Tuesday, October 26, 2010

What the President said about stupid

Last week the President gave a talk.  He is a real president of a real country, albeit the country has a population of just twice that of Scotland.  

He is President Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic.  'Doing nothing is better than doing something stupid' is an aphorism he quotes approvingly in regard to current climate policy.

Here is his lecture delivered in London last week.  It repays a careful read.  And if you haven't time here are a few excerpts.

  •  It seems to me that the widespread acceptance of the global warming dogma has become one of the main, most costly and most undemocratic public policy mistakes in generations. 
  • What belongs here is our insisting upon the indisputable fact that there are respectable but highly conflicting scientific hypotheses concerning this subject. 
  • What also belongs here is our resolute opposition to the attempts to shut down such a crucial public debate concerning us and our way of life on the pretext that the overwhelming scientific consensus is there and that we have to act now. 
  • Yet the global warming alarmism and especially the public policy measures connected with it have been triumphally marching on. Even the recent worldwide financial and economic crisis and the enormous confusion, fear, as well as indebtedness it created did not stop this victorious “long march.”
  • The original ambition probably used to be saving the Planet for human beings but we see now that this target has gradually become less and less important. Many environmentalists do not pay attention to the fate of the people. They want to save the Planet, not mankind. They speak about Nature, not about men.
Emissions trading to emissions tax.  In August I described the version of cap and trade coming to

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Stupid sceptic questions

Gabi Hegerl
At a recent lecture Gabi Hegerl, University of Edinburgh climate scientist and co-ordinating lead author for the 2007 IPCC AR4, was misheard and misquoted by blogger Bishop Hill.  The mistake was duly acknowledged by the Bishop and he posted Professor Hegerl's exact words from a video which was subsequently made available. 
"What is frustrating to me as a scientist is that the objections raised by the skeptics groups are scientifically so stupid often...it would be really much more fun to fight really interesting assertions.  But it's often things that often ring reasonable to people who have not background in this but that are scientifically totally with out value. I would find it more interesting to discuss if the sceptics would raise better questions."  Professor Gabi Hegerl, 5.10.10


Doubtless Professor Hegerl is right that some of the arguments made by sceptics are stupid.  But I don't think the fundamental position of many of those who are skeptical of the establishment can be dismissed so lightly.  It may repay Professor Hegerl to consider the position articulated in this blogpost by Warren Meyer.  


And I am still puzzling over her extraordinary dismissal of a sceptic with impeccable scientific credentials when I asked her a question a few weeks ago.  I repeat the excerpt from my post below.
"A few weeks back at a meeting of the Royal Society of Edinburgh I asked our Edinburgh climate science expert Gabi Hegerl why she claimed there was a consensus about man made global warming when there were people like Professor Lindzen expressing such a sharply contrasting view.  Her reply was that generally accepted models did not bear out his views."

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Resignation, repudiation, rhetoric

Prof Hal Lewis
One of the reasons I find the 'there is a consensus, the science is settled' mantra so hollow is that there are very distinguished scientists who don't agree that the science is settled.  (There are other reasons - like the science!)

Last week I quoted Professor Richard Lindzen.  This week I will quote the resignation letter of Professor Hal Lewis from the American Physical Society(APS).  Both are very distinguished scientists.  You can find Professor Lewis' devastating letter here but if your time is short please read the following excerpts:

  • It (the global warming scam) is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist
  • APS management has gamed the problem from the beginning, to suppress serious conversation about the merits of climate change claims  
  • I want no part of it, so please accept my resignation
That was the resignation.  Here is the repudiation.

Tuesday, October 05, 2010

Great pain - no gain: No pressure

Professor Richard Lindzen
"Great pain for no gain" is how Nobel prize-winner Professor Richard Lindzen described current proposals to prevent catastrophic global warming.  He was speaking on the BBC radio programme One Planet last week.   It is well worth listening to what he has to say.  He is interviewed from 5:30mins and again at 21:30 in this 28 min programme.  And if you haven't time to listen through, here are a few highlights:
  • I do believe it (man made climate change) is real.  I just believe it is very small and has very little potential to grow to compete with the normal scales of variability
  • to be sceptical assumes there is a strong presumptive case, but you have your doubts.  I think we are dealing with a situation where there is not a strong presumptive case
  • the IPCC has a bias towards the existence of a problem (catastrophic global warming)
  • the precautionary principle is an absurdity - because eventually it feeds back to all the actions you would take in precaution are themselves subject to the precautionary principle - a formula for collective stasis
  • Most of the suggested policies (to combat global warming) are great pain for no gain
A few weeks back at a meeting of the Royal Society of Edinburgh I asked our Edinburgh climate science expert Professor Gabi Hegerl why she claimed there was a consensus about man made global warming when there were people like Professor Lindzen expressing such a sharply contrasting view.  Her reply was that generally accepted models did not bear out his views.

No pressure