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Can we really blame climate change for this year’s extreme weather - and does the phenomenon of climate change even exist?
Those are the questions the Shropshire Star video team has been posing during a special investigation into our weather.
Using archive footage and interviews with local residents, video journalist James Shaw has edited a series of online videos in a bid to discover the answers.
This first video looks at the “green” side of the argument and how people were affected by June’s floods.
Chris Leggett, Shropshire Star electronic editor, said he hoped the videos would spark a lively debate on the Shropshire Star website.
“We are sure James’s video will bring the issue to life for website users,” he said.
“We expect it to spark a great discussion and I think it is a fine example of how we can use video online to stimulate debate.
“The video team has been working to compliment our traditional text and picture output, and to ensure we set new standards in local journalism.”
James said video images of the devastation caused by this year’s weather offer a fascinating insight into the issue.
“Shropshire has been battered by wave after wave of extreme weather this year, so we thought it would be a good chance to bring all this footage together,” he said.
“It started with the really heavy snow at the end of the winter and has only stopped in the last few weeks.
“One of the worst-hit areas was around Hampton Loade near Bridgnorth.”
146 Comments
If climate change is the real threat that the government tells us it is why do they insist on raising taxes on the things that have a high carbon foot print such as 4×4’s and flights. Surely it would be better to ban these things to save the environment. That is if it is the threat they are telling us it is. Also why are the government not preparing us for living in our ever changing conditions and planning for higher temperatures. Why don’t we see them investing in infrastructure such as extra fire fighting equipment for the forrest fires we will surely have. Or investment in our water supplies. I find it very suspicious that we keep getting told that global warming is the threat that it is when all government do is use it as a tool to tax us even more. I’m not saying global warming isn’t an issue, just curious as to how the government don’t really seem to be taking it as seriously as they tell us it is.
Nice little video and a shame to pick you up on one point. The gulf stream is not an air stream but a huge ocean current bringing warmer waters that make us in the UK warmer than we should be for our latitude. Some scientists have predicted that the ocean circulation of which it is a part will fail and plunge us into Scandinavian type climatic conditions - this is still not clear. But I look forward to the next installment and congratulations on tackling what is a very difficult subject for most people. KB
Warrington North wonders why 4×4s and flights are taxed rather than banned if the situation is as bad as the government tell us it is. The thrust of WN’s contribution is one of scepticism that the threat is really as serious as claimed.
In response to this, I would say that scientists have been trying to tell those who were willing to listen about the climate crisis for years and that our government’s response is utterly inadequate in the face of a consensus in the peer-reviewed science that the climate situation is potentially catastrophic. [1]
While I do not share WN’s scepticism, I feel he has a good point about our government’s inaction, when it comes to climate change.
Voters are not stupid. The Labour government says it is ‘leading the world on climate change’ but it is going to take much more than introducing a few eco-taxes to convince people that it is serious.
While I welcome these green taxes, which are long overdue, it is clear that they will have only minimal effect on helping Britain hit our emissions targets, if the proceeds are then spent on Gordon Brown’s plans to further expand the road system and encourage the biggest expansion in aviation in British history.
We need a government who are willing to scrap these myopic, carbon-spewing policies and invest the proceeds of transport eco-taxes into making public transport convenient, affordable, safe, clean and an attractive alternative to the car.
What a silly video. This isn’t ‘extreme weather’ by any means, an ice age is extreme, not a bit of snow; a biblical flood is extreme, not a few feet of water on a flood plain (why do you think it is called a flood plain?. If it rains they blame global warming, if there is a drought they blame global warming, is there any kind of weather that they don’t try and blame on global warming? And have you noticed how ‘global warming’ has subtlety been changed to ‘climate change’, they must have realised that it wasn’t actually getting any warmer like they have been predicting. A lot of scaremongering hysterical nonsense.
Chris doesn’t feel the climate is getting warmer and feels there is some conspiracy about the term ‘climate change’, so let’s deal with these two points first.
1) Scientists ascribed the heat-wave of August 2003, which caused 35,000 excess deaths in France and northern central Europe directly to climate change, entirely consistent with predictions from the early 90s.
2) The period from April 2006 to April 2007 was the hottest single 12 months ever to have occurred in Britain according to the Met Office.
Empirical evidence of alarming changes in the climate thus shows that it IS getting warmer, Chris. If you want more evidence, just say so and I will respond with more.
As for your other point, the reason people refer to it as climate change is that excess CO2 is triggering changing weather patterns. Kelvin Boot (above) referred to potential changes in the Ocean Conveyor of the North Atlantic which could change weather patterns in this country, making it colder here, while other areas get hotter.
A better term to refer to this phenomenon, whose exact consequences are still unknown, but which will certainly affect different regions in different ways, would therefore be ‘climate change’.
Massively increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere are one of the main triggers of climate change. They are entirely avoidable if governments across the world act in a concerted manner, and thus should be the target of government preventive action.
Chris sees no cause for concern in the fact that July 2006 was the UK’s hottest July on record, that April 2007 was the hottest April and that June 2007 was the wettest June.
Perhaps the record forest fires in Greece and the record drought in Australia have slipped his notice, or perhaps he has not heard that 35 million people were affected by record floods in Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan.
How many people need to lose their homes and livelihoods before you call a flood ‘biblical’, Chris?
And what conclusion do YOU draw from the almost constant series of record-breaking extreme weather events in the UK and across the rest of our planet?
If you persist with your contention that these occurrences are not truly ‘extreme’, would you at least accept that they are a warning sign and a wake-up call that climate scientists’ predictions are rapidly becoming reality?
I would be grateful if you or other sceptics could respond to the points I have made. This subject urgently needs to be debated openly in this forum if people in Shropshire are truly still sceptical.
Ludlow was flooded in 1927 and 1947. Records are short - rainfall records begin in 1914, the Central England Temperature Series begins in 1659 in the depths of the Little Ice Age. Surprise! It got warmer. Climate sensitivity to CO2 is low, at most 1 to 1.5C for a doubling from 280ppmv to 560ppmv - otherwise we wouldn’t be here - CO2 has been many times higher in the past without runaway warming.
In heat wave of 2003, there were a claimed 2000 deaths in the UK - contrast this with the 25,000 to 45,000 excess deaths each winter, and 100,000 for Europe as a whole.
If you don’t have access to climate science journals, as I do, then you don’t have access to the science. Looks as though Huw has mistaken the tabloid press for a scientific source. Also, there’s no such thing as a ‘green’ tax - a tax is a tax, red, green or brown:”a poll by YouGov showed that nearly two-thirds of people think politicians are using the green issue as an excuse to pull in more cash.”
Huw,
Where is the laboratory evidence and proof that CO2 causes warming?
All the scaremonger’s predictions about climate change are based around computer models which have various suppositions and estimations as to the effects of various inputs. Basically, you can feed different inputs into the models to reach whatever conclusion you want. For instance, you can tell the computer CO2 warms the atmosphere by 1 deg for every additional 100 PPM. The model then spews out a result showing CO2 warms the planet. Tell it CO2 cools the planet and it shows a cooling.
Water vapour has a far higher effect on the air temperature than CO2 and yet nobody ever mentions this.
The climate on Mars is warming - nobody ever mentions this.
You say all the events which have happened recently are “records”, but records only go back 100 years or so.
Climate change has been happening for millennia and CO2 has been many times higher in concentration than it is today with negligible effect on temperature.
Earths climate is constantly changing and even recently (medieval warm period) was far warmer than today. CO2 emissions and concentrations are a convenient stick to wield against us in order to convince the general population to pay ever higher taxes.
There is no consensus on the causes of climate change and the science is gradually moving away from blaming CO2. The only people who really believe CO2 is the cause of climate change are the green evangelicists, pseudo scientists looking for a government funded project and politicians looking to scare us into paying higher taxes.
I am still open to see the proof. Show us absolute proof that higher CO2 levels cause warming and I might start to believe it. Until then - man made climate change is a false religion.
Huw Peach wishes that scientists had a “consensus” on climate change!
It is odd that when the doom-mongers wore sandwich boards, no one paid any attention to them but the internet seems to have given them a new confidence.
Evidence of “Global warming” like the threat of a new ice age thirty years ago, is the result of computer modelling based on natural climate variations, no more, yest the Greens will grasp at any excuse to claim that their argument is vindicated.
Huw Peach said it all when he said on th video that the summer floods were not entirely in line with predctions - having just said that the recent “extreme weather” was consistent with their predictions.
The summer floods were not AT ALL consistent with the global warming predictions.
And am I not correct in saying that average temperatures have not risen in the last four years? Could this be why the Greens are now referring to “climate change” to broaden their pitch?
