In your face evidence of climate change
Discussion
Apache said:
nigelfr said:
I find it extraordinary that AGW is now considered to have been politically motivated from the beginning. It took almost 30 years before the scientists were taken seriously.
http://www.john-daly.com/history.htm
and if TB could post a link to the author you might find it interesting.
The author referred to:
Richard Courtney - Energy and Environment Consultant
Richard S. Courtney is an independent consultant on matters concerning energy and the environment.
He is a technical advisor to several UK MPs and mostly-UK MEPs.
He has been called as an expert witness by the UK Parliament’s House of Commons Select Committee on Energy and also House of Lords Select Committee on the Environment.
He is an expert peer reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and in November 1997 chaired the Plenary Session of the Climate Conference in Bonn.
In June 2000 he was one of 15 scientists invited from around the world to give a briefing on climate change at the US Congress in Washington DC, and he then chaired one of the three briefing sessions.
His achievements have been recognized by The UK’s Royal Society for Arts and Commerce, PZZK (the management association of Poland’s mining industry), and The British Association for the Advancement of Science.
He is now on the Editorial Board of Energy & Environment.
He is a founding member of the European Science and Environment Forum (ESEF).
Apache said:
nigelfr said:
I find it extraordinary that AGW is now considered to have been politically motivated from the beginning. It took almost 30 years before the scientists were taken seriously.
http://www.john-daly.com/history.htm
and if TB could post a link to the author you might find it interesting.
Look Apache, be a sceptic by all means, but play fair: I looked up the author myself and drew my own conclusions. You are relying on TB to provide a link: just Google him yourself. Being a sceptic is not the same as being a denier: if you're a sceptic you question both sides of the case, if you're a denier, you only question the side you disagree with.
I've said this before: don't rely on what anyone here tells you, do your own research. Be sceptical, if you search "AGW", search "debunking AGW" as well and also "debunking, debunking AGW" etc. Read carefully what people say and also what they don't say.
I am suspicious of lots of TB's posts because he doesn't link to them: I suspect he doesn't want us to know that he's getting them directly from deniers' sites.
Once example is the description of Courtney above. IMO It's lifted directly from here : http://www.globalwarmingheartland.org/expert.cfm?e...
So having found that site I had a look at their home page and their mission statement: Take a look for yourself.
I also looked up Courtney's "The European Science and Environment Forum " which is now defunct and found that it was originally set up to spread doubt about the harmful effects of smoking. Don't take my word for it: look it up.
And before someone jumps in and says that you can't believe anything you read on the web, don't forget that it's still possible to sue for slander and libel (especially in the US) and get false accusations removed.
As I said before, be sceptical. Especially when the age of something isn't given as it could be hide out of date research: a few posts back TB mentioned something by Patrick Michaels about running some models and not getting results that fitted with later data. I couldn't find out when it was first announced, but I was suspicious, because the models mentioned were version 1, whereas nowadays they are on version 3 or 4. The quote also didn't mention the parameters or scenario used nor why Michaels selected those sites for comparison etc. That's why TB's soundbite quotes are unsatisfactory because they often raise a lot of questions: next time he posts something like that, I'll do a fuller analysis.
nigelfr said:
Look Apache, be a sceptic by all means, but play fair: I looked up the author myself and drew my own conclusions. You are relying on TB to provide a link: just Google him yourself. Being a sceptic is not the same as being a denier: if you're a sceptic you question both sides of the case, if you're a denier, you only question the side you disagree with.
I quite agree about being sceptical, and if you look at some of my posts I am critical of TBs style so I am a bit saddened that you think I rely on him for information (most of it goes over my head anyway). Maybe I need to rethink my style.
I had hoped that this chaps credentials would show he was unbiased and the Heartland Institute seems independent too thus making his article contentious for the Government he advises
Apache said:
nigelfr said:
Look Apache, be a sceptic by all means, but play fair: I looked up the author myself and drew my own conclusions. You are relying on TB to provide a link: just Google him yourself. Being a sceptic is not the same as being a denier: if you're a sceptic you question both sides of the case, if you're a denier, you only question the side you disagree with.
I quite agree about being sceptical, and if you look at some of my posts I am critical of TBs style so I am a bit saddened that you think I rely on him for information (most of it goes over my head anyway). Maybe I need to rethink my style.
I had hoped that this chaps credentials would show he was unbiased and the Heartland Institute seems independent too thus making his article contentious for the Government he advises
http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?...
