On Tuesday David TC Davies held a debate on global warming and government policy in Westminster Hall. A DECC Minister replied.
It was well attended for a debate in Westminster Hall, as an increasing number of MPs are concerned about the impact of dear energy on household budgets, industrial development and our economy generally. Andrew Tyrie, Peter Lilley, Philip Davies and Christopher Chope who had disagreed with the Climate Change Act in 2008 were joined by some newer colleagues who spoke about the damaging impact dear energy can have on industrial jobs. Just two Labour MPs, the Minister and the front bench Labour spokeswoman defended the UK legislation and the EU framework of anti global warming measures.
Graham Stringer, a thoughtful Labour MP with a scientific background was critical of some of the so called science published on the subject of global warming. Several MPs sought to establish that there has been no global warming this century, and asked at what point the government would expect scientists to revise their models in the light of this evidence. Mr Davies pointed out that as the proponents of global warming stress climate change is a long term business, shouldn’t they show graphs going back hundreds of thousands of years and not just concentrate on the last 150 when there are better records?
The global warmists were asked if they accepted that there were plenty of other potential causes of global warming than manmade CO2, which had caused past periods of global warming? If they accepted this obvious truth, how could they be sure any recent warming was down to human CO2 and not one of these other factors. They were asked why they concentrated on CO2 and not on water vapour.
The so called “deniers” roundly rejected any idea that they denied the fact of climate change. All said they accepted the climate has changed a lot in the past and will doubtless change again in the future. They accepted that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and can have an effect, but that in order to model and predict accurately all sorts of other influences on climate and weather need to be taken into account.  They asked why we did not adapt as and when the climate changed, as a cheaper and more effective option than trying to prevent it.
To me the most powerful part of the sceptics case was the practical one. How can making energy especially dear in the UK/EU help, when it leads to industry shifting its jobs and processes elsewhere rather than stopping them? If there is to be no global agreement to curb man made CO2 what is the point of a relatively small producer putting itself at a massive competitive disadvantage? The US, Japan, China and others do not accept the Kyoto process. Australia has just voted down the carbon tax. We want more and better paid jobs in manufacturing in the UK, so we need realistic energy prices.
September 12, 2013
What are the chances of the 2008 Climate Change Act and all the related targets being repealed?
You mention adapting to the effects of climate change rather than attempting to reduce CO2.
There is on You Tube a very good film called 50 to 1 which point out it cost fifty times more to attempt to reduce CO2 than it would if we just adapted to any changes that were brought on by Global Warming,Climate Change or Global Cooling!
September 12, 2013
At least 50 times I would guess. Expensively reducing CO2 is a worse investment even than HS2.
September 12, 2013
Care to explain how someone in Africa can adapt to famine and droughts caused by global warming? I trust that “50 to 1” didn’t just assume that as long as the USA was okay that any harm caused to other countries didn’t matter.
September 12, 2013
People (and animals and plants) have adjusted to climate change since life first evolved. Humans are in a better position to do so now, than we ever have been in history.
September 13, 2013
Given that 98% of all animals that ever lived are now extinct it’s clear that they weren’t able to evolve and instead got wiped out.
September 14, 2013
Uanime5
That would only be clear to someone who doesn’t understand the science of Evolution and natural selection
September 14, 2013
@uanime5
“98% of all animals that ever lived are now extinct”
It’s know as natural selection.
It’s a bit like climate change itself – it’s natural.
Mankind cannot overrule the laws of the Universe.
September 15, 2013
Evolution is exactly that, survival (and thus reproduction) of the ones that are best suited to existance in the conditions that pertain.
Do you somehow think you can now become a God just by controlling C02 emissions (and only the man made ones at that)?
September 12, 2013
Ever noticed how those famines and droughts you think are caused by global warming always seem to impact most severely on countries with rapidly expanding populations?
September 13, 2013
They have always had droughts and famine- what an incredibly stupid thing to write.
September 13, 2013
The population is only expanding in the parts that aren’t being hit by droughts and famine.
September 14, 2013
Not so.
Thanks to our philanthropy, populations continue to increase despite droughts and famines, and by helping populations to increase beyond the limits than can be sustainably supported by their traditional methods of land use we in fact speed up denudation and even desertification and create a greater likelihood of famine in the future, whereupon we will once again step in with famine relief to keep the cycle going.
This is how the population of Dafur has increased six-fold since 1973, to roughly 7.5 million, and is heading towards 12 million by 2025. Given peace and good government and better methods of using the land maybe it could support 12 million people, ten times as many as in 1973, but that would be a big jump and nothing we did to reduce our emissions of carbon dioxide would have the slightest effect on whether or not that was achieved.
September 12, 2013
Uni
The less than one degree temperature rise in the 20th Century has far less cause and effect on famines and droughts in Africa than its many civil wars and general poor governance which have caused huge refugee movements of people and the abandoning of once fertile lands.
September 13, 2013
Given the high levels of desertification due to the lack of rain and the inability to grow food in some areas because it’s too hot it’s clear that the 1 degree rise is causing problems. The fact that there are other factors causing problems doesn’t change this.
Reply There was a large Sahara desert long before man made global warming.
September 12, 2013
Have you ever been to Africa? Which part of Africa are you worried about ? What help to the Sahara Desert is the UK reducing C02 going to do to make it fertile? Were there no famine and droughts in Africa prior to 1900?
It snowed in Southern Africa in May 1956, August 1962, June 1964, September 1981, August 2006, and on June 2007.
What is the average rainfall in Africa?
September 13, 2013
Libertarian, don’t ask awkward questions. The science of Global Warmunism is settled.
September 13, 2013
It snowed in Southern Africa in May 1956, August 1962, June 1964, September 1981, August 2006, and on June 2007.
In the southern hemisphere they have their winter in our summer, so it’s no surprise that there was snow in parts of southern Africa between May and September. You’ve also omitted that there’s numerous mountains in southern Africa where it does snow and that southern Africa has the mildest temperatures in Africa (which is why Europeans preferred to settle here, rather than the hotter parts of Africa).
September 14, 2013
So your story Uanime5 about the damage done by man made co2 to Africa you now admit is wrong. As you say Southern Africa experiences cold winters ( yes I know the seasons are different in the southern hemisphere ), The Mountains of East Coast also obviously get snow. The Sahara desert strangely covered a bigger area of desert during the last Ice Age ( by the way the Sahara has fairly predictable cycles, it will be a lush green fertile area in AD17,000 this is due to the 41,000 year cycle in which the tilt of the Earth changes from 22 degrees to 24.5 degrees)
Meanwhile in Tropical West Africa the high monsoon rainfall and swamp conditions don’t really point very much towards droughts. Soooo Uamime5 give us a clue again about what man made global warming is doing to Africa
September 12, 2013
If you bear in mind that the world has been cooling since 1997, you would have to read some proper left-wing greenie press to believe in AGW, resolutely ignoring the only facts we have.
Africans are not too fussed about global warming, as they do not follow the mainstream media. So they notice that the temperature is getting cooler, and they brace themselves for a harsh winter, like any normal person would.
September 13, 2013
All the scientific evidence shows that’s it’s been warming since 1997. I suspect that you didn’t provide a source for your cooling claim because you don’t have any evidence to back it up.
Also the people in Africa have noticed that the temperature is getting hotter and that their crops are failing because of it. That’s why charities are trying to get money to feed people in Africa, rather than give them warmer clothes.
September 14, 2013
Uanim5
You will forever remain ignorant if you just continue to believe leftie/green propaganda
There are just over 1 billion people in Africa there are 700,000 mobile phones in use. 35% of Kenya GDP is transmitted by the Mpesa mobile phone app.
The economies of the fastest growing African nations experienced growth significantly above the global average rates. The top nations in 2007 include Mauritania with growth at 19.8%, Angola at 17.6%, Sudan at 9.6%, Mozambique at 7.9% and Malawi at 7.8%. Other fast growers include Rwanda, Mozambique, Chad, Niger, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia. Nonetheless, growth has been dismal, negative or sluggish in many parts of Africa including Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo and Burundi. Many international agencies are gaining increasing interest in investing emerging African economies, especially as Africa continues to maintain high economic growth despite current global economic recession. The rate of return on investment in Africa is currently the highest in the developing world.
Go away read about the REAL Africa and stop spouting leftie nonsense
September 20, 2013
OH DEAR
Uanime5 you obviously didn’t get the message from troll central.
I think you better read this, as the games up. Next week the IPCC produce their latest report.
Here’s the main points.
They ( that is your hero’s in the AGW leadership ) now say
1) There has been NO WARMING for 17 years
2) They now admit that their models FAILED to take account of natural climate variances
3) They now admit that EVERY report since 1951 has seriously overestimated the rate of decadal warming.
Thats the headline there are more than 1800 admissions and questions about the veracity of their stance on AGW that have now been seen to be wild over exaggerations of the issue.
September 13, 2013
‘ famine and droughts caused by global warming?’
Did you not hear about the increased rainfall and agricultural yield caused by global warming?
September 13, 2013
Either provide evidence to back up your claim or admit that you just made it up. Global warming doesn’t result in more rain or greater agricultural yield, which is why the famines and droughts in Africa are getting worse.
September 14, 2013
I don’t see you providing evidence, just assertions.
September 13, 2013
Indeed, warmth and more C02 is rather more likely to be beneficial to plants and food production on balance.
September 13, 2013
uanime5: “Care to explain how someone in Africa can adapt to famine and droughts caused by global warming?”
fallacy number one. Food shortage is caused by [fictitious] global warming.
Take for example, Zimbabwe. A country that until it’s maniacal despotic leader, Mugabe totally lost it, was a food basket, exporting food. Now with food shortages and rampant inflation it is a basket case.
That in one of the most fertile, verdant regions of Africa.
September 12, 2013
For all the reasons you state the AGW religion/construct is self evidently pure nonsense. We just export CO2 emissions anyway. Adapting if and when needed is a far better option (it might well get colder anyway for other as yet unknown reasons), the “green” solutions simply do not work in economic or even in CO2 terms often, we cannot predict the future or even the weather in two weeks times with any real accuracy let alone in 100 years. It is a chaotic and hugely complex system and we do not even have most of the input information.
We need to listen to sensible (honest and unbiased) scientists (preferably rational physicist types) like Freeman Dyson and Richard Lindzen who have it almost exactly right. For anyone logical to imagine we can forecast with any accuracy the temperatures in 100 years time (when we do not even have most of the input data) is bonkers – as a moments thought reveals. Still less that we can predict that this will reduce future life expectancies by certain times. Hot on balance is actually probably better.
Anyway think what massive definite good and lives saved could be done by the money being wasted on this religion here and now (with technology we know works well). On malaria, nutrition, disease and the excellent things the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation does (to make amends for expensive, time wasting & irritating software one assumes).
Reply Mr Gates’s software has proved very popular and has greatly improved many lives.
September 12, 2013
We need not “realistic” energy prices but the very cheapest possible. This to give the country some real competitive advantages in the World. The country (thanks to the bloated state, over regulation, the EU, dis-function banks, the BBC think socialism, and Cameron’s lack of a working compass) has few enough competitive advantages currently.
September 12, 2013
How would we get this cheap energy? By no tax and letting anyone build power stations. Hey! Why has none thought of this before? Any government uses fuel tax as a method of taxation and if this were cut to zero where would the money come from? Mass pollution by foreign companies selling electricity without any regulation being the answer? Have a think? Cuts to benefits by any chance or less employment regulation that you do imagine exist, but cannot tell us about? You just feel its right in touchy feely BBC type way and expect us to agree? Not on this one either.
September 12, 2013
Bazzy
Do you struggle with thinking?
Pollution and unregulated markets are not the result of zero tax. Its perfectly possible to put in place pollution control and regulations without tax.
Your ramblings about benefits are nonsensical . Over 100,000 old people died in the UK last year of hyperthermia due to high cost of energy/heating caused by ultra high tax/duty and Green subsidy. Theres no point paying benefits and then the government taking it away again through tax now is there?