Curiously the ice age threat of thirty years ago was also accompanied by dire warnings that it was already too late, action needed to be taken immediately to minimise the damage - all the banners now being waved regarding warming, or since the climate is nol onger warming up, should it become “irregularity ” of climate?
Huw Peach says that”massively increased levels” of CO2 are causing climate change and that there is a concensus on this in peer reviewed scientific papers.
Checking thousands of papers by non-government funded scientists shows both statements to be incorrect.
Yes the climate is changing but clearly mankind cannot affect this, all we can do is prepare to adjust to it.
Certainly CO2 is a “greenhouse gas” but one with a relatively weak effect and its presence in our atmosphere is essential to all plant life. Despite all the Co2 we’re pumping out it is only present in our atmosphere in trace quantities of around 350 parts per million by volume and only about half of that is due to man (it shows the enormous scale of the world’s atmosphere!). It is clearly not a driver of climate change. Water is hugely dominant comprising around 90% of green- house gas. Plots of temperature against Co2 concentration using readable time co-ordinates show increases in the gas lagging hundreds of years behind the temperature increase as oceans slowly warm and release dissolved gas! Finally, as an “oldie” i’ve seen much freak weather in my life and heard many long forgotten “scare stories”. I presently live in Gloucestershire and in the recent dreadful floods the water level at our river lock just reached the 1947 level and was well below the 1894 mark.
Medical researcher Dr. Klaus-Martin Schulte recently examined all peer-reviewed papers published from 2004 to February 2007 on the ISI Web of Science database concerning climate change.
Of 528 papers on climate change, only 38 (7%) gave an explicit endorsement of the so-called consensus on climate change. If one considers “implicit” endorsement (accepting the consensus without explicit statement), the figure rises to 45%. However, while only 32 papers (6%) reject the consensus outright, the largest category (48%) are neutral papers, refusing to either accept or reject the hypothesis.
This is no “consensus.”
Source (ice age now website)
So no consensus then?
What I find amazing is just how gullible certain people like Huw Peach really are.
Either that or they are part of the many organisations looking to make (or already are making) huge amounts of money on the global warming scam.
We know that politicians lie or spin, it’s the same thing, we don’t need to look further than the Iraq war to know that - yet for some strange reason that I cannot fathom when they mention global warming they are tell the truth? Please wise up.
Thanks for responding, Paul Biggs, Peter Roberts, Bruce Young and Bob Dennish, Andrew and Andy L. I am delighted to have the opportunity to debate with you and will deal with each of your points one by one.
However, before I do so, I would just like to alert other readers to the fact that much of the information used by climate change sceptics comes from a large number of very well-funded sources.
In the Shrewsbury Chronicle on April 26th 2007, Shrewsbury’s Conservative MP, Daniel Kawczynski, discussed the interference in democratic debate of well-funded industrial lobbyists. In an article entitled ‘An inconvenient truth –time we faced up to climate change’, he highlighted the involvement of ExxonMobil, the world’s most profitable corporation, in funding numerous think tanks and public relations groups whose brief was to prevent action on climate change.
Coal producers and car manufacturers have also given lots of money to fake grassroots organisations whose job is to SOW DOUBT and CREATE CONFUSION.
If you are interested in finding out more about public relations companies, which distribute highly-spun science which has not gone through the peer review process I recommend George Monbiot’s book ‘Heat’ which has a whole chapter on what he calls The Denial Industry.
Global Spin by Sharon Beder is another clear, brilliantly researched, well-documented of the tactics used by these groups.
First of all, Mr Biggs.
1) You say, ‘Records are short - rainfall records begin in 1914, the Central England Temperature Series begins in 1659 in the depths of the Little Ice Age. Surprise! It got warmer.’
Some records go back a lot further in time if you are not satisfied with these. For example the data gathered by the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (Epica). Epica is a 10-country consortium which analysed a 3.2km-long core of frozen snow in East Antarctica and their findings were reported on 4 September 2006 by the BBC.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5314592.stm
After studying air bubbles trapped in this ice core, they were able to calculate past concentrations of carbon dioxide in the slices.
Epica scientists concluded that CARBON DIOXIDE LEVELS NOW ARE SUBSTANTIALLY HIGHER NOW THAN AT ANY TIME IN THE LAST 800,000 YEARS.
They also gauged past temperatures from the samples, by analysing the presence of different types, or isotopes, of hydrogen atom that are found in precipitating water (snow) when temperatures are relatively warm.
Their conclusion was that when carbon dioxide rises, temperature rises. And when carbon dioxide falls, temperatures fall.
Could you comment please on this data from the East Antarctica ice core, Mr Biggs? As you feel rain and temperature records are too short, would you not agree that 800,000 years provide a long-term perspective that we should study carefully?
2) You then cite the shocking number of winter deaths as evidence that it is getting colder. This ignores the fact that winter deaths are not caused or prevented by global warming, but because these people are old, vulnerable, alone and often living in leaky, uninsulated houses without adequate resources to spend on fuel.
Government should be supporting the most vulnerable, insulating their homes and helping the poorest to pay for heating. Increasing energy efficiency in Britain’s housing stock will save these people money and perhaps their lives, as well as reducing CO2 emissions.
3) As for your point accusing me of using tabloids for my information while you use climate science journals, then I’m going to have to call your bluff.
If you do possess these journals, you may be familiar with a report in Science magazine from 3rd December 2004 by Naomi Oreskes of the University of California at San Diego. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686
In it she reports analysis she carried out on 928 papers on climate change, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003. NOT ONE PAPER DISAGREED WITH THE CONSENSUS POSITION THAT MAN IS HAVING A NEGATIVE INFLUENCE ON CLIMATE CHANGE.
Are your journals refereed scientific journals, Mr Biggs?
Are you at all embarrassed about having been found out?
4) TAXATION: It is vital that we tax the things we don’t like (pollution) and which are motors of climate change (CO2) to ensure that their use is discouraged and our society can evolve in a positive direction.
We need a Green Industrial Revolution. How can you create this without taxation of CO2 and subsidies for green technologies? How else will we incentivise non-CO2 technology?
5) Finally let’s deal with your YouGov point. I Googled this and discovered some other interesting findings in this Daily Telegraph poll. http://www.yougov.com/interactive/kellnerMain.asp?jID=3&aId=4049&sID=6&wID=0&UID=
Your claim about the public’s suspicion about green taxes was correct. However, it was interesting that you missed out the bit about 85% of the public thinking global warming is taking place, and 79% believing that, unless action is taken, global warming will accelerate.
Thank you for drawing it to my attention, Mr Biggs.
Peter Roberts, who claims he is ‘open to see the proof’, asks a lot of questions about laboratory evidence for CO2’s warming effects, computer models and the role of water vapour.
These misleading arguments are rebutted very clearly and emphatically by the website of The Royal Society, the national academy of science of the UK and the Commonwealth.
http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/page.asp?id=6229
The UK’s best scientists give far better answers than I can to misleading arguments used by climate change deniers like Mr Roberts.
Scientists deal with proof and empirical evidence on a daily basis. They are by definition ‘open to see the truth’.
It’s all there for you to research if you are as open-minded as you claim.
Bruce Young is wrong to say Greens have been given new confidence by the internet.
In fact confidence comes instead from the consensus in the peer-reviewed science, as well as the public consensus, highlighted in that YouGov poll that Paul Biggs quoted, that not enough is being done to tackle climate change.
Those members of the public who know of the deceptions used by ExxonMobil and other multinationals to prevent government action to reduce CO2 emissions are appalled at the cynicism and short-termism of multinationals protecting their profits by paying lobbyists to blog for them and confuse the public. They rightly feel that their actions are jeopardising our children’s future.
The public mood is also increasingly sceptical of climate change deniers and their agenda, which has everything to do with spreading confusion and nothing to do with open-mindedness.
On your point about computer modelling, the Royal Society states that computers DO give us a reliable guide to the direction of future climate change. The reliability also continues to be improved through the use of new techniques and technologies.
http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/page.asp?tip=1&id=6232
As for you point about me giving mixed messages in the video, I agree with you that I could have been clearer. This was my first video interview, and I am still learning the ropes.
This is what I intended to say:
According to the 2004 UK Climate Impacts Programme’s report on the West Midlands, much more intense rainfall was predicted. The flooding and the damage to houses, roads and agriculture was in line with these predictions.
Your statement ‘The summer floods were not AT ALL consistent with the global warming predictions’ is plain wrong.
Relying more on vehemence than accuracy is not going to get you very far in debates like this.
I urge you to read the document. You can get it from the organisation Sustainability West Midlands. admin@swm.org.uk
Midlands, much more intense rainfall was predicted. The flooding and the damage to houses, roads and agriculture was in line with these predictions. Your statement ‘The summer floods were not AT ALL consistent with the global warming predictions’ is plain wrong. Relying more on vehemence than accuracy is not going to get you very far in debates like this. I urge you to read the document. You can get it from the organisation Sustainability West Midlands. admin@swm.org.uk
Bob Dennish claims he has been ‘checking thousands of papers by non-government funded scientists’.
