Climate change - the POLITICAL debate.

Climate change - the POLITICAL debate.

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Devil2575

13,400 posts

187 months

Wednesday 7th March 2012
quotequote all
turbobloke said:
Love the language? If the language is imprecise there's room for believer slime to slide inbetween the words and pretend it says something else or make political capital out of it in other ways.
The way I put it was just as precise but it was in plain language.

turbobloke said:
As to crystal ball, yes of course. Is that the answer you expected? Or was it just a silly question?
It was a silly question but with a serious meaning. I think stating with any confidence that we won't see evidence of MMGW in the future is folly. We simply don't know, unless you believe the science is settled.

You flip between the use of scientific langauge and that of a political blogger. Believer slime for example. That kind of language does not further your cause.


BliarOut

72,857 posts

238 months

Wednesday 7th March 2012
quotequote all
Devil2575 said:
BliarOut said:
The Tories are starting to distance themselves from the MMGW myth.
Ok, so if that is the case why are they not having it shot down right away.

If the whole scam is based around government funding etc and scieitists needing to support MMGW in order to secure furture funding then why don't the Conservatives just step in and remove this factor? They could easily give scientists free reight to properly evaluate the real data and hence shoot the whole scam down in flames. At which point they could legitiamtely remove all funding for renewables from our evergy bills and pull us out of EUETS. Given the financial mess we are in this would be a huge boost to both industry and private households. There could also be no MMGW argument against airport expansion etc.

You'd upset the green party and Friends of the earth etc but most of Joe Public would be fine. You could also deal labour a huge blow.

If the case for MMGW is so easy to debunk as you say then this is a real no brainer.
If you're genuinely interested look for George Osborne's recent comments online. Green is no longer a vote winner now people are skint!

turbobloke

103,631 posts

259 months

Wednesday 7th March 2012
quotequote all
Devil2575 said:
turbobloke said:
Love the language? If the language is imprecise there's room for believer slime to slide inbetween the words and pretend it says something else or make political capital out of it in other ways.
The way I put it was just as precise but it was in plain language.
Not even close. You said:

"there is no evidence to suggest that carbon dioxide released by human activity is influencing our climate"

That's no good at all. It will allow true believers to offer the gigo from inadequate computer climate models as 'evidence' which it isn't as the aforementioned expensive gigo depends on the assumptions of the modellers and is not by any means 'data'.

You haven't been around many blocks in this 'hood have you?

Devil2575 said:
turbobloke said:
As to crystal ball, yes of course. Is that the answer you expected? Or was it just a silly question?
It was a silly question but with a serious meaning. I think stating with any confidence that we won't see evidence of MMGW in the future is folly. We simply don't know, unless you believe the science is settled.

You flip between the use of scientific langauge and that of a political blogger. Believer slime for example. That kind of language does not further your cause.
You assume I have a cause and not for the first time (or the last) you are way off the mark.

Anyway if my term believer slime doesn't apply to all true believers then it remains precise by applying to those that are slime, sorted.

Devil2575

13,400 posts

187 months

Wednesday 7th March 2012
quotequote all
turbobloke said:
You assume I have a cause and not for the first time (or the last) you are way off the mark.
I assume nothing. I am just trying to understand where you are comming from.

To say with any confidence that no evidence will emerge any time soon is to say that you believe the science is settled, IMHO of course.






turbobloke

103,631 posts

259 months

Wednesday 7th March 2012
quotequote all
Devil2575 said:
turbobloke said:
You assume I have a cause and not for the first time (or the last) you are way off the mark.
I assume nothing. I am just trying to understand where you are comming from
Data and sound science. That's where I'm coming from and it's been painfully obvious all along.

As to pointing out how your imprecise language just didn't cut it, you're welcome.

Devil2575 said:
To say with any confidence that no evidence will emerge any time soon is to say that you believe the science is settled, IMHO of course.
Not at all.

Maynard Keynes said:
When the facts change I change my mind. What do you do sir?
At present, data and sound science says there's not a snowflake's chance in a Viner article of any causal visible human tax gas signal. Comprendez?

