By Matthew Knott in Copenhagen
After two weeks of around the clock negotiations and the participation of over a hundred of world leaders, the Copenhagen climate change summit has ended in failure, producing a flimsy political agreement far weaker than even the most pessimistic observers expected at the start of the talks.
The agreement – hastily cobbled together on the last day of the talks by 28 nations, including host Denmark, the US and Australia – drew fierce criticism by developing countries left out of the meetings, claiming rich countries had staged a “coup détat” of the UN process.
Tuvalu, Venezuela, Bolivia and several African nations had already signalled in the final official plenary session that they would not support the accord. If the deal dies on the UN conference floor – as it will if only one nation votes against it – then it esentially amounts to a glorified press release. At the time of writing it appears, after an objection by Nicaragua, that the accord will be included with the other texts as a mere “informal” or “miscellaneous” document.
Copenhagen was supposed to lay the foundations for a new international climate change treaty to be signed in Mexico next year – one that would, unlike the Kyoto Protocol, include the pledges of the world´s biggest greenhouse gas emitters, the US and China, in a legally-binding agreement.
But, in a decision that has already infuriated environmentalists around the world, the “Copenhagen Accord” does not include any mandate, or even an aspiration, to ever develop a new legally-binding climate change treaty.
The accord commits nations to keeping the global temperature rise to under two degrees, but does not specify the level of emissions reductions that will be needed to achieve this goal. A leaked UN analysis yesterday revealed that the targets currently on the table would lead to a temperature rise of over 3 degrees.
The final agreement represents a significant watering down of draft texts leaked to the media during the final day of the summit. One draft committed developed nations, as a group, to reducing their emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. Another included the goal of signing a legally-binging treaty at COP16 in Mexico. Both of these commitments were cut out of the final version.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said eleventh hour negotiations over the text by world leaders including himself, Barack Obama, Gordon Brown and Nicholas Sarkozy, had saved the summit from “catastrophic collapse”.
“We have achieved genuine progress and a genuine step forward,” he told reporters. “This is the first time ever developed and developing nations have committed to a two degree Celsius rise.”
The agreement also includes the promise of mobilising $100 billion a year by 2020 to help developing countries’ mitigation and adaptation efforts.
The willingness of developing nations to open their overseas-sponsored emissions reduction activities to oversight by international bodies was also a breakthrough, he said.
The annex of the agreement lists an emissions reduction pledge of Australia of 5 to 15 per cent on 2000 levels by 2020. Mr Rudd said the final target would be announced by February.
US President Barack Obama arrived in Copenhagen early Saturday morning and quickly joined drafting discussions with other world leaders. Neither the Premier of China, nor the Prime Minister of India attended these meetings, sending diplomats and ambassadors instead.
During the afternoon Obama then held meetings with the “Basic Group” – China, India, Brasil and South Africa – who eventually agreed to sign the accord.
President Obama described the accord as a “meaningful and unprecedented” agreement to tackle climate change. Both he and Mr Rudd admitted that much work will be needed in coming years to bring commitments in line with what the science demands to avoid disastrous global warming.
Nnimmo Bassey, Chair of Friends of the Earth International, said: “Copenhagen has been an abject failure. Justice has not been done. By delaying action, rich countries have condemned millions of the world’s poorest people to hunger, suffering and loss of life as climate change accelerates.”
76 Comments
So it has failed? No binding emission cuts? Now these idiots can go outside and play in the snow! How ironic will it be if some of these alarmists can’t leave Copenhagen due to the ICY cold weather!!
JFPE, didn’t happen to see the story about the Russian climatologist in Far Eastern Siberia by any chance? She’s been recording temperatures there for decades, and her assessment is that the temperature rises in that region are in the order of several degrees already. Of course we all know what lies under the permafrost up there, billions of tonnes of methane, a greenhouse gas far more powerful than carbon dioxide.
Make your childish comments, if it humours you, but don’t expect the rest of us to take anything you have to say seriously.
John, fantastic comment.
Although you used the word irony incorrectly, and gave us the impression you don’t understand the concept of winter, I really liked how you used two exclamation marks to shout down the man!
My gut tells me that your gut tells you that peer reviewed science is something nerds do to make them sound better than us, and so they can mess with our lives. Well I say live how you wanna live, and bugger the rest of them!
Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi!!!
I dont think the facts which are being avoided are the science, but the logical consequences. Governments are not will or able to face their electorates with the reality that this will require reduction in material consumption and that this is unavoidable now that we have reached peak everything – food, oil, land, fish, you name it. In Australia climate change is dancing around the reality that the objective is to put the coal industry substantially out of business. We need an unpopular government, and we have had one of each stripe which is led from the focus group. I suspect that the price of dealing with climate change will probably be, and this is not something I am advocating just a prediction, popular democracy.
Well said JFPE, I’ll bet CHRISTOPHER DUNNE is far more interested in his arrogant belief system than the truth.As long as it sounds semi-plausuble and from ‘authority’ he’s in.
On Mar 31, 2004 the infamous Phil Jones wrote to to an equally infamous (albeit for different if similar reasons) Michael Mann as follows:
Recently rejected two papers (one for JGR and for GRL) from people saying CRU has it
wrong over Siberia. Went to town in both reviews, hopefully successfully. If either
appears I will be very surprised, but you never know with GRL.
Cheers
Phil
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=407&filename=1080742144.txt
On Dec 15, 2009, it was reported that the Moscow-based Institute of Economic Analysis (IEA) issued a report “claiming that the Hadley Center for Climate Change based at the headquarters of the British Meteorological Office in Exeter (Devon, England) had probably tampered with Russian-climate data.”:
The IEA believes that Russian meteorological-station data did not substantiate the anthropogenic global-warming theory.
Analysts say Russian meteorological stations cover most of the country’s territory, and that the Hadley Center had used data submitted by only 25% of such stations in its reports.
Over 40% of Russian territory was not included in global-temperature calculations for some other reasons, rather than the lack of meteorological stations and observations.
The data of stations located in areas not listed in the Hadley Climate Research Unit Temperature UK (HadCRUT) survey often does not show any substantial warming in the late 20th century and the early 21st century.
The HadCRUT database includes specific stations providing incomplete data and highlighting the global-warming process, rather than stations facilitating uninterrupted observations.
On the whole, climatologists use the incomplete findings of meteorological stations far more often than those providing complete observations.
IEA analysts say climatologists use the data of stations located in large populated centers that are influenced by the urban-warming effect more frequently than the correct data of remote stations.
The scale of global warming was exaggerated due to temperature distortions for Russia accounting for 12.5% of the world’s land mass. The IEA said it was necessary to recalculate all global-temperature data in order to assess the scale of such exaggeration
http://en.rian.ru/papers/20091216/157260660.html
Did anybody really think that a talk fest, from the people that have benefited most from how things are, would change how things are. Individuals need to consume less and have less children to reduce our pollution, but what the earth decides to do with us is really out of our control and the arrogant to think otherwise.
I was promised a dystopian world government. Rudd fails again.