Could you name one paper, please, Mr Dennish. Could you also say whether his/her work has been peer-reviewed? If it is not peer-reviewed then I’m afraid it does not count as good science. To say otherwise would be misleading to readers of this site.
Just one of ‘the thousands’ will suffice.
The Royal Society has a very good reply to your misleading argument that carbon dioxide only makes up a small part of the atmosphere and so cannot be responsible for global warming.
http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/page.asp?tip=1&id=6777
They also have an excellent response to your misleading argument that rises in the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are the result of increased temperatures, not the other way round.
http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/page.asp?tip=1&id=6231
I would have a look if you, like most ‘oldies’ I know, are interested in passing on a safer world to your grandchildren.
Andrew relies on an alarmist website which says that we are about to go into a new Ice Age, so I think that it is a fair indication of how far out of kilter with public opinion he is.
The point about the scientific consensus that I made used a paper published in a reputable magazine by a known and respected academic, Naomi Oreskes.
The research he cites by Martin Schulte was published on an extremist website.
I think that sums up how much crdence we should attach to it.
Andy L believes nothing that any politician tells him about global warming.
What about the Royal Society?
What about the IPCC?
Mr peach, you are making some basic incorrect assumptions in your replies. Mr. Roberts is no ‘climate change denier’ he stated it has been happening for millennia.
You mention quote:- “Shrewsbury’s Conservative MP, Daniel Kawczynski, discussed the interference in democratic debate of well-funded industrial lobbyists. In an article entitled ‘An inconvenient truth –time we faced up to climate change’” - Is this not the title of a film created by the ‘would have been’ next president of the United States of America - Al Gore? Mr Gore’s hypothesis was an emotional display encouraging the world to wake up to excessive CO2 production. He may have had good intentions, but his ploy used unsubstantiated evidence in declaring CO2 to be the major ‘warming’ gas. The natural volume of CO2 in the atmosphere has been found to FOLLOW a warming trend by around 800yrs (despite what the Royal Society claim. For reasons best known to them, they have chosen to ignore some scientific data), exceeds any amount put out by mankind, and is but a small percentage of the so called ‘Greenhouse gasses’.
With reference to industry having vested interests in creating ‘counter’ man made global warming blogs etc. by what you call ‘protecting their profits’. Perhaps Mr Al Gore is doing much the same, being on the board of a group of companies who are set to make money from ‘Green’ products. Not a man to consider frugality in fuel usage it seems, he has a carbon ‘footprint’ far greater than the average person.
You can of course find industry sponsored sites, but there are so many others to choose from with independent science at their fore - unlike the IPCC, a UN created panel to advise Governments on Climate Change Policy, whose very title of ‘Intergovernmental’ leads one to ask questions about their motives.
Good politicians are word smiths. They have the ability to talk with skill and perpetuity to maintain their position. They may tell the truth, but in such ways that it can be undone and even reversed in their favour when required - that’s what makes them ‘good’ politicians. When government seek policy reforms or basis for new policies, advise is sought from experts - enter in this case the IPCC. But their mandate is biased toward statistics that suit policies to encourage further curtailing of finite resources for longevity (looking after future generations), whilst generating revenue at the same time (war on terror has a price - don’t kid yourself ‘green’ taxes are to save the planet). Within the IPCC are a panel of lead authors who co-ordinate articles and papers from thousands of scientists, but the out coming statistics are carefully selected to match current government policies which are in the ‘global’ eye, this has led to resignations by some scientists in protest - they were not on Exxon’s or Mobil’s payroll, they were people who saw their careers work being denied and even denounced in favour of more malleable ‘facts’.
I could lead you to many websites and papers set up and written by independent scientists who have lifetimes of work behind them, but I fear it would be to no avail. One who has chosen to adopt a ‘Green’ flag is unlikely to want to see a broader picture, an deeper view of science, because they themselves have taken a ‘position’ with a ‘politically correct’ movement whose aim is to eradicate any viewpoint than their own, or bend it to their own. There’ll be no more truth coming from a Green alliance, as there will be from a Red one, Blue, Yellow, or sky blue pink.
CO2 in ice samples: Those air bubbles had incorrect readings due to factors which led to exaggerated readings of CO2 content, but I’ll let a scientist pick up on that one.
Here’s one ‘oldie’ who breathed more pollution during his childhood, than you will ever breathe in your lifetime. My children have issues of where to live that are far more relative to their lives than the clean air they currently, and continue to breathe.
Climate change is with us, has been with us, will always be with us, whether we are here, or not. While we have been here, and when we were not. Live with it. But turn the heating down, and switch off the light (if you want to save some tax).
Begging your pardon Huw, I missed the capital letter on Peach. Apologies.
Mr Peach,
You have accused me of being a “climate change denier”
Please show me exactly where in my comment I denied climate change was happening. The use of this terminology is typical of people who cannot accept the science is not proven and indeed view climate change almost as a religion.
The term “Climate change denier” is used to associate with “Holocaust denier” and marginalise people who do not agree with your views on the world.
Personally, I find this a little disturbing. Your response to Paul Biggs began:
“First of all Mr Biggs”
Which I find quite an arrogant statement.
In my view, your approach is to ridicule and marginalise all the people and arguments which question your beliefs concerning climate change. There is clearly a degree of science supporting your belief in man’s contribution to climate change. However, there is also a large body science which does not reach the same conclusion. The debate is still open and there are still a lot of questions unanswered.
I have not found any serious funding at all for scientists who wish to study climate without the pre-conception that CO2 is causing global warming. If you have evidence of this funding, please let us know, as I would be far more sceptical of the results if I were aware of the funding source and their political persuasion.
Huw, please do not see this as a personal attack on you or your beliefs. All the people here are participating in this debate because they are not convinced by the arguments surrounding the global warming bandwagon. There are too many interested parties and too much politically biased funding for the arguments to be accepted without question.
Keep an open mind and please do not see us as “Climate Change deniers”.
Far too mnay people on this site swallowing the government’s lies. In answer to those who are preaching about how hot 2006 was - can I just remind them what happened this summer. Stop being so gullible, and start thinking for yourselves - you’re sleep-walking in to the taxman’s dream…
Peter Roberts, a man who in Comment 8, denies that CO2 has heat-trapping qualities (ie basic meteorology) thinks that I am ridiculing his position and is upset that I called him a ‘climate change denier’.
This man who, in his first contribution to the debate, referred to people who see CO2 as one of the causes of climate change, as ‘scaremongers’, ‘green evangelicists’, ‘pseudo scientists looking for a government funded project’ and ‘politicians looking to scare us into paying higher taxes’, then goes on to say that I am arrogant because I said, “First of all Mr Biggs”.
First of all, Mr Roberts, I would say that it is arrogant of you to deny basic meterological science.
Secondly, I would add that, according to the YouGov Daily Telegraph poll cited by Paul Biggs, 79% of the UK public believe that, unless action is taken (CO2 is cut), global warming will accelerate, proving that the evidence is obvious to the British public, even if it is not obvious to you.
Thirdly you cannot seriously expect to be taken seriously in highly technical debates of this kind if your only tools for debate are unproven, unverified science and name-calling.
This is a complex scientific issue, and as such relies on a courteous discussion of the accepted, peer-reviewed science.
Not one peer-reviewed paper has been put forward by you or any of the other contributors to this debate. If I was in your shoes I would be very embarrassed.
Did Chris S read the Royal Society’s rebuttal of misleading arguments put about by industry-funded public relations groups? No? Perhaps that would require too much of an open mind. The Royal Societys past presidents include Sir Christopher Wren, Samuel Pepys and Isaac Newton. Do you not think this institution is about as good as it gets if you are after the most reliable scientific information?
Huw
The IPCC consists of mainly politicians surely you know that?
As for the the Royal Society the level of information is disappointing, the website to the does not mention or provide links to the sources that support their statements and expect the reader simply to believe what they say.
Further there are direct links between the IPCC and the Royal Society via Sir John Houghton FRS.
http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/page.asp?id=4761
The Royal Society’s main funding, to the sum of £30 million, is from the government (DTI).
http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/page.asp?id=1139
So I wonder just how politically independent these bodies really are?
Having read the so called ‘Misleading Arguments’ section I noticed this quote:
“measurements from satellites show that there has been very little change in underlying solar activity in the last 30 years there is even evidence of a detectable decline and so this cannot account for the recent rises we have seen in global temperatures”
This couldn’t be because the IPCC or their so called scientists have removed the last 34 years of tree ring data which shows a decline in temperatures and destroys the alarmists beloved ‘hockey stick’ graph? And the so called man-made global warming theory in the process - the only man-made global warming it appears is due to this bad science and not CO2.