September 13, 2013
If energy was left to the free markets we would be in the same situation as in banking a massive bubble would develop and then the light would go out. How did free market competition benefit the banking system? They ran a shadow banking system next to the real one, No doubt the same would happen in energy. With repeals against any planning and pollution laws as stopping ‘sensible’ generation.Lets just get rid of all the energy and water companies and let everyone generate their own and drink bottles water with tax cuts to pay for this is what you are saying. Generators at the end of every street. It would be like letting the railways be totally owned and private. There would be no railway system for most of the country and what did exist would be plundered after the assets and land had been sold off. Need I go on? I will. The NHS would be the same and expecting the population to ever be further put in hardship and impoverished by a few people running insider companies for the benefit of themselves will only be tolerated so far. Your right wing free market fantasies are just that. Ram it.
September 13, 2013
I notice the profiteering of the six big energy billing companies and their blizzard of tariffs to hide this make no mention. Explain why? More free markets will solve this? Like more billing companies?
September 14, 2013
Do you find dealing with the State is any easier Baz?
September 13, 2013
Baz
Why do you persist in stating what you think are others opinions and then get all cross responding to these fantasies of your own making?
For example exactly who has ever called for the repealed of all laws currently controlling pollution?
And who has ever called for the removal of all planning regulations for new power station projects?
And hey! What is your plan for providing all the energy needs of the UK from non polluting,non nuclear and non fossil fuel sources?
September 14, 2013
As the fantasy gathers steam anything in its way would be seen as bad and stopping the free market and competition as banking did. Already some on this site see nuclear as over regulated. Within the M25 or some massive refuse power station in their area is of course not, but sauce for the goose.. In effect it meant stopping competition and the free market from causing problems to a few companies as they made a fortune taking the system down. Since when has any comapny wanted more competition?
September 14, 2013
Dear Baz
Amongst the lowest energy prices in the West is the United States, their energy infrastructure is entirely private as is ours. Our prices are only higher because of taxes/duties.
September 15, 2013
A total failure to address any of the points raised as usual.
Just off on another rant.
Still no response from you despite several requests to how you would actually supply the energy requirements of the UK from the non nuclear, zero CO2, zero pollution fantasy not yet invented technology you keep demanding we adopt.
September 15, 2013
“Mr Gatesâs software has proved very popular and has greatly improved many lives” Well yes but it is still often very, very, time wasting, irritating, slow to start and very inconvenient. It could be so, so much better.
Absurd legal protections and patent laws make the whole area far less efficient than it should be too. They get in the way all the time.
September 12, 2013
Off topic I see that the BBC radio 4 reporter (discussing the release of dangerous criminals, rapists and murderers) thinks that a re-offending rate of 2-5% is low!
In fact this only refers to the re-offending rate that is detected and successfully prosecuted. So the real rate is clearly far higher. I assume the BBC just think that the many extra murder, stabbing, GBH and rape victims are just “a price worth paying” for what the government save in prison costs.
September 12, 2013
Given that about 47% of criminals re-offend within a year of being released from prison a re-offending rate of 2-5% for dangerous criminals is low.
September 12, 2013
So you think we should accept perhaps 4 rapes/murders/stabbings for each 100 lifers we release do you. That is just the ones they catch and prosecute too?
September 13, 2013
What exactly is your solution? Lifetime imprisonment for these crimes will be very expensive and require several new prisons to be built.
Though better rehabilitation may also help.
September 12, 2013
We will never be free of the ‘global warming scaremongerers’ until we are free of the EU.
September 12, 2013
What the ‘deniers’ have said at that meeting is not brand new which has never been heard before. These arguments have been out for years now. So it might be worthwhile for you Parliamentarians to ask how much outside interests, e.g. the ‘green’ lobby, has influenced policies – based on nothing else but you all trying to look caring and green and hearting fluffy bunnies.
The crucial questions though are:
are you all in Parliament now going to scrap the Climate Change Act, are you going to stop the subsidies to “Renewables”, are you going to stop mothballing our coal power stations, are you going to stop allowing onshore and offshore wind farms being build?
This CCA has damaged our economy so much – it should be obvious that scrapping it would give a huge boost.
Oh, and in the interest of transparency a long, cold, hard look at the way the green lobby and their lobbyists have been influencing policies, have been employed by government and have been rewarded with seats in the HoL.
Reply MUch of what you would like would be illegal under EU law. That is yet another crucial reason why I want us to get on with renegotiating our relationship so we can have our own enegry policy.
September 12, 2013
Is any renegotiation going on, in reality, under Dave?
Reply The renegotiaiton of our relationship has to await a majority Conservative government in 2015, if that is the wish otf the v0ters, as Lib Dems do not support a major change to our relationship. Meanwhile other negotiations are underway to try to get the EU as a whole to return powers in areas like borders and welfare.
September 12, 2013
So no then. Dave has not even set out his thoughts and ideas, other than saying “heart and soul” and “no greater Switzerland”. Without some real movement on this he has no chance whatsoever in 2015. Even against the hopeless Milliband he will be lucky to have many more than 100 MPs.
He will surely be third in 2014 as the EU chap helpfully suggested, at this rate anyway.
Reply Not what the polls or doorsteps are saying.
September 12, 2013
The EU elections in May 2014 and the lack of a level playing field give him no chance without a change of direction. Alas if he changes direction no one will believe a word he says anyway and rightly so.
The only positive is how useless Miliband is, but he is better than Brown.
September 13, 2013
I thought JR wrote an open letter saying what a whitewash the FOC has written about the UK relationship wi the EU. Put electioneering aside JR, you know the Cameron machine is not going to change anything or negotiate anything with the EU. Borrows so was clear the other day about those who wish to claim powers back e truth is only party offers a different relationship with the Eau and that is UKIP. So many U turns and failed promises demonstrate that Cameron cannot be trusted on any pledge or promise.
(para deleted re a different issue referring to a specific case ed)
September 12, 2013
“MUch of what you would like would be illegal under EU law.”
That’s OK, our Parliament is sovereign and it can disapply EU laws.
It just needs to make clear to that our courts that the disapplication is deliberate and not inadvertent; as Bill Cash MP has repeatedly explained, it would be enough to include words such “notwithstanding the European Communities Act 1972”, and possibly an explicit instruction to the courts, in the legislation.
Which is what you yourself voted for, JR, on May 16th 2006, along with many of your senior Tory colleagues – Division No 239 at Column 945 here:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmhansrd/vo060516/debtext/60516-0017.htm
“New Clause 17
DISAPPLICATION OF EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES ACT 1972 (NO. 2)
â(1) An order made under Part 1 containing provision relating to Community treaties, Community instruments or Community obligations shall, notwithstanding the European Communities Act 1972, be binding in any legal proceedings in the United Kingdom … ”
Reply I agree and did, and would do so again, but there remains the problem that a majority of the current Parliament do not intend to do any such thing.
September 12, 2013
How about all the subsidies for nuclear how do you square that off when ranting on about energy subsidies and how wrong they are. Not to mention all the subsidies given to oil companies in the form of tax breaks and not having to pay for pollution, but we will stick to nuclear the most expansive and dangerous way of boiling water ever devised by man. I suppose the Japan nuclear fiasco is all the fault of the BBC and their bias reporting. Take a closer look your usual BBC socialist fantasy on this.
September 12, 2013
Don’t swallow that BBC nonsense. Nuclear is the cheapest form of energy, by a long, long way. The Japanese incident was a great example of how safe Nuclear is – every system, every backup system, the power supply to the centre, all flooded, most failed. How many people died? Not one. How many injured? Not a single person. Those are the facts.
September 13, 2013
I suppose the banking cris was also a resounding sucess for eveyone. The number of cancer deaths in the future could run into 100’s of thousands the nuclear pollution is very much in the food chain and how much is is going to cost to clean up the mess in the long term? Their is really no arguing with apparatchiks like yourself. It is noticeable though how the likes of you have very little to say on low wages, conditions and benefit reductions for the working poor. You know you would be squashed very quickly and the small mean minded self would be open for all to see. Yes they are all linked and it is personal.
September 13, 2013
Baz
You say nuclear is dangerous but just a few people have lost their lives from nuclear power whereas tens of thousands have died from the exploration, production and supply of gas,oil and coal.
And your answer to providing all our energy from non nuclear non fossil fuels is what exactly?
September 13, 2013
It’s a good point. However the cost of nuclear is not real and the danger and cost of a total meltdown which has never happened as you say is not affordable. The money spent on nuclear could be spent on other safer energy sources and conservation not on power sources of last resort like nuclear and at the moment solar and wind power. Nuclear submarines are powered by nuclear energy as nothing else safer is avalible.
September 13, 2013
Though their safety systems worked they were built in the wrong place – next to a huge fault line which was known about.
September 14, 2013
I saw a recent programme that said that in Japan, not only did the sea rise up over the sea defenses, the shore fell (by around a metre or more) because of the earthquakes, and that meant the sea was moving across land that was easier to flood.
September 15, 2013
Due to corruption and cost savings as elf and safety was no doubt absurd and pointless. Interesting to see the demographics of where the power stations where located. Isn’t it lojo.. Central Tokyo? Though they are now eating it. Ram it.
September 12, 2013
Did the DECC side have any answer to the question as to why they are so sure that ALL the global warming since preindustrial times is due to man made CO2? If there is good reason to think there might be other causes it means the climate sensitivity of carbon is less than has been assumed, therefore we do not face the c. 3C of warming this century which has been feared – which is the assumption upon which all these policies of expensive energy are based.
September 12, 2013
Care to provide another source of CO2 that just happened to occur around the industrial revolution. Don’t forget that as long as humans are producing huge amounts of CO2 it will have an effect on the atmosphere.
Reply If you are such an expert on why the world sometimes warms up, why don’t you share with us what caused previous eras of global warming before manmade CO2?
September 12, 2013
Reply to reply
John, could you explain why it is that previous changes in the climate that did not depend on man-made CO2 rule out the possibility that man-made CO2 can change the climate.
Re[ply It doesn’t, but if you wish to establish it is now man made CO2 changing the climate you do need to ask whether it could be the factors that changed the climate before.
September 12, 2013
Of course that question has been asked by scientists. Just because some politicians might or might not have is irrelevant. It’s worth reading the scientific literature.
September 12, 2013
Nature is the source of most CO2 emissions (the guess is c90 Gt pa); man made CO2 is c5-8 Gt pa.
You need to check out satellite readings of CO2; they reveal that the concentrations are to be found over areas such the African tropics not over industrial centres such the USA, the Ruhr or China.
September 13, 2013
So the greatest concentrations are over the equator, which is also where the global temperature is the hottest.
September 12, 2013
uanime5, you speak such rubbish!
1. Humans create about 4% of the CO2, the rest occurs naturally. The UK produces less than 2% of man-produced CO2. So we provide about 0.008% of the CO2 in the world. If the UK cut our carbon emissions to zero it would not affect the temperature of the earth by the slightest degree.
2. CO2 increases as the earth warms, not the other way around
3. The earth was far warmer in previous years, for example, we can prove the Romans grew grapes and made wine in Scotland, and Greenland was a ‘green land’.
Please do the research and do not believe what you are told by governments and mainstream media.
September 13, 2013
2. CO2 increases as the earth warms, not the other way around
Care to explain what has been warming the earth and releasing extra CO2. I suspect you won’t because you don’t know what you’re talking about.
3. The earth was far warmer in previous years, for example, we can prove the Romans grew grapes and made wine in Scotland, and Greenland was a âgreen landâ.
The Romans never controlled Scotland and even build Hadrian’s wall to keep the Scots out of the Roman Empire. Though they did try growing grapes in England this failed, which is why they had to import so much wine.
Also Greenland is still green, however it’s also cold which makes it difficult to grow food there or raise animals. That’s why the natives have a long history of whale hunting, rather than farming.
September 14, 2013
“Care to explain what has been warming the earth and releasing extra CO2.”
