Matt Ridley looks at pharmaceutical research and finds problems of confirmation bias, lack of access to data, and lack of replication of results. He compares it to the hockey stick debacle which is rising in notoriety to become the new benchmark of bad science. Articles like this are especially useful, because people concerned about Tamiflu might not know anything about the HockeyStick, and might not have read an article about the climate.
In Pharmaceutical research companies may do many studies on a drug but only choose to publish the ones with results they feel better about.
PERHAPS it should be called Tamiflugate. Yet the doubts reported by Britain’s House of Commons public accounts committee last week go well beyond the possible waste of nearly half a billion pounds ($913 million) on a flu drug that might not be much better than paracetamol. All sorts of science are contaminated with the problem of cherry-picked data.
Science at a breaking point:
The problem seems widespread. A paper in the BMJ in 2012 reported that only one fifth of clinical trials financed by the US National Institutes of Health released summaries of their results within the required one year of completion and one third were still unpublished after 51 months.
The legendary bad hockey-stick saga is related to a new audience:
To illustrate how far this problem reaches, a few years ago there was a scientific scandal with remarkable similarities, in respect of the non-publishing of negative data, to the Tamiflu scandal. A relentless, independent scientific auditor in Canada named Stephen McIntyre grew suspicious of a graph being promoted by governments to portray today’s global temperatures as warming far faster than any in the past 1400 years – the famous “hockey stick” graph. When he dug into the data behind the graph, to the fury of its authors, especially Michael Mann, he found not only problems with the data and the analysis of it but a whole directory of results labelled “CENSORED”.
This proved to contain five calculations of what the graph would have looked like without any tree-ring samples from bristlecone pine trees. None of the five graphs showed a hockey-stick upturn in the late 20th century: “This shows about as vividly as one could imagine that the hockey stick is made out of bristlecone pine,” wrote McIntyre drily. (The bristlecone pine was well known to have grown larger tree rings in recent years for non-climate reasons: goats tearing the bark, which regrew rapidly, and extra carbon dioxide making trees grow faster.)
McIntyre later unearthed the same problem when the hockey-stick graph was relaunched to overcome his critique, with Siberian larch trees instead of bristlecones. This time the lead author, Keith Briffa, of the University of East Anglia, had used only a small sample of 12 larch trees for recent years, ignoring a much larger data set of the same age from the same region. If the analysis was repeated with all the larch trees there was no hockey-stick shape to the graph. Explanations for the omission were unconvincing.
One of the comi-tragic ironies here is that the scientist who “did the most” to expose the Tamiflu story according to Ridley is Ben Goldacre — but is this the same Ben Goldacre who appeared on the ABC propaganda-doco about climate (with Nick Minchin and Anna Rose, and which myself and David were also involved in). In that doco though, Ben Goldacre talks of denialists, and trust and how he trusts the experts on climate change:
Ben Goldacre: So it’s not that I trust them because I think they’re nice people or that I think they sort of play with a straight bat generally, like I’m basically assuming people aren’t actively lying, when I trust somebody else’s scientific opinion, when I trust the majority of opinion in a whole field, it’s because I know from all the work that I’ve done in other fields that there are checks and balances and structures where people will critique each other’s ideas and they will pull out the killer refutation of somebody else’s claim…. I’ve got no reason to believe that’s not happening just as healthily in climate research as it is anywhere else. [“I can change your mind” transcript]
Goldacre continued with this memorable gem:
Nick Michin: Have you read Booker’s book?
Ben Goldacre: Of course I haven’t, you know, these people are idiots. Chris Booker says that what is it, he’s got some bee in his bonnet about how asbestos isn’t really bad for you. You know, I mean, these are – they’re just not very interesting to people to most people, you know. If you’re really, you know, if
you’re really into climate change denialism then I’m sure this guy is like a massive figure to you but it’s just boring, it’s a boring, boring argument. I would literally rather slam my cock in the door than get involved in this.
So Ben would rather slam his **** in a door than get involved in this climate denial argument, however appearing in a documentary and staking his reputation on it, that’s different. He didn’t need to do any research for that eh? He said as much:
Ben Goldacre: And so I, rightly or wrongly, just kind of gave up… To have a big argument, meaningfully with the climate change deniers I would have to familiarise myself with this vast body of evidence and actually I don’t think it will be sufficiently good fun but I can’t be bothered, you know.