JamesK #5
Possibly regarding the review of the paper you refer to that the quality of the science may not be very good. From the little I can glean from the rest of the (illegally obtained) email, and having not seen any of the other papers in question, it would appear that there are core statistical problems related to spatial and seasonal sampling that caused the rejection. This seems to be a fundamental problem with methodology, and not something that can be addressed by a revise and resubmit.
Or are you claiming that scientists should accept everything, however suspect into the literature? Perhaps that is acceptable practice in parts of the humanities, and something that scientists should adopt.
Which leads to the IEA piece. This is from an economic think tank specialising in fossil fuel resources, without scientific expertise in climatology. Given this simultaneous vested interest, and lack of expertise, I’m not sure that their pronouncements should be taken seriously withoug external review by a panel of real scientists.
But then again in the humanities, any old bullshit contributes to the constructed truth, so perhaps I’m wrong and it should all go into the melting pot to paralyze decision making even more than it already is …
@kdkd#7
What as opposed to Christopher Dunne’s “the story about the Russian climatologist in Far Eastern Siberia” you mean?
Unlike you I made no claims on the veracity. I merely pointed to others questions not mine.
Why not try and argue like an adult?
ABC story on PM, transcript:
SVETLANA TSYPLAKOVA (translated): Usually in December there was firm ice, and over the past two years, really firm ice has only appeared in January or perhaps at the very end of December.
SCOTT BEVAN: The results from a string of weather stations go to the meteorological centre’s head office in Arkhangelsk. Irina Grishchenko, from Russia’s Northern Hyrdometeorological Department says they’ve been recording ever-increasing temperatures and warmer weather is having an effect on the Arctic ice cover’s size and thickness.
IRINA GRISHCHENKO (translated): According to the latest research by the British scientists from Cambridge, the ice thickness is not more than 1.8 metres. So it means it doesn’t look like old ice, which would be about 3 metres thick and they made a conclusion that by 2030 there will be no ice in the Arctic in summer. That means ice-breaker-free shipping
…and from Lateline recently:
TONY JONES: Can we talk about the science of global warming and climate change now, because as we’ve gotten closer to Copenhagen, the sceptics have become much louder. There’s been a fierce backlash against the science. What do you think is going on here?
JAMES HANSEN: Well, the science, as you know, has become very clear. The evidence for climate change around the world is widespread. The Arctic Sea ice melting, glaciers receding all around the world, climate zones are shifting, the subtropics are expanding, and that’s affecting Australia, by the way, as well as the south-west United States and the Mediterranean region, and that’s a reason why we have more extremes, including heatwaves and fires.
But also, when we have rain, it is heavier, because warmer atmosphere holds more water vapour. We see the climate change all over the planet, there’s no question about that.
…but JamesK, you’re free to dispute the facts if you have evidence that any of these things aren’t happening.
Shall I hold my breath while you find some tendentious bit of argument that has no bearing on the facts?
Or should we wait until 2030 and see?
You really don’t have a very firm grasp on reality do you?
JamesK #8
Pretty worthless contribution if you’re not claiming any veracity or otherwise. The moon is made of green cheese.
Help! We are all going to die!
@kdkd#10
No it is not. Do please desist from being childish. Yours is the fallacy of demanding negative proof. I am not required to.
Sir Thomas More’s head (and body?) has no doubt turned in his grave yet again.
Both of my references call in to question the veracity of Christopher Dunne’s petulant contribution. Petulance which he has reinforced I notice.
James Hansen is the James Hansen of the “trains carrying coal to power plants are death trains. Coal-fired power plants are factories of death” infamy.
Very scientific. Not. But petulant and fear-mongering. Indeed.
Of course other climate scientists don’t agree with Hansen:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703939404574567423917025400.html
http://www.drroyspencer.com/
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/17766
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/10/the_science_of_disinformation_1.html
The two IPCC recognised satellite global temperature measuring groups certainly would be at variance with Hansen’s infamously wild projections:
http://www.ncasi.org/publications/Detail.aspx?id=3230
Climategate is in its early phase. Land temperature data from New Zealand, Darwin and Russia are now all clearly suspect. But I doubt that you are keeping up.
Steve McIntyre (ClimateAudit.org) forced Hansen’s NASA-GISS data to be corrected down last year. Hansen’s data sets are still consistently the highest of the 4 recognised global temperature groups and are widely criticised for their meta-data manipulations and the ‘heat-island’ effect.
Even the worrisome Christopher Dunne’s “Methane Beast” apparently is still not awake:
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2009/10/08/the-ups-and-downs-of-methane/
http://www.co2science.org//articles/V12/N14/EDIT.php
The ‘science’ is not settled.
I know you are bitterly disappointed.
Sorry.
Thanks Matthew for your articles this last 2 weeks. Populist angles (Lomborg FFS!?) were embarrassing but you seem to know your bullsh*t too.
I think Galileo Galilei today would decide to just press on with the science despite it being heresy for Big Oil and Big Coal and their toadies selling indulgences. People like Cardinal Pell who can’t even follow the line of his own Roman Pope on climate.
I saw Penny Wong in an excruciatingly meaningless interview last Friday with Kerry O’Brien. Followed by John Connor of the Climate Institute sponsored and paid for by Wong’s ALP. We paid for this, suckers, at least 3 times: Public funding of Wong, public funding of 730. ALP funding of Connor to offset indy Greenpeace etc.
As for failure – I’m half way through season 1 (6 hours straight) of The Wire not least Stringer attending macroeconomics lecture on price inelasticity. It’s more probative of this topic than you might at first think: The appalling violence, illusion of solidarity for the Business, careerism and corrosive dishonesty. The crushing of merit. The unbridled selfishness. And that’s just the cops.
Welcome to Enclavism – we’ve been here about 5 years already. What price 5 metre sea rise by 2050? Remember that donkey in Animal Farm. That’s my relationship to this debate. My prediction – the living will envy the dead. I wonder if Bob Dylan can get that in a song for a Christmas album?
The views from some of these people here are quite simply….the saddest things I’ve ever had to read. Of course, the skeptics and deniers and those that shout with glee at the failure of Copenhagen all come from developed, wealthy, polluting states. Quite frankly, if any of us actually faced the prospect of losing our homes (like those in parts of India, Bangladesh, the Pacific Islands) because of rising sea levels, lost our livlihoods and living with the terror daily of whether we will see our children grow up and being able to support themselves, we may have a different view. But no. Once again, we argue pointless arguments against the majority of the scientific FACTS to satsify our own egos that 1) we were right and global warming is a crock) and 2) to justify our wasteful and unsustainable existance in our own consciences. Either way, it’s only the arrogance of plenty that enables these ridiculous nay sayers to emerge and dare to speak.
Once developed states are swamped by climate refugees, they may see the severity of the problem. But by then they’ll probably just play turkey shoot with them out at sea and eliminate the “problem”. And we can all go on feeling good about ourselves and our pointless wasteful materialistic lifestyle because they’ll be out of sight and out of mind.
