Monday 2 June 2008

Swindle feedback

Here's scientist Vincent Gray's assessment of  The Great Global Warming Swindle, screened last night on Prime.

"First: the programme itself is much improved," says Dr Gray of NZ's Climate Science Coalition. "All the objections to the original programme have been cleaned up. [Crawler Carl Wunsch, for example] who claimed he was railroaded into contributing, has gone... This version [which was quite a bit shorter that the original - Ed.] should replace the one already circulated whenever possible."

I have to pause here to note Eric Young's simpering disclaimer at the start of the show -- "Prime TV and Prime News wash our hands of this while thing" he almost said, before announcing that Swindle's maker Martin Durkin doesn't debate with warmists so the panel discussion later didn't include hime [a lie, as it happens; it's Warmist-in-Chief Al Bore who doesn't debate].  Anyway, back to Dr Gray's review:

Then, to the discussion. In  Australia they had a fanatically biased interviewer [Tony Jones] grilling poor Martin Durkin, who had difficulty standing up to him. Here, it was almost fair. Only two scientists to our one. But we won out on the non-scientists. Leighton Smith was the most experienced broadcaster present and he made most of the telling points.  His best one was when he exposed  the lie that very few scientists were critical of global warming theory. The two IPCC scientists ganged up to interrupt as soon as valid  points were made, and the chairman had difficulty controlling them.

Willem de Lange did an excellent job, but it tested his knowledge several times.

David Wratt [from NIWA] put over the same line that he did at his lecture last Wednesday and he honed in on the chief weakness of the Durkin programme, the reluctance to challenge the "Mean Global Surface Temperature Anomaly Record" which was accepted as authentic even by Fred Singer. While Durkin was accused of "cherry-picking," the MGSTAR is consistently chosen by the IPCC as the only authentic temperature guide, and all others are carefully downgraded. For example, Manning quoted the IPCC about "the warming of the last fifty years", carefully omitting mention of the satellite and weather balloon records which do not quite make it, and failing to mention that there was cooling for the first half of the period.  When the USA was mentioned somebody should have said that the corrected temperature record for the USA shows no warming [and that the warmest year in recent times is not 1998, but 1934].

Wratt even dragged out the Son of Hockey Stick which, again depends  on their cherry-picked MGSTAR. Willem made a good point in saying that [in this cherrypicked factoid] the "proxy" measurements stop as soon as they do not agree with the surface readings.

It is unfortunate that Pat Michaels , in The Great Global Warming Swindle did not mention his part in the paper with Ross McKitrick , 2007 which shows that the MGSTAR is biased by "socioeconomic factors".  This paper is published in the peer-reviewed prestigious Journal of Geophysics Research.

Wratt makes great play with how the IPCC only deals with peer-reviewed publications, unless, of course, if it is a Journal they do not approve of, like Energy and Environment. He does not mention that the IPCC controls the Editors and the peer-reviewers  of most of the Journals...

Insufficient play was made by the point made in The Great Global Warming Swindle that everything written by the IPCC has to be approved by the Government Representatives. With the "Summary for Policymakers" they have to approve each line. David Wratt is a "Drafting Author" taking down dictation. They like to pretend they are independent of the politicians and they are not.

Cindy Baxter was a disaster for her supporters. She obviously did not understand a word of the film or what the others were talking about and she made a feeble attempt to accuse us all of being paid off by big oil. The reality is she is paid how to think by Greenpeace Headquarters.

Martin Manning [a 'professor of Climate Change' at Victoria University] has aged considerably from when I first knew him. He looks like a possible suitable candidate for the role of Count Dracula  and did not come over as very convincing.

I find it difficult to believe that anybody who witnessed the programme could possibly still believe that the science behind the global warming theory is settled. I wonder how many watched, anyway?

Anyone like to answer him?

PS: I'm curious how many of you know the reason behind the film's title?  Who can be the first one to post the reason here? (Clue: there's a link to an infamous movie of the seventies.)