Probably not...but this is the politics thread so back to the propaganda eh?

turbobloke

103,631 posts

259 months

Wednesday 7th March 2012
quotequote all
A scene, UK somewhere in 2112.

Daddy what's that?

It used to be a wind turbine.

Is that why we're all so cold and our country is so poor?

Both laugh out loud with cheery Brit optimism.

Devil2575

13,400 posts

187 months

Wednesday 7th March 2012
quotequote all
turbobloke said:
Devil2575 said:
turbobloke said:
Love the language? If the language is imprecise there's room for believer slime to slide inbetween the words and pretend it says something else or make political capital out of it in other ways.
The way I put it was just as precise but it was in plain language.
Not even close. You said:

"there is no evidence to suggest that carbon dioxide released by human activity is influencing our climate"

That's no good at all. It will allow true believers to offer the gigo from inadequate computer climate models as 'evidence' which it isn't as the aforementioned expensive gigo depends on the assumptions of the modellers and is not by any means 'data'.

You haven't been around many blocks in this 'hood have you?

[
What are you talking about?

You don't accept evidence from computer models because it is based on assumptions made by the people who wrote the models. Ok.

So if you can demonstrate why certain evidence is flawed/not valid then you my statement is fine.

Are you in the legal profession?

biggrin

turbobloke

103,631 posts

259 months

Wednesday 7th March 2012
quotequote all
It's already demonstrated over in the climate science thread.

Head on over and do some reading rather than waste more time in here and incur the wrath of the mods.

Silver Smudger

3,291 posts

166 months

Wednesday 7th March 2012
quotequote all
Jasandjules said:
Keep a population scared and you can do what you like with them as you are "protecting them" - read 1982 for further details....
Another adjusted figure?

laugh

Devil2575

13,400 posts

187 months

Wednesday 7th March 2012
quotequote all
Guam said:
Ah the precautionary principle smile
It usually raises its head in these debates at some juncture, well the Environmentalists have a great rack record on the precautionary principle.

Nuclear power being the most notable.

Our children wont thank us IF blah blah blah smile


Cheers
For the record I'm in favour of Nuclear.

I am not an Environmentalist as you put it.

Blib

43,722 posts

196 months

Wednesday 7th March 2012
quotequote all
Devil.

There is nothing nobler for a politician, of whatever persuasion, to believe that he or she is actually saving the planet for his or her fellow citizens and generations to come.

It is far harder to say that this is a fool's errand.

It really does not need to be any more complicated than that.


jet_noise

5,624 posts

181 months

Wednesday 7th March 2012
quotequote all
Dear SS,

Silver Smudger said:
Jasandjules said:
Keep a population scared and you can do what you like with them as you are "protecting them" - read 1982 for further details....
Another adjusted figure?

laugh
have a rofl

from me,

regards,
Jet

Devil2575

13,400 posts

187 months

Wednesday 7th March 2012
quotequote all
Blib said:
Devil.

There is nothing nobler for a politician, of whatever persuasion, to believe that he or she is actually saving the planet for his or her fellow citizens and generations to come.

It is far harder to say that this is a fool's errand.

It really does not need to be any more complicated than that.
I understand what you are saying but I still think that there would at the very least be some noisy back benchers shouting about this. However there is very little noise at all.

turbobloke

103,631 posts

259 months

Wednesday 7th March 2012
quotequote all
Devil2575 said:
Blib said:
Devil.

There is nothing nobler for a politician, of whatever persuasion, to believe that he or she is actually saving the planet for his or her fellow citizens and generations to come.

It is far harder to say that this is a fool's errand.

It really does not need to be any more complicated than that.
I understand what you are saying but I still think that there would at the very least be some noisy back benchers shouting about this. However there is very little noise at all.
There have been but the BBC probably didn't cover it.

turbobloke

103,631 posts

259 months

Wednesday 7th March 2012
quotequote all
This is way back, and as you would expect the BBC had it front of house on their website for weeks and it was top of the bill on Newsnight.