To say that because we don’t know for certain where this extra heating originates, so we must be the guilty party, is being a tad unscientific! Especially when this statement is more likely:
” CO2 increases as the earth warms, not the other way around”
Here is an abstract that would need to be refuted before your desperate reason could be considered:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/283/5408/1712.full
Science 12 March 1999:
Vol. 283 no. 5408 pp. 1712-1714
DOI:10.1126/science.283.5408.1712
ICE CORE RECORDS OF ATMOSPHERIC CO2 AROUND THE LAST THREE GLACIAL TERMINATIONS
Air trapped in bubbles in polar ice cores constitutes an archive for the reconstruction of the global carbon cycle and the relation between greenhouse gases and climate in the past. High-resolution records from Antarctic ice cores show that carbon dioxide concentrations increased by 80 to 100 parts per million by volume 600 ± 400 years after the warming of the last three deglaciations. Despite strongly decreasing temperatures, high carbon dioxide concentrations can be sustained for thousands of years during glaciations; the size of this phase lag is probably connected to the duration of the preceding warm period, which controls the change in land ice coverage and the buildup of the terrestrial biosphere.
September 14, 2013
Romans grew grapes and made wine in Scotland, and Greenland was a âgreen landâ. Salmon also lived in trees and ate pencils too?
September 12, 2013
Reply to unanime5: that mankind produces CO2 is not in dispute, nor is it in dispute that this will affect the atmosphere. What is in dispute is how much. The clear evidence of recent years is the climate sensitivity of carbon has been overestimated, we do not face the alarming warming which has been forecast, and therefore the expensive green energy policies are not justified.
September 13, 2013
There are several possible reasons why the temperature could have risen in the past however it’s not possible to verify which one is correct as it’s not possible to travel back to the past and test which factor was the most important. Fortunately as it is possible to test for these things in the present it’s possible to rule them out.
Let’s not forget that the current global warming has already surpassed the temperature increases that occurred during the medieval warm period (0.2°C) and in a much shorter period of time.
September 14, 2013
I am surprised that you acknowledge that the Medieval Warm Period occurred. It has been suppressed in order to make the hockey stick a more effective piece of propaganda, but it is making a comeback! It wouldn’t go away.
September 16, 2013
If you are such an expert in this field why not seek a copy of the new IPCC report which pulls apart previous predictions which were used to craft EU Energy policy?
September 12, 2013
Why I read your excellent blog is because it so often foretells the future accurately.
When I listened to the Global Warmists, they foretold vast flooding of London, the Maldives, and Bangla Desh. They foretold the end of the Polar Ice Cap. They foretold rapid warming that would cause the extinction of the human race.
The have also lied about the science. They have bent the truth (Wind Farm output). Some of them (no names, and I am not thinking of UK here) have used the scare to become stinking rich – at our expense.
That is why I hope that they get thrown out before the lights really do go out when they close the last coal fired power station.
September 12, 2013
The use of the term “deniers” with its holocaust overtones is particularly offensive. In an interview with Imperialâs Head of Physics, Professor Jo Haigh with Professor Jim Al-Khalili for BBC Radio 4âs The Life Scientific, she used this deeply unpleasant approach to sensible sceptics.
I decided (I disagreed with ed) Prof Jo Haigh , she was hardly a Richard Feyman, Freeman Dyson, Einstein figure. In particular she oddly seemed to think predicting the weather a long time in the future is somehow easier than next week due to “noise”.
As a trained Physicist, Mathematician & later Electronic Engineer I understand well the concept of noise. But she showed a remarkable lack of understanding of chaotic systems. One day’s weather clearly affect the next day and we do not even have all the inputs for the next hundred years anyway. Not can we be sure that a little hotter is not a good thing. Noise is not the problem with the any prediction.
Countless variables such as volcanoes, asteroid impacts, genetic variations, viral, bacterial activities, the suns activity, cloud activity, the many technical innovations to come – she simply cannot know these with much certainty at all and they are all relevant.
Adapt if and when needed is the sensible approach and use the money now being wasted to do something with clear benefits now like third world, basic medical service, clean water, nutrition, making building in earth quake areas safe and disease control.
September 12, 2013
I listened to some of this debate. I heard several examples of global warming sceptics asking simple questions of the proponents, but without an answer being provided. An example here:
Mr Redwood: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that before industrialisation, there was a lot of global warming and then global cooling? Can he tell us what caused the global warming before man generated CO2?
Barry Gardiner: I will not respond to the right hon. Gentlemanâs question simply because of lack of time, but I assure him that there was of course global warming and global cooling. We are looking at anthropogenic global warming, which is what we must be concerned about. âŠ.
It was fascinating to listen this debate having recently read Christopher Moncktonâs article, âAristotleâs climateâ
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2012/04/20/aristotles-climate/
We heard plenty of the âconsensusâ and âappeal to authorityâ fallacies and some of the âarguing from ignoranceâ fallacy.
The more the public can hear this topic being properly debated the better. I am sure that Climate Change Act was passed almost entirely on the basis of a false philosophy of science, the essence of which should have been understood for the last 2,300 years.
September 12, 2013
How exactly is raising irrelevant questions praiseworthy? In a debate about the effect of man made CO2 the effects of CO2 from other sources is irrelevant.
September 12, 2013
So Unaime5
You believe that co2 is a major source of global warming BUT you don’t care at all about any co2 that isn’t derived from human activity?
I think that neatly sums up why your opinions can be safely dismissed as unintelligible
September 13, 2013
In a debate about how humans can reduce their CO2 emissions, CO2 emissions from humans aren’t relevant. The fact that you don’t like this doesn’t make it wrong of me to point this out.
September 14, 2013
Uanime5
If human Co2 isn’t the cause of the problem why would you want or need to reduce them? If co2 is the harbinger of doom that you tell us is an absolute certainty then why would you not look at ways to reduce ALL forms of co2?
Ad I said you give the game away its politics not science or even common sense
September 15, 2013
libertarian: why would you not look at ways to reduce ALL forms of co2?”
For the Greenies, there is a special nasty form of the molecule of one Carbon atom and two Oxygen atoms, it has magical properties compared to the ‘natural’ molecule of one Carbon atom and two Oxygen atoms which doesn’t have any magical properties.
This is ‘Green science’ for you.
September 12, 2013
Which âirrelevant questionsâ?
The very nub of the global warming question is how you explain previous warming (followed by cooling) when man-made CO2 (albeit a tiny fraction of total CO2) could not have been a factor? How do the positive feedbacks in the models work in these circumstances? â the warming should sky-rocket, but it does not; the earthâs climate recovers â indicating a negative feedback system completely at odds with the failed climate models.
September 13, 2013
The previous warming was far less than the current warming and occurred over a much longer period of time, so it’s clear that they don’t have the same cause. You’ve also ignored that there’s a proven link between CO2 levels, rising global temperatures, and an increase in man made CO2.
Also if the earthâs climate was recovering the average global temperature would be dropping, rather than continually rising for over a century.
September 14, 2013
If I gave you the 1890 to 1946 HADCRUT4 dataset of global temperatures and the 1957 to 2008 dataset from the same source, I would suggest that you would find it very difficult to distinguish between them in terms of length of warming period or the rate of rise of temperature.
The CO2 âproblemâ, we are told, starts around 1950. So (1) what caused the 1890-1946 warming? (2) why is the cause of the 1957-2008 warming not from the same source as earlier? (3) How can you tell that the 1957-2008 warming was caused by man-made CO2, but the 1890-1946 was not?
NB Gigo computer models that bear no relation to observations will not provide an answer.
September 12, 2013
The question was highly relevant.
September 14, 2013
Try answering some highly relevant questions yourself.
September 12, 2013
Indeed how long does it take to say what caused the earlier warming and cooling? All sorts of thinks did just as they always have done.
It is just as all religions just appeal to irrational emotions and fears, they have a nice vision of hell and do some feel good if you behave factors and say “God moves in mysterious ways my son” when they get stuck, as they always do.
September 12, 2013
If there is nothing outside of nature. Everything has to follow the natural laws inside nature, which means that every event has to follow one from another according to those laws. Every event is therefore predetermined by what went before (with a random element if quantum effects apply).
Since the thoughts in your head are simply natural events in your brain. Your thoughts are already pre-determined. Then by definition you can have no rational thought.
You call others irrational, but your own reasoning rules out the possibility of rationality by definition, and therefore you can’t trust what you think.
September 13, 2013
Well if, as you claim, “every event is therefore predetermined” then there is clearly no point in reducing co2 production anyway or even getting out of bed tomorrow, or driving in a safe manner is there?
September 14, 2013
I haven’t claimed that. It is what your purely naturalistic view must conclude. You’ve right, it makes debate pointless – unless a purely naturalistic view is wrong.
September 14, 2013
As most of your arguments are based on do nothing right wing religious fatalistic fantasy its a bit rich for you to quote religion as fatalistic!
September 12, 2013
In the light of the failure of the global warming models which underpin green legislation, and of increasing public skepticism, it is time for the Govt (or Parliament if they refuse) to force a public debate on this. One of the most unsatisfactory aspects of the AGW debate is the refusal of climate scientists to engage in any debate. In no other field of science would this be possible, especially when so much public money and so much economically is at stake. Lord Lawson has offered to host a discussion between some sceptical scientists and warmist scientists from the Royal Society. But Sir Paul Nurse, president of the Royal Society, has refused to engage. If he was confident of his ground you would have thought he would be delighted to do so. Given many of these scientists are in the public pay, and given they are loud advocates of policies with huge costs for the public, Parliament must force them to defend their ground as a condition of continued funding.
September 12, 2013
One of the most unsatisfactory aspects of the AGW debate is the refusal of climate scientists to engage in any debate.
That’s because in science they use research, rather than debate, to determined what is correct. The fact that you don’t like this doesn’t make the science wrong.
September 12, 2013
For interest, again, do you have any scientific qualifications?
September 12, 2013
Not just scientists. In Scotland every single MSP in a parliament that passed the world’s most draconian climate change act not a single one of them was willing to enter a public debate.
One reason most Scots want to stay in the Union is because our politicians make Westminster look almost sane.
September 13, 2013
Why would they need a public debate? How is a public debate better than asking the experts on climate for advice?
September 14, 2013
The experts are funded by the government gravy train, so need to keep to the CMGW agenda.
The public, and a few honourable MPs, contain people with valid questions that have not been answered because of the above, not because of a lack of time!
September 12, 2013
The research you refer to is all based on a computer modelling programmes which develop predictions years ago which are now being seen to not be coming true.
September 13, 2013
The research I’m making reference to is based on measuring the temperature of this planet for over a century. Care to explain how this list of temperatures has been modelled incorrectly.
September 14, 2013
Because Uni, the predictions made by these computer models thirty or so years ago can now be seen to not be coming true.
September 12, 2013
Er so you don’t know anything about science either then. One of the main drivers of scientific enquiry is debate
September 13, 2013
Debate has never been used for scientific inquiry. That’s why New Scientist is full of scientific research, rather than debates.
September 14, 2013
Debate has ALWAYS been used, its called peer review in scientific terminology. There has never and still isn’t 100% agreement on any scientific issue
September 12, 2013
You can certainly debate computer modelling methodology and outcomes. A vast amount of scientific research, not just in climatology, is now done using this method – it’s probably possible to prove the moon is made of green cheese!
September 13, 2013
How exactly would you debate how to use computer modelling? Also you seem to have confused method and methodology.
September 14, 2013
Well you could debate it by going to Watts up With That a website run by a mathematical and statistical modeller who proved beyond doubt that both Michael Mann and UEA (needed questioning on their models ed). The debate that started following this revelation caused the IPCC to issue an apology
September 14, 2013
With the gigo climate computer models, I must admit I’m stumped!
September 12, 2013
Reply to unanime5: there is plenty of research on both sides of this argument. The refusal of climate scientists on the alarmist side to engage in public discussion with their opponents reveals an astonishing lack of confidence in their position. That economically expensive policies are formed on the basis of predictions by such climate scientists means parliament must force them to explain and defend their conclusions.
September 13, 2013
There’s no research on the denier’s side of the argument, that’s why they’re never able to refer to any research to back up any of their claims. It’s also why deniers can’t agree whether there’s no global warming or whether global warming is caused by something other than humans.