Message to Ben: no one said you had to go on TV to talk about climate science. If you can’t be bothered doing any research, just say “No, thanks”. Crass ignorance is not the best look.
Poking holes in Big-Pharma, when they deserve it, is all admirable and worthy but it’s an Occupy-Science kind of approved target. Real scientists and investigators who unpick dodgy science claims are the ones who will tackle any field of science, not just the ones on the fashionable-hit-list. After all, those who attack the critics of bad-science and defend the bad-scientists are pretty bad-scientists themselves. Touche?
Ben is welcome to join us in the real trenches, but he will need to do some reading first.
I think the door slam hypothesis needs to be tested. And since the scientist/activist likes to do it in style….may I suggest a high end Mercedes Benz with good quality doors. I wager a few hard slams will have Mr. Goldacre singing a different tune…..several octaves higher than normal.
Glen
241
He has off-set all his good work on one subject by displaying his ignorance and bias on the other. That negates all his credibility in one swoop. Cannot be bothered to research but still has an informed opinion in as much as he does not trust? I do not think so.
210
I have the feeling that he thinks it’s okay to attack industry/kapital based science. But at the same time strangely very negative to even talk about leftist ideological/policy based science?
Could this person be a leftist/social liberal?
50
Ben is very definitely a Lefty. He even chooses to live in a poor neighbourhood despite being a well paid medical specialist (psychiatrist).
00
When i see the phrase “cheery picked data” I think of the infamous Framingham Heart Study, the one that started the “animal fat = heart disease = bad” myth by selectively publishing data.
I recall when Catalyst in 2013 had the emerity to outright question the whole cholesterol nonsense, they dragged out the big guns to quickly settle the startled sheep…
Bad science is bad science, whichever way you cut it.
00
Lol Glen L
30
Reading about the side effects of Tamiflu in the leaflet that came with the box alerted us to just how useless this drug is:
Nausea, Vomiting, Diarrhea, Bronchitis, Abdominal pain, Dizziness, Headache, Cough, Insomnia, Vertigo, Fatigue
It basically amplifies your flu symptoms while you take it for the week’s duration of the treatment, and then at the end of the week when you stop taking it, the side effects go away, and you feel much better. The drug cured you. Magic!
161
So it makes you feel even more rotten for a week. Maybe at the end of the week you are not as well as you were 10 days prior, but because of the contrast you just think you are.
120
Sounds homeopathic – like with like! But whatever you do, don’t tell the believers.
20
I think ginger would probably have similar antiviral effect
00
Captain Cook had the right idea years ago when he made his crew eat limes when they where at sea. Anybody that takes anything else needs a psychiatrist not a doctor.
Juice 3 limes into a glass and add equal amount HOT water, climb into bed and sweat it out for the night….next morning no more flu.
I haven’t had even a sniffy nose for over 20 years since doing that.
Maybe Ridley should have stuck his weeny in the door.
50
“Maybe Ridley should have stuck his weeny in the door.”
Meh…. even thats not original. Henry Rollins (the closest thing I have to a hero or role model) was doing it ages ago.
http://youtu.be/Qhk7YbOAohY
20
Captain James Cook did not feed his crew on limes or citrus fruit. The work of Dr James Lind had not been published in 1770.
Cook was interested in the possible effect of nutrition on Scurvy and fed his crew on sauerkraut (cabbage) and fresh vegetables whenever he could get them.
80
Cook brought on board two concoctions,both mixtures of various veges and fruits.Rob and Wart,to be precis.One contained lemons,high in VC.After that success the navy and the rest of the civilized world followed.
30
Well I was not quite right. James lind published a treatise on Scurvy in 1753. I am not sure what he concluded. However lemon juice or limes were not adopted by the Royal Navy until 1794.
The story once again shows how mainstream science refuses to adopt a new idea, even if it is correct and the evidence is staring them in the face.
30
According to the book ‘Into the Blue’, the story of James Cook, he insisted that every crew member, whether they liked it or not, consume a daily ration of sauerkraut. On returning to Port in England he was the first captain to return from a long voyage with a full crew. He also increased the know flora and fauna by 50%.
20
It wasn’t just Captain Cook, who gave his crew limes when they were available. It was standard practice in the Royal Navy, along with the rum ration, from the mid to late seventeenth century onwards.