The failure of Copenhagen is a TRAGEDY, and not one that is to be laughed at or dare I say it, celebrated. Because only the ignorant, selfish, and empathetically and emotionally incompetent could possibly see it so.
Well said Bolly, and it made me wonder what the response would be if it was discovered that a very large asteroid was headed for our little rock in space? Can you imagine Nick Minchin, “It’s just a communist plot to scare us”? Or Tony Abbott, “It’s crap”? Or the intellectually and emotionally deformed arguing that they’ve read someone on some blog who says it’s really just an error of the astronomers’ instruments and the asteroid is really chimerical?
Well, they probably would, because that’s precisely what they doing now. As you say, it’s a tragedy that Copenhagen turned into bunfight, and only the “ignorant, selfish, and empathetically and emotionally incompetent” could find any satisfaction in that.
Rather than worrying about the climate change deniers, we should examine the real problem.
Almost all at Copenhagen ACCEPTED climate change. Rudd has said some great words of why it is vital that we act.
The major problem is that when it comes to actions, Rudd, Wong, Obama, etc all fail.
What is even worse is that even though Australia was a force towards inaction at Copenhagen, the majority of Australian’s have swallowed Rudd’s spin, and think that he was pushing for real action.
When future generations look back on us, I think they will not blame the climate change deniers, but rather those like Rudd and Obama that spoke well on the need for action on climate change, but failed to act.
Actually I was just thinking, a climate strike is going to be needed in developed countries.
It would take alot of preparation. If say 60% of people agree it’s a major problem and a good proportion decide to strike on a working day, then everything stops, which is good for the planet and sort of helps the ‘leaders’ focus some.
But it has to be a big stop work, at least say 1/3 of the workforce? It needs to be international also. Big enough to provide protection. It would likely affect mostly the professional classes more educated about the issues, maybe.
The first successful one would get the ball rolling. It’s a natural progression from lights out Earth Hour.
……………………………….
Additionally if you look at the front web page of the New York Times and Washington Post you will see that USA healthcare bill and a big snow storm is the leading news domestically. Tells the story.
With the exception of Tom McLoughlin, it’s just the usual drivel from the ultimate shallow minded egoists here whose real but silent catch cry is “look at me I care”. Self-centred tossers all.
The banning of DDT by the UN after pressure from environmentalists caused the number of deaths from malaria to go up from 50,000 to a million a year and stay there for 40 years. Until on September the 15th 2006, Dr. Arata Kochi of the World Health Organization said “Normally in this field, science comes second and politics comes first. But we will now take a stand on the science and the data, and he ended that ban on DDT and made it once again the front line of defense against the malaria mosquito.”
Any of the likely agreements in Copenhagen would have ensured ongoing victimhood and poverty for developing nations whilst within developed nations the status quo would
have solidified.
Thank God for the aspirational developing countries.
JamesK….seriously screw loose. “Shallow minded egoists” would probably be elsewhere right now mate not here trying to discuss a very serious matter. “self centred tossers”…..not only are you offesive you are seriously insane. You think that the banning of DDT is the reason for the increase in malaria deaths? Well its use is the reason for the ongoing deformities seen in Vietnam and wherever else the damn thing was used. You are narrow minded and shallow.
@Tom McLoughlin “What price 5 metre sea rise by 2050?”
I’ll give you 1000/1 on that. Get a grip, and a clue.
Mark Duffett,
On the other hand a 0.8-2.0 metre sea level rise by 2100 is also a fairly serious concern.
JamesK, your grip on reality is slipping even further; DDT?
My god, what a segue from climate change, but here we go: DDT was mostly withdrawn from use because the mosquito populations on which it was used, did what all organisms do ie evolve, and became mostly resistant.
Biology 101, JK, but hard to grasp for you I know.
It’s also the case that most malarial deaths are in sub-Saharan Africa where DDT was not effective anyway, due to the continuous breeding cycles of the Anopheles.
Its continued, albeit limited use, rather than wholesale indiscriminate use, is being better managed as one of a suite of treatments, but the main push now is on the disease mostly, and not eradication of the vector.
Now, I’m still waiting for your evidence that quite rapid climate change is not, in fact occurring, or did you think your diversion into an unrelated topic would somehow distract me?
Come on, put up, or waffle on? Which is it?
@CHRISTOPHER DUNNE
You’re “still waiting” apparently.
Why?
Did you not bother to read my references the most obvious of which is satellite global temperature measurement data assessment?
Energy & Environment · Vol. 20, No. 7, 2009
Loehle, Craig. 2009. Trend analysis of satellite global temperature data.
CONCLUSIONS
“Analysis of the satellite data shows a statistically significant cooling trend for the past
12to 13years, with it not being possible to reject a flat trend (0 slope) for 16 years.
This is a length of time at which disagreement with climate models can no longer be
attributed to simple LTP. On the other hand, studies cited herein have documented a
50-70 year cycle of climate oscillations overlaid on a simple linear warming trend since
the mid-1800s and have used this model to forecast cooling beginning between 2001
and 2010, a prediction that seems to be upheld by the satellite and ocean heat content
data. Other studies made this same prediction of transition to cooling based on solar
activity indices or from ocean circulation regime changes. In contrast, the climate
models predict the recent flat to cooling trend only as a rare stochastic event. The
linear warming trend in these models that is obtained by subtracting the 60-70 yr cycle,
while unexplained at present, is clearly inconsistent with climate model predictions
because it begins too soon (before greenhouse gases were elevated) and does not
accelerate as greenhouse gases continue to accumulate. This model and the empirical
evidence for recent cooling thus provide a challenge to climate model accuracy.”
Please tell us what your EVIDENCE that man made catastrophic global warming is actually occurring (no computer model predictions please)?
wrt DDT:
“Deaths from malaria fell by more than 40 percent over five years by handing out insecticide-treated mosquito nets, U.N. and Kenyan officials said Thursday.
Experts hope to replicate the success throughout Africa. An estimated 700,000 to 2.7 million people die of malaria each year, 75 percent of them African children, and tens of millions of people suffer chronically from the debilitating disease, even though it is preventable and curable.” – TOM MALITI, Associated Press 7:35 PM EDT, August 16, 2007
Study: DDT needed in Africa
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2006/sep/15/20060915-041259-6977r/
“Help save African babies as you are helping to save the environment,” pleaded Dr. Arata Kochi, director of the WHO’s malaria department. “We must take a position based on the science and the data,” Dr. Kochi said. “One of the best tools we have against malaria is indoor residual house spraying.”
JamesK:
Energy and environment is an extremely suspect journal. It publishes lots of low quality stuff as it’s motivated by political point scoring rather than scientific discovery. Reading the abstract and your conclusion, the authors appear to be trying to hide their rather weak findings, then over-egg them with a more strident than justified conclusion.
The reporting in the article you mention (available here is pretty poor. Although they claim to detect a statistically significant cooling trend over a short time frame, this would appear to be consistent with there being oscillations in the annual temperature superimposed on top of a long term warming trend.
