Discussion
[quote=Hans Labohm]Economists, like me, become very suspicious if scientific bodies publicly espouse one line of thinking while denouncing alternative views. That was the case when London's Royal Society issued a statement last month announcing that the national science academies of the G8 nations and Brazil, China and India, three of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases in the developing world, had signed a statement on the global response to climate change. The statement stressed that the scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to justify nations taking prompt action and called on world leaders, including those meeting at the G8 summit this week at Gleneagles, to take a number of specific measures.
However, it turns out this statement was not supported by the American and Russian Academies of Science. Fred Singer, president of the Science & Environmental Policy Project (SEPP), reported that Bruce Albert, president of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences -- whose signature was printed at the bottom of the statement -- confirmed that the Academy "definitely did not approve the Royal Society press release". Albert added that he had sent a letter to Lord Robert May (the drafter of the press release) expressing his dismay at the misleading and political statements made in it.
The press release came also as a surprise to the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS). As Benny Peiser, a well-known British climate skeptic noted: "The Royal Society appears to have pressured its president, Yuri Osipov, into signing a politically motivated document against the expressed stance of its own organization. The RAS had never seen or discussed the text of the Academies' statement. After having done so, the RAS climate scientists have come to the conclusion that the statement of the Academies is 'lacking scientific proof and having contradictions in logic in its many assertions.' Russian scientists still believe that the Kyoto protocol is scientifically flawed. It is an ineffective way to try to achieve the aim of the UN convention on climate change. They also said it was harmful for the Russian economy. In the meantime, a special climate group of the RAS has requested the president of the Russian Academy of Science to repudiate his signature from the 'Academies' statement."
[b]The press release by the Royal Society is just another example of the long string of manipulative and obfuscatory practices that have defined the climate debate and in which pro-Kyoto British scientists have played such a prominent role.[/b] The most notorious example is perhaps the behavior of the British delegation at a climate conference in Moscow in July 2003. According to Dr. Madhav L. Khandekar, a Canadian environmental consultant and research scientist, the UK delegation, led by Sir David King, chief scientific advisor to the British government, "behaved in a most obstructionist and unprofessional fashion throughout the event. The U.K. Delegation vehemently opposed allowing any of the experts who disagreed with the Kyoto science to even present our work." More particularly he complained: "In an attempt to deny dissenting scientists the time to speak, the UK delegation did not arrive until 11 a.m. on July 7, although the seminar was supposed to start at 9.30 a.m. Dr. King then insisted on delivering a long presentation that forced dissenting speakers to significantly shorten their talks. Even though we met until 7 p.m., the schedule for the first day had to be completed the following morning and, even then, Dr. King tried to bump us by speaking next morning for almost 40 minutes. The UK group refused to answer many of the questions of [Kremlin economic adviser Andrei] Illarionov and others. Professor Paul Reiter of Institute Pasteur in Paris questioned Dr. King's assertion that global warming has reduced the snow/ice cap on Mount Kilimanjaro. Prof. Reiter, whose studies reveal that there has been no temperature change at the base of the mountain in the last decade, pointed out that ice cap changes could easily have been due to reasons other than global warming. Dr. King did not answer and instead suddenly walked away on the pretext that he had to meet a government official." And so he goes on.
[b]One can only wonder whether there are any checks and balances to temper the excessive zeal of some scientists, especially those who are acting in some official capacity, to impose their views concerning climate change onto science and politics. All those who value impartiality and open-mindedness of science and its institutions will undoubtedly be utterly embarrassed by these practices.[/b] It is not only damaging for the reputation of the individual scientists involved, but also the institutions which they claim to represent. Moreover it may blot the reputation of science at large. [b]It's high time to stop those practices.[/b][/quote]
Be sure, it's a story about this country's leading scientists and scientific institution engaged in sharp practice at best, fraudulent fakery and porkypies at worst.