But it had nothing to do with flu. Limes were found to prevent scurvy, although at that time, nobody had any idea why they worked. The discovery of vitamin-C, came much later.
Flu was common on board sailing ships, especially after a stay in port, when shore-leave was allowed. But it was noticed that, once all of the crew (including Officers) had been sick once (from the shore disease), they did not get sick again, until they got to another port.
60
Peter C is correct, I should have typed “eighteenth century” 🙁
30
Bob,you dont normally go to the doctor with the flu-you are too sick to get out of bed for about 4 days. You, my friend ,had a cold. it is not the same thing. And no, Tamiflu does not work for the common cold,either.
20
There is a study that shows that from things that don’t work the thing that have the best effect is the most expensive ones.
It’s called placebo effect.
00
Ben’s work on Lucia de Berk was admirable (see his Bad Science site), and his fight with Matthias Rath was epic (I sent him some scans of SA newspapers years ago on that issue), but he does seem to have a special blind spot in this area. I would guess that someone very important to him personally shaped his opinion on climate change. Given the number of “authorities” that endorse his position, it’s hard to blame him, but his flippancy in “I Can Change Your Mind” is grating. I was similarly troubled to see the Amazing One endorse the CAGW position.
110
My entire working life, nearly over, has been spent in the pharmaceutical profession. I was involved, at the “chalk face” level, with the planning for the expected flu pandemic referred to in this blog and the provision of Tamiflu. The upshot was an unnessessary stockpile and the medication of anybody who, however vaguely, thought that they might have, possibly, been at risk of infection. The truth was everybody, from the Prime Minister downwards, was in a bowel loosening funk at the prospect of the populace dead in piles in the streets, a re-run of 1918/19, against all reason or historical perspective. Some of my colleagues did very well out of it, though not as well as Roche.
I have read Ben Goldacre’s books and articles and admired his factual evisceration of the mendacity, dishonesty and the abuse of the scientific method and statistics rife in the field of medicine. I also was always puzzled by his embrace of the Global Warming Narrative despite all these malevolent elements being blatantly obvious in climate science, which is, in many respects, similar to medical science. The answer to his blindness may lie in the concept of the “authority of the expert”. Medicine, like climate, requires multiple specialisations. Specialists inevitably possess intricate knowledge of their fields and correspondingly little about any others. Hence the “expert” in a field will not engage with expertise in others for fear of the humiliation he himself would inflict on interlopers, but will accept the authority of “consensus” as to do otherwise would undermine the mystique of his own “expert” status. This despite being aware of the areas of dispute and controversy within his own speciality, which, of course, are never aired to the public, as if they would care. This would explain the position of polyglot institutions, such as The Royal Society, who embrace “consensus” and will not engage sceptics (i.e. the “debate” between the RS and GWPF) and the compliance of many other the academic and representative bodies. The President of the RS is a medical man (a microbiologist).
Ben should read Rupert Darwall’s “The Age of Global Warming” to understand the evolution of “climate change”.
This had a prescient 5 minute précis in 1979 in “The secret Policemen’s Ball”
210
Sorry missed link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hJQ18S6aag&feature=share&list=RD-hJQ18S6aag
30
hmm diogenese2 I think we might know each other…
12
Nice explanation, Dio.
I could never understand a scientific organisation VOTING on a theory. “Jack, you are a physiologist, how do you vote on Mersenne primes?’
30
i suspect he is a population health microbiologist but never mind the distinction
01
There are articles in major medical journals about how awful evidence-based medicine is — not because it’s wrong in principle, but because the evidence-base is so horribly tainted by drug companies and/or shoddy research methods — so I’d say this is about right.
Sure, I like to read and cite medical studies, but I pretty much go by what has a logical, plausible mechanism of action given human evolution more than the studies per se. I wish I could just go with the evidence, and there are some well-done studies … but a lot of medical studies are unfortunately rubbish, including studies ghost-written by drug companies and farmed out to offers to put their signature on.
As bad, the fact that in America at least drug companies have been allowed to bury studies that show no result or a negative result, publish two studies that show a positive result, and then they’re off to the races for drug approval.
It’s a disgrace.
160
*
offersauthors30
I read that as “others” – besides, if a person did not write it, a signature does not make she or he the author. Also, thanks for all the comments on the ‘crash diets’ post.