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1579
Over the last 100 years we have been responsible for several coming ice ages and several global warmings and none of these so called catastrophes have happened and neither will this latest scare.
Global warming is nothing more than a government sponsored scam.
In fact the Royal Society want to pair a scientist to an MP - goodbye for objectivity, independence and truth searching in science then, and hello to even more scientific spin like global warming.
If Climate Change is man made, and not a 8 billion year old phenomenon shared with other atmospheric celestial bodies such as Mars, and nothing to do with the big hot thing in the sky that makes us warm in summer and cold in winter, then:
Why are the government obsessed with taxing motorists £30 billion pounds a year, when their “footprint” (wheel print) is only 16% of the UK’s total CO2 production.
Man made climate change is nothing more than an excuse for envy taxes on the middle classes supported by a left wing government trying to up it’s tax take, supported by a left wing media, and played along with by a group of celebrities so concerned with the environment that you see them every week flying somewhere different.
People’s memories are short - remember the WMD that were pointed at us a few years ago?
Huw - if you want to pay more tax because it’s the latest scare tactic from our beloved Labour government, then feel free. However, as an enlightened and educated individual (I have a degree in Chemistry with Physics and Astronomy), I’m going to go with my own mind. Thanks.
Will somebody think of the children. The poor children!
Bob Dennish, I am still waiting to hear about ONE of the ‘thousands’ of papers that you say you have been checking.
Could you also say whether they have all been checked and tested by other scientists?
And Paul Biggs, I was hoping you were going to get back to me to tell me whether your climate science journals were peer-reviewed.
A couple of names of the journals you rely on for your argument would suffice. I wouldn’t name Ice Age Now as the source of your information, by the way, if you want to be taken seriously by the people of Shropshire.
Perhaps the reason for the silence of Paul Biggs and Bob Dennish is that my arguments (which are not my own, are not new, are not original and have been in the public domain since the late 1980s) have been based on PEER-REVIEWED SCIENCE. Theirs, by contrast, are NOT.
If they know anything about the scientific process, scientists’ views can only be referred to as SCIENCE after they have been through the peer-review process.
The fact that the only organisations willing to publish the ‘science’ quoted by sceptics are industry-funded fake grassroots organisations or websites like Ice Age Now says it all.
In this debate I have highlighted the scandalous tactics of
industry-funded public relations organisations to sow doubt and confusion.
Derek Reynolds has no response to this vitally important and shocking
point. He passes without comment over my point about Exxon Mobil’s
scandalous role in preventing effective, international government action on carbon emissions in the late 1990s and tries to divert readers’ attention to a trivial point about Al Gore’s carbon footprint.
Which of these is more likely to elicit opprobrium in Shropshire Star readers, Mr Reynolds?
1) The world’s richest international corporation putting profits before people’s lives by funding think-tanks and public-relations organisations to sow doubt and confusion about the scientific consensus about climate
change?
2) Or a US politician who, because of an undeniable scientific consensus about climate change, is investing his money in non-carbon technologies and urging other foresighted people to get their investments and buying habits out of carbon and into renewable technologies as fast as possible?
Al Gore has done more to raise the issue of climate change and motivate grassroots action to prevent it than most other people. I am delighted that he has done so and fully support him.
Now to your point about the Royal Society, Mr Reynolds.
You say ‘For reasons best known to them, they have chosen to ignore some scientific data’.
With the greatest of respect, I think Shropshire Star readers will probably be more inclined, to trust the Royal Society, whose past presidents include Sir Christopher Wren, Samuel Pepys and Isaac Newton, rather than you, Mr Reynolds.
Now to the point about the IPCC, a collection of over 2,000 of the best climate scientists in the world, whose motives Derek Reynolds and Andy L question.
Derek Reynolds said one thing, in particular, which I would like to seek further clarification from him on.
He used the plural when referring to SCIENTISTS who have resigned from the IPCC. This is not factually correct.
I am aware of Christopher Landsea resigning in 2005 over a scientific dispute about hurricanes. This is definitely true. However, you said ‘this has led to resignations by some scientists in protest’. Some scientists? Plural?
Could you let readers know which other scientists resigned from the IPCC? 2 names would suffice.
Furthermore, Mr Landsea believes that global warming is real and happening.
According to wikipedia and PBS, American public radio, Christopher Landsea said these words in an interview with the PBS News Hour programme in 2005.
“We certainly see substantial warming in the ocean and atmosphere over the last several decades on the order of a degree Fahrenheit, and I have no doubt a portion of that, at least, is due to greenhouse warming.”
After explaining to readers exactly why they should trust you instead of the foremost scientific institution in our country, the Royal Society, could you let us know which other scientists resigned from the IPCC (with names please!), and could you explain to Shropshire Star readers why Christopher Landsea is mistaken in his belief that global warming is happening?
Or will you simply do your job, sow some doubt and confusion in people’s minds and sign off like other ‘sceptic’ contributors to the site?
Derek Reynolds says ‘I could lead you to many websites and papers set up and written by independent scientists who have lifetimes of work behind them, but I fear it would be to no avail.’
OK. Please do. I’ll call your bluff. Let’s have some names, please, so that I can research them.
However, I must warn you that if any of the websites you provide are listed on the Exxon Secrets website, I’m afraid I will be forced to expose them as fake grassroots organisations as I did in the last debate on this subject on this website.
http://www.shropshirestar.co.uk/2007/04/climate-criticism-unfounded/
Derek Reynold’s misrepresentation of the facts turns into shameless lying when he talks about the CO2 in ice samples, which I quoted when responding to Mr Biggs.
He said, ‘Those air bubbles had incorrect readings due to factors which led to exaggerated readings of CO2 content, but I’ll let a scientist pick up on that one.’
I quoted Epica scientists. Let’s let them pick up on that.
They stated that CARBON DIOXIDE LEVELS ARE SUBSTANTIALLY HIGHER NOW THAN AT ANY TIME IN THE LAST 800,000 YEARS.
Huw,
Please allow me to refer you to your comment 25.
You say “Peter Roberts, a man who in Comment 8, denies that CO2 has heat-trapping qualities”
Please show me where I said this.
I did say I would like to see proof CO2 can absorb energy in the way you claim.
Your link to the Royal Society simply repeats the claim; it does not show any evidence. We have also seen a quite plausible argument against accepting arguments from the Royal Society in comment 27 which I find compelling.
I would like to see laboratory evidence where a real value can be attributed to the concentration of C02 against its heat retaining capacity - quite a simple task really.
Surely there must be an experiment somewhere which can give a graph of CO2 concentration against heat absorption and retention. Despite searching for this, I have never found anything anywhere which shows how much energy CO2 can absorb and then radiate for a given concentration in air.
Your responses to my comments are quite robust, but offer nothing new in the way of verifiable facts.
In the spirit of analysing data, I made an analysis of the comments so far, there are 31 in total of which you posted 13 (42%).
There are 2 (7%) questionable as to their support of your position and 15 (50%) opposed. There are no independent comments clearly in support.
As you posted all the comments supporting your position, will you accept now the debate is not over and there is no consensus on climate change?
The most comprehensive report on climate change has been the Stern Report which was published towards the end of 2006.
This was compiled by Nicholas Stern who was the chief economist of the World Bank.
He took more than a year to examine this complex problem and, in a 579-page document, came to the following conclusion:
“The scientific evidence points to increasing risks of serious irreversible impacts from climate change associated with business-as-usual paths for emmissions”
The report has a simple three-fold message:
- climate change is fundamentally altering the planet
- the risks of inaction are high
- time is running out
There is no point in denying climate change!!
Let’s get on and do something about it!!
Reading this thread i do see a number of sceptics regarding global warming and climate change. The question repeats itself that why isnt the government therefore doing more?
There is more than just a slight level of naivety in such questions, is anyone going to draw into question that our finite resources of energy will soon run out? Well, why doesnt our government invest every penny into renewable energy and alternative sources then? This government will pay lip service to initiatives, enough to get on the side of potential voters.
Why arent 4×4 vehicles banned? could you imagine what such an action would achieve with Anglo-American relations?, you would be preventing US companies such as Jeep, Range-Rover (Ford) and Chrysler from selling to the UK market! - Not a chance will that happen.
I personally do believe in global warming and climate change and i do welcome that all the publicity surrounding the topic will at the very least make people more concious of the moral obligation that they should all feel towards protecting this planet - in whatever, way, shape or form. Even if climate change is the current WMD ploy (which i strongly feel it isnt), it will still drive a much needed change in attitudes.
One thing that cannot be doubted, it that our future generations will not thank us for the abuse that this planet has gone through thanks to our own consumptive desires and industrialisation.
