September 2010 is turning out to be a veritable over-stuffed cornucopia of Climate Change- and Energy-related events.
This week, 15th September 2010 breaks the record for the number of useful things I could be doing. I am effectively quintuple-booked, and something’s got to go (well, nearly all of them, actually).
I made the mistake of attempting to contribute to the discussion following Andrew Montford’s “right of reply” to Bob Ward – and backed away from the keyboard when I found my very innocent comments being removed by the Moderator.
I wasn’t rude. I wasn’t nasty. I didn’t use any bad words. What is wrong with The Guardian’s Comment is Free ? It’s not free, that’s what.
If The Guardian want to have productive, open discussion on Comment is Free, they need to make sure that people who are genuinely trying to contribute relevant information get the platform. Otherwise it’s just a waste of space. I won’t be contributing to The Guardian Comment is Free discussions in future, and I’d advise you not to, either.
https://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2010/sep/10/hockey-stick-graph-illusion
Example 1
“MartinFulbright : 10 September 2010 11:33PM : @joabbess : I ask this this with all humility because I avoid answering it myself…But have you ever used calculus in a working way?”
“joabbess : 10 September 2010 11:47PM : @MartinFulbright : It’s a while since I did any serious Mathematics. I claim that the recent sharp rise in global temperatures is problematic. To try to explain what I mean, here is something that should be be relatively straightforward for you :- https://www.joabbess.com/2010/07/19/simple-integration/”
Example 2
“mpaul : 11 September 2010 12:28AM : I think it’s abusive that the Guardian would hold Andrew’s response to Bob’s comment above in moderation for so long. Free the comment!”
“joabbess : 11 September 2010 12:50AM : @mpaul : I don’t think that Andrew Montford’s comments will add much to universal accord or understanding on the subject of Global Warming. Free the science ! :-
https://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/5/3/034008/fulltext : Environ. Res. Lett. 5 (July-September 2010) 034008 : doi:10.1088/1748-9326/5/3/034008 : Top-down solar modulation of climate: evidence for centennial-scale change : M Lockwood, C Bell, T Woollings, R G Harrison, L J Gray and J D Haigh”
Image Credit : Mil (Dan Woods)
Like my anti-hero, James Delingpole, I am going to make a capitalised comment : THIS IS SO ABOUT THE SCIENCE, JAMES DELINGPOLE :-
https://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100052655/im-funny-official/
“I’m funny: official…the same tired old smears and inaccuracies. Sceptics are funded by Big Oil; they’re a weird, swivel-eyed minority; Climategate was “a storm in a tea cup” which did nothing to shake the underlying science; etc. Am I bothered? More weary than anything, for we have all heard these canards many, many times before (and no doubt will do again in some of the comments below), and I’m not sure it’s a game I can be bothered to play any more…The debate on CAGW, I’ve come to realise, is as futile as the one about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Which isn’t to say I don’t hugely respect the work done by the likes of Watts Up With That and Climate Audit and Bishop Hill to expose the flaws in the Warmist scientists’ dodgy theories. We need such indefatigable seekers-after-truth in this war but what we also need to realise is that this is never an argument that is going to be won on the science alone. That’s because the CAGW craze is and never was about the science, any more than the Eighties “Acid Rain” craze was about the science, or the Nineties BSE craze was about the science. They’re all just branches of political activism…THIS IS NOT ABOUT THE SCIENCE.”
Oh yes it is, Jems dear. It is 100%-a-mento about the Science. And it’s also about the de-Scientising of the Science.
An e-mail trail with a certain amount of political content…
from: Kate Shepherd
date: Tue, Aug 10, 2010
subject: Climate Week
Hello Jo
It was lovely to speak with you today about Climate Week and I’d be grateful if you could pass on the information to the rest of your team.
Climate Week, 21st – 27th March 2011, is a new national occasion on climate change, backed by the Prime Minister, Al Gore and Kofi Annan. During Climate Week, thousands of events will be run by organisations from every part of society to highlight the positive steps being taken to help prevent climate change.