Added to this the “Statistically significant trend” they detect is for a very short period of time, for one set of the sattelite observations (RSS). Effectively what this paper does is perform about 800 statistical tests and find that about 30 of them are statistically significant. You can see this in Figure 2 on page 1090. Given this, the probability of finding a small number of significant data points is pretty much 100%, so their very weak finding is rather unsurprising. It appears to correspond to the years immediately proceeding 1998, but this short term “trend” (quotes added to indicate sarcasm) is no longer there as the effect of outlying observations, and continued global warming continues.
Let’s deal with the DDT stuff separately. Apparently you can’t tell the difference between broad scale environmental spraying (which for example did eradicate malaria from Bali last century, and was used for agricultural purposes in the past) with the occasional use indoors (biannualy) for treated mosquito nets and similar purposes.
There is a clear difference. Unlike the previous Energy and Environment paper this is not complicated stuff, so it’s less easy to mislead.
Thanks kdkd, I don’t have to bother as you’ve covered the essentials.
me #24
eww. nasty incoherent writing error. should be:
@kdkd
You keep missing the point.
I do not need to prove that AGW is false.
I need only provide enough evidence to question those that assert it is true.
I have.
Apparently it was too much to hope Christopher Dunne might finally bother to engineer an argument.
He certainly he hasn’t thus far but that hasn’t prevented him pathetically attempting to deride first JFPE and then me with his intellectually hollow condescending and elitist claptrap.
err JamesK #28
Your argument appears to be insane. Here’s why:
If the evidence points to the conclusion that AGW is 95% likely to be a catastrophic problem by the end of the century, and a 5% chance that it’s not (which is roughly in line with what the available evidence suggests).
As far as I can see you are claiming that 5% is greater than or equal to 95%. Which is insane.
Or perhaps there’s an interpretation of your comment that’s not barking mad. Can’t see it myself though.
@21 kdkd exactly, which is why there’s no need for Tom McLoughlin to indulge in such fantastic exaggeration.
@kdkd
That assertion by the IPCC is one of the prime reasons I first questioned them.
I am scientifically trained and that particular claim from the IPCC that you are recycling is utter nonsense.
I especially am not claiming that I am in some imaginary 5% camp.
I note you say: “Energy and environment is an extremely suspect journal.”
Really? I’ll bet you got that nonsense from Wikipedia.
Now that really is suspect and unlike E&E not peer reviewed.
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/12/19/lawrence-solomon-wikipedia-s-climate-doctor.aspx#ixzz0aApCEqRz
The point is you can only cite the IPCC in support of your assertion of catastrophic man made global warming (or if you’re Christopher Dunne piffle spouted by Tony Jones and his mad leftist guests).
Mark #30
Fair enough. I’ve found with the lunatic fringe it’s worthwhile to try to express oneself precisely and unambiguously. Otherwise, if you accidentally leave a shoe lace undone, they’ll claim that you’ve just proved enough rope with which to hang the entire global warming movement.
Actually they do it anyway, but leaving no wriggle room exposes them as worthless lunatics more quickly.
JamesK.
Actually I read the paper myself, found where the results that made the core conclusion were and evaluated them using my own statistical expertise. Along the way I was extremely disappointed with the poor quality of presentation of the statistics, seeing as it was core to their argument. Very poor quality stuff.
By the way Energy and Environment is not listed in the ARC’s journal quality list (australian journal quality listing), neither is it listed in the ISI Journal Citation reports (international listing), indicating it’s quality is regarded as piss poor.
Following on from claiming my ability to evaluate the evidence is somehow suspect, you then launch into paranoid drivel which I can safely ignore.
You delusionals certainly have your modus operandi all set out. Paranoid delusion, weird circular logic, and ad hominem attacks. Certainly beats looking at the actual evidence.
Oh yeah:
That’s no assertion that’s sound theory based on climate observations, reconstructions, and a whole bunch of well understood scientific theories which have been well established for up to 200 years.
Your delusional drivel is easy to call out.
@kdkd
You are utterly dishonest.
JamesK: #35
Baseless assertion. You clearly have nothing worthwhile to contribute, so you resort to a ridiculous assertion. Now that’s baseless.
@kdkd
You’re no scientist. You’re no statistician.
You are a liar intent on denying the obvious like a child defiantly lying in the face of incontrovertible evidence.
Pretty pathetic in short.
JamesK #37
Funny stuff. Pathetic indeed.
Note to self. Must tear up all qualifications, resign from job and inform my statistican friends that I am no longer available for contract work when I get up in the morning.
1000:1 price on 5 m sea rise by 2050 says Mark Duffet. He also says get a grip. Get a clue.
How reassuring.
Hansen says in a paper about 2 years back that it could be tens of metres by 2100 if various tipping points flip the temperature control. Who really doubts those tippings points won’t happen. Methane in tundra, clathrates in ocean floors.
With Enclavism to follow? Of course it will.
I blogged about this here:
…………………………
Monday, 21 May 2007
Do the math – 5 metre sea rise in 90 years on a non linear ice shelf collapse
Mood: lazy
Topic: globalWarming
15 May 2007 An interview with renowned climate scientist James Hansen | [from Grist env web site]
“I’ve actually written a paper and submitted it called “Scientific Reticence and Sea Level Rise” [PDF], because it just seemed to me that there was a gap between what scientists really thought and what was in the public knowledge in regards to ice sheet stability and sea level rise.”
at the pdf [bold added] dated 23rd March 2007
“Under BAU forcing in the 21st century, sea level rise undoubtedly will be dominated by a third term (3) ice sheet disintegration. This third term was small until the past few years, but it is has at least doubled in the past decade and is now close to 1 mm/year, based on gravity satellite measurements discussed above. As a quantitative example, let us say that the ice sheet contribution is 1 cm for the decade 2005-2015 and that it doubles each decade until the West Antarctic ice sheet is largely depleted.
That time constant yields sea level rise of the order of 5 m this century. Of course I can not prove that my choice of a 10 year doubling time for non-linear response is accurate, but I am confident that it provides a far better estimate than a linear response for the ice sheet component of sea level rise.”
Dr James Hansen NASA.
………………………………………..
and here:
………………
Thursday, 21 June 2007
Top scientists give fair warning on sea rise, what about politicians?
Mood: don’t ask
Topic: globalWarming
Building on ABC World Today here:
UN accused of underestimating sea change/ The World Today – Wednesday, 20 June , 2007 12:34:00:
“The scientists, including Dr James Hansen from NASA, say the United Nations reports have grossly underestimated the scale of sea-level rises that are likely this century.
Writing in the peer-reviewed British journal, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, they predict that sea levels will rise not by 40 centimetres by the turn of the century, but by several metres, as Karen Barlow reports.
KAREN BARLOW: The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is being charged with grossly underestimating the impact of global warming.
The international grouping of scientists and policymakers predicted in February that sea levels would increase between 18 and 59 centimetres this century.
The Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Dr James Hansen, reports in a peer-reviewed paper that the IPCC report left out vital information in its calculations.
