tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6214838.post4064161821101993815..comments2024-03-04T17:54:32.559+00:00Comments on Iain Dale's Diary: The Independent Front Page Is FabricatedIain Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03270146219458384372noreply@blogger.comBlogger53125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6214838.post-40815585095183384202009-09-15T12:59:54.724+01:002009-09-15T12:59:54.724+01:00I said earlier that the "environmentalist&quo...I said earlier that the "environmentalist" movement were overwhelmingly deliberately making it up & "I challenge ANYBODY on the eco-fascist side to produce such [ie ofANY evidence of catasrtophic warming] evidence."<br /><br />Clearly no reader here, no BBC/Guardianista/Green party liar, nobody from realclimate, nobody at all feels able to produce anything at all.neil craighttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09157898238945726349noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6214838.post-29897065738578405962009-09-14T21:24:28.855+01:002009-09-14T21:24:28.855+01:00Just the thing for all your Global Warming deniers...Just the thing for all your Global Warming deniers<br /><br /><a href="http://www.justgofaster.com/Default.aspx?tabid=187" rel="nofollow">http://www.justgofaster.com/Default.aspx?tabid=187</a>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6214838.post-15299417019948505242009-09-14T11:17:03.706+01:002009-09-14T11:17:03.706+01:00Having been around in the 70s i can say that the c...Having been around in the 70s i can say that the current attempt airbrush the global cooling scare out of existence is not truthful. One reason the media pushed it is that the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of science - their equivalent to the Roual society) hosted press conferences on the subject. James Hansen, the leading promoter of warming alarmism, was also involved in the cooling scare.<br /><br />As for there being any "consensus" - this "consensus" consists of the politically appointed IPCC, whose results get rewritten by politicians before publication & various government funded organisations (eg the Royal Society though they are backtracking). The largest single assessment of scientific opinion is the Oregon Petition in which 31,000 scientists have said not only is that there is no catastrophic warming but that CO2 increase is on balance a good thing.neil craighttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09157898238945726349noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6214838.post-77036084631133177932009-09-14T10:15:57.161+01:002009-09-14T10:15:57.161+01:00"Silent Hunter" - You need to stop the a..."Silent Hunter" - You need to stop the argument from interest nonsense. Even Exxon (so often excoriated) provides far more funding for "consensus" climate research than for skeptical positions. The funding gap between the alleged consensus and skeptical scientists is literally of the order of 1000 to 1, so were I you, I would not draw attention to the issue. The financial and professional incentives all lie in preserving the consensus. Remember, after all, that Enron was relying on the coming in of CO2 trading to save their business, and lobbied heavily to try and get legislation in time.<br /><br />Secondly, the comment was made that Bjorn Lomberg "was a climate denier". Nonsense. Lomborg was a committed member of Greenpeace when he began work on what would become "Skeptical Environmentalist". In that, and all subsequent books, he has merely assumed that IPCC publications are truthful and accurate in all respects, and then drawn economic conclusions from the numerical data in the reports. That inevitably puts him at odds with some scaremongers - Al Gore, with his 20 ft sea level rise, for instance - who weave new predictions out of whole cloth without any basis in the published literature. I don't agree with Lomborg's assumptions (there are too many well documented errors in the data and models used to be comfortable even with the basic IPCC material), but respect his naive belief that using an agreed common base text would enable a rational debate to ensue. Similar statements about Lomborg, like the argument from interest ("you're just spouting what they oil companies tell you to") are really useful shibboleths. Once you hear them, you know that the speaker doesn't understand the first thing about the subject, and can safely be ignored.<br /><br />If you really want to convince me, show me the *empirical* study that suggests a causal link *from* CO2 concentration *to* global temperature.Roberthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10371545561820304882noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6214838.post-68056671781095986712009-09-14T08:44:02.147+01:002009-09-14T08:44:02.147+01:00Quite so.