Also science is about research, not debating. I suspect you only want a debate because you’re unable to refute the research.
September 14, 2013
If by ‘denier’ you mean a scientist who thinks the climate sensitivity of carbon is less than the IPCC’s estimate your assertion is clearly nonsense. There is a wealth of such research and many excellent scientists who support that skeptical view. A public presentation was made in the House of Commons on this last year by Prof Lindzen of MIT.
September 13, 2013
they have not factored other things into their climate models – particularly from whats going on under the icecaps. Yes research has been done but the models are hugely flawed
September 12, 2013
Indeed but their ground is not defensible with logic or reason it is an absurd exaggeration of their powers of predicting the future.
Ask if they can give us the weather around the world in two weeks time and then let them move on a day at a time if they get that spot on perhaps.
September 12, 2013
JR you are one of a few MPs who are Tory by nature and conviction. Unfortunately you are not heard or entrained by the social democrat Club of Cameron. Today we learn Boles wants to build on national parks. Has he lost the plot? I thought the Cameron green quackery had gone too far, but,once more, he shows no depths to alienating his supporters. Good luck with your lone voice in your party. The rest of us are off to pastures new.
September 12, 2013
Green Taxes are just a scam for taking more tax off of the public and business, simple as that.
Gordon Brown was rather good at finding all sorts of reasons for raising taxes, even taxing pensions, pension investments, holiday flights, and by reducing tax free allowances with his famous fiscal drag act.
All done so that he could fund his grand social engineering ideas and experiments and get government into as many lives as possible.
The government have now become used to this additional income, and like any addict, find it difficult to kick the habit no matter how sensible the argument.
As said many times before, until our tax, welfare and benefits system is made far more simple and relevent to todays competitive world, and government becomes serious about cutting its own spending and waste, then nothing will change except the climate, which has been doing that for centuries..
September 12, 2013
Alan–Good stuff, except, for centuries read millennia (billennia?), and no mistake.
September 12, 2013
From a psychological point of view its simply that the eco/marxist/anti-globalist lobby has found something to latch onto. Im against free markets, I was conservation and Im anti-globalist – but I also dont believe in man made global warming. I think if we cut back on pollutants we’ll live in a better world. Anti co2/carbon emissions should be anti smog and pollution.
September 12, 2013
When will the wheels finally drop off the AGW bandwagon? The subsidy waste on wind power paid for in spades by consumers and industry is hurting us all.
September 12, 2013
The new Australian Prime Minister also said that anything Australia could do to reduce emissions was but a very small drop in the Ocean given what China and India are emitting. He was not prepared to ruin the Australian economy and the well being of the citizens to follow an expensive green policy.
We in the UK are similarly positioned in that if we became a zero polluter tomorrow, the increase year on year by China would itself wipe out our effort.
Yet Mr Cameron earlier this week again praised yet another wind farm proposal.
If he knows how expensively ineffective these are, why does he support them?
The bigger question though may be that he really is ignorant about them!
September 12, 2013
(false allegation left out ed|) Windmills are a most effective way of taking money from all the poor people and giving it to a few landowners and utility companies. That is why it has such excellent support in parliament.
September 12, 2013
You and the other sceptics raised very good questions. Did you get any good answers?
Graham Stringer MP deserves the honourable mention as he was the only MP on the then HoC Science and Technology Committee to raise a dissenting voice about the quality of the science (and especially the statistical methods used by the climate scientists) during the Committee`s Climategate investigation.
It seems that a large element of the scientific and parliamentary establishment have forgotten – or perhaps are even unaware of – the observation of the late Richard Feynmann. He said, in a lecture to students available on line, that scientific laws start with a guess. The guess is then tested by experiment and observation. If experiment and observation do not support the guess, then the guess is wrong. The climate science establishment with influence over the political process guessed that their climate models (correlating the earth`s temperature with man-made CO2) would enable them to predict the earth`s temperature. They guessed wrong. But, through their influence over the political process, we all are saddled with the monstrous Climate Change Act.
September 12, 2013
Oldtimer–Agreed, but no need to bring in the word “guess” which has pejorative connotations. Rather, prediction is the word and any “science” that cannot face the consequences of its predictions being wrong isn’t worth a damn. Predictions being met is absolutely everything and they haven’t been. Too many warmist scientists have to keep up the pretence that their predictions will click in in a decade or two (or whatever it is they say) so their models may, according to them, still be held to be correct, else they would no longer get grants.
September 13, 2013
“Guess” is the word used by Richard Feynmann in his lecture at Cornell 1964.
A succinct description on how laws of science are worked out in all of 1 minute 3 seconds!
September 13, 2013
Care to explain why scientists in the USA were claiming that global warming was man made when George W Bush was giving grants to scientists who said the opposite? Just because you don’t like what the science shows doesn’t make it wrong.
September 12, 2013
‘Deniers’
A bad word as it arrogantly assumes that the science is settled. A less dictatorial word would be ‘skeptics’.
Your conclusion in the final paragraph is the right one. Most here did not need to be told.
Unfortunately you’re but one voice against the mighty BBC. They claim that their licence fee is good value, but not after the exorbitant cost to taxpayers of policies which have been dictated by the BBC are brought into the equation.
September 12, 2013
Sceptic is only used when those with a dissenting position have evidence to support them. Denier is far more appropriate as these people have no evidence to support any of their claims and often refuse to talk about the science because they know nothing about it.
September 12, 2013
You are able to reply to skeptical arguments only with insults. There are many scientists on the skeptical side. The evidence on the skeptical side is the failure of the global warming models to make correct predictions to date, the fact that there have been extensive past changes in global temperature which are not correlated with CO2 levels, and the lack of evidence for any worsening of extreme weather events as forecast by global warming alarmists.
September 13, 2013
Firstly I’m harsh with the deniers because I know they have no evidence to back up their claims and have no patiences for (people ed) who keep peddling the same (views ed).
Secondly there are almost no scientists on the side of the deniers because the science shows that the deniers are wrong.
Thirdly the scientific evidence has shown that global warming has continues to increase as CO2 levels increase, so the predictions have been correct.
Fourthly you’ve failed to provide any evidence that past changes in temperature weren’t related to CO2 levels.
Fifthly there is evidence that the weather has gotten more extreme, such as more category 5 hurricanes.
Reply Scientists can be wrong as well, you know. Scientists used to think the sun went round the earth and told the public then that the science was settled.
September 12, 2013
@uanime5
The predicted global warming has not happened.
When the facts don’t support your predictions, you need to re-asses the basis of your predictions.
The computer modelling is flawed, and the warmists have been caught trying to falsify results to support their agenda, as we saw from the UEA/CRA leaked emails.
It must be very embarrassing for you warmists, but remember the old adage “when you’re in a hole – stop digging”.
September 13, 2013
The predictions of global warming were that increased CO2 levels would lead to an increased average global temperature. The scientific evidence has proven that this has occurred. If you’d actually looked that the facts, rather than the nonsense spouted by deniers, you’d know this.
Also how exactly is the computer modelling flawed and do you even know what the computer modelling is for?
September 14, 2013
A model is flawed if its predictions do not match observations, which is the case, over the last 25 years since the AGW hysteria started, with the climate models upon which green legislation is based.
September 13, 2013
Uanime5 – I don’t think that the Warmists are that particular about whom they’ll call a ‘denier’ – those of an opposing view qualify for it regardless of whether or not they can back it up.
It is we who have had to change words such as ‘…phobe’ and ‘denier’ to the polite and correct one, which is sceptic. The Left never had the good grace or manners to even think of doing so – in fact pejorative terms (intimating that to oppose was a sure sign of insanity) were chosen quite craftily.
It’s nice of you to try to clarify what you now think you mean by ‘denier’ and thus confirm the word’s significance – but that is to re-order history (as usual.) WE had to insist on our right to be called ‘sceptics’ and wrest the English language back from you. It seems as though you are constructing this defence on the hoof – we were all going to be called ‘deniers’ whether we had the facts or not.
I labour the point because the control of language is at the very heart of the Socialist coup which has swept Britain.
Power has been assumed rather than won. To be conservative has, in many ways, become unacceptable in ‘polite’ company. By extension of the use of language, conservatism has also become illegal in a number of ways by means of dubious and unequally applied anti-discrimination law.
September 12, 2013
Shall we see any positive action as a result of this? I am sure that both front benches are more concerned with keeping their masters in Brussels happy and raking in the tax take to care about the consumers. Incidentally, were the global warmists able to answer any of the points put to them?
September 12, 2013
I especially agree with the last paragraph. Arguing whether climate change is man made or not is a diversion from attacking the nonsense of wind farms and dear UK energy.
If man-made climate change is not what is happening then pushing up the price of energy makes no sense.
If man-made climate change is what is happening, then higher energy prices in the UK and Europe will push production to China and other countries with far lower environmental standards. So the global industrial production will become dirtier. In this case pushing up the price of energy in the UK still makes no sense and is actually making the problem worse.
Please do not be diverted on whose climate theories are right. The expensive energy policy is wrong regardless.
September 12, 2013
Will this discussion change anything? And even if we in the UK want to provide cheaper energy can we do it while in the EU? I yam sorry to say I am not optimistic.
I think the point about climate change is well made. Our climate has been changing since the beginning of time. Why is any present change the consequence of human activity? The science is unpersuasive. In the meantime I feel my pocket is being picked.
September 12, 2013
Border Boy–Re the EU I do not see much hope in terms of Cameron’s general renegotiation statements, simply because such a thing would now be a gargantuan task with proactive agreement of anything significant most unlikely. Instead either we just leave outright and everybody gets used to it or we proceed in manageable rifle shot chunks. One such chunk would be for us to abrogate anything to do with Climate Change and let the rest do as they see fit. Some might even thank us. In any event they would get the message and once a bit of dust had settled we could go on and unilaterally chop some other pieces of EU nonsense off at the knees one by one.
September 12, 2013
JR wrote: They [“deniers”] asked why we did not adapt as and when the climate changed, as a cheaper and more effective option than trying to prevent it.
Would it be cheaper though? Treating famine and disease caused by droughts and floods seem expensive and – based on our past history (e.g. Vietnamese boat people, Ugandan Asians expelled by Amin) – we are likely to offer to take tens of thousands of refugees. Not sure that will be a vote winner for the Tories – particularly if coastal areas here have been affected.
Reply What do you think the optimum temperature for the world is, and mow could man enforce it?
September 12, 2013
There is no evidence that global warming has caused increased droughts or floods. There is no evidence of any increase in the rate of sea level rise – its been increasing since the end of the last ice age and will go on doing so until the next one. I don’t think Parliament, or even the EU, could alter the rate of sea level rise through legislation.
September 14, 2013
Scientific rebuttals to 174 common climate change myths can be read at the following: http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php
September 12, 2013
SJB, the evidence is that the earth has been cooling since 1997. Should we really be destroying our economy and adding ÂŁ5,000 to every family’s (even the poorest!) fuel bill for warming that allegedly may happen, but is completely unsupported by the facts? Even the scenarios that you predict above are unsupported by facts, for example, in the middle ages the earth was far warmer than it is now, and it was a very prosperous time for humans, with benevolent conditions for plants and animals alike.
September 13, 2013
There’s no evidence that the earth has been cooling since 1997 and much evidence that it has continued to warm. Face it if there was evidence that the earth was cooling the deniers would be using this evidence rather than their usual nonsense.
Also the middle ages were much cooler than it is now as the average global temperature surpassed their level in the 1960’s.
September 14, 2013
lojolondown wrote: [T]he evidence is that the earth has been cooling since 1997.
The first decade of this century was the hottest on record, as the link I provided in my original post would have shown – had it survived moderation đ
September 15, 2013
Strange that even the IPCC and our own Met Office have data on their websites that show no discernible increase in global temperature since 2000.
And don’t forget 2000 was the point at which temperature was predicted by those in the warmist industry to rapidly increase.
September 12, 2013
As one who works in the energy industry I follow the climate change debate closely. The first thing to say is that our climate is a chaotic system and we understand very little of the multiple interactions which take place and the roles that everything from the troposphere to the oceans have within it.