UPDATE 1: More comment and debate around the blogosphere, from NZCPR, Poneke, The Hive, Life From Right Field, Grim Planet, Political Animal, I-Shades, Kiwi Biker, the other Save the Humans site, and the communist who posts at the Ethical Martini.  Meanwhile, after failing to ban Prime's screening, the Greens's Frog Blog maintains a studied silence ...

UPDATE 2: A little bird gives me these audience figures for last night's screening:

    It did quite well for Prime, which probably has an average channel share of around 5%.
For Great Global Warming Swindle last night Prime scored an 8.4% share of "all viewers 5+" watching TV at that time.  It followed one of Prime's top shows, Top Gear, which last night recorded a 10.3% share.   The Prime News special debate afterwards itself rated a 10.4% share (slightly fewer viewers, but a higher share of people watching TV at that time).  The number of viewers increased slightly when TV3's Criminal Intent finished.
    As a comparison, TV One had a 16.6% for most of the night with Sunday Theatre, CSI and Criminal Intent on TV3 had around 20%, and Lock Stock on C4 had a 3.1% share. 

36 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was impressed by Leightons self control in not punching someone in the face for the constsnt interjections taht were made as he tried to raise the point of the 31'0000 scientists who signed the partition....it was rude and childish.

The claim was made that no evidence was raised in the film...excuse me?!...what film were they watching? I saw various graphs and so forth presented giving a very good and straight forward explanation of the skeptics position.

The points made by Driessen and Moore regarding the Green genocide directed against the Black poor of the world were damming and would have caused much fuming at Greenpeace HQ....shame no one pointed out to Comrade Cindy that Greenpeace gets millions of dollars of oil money itself from Shell and BP trying to appear good green citizens...

In all it was well done,asked questions and answered them and proved that there is no consensus and the science sure as hell ain't settled.

Anonymous said...

To answer the question at the end, I imagine the title of the documentary is a play on The Sex Pistols movie The Great Rock and Roll Swindle.

Anonymous said...

Wrattt made some rudimentary errors in logic.

In response to comments on Freeman Dyson "he is not a climate scientist"

Neither is the head of the IPCC ,Pachuri is an economist/engineer.

Rutherford was not a chemist,and Alfven was an electrical engineer yet both one Nobels in fields that were not their own.

Peer review,is often a herd collective and not necessary that relevant to evolution ie it is a limiting quality see Alfven above.

Tommy Gold has some distinct thoughts on this...

Another area where it is particularly bad is in the planetary sciences where NASA made great mistakes in the way in which they set up the situation. NASA made the grave mistake not only of working with a peer review system, but one where some of the peers (in fact very influential ones) were the in-house people doing the same line of work. This established a community of planetary scientists now which was completely selected by the leading members of the herd, which was very firmly controlled, and after quite a short time, the slightest departure from the herd was absolutely cut down. Money was not there for anybody who had a slightly diverging viewpoint. The conferences ignored him, and so on. It became completely impossible to do any independent work. For all the money that has been spent, the planetary program will one day be seen to have been extraordinarily poor. The pictures are fine and some of the facts that have been obtained from the planetary exploration with spacecraft - those will stand but not much else.

And of course the most important scientific paper of the century so far was not peer reviewed,it was published on the internet.Perelman.

Maksimovich.

Anonymous said...

I would suggest reading this

http://www.climate-skeptic.com/2007/09/table-of-conten.html

A layman's guide to global warming (from the skeptics side). The whole site is good

http://www.climate-skeptic.com/

Written by Warren Meyer, the small businessman and Coyote Blog writer( Also strongly recommended)

http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/

Anonymous said...

It seems to have truncated the URL. It should end ..table-of-conten.html

Comrade MOT said...

Im entirely neutral on the global warming issue, simply because I haven't researched it enough(or at all realy). But fro m comments I heard, the great global warming swindle gave the impression of being so unbalanced that it was unconvincing.
Im sure it was not more unbalanced than gore's film. Politial related films tend to be very un-balance and propaganderish.
Note I am not criticizing the opinion in the film, just that it appears to be a poor communication tool. It probably made skeptics feel warm and fuzzy, and made warmists mad, and undecideds equally as confused as they were before.

Anonymous said...