20
In point of fact, evidence based medicine (EBM) is categorically not solely based on evidence per se. EBM is more akin to the exercise of ‘in time learning’, namely the ability to formulate a searchable question regarding the best evidence at the present moment. It might therefore be regarded as a moveable feast.
Moreover, a more appropriately termed synonym ‘best practice’ involves the synthesis of evidence with clinical experience and wisdom. Indeed, this may be published as a ‘clinical guideline’. Finally, though no less importantly, the patient is engaged in a dialogue of collaboration, informed by ‘tacit and explicit knowledge of those providing care, within the context of available resources’, founded on the ‘best available, current. valid and relevant evidence. Patient involvement in clinical decision making is viewed as a key part of the process.
For those interested the following open access article provides an concise and outstanding synopsis of evidence based practice (EBP) might wish to take a look at the following.
Dawes M, Summerskill W, Glasziou P et al. (2005) Sicily statement on evidence based practice. BMC Med Educ. DOI:101186/1472-6920-5-1
20
Apparently it took Eli Lilly 11 (secret) trials before they could produce enough evidence for the FDA to register the SSRI antidepressant Prozac. Recent studies also suggest that none of the SSRI antidepressants are any more effective than a placebo.
00
I did not use Prozac but I have used SSRI medication. I disagree with the notion that there was a placebo effect.
I think where it was most useful happened to be associated with the disruption of a pain pathway rather than the treatment of depression. I have not had the medication for several years and I would need to start using it again to see if it continued to be effective.
The issues associated with depression are complex. The idea of the SSRI is somewhat novel, but one can argue that a good dose of sunlight should have the same effect. What if the person is not supposed to be exposed to too much sunlight? On the other hand, something less complex and without explanation is fibromyalgia and the way that the body amplifies a certain kind of pain. Whatever is in that medication certainly helped take it all away, and that was not from any placebo effect.
On the other hand the other older kind of anti-depressants, such as amitriphtiline (sp) are utterly useless when dealing with the same issues.. at least I think so from my own experience with the same… what is worse the amitriphtiline can have some very nasty side-effects.
All medications have side effects, even the so called natural medications have side effects.
00
Regarding Ben Goldacre, good advice is to stay 100% away so as to not be tainted by association.
Max Roberts — about the leaflet listing side effects: All (or almost all) medicines that do anything will be accompanied by such lists. Even people who did not take a particular drug will get headaches or others and the longer the period studied the more, and more severe, symptoms folks report. So the leaflet gets printed because it helps to protect the company from lawsuits. Check the leaflets in any important drug.
The State of California puts little stickers on everything saying they have reason to believe the product will cause illness, usually cancer. I bought hand clippers for garden plants. The cutting parts were steel and the handles a very tough plastic. Perhaps a big dog could chew on the handle and ingest some plastic. For a person or a baby to do so is about as unlikely as the door slam hypothesis of comment #1.
—-
The Australian wants me to subscribe to read its articles. That’s not going to happen either. I live in North America.
20
No, the difference here is the side effects of the drug in question are …. flu.
I would like to hazard that most drugs have side effects which are not almost identical to the condition that they are supposed to be treating. How many stomach ulcer drugs say: “caution, may cause gastric irritation and bleeding”, or anti-inflamatory drugs that say, “caution, may cause inflamation” etc. etc.
Tamiflu gives you flu.
60
Keep quiet Max – you have just re-fertilized Homeopathy
40
I have no idea of what you mean by “Tamiflu gives you ‘flu). I must have missed something in this thread but as influenza is a viral infection how can a drug give you a virus? Would you explain what you mean?
20
If you are healthy and you take Tamiflu and you get the worst of the side-effects, you will suffer from a condition that will be, to all intents and purposes, indistinguishable from flu.
The filed of virology is just as sick as ‘climate science’. We always used to joke that when you go to a doctor and he/she says “you have a virus” the translation of that is “I don’t know what’s wrong with you”. Although there are a number of diseases that have an infectious component, your typical cold is just as explicable with a lifestyle/stress/toxins hypothesis.
Anyway, here is a typical sequence of events that might take place with a doctor prescribing Tamiflu:
1) you go down with exhaustion, cough, nausea. Doctor diagnoses this as flu and prescribes Tamiflu (actually, during the swine flu fiasco in Britain, the diagnosis would be by telephone via a call centre).