I have attached a document for further information, the document includes a list of supporters of Climate Week, which range from every part of society: from the Chief Fire Officers Association to the Women’s Institute, the Girl Guiding UK to several Regional Development Agencies.
Looks like Christopher Booker may have fallen from the safety net of sanity, judging by his latest output, which appears to be a jumble of trick-of-the-light semantics, plays on words, reheated half-errors and unwarranted accusations :-
“A cunning bid to shore up the ruins of the IPCC : The Inter-Academy report into the IPCC, led by Rajendra Pachauri, tiptoes around a mighty elephant in the room, argues Christopher Booker. : By Christopher Booker : Published: 6:38PM BST 04 Sep 2010 : A report on the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, on behalf of the world’s leading scientific academies, last week provoked even some of the more committed believers in man-made global warming to demand the resignation of Dr Rajendra Pachauri as chairman of the IPCC. But is the report all that it seems? Last winter, the progress of this belief – that the world faces catastrophe unless we spend trillions of dollars to halt global warming – suffered an unprecedented reverse. In Copenhagen, the world’s leaders failed to agree a treaty designed to reshape the future of civilisation. This coincided with a series of scandals that blew up around the IPCC’s 2007 report. Since then several inquiries, including three into the leaked “Climategate” emails, have tried to hold the official line, all following a consistent pattern. Each has made a few peripheral criticisms, for plausibility, while deliberately avoiding the main issue. Each has then gone on to put over the required message: that the science of global warming remains unchallenged…”
“…demand the resignation of Dr Rajendra Pachauri…” ? Why ? Just because the world’s media are hounding him ?
“…a series of scandals…” ? What, the non-scandals puffed up into “news” that several newspapers have had to print retractions for ?
And they pay him to write this stuff ?
Clearly, the Daily Telegraph have money to burn.
Why is Christopher Booker’s opinion piece so poor (in my view) ?
For a start, read this web log post from Bart Verheggen :-
https://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2010/09/03/ipcc-troubles-context-media-coverage/
“…most IPCC mistakes were minor or even imaginary, and most were in working group 2 about (regional) effects of climate change; they did not concern the physics of climate and why it is changing…”
He quotes the Dutch newspaper Volkskrant :-
“On the one hand climate scientists are expected to keep themselves to the facts only. At the same time their results and understanding are also arguments in the societal discussions about climate change. But as soon as they participate in this discussion accusations of bias come up. A more professional IPCC should not only work on the internal weaknesses and make and present itself as scientifically solid as possible. It will also have to make clear that its work has political implications, but that that doesn’t mean that it’s engaged in doing politics…”
This shows up the possibility that Christopher Booker’s writing is probably strongly biased as well as likely inaccurate.
How can it be that Christopher Booker (in my humble opinion) portrays the real situation so erroneously ?
Where does he get his views from ?
What is he trying to fight, here ? And why is he using rusty, broken weapons ? How is it that journalists and commentators have become so mistaken about an issue that’s so important to get right ?
Yes, I’m inviting you to complain to the United Kingdom Press Complaints Commission regarding what appears to be a failure of accurate journalism in the Daily Express.
The question is, for you, have they “gone too far this time” ?
Here’s some e-mail traffic :-
from: Bob Ward
sent: 31 August 2010
subject: Express Denial
If you want to have a good chortle, have a look at this ‘Debate’ just launched on the website of the ‘The Daily Express’:
https://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/196681/DEBATE-Is-global-warming-just-a-con-
Apart from its one-sided title (‘Debate: Is ‘global warming’ just a con?’), I particularly enjoyed the illiterate reference to “LOSS OF CREDIBITY”. Well, after all, ‘The Daily Express’ should know about loss of credibility!
Bob Ward
Policy and Communications Director
Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment
London School of Economics and Political Science
Houghton Street
London WC2A 2AE
https://www.lse.ac.uk/grantham
from: James Pavitt
date: 31 August 2010
Have you seen the headline and front page??? This is the worst case of climate misrepresentation I’ve ever seen. I have made a complaint to the Press Complaints Committee, and urge others to do so too.