Im entirely neutral on the global warming issue, simply because I haven't researched it enough(or at all realy). But fro m comments I heard, the great global warming swindle gave the impression of being so unbalanced that it was unconvincing."

Eh?! The Doco I saw answered the STANDARD, COMMONLY HELD "consensus" positions re CO2 as the driver of warming and receding sea ice,etc and offered alternative theorys that were convincing and well presented.

Anonymous said...

Bob - thanks for the link to the piece on the Australian Broadcasting Company website game "Planet Slayer":
http://www.climate-skeptic.com/2008/05/die-rich-people.html

This game is an absolute obscenity. I challenge anyone to view it via the above link and not be utterly repulsed by what can only be described as anti-human filth.

Anonymous said...

Another significant omission from the baxter was that both exxon and greenpeace are both members of the IPCC.

http://www.ipcc.ch/meetings/2nd-expert-meeting-emission-scenarios/tgnes-members.pdf


Maksimovich

Clunking Fist said...

Has Eric Young ever handled a debate before? No evidence there, with the warmists shouting down the deniers at every opportunity. Me thinks the general public would not have got a lot out of it.
And fancy not having heard about the 31,000 odd scientists and their petition. Me smells a lie on the part of that smug fricker that invoked the image of his grandson.

Urban heat island effect on temp measurements not addressed, either.

Gooner said...

Well for me the most significant concession was the one by Manning that the science is not settled, and to say so is, well, kinda unscientific.

Baxter was shrillish. Her constant whining about oil tycoons was hypocritical considering she works for a multi-billion dollar (Greenpeace) organisation.

The other interesting fact I got was how the Watermelons were formed. Ya know, Green on the outside and Red on the inside. Even the co-founder of Greenpeace (who has since stepped aside) admitted the organisation was now overrun with communists.

Libertyscott said...

Greens have now posted a reply on the website at http://www.greens.org.nz/searchdocs/other11882.html

Why so scared of it being broadcast if they can respond so quickly?

Anonymous said...

The most interesting analysis to me from the doco (the internet video), although I didn't watch it on Prime last night was the lecture by Dr. Timothy Patterson, from Department of Earth Sciences and Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Centre, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, which he clearly linked climate and sedimentary pattern via Wavelet modeling & analysis. His lecture is based on his peer review publication with title:

Late Holocene sedimentary response to solar and cosmic ray
activity influenced climate variability in the NE Pacific


and

Application of Wavelet and Regression Analysis in Assessing
Temporal and Geographic Climate Variability: Eastern Ontario,
Canada as a Case Study


Did anyone know if Dr. David Wratt challenged Dr. Patterson's finding that he presented in the doco? If he didn't, then I suspect that Dr. David Wratt has no clue at all to what wavelet modeling is? If he was there to challenge the doco last night, then he should have been well prepared to challenge the scientific numerical modeling presented in the doco by Patterson rather than him and loud-mouth poster girl Cindy (whats here name) Baxter with no scientific background in numerical modeling, yelling out denier & oil company puppets to their opposition panel.

Anonymous said...

FF

Yes, I've watched Dr Patterson's lecture on the original DVD. He's like a very clever detective. He collects real evidence and then puts all that evidence together logically. Stunning and brilliant.

LGM

Anonymous said...

Well we now have some Anglican Bishop in England saying that "Climate Deniers" are like that Austrian guy who locked his daughter in the cellar for 24 years. Another report I read had Warmists calling for "Deniers" to be tried at a Climate Nuremberg-type tribunal.

Auto de fa anyone?

Brian Smaller

Anonymous said...

I enjoyed this rebuttal of the documentary by a climate science researcher in Edinburgh. He goes a bit further than arguing the points, and goes to point out the flawed argument method employed by the programme. Worth the watch!

Michael said...

I turned off the debate when the first scientist said something like - "oh, he's just got a conclusion already worked out and then made a film to support it." (Was he talking about Gore?)

And then refuted the thesis that the Sun causes climate change by simply saying that most scienctist don't agree with his theory.

If scienctists never disagreed with prior research the periodic table would still be "Air, Fire, Earth, Water" and we'd be trying to drill down to see what is really holding the earth up while the sun circles us!