There is also the point that as they want to promote the free market, they are likely to want to fight against anything that might place restrictions on the market, so thre is reason to suspect an a-priori bias in the debate.
However, lack of independance is not a reason to reject an argument (that is what is wrong with an ad-hominem), if you are going to reject an argument it should be because you can find a flaw in the argument itself, not the source. If you can't do so, you should keep an open mind.
nigelfr said:
You are relying on...
What are you relying on? Junk science and a snake oil sales manual - you have no observational data to back up the non-existent MMGW you believe in so ardently. Without political patronage of the same junk science, based on leftist ideology, the entire nankrupt global warming industry wuold have sunk long ago.ludo said:
You mean apart from the funding from EXXON/Mobil?
Keep up at the back, nigelfr already got into hot water for not kniwing there's nearly £40 billion of eco taxes robbed from us every year in the Uk alone. What about the funding of the best scientists money can buy via politicians? Far larger amounts of money, far more pressure to toe the line.
On the basis of your post, the entire MMGWT third-rate academe mafia should be disbelieved because of the corruption in their funding streams.
nigelfr said:
Just a point Gopher, if you're going to raise the taxes issue with him, make sure you use the correct figures: if you use TB's "approaching £40 billion", you'll look foolish. Some people may have been taken in by the spin, but I sure an opposition minister will know that only a part of hydrocarbon taxes are AGW taxes: same with VED and if you include the Landfill and Aggregate taxes which have nothing at all to do with AGW, you'll totally ruin your case.
As I've said before, I deplore the Government's taxation policy with repect to AGW, and the more people that complain about it the better, but if you use the wrong figures you won't be taken seriously. TB gave us a link to the Government's figures: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/CCI/nugget.asp?ID=152
Unfortunately he has not looked at them critically. For one thing they show that Environmental taxes have fallen as a percentage of GDP since a peak in 1999. (They are increasing this year because the oil price has gone up: as everyone knows there is duty and VAT on fuel, so as all this is now considered an environmental tax and accounts for 2/3 of "eco-taxes", it's not surprising.)The introduction of environmental taxation was announced in a Statement of Intent in 1997: in a spin exercise, VED and all hydrocarbon taxes were declared environmental taxes. This is complete nonsense, because the duty on fuel has been around since the year dot. Same with VED which was just another tax until 1997.
Now it is clear that TB and others posting here trust the Government uncritically on this issue, because a lot of the rhetoric here is complaining about this "approaching £40 Billion", so I've e-mailed the Statistics Office to raise this issue. I await with interest their reply.
Oh dear, TB still can't admit your mistake on the £40 Billion, try reading the above slowly. I won't give up on you, I'm sure that you'll understand it eventually.As I've said before, I deplore the Government's taxation policy with repect to AGW, and the more people that complain about it the better, but if you use the wrong figures you won't be taken seriously. TB gave us a link to the Government's figures: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/CCI/nugget.asp?ID=152
Unfortunately he has not looked at them critically. For one thing they show that Environmental taxes have fallen as a percentage of GDP since a peak in 1999. (They are increasing this year because the oil price has gone up: as everyone knows there is duty and VAT on fuel, so as all this is now considered an environmental tax and accounts for 2/3 of "eco-taxes", it's not surprising.)The introduction of environmental taxation was announced in a Statement of Intent in 1997: in a spin exercise, VED and all hydrocarbon taxes were declared environmental taxes. This is complete nonsense, because the duty on fuel has been around since the year dot. Same with VED which was just another tax until 1997.
Now it is clear that TB and others posting here trust the Government uncritically on this issue, because a lot of the rhetoric here is complaining about this "approaching £40 Billion", so I've e-mailed the Statistics Office to raise this issue. I await with interest their reply.
You know that I e-mailed the Statistics Office: I got a reply. It was blank apart from ">" : I kid you not. See below.
Original Message -----
From: "Environment Accounts" <Environment.Accounts@ons.gsi.gov.uk>
To: <XXXXX>
Sent: Tuesday, August 05, 2008 3:59 PM
Subject: Re: Environmental taxes
>
nigelfr said:
nigelfr said:
Just a point Gopher, if you're going to raise the taxes issue with him, make sure you use the correct figures: if you use TB's "approaching £40 billion", you'll look foolish. Some people may have been taken in by the spin, but I sure an opposition minister will know that only a part of hydrocarbon taxes are AGW taxes: same with VED and if you include the Landfill and Aggregate taxes which have nothing at all to do with AGW, you'll totally ruin your case.