2) You take Tamiflu, and get worse. Standard excuses apply, “you have to get worse before you get better, just think how bad you would have been if you weren’t taking the medication” but really what is happening is that the drug is making the symptoms worse.
3) Towards the end of the week, you are beginning to feel a bit better because the body is fighting off the infection anyway. However, this improvement will be attributed to the action of the drug.
4) Once you reach the end of the course of drugs and stop taking them, the body is no longer having to battle with toxic chemicals, and the recovery process completes itself. The false claim will be that the drug helped to fight off the worst of the illness, and once the course of treatment was complete, your body was able to finish the job. The reality is the opposite.
60
Do you really believe this? I agree that GPs hand out antibiotics willy nilly (and you probably know antibiotics are not really useful for treating viral infections) but this is because the public demand that the GPs do this as part of the “treatment they are entitled to”. The rest of what you write is, to say the least,truly remarkable.
30
Not really, it’s logical and based upon observations. Medical science rarely stands up to close attention, so why should virus infections be any different? Virologists also seem to be lagging some way behind geneticists in understanding cell mechanisms.
I am a psychologist by training and, frankly, the discipline is in a terrible state, even at the more reputable end. In my experience, the research abilities of medical scientists are even worse than psychologists. One area where they score particularly badly is in ruling out alternative explanations for their data.
So, when I see a minor cold epidemic wiping out a number of my students, you might see a virus (although no such entity has ever been definitively identified, cells under stress package and eject genetic material as a messenger to other cells even when they have not been infected with ‘virus’ material) I see a bunch of people who have all been subject to similar environmental and mental stresses at the same time, which has thrown them all out of equilibrium
Actually, sometimes antibiotics are very important for ‘viral’ infections, when the body is laid low the bacteria can move in. That’s why the WWI flu epidemic was so bad, no antibiotics to treat the complications.
10
GPs in Australia were given boxes of Tamiflu when our government was in a funk about the “coming flu epidemic”. Most of ours passed their use by date sitting on top of our fridge. We had read the studies, and knew they were not much better than placebos. Most decent GPs in this country know about the filing cabinet effect–ie, for every study showing a positive effect of a new drug, there are probably half a dozen in the bottom of the pharmaceutical companie’s filing cabinet that show the opposite. cynical?no. skeptical-you bet.
40
It seems that the best evidence of a drug’s efficacy comes directly from the user aka cutting out the middleman.
When I was diagnosed with Diabetes Type 2 about 15 years ago the Doc put me on Gliclazide (I guess to help reduce blood sugar by getting the body’s cells to get their share of glucose from the blood sugar), Lipitor (though my blood sample showed fairly low levels of the bad cholesterol and OK for the desirable one) and Coversyl 2.5 MG (from my thirties my blood pressure was often above about 155/90 when taken at rest).
The funny thing is that the doc was looking for Diabetes because I was getting the urge to wee a bit too often. Just for fun, I guess, he decided to check my PSA level for the first time in my life. So when I reported back he sent me off to see Prof Harman (he did Channel Nine’s Sam Newman’s prostate cancer operation). The Prof said I want to see you in my East Melbourne surgery ASAP. He used an ultrasound scan to get a biopsy of the old prostate and said no wonder your PSA reading was 30 your prostate is about ten times larger than it should be. The biopsy said I was OK for cancer so the Prof congratulated me. Not sure why. Anyway we killed two birds with the one stone.
To cut a long story short I take my own blood pressure fairly regularly and the 2.5 MG Coversyl got my BP to about 140/80 consistently up until about 6 months ago when I went to a new doc at the clinic for a new issue for the next 6 months of the three scripts. After taking my BP he said I’d like to up your Coversyl to 5MG. Since then my BP has regularly been about 125/72.
The point being that where the efficacy of a drug can be proven by the user, one’s faith in the power of Western medicine can be sustained. Don’t know about the other drugs but they do n’t seem to have done me much harm …yet.
00
A minority vocal group in California has succeeded in having bannned fire retardent chemicals in furniture. The ban may apply in all USA by 6 months time. The reason given is that retardents ‘may’ cause cancers. Of course the reason why the retardents are used seem to escape the notice of these Nannies until, I guess, deaths from fire increase dramaticly.