I was so wound up by the first minute I turned it off.

Anonymous said...

The constant interjections of the warmist "scientists" are par for the course. I had the misfortune of working with such people who were (unfortunatley) part of a project for an 18 month stint.
The interjection and yelling and general lack of civility are exactly how these vermin behave. They even do it at conferences and during presentations by others. When you analyse what they are presenting, it is soon clear that they have nothing much to offer and startlingly little specific knowledge about reality.

Don't ever engage such fools in conversation about anything they disagree with, because you will never get a word in or escape! They never listen. They yell and make demand of you.

Notice how these warmist weirdos perate in gangs? Collectivists to the man, they have little skill to offer and are, in general, non-productive welfare recipients. Global warming swindles are important to them as justification for their continued handouts.

Their theories are false in that they do not correspond with evidence of reality. Therefore they and their pronouncements should be discarded immediately. Simple enough.

LGM

Anonymous said...

My god. For people who act like they are informed you guys have no idea.

James: That list of 31,000 "scientists" is an absolute farce. Anyone with a bachelor degree was able to sign up to it. Geri Halliwell from the SPICE GIRLS is one it.

Also, Greenpeace does not get "millions of dollars of oil money itself from Shell and BP". That is complete bollocks. It is an independent organisation that only accepts donations from private citizens. It's quite transparent about where it gets its money from if you bother to look.

As for the green genocide... what a laugh! Of course, unfair trade tarifs, merciless foreign corporations and corrupt governments have NOTHING to do with perpetuating poverty.

It would be great to go through and systematically dismantle all of the bullshit being spouted around here, but really, what's the point? This is obviously a gathering place for close-minded armchair critics with a tenuous grip on reality.

I love all the links that are thrown around this blog too, i'm yet to see one with any scientific or even moral merit.

Now, to digress into the kind of booming rant-speak that you guys seem to respect so much in your mouthpieces:

Frankly, this blog and all the commentators it seems to draw is nothing more than a circle jerk of bigotry, preaching propaganda to the choir. Nice work there.

Question: If there is SO much overwhelming evidence that contradicts the views of a multitude of respected, independent, scientific organisations, and thousands of scientists, experts in their fields who bring to the table years and decades of solid work, which all points to the same conclusion, then where is the sceptic antithesis of the IPCC? Where is the robust panel of sceptical scientists with exhaustive, peer-reviewed research, and the report that will blow the lid of this climate change "swindle"?

Fucking Nowhere. And why? Because there is no chorus of eminent, dissenting scientists struggling to overturn a "green" conspiracy that would have to encompass so many thousands of people around the world that it's absolutely laughable. All the sceptics have is a rag-tag collection of contrarians for hire and a shoddy "documentary" that uses dodgy graphs and manipulated data to support the pre-conceived dogmatic position of a fly-by-night, discredited, sensationalistic *cough* "documentary maker".

As for your shouting down of the greens (and by extension the environmentalist/green movement) as Socialist... HAHAHA

You guys are hilarious. You switch between buzz words like socialism and "comrade" like they were part of the same discourse. Socialism != Communism. You Dolts. And promoting a healthy relationship with the environment, and social equity does not make one a socialist/communist.

I'd like to say go away and do some reading to enrich you lives and expand your horizons a bit. You know, ancient history, philosophy, war and peace in the 20th C, the rise of the central banks and fiat currencies, the rise and fall of American democracy. You might see some interesting parallels. But then again, why would you want to waste your time challenging yourself intellectually when you can be spoon fed propaganda without leaving your comfy nests.

Yes I’m being condescending. But you know what the funny thing is? I’m not a lefty or a greenie. Nor am I a middle of the road conservative. I’m just not stupid enough to get suckered into what is obviously dishonest, both socially and intellectually. And that’s what this rabid scepticism is. You accuse those who support the idea of man made climate change of being part of a cult or suckered in to the new religion, but have you ever stepped back to look at the rhetoric being spouted from your side of the fence?

Oh sorry, that’s self reflexivity and probably beyond your mental acuity.