As I've said before, I deplore the Government's taxation policy with repect to AGW, and the more people that complain about it the better, but if you use the wrong figures you won't be taken seriously. TB gave us a link to the Government's figures: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/CCI/nugget.asp?ID=152
Unfortunately he has not looked at them critically. For one thing they show that Environmental taxes have fallen as a percentage of GDP since a peak in 1999. (They are increasing this year because the oil price has gone up: as everyone knows there is duty and VAT on fuel, so as all this is now considered an environmental tax and accounts for 2/3 of "eco-taxes", it's not surprising.)The introduction of environmental taxation was announced in a Statement of Intent in 1997: in a spin exercise, VED and all hydrocarbon taxes were declared environmental taxes. This is complete nonsense, because the duty on fuel has been around since the year dot. Same with VED which was just another tax until 1997.
Now it is clear that TB and others posting here trust the Government uncritically on this issue, because a lot of the rhetoric here is complaining about this "approaching £40 Billion", so I've e-mailed the Statistics Office to raise this issue. I await with interest their reply.
Oh dear, TB still can't admit your mistake on the £40 Billion, try reading the above slowly. I won't give up on you, I'm sure that you'll understand it eventually.As I've said before, I deplore the Government's taxation policy with repect to AGW, and the more people that complain about it the better, but if you use the wrong figures you won't be taken seriously. TB gave us a link to the Government's figures: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/CCI/nugget.asp?ID=152
Unfortunately he has not looked at them critically. For one thing they show that Environmental taxes have fallen as a percentage of GDP since a peak in 1999. (They are increasing this year because the oil price has gone up: as everyone knows there is duty and VAT on fuel, so as all this is now considered an environmental tax and accounts for 2/3 of "eco-taxes", it's not surprising.)The introduction of environmental taxation was announced in a Statement of Intent in 1997: in a spin exercise, VED and all hydrocarbon taxes were declared environmental taxes. This is complete nonsense, because the duty on fuel has been around since the year dot. Same with VED which was just another tax until 1997.
Now it is clear that TB and others posting here trust the Government uncritically on this issue, because a lot of the rhetoric here is complaining about this "approaching £40 Billion", so I've e-mailed the Statistics Office to raise this issue. I await with interest their reply.
You know that I e-mailed the Statistics Office: I got a reply. It was blank apart from ">" : I kid you not. See below.
Original Message -----
From: "Environment Accounts" <Environment.Accounts@ons.gsi.gov.uk>
To: <XXXXX>
Sent: Tuesday, August 05, 2008 3:59 PM
Subject: Re: Environmental taxes
>
lunarscope said:
nigelfr said:
nigelfr said:
Just a point Gopher, if you're going to raise the taxes issue with him, make sure you use the correct figures: if you use TB's "approaching £40 billion", you'll look foolish. Some people may have been taken in by the spin, but I sure an opposition minister will know that only a part of hydrocarbon taxes are AGW taxes: same with VED and if you include the Landfill and Aggregate taxes which have nothing at all to do with AGW, you'll totally ruin your case.
As I've said before, I deplore the Government's taxation policy with repect to AGW, and the more people that complain about it the better, but if you use the wrong figures you won't be taken seriously. TB gave us a link to the Government's figures: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/CCI/nugget.asp?ID=152
Unfortunately he has not looked at them critically. For one thing they show that Environmental taxes have fallen as a percentage of GDP since a peak in 1999. (They are increasing this year because the oil price has gone up: as everyone knows there is duty and VAT on fuel, so as all this is now considered an environmental tax and accounts for 2/3 of "eco-taxes", it's not surprising.)The introduction of environmental taxation was announced in a Statement of Intent in 1997: in a spin exercise, VED and all hydrocarbon taxes were declared environmental taxes. This is complete nonsense, because the duty on fuel has been around since the year dot. Same with VED which was just another tax until 1997.
Now it is clear that TB and others posting here trust the Government uncritically on this issue, because a lot of the rhetoric here is complaining about this "approaching £40 Billion", so I've e-mailed the Statistics Office to raise this issue. I await with interest their reply.