20
I’m amazed at the number of warmists who tell me AGW is 100% certain (or 97%) while at the same time refusing to know anything about it or discuss it. They say ‘it’s boring’, implying that only skeptics carry on with this dull knowing-before-believing business. No self-critical faculty, poor sheep.
160
Finding of facts, such as the hockey stick hoax, and conclusion of law in any half decent court room with an honest judge would rule that AGW is a scam of humongous proportions.
50
Some points regarding the article in the Australian…
WRT the “CENSORED” FOLDER, Mann responded:
So that data didn’t exist in ’98, it was published a year later – the time-line is wrong for that have been an issue with MBH98.
WRT larch tree sampling, “utilization of a newer more complete Yamal data set has no substantial effect on Briffa’s Yamal temperature reconstruction”, and McIntyre’s accusations of data withholding are undermined by the relevation that he had the Hantemirov raw data since 2004.
This continued obsession with the 15 year old MBH98 is silly. While that study had its statistical problems, the general conclusions have been confirmed by over a dozen works using different data and statistical techniques (see Fig. 5.7 here) – any issues with the paper fail to invalidate the broad conclusions of those works, that the globe is as warm or warmer than it has been in the previous 1500 years.
It’s a shame Ridley is stuck on erroneous decade old rhetorical points.
233
Yep is so good that that even the IPCC dropped it like a hot potato
180
KR,
Mann’s work, for want of a better word, and dendrochronology as a whole for that matter, is a pseudoscientific enterprise, given that one of the main factors influencing tree growth is CO2 itself, so therefore it is entirely inappropriate to use it as proxy for temperature as a comparator to CO2- ie. it is not an independent variable. Then cherry-picking and swapping between the different tree ring proxies to suit the desired result, rather than objectively analysing the data dispassionately is as indefensible as the Big Pharma “science” used to justify Tamiflu.
The inconvenient truth, KR, is that science has so many rotten apples in the basket that you can have no confidence in anyone’s studies on any subject. The tangled web created by such charlatans has entangled research, both good and bad. And people like you, KR, who should know better but are so deluded by your religious belief system, are delaying the reckoning needed to restore confidence by defending the indefensible because you are afraid if you concede that point then the house of cards that is CAGW will all fall down.
What you fail to appreciate, KR, is that the skeptics are correct and we are at the peak of a natural climate cycle, and solar effects are underestimated by experts focussing purely on TSI (to the exclusion of indirect solar effects ) and radiative heat transfer ( to the exclusion of fluctuations in convection and the massive heat transfer capabilities of the water cycle) and now headed down precipitously. Your meme is on the verge of collapse, and the question is how long before you throw off your cognitive dissonance and acknowledge it.
263
“and we are at the peak of a natural climate cycle”
I’m calling it the CSWP.. (current slightly warm period)
100
Specific proxies are selected for inclusion in the data sets precisely because they have a hockey stick shape.
Confirmation bias shaping methodological practices resulting in results that match preconceived expectations – but which do not reflect reality.
Paleoclimatology is not a scientific practice, it is meaningless noise conducted by incompetents that could not get a real job in science.
Those same incompetents have now spent 15 to 20 years being lauded like rock stars.
The way the world turns…
101
That is the sad truth of the matter. I once held science and scientists in high regard but today I’m afraid I distrust all of them, even the good ones unless they can prove to me they are genuine and honest. The good ones who have remained silent have to share the blame for this. As the saying goes, “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing”.
141
Winston – I understand that many people distrust dendrochronology, although IMO many of the objections raised are unsupportable. However, the same general reconstructions are found looking at alkenones, fossil pollens, ice cores, foraminifera Mg/Ca ratios, speleothems, corals, glacier lengths, and borehole data. Here’s a listing and discussion of Surface Temperature Reconstructions of the Last 2000 Years – it’s not just tree rings. You are throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
ExWarmist – No, the various reconstruction data were not hand-selected to produce particular results. For that to happen in just about every paper in every lab around the world is a staggering large scale conspiracy theory, i.e. nonsense.
For that kind of selection you _could_ go to McIntyre and McKitrick, who used a bad persistence model for their ‘red noise’ whose parameters erroneously contained a warming signal, ran 10,000 iterations sorted for similarity to hockey sticks, selecting 10 (1000:1 cherry pick!), and did so without actually evaluating principal component significance. Again, numerous papers from different investigators using different data and techniques give results consistent with MBH98 – a good indication that the overall results (recent warming) are real.
