton does make a point I thought you in particular would love, because it is a technicality, that the letter incorrectly stated Monckton is not a Member of the House of Lords. Indeed he is, and he is able to stand for election to any of the hereditary seats as/when they become available which if elected would allow him to sit in the House of Lords. At present however he is not a SITTING member of the House of Lords – which as far as I know, he hasn’t claimed – but I am happy to stand corrected on that point.
‘Adam’ you seem to be prepared to use half truths to try to imply I am wrong, rather than refute what you know John Shirvington wrote was wrong.
I think it is good that we have people who question climate scepticism at this site, because it gives us an opportunity to question what we know and to respond and explain. But I don’t see you putting forward any worthwhile arguments or referenced facts. So I probably won’t respond in future unless you do me the courtesy of at least justifying what you write, and address what I actually write.
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A brilliant piece.
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Just for fun:
Which PDH does Adam Smith have?
PHD Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas
PhD Philosophiae Doctor (doctor of philosophy)
PHD Portable Hard Drive
PHD Post Hole Digger (construction)
PHD Prolyl Hydroxylase (protein)
PHD Pleckstrin Homology Domain (biochemistry)
PHD Plant Homeodomain (microbiology)
PHD Port Hueneme Division (US Naval Surface Warfare Center)
PHD Permanent Head Damage (slang)
PHD Push Here Dummy (point & shoot cameras)
PHD Professional Help Desk
PHD Probability Hypothesis Density
PHD Pulse Height Distribution (ion detection)
PHD Personal Hemodialysis System (Aksys, Ltd.)
PHD Pacific Health Dialog
PHD Phenomena in High Dimensions
PHD Portable Handheld Device
PHD Post Holiday Depression
PHD Pre-Hearing Detention
PHD Plumbing Hardware Dispatcher (Google TiSP spoof)
PHD Process Historian Database
PHD Player Hater Degree
PHD Pisarenko Harmonic Decomposition
PHD Punjab Haryana and Delhi (India)
PHD Phase History Data
PHD Process Hierarchy Diagram (business process modelling)
PhD Poor Hungry Doctor
PHD Parametric High Definition
Phd Pathfinder Healthcare Developments (Smethwick, West Midlands, UK)
PHD Port Huron & Detroit Railroad
PhD Pothole Dodger (driver on poorly maintained roads)
PHD People Helping the Disabled (Edmonds, Washington)
Phd Post Homicidal Depression (serial killers)
PHD Production Hole Diameter
PHD Praising Him Daily
PHD Public High Diploma
PHD Pray Hard Daily
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UNBELIEVABLE! This sentence is entirely self-contradictory but you present it as if it is some definitive fact that proves me wrong!
You say that even Monckton says there is no cure for Graves disease, but then you end the sentence by saying he cured himself!!! Can’t you see that such a statement doesn’t make sense at the level of basic logic?
You are only a sceptic for things Lord Monckton doesn’t say, when he starts speaking you become a true believer.
What? The letter explicitly says:
http://www.parliament.uk/business/news/2011/july/letter-to-viscount-monckton/
And yet you turn that around and say that Monckton is a member of the house of lords!
That’s just INCREDIBLE mate. You seem to want your own facts as well as your own opinions!
No he isn’t! Clearly you haven’t read the letter from the Clerk of the House of Lords!
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Of course Lord Monckton is a Lord, but he isn’t a Member of the House of Lords. Of course Monckton struggles with obvious facts, so he has had to be reminded of this by two different Clerks of the House of Lords:
http://www.parliament.uk/business/news/2011/july/letter-to-viscount-monckton/
He seems perpetually pissed off that the UK parliament voted in 1999 to end hereditary peerages, so that he couldn’t sit in the House of Lords after his dad died.
When he did put his name forward to fille a House of Lords vacancy actual members of the House of Lords awarded him with a grand total of zero votes.