I’m sorry to report that Fred Pearce has joined the clamour for the very famous scalp of Rajendra Pachauri :-
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19380-why-its-time-for-change-at-the-ipcc.html
“Why it’s time for change at the IPCC : Updated 01 September 2010 by Fred Pearce”
In the print edition of New Scientist magazine, the second part of the editorial for 4 September 2010 has the headline, “Climate panel deserves a new leader”, and was presumably also written by Fred Pearce.
This is a highly disappointing opinion from Fred Pearce. It looks like he is making the same mistake as was made earlier in the year, when various commentators called for the head of Professor Phil Jones on a plate after e-mails were “liberated” (and incorrectly annotated) from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA).
[ UPDATE FROM JOABBESS.COM : GOOD LINKS FOR MORE INFORMATION : https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/08/ipcc-report-card/ AND https://www.nature.com/news/2010/100831/full/467014a.html AND https://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2010/09/01/ipcc-review-by-interacademy-council-iac/ AND https://www.un.org/News/briefings/docs/2010/100830_IPCC.doc.htm AND THE SLIGHTLY NEGATIVE https://www.economist.com/node/16941153?story_id=16941153 ]
Entropy versus Order – the central battle of the Universe.
Also the struggle within the realm of Science, trying to make global sense out of a very disparate, creative spectrum of study on Climate Change.
Here, at the very hub, we find the bubble of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC – a wide variety of people with a wide variety of knowledge and viewpoints all trying to establish a common perspective.
The management of this enterprise has been under review, and thought to be found partially wanting :-
https://reviewipcc.interacademycouncil.net/ReportNewsRelease.html
“InterAcademy Council Report Recommends Fundamental Reform of IPCC Management Structure : UNITED NATIONS — The process used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to produce its periodic assessment reports has been successful overall, but IPCC needs to fundamentally reform its management structure and strengthen its procedures to handle ever larger and increasingly complex climate assessments as well as the more intense public scrutiny coming from a world grappling with how best to respond to climate change, says a new report from the InterAcademy Council (IAC), an Amsterdam-based organization of the world’s science academies. “Operating under the public microscope the way IPCC does requires strong leadership, the continued and enthusiastic participation of distinguished scientists, an ability to adapt, and a commitment to openness if the value of these assessments to society is to be maintained,” said Harold T. Shapiro, president emeritus and professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University in the United States and chair of the committee that wrote the report. Roseanne Diab, executive officer of the Academy of Science of South Africa and professor emeritus of environmental sciences and honorary senior research associate at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, served as vice chair of the committee, which included experts from several countries and a variety of disciplines…These assessment reports have gained IPCC much respect including a share of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. However, amid an increasingly intense public debate about the science of climate change and costs of curbing it, IPCC has come under closer scrutiny, and controversies have erupted over its perceived impartiality toward climate policy and the accuracy of its reports. This prompted U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and IPCC chair Rajendra K. Pachauri to issue a letter on March 10 this year requesting that the IAC review IPCC and recommend ways to strengthen the processes and procedures by which future assessments are prepared…”
https://reviewipcc.interacademycouncil.net/OpeningStatement.html
It may seem pedantic and unsisterly to have to point it out, but despite her usual high and good level of correctness, Financial Times journalist Fiona Harvey seems to have stumbled in yet more lurid green swamp mire, and quoted “ogres” once again :-
https://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/72993406-b398-11df-81aa-00144feabdc0.html
“Climate change: Lingering clouds : By Fiona Harvey : Published: August 29 2010…”
Most of us really do not want to know the opinions of Benny Peiser of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (and his collaborator Nigel Lawson), because neither of them are expert in the field of Global Warming, only, apparently, Glib Warring.
And again, most of us are really not partial to the views of Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, who seems to think there’s nothing wrong in releasing large amounts of Carbon Dioxide into the Atmosphere, even though the last times this happened in Earth history, entirely naturally due to extensive magma eruptions due to super-violent Tectonic plate movement, it ended in global megadeath.