The more I hear about man made 'glo...Quite so.<br /><br />The more I hear about man made 'global warming' the less I believe in it.<br /><br />Maybe the climate is changing, but I very much doubt that human activity has much to do with it.<br /><br />It all looks more and more like a racket to make us pay more tax and surrender more of our lives to government control.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6214838.post-54472316133886173812009-09-13T23:11:45.258+01:002009-09-13T23:11:45.258+01:00@Cynic - I don't think you read my comment ver...@Cynic - I don't think you read my comment very carefully. To put it as simply as possible: whether AGM is true or not, the incompetence of the Independent's environmental journalism is not evidence against AGM.Danielhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11384619047799752406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6214838.post-91966395758804975422009-09-13T21:11:40.892+01:002009-09-13T21:11:40.892+01:00The media hype over a coming ice age in the 70s ma...The media hype over a coming ice age in the 70s may very well not have been accepted by actual scientists who knew what they were talking about.<br /><br />That's the same as the current scam over MMGW (oops, sorry, MMCC). The true eco-fascist believers are almost all not scientists but know how to make a fast buck and like the idea of their own self-importance.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6214838.post-44933478147791928332009-09-13T19:35:19.074+01:002009-09-13T19:35:19.074+01:00"In 1976, just over 30 years ago, there was i..."In 1976, just over 30 years ago, there was incontrovertible scientific evidence that we were entering a new Ice Age. Climatologists the world over assured us of that."<br /><br />At about that time I did a science degree with a substantial Environment component. There was no scientific consensus regarding climate change.<br /><br />There was a great deal of conflicting evidence, some of which supported global warming (the much talked about "greenhouse effect") and some pointed to global cooling.<br /><br />There was much discussion between climatologists, with roughly equal numbers in the opposing camps.Ludonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6214838.post-26934409743715667792009-09-13T17:51:30.274+01:002009-09-13T17:51:30.274+01:00I nominate 'stevo' for the best post of th...I nominate 'stevo' for the best post of the day!<br /><br />Great post stevo, top notch and to the point.<br />The aqua sattelite up there for 125.000 years? Our early ancestors must have been more advanced than we thought.<br />Given that the poster James puts his faith in a well known AGW/AAM alarmist site like Wiki, whose pages are fanatically monitored for denialist heretics and deleted ASAP and given that the evidence going back 125.000 yrs is about as sparce as Kinnocks noggin, I think we can safely say that his assertions can be discounted.<br /><br />Sea ice levels in the arctic can be monitored easily by visiting 'watts up with that' and scrollong to the thumbnail.cassandrahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06088596240127998878noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6214838.post-44204441326725000942009-09-13T17:17:57.299+01:002009-09-13T17:17:57.299+01:00"In 1976, just over 30 years ago, there was i..."In 1976, just over 30 years ago, there was incontrovertible scientific evidence that we were entering a new Ice Age. Climatologists the world over assured us of that."<br /><br />This is a well-known myth propagated by those wishing to discredit climate scientists. There was never any scientific consensus about a new ice age in the 70s. <br /><br />A couple of scientific papers discussed the possibility of a new ice age in the future and this lead to some sensationalist media coverage.<br /><br />A recent study of scientific papers from the 60s and 70s dealing with climate showed the vast majority supporting the thesis of a warming planet.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6214838.post-61860869696142295472009-09-13T16:44:43.551+01:002009-09-13T16:44:43.551+01:00In 1976, just over 30 years ago, there was incontr...In 1976, just over 30 years ago, there was incontrovertible scientific evidence that we were entering a new Ice Age. Climatologists the world over assured us of that.<br /><br />All of us must believe in climate change - it is observable fact. It changes year by year and I remember the drastic winter of 1947 and the scorching drought of the summer of 1948.<br /><br />To make two perhaps unrelated pieces of phenomena into a single unified theory is dangerously illogical and unscientific. The proof that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide causes global temperature increases reminds me of one of my tutors so long ago. He said "The Pope does not believe in birth control. Stalin does not believe in birth control. Therefore the Pope is a a Communist or perhaps Stalin is a Catholic".