JAMES HANSEN: They actually only give a prediction for the thermal expansion of the ocean and the contribution of alpine glaciers, but the big issue is the ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica, especially West Antarctica, because that’s beginning to lose mass, and it is situated on bedrock, which is below sea level, so it’s potentially unstable and could give a very large sea level rise.
KAREN BARLOW: Ice sheet instability was mentioned briefly in the IPCC report, but Dr James Hansen says it wasn’t calculated as it is difficult to predict.
He says he has no such misgivings.
JAMES HANSEN: We know enough from the Earth’s history to say that if we follow business as usual path, with C02 emissions, that we guarantee instability of the West Antarctic ice sheet, with sea level rise eventually of several metres. And I would be very surprised if we didn’t get one or two metres at least of sea level rise this century.
………………………..
I also blogged on this a while back to quote Bill McKibben 2nd Jan 2008, in turn quoting NASA’s Hansen:
“However, in the past five years scientists began to worry that the planet was reacting more quickly than they had expected to the relatively small temperature increases we have already seen. The rapid melt of most glacial systems, for instance, convinced many that 450 parts per million was a more prudent target. That is what the European Union and many big environmental groups have been proposing in recent years, and the economic modelling makes clear that achieving it is possible, though the chances diminish with every new coal-fired power plant.
But the data just keep getting worse. The news this (northern) autumn that Arctic sea ice was melting at an off-the-charts pace, and data from Greenland suggesting that its giant ice sheet was starting to slide into the ocean, make even 450 look too high. Consider: we are already at 383 parts per million, and it is knocking the planet off kilter in substantial ways.
So, what does that mean? Hansen says it means we have gone too far.
“The evidence indicates we’ve aimed too high – that the safe upper limit for atmospheric CO2 is no more than 350 ppm,” he said after his presentation.
The last time the Earth warmed two or three degrees – which is what 450 parts per million implies – sea levels rose by tens of metres, something that would shake the foundations of the human enterprise should it happen again.”
…………………
Having suffered malaria twice after an adventure in PNG in 1990 I find reference to that killer as a tangent intriguing. My experience was no sleep or food for 5 days and six nights. Rough. But here’s the thing – as tropical conditions move south we can expect malaria in Australia soon enough. One hopes it’s vivox which was bad enough, not falciparum species which is lethal.
5 hours to go for 2nd season of The Wire. McNulty is “a gaping *rsehole” according to his boss Major Rawls, but he’s “all police” according to coppers Bunk and Freeman.
Great show. 3rd season is even better apparently. Perfect antitode to the depressing topic du jour.
Reminds of song by Randy Newman called Baltimore (where The Wire is set):
‘h*oker on a corner waiting for a train, she hides her face and she hides her eyes, because the city is dying and she don’t know why’.
Welcome to the future?
In short careerism and corrupt grasping is so last century when an economy hits the (ecological?) wall. Sustainability is far more noble and inspired goal than crude careerism.
“…Note to self. Must tear up all qualifications, resign from job and inform my statistican friends that I am no longer available for contract work when I get up in the morning…”
A statistician.
That explains the endless comedy routine then.
Statistically Copenhagen was a failure.
Statistically it was always going to fail.
Oh the laughs we had this past weekend.
Most Deluded Mama #42
It’s funnier when we laugh at you, because you seem totally unaware of the very black comedy that you’re providing with your anti-science anti-everything routine.
You’re a fraud kdkd. You’re dishonest. You’re a liar. You’re a charlatan.
Show us your staistical calculations that demonstrate Loehle’s paper is rubbish.
He’s prolifically published and even Gavin Schmidt at RealClimate shows him infinitely more respect than you in an essay criticising one of Loehle’s 2007 papers.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?s=%22Energy+and+Environment%22&submit=Search&qt=&q=&cx=009744842749537478185%3Ahwbuiarvsbo&client=google-coop-np&cof=GALT%3A808080%3BGL%3A1%3BDIV%3A34374A%3BVLC%3AAA8610%3BAH%3Aleft%3BBGC%3AFFFFFF%3BLBGC%3AFFFFFF%3BALC%3A66AA55%3BLC%3A66AA55%3BT%3A000000%3BGFNT%3A66AA55%3BGIMP%3A66AA55%3BFORID%3A11%3B&searchdatabase=site
Quite unlike you even Gavin would admit that he’s no statistician……
Unfortunately and again unlike you Steve McIntyre is.
http://motls.blogspot.com/2007/12/climate-reconstructions-loehle-vs.html
http://climateaudit.org/2007/12/07/realclimate-on-loehle/
http://climateaudit.org/2007/11/20/loehle-proxies-2/
http://climatesci.org/2009/03/24/new-paper-on-ocean-heat-content-changes-by-craig-loehle/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/02/anomalous-spike-in-ocean-heat-content/
http://climateaudit.org/2008/11/30/criag-loehle-on-the-divergence-problem/
http://climateaudit.org/2008/11/30/gavin-schmidt-and-uniquely-oriented-speleothems/
@JamesK
Here is the major flaw in your argument- given the consequences of AGW you do not just need to put doubt on the concept, you need to completely refute it. Anything less and the risk is to great.
So if we are to follow your line of reasoning, there is doubt that AGW is real (as there can be no control experiment it can never be proven 100% anyway) therefore we do not progress towards a solution. If you are right, and the bulk of the science says otherwise, no harm no foul; but if you are wrong….
And for this reason you are a fool.
JamesK:
It’s clear from figure 2 as I showed you before that the only significant cooling trend was in the immediate aftermath of the 1998 temperature outlier, and then only for one of the satellite data sets, and only for a short period of time. No lying here. The fact that your conclusion is not correct is either fraudluent, or self deception, I guess it’s up to the reader to chose.
Here is a little description of E&E that is relevant. And here’s the reevant quote:
What’s with the bombarding with links of questionable relevance. I scarcely have time for your crap without going off and reading a bunch of dubiously relevant stuff.
Sorry Oldskool but you are completely wrong.
Man made (or not) runaway global warming is not the fact.
It is based on a complex theory (not a single theory and all with many assumptions) that on some computer models is projected to cause runaway global warming.
Yours is the fallacy of demanding negative proof of me of a complex computer modeling projection of an unproven complex theory (in an open system).
That is nonsensical.
It all comes down to accepting the IPCC.
And they say that it is too complex to explain.
I don’t believe and that’s not because of some matter of principal.
Some seriously respected scientists deny the theory. I do agree that most, although perhaps to lesser extent than the fearmongering IPCC, do accept it.
However I see many blatantly unscientific remarks by supposed scientists. I see dissenting scientists railroaded and abused. I see illegality and unethical behaviour. I see pecuniary and power vested interests. All prior to Climategate.
Michael Mann would be unpublishable and unemployed in any other scientific discipline.
James Hansen is clearly rabidly biased where efforts to be impartial are the sine quo non of a true scientist. He has been scaremongering for 30 years. Initially that we were entering an ice age! He is also head of one of the two recognised land based groups charged with ‘measuring’ global temperature. The other is the Hadley Centre at East Anglia.