Compassion fatigue appears to have set in early in the Western Media – yet the existential problems of simple human survival, health, shelter, food and clean drinking water have only just started in large parts of Pakistan.
I was speaking with a contact recently who is just about to go out East to help coordinate an emergency mission in the region, and my first question was, “Are you ready for Pakistan ?”, because I don’t think anybody “parachuting” into the country will be.
Plus, this may be the worst crisis that the world’s humanitarian network has faced in the last half Century, but it’s not the only one ongoing and just about to start :-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Pacific_typhoon_season
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Atlantic_hurricane_season
Human interest stories have been the bread and butter of holiday media for decades – now is the time to roll cameras for the never-ending rollercoaster of disaster Climate Change is turning out to be.
It’s been raining really, really heavily, catastrophically somewhere on the planet practically non-stop since the beginning of the year.
Surely that’s not just a story, that’s a whole narrative ?
And it’s about weather, too, every journalist’s favourite subject.
Despite the fact that Robin McKie killed off Climategate on 1st August 2010 in his article for The Observer (thankfully, Will Hutton was away, allowing Robin McKie to venge forcefully) :-
https://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/01/climate-change-robin-mckie
it seems that the Climate Change deniers simply cannot let go of the dead story and bury it. Benny Peiser of the adroitly named “Global Warming Policy Foundation” (suggested motto “We want policies to guarantee Climate chaos” ?), is to publish a report at the end of the month written by Andrew Montford, of Bishop Hill web log fame :-
https://www.thegwpf.org/climategate/1204-investigation-into-climategate-inquiries-announced.html
Sorry to say, but this will be a “we told you so” affair :-
1. We told you so here first – it will be roundly criticised by those who are expert in the subjects of Climate Change and environmental policy.
2. We told you so here first – it will contain a number of significant Scientific claims that will not stand up to close scrutiny.
3. We told you so here first – it will sell.
I don’t expect much from it in terms of any kind of sensible, relevant reply, but here’s my two eurocents’ worth, as loaded at :-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/forms/
The BBC are undergoing a review on balance in Science reporting. They need to get Climate Change right, and that could start by one of their programme editors actually trying to understand what programmes like this do to an unprepared or semi-prepared audience.
The Newsnight audience have been left with the view that “maybe Climate Change is not so bad after all”, which is the worst take-home message they could be given.
See further down the post for e-mail traffic related to the Newsnight broadcast of 23rd August 2010.
Apparently, there’s no link between mounting insurance losses from natural disasters and manmade Climate Change :-
Well, that’s alright then, I can just forget all about Global Warming and go and focus on something more important instead.
Thanks Andy Revkin for lightening my load, and releasing oceans of deep joy into my life :-
Shock ! Horror ! Major Climate Change Scientist spotted at Climate Camp…ah, but which one… ? How to distinguish one dressed-down, unwashed individual with dishevelled locks from any another ?
Any sign of Climate Change sceptic-denier Andrew Montford, as affectionately known as “Bishop Hill” ? Can’t make him out, but he might have responded to the banner appeal to “Come On Over for Lunch”. You never know. That might be him chopping potatoes, right in the thick of it.
Nick Clegg, the British Deputy Prime Minister says that the international response to the catastrophic flooding in Pakistan is “absolutely pitiful” :-
https://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/aug/16/nick-clegg-pakistan-floods
People won’t be moved. There’s no use hoping for an outpouring of charitable giving and energetic aid organisation – the world is suffering too many ongoing parallel disasters to be able to scramble effectively for this – the biggest ever (probably).
A similar situation exists with Climate Change policy, or rather the incredible inertia against taking the obvious first steps towards meaningful Carbon Dioxide emissions reductions.
People are too busy with their Facebook, their Twitter, their own personal financial nemeses (is that the plural of “nemesis”, really ?) to be able to form a coherent “movement”, as Bill McKibben, Al Gore and others wish us to mobilise into :-
https://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2010/aug/18/extreme-weather-climate-debate
“Why has extreme weather failed to heat up climate debate? The world is experiencing the hottest weather on record but politicians have failed to respond. They need a wake-up call…”
There are several journalists out there who simply can’t cope with the real risks posed by dangerous Climate Change.