This follows the welcome bout of common sense from a House of Lords Committee yesterday, which urged its audience to remember that the science of climate change is [i]not[/i] decided by politicians, that the IPCC's 'storyline' projections are hot air and that it (the IPCC) is allowing climate science to be determined by political requirements rather than evidence, that global warming scientists are almost entirely government appointees suffering from political interference, that many benefits derive from natural warming episodes, and that taxpayers' money would be better spent on strategies to deal with inevitable climate change rather than wasted on futile Kyoto style agreements that will make no difference.
This may be representative of a shift in climate over climate change coverage, but - sadly - later today we can expect more hot air from Blair.
However, it turns out this statement was not supported by the American and Russian Academies of Science. Fred Singer, president of the Science & Environmental Policy Project (SEPP), reported that Bruce Albert, president of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences -- whose signature was printed at the bottom of the statement -- confirmed that the Academy "definitely did not approve the Royal Society press release". Albert added that he had sent a letter to Lord Robert May (the drafter of the press release) expressing his dismay at the misleading and political statements made in it.
The press release came also as a surprise to the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS). As Benny Peiser, a well-known British climate skeptic noted: "The Royal Society appears to have pressured its president, Yuri Osipov, into signing a politically motivated document against the expressed stance of its own organization. The RAS had never seen or discussed the text of the Academies' statement. After having done so, the RAS climate scientists have come to the conclusion that the statement of the Academies is 'lacking scientific proof and having contradictions in logic in its many assertions.' Russian scientists still believe that the Kyoto protocol is scientifically flawed. It is an ineffective way to try to achieve the aim of the UN convention on climate change. They also said it was harmful for the Russian economy. In the meantime, a special climate group of the RAS has requested the president of the Russian Academy of Science to repudiate his signature from the 'Academies' statement."
[b]The press release by the Royal Society is just another example of the long string of manipulative and obfuscatory practices that have defined the climate debate and in which pro-Kyoto British scientists have played such a prominent role.[/b] The most notorious example is perhaps the behavior of the British delegation at a climate conference in Moscow in July 2003. According to Dr. Madhav L. Khandekar, a Canadian environmental consultant and research scientist, the UK delegation, led by Sir David King, chief scientific advisor to the British government, "behaved in a most obstructionist and unprofessional fashion throughout the event. The U.K. Delegation vehemently opposed allowing any of the experts who disagreed with the Kyoto science to even present our work." More particularly he complained: "In an attempt to deny dissenting scientists the time to speak, the UK delegation did not arrive until 11 a.m. on July 7, although the seminar was supposed to start at 9.30 a.m. Dr. King then insisted on delivering a long presentation that forced dissenting speakers to significantly shorten their talks. Even though we met until 7 p.m., the schedule for the first day had to be completed the following morning and, even then, Dr. King tried to bump us by speaking next morning for almost 40 minutes. The UK group refused to answer many of the questions of [Kremlin economic adviser Andrei] Illarionov and others. Professor Paul Reiter of Institute Pasteur in Paris questioned Dr. King's assertion that global warming has reduced the snow/ice cap on Mount Kilimanjaro. Prof. Reiter, whose studies reveal that there has been no temperature change at the base of the mountain in the last decade, pointed out that ice cap changes could easily have been due to reasons other than global warming. Dr. King did not answer and instead suddenly walked away on the pretext that he had to meet a government official." And so he goes on.
[b]One can only wonder whether there are any checks and balances to temper the excessive zeal of some scientists, especially those who are acting in some official capacity, to impose their views concerning climate change onto science and politics. All those who value impartiality and open-mindedness of science and its institutions will undoubtedly be utterly embarrassed by these practices.[/b] It is not only damaging for the reputation of the individual scientists involved, but also the institutions which they claim to represent. Moreover it may blot the reputation of science at large. [b]It's high time to stop those practices.[/b][/quote]
Be sure, it's a story about this country's leading scientists and scientific institution engaged in sharp practice at best, fraudulent fakery and porkypies at worst.
