At the risk of sounding sycophantic I must once again congratulate Mr Flindt on his absolutely excellent article in this weeks FW exposing the lunacy that is called 'Man Made Global Warming' . It is particularly perceptive of him to draw the similarity between Hans Christian Anderson's fairy story,' The Emperors new clothes' and the idiotic rubbish being spouted at the Climate conference in Copenhagen this week. If we are daft enough to listen to these misguided fanatics we will destroy our wonderful civilisation by exhorbitant taxation and by giving away our accumulated wealth to Third world countries where the only good it will do  will be to help those in power to enjoy more women, bigger mercedes and better villas on the Cote D'azzure.

Well said sir.

Dick.

Dick:

absolutely excellent article in this weeks FW exposing the lunacy that is called 'Man Made Global Warming' .

I agree with a lot of what Charlie Flindt says (and think he's a super columnist) but I'm not so sure about this. There are plenty of intellident, well-informed people who believe climate change is man made...

Idiotic garbage from start to finish. Flindts denialists are the ones with no clothes ( Charlie look up the root of the story) In the original an African warns a King he is a fool (an illegitimate one at that). Few of today's ordinary African farmers will get the chance to tell the smug Mr Flindt how climate change is destroying their livelihood. Lets deal with his accusations. He mocks science as a religeon. Mr Flindt I am a member of the Church of Scotland, in church every Sunday, religious belief is no barrier to rational science. The stolen emails have been examined minutely and any rational (note rational we will come back to that later) analysis shows nothing other than well deserved contempt for the denialist campaign. Now we get to the really paranoid delusion of a "world Government" such statements really do belong to the tinfoil hat brigade and are not worthy of any sensible rational person. As for the rest, especially wind turbines you are factually incorrect Mr Flindt my turbines generate from 3.5ms (7.8mph) to 45ms (100.6mph). They have never shut down due to high wind. Finally if you are worried about tax you would be much better directing your paranoia toward banks and banking regulators. They have cost us much more than a few very badly paid scientists who really do care for all our futures.

I haven't read Charlie's piece so I can't really comment but it does seem a bit sad that on what is potentially one of the most important days in history requiring humanity to pull together to be squabbling. I've just been reading the forth draft and there are still a lot of blank pages.

 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/091218copenhagen_accord.pdf

 

Just a couple of points I’d like to bring up, He his-self. Let’s start with the obvious one, your wind turbines. You admit that they don’t work below winds of 7.8 mph. So, during a big winter high pressure, like the one we’ve just had, they will produce no electricity. Nothing Zilch. And at a time when we’re all turning on heaters to keep warm. Interesting. I’m also fascinated to read that your work in 100mph winds. The US Department of Energy’s guide to its wind turbines states that they have controllers which ‘start up the machine at wind speeds of about 8 to 16 miles per hour (mph) and shuts off the machine at about 55 mph. Turbines do not operate at wind speeds above about 55 mph because they might be damaged by the high winds.’ Yours obviously have much superior Scottish engineering. I never denied that Climate Change is happening. It is happening, and always has happened. There was a Mediaeval Warm Period and a mini Ice Age, and all without any provocation by carbon dioxide levels. We adapted.

 You’re right about the emails; they have been minutely examined, but the examiners seem to have come up with slightly different conclusions to yours. Others (and you can, too, if you care to search at http://www.eastangliaemails.com/) have found messages that refer to hiding that Warm Period, hiding the recent decline in temperature, leaning on editors of scientific journals that give space to sceptics, making sure that the once-sacred process of harsh and independent peer-review is replaced by reviewing only by others with the ‘right’ views, and refusing to release (and even destroying) data when requested to do so under freedom of Information requests. This last point is crucial; why should the truth be afraid of debate? I did not mock ‘science as a religion’.

I mocked Climate Change science for becoming like many religions, unable to tolerate debate or dissent, screaming ‘denier’ (with all that word’s unpleasant undertones) at anyone who dares to disagree. One almost-final point: these ‘very badly paid scientists’. Let me quote from Lord Monckton’s excellent pamphlet, ‘Climategate: caught green-handed!’: . ‘The Climate Research Unit at East Anglia had profited to the tune of at least $20 million in “research” grants from the Team’s activities.’ I think you’ll find that our own dear DEFRA sent a few hundred thousand their way. And finally: Hampshire has just vanished under six fresh inches of snow, drifting calmly and spectacularly down. No wind at all. Thank goodness my heater, my tumble drier and my computer aren’t wind powered.