Phil Jones may even be criminally charged.
I have no time for lying charlatans. I hope neither do you.
An addendum @ Oldschool.
You’ll notice I don’t deride the person who takes their role of citizen seriously and reads up and considers. Tom McLoughlin has radically different views on this to me. Unlike the majority here his view is not a means to some ‘progressive’ elitist end.
In fact I note he is derided by the same cast that slime me.
I can’t prove nor disprove. Otherwise I would make more than Gore’s US$ billions.
Most of this is not science unfortunately. It’s a belief system. Science itself has been harmed dreadfully I suspect.
JamesK
post #48 is incoherent and delusional.
post #49 is plain weird
Which is why when I read the paper you cited and clearly showed why the conclusions were being mis-stated, I got a face full.
This psychopathology of delusion is quite interesting in a way. But I’d rather constructive discussion
@41 Tom, did you notice how the words ‘a’ and ‘clue’ in my post @21 were green? That’s a thing called a ‘hyperlink’. Try clicking on it (actually them; there are two of them). You might learn something. You might also find this web thingy works rather better if you take this concept on board more generally, too.
Hansen has been roundly castigated for his pudding overegging on sea level rise by SL change specialists in the geophysical community. There’s a good reason why your citation is of a blog report of a submitted mss – i.e. it was never accepted for peer-reviewed publication. Those phrases “let us say” “can not prove” and “I am confident” should give you a clue (another one!) as to why.
Mark, #51
This over-egging problem is huge. I see many prominent environmentalists doing it, but from my perspective given mitigation failure, climate change is only going to be a serious problem at the end of my lifetime. By the end of my children’s lifetime it’s going to be well on the way to catastrophe. A real boiled frog problem.
Neither our psychology or the political process are built to deal with such long term threats, which leads to the delusional idiots on one hand, and the over-eggers on the other hand. The relatively few people who are concerned in the middle then run the risk of seeming disengaged. I have no idea how to deal with this problem.
My PhD is in Philosophy . . . so perhaps I can have a word to say about the logic being used (or misused) in this thread.
In short: kdkd you’ve been soundly beaten. JamesK has stayed within the bounds of reasoned argument . . you have not.
I suspect there is evidence in your writings of an uncomfortable sense of the shame attached to having one’s most cherished beliefs overturned when they seemed completely secure and beyond reproach.
@BeautifulWorld
Nice and succinctly put.
BeautifulWorld:
This must be some logical approach informed by solipsism. At least that’s what I can assume from the failure to back your assertion up.
Patronising believers and denialists. How grating. Hansen was talking about tipping points and clathrates and methane in Siberian tundra and exponential rate of change in sea level rise from a very very low base. “Exponential” – go and look that up genius.
The web has a universe of cr*p on it as well as some gems. I mean look at your jabbering. In short I doubt you are my intellectual or moral equal. Google my resume and judge for yourself champ. In any case the chief of NASA climate work puts you and me in the shade, that’s a safe bet.
@JamesK
“Man made (or not) runaway global warming is not the fact.”
It does not have to be “fact” as we have both said it cannot be proven as there is no way of providing a controlled experiment.
“It is based on a complex theory (not a single theory and all with many assumptions) that on some computer models is projected to cause runaway global warming.”
Well that and the small fact of overall global temperature increases- see Possums neat graph for that one. And the other inescapable fact that we are pumping thousands of tons of CO2 intot the atmosphere at rates previsouly only associated with major volcanic events, that by the way triggered global warming….
“Yours is the fallacy of demanding negative proof of me of a complex computer modeling projection of an unproven complex theory (in an open system).”
No mine is simply taking the conservative view that if there is a reasonable chance that AGW is real then it is reasonable to respond with a view to reduce CO2 emmissions. IF AGW is not real, then we live in a cleaner environment, if on the other hand it is real, we have saved possibly billions of lives.
“Some seriously respected scientists deny the theory. I do agree that most, although perhaps to lesser extent than the fearmongering IPCC, do accept it.”
Again so you essentially are saying that whilst most respected scientists believe in AGW you will not because “a lesser extent” do not- that is not science, that is faith
“However I see many blatantly unscientific remarks by supposed scientists. I see dissenting scientists railroaded and abused. I see illegality and unethical behaviour. I see pecuniary and power vested interests. All prior to Climategate.”
And precisely the same argument can be made against denier “science” and more so. Please do not try and convince me that the “pecuniary and power vested interests” on the climate change front have anything like the political and financial power of Coal and Oil cartels.
To understand the possible consequences but to recommend doing nothing, well I believe you summed it up best…
“That is nonsensical.”
@Beautiful World
Where is the hole in my logic?
oldskool,
presumably BW wants the conditions for accepting anthropogenic global warming to be provided by deductive proof. If you accept the premise that a logical proof is necessary, then this case is bullet proof.
However, as no logical proof is possible, and we have to rely on statistical experiments underlying observations with no real control conditions then if you accept the premises, you deny that anthropogenic global warming is possible.
In other words, a convenient, circular, delusional argument designed which conveniently maintains the fiction that there is not and can not be a problem.
So Oldschool if I tell you that I have a theory which fits past observations and this theory, when computer modeled with many variables which are given best guess weightings, predicts your ugly and premature death, you’ll believe me?
You’ll believe me although too complex to explain, it is critical you believe me as I inform you that I also know the solution?
You’ll believe me when I say that in order to save yourself you must give me 10% of your annual income immediately and ongoing as there is no time to lose and you must also henceforth live under my Droit de Seigneur?
Will you be ‘prudent’ and give me your dosh and your freedom?
If so there’s a queue behind you of folks that want to sell you a bridge.
Aah, so its a variant of the “models are wrong” delusional argument. Putting aside that the E&E paper itself is a very crude observational model with a misleading conclusion, here’s the best summary I’ve found that attacks this ridiculous solispsistic argument:
http://www.grist.org/article/climate-models-are-unproven/
Having run some of my own observational models on climate data, it looks to me that co2 accounts for about 80% of warming between 1980 and the present, but only accounted for about 25% of warming in the early 20th century.
So it’s up to the reader what to believe, some innuendo from JamesK who clearly has a climate change delusional’s agenda, or the results from multiple independent models which have been refined over a 150 year time period.
@kyky
Pity you can’t find them though.
Or the questionable GIGO data.
Would’ve thought it easy stuff for a stats man like yourself?
I prefer hard scientific evidence to made up shit and fairytales.
But I guess for some it’s a job.
You should tell us about it some time.
Trying to resist the temptation to reply to crap like #62 is hard. Fortunately MDM and her ilk rely on assertion and avoid evidence, so there’s not really much to say. Hopefully Crikey will bring in some kind of community lead moderation in the new year so MDM’s abusive rubbish gets buried democratically.
kdkd;
I’m not looking for deductive proof – or proof of any kind. My concern is that you use arguments that are logically fallacious. For example, when you say that . .
Energy and environment is an extremely suspect journal. It publishes lots of low quality stuff as it’s motivated by political point scoring rather than scientific discovery.. .