OPEN LETTER TO SECRETARY OF STATE FOR ENERGY AND CLIMATE CHANGE

Dear Secretary of State

You recently slipped out, without notifying Parliament, a massive revision of the estimated costs and benefits of the Climate Change Act.

I hope that on consideration, you will agree that changes amounting to nearly £1 trillion require both discussion in, and explanation to, Parliament. This is particularly important given the extraordinary way the government treated its own original estimates of the costs and benefits of the Climate Change Bill during the Bill’s passage through Parliament.

You will recall that your original estimates of costs and benefits of the Climate Change Bill showed that its potential costs (1) at some £205 billion were almost twice the maximum benefits of £110 billion. This was embarrassing for you because the reason governments are required to publish an Impact Assessment giving estimates of costs and benefits of any Bill is to enable Parliament to “determine whether the benefits justify the costs” (2).

In this case, on the basis of your figures, they clearly did not. Moreover, your initial calculations were based on the original target of reducing emissions by 60%, which was increased to 80% during the passage of the Bill. Normally each extra percentage reduction will require increasing marginal costs and generate declining marginal benefits. So the higher target was likely to make the disparity between costs and benefits even worse.

You nonetheless ignored your own department’s figures, refused to discuss them and proceeded to drive the Bill through – surely the first time any government has recommended Parliament to vote for a Bill which its own Assessment showed could cost far more than the maximum benefits?
However, you promised to produce revised estimates though, rather bizarrely, not in time for Parliament to consider them but after Royal Assent.

Five months have passed since then. Inevitably such a lengthy delay arouses suspicions – aggravated by the scale of the changes – that the figures have had to be heavily massaged to remove the original embarrassment. The new figures for both costs and benefits have indeed been changed dramatically. As so often in the debate on Global Warming – when the facts don’t fit the theory they change the facts.

As recently as your last departmental question time on 5th March your Minister of State, Joan Ruddock, suggested to me that the original estimate of potential costs of up to £205 billion might be too high. She said “We are likely to find that the costs, which covered a very large range, were exaggerated…” Yet despite correcting for any previous downward bias the revised figures you have now published are not lower but substantially higher. The bottom of the new range for costs is in fact £324 billion – nearly 60% higher than the highest figure I have been quoting. And the top of the range is now £404 billion.

In other words the government now estimates that the Climate Change Act will cost every household in the country between £16,000 and £20,000 each. When it comes to your revised estimates of the benefits, however, we enter Alice in Wonderland territory. Even though costs have broadly doubled, the embarrassment of them exceeding your own estimate of the maximum benefits has been eliminated. The benefits have been dramatically increased tenfold from £105 billion to over £1 trillion. I congratulate you on finding nearly £1 trillion of benefits which had previously escaped your notice.

But surely such an astounding discovery merits explanation? The one element of the revision which is mentioned appears, of itself, to justify doubling estimates based on the previous methodology. But where did the rest of the newly discovered benefits arise from?

As you know, having studied physics at Cambridge, I do not dispute the existence of a greenhouse effect, though I am sceptical about the model building which seeks to amplify it. I support sensible measures to reduce CO2 emissions, economise on hydrocarbon use and help the poorest countries adapt to adverse climate change whatever it cause – as long as the measures we adopt are sensible and cost effective. But we cannot judge what is sensible and cost effective if we do not have reliable figures, and subject them to proper parliamentary scrutiny.

When the Department slips out figures which it appears to be unable to explain, unwilling to debate and which are so flaky they vary by a factor of ten - it can only provoke scepticism.

