Earth Hour in ED

[bigbadwolf]

Oh I see. Sorry Mike I missed your bit above what you quoted Mockney on.

[Mikecg]

I just wondered MP I thought that you may have been one of those religious types.

[mockney piers]

I hope that's heavy use of irony there Mike!!

[Huguenot]

Lol! Piersy as a religious type! :D

Nicholas Stern interview - I love his phrase 'reckless'

[Huguenot]

I quote....

Does Stern feel angry with sceptics - or, as he calls them, irrational optimists? "Well, they're marginal now," he says with rather withering indifference. When he finds himself sitting next to one at a dinner party, does he even bother to argue? "I still believe in rational argument and communication. It's our duty to try. But it is an area in which people can be deliberately destructive," he says disdainfully. "There's a kind of yah boo argument: 'Don't believe it, don't believe it, don't believe it.' Or using language that's slightly more colourful, like that Paul Whitehouse character who said bollocks to everything. That's the kind of thing. It's yah boo stuff."

Stern suspects their perversity is ultimately down to political prejudice. He has no patience with those on the right who assume climate change is just a Trojan horse - an excuse for the left to interfere in the market. "This is about trying to help markets work. This isn't anti-market, this is about making markets work well. My position is pro-markets and pro-growth - not anti-growth. Indeed, it's ignoring the problem that will kill off the growth. High carbon growth kills itself. First on very high hydrocarbon prices, but second and, of course, much more fundamentally, on the very hostile physical environment it would create."

[Huguenot]

This is a great contribution to the climate change debate, as it doesn't try to address the science issue. It actually makes the case that the science is irrelevant...

 

[Marmora Man]

This video is a shameless polemic not a rational argument.

It takes a typical junior MBA style 2 x 2 grid - thereby reducing options from almost an infinity of choices to just 4 - proceeds to load the apocalypse into the lower RH corner, an economic downturn in the top LH corner and then compares, simplistically, the outcomes of the "do something" / "do nothing" schools of thought taking no account of probability.

By making a virtue of ignoring the science it debases the debate and rational thought and takes the precautionary principle to a new and truly incredible level.

[Huguenot]

Perhaps MM, but perhaps what it actually does is reduce the obfuscation and deliberate confusion woven by climate change deniers and come to a reasonable conclusion:

To do nothing and get it wrong is risking a considerably higher penalty than to do something and get it wrong.

You couldn't class this a polemic because he doesn't refute the climate change denier's case. In fact he is at pains to point out that he doesn't know what the answer to the climate change conundrum is, because he's not a scientist.

Regarding the science, it may be that you have something common with these chaps:

Some of the people were simply suspicious of the media and seemed to think that the most sensible option was to take a contrary view to everything that appeared in the press. After all, the same press caused distress and spread misinformation about the MMR vaccine. Other people were suspicious of the government, believing that ministers always have an ulterior motive, such as finding a pretext to raise taxes.

In short, these people believed that it was smart to take the opposite view being pushed by the press, the government and the establishment in general. I suggested that the truly smart approach would be to examine the science and base their conclusions on the best available evidence, at which point I was astonished to learn that none of the people had seriously looked at the evidence for and against climate change.

I read an interesting aphorism regarding climate change denial the other day, bearing in mind that the entire scientific community (read 99%+) accepts these three premises:

*That climate change is happening

*That it is due in the majority to human activity

*That the consequences will be disastrous

It suggested that to be in the 'no' camp you can only be two of the following:

*informed

*honourable

*deny climate change

The point is you can only be two of those items. If you're in denial, you can't be both of the former.

[Huguenot]

For those who prefer a more reasonable view, try

David King

And for those still struggling with some of the science:

New Scientist

In a useful, unbiased way, it responds to the concerns of climate change deniers. I hope if you're unsure you'll read through it rather than putting your fingers in your ears and going "aaaaaahnotlisteningaaaaaahnotlistening".

For those concerned with percentages, 97.4% of climatologists believe in human-induced climate change and very bad consequences.

[Marmora Man]

You couldn't class this a polemic because he doesn't refute the climate change denier's case. In fact he is at pains to point out that he doesn't know what the answer to the climate change conundrum is, because he's not a scientist

You cannot deny that he's arguing the case for climate change - he has simply found a new, and simplistically persuasive, way to present the case for massive intervention.

I'll return to your other points when I have time.

[Marmora Man]

99% + of the scientists community accepts thes e three premises:

*That climate change is happening

*That it is due in the majority to human activity

*That the consequences will be disastrous

Not so - here are 120 that disagree and are happy to be named:

Scientific Community Statement

[mockney piers]

Hmm, "the case for alarm is grossly overstated".

Not very reassuring really.

Plus far too many retired types, US Navy types, Broadcasters (?) and a very brief random poll of the professors found two economists and an oceanographer.

[Huguenot]

That's the kind of outrageous misrepresentation that raises the 'dishonorable' moniker.

That's not a Scientific Community Statement, that's from the Cato institute that also believes in the abolition of the welfare system and privatisation of healthcare amongst other policies.

Cherry picking your respondents is just no no.

The University of Illinois used a database of real scientists in January this year, generated from the world-wide directory of geoscience faculties - over 2000 faculties across the world, and 10,527 individuals. The response rate for the 9 question survey was over 30% (an astronomical response rate in research terms). That's 3,146

82% answered yes to the question: "Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?". Of the 77 climatologists actively engaged in research, 75 answered yes (97.4%).

Note climatologists were included and that the rest are earth scientists (the ones qualified to know), note that the survey had no agenda and was from an independent source.

Given that there are an estimated 22,000 climatologists world wide, a 98% agreement rate is still going to give you 400 names to add to any piece of literature you like. This doesn't mean there isn't a consensus.

There's a contradiction between political consensus and scientific consensus. The latter assumes an overwhelming evidential case, but must consider data, not mobs.

So let's do that...

In a study of 1,000 peer-reviewed (i.e not opinion) abstracts on the subject of climate change between 1994 and 2004 (Oreskes), not one was found with results to disagree with the scientific consensus. Not one. Although the research was contested at a later date by Peiser, he only managed to find 34 in disagreement - giving us a consensus of 97%.

I should add that ExxonMobil currently offer a $10,000 bonus to any pier reviewed paper that challenges climate change. Even with that bonus in place, they still couldn't find any!!!

This means MM, that whether you choose people, or scientific evidence there is an overwhelming consensus that climate change is happening, and that it's generated by human activity.

[Marmora Man]

I'm a libertarian - the Cato institute is part of my hinterland.

Neither of us will convince the other - whether by quoting scientists or other points. Maybe if this forum is still around in 25 years time and I'm not gaga by then we can return with better data to discuss the issue.

I remain a sceptic about the climate change thesis - I acknowledge the energy gap problem which I see as a far greater threat to mankind. I therefore support the actions to reduce and ultimately close that energy gap - some of which may also be seen as appropriate if you happen to believe in climate change. Particularly the announcement of 11 nuclear reactor sites for UK - which if all built will give UK a degree of non carbon based energy independence.