Yes, the media is using the green movement to sell papers, and all the other weasels are boiling out of the ground the latch on to green sentiment to make a buck. But you have to step back from all that bullshit and look at the bigger picture.

If you can’t see past the lies in Durkin’s “doco” (interesting point, Gore’s film was never presented as a doco. It has always been a presentation, a talk of how he sees the world heading. Durkin’s piece of drivel, however, presents itself in the authoritive “documentary” style, even though it too is a piece of opinion and politicking) hinges on then you are truly a lost cause and both morally and ethically bankrupt.

Clunking Fist said...

Hello, warmmonger!

I "believed" in AGW, but I thought I'd take the opportunity to do a bit of reading to see what those oil-financed contrarians were spouting.
The more I read from both sides, the more I disbelieve that there is any evidence of warming linked to man.

For a start, there has been little warming...and we're coming out of an ice age, albeit small.

Do some more reading, jake l.

You'll find that warmmongering is more groupthink than conspiracy.

:^)

Anonymous said...

Warmonger? I shake my head at you sir...

I've read plenty from both sides, and while there may be disagreements over some detail the vast, and I mean VAST, weight of evidence points to man-made climate change.

Little warming? That is completely wrong my friend...
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/

And just for kicks here's a few more showing empiracle evidence of significant warming:

http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/trends/temp/angell/angell.html
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/pollack.html
http://nsidc.org/sotc/glacier_balance.html
http://nsidc.org/news/press/20050928_trendscontinue.html
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/earth/mg18725124.500

And of course, there's www.realclimate.org.

If you seriously think that almost 7 billion people burning the world's forests, coal and oil, scraping the ocean clean and dumping hundreds of millions of tonnes of rubbish and toxic waste every year is doing nothing detrimental to the world environment, then you have no place in a climate discussion.

Anonymous said...

Jake said...
For people who act like they are informed you guys have no idea.

I do know what I am talking about, since I read peer review journal papers in climate modeling (lots of them), you know I do it just for fun. The other reason is I sometimes get involved in climate change debate with others (both off-line & on-line), and there is no better way for me to argue with my opponents if I am well informed, which in most cases I am.

Jake said...
I love all the links that are thrown around this blog too, i'm yet to see one with any scientific or even moral merit.

Didn't you read the scientific evidence I pointed out from Dr. Timothy Patterson's papers? You either ignored those references I linked to, or otherwise you had a look at it, but couldn't understand what the publication was all about? Which one? Did you ignore them or you simply didn't understand them?

Jake said...
If there is SO much overwhelming evidence that contradicts the views of a multitude of respected, independent, scientific organisations, and thousands of scientists, experts in their fields who bring to the table years and decades of solid work, which all points to the same conclusion, then where is the sceptic antithesis of the IPCC?

Science is not a popularity contest as you obviously endorsed (IPCC). Evidence will speak for itself.

Anonymous said...

Jake, not all climate sceptics (including most readers here at Not PC) are fruit loops, like almost (~ 100%) most greenies. See, I've already mentioned that I am well informed about climate science and there is another commenter on this thread Maksimovich is an Astro-Physicist who also knows really well of what he is talking about.

So, I advise that before you blindly jumped into a blog debate and insult our intelligence, just stop, look & listen to what is being discussed on that specific thread topic and evaluate whether the participants are fruit loops or are well informed individuals. Obviously, you judged us informed readers here as your experience with the greenies , where most are not well informed in anything at all (science or otherwise), they just rely on quoting such and such authority (IPCC, etc...) so as to shut the opponents assuming the opponents are uninformed.

Anonymous said...

Falafulu, the fact that you dismiss 100% of greenies as fruit cakes immediately halves whatever credibility you have. Do you know 100% of greenies personally?

Nope. You sir, are a fool.

The IPCC reports do stand on their own, and even if some of the data does not stack up 100%, the overwhelming conclusion that man is behind the climate problems we are experiencing. There is no, I repeat, NO report on the other side of the fence that could even dream of having as much credibility.

If there was such a report, or even the vague likeness of one, I would most likely side with you guys.