Andrew McRae – ‘CENSORED’ was the term used for hold-out testing of sample set sensitivity. Nothing more, nothing insidious. And McIntyre documentably had the majority of the tree data, excepting only unpublished/unreleased data still in process for later papers.
Why hasn’t McIntyre produced a temperature reconstruction of his own (since he appears to consider himself an expert in paleoproxies, and has spent so much time finding/demanding them)? If he is so certain, he should show his own results…
—
And on and on and on – MBH98 and that temperature reconstruction is not the linchpin of climate science, but rather just one small step in but one line of evidence. And while it certainly had its issues (including decentered PCA, although that didn’t strongly affect the results), those don’t invalidate it.
Meanwhile, kvetching about Mann, about Gore, about a single paper or piece of evidence – that’s equivalent to arguing that because you feel a couple of saplings are (arguably) malformed, that the forest around you does not and can not exist. It ignores all the rest of the evidence…
16
KR you wrote: “No, the various reconstruction data were not hand-selected to produce particular results. For that to happen in just about every paper in every lab around the world is a staggering large scale conspiracy theory, i.e. nonsense.”
I don’t consider it a conspiracy theory, but it is clear there are a lot of people who have a vested interest in protecting a supposedly settled theory. It causes them to repeat the same mistake, whether deliberately or not, it doesn’t mean they are doing it as part of some coordinated effort. As Matt Ridley wrote:
McIntyre later unearthed the same problem when the hockey-stick graph was relaunched to overcome his critique, with Siberian larch trees instead of bristlecones. This time the lead author, Keith Briffa, of the University of East Anglia, had used only a small sample of 12 larch trees for recent years, ignoring a much larger data set of the same age from the same region. If the analysis was repeated with all the larch trees there was no hockey-stick shape to the graph. Explanations for the omission were unconvincing.
Indeed when you go through the something like 20 other peer reviewed studies which support Mann’s Hockey stick which made the MWP pretty much disappear, all you find is similar methodology and data processing problems. That no more confirms Mann’s accuracy than someone using the same faulty tape measure to confirm a previous measurement.
It is a silly proposition for you to ask “Why hasn’t McIntyre produced a temperature reconstruction of his own”, does a company auditor have to run their own company to have any credibility checking a company’s accounts? In fact it is preferable they don’t so there is no room for conflicts of interest. There can be no claims that McIntyre is just trying to protect his own research findings which may differ from Mann’s.
62
I don’t think that it is a conspiracy (intentional) – I see it as the application of misconceived methods – aka Incompetence.
Yes – Incompetence on a massive and pervasive scale.
In the same way that computer models are ascribed “predictive” powers that they do not possess.
21
Warmest seem to think that the CAGW theory is supported, or even proved by multiple lines of evidence. So skeptics set about demolishing the lines of evidence one by one, until they are all gone and the theory falls down.
In fact not one of these lines of evidence stands up on its own, including The Hockey Stick, arctic ice, retreating glaciers, a polar bear on a swim or a hot day or two somewhere. The sum of zeros is nothing. But not to a warmest. To them the total is much more than the sum of its parts.
42
Why hasn’t Japan put a man on the moon? Your question is as relevant. McIntyre did not create a myth from noise. He tried to until he realized it was just noise. So why would he try to create his own myth?
All that “evidence” you claim, none of it has been directly tied to CO2. it is like saying since you see blood, there must be a body. Really? Maybe it was a nose bleed? But that does not occur to you?
Science is not disproving false claims with alternate claims. if that is what you think, no wonder you think that any warmth MUST be caused by CO2. You have reached a conclusion and are now searching for facts to support it. And that is not how science works. Science lets the data lead to the conclusion, not the conclusion to create data. And that is what you are demanding of McIntyre.
22
KR:
that link wasn’t very convincing with regards to THE SCIENCE that Michael the R keeps blathering on about.
Firstly, they put the temperature rise at 0.6ºC for the twentieth century, rather than the last 33 years. On the graphs temperatures were rising quite quickly with only a small rise in CO2 level.
Secondly, it rules out the Medieval Warm Period, partly on claims by K. Briffa.
This doesn’t carry much weight since Briffa re-examined his data and found that there was indeed a Medieval Warm Period, and the last Report from the IPCC also concedes that it occurred.