<br /><br />Years later I see that the word "believe" is important as it has here a significance that the exponents did not doubt that birth control was possible but that they opposed its use.<br /><br />We see on a continuous basis the obsolesence of many "accepted" scientific theories. The origin of mankind from a common East African ancestor was a Leakey theory for personal advantage. It is in the process of being disproven by other "facts". And so we go on. Computer simulations are being purveyed as they were actualities. The MSM has space to fill.Victor, NW Kenthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14778890471547456396noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6214838.post-17592328852216157232009-09-13T15:15:36.368+01:002009-09-13T15:15:36.368+01:00"Images from the NASA Aqua satellite revealed..."Images from the NASA Aqua satellite revealed that the last ice blockage of the Northern Sea Route in the Laptev Sea had melted by late August 2008, the first time in 125,000 years that both the Northwest Passage and Northern Sea Route had been open simultaneously"<br /><br />Thankyou. That's the funniest thing I've read all week. I wasn't previously aware that the Aqua satellite had been monitoring the situation for that long.<br /><br />Relatively complete global records date back about 30 years, and even incomplete ones only about a eighty. How many climate monitoring stations were there in Antarctica in 1900? Or across the Pacific Ocean? How can anyone possibly say they can measure the average global temperature a hundred years ago to an accuracy of a fraction of a degree?<br /><br />The local records we have indicate that neither amount nor rate of warming are out of the ordinary. For example, the HadCET temperature series for England shows a similar sort of 50-year rise between about 1680 and 1733. Only bigger, and steeper, and peaking within a fraction of a degree of the current peak.<br /><br />Beware of the fallacy of assuming that correlation implies causation. Lots of things have increased (or decreased) over the past 50-100 years. Why not one of them?<br /><br />Anyway, NASA say it's because of unusual winds. (http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/quikscat-20071001.html) Or this statement "Although it is tempting to attribute these statistically significant (99% level) trends to GHG loading, the observed sea ice record has strong imprints of natural variability." That's from a group of believers. And the Antarctic ice, by contrast, is not playing ball at all. (http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.area.south.jpg / http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.anom.south.jpg)<br /><br />Not that it should be relevant, but yes, I am a qualified professional physicist/mathematician, and no, I have never been paid or employed by anyone in the energy industry, or anyone else with a stake in the matter. I'm just unhappy about what all of this is going to do to Science's reputation when the whole thing collapses.Stevonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6214838.post-42194328772263542182009-09-13T14:45:53.835+01:002009-09-13T14:45:53.835+01:00Insofar as it is a sign of anything it is a sign t...Insofar as it is a sign of anything it is a sign that human technology is improving faster than anything nature is doing & we now have stronger ships & satellite pictures that can tell us how the weather is.<br /><br />In fact it doesn't even prove that conclusively since this has been done many times before.<br /><br />During WW2 while the Hitler Stalin pact was still in force a number of German ships sailed to Japan by this route.<br /><br />So while the BBC may be "downplaying the hype" compared to even less honest sources by saying it has "been passable since 2005" they are still, quite deliberately, lying.<br /><br />It is a statistical certainty (ie above 99.9% that anybody who supports the global warming lie is a totally corrupt eco-fascist willing to tell absolutely any lie & should be treated as such until they prove they have previously dissociated themsleves from the rst of the movement.<br /><br />Whether we are experiencing "global warming" depends entirely on the baseline chosen. It has warmed since 1750 & 10,000BC & cooled since 5000BC, 1300, 1933 (probably) & 1998. . None of the changes since 5,000 BC were "catastrophic" & there is no evidence, none whatsoever, that any catastrophic warming is in sight. I challenge ANYBODY on the eco-fascist side to produce such evidence.neil craighttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09157898238945726349noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6214838.post-61822135368998920882009-09-13T14:05:44.263+01:002009-09-13T14:05:44.263+01:00Daniel