The second thing to say is that the AGW doomsayers rely mostly on computer models which try to replicate climate interactions. They have now been in place for many years and what we seem from empirical evidence, that is measured actual values, is that they do not correspond with the models and in fact the models are wildly inaccurate. Much of this inaccuracy is down to a measure in the science called climate sensitivity which is to do with temperature change in relation to radiative forcing. New evidence and scientific papers have shown that the high values in the models which help generate the potentially high temperature increases which the AGW fraternity use to scaremonger are incorrect.
There is also the question of water vapour which is present in far larger quantities than CO2 and what role this plays. Recent work by Svensmark has shown that the sun and cosmic rays have a huge impact on water vapour and in turn the production of cloud cover. Again cloud cover is a critical element of any climate change calculation which the AGW supporters tend to ignore.
As Graham Stringer knows the science has been made to fit UN and government policy and not forgetting of course that institutions worldwide gain vast sums of money in research grants from governments who support large scale decarbonisation. He who pays the piper calls the tune as it were. There has been numerous allegations of scientic malpractice, some of which have been made public and there are even legal proceedings pending in some countries.
As for government policy it has been dictated over the years by Labour and LibDems and their friends in various green groups – you need only look at the meetings DECC ministers have.
It now is emerginging that we have hundreds of trillions of cubic feet of Shale Gas under our feet which potentially can make us energy secure for many decades, if not centuries if the current rate of discovery continues. But what is happening in government ? The Conservative party are letting Davey and crew at DECC dump all over it.
Our bills are rising and they need not do so. To continue to subsidise inefficient and uneconomic technologies such as wind farms is complete folly. But sadly we the consumer are paying for it.
September 13, 2013
The first thing to say is that our climate is a chaotic system and we understand very little of the multiple interactions which take place and the roles that everything from the troposphere to the oceans have within it.
Just because it’s too complex for you to understand doesn’t mean that scientists don’t understand it.
The second thing to say is that the AGW doomsayers rely mostly on computer models which try to replicate climate interactions. They have now been in place for many years and what we seem from empirical evidence, that is measured actual values, is that they do not correspond with the models and in fact the models are wildly inaccurate. Much of this inaccuracy is down to a measure in the science called climate sensitivity which is to do with temperature change in relation to radiative forcing.
What about all the evidence from measuring the average global temperature throughout the year? This has shown that the average global temperature has increased every decade, and doesn’t require computer modelling or involve radiative forcing.
New evidence and scientific papers have shown that the high values in the models which help generate the potentially high temperature increases which the AGW fraternity use to scaremonger are incorrect.
Either provide the evidence or admit you just made this up.
There is also the question of water vapour which is present in far larger quantities than CO2 and what role this plays.
Water vapour remains in the atmosphere for 10 days, so it’s unlikely to play any role in global warming, which has been ongoing for over a century.
Recent work by Svensmark has shown that the sun and cosmic rays have a huge impact on water vapour and in turn the production of cloud cover. Again cloud cover is a critical element of any climate change calculation which the AGW supporters tend to ignore.
Actually this was mentioned in the IPCC report. They also provided evidence showing why it wouldn’t be able to cause a constant increase in the average global temperature for over a century.
As Graham Stringer knows the science has been made to fit UN and government policy and not forgetting of course that institutions worldwide gain vast sums of money in research grants from governments who support large scale decarbonisation. He who pays the piper calls the tune as it were. There has been numerous allegations of scientic malpractice, some of which have been made public and there are even legal proceedings pending in some countries.
Any other conspiracy theories that aren’t supported by any evidence you want to talk about. Don’t forget to explain why any of these organisation would want to do any of these things.
It now is emerginging that we have hundreds of trillions of cubic feet of Shale Gas under our feet which potentially can make us energy secure for many decades, if not centuries if the current rate of discovery continues. But what is happening in government ? The Conservative party are letting Davey and crew at DECC dump all over it.
The evidence has shown that only 2% is likely to be extractable, so it will be decades at best.
September 12, 2013
What the climate change “lovers” always fail to say is that something like 95% of carbon dioxide is naturally occurring and that leaves a tiny percentage supposedly man-made.
These people are so ignorant of anything natural you could tell them any old lie and they would believe it if you repeated it often enough.
September 12, 2013
One thing which is interesting here is to look at why climate scientists are getting things consistently wrong. The answer lies in how we traditionally do science. Scientists are trained by what amounts to an apprenticeship system; you start out as a degree graduate, and go looking for a PhD project that suits. You then have three years of very hard work, and a year of poverty writing up whereupon if you pass (a PhD viva is very, very stressful) you are a card-carrying scientist.
The problem here is that a PhD trains you very well in how to do science and in a very small area, but that’s all it does. This is the failure point with climate science: to do this science, you need to do a lot of heavy duty computer programming and as I can testify, a PhD is no training for a programmer (I can write Perl with the best of ’em, but that’s my limit). This leads to the phenomenon seen in the Climategate leaks where the original programmer (appears to be ed) a self-taught Cobol coder.
Unlike the vast majority of people I didn’t look at the Climategate emails much, instead I looked first at (one part of the climate scientists work ed), then out of curiosity at the leaked Cobol code. The actual source code is (inadequate ed). The author (probably ed)only knew Cobol and Bourne shell scripting, the former a high-level language and the latter a very simple scripting language. So, the Cobol code is dotted through every so often with shell calls where it was easier to use shell than Cobol. This is a perfect example of the adage “When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail”.
The (file case I examined ed) is equally illuminating. There was no handover period between the initial author and the man who wrote this file, so the second bloke was going in cold. He apparently had been taught some coding, and knew how these things should work and as the project was past major version one naturally thought that it was fully working, with but minor bugs that had no effect on output. In this assumtion (it was questionable ed), and the Harry.readme file reads like an emotional trip from enthusiasm, to surprise, to incredulity and finally resigned depression.
Basically he’s inherited a (poor base ed). The code was undocumented, poorly and sparsely commented and didn’t follow any normal conventions. Normal convention for a failing program is to return an error code and to throw out error messages to a specific output; these programs failed completely silently so you didn’t know anything was wrong until you checked the output. Completely against all best practice, and all for a very simple reason.
Self-taught programmers (can make errors ed). PhD scientific apprenticeships teach science, not computer programming. Expecting people to magically pick up coding skills when not taught is utterly unrealistic. Funding climate science on the basis of the usual small team of just scientists WILL NOT WORK.
This is why it is failing; climate science (and several other sciences) need a collaboration of skilled, properly taught computer programmers working as a team with climate scientists, and furthermore we need an impartial, trustworthy way to check the code used by climate scientists to generate results. We don’t have this at present, which is why we’re getting (poor ed) results.
Reply This is an interesting line of criticism. I have no idea of the truth of any of this, and will happily print any alternative view if there is a case for the defence.
September 12, 2013
A timely post – it was amusing to see the leader of UKIP in the European Parliament during the called SOCEU address waving a couple of NASA images at the Maoist president comparing the North West passage ice mass 2012 – 2013.
I think that reasons the so called genius scientists behind what climate change policy is driven include thats:
a. they know full well that the sun goes through cooler and warmer cycles – evidenced in part by the last ‘mini ice age’ when the Thames used to freeze over
b. There is evidence that in the case of Greenland ice melt is coming from the earth’s mantle and is exasperated by the fact that it sits on a huge canion which lets in sea water and exasperates the melt
– both or these are factors which have a profound effect on icebergs melting and Climate/Sea levels etc (and were happening long before we had Chelsea 4x4s and aeroplanes)
My educated guess is that the genius scientific community has not modeled these factors into their calculations and stupid “follow the sheep politicians” have gone along with it.
And it takes a pleb to work this out!
September 13, 2013
a. they know full well that the sun goes through cooler and warmer cycles â evidenced in part by the last âmini ice ageâ when the Thames used to freeze over
These cycles last for 11 years, while global warming has been ongoing for over a century. So it’s clear that these cycles aren’t causing global warming.
b. There is evidence that in the case of Greenland ice melt is coming from the earthâs mantle and is exasperated by the fact that it sits on a huge canion which lets in sea water and exasperates the melt
Care to provide any evidence to support this claim. Make sure you explain why this is only happening in Greenland, rather than somewhere on a tectonic fault line.
September 12, 2013
I heard it online. Intellectually the case was made, as shown by the flat refusal of the Minister to try and answer your question.
I would have tried to insist on the alarmists not merely defending the term “climate change” (everybody but the Hockeystickers accepts that has happened for millennia) but “catastrophic anthropogenic global warming”. After all if it isn’t catastrophic then, by definition, Britain alone spending ÂŁ800 bn to ameliorate it by a small fraction of a degree is far from cost effective.
September 12, 2013
I watched this debate on Bishop Hill’s site. Very impressed with David Davies – down to earth common sense at last. Gave me hope that we might finally be seeing the beginning of the end of this lunacy.
September 12, 2013
At last, MPs debating the climate issue in a more or less rigorous manner. As the IPCC and all major players now admit that ‘warming’ has ceased, there should now be a complete revision of CC predictions and their associated computer models which are clearly faulty, and of the political decisions based on them. Costly energy is in no one’s interests, particularly those deriving from wind subsidy.
A glimmer of hope on the energy front. How about some sense on the EU next?
September 13, 2013
All the scientific evidence shows that warming is still ongoing. Perhaps you should actually look at what has been happening to the average global temperature over the past century.
September 12, 2013
The ‘green’ alternatives just aren’t realistic.
I sent Don Foster 1.6g of coal (a teaspoonful), equivalent in energy to the volume of air in the HoC chamber at 20 mph.
Human progress has been driven by ever denser sources of energy we can’t step back 200 years now. Whenever someone comes up with a ‘new’ energy source ask the question, “What is its energy density?”.
September 12, 2013
The UK has taken steps in CO2 reduction which are not an EU requirement, such as setting emissions so low as to prevent more efficient coal burning, as adopted by Germany.
They have ignored the findings in their own book ‘Sustainable Energy’ by the only qualified member of their team. For instance the undersea link to Iceland, which will be expensive, have large transmission loss and only provide a small proportion.
They have failed to account for the support required for variable wind power and are now resorting to emergency diesel backup. The enormous proportion of coal generation being converted to wood pellets made in America from native trees only works if the accounting methods originally devised by the EU are used. But their own scientific committee has warned that these are highly likely to be false and do not account for alternative land use, long re- growth periods and transport emissions.
Two of the DECC top civil servants have left. What were their qualifications and who has taken their place? Who is in charge of wind generation and what are his qualifications? If any have a science or engineering title, why is it not there for us to see?
September 12, 2013
CO2 is a greenhouse gas insofar as it absorbs radiant energy more than other major atmospheric gases apart from water vapour, but that that component of it which is anthropogenically originated ’causes’ AGW is an hypothesis based upon inference and no more than that. People with a numerate science background know that in order to test a proposition, it is essential to remove all other extraneous factors including interactions between that entitiy being tested and those extraneous factors and between the extraneous factors themselves. When it comes to climate change, there are a lot of extraneous factors, many of which are still poorly understood.
September 13, 2013
“there are a lot of extraneous factors, many of which are still poorly understood”
Indeed and many are simply unpredictable, random and cannot ever be predicted. It is a chaotic system. Higher C02 might spark of changes in plant evolution that has totally positive effects for all we know.
September 13, 2013
I certainly wouldn’t rule out the possibility of developing a global climate model which was good enough to provide useful guidance for public policy decisions, with enough refined and accurate data and enough computing power. But that would be decades hence, and the highly politicised and partially fraudulent theories being pushed at the moment are far more likely to mislead decision makers than provide them with good guidance, so it would be better to disregard them.
September 13, 2013
It has never been necessary to remove all extraneous factors as it’s possible to get accurate results as long as they remain constant.
September 12, 2013
Ease up JR, think about it. Large global Re-insurance firms are dropping their political support for right wing climate deniers like Heartland Institute; Cato and the like. A Conservative / Republican political party should be supporting climate change mitigation. It will be your party sponsors that will suffer most out of climate change; especially large re-insurance corporations and underwriters at LLoyds.