Keep it up Charlie. You are not the first in history to have stood out against the 'group think' of a vociferous and self interested majority.

I do find it interesting that the 'warmist' scientific community, whilst claiming to use rational methods of enquiry, have no compunction in using all kinds of deceit to pursue personal and professional objectives. They assert a morality of method, but use immoral methods in justification for hoped for results. In that respect they appear more like members of a quaint religious sect, rather than members of an established church/mosque/synagogue/temple.

As to turbines operating at wind speeds of more than 100mph. I guess the makers of the pylons are the same people who make the launch rockets for satellites.

Come to think of it. Hhs might have invented a new form of fuel for rocket propulsion.

 

First my turbines are on today, wind in Scotland is superior to wind in Hampshire, wind at ground level is not the same as wind at hub height. I cannot speak for the US but I can speak for my Scottish turbines. I bought the best. No messages from the CRU talk about hiding the MWP that is a lie. (They do mention a divergence between tree ring data and temperatures) No documents were excluded, no data destroyed and no information was refused,(it was not up to the scientists concerned anyway) Another flat out lie. You did indeed mock climate science as a religion. ("MMGW has become a cult, a religion") Another lie. Monckton is a proven liar see http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/scotland/Aristocrat-admits-tale-of-lost.3340554.jp "Quote"I was selling the house anyway and they asked me if I would be willing to tell people I was selling the house because I was afraid somebody might solve the puzzle too fast. I said 'yes'. They said, 'Don't you mind being made to look an absolute prat', and I said, 'No - I'm quite used to that'. History is full of stories that aren't actually true". end quote) Glad my turbines kept your computer on today, it helped you learn something.

PW I am astonished at the level of ignorance about turbines. The survival speed of even a small turbine is 70ms. Mine are well in excess of that. Proven turbines for example have no cut out speed their blades flex in the wind. As to the science all it will take to disprove ACC is one paper with sound science, just one. Plenty of blog science from denialists not one iota of real science.

Charlie,

        I have to agree with most of your observations of this Fraud called Climate Change ,a phenonomen that has always happened as has the composition of Earths Atmosphere.Where Hhs and the rest of the pro activists do have a point I think is in the release into the Atmosphere of Dangerous Gases from certain Industrial Processes like Chlorines and Benzines which Science definitely has proven that these Gases do harm our upper Atmosphere Gas Structures.

  Regarding Wind Energy I am going to put to you a slightly different sonario to the one you put forward to denegrate Wind Harvesting.If we look at Wind Energy as a form of sequestrating energy when ever available, your answer ,quite correctly, is that it is inconsistent therefore unreliable,true.Now view the Wind Harvesting coupled to a storage system [perhaps of the near future].Every household in the UK uses about 5000 Kwh of Electricity/annum or about 14 Kwh/day.If we used say Lithium Ion Batterys in every Household to store this Harvested Energy so that the Investment for Alternative Energy is spread between the Harvester and the user and then the amount of Backup plant could be considerably less than for just Alternative energy as it is at the moment.With a system of Wind,Tide,Hydro and burning our Waste [ cleanly ] we could operate from a different level of Low value Solar and a much smaller input of high energy value Fossil or Nuclear Energy.

  I would put forward that the advances in the last three years into Battery Technology of different types would allow this senario to happen in ten years time and we do have the Climate in these Islands to take this type of Energy from.

 

I still think it a bit sad to be tilting at windmills when we didn't get the agreement that the world urgently needs but probably the best summery of the past fortnight was by Marcus Brigstocke at http://bit.ly/81FeSI 

He his-self:

no data destroyed and no information was refused

Just for the sake of accuracy, in response to FOI request it was claimed that the data requiested had been destroyed because of the expense of storage and that it was not therefore available.  It now transpires that it was not destroyed and that excuse for not supplying it remains unexplained.  Other requests for data were rebutted with various excuses or claims that the copyright was not owned by UEA.  If UEA are now releasing the data or asking the copyright holders if they will do so it is solely the result of the leaked email controversy.  If they could have done so they would still be claiming they could not supply it.