Following a rather reasonable, rational article by Louise Grey, Tom Chivers gave the “loaded dice” metaphor to straighten her up on language :-
“Pakistan floods: Climate change experts say global warming could be the cause : The world weather crisis that is causing floods in Pakistan, wildfires in Russia and landslides in China is evidence that global warming predictions are correct, according to climate change experts. : By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent : Published: 10 Aug 2010 : Almost 14 million people have been affected by the torrential rains in Pakistan, making it a more serious humanitarian disaster than the South Asian tsunami and recent earthquakes in Kashmir and Haiti combined. The disaster was driven by a ‘supercharged jet stream’ that has also caused floods in China and a prolonged heatwave in Russia. It comes after flash floods in France and Eastern Europe killed more than 30 people over the summer. Experts from the United Nations (UN) and universities around the world said the recent “extreme weather events” prove global warming is already happening. Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, vice-president of the body set up by the UN to monitor global warming, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said the ‘dramatic’ weather patterns are consistent with changes in the climate caused by mankind. “These are events which reproduce and intensify in a climate disturbed by greenhouse gas pollution,” he said. “Extreme events are one of the ways in which climatic changes become dramatically visible.”…”
[ YouTube Credit : The link to the video above comes thanks to the endeavours of that most fair and balanced individual James “no net global warming since 1998” Delingpole. “No net global warming since 1998” ? James ! You’re quoting Pat Michaels, but did he perhaps make that up ? Or was it something that Christopher Monckton might have made up ? ]
The BBC puts the blame on Climate Change – almost – in a report on the Russian heatwave-wildfire disaster.
But they just can’t bring themselves to admit it as an organisation – and put the claims into the mouths of others – using quotation marks in the headline (‘partly to blame’) and ascribing the opinion to “researchers”, the “UK Met Office” and “experts” :-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-10919460
“10 August 2010 : Climate change ‘partly to blame’ for sweltering Moscow : By Katia Moskvitch : Science reporter, BBC News : Global climate change is partly to blame for the abnormally hot and dry weather in Moscow, cloaked in a haze of smoke from wildfires, say researchers. The UK Met Office said there are likely to be more extreme high temperatures in the future. Experts from the environmental group WWF Russia have also linked climate change and hot weather to raging wildfires around the Russian capital. Meteorologists say severe conditions may linger for several more days…”
Well, I’ve got a bit of a question to pose – it might not be possible to ascribe the current weather conditions in Russia (and Pakistan and China and and and…) to Climate Change, statistically. I mean no one weather event can be said to have been caused 100% by Climate Change. But would these extreme weather events have happened without Climate Change ?
That is by far the most important question to ask, and Michael Tobis does just that :-
https://initforthegold.blogspot.com/2010/08/moscow-doesnt-believe-in-this.html
“…Are the current events in Russia “because of” “global warming”? To put the question in slightly more formal terms, are we now looking at something that is no longer a “loading the dice” situation but is a “this would, practically certainly, not have happened without human interference” situation? Can we phrase it more formally? “Is the average time between persistent anomalies on this scale anywhere on earth in the undisturbed holocene climate much greater than a human lifetime?” In other words, is this so weird we would NEVER expect to see it at all?…”
Despite the best early morning wide-eyed televised efforts of Carol Browner this week, the BP Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill story just will not die :-
https://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/aug/05/oil-spill-white-house-accused-spin
“Gulf oil spill: White House accused of spinning report : Scientists say it is ‘just not true’ that the vast majority of oil from the BP spill has gone : Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent, guardian.co.uk, Thursday 5 August 2010”
Use all the dispersants you want (or are just about legally entitled to), but an ecological catastrophe like this will not go away and die quietly, even though a large number of marine animals will be forced to :-
https://motherjones.com/environment/2010/08/feds-giving-spill-data-to-bp-not-public
“…to use dispersants…doesn’t make the oil go away, it just puts it from one part of the ecosystem to another…”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TINzvWrtjYI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyutuErxPo8
Carol Browner, Director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy in the United States of America, has been all over the Media, announcing the policy to “kill kill kill this” BP nightmare story, telling the world that a turning milestone point has been reached :-
https://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/PDFs/OilBudget_description_%2083final.pdf
Have they decided that BP have been punished enough now for the Gulf of Mexico oil gusher, and the reputation of the company needs to be rehabilitated sharply in order to protect the Economy ?