R Street Institute, (a standard US conservative organization in all respects but one: it believes in climate change and supports a carbon tax to combat it) points out that a carbon tax fits conservative orthodoxy. “It is a broad and flat tax, whose revenue can be used to do away with the corporate income tax â a favorite target of the right. It provides a market-friendly signal, forcing polluters to bear the cost imposed on the rest of us and encouraging them to pollute less. And it is much preferable to a parade of new regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency”.
CO2 went through the 400 ppm barrier back in April this year. Highest for 3 million years; when the sea was twenty meters higher.
September 12, 2013
The question is whether any of the present climatological theories are sufficiently reliable to provide a sound basis for major public policy decisions.
My answer is that they are not, an assessment based not only on my own scientific experience but also on an awareness that there has been not only fudging of the models but manipulation of the input data which in some cases amounts to fraud.
Very probably adequate climatological theories will be developed in the future, and then there might be good grounds for saying that we should do this or that to try to mitigate harmful changes to the global climate, but not yet and I suspect not for decades.
September 13, 2013
Care to elaborate on what scientific research you did to research your conclusion, along with your own scientific qualifications. Make sure you include an explanation as to why your data is more accurate than data from scientific institutions with more advanced measuring devices.
September 14, 2013
Why don’t you start by answering my question about whether you have any scientific qualifications or experience at all?
I’m BSc ARCS DPhil, I’m a physical chemist who specialised in polymer chemistry, and at various times my research involved precise temperature measurements, near infra spectrophotometry and the computer modelling of complex systems. Therefore from my own practical experience I had a pretty good idea of the potential pitfalls in what some climatologists were trying to do and started off with a healthy scepticism about their claims.
Nothing has happened to make me less sceptical, in fact the reverse: when it is found that temperature records have been systematically “adjusted” in a way which is at best bad scientific practice and at worst scientific fraud then that in itself confirms that the theory is not reliable, and its advocates must know that it is not reliable.
September 12, 2013
Slightly off subject but on green issues, I was surprised to find that my house had been fitted with a water meter and that this is now compulsary. Of course, we all appreciate that water is in short supply when we have a period of dry weather and that water saving measures are sensible. However, one of the ways in which water is wasted has been caused by the change to valve operated WC cisterns in 1999. Thes can allow a slow leak to develop around the seal on the piston and otfen this is hardly noticeable, showing as a slight trickle on the water surface. The old cisterns were fitted with a siphon and these could not leak, as the leak would have to travel uphill.
However the manufacturers are happy to make and sell the new smart valves, especially as they have to be replaced frequently. In the US it has been found that one in five WC valves are leaking at any time an this equates to 20- 30 litres of water per person. Now, instead of installing expensive water meters and employing meter readers, relying on users to find ways of saving, such as small flushes and not washing, would it not have been a good idea to phase out valves. But then a whole industry would be reduced and employment and tax bills.
Reply Also the new standard cisterns often fail to clean sufficiently at first attempt, leading to a bigger waste of water.
September 12, 2013
Stred
In addition most toilet cisterns now (Close coupled at least) do not have an exterior overflow pipe to the outside, instead water goes silently into the bowl, so not as obvious that the valve is leaking as water pouring from an overflow pipe.
Personally I always like the rather more old fashioned and far more simple ball valve made of brass with a rubber sealing washer, better than the flimsy plastic junk fittings that are produced and fitted nowadays, which all seem to fail after just a few years of use.
September 12, 2013
These leakage rates of 20-30 ltrs are per day/person and must be much higher than any hoped for reduction caused by metering. If so , this must be a disgraceful piece of manipulation of regulation by the water and plumbing industry. There is a British device which allows 2 stage flushing on syphons and is used by councils and commercial organisations. However, the syphon is now being replaced everywhere by the leaky valve. See Interflush site.
September 12, 2013
Here is a Forbes article regarding media coverage of the ice levels on both Poles –
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2012/09/19/antarctic-sea-ice-sets-another-record/
September 12, 2013
A chilly Arctic summer has left nearly a million more square miles of ocean covered with ice than at the same time last year â an increase of 60 per cent.
The rebound from 2012âs record low comes six years after the BBC reported that global warming would leave the Arctic ice-free in summer by 2013.
Instead, days before the annual autumn re-freeze is due to begin, an unbroken ice sheet more than half the size of Europe already stretches from the Canadian islands to Russiaâs northern shores
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2415191/Global-cooling-Arctic-ice-caps-grows-60-global-warming-predictions.html#ixzz2egOvpyTZ
September 12, 2013
It was well attended for a debate in Westminster Hall, as an increasing number of MPs are concerned about the impact of dear energy on household budgets, industrial development and our economy generally.
Just because the cost of energy is more expensive doesn’t invalidate all the scientific evidence showing that man made CO2 is causing global warming.
Graham Stringer, a thoughtful Labour MP with a scientific background was critical of some of the so called science published on the subject of global warming.
What was his explanation of why the average global temperature has been rising for over a century?
Several MPs sought to establish that there has been no global warming this century, and asked at what point the government would expect scientists to revise their models in the light of this evidence.
Given that NASA has shown that between 2000 and 2013 there has been evidence of global warming I have to wonder just what evidence these MPs were basing this claim on.
These MPs have also ignored that there is a wealth of evidence showing that global warming occurred in the previous century.
Mr Davies pointed out that as the proponents of global warming stress climate change is a long term business, shouldnât they show graphs going back hundreds of thousands of years and not just concentrate on the last 150 when there are better records?
Anthropic global warming is caused by the extra CO2 produced by humans over the past 150 years, so there’s no reason to go back further. Don’t forget that before thermometers were invented it wasn’t possible to accurate measure the temperature, so any graph going back thousands of years will have a large margin of error.
The global warmists were asked if they accepted that there were plenty of other potential causes of global warming than manmade CO2, which had caused past periods of global warming?
Care to name some of these other causes. It’s funny how deniers always mention other causes but have no idea what these causes might be.
If they accepted this obvious truth, how could they be sure any recent warming was down to human CO2 and not one of these other factors. They were asked why they concentrated on CO2 and not on water vapour.
Water vapour remains in the atmosphere for 10 days, CO2 remains in the atmosphere for a century. That’s why the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere keeps increasing while the percentage of water vapour does not. Consequently it’s far more likely that global warming is being caused by CO2, rather than water vapour.
They accepted that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and can have an effect, but that in order to model and predict accurately all sorts of other influences on climate and weather need to be taken into account.
No they don’t. Yet again the deniers are demanding that irrelevant factors be considered in an attempt criticise the models which show that scientists are right and the deniers are wrong.
They asked why we did not adapt as and when the climate changed, as a cheaper and more effective option than trying to prevent it.
In other words you want to keep on doing what you’ve always done, regardless of the problems it causes everyone else, because changing is difficult.
To me the most powerful part of the sceptics case was the practical one.
No surprise there; given that the deniers lost the scientific argument when global warming was proven to be man made they’re now claiming that trying to combat it will be too expensive. Of course once they lose the economic argument I have no doubt they’ll find something else to complain about.
How can making energy especially dear in the UK/EU help, when it leads to industry shifting its jobs and processes elsewhere rather than stopping them?
You seem to have ignored that this hasn’t happened in Germany, even though Germany relies heavily on manufacturing.
We want more and better paid jobs in manufacturing in the UK, so we need realistic energy prices.
Give that the UK is unable to get to Germany’s level, even though Germany is subject to EU law, it’s unlikely that UK manufacturing will increase if we stop obeying EU law. Manufacturing in the UK has been in decline for a while, mainly because engineers are so badly paid in the UK.
September 12, 2013
Still no answers from you Uni to several challenges re the Al Gore film and the original IPPC report where the dire predictions made then can be seen now to not be coming true.
Islands still not under water.
No rise of sea levels by several feet.
No runaway increase in temperature after 2000 due to tipping points being reached.
No disappearance of ice caps.
No stopping of the ocean sea currents.
Any ideas why they got it wrong?
September 13, 2013
Al Gore has built himself a Mc Mansion on the beach .
Clearly doesn’t believe in AGW and rising sea levels himself but has made a lot of money by pushing the NWO agenda for his fellow elites .
Given the green movement have lost the argument against returning to the stone age perhaps we can expect to see them concentrating on traditional (alternative ed) policies ; (word left out ed) euthenasia , one child limits .
September 13, 2013
Care to provide actual evidence from the IPCC report that contained these dire predictions, along with a time table of when they were meant to occur.
September 14, 2013
Care to actually answer my points Uni, without dodging the issue by asking questions as a response.
September 12, 2013
@uanime5
“Just because the cost of energy is more expensive doesnât invalidate all the scientific evidence showing that man made CO2 is causing global warming.”
There has been nothing more than minor natural variations in global average temperatures, and as you will have read above, “A chilly Arctic summer has left nearly a million more square miles of ocean covered with ice than at the same time last year â an increase of 60 per cent.”
You cannot expect the Earth’s climate to remain in stasis just because it suits you. The climate changes, always has, always will, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Remember King Canute ?
September 13, 2013
The average global temperature hasn’t been this high in millions of years, so it’s more than a minor variation.
One year of increased ice does not mean that decades of decreased ice has been undone.
Also humans can prevent the earth’s climate from increasing by producing less CO2.
September 14, 2013
Uni. It was warmer than now, in the period of the Roman empire, in nothern Europe so if the global average was cooler than now it must have been colder elsewhere. So how to you know this was the case. Were the Romans keeping global records or is there research on this question?
September 14, 2013
It is clear you have no idea what you are talking about. Google global temperature records and look at the graph over 542 million years. Anyone reading who can be bothered might want to do the same and remember the result when next reading a post by you on this subject.
September 13, 2013
@uanime5
More pure nonsense from you again, Listen to sensible physicists like Profs Freeman Dyson, Richard Lindzen or even me. We all accept humans produce some CO2 and this is likely (all things being equal) to warm the earth slightly, but it is only one of countless factors.
Many factors we simply cannot know or predict what about all the volcanoes over the next century are these known? The weather is a chaotic systems and anyone who claims they can predict it accurately (for 100 years+ is either deluded or a con merchant. Predicting lottery balls given their starting conditions (after say 1 minute of mixing) is a far, far, simpler task.
September 13, 2013
I prefer to listen to scientists who have evidence to back up their claims, rather than those who have no evidence.
September 14, 2013
“Predicting lottery balls given their starting conditions (after say 1 minute of mixing) is a far, far, simpler task.”
But it is possible to correctly predict that, over a period, the balls will be drawn roughly the same number of times. That is the average behaviour of the lottery balls – i.e. its ‘climate’.
If, for example, an extra number-7 ball is added, it is correct to predict that, over a period, the number 7 will be drawn more than any other number even if it is impossible to predict which numbers will be drawn on any particular occasion. In this example, the average behaviour is very predictable, even if the numbers selected each week are not.
September 15, 2013
Wrong!
With lottery balls each draw event is independent so you can predict an average with some certainty.
With weather what happens today, affects tomorrow which affects the day after. If it rains today we get more evaporation and thus cloud tomorrow, then different cloud, different plants, different humans for example so the odds change unpredictably. So what you say about average of the balls and climate is just wrong.
Anyway we do not really even know the suns output for the next 100 years or the future volcanic activity.
The parallel with lottery balls averages and climate simply does not apply.
September 15, 2013
I’m afraid it’s not wrong.
There are constraints on the system. Feedbacks do not have limitless growth. The temperatures in late summer in England lie within limits irrespective of whether it was warm or cold on the 1st of June. Those limits could change though. The rain I see out the window today is irrelevant for the future climate.
You are right the lottery balls analogy may not be the best and contains too many simplifications (you introduced it to make an erroneous argument). But since we are there, imagine that each number must follow from another e.g. 2 must follow from 3 so the events are not independent. It is still true that if the first number is chosen at random the frequency of drawing each number is predictable.
September 15, 2013
Or perhaps due to rain the day after tomorrow Mr & Mrs X go to bed early conceive a new child who becomes a brilliant physicist and cracks controlled fusion in 24 year time. Thus giving cheap energy and changing the world completely.