I should be grateful if you could answer the following questions:

1. When will Parliament be given an opportunity to discuss these new figures?
2. What is the explanation of the huge revisions in costs and, more particularly, benefits?
3. Why has it taken five months to produce these revised figures?
4. What is the purpose of publishing Impact Assessments which are ignored or not available until after Parliament has considered a Bill?
5. Which minister signed off the required declaration that the original Impact Assessment “represented a reasonable view of the likely costs, benefits and impact”?
6. Can you confirm that the costs of the Climate Change Act amount to between £16,000 and £20,000 for every UK household?
7. Can you confirm that the revised cost estimates still exclude transitional costs (which could amount to 1% of GDP up to 2020), ignore the cost of driving British firms overseas, and assume that all businesses identify and immediately apply the most carbon efficient technology available?
8. Can you confirm that although the costs of the Act will fall on UK households the benefits will largely accrue to the rest of the world?
9. Can you confirm that the Climate Change Act binds UK governments to pursue the targets regardless of whether other countries follow our lead (or indeed whether the climate warms or not)?

Yours sincerely

Peter Lilley

(1) Cost estimates exclude transitional costs which were put at about 1% of GDP until 2020, omit the cost of driving carbon intensive UK industries abroad which was said to be significantly likely, and assume that businesses will identify and implement immediately the optimum new carbon efficient technologies.

(2) Impact Assessment Guidance - BERR



Superb - congratulating the twunt on finding £1 trillion of CCA benefits that previously escaped Labour's notice.

Did anyone see the reply?!

wobble



turbobloke

103,631 posts

259 months

Wednesday 7th March 2012
quotequote all
More on the greenhouse effect over at the science thread ----> Click

For a reasonably brief summary of what actually constitutes a real greenhouse effect, where the term greenhouse doesn't apply, ignore trolling from warmistry and see the post yesterday at 08:09 hrs.

Pesty

42,655 posts

255 months

Wednesday 7th March 2012
quotequote all
Devil2575 said:
Pesty said:
we are not the ones who are saying the science is settled

Edited by Pesty on Tuesday 6th March 23:16
I thought you were?

I thought that the whole premise of your argument was that the MMGW was made up and the so called junk science didn't actually show anything i.e. the planet is not even warming, let alone as a result of mans actions?

Or am I wrong?
you are

Al gore, the bbc and the IPCC etc etc are saying the science is setteled.

The BBC have said so publically and in person to me in emails.

I am saying they have not yet proved to me and many others that there is a man made input into climate change.

I don't deny that climate changes it has done since time began all im saying is that it has not yet been proven to me that we are a cause of it.

I have an open mind give me proof and i will accept it. From what i can see not many enviromentalists have the same opinion

all i can see is people getting very rich from carbon trading and governments taxing us till we squeak.

IPCC (IIRC)have openly said its ok to lie and exagerate, do you consider that science? i think it was the Canadian science minister who said climate change was a means to re distribute wealth to thrid world countries.

then we have lies about polar bears (one small report about one bay in canada with reduced polar bears caused by increased human population became polar bears are dieing all over even though there are more now then there were 50 years ago etc etc ) and glaciers that will dissapear which wont and even some that are increasing.

scientists showing that carbon trails warming and all the rest of it.



Edited by Pesty on Wednesday 7th March 17:04

Apache

39,731 posts

283 months

Wednesday 7th March 2012
quotequote all
Devil2575 said:
You don't accept evidence from computer models because it is based on assumptions made by the people who wrote the models. Ok.

biggrin
We were all over the computer models like a rash when it was revealed how they were conceived, the credentials of the analyst, what data was in putted and how the results were distorted, this was some time ago and I don't have any links, others might. To say it was a crock of st would be a kindness and you really need to see what the CRU had done, it would go a long way to explain the attitude on this thread towards 'computer models'

turbobloke

103,631 posts

259 months

Wednesday 7th March 2012
quotequote all
The politics of climate models is clear. They should not be elected.

Sorely tempted to post chapter and verse on climate models over in the science thread but the devil I will. Wasting time on time wasters is a waste of time. Everyone else has seen it and others can find it if sufficiently interested.

Jasandjules

69,787 posts

228 months

Wednesday 7th March 2012
quotequote all
Silver Smudger said:
Jasandjules said:
Keep a population scared and you can do what you like with them as you are "protecting them" - read 1982 for further details....
Another adjusted figure?

laugh
I spotted that but Turbo had quoted me so it was too late to change it................

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