First, well done on what was obviously a very wise and prudent turbine purchase. Second: There are many examples in the emails of the cosy cabal of Warmists discussing how to evade F of I requests. Even Wikipedia is now listing some of the more incriminating emails, and Wikipedia, until recently, was firmly in the Warmist camp. They have had to sack one of their editors, a William Connelly, a well-known green activist, who, like many Warmists, was incapable of tolerating dissent. He would ruthlessly edit and rewrite articles that didn’t follow the Warmist line. Now he is gone, a more balanced view of Global Warming – and Climategate – is appearing on Wikipedia. Not before time. Third: some members of my cricket club take the game so seriously that, for them, it has become a religion. That’s a statement of fact, not mockery. 

And as for trawling the archives to discover that Lord Monckton once lied about something unrelated to Climategate some time ago. Well, cover me in brandy butter and call me a Christmas pudding – what a shock! But isn’t he a politician?

 

Besides living in the center of one of the last stretches of tallgrass prairie in the USA, I also live in the "oil patch".  I bring this up for two reasons.  First, the reason we have oil under our Kansas prairie is because a couple million(or more, give or take) years ago this was a big swampy marsh, all the dinosaurs and plant life died and was buried and turned to oil.  I have said that before, even in this thread I believe, along with the fact the glaciers southernmost point is not too far north of here...once again I will say the climate has always changed.

 The second part about living in the oil patch is what are known as "promoters".  Promoters go around bragging up a new technology to get more oil out of the ground, or develop a new zone, or perhaps think they have found a new field.  Problem is, they don't have any money, they have the "knowledge" and are willing to share it, for a fee.  They round up a bunch of investors and more often than not, the investors end up losing alot of money...promotions work just often enough to keep people gambling on them though. 

Much of this climate change stuff strikes me as being a "promoters dream", just like coal methane gas was here a few years back.  You've got your carbon trading, your windpower, maybe more nukes, etc.  In the movie "Gettysburg" one of the generals says "there is an old Indian saying, 'follow the cigar smoke, you'll find the fat man there'".  There are alot of fat men smoking alot of cigars promoting all kinds of schemes right now that may or may not impact climate change, but do stand to make them alot of money.  I can see why you folks in Britain where the difference between the daily high and daily low temp is about 10 degrees get worked up over a half a degree change in the climate.  It was 53F yesterday afternoon and 18F this morning here.  I am not going to get all worked up because a couple of scientists and Al Gore tell me I ought too. 

As far as I am concerned, lets try to pollute less, keep on trying to find more efficient and cleaner energy sources, but keep our heads and not go crazy. I am not going to move into a cave while the elite of this world keep jetting back and forth preaching their new religion.  I am not going to vote for politicians that are willing to bankrupt our country to fight climate change, something that has gone on always.  I think at the end of the day, there are more people like me than not. 

I am not a denier either.  Sure, the activities of mankind may be causing the climate to change.  But, since it always has, and it always will, who is to say the natural change might not be even worse?  I don't fancy another ice age myself.  30 years ago, that is what those in the know were preaching, ice age.  Up until about a year ago it was global warming...since it has been fairly cold we now call it climate change.  Nobody really knows what will happen, it is all just a guess.  So the best course of action is slow and steady, of course, that might not make some fat men smoking cigars as much money...........

Charlie you were the one who mentioned (Viscount) Monckton. If you want to maintain what is left of the very high esteem that I and many others held you in, please check your facts before writing stuff that shreds your reputation.

Charlie Flindt:

Well, cover me in brandy butter and call me a Christmas pudding – what a shock! But isn’t he a politician?

 

 

Charlie, that is one of the best phrases i have heard in a long time!