How will the computer models predict the effect of that on climate in 100 years time?
September 15, 2013
I doubt that will happen. Mr and Mrs X will probably be too poor to afford a decent education for their child and the much less talented offspring of Lord and Lady Y will get the Cambridge places instead.
September 15, 2013
Perhaps unlikely on its own, but there are billions of possible random events that could change the climate. wars, viruses, disease and all could be affected by the weather today or just a falling branch on some ones head. These could go on to change the world and the climate in 100 years time so how can they predict it with sill computer models. They are clearly deluded or just fraudsters.
Furthermore we do not even know the what Suns output, volcanic activity or asteroid impacts for the next 100 years.
September 15, 2013
From what I hear Cambridge (science at least anyway) is still fairly good at finding talent, from wherever can be found.
September 13, 2013
@uanime5
Is your real name Ed Davey or Chris Huhne by any chance?
September 12, 2013
Whether there is such a thing as global warming is purely a matter of public opinion . I have listened to all the arguments put forward and I am not convinced that the enviromentalists have got it right . One thing I do know is that while the debate continues , the economy suffers and the knock on effect is far more serious to the world population – particularly the impoverished . Cheap energy is essential to our recovery and it should be the main plank of the drive to improve things .
September 12, 2013
“Whether there is such a thing as global warming is purely a matter of public opinion”
No, it’s a matter of scientific investigation.
September 12, 2013
While I am prepared to accept that something is happening to our climate and that high carbon levels are a bad thing, I am concerned by the fact that the old hard left, the type who believe property is theft etc. decamped “en masse” to the green movement as a way of attacking capitalism and societal structures.
They are aided by the fact that there are so many “group think”useful idiots in our chattering classes, and getting beyond the science debate, how we should respond to carbon increase, is being too narrowly addressed. For example, too many seem to believe in expensive, unreliable, uneconomic wind energy – few are discussing the possibility of carbon capture and reopening our coal mines.
There are also incremental things that can be done. I used to live in Westminster and the government buildings there were often ablaze with light – even our very efficient Local Council was guilty. Meanwhile energy prices rise hobbling UK industry and poorer citizens.
September 13, 2013
Sounds like that air con fan on the side of Wokingham Council offices on the way to the Molly Millar sports bar which used to be going hell for leather all weekend .
As a resident (of Wokingham and during a big match the Molly Millar) , thanks to the person who has started turning it off when it’s not needed .
September 12, 2013
Off topic but it should be brought up.
Sept 22 is the date of the German election.
September 12, 2013
Regardless of the rights and wrongs of man-made global warming … it seems obvious to me that renewable energy is more desirable than energy from burning carbon. So, money should be spent on renewables research.
BUT, it strikes me successive governments are determined to screw the people of this country into the ground.
They insist on us paying huge sums for our houses (no chance of the housing market being left to itself – no chance of banks being regulated properly – no chance of new housing being built to match demand), they add massively to the cost of housing with energy regulations and they tax energy as highly as they can to try to make renewables economic.
You couldn’t make it up really. Hey guys, now we’re in government, how can we ruin this country? High house prices! High Energy Prices!
September 13, 2013
Yes money should be spent on renewables “research” but do not roll it out yet into production as it is just not cost effective. They are building white elephant systems all over the place using vast tax payer subsidies and destroying real businesses.
September 12, 2013
The question of CO2 emission being linked to particulate and other gases being emitted at the same time is not acknowledged. The dirt in London and other cities of the world will not go away with existing technology. The need for clean energy and more efficient use of it by transport, manufacturing and households is also ignored. The fantasists seem to have no problem with massive subsides for nuclear, and like the idea of research into fission which could be the new perpetual motion. Private money will not fund this to any useful degree and nuclear cannot exist outside the state and even then not within the M25. The idea that the private market will provide the answers to efficient technology and competition will solve the energy problem is for the birds. It would be like banking, but in this case the country would be in a freezing blackout when the fantasy collapsed.
September 12, 2013
Bazman
Why dont you tell us what the subsidy is to nuclear and what the subsidy is to green?
There are 9 Nuclear sites in the UK, 8 are operated by EDF, they were purchased by EDF for ÂŁ12 billion from the nationalised British Nuclear Energy Co.
There are plans for the construction of 8 new reactors in the UK. ALL 8 are privately financed.
Your statement about not existing outside the state is blatant nonsense. We ALREADY import nuclear generated electricity from France. Your point about being within the M25 has no relevance to anything.
Your statements about private finance of energy are deluded. Who do you think invented all the power generating technologies, who do you think put in place the original power plants and coal fired power stations, who do you think built the distribution network. Hint It wasn’t the government or the taxpayer.
Do you see people like you with no credibility who then try to back AWG just make it obvious that only the ignorant, gullible and rent seekers believe in your stories
September 14, 2013
The French electricity is from French state owned nuclear power station. The private finance of some British nuclear facilities is as you say provided in by ĂlectricitĂ© de France or EDF.. A state owned company France strangely enough! Now should the worst happen and a nuclear disaster on the scale of Chernobyl or Japan occurs who is going to clean up the mess and pay the compensation to those affected. Thats right EDF. In the UK, the Nuclear Installations Act of 1965 governs liability for nuclear damage for which a UK nuclear licensee is responsible. The limit for the operator is ÂŁ140 million. Enough to buy a few tin hats or the like. After that the state and Europe is responsible. See here.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Safety-and-Security/Safety-of-Plants/Liability-for-Nuclear-Damage/
So in effect the state covers the operator for liability. How much would that be worth in the private market? Priceless. They could not operate without it. As I said. State owned in this case by the French state who neatly avoid liability and sell us power at guaranteed prices for the next decades. Good init? We will look at green subsidies later. For the moment. Ram it.
September 16, 2013
Bazzy
Wrong again…Oh dear now about those green subsidies????
Until 19 November 2004, EDF was a state-owned corporation, but it is now a limited-liability corporation under private law (société anonyme), after its status was changed by statute. The French government floated shares of the company on the Paris Stock Exchange in November 2005.
September 17, 2013
Is the state still liable for any nuclear catastrophe which was my main point? Limited-liability corporation? Yes we are. Splitting hairs will not help you especially in France where the privately owned car companies are quite clearly funded by the state. France is a socialist country and must be especially so to right wing Tories. Ram it.
September 17, 2013
Bazzy
You don’t know what a limited liability company is?
So you are claiming that the French government are responsible for funding the cleanup of any nuclear accident in the UK?
This is nothing to do with French car companies but you’re wrong about that too.
So where are these Green subsidy numbers then ?
Rather than your normal socialist propaganda try supplying the evidence that you promised 3 threads ago.
Oh you cant because Bazman Rammit the great Socialist keyboard warrior & scourge of the right is in complete support of the British Aristocracy and the Land owning class with their billions in green subsidies whilst providing employment for exactly NO workers. Solidarity Comrade
Meanwhile I’m fighting for the 9,000 workers due to lose their jobs when our local nuclear power station is closed by the EU regulations. This is next to the largest Offshore Wind Farm in the world which provides less than 5% of the electricity that the power station provides and provides work for less than 50 people yet cost nearly double the cost of a nuclear generator
September 17, 2013
I have never said I support windmills. They are a power source of last resort like nuclear. If you read the my post. The nuclear industry is only responsible for the first 140 million quid. Not even plods overtime or enough iodine tablets.They could never find the insurance on the open market so are in effect underwritten by the state like banks to big to fail, but in this case huge swathes land would become inhabitable even Tory areas and right landowners land. Nothing bigger than that. How much is that worth to shareholders and the workforce? State employees. No getting away from it. The state and Europe would pay for the clean up no the nuclear companies .End of. As for French cars. You are seriously telling me that the French government does not secretly and illegally fund these companies. Never. The clue is in the price of many models. To cheap by far for a private company. As for your 9000 employees they will be released to do more useful work as liflogic tells us of state workers.
September 13, 2013
“The question of CO2 emission being linked to particulate and other gases being emitted at the same time is not acknowledged.”
Sounds like you’re trying to build a reserve line of defence there.
September 13, 2013
This does not answer the question of other types of pollution linked to CO2.
September 14, 2013
Baz
Co2 isn’t a pollutant and no scientist has ever claimed it was.
September 15, 2013
What about particulates and other gasses linked to CO2? Hello!
September 16, 2013
Well Bazzy why dont you tell us what those “other” gasses linked to Co2 are….. go on….Ram it
September 14, 2013
And your plan to provide all the energy needs of the UK from sources which create no pollution nor any CO2 is what exactly?
And you regularly accuse others of having fantasies.
September 16, 2013
This technology at the moment does not exist. This is my point. The main thing that we can do at the moment is investing in new more efficient technology, backing research into this and conservation method such as conservation. 9000 kw of gas and 4600 kw of electricity per annum used in my house. Not bad huh!? With no hair shirt either!
September 16, 2013
Baz
In my dirty great mansion my gas consumption is exactly….. Zero
So I think dirty horrid polluters like you should pay far more tax, its only fair. Ram it
September 17, 2013
We already do. If you use no energy you pay no tax.
September 17, 2013
I use no energy so pay no tax…really Bazman? really?
Anyhow as someone that uses far more energy than me you should pay a far higher rate of tax than me. Its only fair surely
September 18, 2013
If you use no energy in your home you will avoid the 5% vat. However you will still have to pay for subsidies via the tax system for oil/gas and especially wind and nuclear. So higher rate tax payers would pay more and as they live in larger houses and drive more uneconomical cars as well as generally consuming more they pay more tax. Whether they should or should pay more is open to debate. Glad to have cleared that one up for you.
September 13, 2013
It looks like the tightening of rules on sulphur emissions in ships which burn heavy fuel oil due for implementation in 2015 will be put back as nobody is ready .
If they go for exhaust stack scrubbers it should drastically cut down the sooty particulates which are generated as well .
Bazman , what do you mean by “the energy problem” ?
September 12, 2013
In 1963 in geology lessons we schools were taught that we were in an interglacial period , which for epochs had swung between global warming flooding ,cooling and ice formation. The earth is again going to see this pattern , so why believe that we will have a great deal of impact on nature, all the mini ‘Canutes’ in the world won’t change the future, yet I for one don’t want to live amongst smog again and don’t fancy speeding up’ el nino’s’ assaults . Of course there are some buffoons who still believe the earth is flat and won’t be moved. Yesterday on the news we looked at the woolly mammoth who suffered due to global warming. We can’t wait for ever for proof or else the future type of animal this earth inherits will only be able to get evidence from our bones and DNA.
September 12, 2013
I’m glad to see that some sense on this topic has made itself more widely present in MP-land.
September 12, 2013
Firstly, it was very good that the debate on AGW has taken place. Also that at least one Labour MP is a sceptic.
As every scientist knows, a hypothesis can only be verified by empirical examination producing confirmatory data. The AGW hypothesis has not been subjected to such tests. In fact the past fifteen year hiatus in mean surface global temperature would, in most other cases, falsify the hypothesis. All we seem to receive from the warmists is arm waving, and suggesting that the missing energy has, somehow, gone into the deep oceans. A simpler explanation might be that the model designers have assumed either too much feedback. Or even feedback of the wrong sign. Running models and varying parameters is not an experiment. Somehow the IPCC scientists believe otherwise.
September 13, 2013
Amazing that Labour have chinless wonder Tom Greatex as shadow energy minister when they could have Chemistry graduate Graham Stringer .
Graham Stringer’s forthright views are never going to sit well with the political establishment .
September 13, 2013
The AGW hypothesis has been proven correct because the average global temperature has increased, along with CO2 levels. Also the records of the average global temperature shows there hasn’t been a 15 year hiatus as the average global temperature has continued to increase.
September 14, 2013
Just a shame the Met Office figures from 1997 don’t agree with your assertions on the increases of average global temperature Uni.
Bear in mind we were warned that from 2000 the rate of increase would speed up greatly and the reverse has happened.