Comment 39 from Dave Bingham says,
“This was compiled by Nicholas Stern who was the chief economist of the World Bank”
Precisely! Stern is an economist and the report was commissioned by the treasury.
Surprise, surprise, the conclusion is we have to pay more tax to prevent climate change.
We have already seen a large increase in environmental tax - especially against the motorist and no reduction in taxation elsewhere.
Climate change is happening, we need to adapt, not try and change something which we cannot influence. We in the UK cannot make a difference, globally, we are not a big contributor and even if man was responsible for any climate change, raising taxes on a 4×4 is not going to make any difference whatsoever.
The views expressed by the sceptics here are very depressing. It is obvious that no amount of evidence would convince you of the rapid and potentially devastating changes that are being caused by carbon dioxide emissions. I’m a science teacher and have published three science text books with OUP and for these I looked very carefully at the evidence. It is overwhelming. Obviously Texas oil man George Bush chooses not to believe any of it and 4X4 drivers probably won’t either!
Of course we should follow the precautionary principle with issues like this. Where the possible, but not proven effects of something would be severe, the onus is on those who would cause them to prove that the effects will NOT occur, rather than those who are concerned about them having to obtain proof that the effects WILL occur. So 4X4 drivers have to PROVE to the rest of us that their carbon dioxide emissions aren’t causing global warming.
Andrew Allott wants proof, the proof Andrew is in the historical geological and research data about climate.
The proof is in the misrepresentation of scientific research by the IPCC, not once but twice, used to ’sex-up’ the facts about global warming and CO2’s role , as previously posted.
The proof is in that in the last 100 years alarmist have said that science is showing a climate warming or cooling catastrophe is imminent and no such catastrophe has yet occurred.
This latest scam will prove to be no different than the others.
Ben Heyman (Comment 29) begins his contribution with the extraordinary claim that climate change is an 8 billion year-old phenomenon.
According to wikipedia, this is wildly inaccurate.
Modern geologists think the Earth is around 4.54 billion years old, based on their readings of rock and mineral samples.
What is your source for this information, Mr Heyman?
Are you not concerned that you may lose credibility if you over-state your case in this way?
Do you think other readers are going to listen patiently to your rant about tax and left-wingers if you are unable to get your facts right?
The reason I have posted so many comments, Mr Roberts, is because I utterly reject what you are attempting to do.
I am not trying to convince you, Mr Roberts, but open-minded readers of this discussion, who are led into believing there is a debate, when the CONSENSUS of peer-reviewed scientific evidence (see Naomi Oreskes) is undeniable.
The Shropshire Star claims there are ‘two sides’ to this debate.
However, any dispassionate observer would surely have to conclude after reading this thread that one side has a firm foundation in peer-reviewed science and the other is based on blush-inducing vehemently-expressed ignorance and flimsy, un-sourced, unsubstantiated pseudo-science, originating from corporate-funded think-tanks.
I have attempted in this debate to peel back the deceptions, the red herrings, the misleading arguments and the bare-faced lies on that side of the debate, and reveal the ugly reality to readers of this debate.
The sceptics in this debate have claimed they possess ‘thousands’ of journals and know of lots of websites, saying global warming is a ‘scam’. These same people then disappear when their bluff is called, and peer-reviewed science is requested.
They smear respected institutions like the IPCC, the Royal Society and individuals like Nicholas Stern and Al Gore with incoherent invective, which the vast majority of people would blush at, and vile lies, which they are unable to substantiate.
Many readers may choose to stay silent and shake their head in disbelief when rational argument has so little effect on these people, who claim to be ‘open to see the truth’, but I believe appalled silence is the wrong approach.
The silence of decent, ordinary, compassionate people, who know there is a major problem, which we must tackle urgently, is giving the sceptics heart, and making them believe their own propaganda.
Allowing lies and deceptions to go unchallenged lets them fester and insinuate themselves in the public consciousness. This is just as insidious as the low-level racism, which I encounter on Shropshire Star websites.
If you really feel these people are harmless, then get hold of the new film ‘Everything’s Cool’. This is a comedy documentary, which takes a close look at the denial industry, whose websites the sceptics use.
There are MASSIVE vested interests trying to prevent remedial governmental action to prevent runaway climate change.
Every individual action to reject the nay-sayers counts.
I urge the silent majority to inform themselves, get active, stand up to them and stop them.
In reply to comment 41 by Peter Roberts:
“We in the UK cannot make a difference, globally, we are not a big contributor and even if man was responsible for any climate change, raising taxes on a 4×4 is not going to make any difference whatsoever.”
Indeed, the UK is not the largest producer of carbon dioxide emissions. This makes it all the more important for us to lead by example and reduce our emissions. We cannot expect other (economically) poorer countries to reduce their emissions if we in (economically) richer countries do not. Ignoring any problem because it is too big for one person, or even one country, to tackle is extremely short-sighted, not to say morally questionable:
“To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice” - Confucius.
Global Warming, Humbug!
The amount of so called green house gasses added by humans is only a fraction of a percent. The climate changes naturally. The normal climate for the UK over the last few millions of years is ice age, we are just in a warm patch at the moment, it may well get warmer and then again colder, what is known for sure is global warming was invented by Margaret Thatcher with no scientific evidence to back it up. And the fools believed it! Now we have every little natural weather change blamed on a myth.
One of the often quoted signs of global warming is that sea levels are rising. James Cook, as part of his charting of the Pacific Ocean and islands put a mark to show mean sea level on a rock over 200 years ago. That level has not changed.
Huw Peach - you confuse actual measured ‘instrumental’ temperature data with estimated ‘proxy’ data.
If CO2 is higher than it has been for 800,000 years - why has the temperature been higher at times during those past 800,000 years, than it is now? Why do CO2 and temperature move in opposite directions for half of the geological record? Why do ice cores show temperature driving CO2, not vice versa. If climate was as sensitive to CO2 as claimed by the computer modelled scare of ‘big warming’ then we wouldn’t be here now. The Earth’s history demonstrates that a doubling of CO2 to 560 ppmv could only raise temperatures by around 1C as most ‘feedbacks’ are ‘negative,’ rather than ‘positive,’ as assumed by computer models.
As for the Stern Review - written by the treasury for the treasury, using extreme, unverifiable computer models - a new paper from the unsettled science of climate change has been published which further undermines it:
“Mistreatment of the economic impacts of extreme events in the Stern Review Report on the Economics of Climate Change”
Roger Pielke Jr
Center for Science and Technology Policy Research, University of Colorado, Global Environmental Change
“In its Chapter 5 the Stern Review concludes, “The costs of climate change for developed countries could reach several percent of GDP as higher temperatures lead to a sharp increase in extreme weather events and large-scale changes.” (Stern, 2007, p. 137). This conclusion cannot be supported by the Review’s own analysis and references to literature. One error is a serious misrepresentation of the scientific literature, and the second is more subtle, but no less significant. The serious misrepresentation takes the form of inaccurately presenting the conclusions of an unpublished paper on trends in disaster losses. The second error is more complex and involves conflating an analysis of the sensitivity of society to future changes in extreme events, assuming that society does not change, with a projection of how extreme event impacts will increase in the future under the integrated conditions of climatic and societal change. The result of the errors in the Stern Review is a significant overstatement of the future costs of extreme climate events not simply in the developed world, but globally-by an order of magnitude.
In light of these errors if the Stern Review is to be viewed as a means of supporting a particular political agenda, then it undercuts its own credibility and this risks its effectiveness. If instead the Stern Review is to be viewed as a policy analysis of the costs and benefits of alternative courses of actions on climate change, then at least in the case of extreme events it has missed an opportunity to clarify the scope of such actions and their possible consequences, and arguably misdirects attention away from those actions most likely to be effective with respect to future catastrophe losses. In either case, on the issue of extreme events and climate change, the Stern Review must be judged a failure. This short paper documents these errors and suggests how an alternative approach might have been structured.”
All politicians in democracies are faced with the same problem. Enough of their electorate has accepted the line that carbon dioxide emissions cause global warming to significantly influence the electoral power of the leftie greens.
Dissenters point out that there is no real evidence to support the claims of the doomsayers. Part of the world cooled during the industrial boom after the Second World War and then started warming again after the 1970s, but we are talking about a magnitude of plus and minus 0.5 of a degree over a time span of only some 60 years. A longer view shows a different pattern. The earth has been much warmer and cooler over eons without any help from man. And the wrong part of the atmosphere is warming for it to have been caused by the greenhouse effect. It also appears that the tiny warming effect has stopped, just when it was supposed to have become a catastrophic runaway rise.