. . you are ignoring the fact that the very same thing can be said about journals controlled by CRU and Co.
To build any argument on the premise of journal integrity when you’ve just discredited another person for using the same methodolgy, is not a sound way of going about making your case.
I’ll not bore everyone, at least not yet, but they are other fallacies evident in your work.
Oh dear, a humanities student. Your argument only works when there’s nothing to distinguish one truth from another. Which is fine in some branches of the humanities. However when we’re being scientists we have some stringent rules which support a progress towards truth. Karl Popper is usually the philosopher that’s mentioned in this part of the conversation, but my personal favourite is Paul Feyarbrand who wrote a book called “Against Method” (subtitled ‘towards an anarchistic epistomology’ in the first edition).
There’s a simple logical flaw in the E&E article’s conclusion that’s quite easy to demonstrate (which is what I did). E&E have a history of publishing suspect stuff like this. For the most part they’re a social science journal though, so it’s understandable with an editor with political motivations who wants to go outside their expertise to score points, that they’ll get things wrong.
So really your argument is the conspiracy theory approach. That the scientific press (Nature, Science, the stable of respectable climate science journals and so on) collude to produce a body of knowledge that’s essentially ficitonal.
On the other hand there’s a 200 year history starting with the laws of thermodynamics, going through the theory of chemical bonds, and the rather more modern meteorology, geology and so on that provides a coherent body of knowledge which strongly suggests that continued emissions of co2 from fossil fuels have caused and will continue to cause changes in the earth’s energy balance resulting in increased temperature, ecosystem changes and so on.
I personally looked at multiple sources of raw temperature (including the delusionist’s favourite the UAI sattelite observations) data to satisfy myself that the above laws and theories were working together in a complex system in the way the theory would suggest it would.
So you know, its your socially constructed reality that relates to nothing to do with science, but to the social dynamics of journal publishers (conspiracy theory) versus a 200 year old coherent body of knowledge. The anthropogenic greenhouse effect isn’t like the ether. It’s something that has been shown to exist by observation for a good while now.
Based on that information, I guess it’s up to the readers to decide which is the more likely bet.
So JamesK now the truth is out;
“You’ll believe me when I say that in order to save yourself you must give me 10% of your annual income immediately and ongoing as there is no time to lose and you must also henceforth live under my Droit de Seigneur?”
NO because YOU are a single someone suspect fool, but to use your own words;
“Some seriously respected scientists deny the theory. I do agree that most, although perhaps to lesser extent than the fearmongering IPCC, do accept it.”
Comparing “seriously respected scientists” (your words) with snake oil salesman, that is class!
YOU have so far proven to be happy to believe the arguments that say there is nothing wrong. So you would have been one of the many cutting down the last of the trees on Easter Island (they’re only trees), eating the last of the Moa’s on NZ (They’ll be plenty for everyone!)
This is the rambling shifting argument of a petulant child being told they can’t have things their own way, and as I pointed out previously, for this you are a fool.
kdkd;
I wouldn’t use the word ‘fictional’ to account for the articles appearing in journals under the authority of the coterie of warming alarmists. I would say they are complicit in pretending that there is a consensus of opinion.
It may come as a shock to you, but science is done by humans and that’s why an understanding of human behaviour, which philosophers have carried out for 2500 years, is important for scientists themselves to grasp lest they begin to think they have the absolute truth about reality.
No doubt you’ve read the Robert Higg’s brilliant article on “peer review” . . but for those who haven’t yet read it, here’s something to wet your appetite.
He is advising young research students on how to cope with rejection of their proposals:
As I have always counseled young people whose work was rejected, seemingly on improper or insufficient grounds, the system is a crap shoot. Personal vendettas, ideological conflicts, professional jealousies, methodological disagreements, sheer self-promotion, and a great deal of plain incompetence and irresponsibility are no strangers to the scientific world; indeed, that world is rife with these all-too-human attributes. In no event can peer review ensure that research is correct in its procedures or its conclusions. The history of every science is a chronicle of one mistake after another. In some sciences these mistakes are largely weeded out in the course of time; in others they persist for extended periods; and in some sciences, such as economics, actual scientific retrogression may continue for generations under the misguided (but self-serving) belief that it is really progress.
At any given time, consensus may exist about all sorts of matters in a particular science. In retrospect, however, that consensus is often seen to have been mistaken. As recently as the mid-1970s, for example, a scientific consensus existed among climatologists and scientists in related fields that the earth was about to enter a new ice age. Drastic proposals were made, such as exploding hydrogen bombs over the polar icecaps (to melt them) or damming the Bering Strait (to prevent cold Arctic water from entering the Pacific Ocean), to avert this impending disaster. Well-reputed scientists, not just uninformed wackos, made such proposals. How quickly we forget.”
Higgs has 39 years experience as a University Professor, as a peer reviewer for more than thirty professional journals, and as a reviewer of research proposals for the National Science Foundation.
What, to you, appears to be a coherent body of knowledge, may well, be seen in the future, as a load of nonsense.
@Oldskool
Hmmm. That’s your opinion but I can’t see it grounded in any rational argument rather merely an ad hominem rant.
I’ll happily let your ‘argument’ rest on its laurels….. or should that be thorns?
@k2d2
“…Hopefully Crikey will bring in some kind of community lead moderation in the new year so MDM’s abusive rubbish gets buried democratically…”
65 kdkd
Posted December 23, 2009 at 12:36 am | Permalink
Oh dear, a humanities student.
I hope this is the kind of puerile rubbish that will be moderated in future?
“…when we’re being scientists…”
A statistician is not a ‘scientist’.
YOU are not a ‘scientist’.
You model other peoples data to reach a pre-determined conclusion and, in the case of AGW, can’t even manipulate the dataset to confirm nor predict the historical record.
Sadly, like most statisticians, you more than likely manipulate that data to confirm your inviolate hypothesis.
And then you complain when everyone doesn’t fall in lockstep behind your powerful deductive reasoning which is largely ignorant of even the most basic scientific tenets.
“…Fortunately MDM and her ilk rely on assertion and avoid evidence…”
Time and again I have demanded evidence from you and the likes of Sanderson and Dunne et al. and not one of you has provided anything even remotely resembling evidence.
Instead I get comedic links to wikipedia and realclimate.
Considering your overwhelming orthodoxy toward the affirmative case, why is this such a difficult task for you?
If AGW was so incontrovertible the data, methodology and conclusions supporting a global call to action would all freely available.
Where is it?
Why doesn’t Crikey have an AGW Factbook that has links to all the data (trees, temperatures, oceans, etc..); all the theories; all the conclusions; all the peer-reviewed journals; ALL the arguments in ONE PLACE.
This is supposed to be the greatest calamity man has ever faced; yet I can get more information about Britney Spears’ breakfast order last Tuesday week than I can about AGW.
Tell me why that is?
There should be a one-stop Smithsonian-like repository of information on this subject.
Where is it?
Why has no-one deemed this to be an important enough a task to ensure the future of the planet?