This follows the welcome bout of common sense from a House of Lords Committee yesterday, which urged its audience to remember that the science of climate change is [i]not[/i] decided by politicians, that the IPCC's 'storyline' projections are hot air and that it (the IPCC) is allowing climate science to be determined by political requirements rather than evidence, that global warming scientists are almost entirely government appointees suffering from political interference, that many benefits derive from natural warming episodes, and that taxpayers' money would be better spent on strategies to deal with inevitable climate change rather than wasted on futile Kyoto style agreements that will make no difference.
This may be representative of a shift in climate over climate change coverage, but - sadly - later today we can expect more hot air from Blair.
Turbobloke - you always a project a very dismissive attitude to anything suggesting that global warming is a man-made phenomenon. That's fair enough, as at least yours is an informed and erudite opinion. But, given the uncertainty on the causes/consequences of the whole climate change issue, e.g. "lacking scientific proof" as stated in the article that you quote above, do you not think that the only practical measure until we are capable of understanding the issue better is to act on the assumption that we ARE adversely affecting the environment with our CO2 emissions?
It seems eminently sensible to me, putting all the spin aside for a moment, to try and reduce our unbalancing impact on the planet as far as possible. Hopefully then when we finally do understand the true effects of changes in the equilibrium of our global gaseous envelope it might not be too late to correct the
up that we may have made of it.
The Kyoto CO2 trading system is pretty crap, but is at least a capitalist approach to the issue that might just work on a global scale. It's better than nothing isn't it?
It seems eminently sensible to me, putting all the spin aside for a moment, to try and reduce our unbalancing impact on the planet as far as possible. Hopefully then when we finally do understand the true effects of changes in the equilibrium of our global gaseous envelope it might not be too late to correct the
up that we may have made of it. The Kyoto CO2 trading system is pretty crap, but is at least a capitalist approach to the issue that might just work on a global scale. It's better than nothing isn't it?
Nel, you're right that my view is unswervingly dismissive of man-made influences on global climate. That's because, having weighed the evidence, rather than the political mouthing off that passes as evidence in some quarters, I see no case to answer.
Reports that there is uncertainty will never go away. There will never be certainty. The ocean-atmosphere system is coupled, non-linear and chaotic, so even if we understand its most intricate complexities some day, predictions will never be totally credible. At the moment, computer models used for this purpose are so inadequate and brimming with inaccuracies, omissions and short-cuts that their output is more 'fairytale' than the official 'storyline' description.
From your perspective I guess the key question is whether the doomsday scenarios are credible, either in terms of 'beyond all reasonable doubt' or 'the balance of probabilities', and if so, will the IPCC's policies do anything to help.
Whether you're operating under the more demanding first category or the lenient second, the thermal armageddon scare stories fail to make their case. For the flawed computer models to wreak their havoc in reality, you need global emissions of carbon dioxide and methane to be far higher than any realistic prediction, the world population to grow at a rate far higher than is credible, and not least for the importance of carbon dioxide in climate terms to be exactly as programmed in the models. Yet even this fundamental issue is at odds with the evidence. Carbon dioxide shifts occur after temperature shifts, never before. And we've had levels of this gas 18 times higher than now in the past - we're still here. Taken together these findings are fatally damning for man-made global warming theory.
Then, looking at trends over the past 400 years that straddle industrialisation, respected researchers who have published their methodology under peer review find "no human signal in the data". So there's no sign in the data that we're having any impact on global climate, this must force the case to be dismissed. The only contrary view comes from the flawed computer models, and one tainted report from a researcher who refuses to let his (proxy) data or his methods be fully scrutinised by the scientific community.
This is enough for me, but not enough perhaps for others. So moving on to the suggested remedy, one research team concluded their paper with 'this proves that carbon dioxide is not the forcing that drives the climate system'. Plain enough? So why focus on it? The IPCC approach represents a non-workable solution to a problem that doesn't exist. There are political bases for the IPCC and its Kyoto offspring but that's about it.