 

It was hot today, it was cold the day before that. thats climate change- and i don't think thats from someone not turning down their radiators. the scare tactics the govt use are not working on a lot of people. first an ice age is predicted, then global warming, now climate change.... as people before me have said, the uk used to be covered in glaciers, and now its warming up. if the earth were to wobble on its axis just a fraction, then the concequences regarding temperature would be huge.

i do not believe that the world is going to become inhabitable in many places in the coming years, but that said i concede that the millions of tonnes of gases being let out into the air cannot be 'good' for the earth. everyone should do a bit, but not be scared into doing so.

 an interesting fact i learnt in school- the biggest absorber of CO2 is.... the oceans not the rainforests. the oceans are going to (apparently) rise....so lots more water to absorb the CO2?!

 

And here's an interesting bit from the CRU programme files:          FOIA\documents\osborn-tree5\densplus188119602netcdf.pro; we know the file starts at yr 440, but we want nothing till 1400, so we
; can skill lines (1400-440)/10 + 1 header line
; we now want all lines (10 yr per line) from 1400 to 1980, which is
; (1980-1400)/10 + 1 lines
(...)
; we know the file starts at yr 1070, but we want nothing till 1400, so we
; can skill lines (1400-1070)/10 + 1 header line
; we now want all lines (10 yr per line) from 1400 to 1991, which is
; (1990-1400)/10 + 1 lines (since 1991 is on line beginning

 

All the semi-colons and stuff are part of the programme code - the impotant bit is the about not wanting anything until 1400, which, as any fole kno, is when the Med Warm Period finished.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/werent-temperatures-warmer-during-the-medieval-warm-period-than-they-are-today/ Please read, and learn a little. As for thermal expansion and CO2 http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/how-do-we-know-that-recent-cosub2sub-increases-are-due-to-human-activities-updated/ Now perhaps you can tell me which bit of the science is wrong?

kansasfarmer:

I think at the end of the day, there are more people like me than not. 

I think you're right there, KF, but what that means to the promoters is that their message is not getting through so they become louder and shriller.  Of course this doesn't go down too well with their mainstream audience who, by and large, are becoming inured to the warnings of doom from the scientific experts which are viewed as increasingly exaggerated and partisan.  

In England our Chief Medical Officer is retiring (earlier than expected).  The highlights of his career include his predictions in 2005 that Avian Flu would 'probably' kill 50,000 Brits and that a death toll of 750,000 was not impossible.  The actual number of deaths was - nil.  Last year he predicted that 65,000 of us would die from Swine Flu, which prediction he has reduced this year to 19,000.  So far 299 people, mostly with underlying serious medical conditions, have died while having flu, but at least he has been able to hand out millions of doses of anti-viral medicines stockpiled to save us from bird flu and rapidly going out of date.  He has also spent even more millions on advertising and sending leaflets to everyone in the country telling us how to blow our noses.

Most people listen to the warnings and compare them with the reality.  When they see the 'promoters' making money and life goes on as usual they call to mind an apt phrase from Shakespeare, 'Methinks he doth protest too much'.

Jacobus:

Shakespeare

Like Oscar and others he is always a useful one to use but wasn't it a lady? (I am still struggling to know what women want and I need to get something for Christmas - I can't afford Jimmy Shoes, or a great big ol' pile in the country that Caroline suggested.)

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

--From Hamlet (III, ii, 239)

There is another one I enjoy it is about monkeys and pencils, and enough of each, that they will be able to write the plays of Shakespeare, me thinks.

I wonder if there is any chance on these threads to be able to write a play about global warming.

"Water, water everywhere.......... "

I suppose at least we have Marcus Bridgestocks in, marvelous what Cambridge has sent out into the world over the years.

For me the problem about global warming is similar to getting British farmers to cooperate, there is no conviction. Now it has turned political and school boy ed photographed at the end of Copenhagen, trying to look all messiah. If it wasn't used as a ruse to tax us in this country then I would be more sympathetic. There is however a need to undertake our agriculture in a more environmentally sound fashion, as a nation, not one or two farms dotted around the place. There are plenty in denail (a river in Egypt - get it Old Macdonald it is from Twain), about this too. Agriculture sure is man made.

Happy Christmas.