The computer models that have forecasted that doom is always just round the corner for decades have consistently turned out to be based on false premises (ie, guesswork), as the assumptions on which they rested were invariably invalidated by increases in mankind’s knowledge. It is a very complex subject. Putting it politely, they have always been wrong. And we are still awaiting armageddon. The doom-mongers made a spectacular goof in the 1990s with the Mann hockey stick, and are now on a face-saving exercise, and showing signs of panic as armageddon refuses to happen.
The big giveaway is the targeting of private motor vehicles, whose contribution to atmospheric carbon dioxide is too small to matter in the global scheme of things, according to any of the greenie computer models. But the left-wing political juggernaut rolls on, anyway. The agenda obviously has nothing to do with climate. What on earth are the Cameroons getting muddled up in it for?
To move on, we must first accept that the man-made global warming thing is irrelevant, and drop it. We need to be alert for a bolt by the left from their self imposed carbon dioxide lock-in to some other excuse to justify their continued doctrinaire rich bashing.
As a side-issue here, if the Earth was really going to enter a warmer period again, then a responsible government should be thinking about how to meet any challenges it would raise, rather than wittering on about private motor vehicles.
Thanks for your point about man-made greenhouse gases, Stuart Fraser. I have 2 replies to that.
1) Maybe you missed the bit when I quoted the Royal Society’s response to your often-repeated misleading argument earlier.
Royal Society: ‘CARBON DIOXIDE ONLY MAKES UP A SMALL AMOUNT OF THE ATMOSPHERE, BUT EVEN IN TINY CONCENTRATIONS IT HAS A LARGE INFLUENCE ON OUR CLIMATE.’
2) If you are not satisfied by that, this is what MIT’s Carl Wunsch, a leading expert on ocean circulation and climate, said about Carbon Dioxide in an interview with the Independent on March 11, 2007.
CARL WUNSCH: ‘[In Global Warming Swindle] a speaker asserts, as is true, that carbon dioxide is only a small fraction of the atmospheric mass. THE VIEWER IS LEFT TO INFER THAT MEANS IT COULDN’T REALLY MATTER. BUT EVEN A BEGINNING METEOROLOGY STUDENT COULD TELL YOU THE RELATIVE MASSES OF GASES ARE IRRELEVANT TO THEIR EFFECTS ON RADIATIVE BALANCE
*(my capitals, by the way, Stuart)
Now to your point about sea levels.
Tuvalu, an island in the Pacific, is already experiencing severe flooding which is damaging people’s homes and affecting their drinking water. The islanders have already started to leave and the rest will have to do so in coming years if the trend continues.
Sea levels are rising already, Stuart, so your James Cook red herring, whose source you did not reveal is already cooked, I’m afraid.
Finally, your most extraordinary departure from reality came in this sentence:
Stuart Fraser: ‘what is known for sure is global warming was invented by Margaret Thatcher with no scientific evidence to back it up. And the fools believed it!’
Come on, sceptics. You’re going to have to do better than this.
No peer-reviewed scientific evidence produced.
Invective rather than rational argument.
An almost psychopathic lack of
compassion for the suffering of others.
And now the assertion that ‘global warming was invented by Mrs Thatcher’.
Who did you say were the ‘fools’ again, Stuart? I must have missed that bit.
Huw Peach is a very conscientious campaigner on behalf, not only of the Green Party, but of us all. I have three children and worry about the health of our planet too, but without giving it anything like the time and commitment that people like Huw give. I do read a bit about the environment, but I am certainly not in a position to volley facts and figures like the other contributors to this blog. In a way, though, maybe that is a perspective that is missing from this debate. Do we really need scientists or statistics to tell us what we really all know, on a very fundamental - intuitive almost - level: that we are consuming too much; it is not making us happy and it cannot last? I struggle with what we should do about the problem, but just because there is no easy solution, does that mean the problem isn’t real?
Peter Roberts. I have come to recognise your voice and style of arguing in this debate.
I therefore tried out a ‘plagiarism test’ teachers occasionally use at school and put your first paragraph into Google.
This brought me to a letter by ‘Scott’ from East Anglia on a Daily Telegraph online discussion on June 5, 2007 6:07 PM, entitled Can you and the free market save the planet?
Instead of responding to points made by myself and others in this Shropshire Star thread, Peter simply recycled Scott’s first 5 paragraphs VERBATIM.
I feel therefore it is only fair to respond to Scott’s points after Peter admits to readers of this thread that he copied them.
It was good to hear from Peter again, but I would prefer to hear from HIM, rather than a cut-and-paste version of him, and hear whether he has changed his mind about Carbon Dioxide’s heat-trapping qualities yet.
Paul Biggs (Comment 49) has retreated from his embarrassing claim (Comment 7) that I rely on tabloid newspapers for my information, and has thankfully adopted a more courteous approach.
Unfortunately he has side-stepped important questions, which I posed in my Comment 14.
I called his bluff on his claim that he only used climate science journals. I asked him if these journals were peer-reviewed.
I also asked him to comment on the work of Naomi Oreskes, who had studied peer-reviewed papers on climate change and whose resulting paper about the SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS on anthropogenic climate change, appeared in the respected magazine Science on December 3rd 2004 (easily found on Google).
For someone who claims that he sticks to the sort of journals, which Naomi Oreskes would have reviewed, I found Mr Biggs’ silence on these questions highly revealing.
Paul Biggs does, however, make some points about ice cores and the Stern Report, which deserve responses.
I will make them after he deals with the questions above.
It hard to keep teack of Huw’s ‘questions.’ He hasn’t answered mine. Huw is rather out of date with the Oreskes ’study,’which has been replicated with the latest papers:
Dr. Klaus-Martin Schulte recently updated this research. Using the same database and search terms as Oreskes, he examined all papers published from 2004 to February 2007.
Of 528 total papers on climate change, only 38 (7%) gave an explicit endorsement of the consensus. If one considers “implicit” endorsement (accepting the consensus without explicit statement), the figure rises to 45%. However, while only 32 papers (6%) reject the consensus outright, the largest category (48%) are neutral papers, refusing to either accept or reject the hypothesis.
Andrew raised Schulte’s work in Comment 11, and disappeared after I pointed out (Comment 19) that the source of this information (Ice Age Now) was unlikely to impress Shropshire Star readers.
What is your source, Mr Biggs?
Just to re-iterate points I made earlier…
Naomi Oreskes published her findings in a respected journal, ‘Science’.
This is an important point because it means that other scientists were able to read and review her findings.
Did Dr Klaus-Martin Schulte publish his findings in a respected journal like Science or Nature, where his work could be read and reviewed by his peers?
Or was it, as Andrew said, published on an extremist website, Ice Age Now, which is predicting an imminent ice age?
Don’t think I’ve seen Ice Age Now -the paper is submitted to Energy and Environment, my contact from the US Senate Committee of Environment and Public works alerted to me it.
The point is that Oreskes claim that there are no papers that go against the ‘consensus’ is demonstrably absurd, even at the time of her 2003 study.
Thanks for that clarification, Mr Biggs.
I have just researched Energy and Environment on wikipedia and have discovered that
1) Energy and Environment is carried by few libraries
2) Energy and Environment’s articles are not listed in the Journal Citation Reports indexing service for academic journals.
3) Energy and Environment’s peer review process has been criticised for allowing the publication of substandard papers
By the way in Comment 49, you quoted the political scientist,
Roger Pielke Jr, and clearly see him as a credible and impartial source of information. Is that correct?
The reason I ask is because Roger A Pielke Jr did indeed publish a paper in Energy and Environment, but since then has, according to wikipedia, said “had we known then how that outlet would evolve beyond 1999 we certainly wouldn’t have published there.”
I wonder if you could comment on this, Mr Biggs.
Has Klaus-Martin Schulte published his work in a mainstream journal, which is well-known and respected?
Mr Biggs, you claim that Naomi Oreskes’ conclusion that there are no papers that go against the anthropogenic climate change consensus is ‘demonstrably absurd’.
Let’s deal with that first.
Benny Peiser, an anthropologist from John Moore’s University, Liverpool, tried and failed to make a similar criticism to you in 2004. Is this what you are referring to?
Peiser claimed he had replicated Oreskes’s survey and come to a different conclusion.
However, Peiser’s letters were REJECTED by the editors of Science, who STOOD BY THE INTEGRITY OF ORESKES’S ORIGINAL PAPER.
Some of Peiser’s survey results were posted and analyzed by blogger Tim Lambert, and it was discovered that Peiser had used different search terms and parameters from the ones used by Naomi Oreskes and -crucially- he had used articles which had NOT been peer-reviewed.
Oreskes’s article focused explicitly 928 PEER-REVIEWED articles.
Peiser claimed 35 papers contested the consensus position.
However, according to wikipedia, most readers of Peiser’s papers say only one (non peer reviewed ) paper clearly contradicts the consensus position, not 35.
Dr. Peiser later conceded that his survey contained some errors, and recently conceded in a letter to the Australian Media Watch that he no longer maintains one of his criticisms.