I made the mistake of taking in a BBC TV news bulletin on the matter. I heard several talking heads say it’s “good news” that roughly three quarters of the accountable oil from the spill has “disappeared” :-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-10870159
Breaking this story is “good news” for the stability of pension funds, maybe. But what is the real extent of the real damage to the real world, the world of oceans and fish and plankton ? Will the world be watching as the researchers scavenge data and clues to the marine ecotastrophe that is still unfolding ?
Yet another mainstream Media commentator thinks he can act as arbiter on exactly how seriously dangerous Climate Change isn’t.
Tom Chivers’ writing is nice and easygoing, and his reasoning sounds reasonable, but in my opinion, his conclusion that there’s nothing to worry about is utter rot :-
“The Met Office’s climate change report: between denial and alarm lies reality” : By Tom Chivers, July 30th, 2010
What makes Tom Chivers believe that his opinion is valid ?
I expect he thinks he can do things like judge war crimes, build nuclear power steam turbines or invent a new diabetes vaccine, without any training, without any mastery, and without any knowledge of the history or research literature of the relevant Science.
No, Tom. The reality about Climate Change is that the data evidence is coming in at the high end of the projections of the last few decades, and there is no reason to accept that it’s going to calm down, ease off or go away or into reverse.
Somehow we need to find more courage to be as open, forthright and communicating as Professor Stephen Schneider was.
There’s a neat little linguistic trick that’s been used with much success in ideologically-oriented journalism over the years.
The reader feels he is being clever when he reads a qualifying statement, hinting at doubt or uncertainty, in an article or report about Climate Change, and concludes “I’m smart enough to realise that, because another view has been voiced, the science isn’t as settled as the scientists are claiming”.
And so you get people with absolutely no relevant education or training declaring things like a family friend of mine did last year, “I think Global Warming is not as bad as they are saying it is.”
What did he base his confidence in his own reasoning upon ?
Take a guess.
Got a helpful e-mail from Fiona Harvey, regarding my comments on her post. Apparently, I missed the “insider”, the more detailed article inside the front cover of the print edition of the newspaper :-
“Research says climate change undeniable” : By Fiona Harvey, Environment Correspondent, Published: July 28 2010
https://www.joabbess.com/2010/07/30/fiona-harvey-whoops-cat/
Fiona wrote :-
“…it is not always immediately apparent online, where stories get separated, but in yesterday’s paper this was essentially part one of a two part story, the second part of which was published inside, there being top little room for all the detail on the front page. The two stories should really be read together…”
I think that second part of the story must be this article :-
https://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/77bc6952-9a7b-11df-87fd-00144feab49a.html
“New climate data reignite debate” : By Fiona Harvey : Published: July 28 2010
This piece is written almost entirely from the point of view of Climate Change Science, and would have received a gold star from me, had it not been for the last paragraph :-
Now, I’ve met Fiona Harvey, and she gives the general impression of being a reasonable woman, with her own mind, smart, knowledgeable and pragmatic.
What she writes about is Environment in general, but she takes in Policy, Politics, Economics and Science, and her output is normally balanced, accurate, and free from interference from propaganda and propagandists. Well-rounded, I’d say. Informative and straight.
So how come she’s writing a Financial Times article with quotations from extreme Climate Change sceptics and deniers ?
I suspect a heavy editorial hand :-
“Research says climate change undeniable : By Fiona Harvey, Environment Correspondent, Published: July 28 2010”