Oh dear, TB still can't admit your mistake on the £40 Billion, try reading the above slowly. I won't give up on you, I'm sure that you'll understand it eventually.As I've said before, I deplore the Government's taxation policy with repect to AGW, and the more people that complain about it the better, but if you use the wrong figures you won't be taken seriously. TB gave us a link to the Government's figures: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/CCI/nugget.asp?ID=152
Unfortunately he has not looked at them critically. For one thing they show that Environmental taxes have fallen as a percentage of GDP since a peak in 1999. (They are increasing this year because the oil price has gone up: as everyone knows there is duty and VAT on fuel, so as all this is now considered an environmental tax and accounts for 2/3 of "eco-taxes", it's not surprising.)The introduction of environmental taxation was announced in a Statement of Intent in 1997: in a spin exercise, VED and all hydrocarbon taxes were declared environmental taxes. This is complete nonsense, because the duty on fuel has been around since the year dot. Same with VED which was just another tax until 1997.
Now it is clear that TB and others posting here trust the Government uncritically on this issue, because a lot of the rhetoric here is complaining about this "approaching £40 Billion", so I've e-mailed the Statistics Office to raise this issue. I await with interest their reply.
You know that I e-mailed the Statistics Office: I got a reply. It was blank apart from ">" : I kid you not. See below.
Original Message -----
From: "Environment Accounts" <Environment.Accounts@ons.gsi.gov.uk>
To: <XXXXX>
Sent: Tuesday, August 05, 2008 3:59 PM
Subject: Re: Environmental taxes
>
They used to tell me to make my figures up.
I was the major contributor....
turbobloke said:
ludo said:
You mean apart from the funding from EXXON/Mobil?
Keep up at the back, nigelfr already got into hot water for not kniwing there's nearly £40 billion of eco taxes robbed from us every year in the Uk alone. What about the funding of the best scientists money can buy via politicians? Far larger amounts of money, far more pressure to toe the line.
On the basis of your post, the entire MMGWT third-rate academe mafia should be disbelieved because of the corruption in their funding streams.
ludo said:
However, lack of independance is not a reason to reject an argument (that is what is wrong with an ad-hominem), if you are going to reject an argument it should be because you can find a flaw in the argument itself, not the source. If you can't do so, you should keep an open mind.
i.e. you should not ignore an argument due to concerns over the funding source, regardless of what it is. Try reading the whole of my post next time so you don't make a fool of yourself again (at least not in the same way ).
I saw that episode last night. South Park sure don't like Al Gore.lunarscope said:
nigelfr said:
nigelfr said:
Just a point Gopher, if you're going to raise the taxes issue with him, make sure you use the correct figures: if you use TB's "approaching £40 billion", you'll look foolish. Some people may have been taken in by the spin, but I sure an opposition minister will know that only a part of hydrocarbon taxes are AGW taxes: same with VED and if you include the Landfill and Aggregate taxes which have nothing at all to do with AGW, you'll totally ruin your case.
As I've said before, I deplore the Government's taxation policy with repect to AGW, and the more people that complain about it the better, but if you use the wrong figures you won't be taken seriously. TB gave us a link to the Government's figures: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/CCI/nugget.asp?ID=152
Unfortunately he has not looked at them critically. For one thing they show that Environmental taxes have fallen as a percentage of GDP since a peak in 1999. (They are increasing this year because the oil price has gone up: as everyone knows there is duty and VAT on fuel, so as all this is now considered an environmental tax and accounts for 2/3 of "eco-taxes", it's not surprising.)The introduction of environmental taxation was announced in a Statement of Intent in 1997: in a spin exercise, VED and all hydrocarbon taxes were declared environmental taxes. This is complete nonsense, because the duty on fuel has been around since the year dot. Same with VED which was just another tax until 1997.
Now it is clear that TB and others posting here trust the Government uncritically on this issue, because a lot of the rhetoric here is complaining about this "approaching £40 Billion", so I've e-mailed the Statistics Office to raise this issue. I await with interest their reply.
Oh dear, TB still can't admit your mistake on the £40 Billion, try reading the above slowly. I won't give up on you, I'm sure that you'll understand it eventually.As I've said before, I deplore the Government's taxation policy with repect to AGW, and the more people that complain about it the better, but if you use the wrong figures you won't be taken seriously. TB gave us a link to the Government's figures: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/CCI/nugget.asp?ID=152
Unfortunately he has not looked at them critically. For one thing they show that Environmental taxes have fallen as a percentage of GDP since a peak in 1999. (They are increasing this year because the oil price has gone up: as everyone knows there is duty and VAT on fuel, so as all this is now considered an environmental tax and accounts for 2/3 of "eco-taxes", it's not surprising.)The introduction of environmental taxation was announced in a Statement of Intent in 1997: in a spin exercise, VED and all hydrocarbon taxes were declared environmental taxes. This is complete nonsense, because the duty on fuel has been around since the year dot. Same with VED which was just another tax until 1997.