The problem with your argument is the rela...Daniel<br /><br />The problem with your argument is the relative impact of those emmissions on the atmosphere and climate. This is fiendishly difficult to calculate. <br /><br />All we have at the minute and two sets of facts. There is no clear demonstration of cause and effectCynichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04852867933348403214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6214838.post-11173823418342907992009-09-13T13:02:18.427+01:002009-09-13T13:02:18.427+01:00For those who would like to learn more about the A...For those who would like to learn more about the AGW alarmism and it's lack of foundation here are a few good places to start,<br /><br />http://wattsupwiththat.com/about/<br /><br />http://www.climateaudit.org/<br /><br />http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/about/<br /><br />I've given links to the about pages for two of the sites. <br /><br />Steve McIntyre who runs Climate Audit does not have an about page but suffice to say that he is the chap who showed that Mann's hockey stick graph and associated mathematical modelling was a load of tosh etc...nuf said.<br /><br />There are plenty more links to other sites from Anthony Watts home page to both pro and anti AGW sites.<br /><br />Read, learn, discuss, think for yourself, and then decide what adds up and what does not.Jabba the Cathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08378736389976858775noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6214838.post-65619831466123462009-09-13T12:15:50.780+01:002009-09-13T12:15:50.780+01:00It would be strange to conclude from this headline...It would be strange to conclude from this headline that there is a reason to doubt the reality of climate change - which is what Iain's "pulling the wool" line seems to suggest.<br /><br />Yes, we can conclude that the Independent and BBC have employed some very poor journalists, but that's about all.<br /><br />The theory of anthropic global warming rests on an unusually sharp global rise in temperature (recorded on ordinary thermometers) coinciding with a rise in carbon dioxide emitted by industrial processes, both as clearly established as the existence of the Moon. It hasn't anything to do with sea routes, regardless of what the alarmists at the Independent or the BBC may say.Danielhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11384619047799752406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6214838.post-66318042395212751682009-09-13T10:21:05.834+01:002009-09-13T10:21:05.834+01:00Without wanting to sound defeatist (but doing so a...Without wanting to sound defeatist (but doing so anyway) is there really any point in worrying about our carbon output whilst the population of the planet is rising at such a rate? Even if we manage to halve emissions per head over the next 50 years, the doubling of population we will probably see in that time will bring us right back to where we started, except with even more people living on flood plains, and even more food poverty.<br /><br />Conversely, if we could find a way to reduce the population by 50% over time then climate change would reduce with it.Neil Anoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6214838.post-3051686589956985462009-09-13T09:08:11.479+01:002009-09-13T09:08:11.479+01:00The Independent with a "fabricated" fron...The Independent with a "fabricated" front page! I think that you will find that a fair number of them are; including many of those spreading the new religion of Climate Change and those that accuse Israel of all sorts of evil.Not a sheephttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14123293202225008273noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6214838.post-5143585801176772592009-09-13T08:50:14.285+01:002009-09-13T08:50:14.285+01:00Isn't everything in 'The Independent' ...Isn't everything in 'The Independent' is a lie?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6214838.post-54616797949279916942009-09-13T08:47:58.186+01:002009-09-13T08:47:58.186+01:00Lots of emotion in the comments. Not much verifia...Lots of emotion in the comments. Not much verifiable fact.<br /><br />I'm a climate change agnostic. But I'm going to spend a few days later this month reading the arguments for and against, as <a href="http://sean-haffey.blogspot.com/2009/08/fine-weather-were-having.html" rel="nofollow">partly described in my blog</a>.<br /><br />Let's have fewer rants and more facts.Seanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03234085314662011091noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6214838.post-63924834584518330022009-09-13T06:17:10.291+01:002009-09-13T06:17:10.291+01:00'everybody agrees that there is much less ice ...'everybody agrees that there is much less ice on the route now than 50 years ago'<br /><br />I dont<br /><br /><br />'The scientific evidence pointing to a huge, exponential increase in this effect is overwhelming.'<br /><br />It isnt and do you even know what exponential means?<br /><br />It is clear, Silent Hunter, that you honestly believe all this nonsense. Well, sorry to be the man who tells you that there aint no Santa ClausCynichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04852867933348403214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6214838.post-11076306416118673942009-09-13T06:10:23.499+01:002009-09-13T06:10:23.499+01:00Dear Hunter