Could you explain what you mean by ‘demonstrably absurd’?
Huw - no one knows what the consensus actually is - and interesting survey of working climate scientists from 2003, is about to be repeated (visit dvsun3.gkss.de)
Also, a couple of very recent interesting papers:
Spencer et al:
‘Cloud and radiation budget changes associated with tropical intraseasonal oscillations’.
Geophys. Res. Lett., Vol. 34, No. 15, 9 August 2007
Instead of creating more clouds as climate models currently envisage, individual tropical warming cycles that served as proxies for global warming actually saw a decrease in the coverage of heat-trapping cirrus clouds “To give an idea of how strong this enhanced cooling mechanism is, if it was operating on global warming, it would reduce estimates of future warming by over 75 percent,” Spencer said.
Tsonis et al:’A new dynamical mechanism for major climate shifts’
Geophys. Res. Lett., Vol. 34, No. 13, 12 July 2007
Major climate shifts have occurred or will occur around 1913, 1942, 1978, 2033, and 2072 they also predict a 0.2 Celsius cooling between 2005 and 2020 which should be followed by a 0.3 Celsius warming until 2045 or so - then cooling for the rest of the 21st century.
Paul:
I find it odd that CO2 is being declared as a cause for warming. When reading about CO2 sinks you find that most living sinks die if temperature becomes too great - certainly the important ones such as Phytoplankton. In which case the CO2 cycle should spiral out of control as less CO2 is absorbed and temperature rises heating the oceans that then release more CO2 etc, as the alarmists would have us believe.
Yet there have been times in the pre-industrial era where global temperatures have been greater than today by quite a margin in some cases and we still have not seen this catastrophic positive feedback mechanism happen.
This clearly illustrates the lack of understanding in climate science - but with the Ice Core data showing a lag of 800 years in the trend behind temperature, would suggest that CO2, as part of a climate system, may cause cooling and not warming acting as a negative feedback mechanism - do you know of any science that is following this line of thinking?
They DO know what the consensus is.
Remember Science magazine REJECTED Peiser’s claims and stood by Oreskes.
The IPCC, the Royal Society, the US National Research Council, New Scientist magazine, Geophysical Research Letters (who published the papers you quote above) and both Roger Pielke’s whom you have quoted as sources you trust ALL say that we have got to reduce our carbon emissions.
Mr Biggs, I notice that in comment 61, you quoted dvsun3.gkss.de.
This is the website of the GKSS Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft, the largest scientific association in Germany.
The GKSS is another organisation whose public proclamations affirm that HUMAN-INDUCED CLIMATE CHANGE DOES EXIST AND NEEDS TO BE TACKLED.
I wonder if you could comment on this.
Mr Biggs, the papers you quote above are NOT REFUTATIONS of the scientific consensus on climate change.
I believe you are simply using the common contrarian tactic of taking science out of context.
Could you comment on this, please?
The link didn’t get posted properly, it’s a survey of working climate scientists by D. Bray and Hans von Storch:
“in 2003 only 7.9% of those scientists responding to the
question ‘I feel the most pressing issue facing humanity today is …’ claimed climate change/global warming as the most pressing issue.
Figure 30 suggests there is quite some hesitance about putting all of the blame on humans.”
Climate change can’t be tackled by tryibg to manipulate atmospheric CO2, particularly unilaterally using the UK’s 2% contribution to global man-made CO2 emissions.
You don’t have to agree on climate change to see that humankind, especially in the rich world, needs to change the way we live. We need to stop seeing possession and consumption of ever more material goods as a good thing. Standard of living is not the same of quality of life; we can consume less and have a better quality of life, as well as helping people in poor countries, and future generations, to have better lives.
Leave out the issue of climate change and all these things will still be true:
Supplies of raw materials for consumer goods, including the fossil fuels that make most plastics, are finite. What plans do the climate change sceptics have for when the oil runs out?
Oil comes from politically unstable areas of the world. Do we want to have to go to war more often to secure our future supplies?
We are running out of holes in the ground where we can bury our mountains of rubbish.
Increasing traffic creates congestion in built-up areas. This puts people off visiting those areas and harms local businesses.
Traffic is responsible for increased ill-health and thousands of premature deaths a year in the UK caused by air pollution from vehicle emissions.
We have an epidemic of obesity among children in the UK partly because they don’t get enough exercise. Parents can’t let them walk or cycle to school, or play out on the street, because of traffic danger.
Communities are less sociable and less safe because of our car-oriented society. Older people are housebound, with fewer local shops to go to if they don’t have the use of a car. People don’t talk to each other in the street because it’s noisy and unpleasant; they don’t know their neighbours. We all lose out from the lack of those social networks.
People travel longer and longer distances to work; and their employers expect them to travel further during the working day. This means more stress, more accidents, and long hours away from their families who lose out.
We don’t need the climate chamge arguments to show us that letting cars dominate our towns and our lives is bad for us.
Emma - we shouldn’t be wasting resources on trying to control the climate using a single small factor such as CO2. We do need to develop VIABLE energy alternatives. We didn’t leave the stone age because we ran out of stone. When something better comes along, we use it.
Your anti-car rant lacks facts. People are living longer due to the net benefits of modern life and fossil fuels.
Potential danger on the rosds relates to the actions of all road and pavement users, not just drivers. Local shops are mostly long gone because they can’t compete on price with supermarkets. Local businesses suffer from anti-car measures such as congestion charging and parking space removal. Don’t try and dictate to people what is the most appropriate way for them to travel.
Paul Biggs (Comment 66) quotes research by Bray and Hans von Storch. This was conducted on the internet in 2003.
According to blogger Tim Lambert ‘the URL and password were posted to a sceptics’ mailing list. This obviously biases the results and means that reponses from people who were not climate scientists were included’ in the findings.
Paul Biggs clearly does not trust climatologists’ computer models.
I wonder if he might comment on the methodology used by Bray and von Storch.
Was it robust enough? Should readers invest the same amount of trust in it as he does? And if so, why?
Paul Biggs says Emma Bullard’s contribution ‘lacks facts’.
Most readers who have just read Emma’s letter will rapidly confirm that saying this shows Paul Biggs’s statement LACKS TRUTH.
Here are a few facts which I have recycled from Emma Bullard’s letter, just in case you missed them first time round.
If they are not FACTS, then you will need to say why not or admit that your credibility is disintegrating before our eyes, Mr Biggs.
1) ‘Supplies of raw materials for consumer goods, including the fossil fuels that make most plastics, are finite.’
Have you heard of PEAK OIL, Paul?
Do you think this phenomenon would exist if oil was not finite?
One hour ago, according to AFP Brent crude in London topped 80 dollars a barrel for the first time.
Should politicians behave like you do, Mr Biggs, and just bury our heads in the sand, when talking about the issues Emma Bullard raises?
Or shouldn’t we be considering the long-term viability and sustainability of an oil-addicted, globalized economy and instead accelerating the promotion of green alternatives through taxes and incentives?
2) ‘Oil comes from politically unstable areas of the world.’
Is this not a fact, Mr Biggs?
Or would you say the countries under-pinning our car-economy, Algeria, Iraq, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Nigeria are all hunky-dory?
3) ‘Increasing traffic creates congestion in built-up areas. This puts people off visiting those areas and harms local businesses.’
Emma might also have mentioned that the supermarketization of the food chain means that our food travels further and further, generating even more congestion, as Andrew Simms demonstrates in his excellent book, TESCOPOLY.
Or should increased sales of 4×4s and each new supermarket-opening be a cause for celebration, Mr Biggs?
4) Emma Bullard says ‘Traffic is responsible for increased ill-health and thousands of premature deaths a year in the UK caused by air pollution from vehicle emissions.’
I know you want to play down carbon’s effect on the climate.
Do you also feel that PARTICULATE pollution, low-level OZONE and NITROGEN DIOXIDE are harmless as well?
If you do, you may need to start subscribing to some other journals, because there is a wealth of scientific research which stands in your way.
5) ‘We have an epidemic of obesity among children in the UK partly because they don’t get enough exercise.’
The US Surgeon General explicitly blamed the car culture (among other factors) just 2 days ago. Is Emma’s point not a fact, Mr Biggs?
6) ‘Communities are less sociable and less safe because of our car-oriented society.’
I have far more conversations when I walk or cycle, than when I drive. Is this not a fact?
7) ‘People travel longer and longer distances to work; and their employers expect them to travel further during the working day. This means more stress, more accidents, and long hours away from their families who lose out.’
Could you explain to readers what is factually incorrect about this statement, Mr Biggs?
You said Emma Bullard’s ‘anti-car rant lacks facts’.
This is quite blatantly not the case, as any reader will quickly attest.
Please could you defend this indefensible claim, or admit -with your silence- that your position is no longer tenable?