I would be wary about using Realclimate.org as a reference site for discussion about MMGW. Their attitude to scientific debate isn't very healthy.         Here's one of the CRU emails discussing how Realclimate will be run ('RC' stands for Realclimate, of course, and 'McIntyre' is one the world's leading sceptics - he demolished the iconic 'hockey stick' graph):

 

 

"From: "Michael E. Mann" <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Tim Osborn <t.osborn@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Keith Briffa <k.briffa@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: update
Date: Thu, 09 Feb 2006 16:51:53 -0500
Reply-to: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Cc: Gavin Schmidt <gschmidt@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>

<x-flowed>
guys, I see that Science has already gone online w/ the new issue, so we
put up the RC post. By now, you've probably read that nasty McIntyre
thing. Apparently, he violated the embargo on his website (I don't go
there personally, but so I'm informed).

Anyway, I wanted you guys to know that you're free to use RC in any way
you think would be helpful. Gavin and I are going to be careful about
what comments we screen through, and we'll be very careful to answer any
questions that come up to any extent we can. On the other hand, you
might want to visit the thread and post replies yourself. We can hold
comments up in the queue and contact you about whether or not you think
they should be screened through or not, and if so, any comments you'd
like us to include.

You're also welcome to do a followup guest post, etc. think of RC as a
resource that is at your disposal to combat any disinformation put
forward by the McIntyres of the world. Just let us know. We'll use our
best discretion to make sure the skeptics dont'get to use the RC
comments as a megaphone...

mike"

What is it about climate change wind power that brings out such fury? 

I am going to add it to the list of things not to talk about at a dinner party; religion politics and climate change...

Personally I am more persuaded by the Warmist arguments than the alternative ( I will now hide)

Now, Isabel, you'll never be a proper warmist unless you throw in some personal abuse!!

Isabel Davies:

Personally I am more persuaded by the Warmist arguments than the alternative

Isabel, we'd pretty well forgive you anything so you are safe with us.

However, is it the arguments themselves or those features about the argument that sway you. For example, the feeling of 'better safe than sorry,' The feeling that 'Surely so and so, can't be wrong can he.' The feeling of 'comfort from being in the midst of a crowd. The feeling that 'life is so good that something must go wrong,' or that 'Life for me is so good but not for others, that, in order to bring balance, I must feel guilty about something that affects someone or everyone else?'

It is the pure unadorned numbers which scientific method uses that should inform any decisions we make. However, the Warmists do not stop at the figures, they then construct arguments based around those features listed above. They choose to use some figures and not others, they then manipulate some figures to suit their conclusions and deny figures to sceptics. This leads me to conclude that the actions of the warmists are not the actions of people who appear confident about the science behind the remedial nostrums they propose. "Those who know the truth have no need to decieve!"

I repeat again. I have read many figures but I do not know whether the climate is warming or how much is man made. I do know however that some of the present resources we use for fuel are not infinite. Therefore, reductions in waste and improvements in effectiveness and efficiency are things we ought to be able to agree on.

If we agreed on that, (and money is a good measure of waste, ineffectiveness and inefficiency) then human effort could be directed into areas of improvement more reasonably tied to an underlying ethic than is currently the case.

To save materials and money can be seen to benefit everyone. To trade carbon credits simply diverts smoke from one nation to another.

 

 

Isabel Davies:

What is it about climate change wind power that brings out such fury?

Because, despite HHS's protests, the question of anthropogenic global warming has all of the characteristics of a religion.  Just as the fact that all of the Christian, Jewish and Islamic faithful believe that there is one god, and theirs is it, does not add any more proof as to whether God exists or not, so the numbers of scientists who believe that we are the cause of global warming is really irrelevant.  We shall all know the answer to the former when we die, if we live long enough we may know the answer to the latter, but in either case at the present nobody can really know the answer to either - so in our individual estimation we can all be right.

Isabel Davies:

I am going to add it to the list of things not to talk about at a dinner party

If motley's about you';d better keep away from misquoting the Bard of Avon too!

You know me too well, Peter.

I probably am in the warmist camp because it seems prudent to be and because I find the sheer numbers of scientists queueing up to say there is more compelling than those against. Personally, I am prepared to live with the fact that they don't have all the answers - I don't want to run the risk of waiting until every i is dotted and t crossed in terms of the science, only to find out it is too late to do much about it.

I suppose that makes me a bit belt and braces....