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Proving conclusively that a member of the peerage who campaigns against useless windmills is unpopular with other members of the peerage who are more than happy to get their snouts in the public trough by blighting their land with useless windmills, and pocketing the rent.
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And your point is . . . .
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Wow! So now I have pointed out that Monckton isn’t a member of the House of Lords, even though he repeatedly says he is, you perform a bit of bait and switch and argue that people who actually are Members of the House of Lords all have their snouts in the public trough anyway!
GOOD DEBATING MOVE! I give it 6/10
I guess this means all the times that Monckton says he is a member of the house of lords is because he aspires to return to the days when he was paid by UK tax payers!
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No
The REALLY interesting thing Team Smith, is that in a little over an hour you have made six posts totaling nearly 1200 words on this three day old thread, mostly completely O/T and about Monckton’s peerage and his Graves Disease (both excellent grounds for your usual ad hom and straw man attacks).
But at least up until five minutes ago you had not made a single comment on yesterday’s post about Sturt’s temperature recordings from the 1800’s, nor a single post on today’s article about the grossly incompetent temperature records that the BoM have offered up as “best practice”.
It is interesting to note that you have devoted so much time and effort to attacking a man (and ignoring the subject of the actual post), in an article everybody else has well and truly moved on from, while at the same time avoiding like the plague two more recent posts, both of which have at least a passing reference to the actual CAGW debate.
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Telling.
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You made this point far better than I did!
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For scientific observation and analysis.
A++
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Yep, and I know lots of people who have become perpetually pissed off when the Government arbitrarily takes away something that you were told was an entitlement. But it has no relevance at all to what he does and says in regard to the science. It is just another one of your straw men.
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So hang on a second, let me get this right. You are saying that a hereditary peerage including a right to a seat in the House of Lords is more important than the democratic will of a parliament to alter the rights of people who inherit a title?
That is just bizarre. If that was the central organising principle of government then you may as well get rid of democracy all together. The parliament is sovereign, the parliament can make laws giving people the right to sit in parliament, but of course it can also take that away if there is a majority of that inclination.
Anything less is just debasing the principle of democratic representative government.
Well you would be right about that. Even if Lord Monckton was a member of the house of lords (which of course he isn’t) he would STILL be wrong about climate science!
I quite like the Monckton Bunkum series of videos on YouTube. The first one is here, I’m sure you can find the rest yourself:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbW-aHvjOgM
Of course you probably won’t watch them because it is vary rare to find a climate change sceptic who is sceptical about anything that Lord Monckton says.
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Adam, seriously man.
“You are saying…” and then “That is just bizarre…[rant/rave]”
Your making up what wasn’t said, then criticizing someone for what wasn’t said (or from my reading, wasn’t implied either).
You do this a lot.
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This is a new Adam Smith:
He has spelling errors throughout the comments today?
Usually nouns and verbs really upset him, but not this grade 2 version of Adam Smith!
This one is just picking points on one item!
It makes a bad example of the usual Adam Smith!
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I tend to agree. There is no underlying purpose to his line of reasoning, other than to try to maximise his score by causing as much annoyance and distraction as possible.
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Please forgive my typos. I donated blood yesterday and was somewhat light headed when I was making those posts.
But I’m back in business now.
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Monkton states: “electronic circuits intended to be stable are designed to permit closed-loop gains of no more than 0.1”
This is incorrect – consider e.g. a PA system with a microphone input of millivolts and a speaker output of volts (and similar impedance). The gain is ca. 1000 yet the system is stable. Anyone with any sort of electronics knowledge will immediately see the error and likely dismiss the rest of the article as unreliable.
We need to get stuff right and leave talking nonsense to the CAGW merchants.
PS: this is the 2nd time I’ve posted this point; the first post seems to have vanished into the ether.
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Well done Gareth for being sceptical of some things Monckton says or writes even if you agree with other things.
This is a true sceptical attitude, unlike some here who seem to stop being sceptics whenever Monckton speaks or writes something.
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