Instead, we get eminent and vested scientists faking and hiding data; conflicting datasets; character assassinations of ‘denialists’; burying of non-consensus research and the wholesale corruption of the peer review process.
Why the need for all this treachery and skullduggery for something that should be so self-evident?
If you believe yourself to be a ‘scientist’ you should be friggin’ embarrassed by the disgraceful behaviour of those who consider themselves as such.
Your unwillingness to speak out against them is an admission of your complicity and a tacit support of their agenda and as a ‘scientist’ you should be throughly ashamed.
Beautiful World
For the most part your post was of questionable relevance. However this bit amused me.
The reason that it amused me is that our industrial society is built on engineering advances essentially two bits of complementary scientific theory, classical mechanics and quantum mechanics. Although climate science is a complex, it’s individual components are fairly simple well established parts of these two theories.
And the peer review process is a bit more subtle than you state. Take the same paper structured in two different ways. One will be rejected for being too radical, restate it but with essentially the same content and it will be fine.
Sounds like an argument by social construction (conspiracy theory) and solipsism to me. Your background is clearly not in philosophy of science anyway, that is clear.
Most Delusional Mama
By the most pedantic of criteria I am neither a statistician or a scientist, yet I do both, and earn a living from both these things. Now the E&E paper JamesK showed was a good example of badly explained misleadingly concluded statistics.
What nonsense. You clearly have no understanding, experience or interest in science, otherwise you would not jump to either of these two conclusions.
It is. You’re clearly not looking very hard. This stuff is quite tricky and takes effort. Which is why we mostly rely on secondary sources. And why you with no interest and apparently limited intelligence lose patience and go with the conclusion that’s psychologically most palatable to you.
The rest of your paranoid rant is even more valueless and I can safely ignore it.
JamesK #68
Now that’t the pot calling the kettle black. I found both your and oldskool’s posts rather incoherent. But yours appear to be a classic form of psychological denial with shifting goalposts and selective paranoia.
Anyhow that E&E paper you showed us, I demonstrated that the conclusion was flawed quite clearly, and all I got was some ad hominem attacks saying that I was a fraud and a liar. Fortunately for me people without an ideological axe to grind and the interest in looking at Figure 2 will be able to see that your view is incoherent and inconsistent.
kdkd;
Scientists, and you yourself, are all-too human to be trusted to claim absolute knowledge on any particular issue, especially one that demands of humanity a revolutionary change.
From Higg’s again:
“In following the discussion of global warming and related issues in the press and the blogosphere, I have been struck repeatedly by the assumption or expression of certain beliefs that strike me as highly problematical. Many writers who are not scientists themselves are trading on the prestige of science and the authority of scientists. Reference to “peer-reviewed research” and to an alleged “scientific consensus” are regarded as veritable knock-out blows by many commentators. Yet many of those who make such references appear to me to be more or less ignorant of how science as a form of knowledge-seeking and scientists as individual professionals operate, especially nowadays, when national governments―most notably the U.S. government―play such an overwhelming role in financing scientific research and hence in determining which scientists rise to the top and which fall by the wayside”.
If you agree with the sort of bullying being carried out by the coterie of well funded warming alarmists, then you have much to learn about what constitutes human reason and well-being.
You are obviously not a follower of Feyerabend when he recognised – and was horrified by – the potential of science to stamp out the diversity of human thought and culture; or when he highlighted the problem of there being no separation of Science and State as there is regarding Religion and State.
Nor, it seems, have you grasped Kuhn’s correct assessment that “Whenever you get two people interpreting the same data in different ways . . that’s metaphysics”.
Or Popper: “The history of Science is everywhere speculative . . and . . . Since Scientists get subsidies for their work, science isn’t exactly what it should be. There is a certain corruption, unfortunately. But I don’t talk about that”.
One thing he did talk about was : “If Scientists believe too much in their own theories, they might stop seeking truth.”
And finally, Higgs: “Climate scientists are the best qualified people to talk about climate science, but they have no qualifications to talk about public policy, law, or individual values, rates of time preference, and degrees of risk aversion. In talking about desirable government action, they give the impression that they are either fools or charlatans, but they keep talking―worst of all, talking to doomsday-seeking journalists―nevertheless.”
To base a revolution on the say-so of a coterie of well-funded scientists in the pay of governments, is irrational (and thats why the alarmist appeal has been so emotional charged . . for one thing Governments know above everything else is how to stampede masses of people into approving or accepting ill-advised actions).
Climate Science is in its infancy. What it may reveal to us, in due course, and if it is conducted openly and honestly (as openly and honestly as possible), is something very different from what you take, right now, as an article of faith. And do not think for a minute that you alone have escaped the bounds of human epistemological limits. Your set of beliefs are grounded in a faith in science as the provider of such certainty that we must change how we live to accord with this science.
I’m not prepared to change in this way because I think it is anti-life, opposed to human well-being. To be convinced that this is not so, I will need far greater evidence of trustworthiness from scientists – a trustworthiness that has suffered badly at the hands of the alarmists. At this moment, when I read so many individual scientists speaking out against the view’s of the coterie who speak through and under the protection of agencies and journals secured in the faith, I am on their side. I am a libertarian to this degree: I will support the right and value of every scientist speaking with reason and oppose any form of censorship imposed; and censorship has been imposed all in the name of rejecting ‘poor science’. Umm . . what is Klaus the President of the Czech Republic warning us of . . ?
BeautifulWorld #73
I disagree with you. The components of climate science are not in their infancy, and there is a 200 year history of refinement of the theory. Major milestones in the early history were Newton and Ahrennius. Bohr’s model of the atom is also a significant contributor to the theory.
But I don’t read much about science in your posts – I think your position suggests you deem it of secondary importance to human processes. There’s the problem – I do read strong suggestions of the anthropogenic fallacy, notably argued against by Gallelio. Face it, there’s a very strong and coherent body of knowledge spanning hundreds of years that needs to be overturned in order for us to be able to seriously challenge the theory of human caused global warming. Secondly we have multiple independent lines of evidence, including some that emenate from “skeptics” (notably the UAI data) that support that it is happening, at the rate we would expect given proportional inputs of greenhouse gases (with suggestions of the beginnings of positive feedback mechanisms).
So I don’t buy your relativist humanist position here. There are too many consistencies, and too many supported hypotheses in the body of knowledge accumulated to date to suggest that we’re engaging in something like the search for the ether.
The faith stuff I don’t really buy, unless you’re claiming that logic and mathematics are some how faith based. f(x) != 0 is the fundamental null hypothesis we’re looking at here, and there’s very very little evidence around at present to support that in the context of anthropogenic global warming.
@ kdkd
Also am happy to leave the record prima facie of our discourse leading up to me finally calling you out on your dishonesty, lies and fraudulent claims.
JamesK I have no idea what that lawyer speak means. I suspect it means you have something to hide.
I think you are suffering from wanting to cause a distraction. The dishonesty in the conclusion of the E&E paper, or at least the way you spun it is obvious to anyone with a modicum of statistical literacy by the way.