Thank you Huw Peach for the last 2 posts.
I don’t accept any of the points made by Paul Biggs (68)but will just respond to one.
It’s not about ‘dictating” to people how they travel, it’s about setting rules and regulations for the benefit of everyone. That’s why we have a rule to tell people which side of the road they can drive on and another to tell them what vehicles they can and can’t use on a motorway; it makes us all safer. In the same way we need to make rules to reduce the amount of damage done by our ever-increasing use of cars.
Some people would argue that it’s our current car-favouring policies which “dictate” to people how they travel, by making the roads unsafe for walking and cycling, and by having a transport policy which has led to car use being cheaper and easier than public trasnport, regardless of the consequesnces for the environment, the economy and social exclusion.
Mr. Peach,
There is not much point in boycotting oil, gas and other fossil fuel extraction companies if you, or your comrades on this side of the Atlantic, invest in these businesses for profit.Indeed your silence was conspicuous when OTPP invested millions in the Sudan - therefore supporting a regime intent on destroying Christian and animist communities who just happened to be in the way of your company oil pipelines.
Your solution to environmental problems is fascinating but typical of the theorist - we went through this “thought process” some 15 to 20 years ago on this side of the Atlantic - a kind of deja vu when I read the Shropshire Star today.
Here in western Canada the main sources of income are oil, gas, coal and lumber. Without these we would be in a very depressed state. There would be no money for hospitals, infrastructure such as roads and water supply. No money for schools and education - are you seriously saying we should - from one day to the next - become vegetable farmers, ride bicycles to work - and heat our houses by solar energy. Winters here last six months and the temperature can be 30 below from December ’til March
I get the impression that you live in a privileged and protected environment and have no real understanding of the world outside of your comfortable (and heated) classroom.
Chris Legget wants to “…..’compliment’ our traditional text and picture output, and set new standards in journalism.”
I wonder where he learnt to spell - certainly not Featherbed Lane in the 1940s. He then prattles on about “wave after wave of extreme weather” - the problem it seems was a couple of inches of snow. Does he not remember the winter of ‘47?
Hi again, Mr Lewis.
Good to debate with you again.
I’m sorry but I didn’t fully understand your point about Sudan.
Could you explain your accusation again a little more clearly for the benefit of other readers?
Mr Lewis, you mock green solutions to environmental problems and mis-represent them.
Cycling, growing vegetables and going solar are just three of thousands of practical solutions that Greens promote for people to reduce their environmental footprint.
What is so threatening for you about solutions like this? If I am privileged and protected living in Shrewsbury, then cycling to work allows me to enjoy my privileged and protected environment rather than polluting it.
I find the fact that there seem to be more and more people cycling and taking full advantage of their privileged environment rather encouraging. Don’t you?
None of us believe that that alone is the solution from one day to the next (please do not mis-represent my argument), but we all recognise that small things add up when they become cultural.
You are, of course, right to say what works here in a Shropshire climate won’t necessarily work in a cold Western Canadian one, but I know for a fact that Canadian Greens are working hard on practical solutions which are appropriate for your country.
The leader of the Canadian Green Party standing against your Foreign Minister in next year’s Canadian general election. Do you not think that Canadians might find her contributions to the debate a refreshing change?
That is what is so inspiring and exciting about the Green movement.
Simultaneously in countries all over the planet green parties and pressure groups are thinking up practical ways out of the undeniable ecological problems which confront us.
They are initiating debates, doing vital education work, influencing policy-makers and presaging a massive, rapid and global shift towards less harmful technologies.
Economies of scale will bring the costs of these technologies down if governments commit internationally to accelerating the coming green industrial revolution.
And economies of scale are more likely to be possible if the voice for change is pushed by an articulate, optimistic, grass-roots movement with a can-do attitude, acting simultaneously across the planet.
Mr. Peach,
You are really too funny!
On Cycling:
I cycled to school - from Shrewsbury to Wolverhamton in the days when those romantic old steam trains were never on time. The trips usually took me 1.75 hours. I admit I took the steam train when the weather was really bad. How many miles do you cycle to and from your school? Not 60 a day that’s for sure. I’ve used a bicycle, weather permitting, everyday since that time - likely before you were born? During the winter months I sometimes ski to work - or if the lake is frozen I skate.
On solar energy:
I built a solar panel which, though somewhat primitive, provided hot water for my family for three years - likely before you and your cohorts had heard of solar energy.
I learnt to grow vegetables at school during the war and post-war period in Britain - that’s how we fed ourselves in those days. I compost and grow vegetables to this day!
On environmental projects:
I’ve worked on many in various parts of the world but one I do on a yearly basis is the “honeypot” run.
Unlike Europe or the United States we have devised a method of extracting human waste from the alpine environment - so that our glaciers, creeks and rivers are not polluted to the extent of most other countries.
This entails some rather smelly work. The “honey” is “deposited” in plastic drums - we ‘honeypotters” slide, and then sling the drums onto hovering helicopters that then deposit them into trucks. From there we drive the trucks over bumpy backcountry roads for perhaps 2 or 300 hundred miles to a human-waste-disposal site. It’s a smelly dirty job - Huw - you should join us sometime!
Please don’t give me this crap (no pun intended) about the “inspiring and and exciting green movement.”
Yours is likely the same as it is in this country:
Full of pompous old farts (again no pun intended) with an axe to grind - the majority of which are retired or semi-retired university and college profs or school teachers who continually complain about the lack of government funding and resources for education - meanwhile earning (or demanding pensions) two or three times more than the average citizen.
There’s of course the odd vegy farmer (eeking out a living) amongst this cult who deserves everybody’s respect and admiration - they are the really “green” people who walk the talk!
Don’t preach this conceited nonsense about global warming and how the green party is going to stop climate change - meanwhile living the life of Riley in the compfort zone of dear old Blighty!
Hi again, Mr Lewis.
I’m glad that I have cheered you up, and sorry if you feel that what I say about the Green movement is ‘conceited’.
I was talking about other people in the Green movement.
I think they have done valuable work, getting the issue of climate change, along with green solutions, debated and discussed.
Individuals like me in the Green movement may not be as perfect as you, Mr Lewis (I, for instance, only have a 5 minute cycle ride to work, have never made a solar water heater and have never scooped poop on a mountainside), but I commend your desire to make a difference, and feel that the Green movement does this, too.
If it was up to some of the contributors on this thread we would be doing nothing whatsoever about climate change.
Now then Mr. Peach,
Who is mocking who in this debate?
And getting the “valuable work” of green solutions discussed is - all very well - but only if it comes from people who live and take part in green solutions.
Respecting and appreciating the earth and its natural environment is a way of life - there is no grandstanding or claims of - making a difference.
Today’s Green movement is a feel good - self-righteous organization of privileged people living in the first world. Who indeed would be the ones to complain if their substantial paycheques didn’t arrive on time or if local or state infrastucture broke down.
And if climate change is indeed caused by mankind these (same)people are amongst the biggest offenders.
Mr. Peach!
It is almost a week since my last post. In this one I should remind you of the “investment for profit” of your colleagues on this side of the pond.
Have you heard of the Cheviot coal mine - in south eastern BC? Well this is an open cast coal mine covering an area of several thousand square miles. The mine is an ecological nightmare and perched aside the waterways of the Arctic and Atlantic oceans - on critical wildlife habitiat. This coalmine will have negative impacts on Jasper, Banff, Yoho and Kootenay national parks. The proposed mine area is prime habitat for grizzly bears.
The mine is owned and run by teachers and their associations for profit - and I repeat the word profit. Considering that teachers ( at least in this country) are already at the top of the human food chain what are your views and interpretations of this post?
Or have you (n)ever heard of Kootenay and Jasper national parks?
Hi again, Mr Lewis.
Apologies for not responding earlier.
You made some sweeping accusations of the green movement in your contribution #79.
Could you substantiate them, giving examples, please?
Then I will comment on them.
Thank you.
In response to your comment #80, I had never heard of the Cheviot open coal mine.
However, I have just done a little research and found your point about the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Fund interesting and valid.
However, were you unaware that the Canadian Green Party opposes this mine?
See the website of the Green Party of Canada, click on the tab at the top of the page marked Policy, then click on Vision Green, then click on Preserving and Restoring the Environment, then 3. National Parks (2nd paragraph).
I applaud the fact that you are opposed to this mine.
What are you doing to oppose it?
Don’t you think it is positive that the Canadian green movement (Sierra Club + Green Party of Canada among many others) is so opposed to it?
I’m sure lots of teachers feel very uncomfortable that their pensions are linked to such a destructive plan.
Mr. Peach,
Sorry, I have the location of the Cheviot mine wrong. It is in western Alberta and on the east side of Jasper national park. The Fording-coal (open-p