September 12, 2013
I was encouraged to see that this debate had taken place and applaud David T.C. Davies for taking the initiative to secure it. It was also good to hear from increasing numbers of MPs who are prepared to stand up against the climatological inexactitudes that models offer. However, the real test is how MPs vote when it comes to legislation.
In that regard, it was disappointing that only 8 MPs voted against the Energy Bill with its plans to make energy expensive and rationed, and there were some 396 MPs who supported crippling the economy in this way – including, sadly, Mr David T.C. Davies. It was interesting to note that the erstwhile Labour Energy Secretary, now LOTO, abstained. The Bill needs radical surgery if it is not to do serious harm. Perhaps we could use some advice from Mr Abbott in Australia on how to amend it.
September 13, 2013
‘It was well attended for a debate in Westminster Hall, as an increasing number of MPs are concerned about the impact of dear energy on household budgets’
Let me rewrite that.
‘It was well attended for a debate in Westminster Hall, as an increasing number of MPs are concerned about the impact of dear energy on household budgets will have on their ability to attract the votes they need to stay on the gravy train’.
September 13, 2013
‘ If there is to be no global agreement to curb man made CO2 what is the point of a relatively small producer putting itself at a massive competitive disadvantage? ‘
That’s easy, John. It’s so (subsidy junkies ed) can pocket a big chunk of the government-sponsored green subsidy cash.
September 13, 2013
To make a sensible energy policy for the UK, we wouldn’t use historical data for the tropics or the polar regions, would we? So why did the Climate Change Act use global data.
In the UK, using the CET data set, one of the longest in the world, managed and used by the UK Met Office, the monthly mean temperature in 1659 (start date) was 8.83 deg C last year (2012) the monthly mean temperature was 9.70 deg C. In other words in 353 years the temperature has only risen by 0.87 deg C.
Considering the minimum of the Little Ice Age was about 1650 we would expect temperatures to rise. But 0.002 deg C/decade is far from catastrophic.
September 13, 2013
The average monthly temperature between 1659 and 2012 was 9.2°C, while the average monthly temperature between 1981 and 201o was 10°C. In other words most of the temperature rises have been recently.
September 14, 2013
A very partial and partisan use of data Uni.
It is accepted by the IPCC that the increased average global temperature in the last 150 years is less than one degree centigrade
September 13, 2013
‘A small producer putting itself at a massive competitive disadvantage’ states the reality. Unfortunately, reality is in short supply here and the evangelising Warmunists will carry on regardless.
September 13, 2013
Re last paragraph, I strongly agree.
Rather than waste vast amounts of time, effort and money trying to persuade people World-wide to do what they are not going to do, it would be far better to concentrate on finding “non-poluting” energy generating methods that are also financially more attractive.
September 13, 2013
Jeremy Clarkson got it right a while ago.
To paraphrase, he was asking ‘what happened to Red Robo’ from the old British Leyland days – his conclusion was that all the old lefties had moved into ecology.
He hit the nail on the head – this argument isn’t about saving the planet, it’s about attacking capitalism.
It doesnât matter what the science says, itâs irrelevant â if you can scare ordinary people and play on their irrational fears then that can serve your purpose.
Just read Bazzmanâs posts on this blog â he doesnât indulge in rational debate, he ( asserts strongly ed).
September 15, 2013
Indeed it is anti capitalism, anti business, anti growth and anti human. Nothing to do with science at all, yet 95% of MPs + voted for the climate change act!
September 16, 2013
You seem unable to come up with any scientific references saying how unscientific it is. Funny that.
September 13, 2013
Thanks for Greg Barker, at least someone concerned within the Conservatives!
September 15, 2013
Well he is certainly not a Conservative is he? More of a Cameronite moderniser, greenest government ever, nonsense type.
Royal Holloway, University of London, History & Politics I see, so not too bright and no science either one assumes.
September 13, 2013
Among all this, don’t forget that CO2 emissions from fracking are lower than those from burning coal. US CO2 emissions have gone DOWN since large scale fracking started.
I’ve often thought that Asia and eastern Europe, which burn dirty coal, were better targets for our wrath that western Europe. Can we not get China to use clean coal technology in their power stations? And is Poland still burning that dirty brown coal that used to turn Katowice into a scene from Dante’s inferno as soon as the winter sun set?
One problem that we haven’t yet solved is the disposal of nuclear fission waste. If we want any new nuclear power stations to be built, we had better solve it.
September 14, 2013
“And is Poland still burning that dirty brown coal …”
Why pick on Poland?
Germany is burning more lignite.
“âItâs very alarming that leading German politicians praise a plant run on lignite,â Gerald Neubauer, a Greenpeace campaigner in Germany focusing on energy issues, said by phone on Aug. 16 [2012]. âBurning lignite spews more carbon dioxide than using most other energy sources, and mining it inflicts major damage on the environment.â”
“Good old Germany! Respecting the environment, except when they don’t!
September 13, 2013
The IPCC ‘science’ is probably (wrong ed). This started here: 1981_Hansen_etal.pdf.
They made three major mistakes. Para 2 – the claim that CO2 absorbs IR to Space in the 7-14 micron range is untrue.
Para 3 – the implication that if you remove ghgs from the atmosphere, the -18 deg C temperature in radiative equilibrium with Space would coincide with the Earth’s surface therefore the difference from the present average 15 dg C is the 33 K is plain wrong. This is because no ice or clouds increases SW energy at the surface by 43%, an average temperature of 4-5 deg C, a real ghe of ~11 K.
The ratio 33 K / 11 K = 3 is the imaginary feedback. The third major error is to assume the earth emits IR as if a black body. This is an elementary failure to understand radiative physics.
Do the job properly and there is negligible CO2-AGW because it self-compennsates.
September 15, 2013
Indeed Quack science full of holes and as we see it does not agree with experiment so it is clearly wrong.
September 13, 2013
A main point also ignored by the right wing fatalistic fantasists is that a self sustaining environment has never been successfully recreated. They always fail. The earth will survive us without problem, but on this basis is it a good idea in principle to emit millions of tonnes of CO2 and pollution into the earth atmosphere and hope it will not be detrimental and can be controlled or do you believe that the future is pre ordained and man has no control over his destiny? Maybe the movement of your own hand was pre written? If you think like this as many fundamentalist do and take lifdogics stance on most things. He just cannot even see any other way and chooses to ignore any evidence that contradicts his world view ranting the same like a evangelist preacher, You need to see a Doctor. Ram it.
September 14, 2013
Bazman
You don’t even know what co2 is do you? It is not and never has been a pollutant. It is the substance that makes our planet habitable by living things. It is the substance given off by the oceans, forests basalt traps and volcanoes on the planet. More co2 is given off by naturally occurring output that by human industry. It is the substance that YOU expel in vast quantities and in your case thats an irritant but not a pollution. If you’re going to engage in debate try at least to get a couple of basics right. Ram it indeed.
September 15, 2013
A main point also ignored by the right wing fatalistic fantasists is that a self sustaining environment has never been successfully recreated. Read it again and explain why releasing massive amount of man made CO2 is benign, then will ram it.
September 15, 2013
The real fantasy is yours Baz.
Until scientists and engineers invent new methods there is no way the energy needs of the UK can be provided by just sustainable ways as you demand.
It’s not about left or right wing politics.
It’s about technology.
September 16, 2013
This is my point. However pretending we can just carry on like this is the real fantasy.
September 13, 2013
Renewable energy provided by expensive, inefficient and unreliable wind turbines is a brilliant idea for moving money from the poor to the rich. The poor pay more for their electricity and the rich landowners (example removed ed), obtain huge amounts of money.
It is easy to understand why such as system would appeal to the big business side of the Conservative Party.
But surely such a scheme would not appeal to the lefties of the Labour Party as it would make life more difficult for the poor ? Oh…hang on a minute…. doesn’t this scheme make the general population poorer and hence more likely to vote Labour ?
September 14, 2013
Wind like nuclear is an energy source of last resort. The amount of windmills off the coast of Barrow in Furness is something to see. Walney Island is the windiest low lying place in England. Interesting to see how many their would be without subsidy and to what end these subsidies are for as there must be some sort of progress and use, not just as many say paying companies to generate expensive sporadic power. Renewable and sustainable is the end game. Maybe Holiday Dave could take a look at this beach?
September 14, 2013
A lot of good posts here, as well as a good initial article, yet the 2008 Escalating Fuel Bill and De-industrialisation of Britain Act trundles on!
September 14, 2013
Many supporters of AGW believe the theory must be right because so many scientists have said it is right, although quite how many of these scientists have studied all the evidence is uncertain.
It has to be noted that the fashionable theories are not always the right ones.
Up until the 16th century “those in the know” believed the earth to be at the centre of the universe. When the observed data did not fit with this model, for instance planets were observed to go backwards in the sky, so many extra tweaks were added to the model that the theory finally collapsed to be replaced by the heliocentric model.
In the 17th century we had “those in the know” explaining combustion using the phlogiston theory. Unfortunately the data did not fit the model when it was found that burnt metals gained weight instead of losing weight. To explain this phenomenon the model had to be tweaked by making phlogiston have negative weight.
Again the fashionable theory eventually collapsed through being unable to fit all the data.
When I learn that “those in the know” all support AGW and the model used just needs a bit of tweaking “to fit the available data” I have the impression that history is repeating itself….
September 14, 2013
Global warming is just HALF what we said: World’s top climate scientists admit computers got the effects of greenhouse gases wrong
* Leaked report reveals the world is melting at half the rate claimed by IPCC in 2007
* Scientists accept their computers ‘may have exaggerated’
* Met Office to examine the report and ‘respond in due course’
“A leaked copy of the worldâs most authoritative climate study reveals scientific forecasts of imminent doom were drastically wrong.
The Mail on Sunday has obtained the final draft of a report to be published later this month by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the ultimate watchdog whose massive, six-yearly âassessmentsâ are accepted by environmentalists, politicians and experts as the gospel of climate science.
They are cited worldwide to justify swingeing fossil fuel taxes and subsidies for ârenewableâ energy.
Yet the leaked report makes the extraordinary concession that the world has been warming at only just over half the rate claimed by the IPCC in its last assessment, published in 2007.
Back then, it said that the planet was warming at a rate of 0.2C every decade â a figure it claimed was in line with the forecasts made by computer climate models.
But the new report says the true figure since 1951 has been only 0.12C per decade â a rate far below even the lowest computer prediction”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2420783/Global-warming-just-HALF-said-Worlds-climate-scientists-admit-computers-got-effects-greenhouse-gases-wrong.html
There is more information on hurricanes and this looks like the Medieval Warm Period reemerging:
“They admit large parts of the world were as warm as they are now for decades at a time between 950 and 1250 AD â centuries before the Industrial Revolution, and when the population and CO2 levels were both much lower.”
And what do we have here, not that old saw:
“Despite the many scientific uncertainties disclosed by the leaked report, it nonetheless draws familiar, apocalyptic conclusions â insisting that the IPCC is more confident than ever that global warming is mainly humansâ fault.
It says the world will continue to warm catastrophically unless there is drastic action to curb greenhouse gases â with big rises in sea level, floods, droughts and the disappearance of the Arctic icecap.”
Except that the earth isn’t warming!
Good job it is expected to be the last IPCC report! What a waste of money!
September 17, 2013
I doubt that an analytical chemist graduating in 1971 who since 1984 has been full time in politics is the best reference to argue about climate change. The question about water vapour vs CO2 is an oxymoron. The hydrological cycle is strengthened because temperature is getting a tiny bit warmer, thus allowing more water vapour in the air, and this temperature getting warmer is related to more gaseous absorption by so-called greenhouse gases (CO2, but also CH4, N2O, CFCs). All these gases have seen their atmospheric concentrations go up. And the industrial revolution roughly happened 150 years ago; reasonably accurate measurements showing increases in temperature have only be with us for about 150 years; accurate and relatively large-scale measurements of gas concentrations have only be made for 50 ish years.
And you are, dear John, just reiterating the old argument that you have used for financial regulation: If there is no global agreement, what’s the point of the UK doing something.
A bit sad to see people who at times can seem intelligent fall so low in their arguments.