The HoL Committee were spot on with their recommendation that governments do more to invest taxpayers' money in schemes that move to manage the impacts of inevitable climate change. Since, just to be sure, neither me nor any other scientist arguing against man-made global warming on the basis of evidence, is arguing that climate change isn't happening. It is - it's been happening for the several thousand million years of this planet's existence, but crucially it's neither greater now nor changing more rapidly than is entirely normal. As we're still emerging from the last ice age, you;d expect some warming wouldn't you? That's what happens in interglacial periods. Why politicians think this scenario is a bad thing is certainly nothing to do with science!
Reports that there is uncertainty will never go away. There will never be certainty. The ocean-atmosphere system is coupled, non-linear and chaotic, so even if we understand its most intricate complexities some day, predictions will never be totally credible. At the moment, computer models used for this purpose are so inadequate and brimming with inaccuracies, omissions and short-cuts that their output is more 'fairytale' than the official 'storyline' description.
From your perspective I guess the key question is whether the doomsday scenarios are credible, either in terms of 'beyond all reasonable doubt' or 'the balance of probabilities', and if so, will the IPCC's policies do anything to help.
Whether you're operating under the more demanding first category or the lenient second, the thermal armageddon scare stories fail to make their case. For the flawed computer models to wreak their havoc in reality, you need global emissions of carbon dioxide and methane to be far higher than any realistic prediction, the world population to grow at a rate far higher than is credible, and not least for the importance of carbon dioxide in climate terms to be exactly as programmed in the models. Yet even this fundamental issue is at odds with the evidence. Carbon dioxide shifts occur after temperature shifts, never before. And we've had levels of this gas 18 times higher than now in the past - we're still here. Taken together these findings are fatally damning for man-made global warming theory.
Then, looking at trends over the past 400 years that straddle industrialisation, respected researchers who have published their methodology under peer review find "no human signal in the data". So there's no sign in the data that we're having any impact on global climate, this must force the case to be dismissed. The only contrary view comes from the flawed computer models, and one tainted report from a researcher who refuses to let his (proxy) data or his methods be fully scrutinised by the scientific community.
This is enough for me, but not enough perhaps for others. So moving on to the suggested remedy, one research team concluded their paper with 'this proves that carbon dioxide is not the forcing that drives the climate system'. Plain enough? So why focus on it? The IPCC approach represents a non-workable solution to a problem that doesn't exist. There are political bases for the IPCC and its Kyoto offspring but that's about it.
The HoL Committee were spot on with their recommendation that governments do more to invest taxpayers' money in schemes that move to manage the impacts of inevitable climate change. Since, just to be sure, neither me nor any other scientist arguing against man-made global warming on the basis of evidence, is arguing that climate change isn't happening. It is - it's been happening for the several thousand million years of this planet's existence, but crucially it's neither greater now nor changing more rapidly than is entirely normal. As we're still emerging from the last ice age, you;d expect some warming wouldn't you? That's what happens in interglacial periods. Why politicians think this scenario is a bad thing is certainly nothing to do with science!
Personally, I like to think of things in context with geological time, really, the whole lot is pretty insignificant and we may as well enjoy ourselves. Even if we did nuke every square cm of this planet, there is plenty of time to evolve everything from scratch again, resources will be replenished in due course.
Half the problem are the over inflated egos which seem to regard the human race as something permanent and the environment as something which should be static. It is all a terrible waste of money/resources. An eye to natural selection also solves a lot of the "other problems" we have.
The snag is people with an over emphasis on humanism, ignorance of earth history, preaching hyperbole to a load of even more ignorant public.
I've totally given up giving a. There is nothing you can do to change the pseudo-science spouted by these politicians.
Half the problem are the over inflated egos which seem to regard the human race as something permanent and the environment as something which should be static. It is all a terrible waste of money/resources. An eye to natural selection also solves a lot of the "other problems" we have.
The snag is people with an over emphasis on humanism, ignorance of earth history, preaching hyperbole to a load of even more ignorant public.
I've totally given up giving a
. There is nothing you can do to change the pseudo-science spouted by these politicians.Well, Sir David King says he thinks global warming is a bigger threat than global terrorism. Wonder if he or Lord May were on the bus or tube this morning...for the record I hope not, and sympathies to all affected, having bused / tubed and worked in London all week until today it makes you think.
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