I'll give you the one on the site links as trawling through every page of this unbelievably asinine blog would leave me without the will to live.

I concur science is not a popularity contenst. But you seem to imply that the IPCC's reports are one. Are you seriously doing this? As if you are, I'll be unable to keep a straight face i'm afraid. For someone who reads peer-reviewed journals - and is associated with an astro phsysicists no less! - you appear to be remarkably dense.

I also note how you chose to pick out only the easy-to-respond to parts of my comments. This is why the sceptics on the ABC's swindle debate in Australia got absolutely dismantled.

Better part of valor eh?

I know all sceptics are not fruit loops. My comments earlier are based on what I have read here so far, and so far you all come across exactly as I've described.

"where most are not well informed in anything at all (science or otherwise), they just rely on quoting such and such authority (IPCC, etc...) so as to shut the opponents assuming the opponents are uninformed"

So are you saying it's not worth quoting an authority on a subject and just go off personal opinion?

If so, that's pretty much what I expect from the sceptic side of things. All bluster no muster.

Clunking Fist said...

Jake L. says:
“The IPCC reports do stand on their own, and even if some of the data does not stack up 100%, the overwhelming conclusion [is] that man is behind the climate problems we are experiencing. There is no, I repeat, NO report on the other side of the fence that could even dream of having as much credibility.”

So after saying it’s not a popularity contest, you say it is, because that’s what “credibility” is. But with all the interference by gummint and NGO types, I DON’T BELIEVE that the IPCC HAS any credibility. It is the IPCC after all that implies that all the 2,500 “scientists” named are in agreement with the Summary for Policymakers.

And what climate problems are we experiencing that we haven’t experienced since time immemorial? More droughts? Hurricanes/cyclones? More floods? More rain? Less rain? More/less clouds? Snow?

THERE ARE NO PROBLEMS, JAKE. There are only COMPUTER MODEL predictions of POSSIBLE problems in THE FUTURE.

As no one seems able to get the next week’s weather forecasts correct, why should we believe that they can predict weather in 20 and 50 years time? You do know that some testing of the models demonstrates that they could not even predict the weather with the benefit of hindsight?

But, let us assume there is some warming happening (leave aside what caused it), were you paying attention to these facts:
- Periods of history with warmer climate correspond with bumper harvests and great wealth.
- The most abundant wildlife (esp. large creatures) is near the equator, where you will find it is quite warm.
- Periods of history with high levels of atmospheric CO2 correspond to rapid vegetation growth, supporting the evolution of very large creatures (dinosaurs).
- A fall in the differential between temperatures at the tropics v the poles would result in less energy in hurricanes/cyclones. THIS would imply we would face less damage, good eh?

The cost of implementing Kyoto is BILLIONS for NZ alone AND MAY HAVE LITTLE EFFECT ON our CO2 output. But it really would fuck the productive sector of our economy sideways through a plate glass window. (Are you a socialist? If so, then this point may not bother you, because you may assume that money spontaneously creates itself when taxes are set. I dunno, you tell me.)

The cost of NOT implementing Kyoto is LIKELY to be warmer more settled weather with better growing conditions. And good weather lifts spirits, so, all other things being equal, longer summers will make us happy! I guess we are ASSUMING that the absence of sunspots lately (and predicted to continue this way for a while) doesn’t freeze our tits off first.

Anonymous said...

Jake most of the numerical models that the IPCC use, I know them inside out, because I use some of those techniques in my everyday software development. This doesn't mean that I am automatically an expert in climate science. However, I do know numerical modelings very deep to understand the shortfalls of their applications & predictions (interpretations) in climate science, which makes me have an informed opinion to just question the total reliance on models.

Let me give you an example. The IPCC had used a technique called Monte-Carlo (MC) in its report, which is mentioned in the following power-point slides here:

IPCC Working Group I - Chapter 2 FINAL FIGURES

MC is one of the most used compute intensive simulation methods of today, in Physics, Engineering, Climate Modeling, Economics/Finance , etc,... You start your monte-carlo and leave the computer (if you have enough memory) to run for minutes or even hours (requires a super-computer, as climate research centers around the world are already deploying). In my PC, it takes minutes, depending on the parameters that I specify. The smaller the values of these parameters the longer the MC run-time (upto 20 minutes).