Now it is clear that TB and others posting here trust the Government uncritically on this issue, because a lot of the rhetoric here is complaining about this "approaching £40 Billion", so I've e-mailed the Statistics Office to raise this issue. I await with interest their reply.
You know that I e-mailed the Statistics Office: I got a reply. It was blank apart from ">" : I kid you not. See below.
Original Message -----
From: "Environment Accounts" <Environment.Accounts@ons.gsi.gov.uk>
To: <XXXXX>
Sent: Tuesday, August 05, 2008 3:59 PM
Subject: Re: Environmental taxes
>
turbobloke said:
Apparently Telewest/Virgin cable TV channel 230 National Geographic has a programme on the Sun driving climate change - now. Strange, third-rate anti-TGGWS rentapaper authors and all the True Believers say it has no effect.
Oh you really do take the biscuit: look what I read today:"Don't Blame Sun for Global Warming, Study Says
The sun's energy output varies slightly as sunspots wax and wane on the star's surface.
But sunspot-driven changes to the sun's power are simply too small to account for the climatic changes observed in historical data from the 17th century to the present, research suggests.
The difference in brightness between the high point of a sunspot cycle and its low point is less than 0.1 percent of the sun's total output.
"If you run that back in time to the 17th century using sunspot records, you'll find that this amplitude variance is negligible for climate," Foukal said.
The researchers obtained accurate daily sunspot measurements dating as far back as 1874 from institutions such as the Mount Wilson Observatory near Pasadena, California, and the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England. "
nigelfr said:
turbobloke said:
Apparently Telewest/Virgin cable TV channel 230 National Geographic has a programme on the Sun driving climate change - now. Strange, third-rate anti-TGGWS rentapaper authors and all the True Believers say it has no effect.
Oh you really do take the biscuit: look what I read today:"Don't Blame Sun for Global Warming, Study Says
The sun's energy output varies slightly as sunspots wax and wane on the star's surface.
But sunspot-driven changes to the sun's power are simply too small to account for the climatic changes observed in historical data from the 17th century to the present, research suggests.
The difference in brightness between the high point of a sunspot cycle and its low point is less than 0.1 percent of the sun's total output.
"If you run that back in time to the 17th century using sunspot records, you'll find that this amplitude variance is negligible for climate," Foukal said.
The researchers obtained accurate daily sunspot measurements dating as far back as 1874 from institutions such as the Mount Wilson Observatory near Pasadena, California, and the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England. "
Schoolboy error. Even ludo wouldn't fall for that one.
Firstly irradiance is only one part of solar variability affecting climate. Secondly the comments on direct energy budget measurements - analysis is limited in this way because of tunnel vision caused by carbon dioxide blinkers - ignore such critical factors as couplings that can amplify an initial forcing, and the fact that within the TSI energy budget there are variances in spectral regions sich as UV that are, depending on whether you're measuring up or down the variation, around 50% or 100%. I guess you knew all that and were keeping quiet about it, or didn;t have a clue so couldn't mention it. Either way you present as an uninformed True Believer desperate to make a weak point badly (as usual).
Eruptivity is the other key aspect of solar variability and an important climate forcing unrelated to direct energy buidgets and so unrelated to the content of your post above. The IPCC don't have a clue and fail to include it in their summary comics. Solar eruptivity operates as a climate forcing through the solar wind, which moderates high energy cosmic ray flux (as with all energies), which alters cloud formation, which changes albedo and therefore climate.
To save you further time catching up with the rest of us: this has eben pointed out by people like Friis-Christensen, Lassen, and more recently by Svensmark. Rentapaper Inc's anti-TGGWS branch got busy and eventually after an Oxford reheat that was only tepid, a 'paper' appeared from Sloan and Wolfendale claiming to dismiss the Svensmark idea.
Unfortunately Sloan and Wolfendale didn't really have much of a grip on their subject matter and their paper was politely but incisively torn to shreds by Nir Shaviv. Here you can go straight to the endgame, though the chances of you having the first clue as to what's going on is remote. There's an informative exchange between Nir Shaviv and somebody purporting to be Sloan in the comments under the clinical rebuttal.
http://www.sciencebits.com/SloanAndWolfendale
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