Well Old Bean, there are those who be...Dear Hunter<br /><br />Well Old Bean, there are those who believe in Alien Abduction. They ahve seen the evidence, heard the witnesses and know there is a massive Government cover up. So it must be real.<br /><br />With Global warming its much the same. There is evidence that suggests there is Global Warming but it is inconclusive. The problem is that there is just not enough data to tell. But the science has now been perverted into a new age religion. Those who challenge or ask questions are shunned vilified and face the destruction of their careers. Grants arent awarded for research that might seek to test the core beliefs. People who hold deviant views are excluded from conferences.<br /><br />There are organisations that specifically target the disbelievers and anyone who gives them a platform - and that alone should tell you something.<br /><br /><br /><br />So all of this is more about human psychology, inadequates who need a cause to define their lives and access to reserach grants and business, more than objective science. It also suits Government to play along to force us to reduce dependency on oil for strategic reasons.<br /><br />Let me give you a little example of perhaps the next great moral panic. Studies show that historically the earth magnetic field reverses every so often ie north becomes the south pole etc. This change appears to happen quite quickly sometimes ie over a couple of hundred years.The last change was 800,000 years ago. As the average gap betwen changes is 250,000 years we are well overdue one. When this gains common curreny we will have all the same poeple who are hand wringing over climate change alleging that its all out fault.<br /><br />Thr second iussue is, if there is Global Warming, what is causing it? Again, old bean, scientifically and objectively we simply dont know. The climate of this planet continually changes - thats good old mother nature and her evolution thingy for you - and what we cannot see is where we are on the long term trends.Cynichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04852867933348403214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6214838.post-53892970398143412622009-09-13T05:16:27.550+01:002009-09-13T05:16:27.550+01:00I have a conspiracy theory!!!
To create a global ...I have a conspiracy theory!!!<br /><br />To create a global government we need a global problem. A problem that can (by using appropriate scare tactics) frighten everyone into believing that those governments that do not take action to reduce their (for instance) CO2 levels should be taken over for the 'greater good of mankind.'<br /><br />Not a bad plan and a rather good conspiracy theory!Rachelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6214838.post-19929764874993394532009-09-13T00:40:57.179+01:002009-09-13T00:40:57.179+01:00“Who pays your salary - who do you work for and in...“Who pays your salary - who do you work for and in what field do you specialise. Petrochemicals, perchance?”<br /><br />Silent Hunter: Do you know how paranoid that makes you sound? I never understand why people think this sort of <i>ad hominem</i> attack is effective. Government funding for climate change research is now several hundred million pounds in the UK alone. In fact the politicisation of science has gone so far that it’s quite difficult to get university funding in some areas (geology, for example) without at least linking a research proposal to global warming. It’s undeniably true that there are very many scientists whose funding would be severely threatened if global warming were ever found to be less of a threat and that the fear of global warming has been very useful for some people’s careers, just as fear of the Millennium Bug once made a lot of money for IT companies.<br /><br />For what it’s worth I believe in anthropogenic global warming. I’m only pointing out that the conflict of interest argument works both ways. You know nothing about Siberian Tory. This instinctive, unvarying desire to destroy the reputations of those who disagree with your views rather than attack their arguments makes you look weak and makes me question your own agenda. I don’t accuse you of being tainted by links to big government, yet you seem to believe that nobody can possibly disagree with your views and that those who claim to are simply being bribed to say so by oil companies, do you really think that?Thomasnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6214838.post-74864167675688180192009-09-12T22:57:04.684+01:002009-09-12T22:57:04.684+01:00Prediction:
The world will get warmer. And, colde...Prediction:<br /><br />The world will get warmer. And, colder. Not necessarily in that order.Joe Publicnoreply@blogger.com