My main point here, is that there hasn't been anyone (climate scientist or otherwise) that beat the weather-derivative-market, by using Monte-carlo which is heavily used in economics/finance. If you're so convinced that the IPCC numerical models are unquestionable, well, can you point me out a single IPCC climate scientists that has made millions in the weather-derivative-market by using monte-carlo? If you think that my example is irrelevant, then the answer is not. The use of monte-carlo in climate modeling is exactly the same as its use in finance. But if anyone thinks that it predicts well in its application in the IPCC report, then perhaps you could start trading in the weather-derivative-market as see if you can beat it regularly and become a multi-millionaires. May be you can shout me a few hundred thousand dollars if I can give you my monte-carlo computer codes to use in your trading.

But the reality here, is that even the Working Group I members of the IPCC which drafted Chapter-2 using monte-carlo, wouldn't even try to put their hard earned dollar to bet & trade in the weather-derivative-market. WHY? It is obvious, isn't it? Because monte-carlo is just a model at the end and it has no guarantee that if it relates to the true laws of physics or not. So, there is your answer to the likes of you who worshipped the IPCC models. These are just models.

Jake said...
For someone who reads peer-reviewed journals - and is associated with an astro phsysicists no less! - you appear to be remarkably dense.

I am not associated with an astro-physicist, I just quoted Maksimovich, since you appear to be so daft to me, that you charged into the debate on this thread with some challenges for us readers to try & read some peer review papers in climate science, thinking somehow, that all of us are thick like you.

Clunking Fist said...

falafulu fisi:

And is it fair to say that the POSITIVE feedback’s that cause runaway catastrophic climate change are not PREDICTED by the models, but rather an ASSUMPTION the models use?

If positive feedback’s are true (and it’s my understanding that this is an important premise in the case for AGW/MMGW) then why didn’t these positive feedback’s apply when we’ve had previous warming periods? In those periods temperature increases (either cause or effect, doesn’t matter for my point) go hand-in-hand with high CO2 releases from the oceans (dwarfing any current human co2 production)?

And is it true to say that there was no runaway positive feedback, that in fact there are counter-balancing feedback’s, primarily that the level of atmospheric water vapour increases due to increased evaporation. The vapour is a hothouse gas, but high levels, particularly if converted to clouds by our friends the cosmic rays, REFLECT heat prior to it reaching the planet, helping to stop the hothouse effect running away until the planet boils itself to death.

Anonymous said...

We at the Flat Earth Society think that the Swindle is the best film ever made.

We completely support the guy from Newstalk ZB's Climate Science Research Unit - what's his name - Layman Smith? He has had such a long history of climate research and expertise - he has a website after all.

And we KNOW there is a conspiracy - in fact we have been trying to get the Climate Science Coalition to be our friends. Like us, they believe that there is a global government and scientific conspiracy against them.

We've had a bit more history in this regard, but our experience only goes to show that if these sort of conspiracies continue, they become fact.

We hold out our hands in friendship.

Nathanial Pipe-Blower,
Tzar and 33rd Degree Grand Wizard Master of the first inverted Pancake Lodge of the Totally Awesone Flat Earth Society Ltd.

Clunking Fist said...

Nathaniel; what, no link to your (very amusing) website?
:^)

Very good, but you are just an example of someone attempting to make us "deniers" look like dangerous folk with mental disorders.

In history, those who argued that the earth was flat were the "credible" ones, with "consensus" on their side and it was the "rounders" who were the "dangerous heritics" with loony ideas. Yet the "rounders" were proven right in the end.
So "deniers" and "rounders" are in the same boat, not "deniers" and "flat earthers" as in your joke.
Unfortunately it means your joke doesn't work. Sorry! But nice try, though.

Anonymous said...

Yes Clunky, you sceptics are all "gallileos", being persecuted by an ignorant consensus among power players.

Let's just disregard all that lovely empirical evidence to the contrary.

The only way you could be even remotely compared to Gallileo is if the status quo was fervently religious and had "faith" in climate change rather than overwhleming scientific evidence.

You have no argument, and the only place you can pretend to is in backwater blogs and letters to the editors of third-rate newspapers where you're maligned and feeble use of cherry-picked scientific data will not be challenged by anyone noteworthy.

Peter Cresswell said...

No one's being shouted down here Jake/Nathaniel, in fact the only shouting being done is by you.

Tell you what, since you consider your AGW position so blindingly obvious -- as obvious as a speeding truck about to run down us and all our grandchildren -- why don't you post what you consider to be the top five killer facts that demonstrate conclusively that:
a) Global average temperatures are rising inexorably; and
b) This is a bad thing; and
c) Things will only get worse; and (most immportantly)
d) We done it!; and therefore
e) Government action is urgently needed to stop private action towards adaptation.

If it's all as obvious as you say it is, it should be a doddle.

Anonymous said...

PC, you'll no doubt take this as vindication, but i'm not going to post my "top five facts that prove AGW" and you know why?

A) The five links that I will post will be to reports that you already have dogmatic positions against.

B) Every single one of those things you have asked me to substantiate have already been resoundingly dismissed (find an easy-to-understand round up of your arguments here: http://gristmill.grist.org/skeptics)

C) The position I am coming from is supported by the overwhelming majority of the scientific community - not a clique of blokes with vested interests in renewable technology - and as such the onus is on you to prove your case (with something more substantial than "capitalist magazine" Oh man, do you know anything about how media works?)

D) Some people have time to fritter away on lost causes such as yoruself, but not I. it's been fun poking your arguments a bit, but frankly, if there's anything this blog deserves it's less oxygen. By continuing this debate it shows that you are actually WORTH debating, which is completely false.

Clunking Fist said...

Jake L.

Here's a link to a GREAT article about cascade theory and the myth of heart disease:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/09/science/09tier.html?science&pagewanted=all

or

http://tinyurl.com/3bzsh4

Cascading looks to me a lot like a relative of groupthink, but see what you think.

Anonymous said...

jake

My what a weakling you are; an intellectual coward besides. Still that's par for the course for your sort. You know, people are getting more and more curious about whether you are insane or merely another liar from the cult of environmentalism. Of course the correct answer is you are both a dishonest person and also a member of the green cult- that is, you are yet another example of collectivist enviro-vermin.

So far what you have actually demonstrated is a banal intellectual cowardice. You make arbitrary assertions without validity and you completely fail to utilise your faculty of reason in a logical and rational manner.

Let's consider what you have presented these last few days.

1/. Argument by social metaphysics

2/. Argument by appeal to authority

3/. Argument by insistence

4/. Argument by arbitrary claim and assertion

5/. Argument by smears and innuendo

6/. Argument by insult

Well little man, what you need to understand is that none of those approaches validates your position. It's all low stupidity. In sum, Jake, you a flake. Hollow.

All it took to demonstrate your lack of substance were some simple questions - questions you didn't answer because you can't. Should you have been serious about demonstrating the attractions of your position you'd have accepted the challenge put to you by PC. One would have thought you'd relish the opportunity to attempt it, but no. Jake runs and runs and runs away; hides behind a smokescreen of appeals to authority and insults. Easy to see right through it.

Pathetic.

If ever there was reason to detest an environmentalist, you're it.

LGM

Matt Burgess said...

Jake, please take your bile elsewhere.

Anonymous said...

LGM - an intellectual coward besides...

No wrong LGM, Jake had been found out on this thread to be an intellectual handicapped and not cowardice. This means that he didn't know what he was talking about let alone understood what the IPCC report is, as pointed out by more informed & knowledgeable commenters on this thread.

A coward is someone who has an ability in something (in this case - scientific intellectual ability) but has no stomach to use it or perhaps fear of using it for some reasons. On the other hand, an intellectual handicapped person is one who doesn't have anything in his/her head. It is just empty. Can't debate the issues, because there is no intelligence in the head. They froth here and there, appeal to authority here (2000 IPCC scientists), etc,... but not argue the issue head on put forward by others, since he/she doesn't know what is the issue.