Rather than trying to defend a position that the IPCC has abandoned you would do better to admit that there are uncertainties in science.
31
There is Doubt present within the practices of Science.
There is Faith present within the practices of Religion.
and there is Certainty present within the practices of Fundamentalism.
Perhaps KR could consider the possibility that his mind has been overtaken by Climate Fundamentalism – rather than Science.
Some people are just attached to Certainty – it makes them feel safe in an uncertain and ambiguous world.
21
Firstly let me say that I find it extraordinary anyone should seek to justify or legitimise the HS and Mann after all this time, especially by referring to Deep Climate and Deltoid.
McIntyre’s efforts in exposing the scandal of the HS puts him up there with the likes of LM internationally in revealing the void which is AGW science.
A history of McIntyre’s work and the duplicity of Mann, Briffa and the HS crew was done here in 2009.
The HS scandal, the emails, the failure of the models and the Antarctic expedition are some of the biggest features and indictments of AGW.
Another feature of alarmists a complete lack of irony which KR amply demonstrates in his final sentence:
It is not Ridley who is stuck on the same old rhetorical points.
151
So the censored folder was called “CENSORED” for some reason other than its contents had been censored?
That’s an interesting interpretation of “censored”. I would have thought the hint was in the title.
Fair enough that we may never know why the 20 proxy series Mann selected for “censoring” were mainly from samples that Graybill collected especially to show CO2’s wonderful fertilisation properties.
As for MBH98 being robust to core series removal or substitution, the point is fairly moot as Jeff Id has shown the tree-ring RCS reconstructions don’t measure temperature anyway. Applying a proper spline fit for RCS ring width weighting compensates for any faster old tree growth if it occurs, but this improved technique produces chronologies that don’t look like hockey sticks. They don’t look much like temperature either. The easiest explanation is that tree ring widths don’t work as thermometers at all.
As for McIntyre’s possession of the data he’d asked Briffa to supply, back in 2009 McIntyre responded:
And when the same lame accusation is recycled many years later, he again responds…
It’s a shame KR is stuck on erroneous five-years-old rhetorical points.
60
“Ben Goldacre: And so I, rightly or wrongly, just kind of gave up… To have a big argument, meaningfully with the climate change deniers I would have to familiarise myself with this vast body of evidence and actually I don’t think it will be sufficiently good fun but I can’t be bothered, you know.”
Its Suzuki on QnA all over again.
http://youtu.be/Z4SaIFsyxgA
People who really ought to know better than to go into the MSM with nothing to support their claims other than “I reckon if these X hundred people believe it then it must be right”
This is how a highschool dropout like me ends up looking highly educated on this topic when I discuss it with people with science degrees in things like environmental biology and ecology etc. One of our ENV team at work yesterday heard me laughing about the stranded ice expedition and said “well actually your wrong about the team on board being there to investigate ice and climate change”. I said “orly?” show me. So she toddled off and tried to find some evidence, culminating 20 minutes later in her being unable to find a single link to support her claim. I then informed her of the expedition leaders names, the purpose of their journey, their claims, their theories and some links where she could read more information on both sides of the argument.
This person like so many (dare I say the majority) of AGW disciples routinely source their information from the MSM believing with full faith that it must be unassailable and right or it wouldn’t be in the news. They are scientists who source their science information from authority, not research. She was pretty chastened by the whole experience and for me it was business as usual in this argument. She had actually never heard of Chris Turney……. but was quite happy to argue the point off the cuff, expecting to be supported by “the science” ….*le sigh*
221
Speaking of AGW disciples watching 9’s “Millionaire Hot Seat” last night a young bright n bubbly girl was on and worked for a business environmental consultant’s group and when asked what that was she launched into a spiel like it was a presentation going on about the usual carbon footprint etc, what got me was she kept saying carbon until Eddy had to ask if she meant CO2.
So now we have people like this presenting themselves in a professional capacity that will influence the operations of businesses that buy into the hype without research, sorry to say but if a business is that stupid to throw good money after bad they deserve the loss.
The clincher was when she got the next question wrong (I happened to know it) she came out with “OH you should’ve given me a question on science” well I just lost it and after a good laugh I felt a bit depressed as well knowing she would never get the joke.
121
Yeah I was thinking about a few questions I would love to ask someone like John Cooke or Suzuki/Flannery/Whoever…
1. If you accept that CO2 has an effect on climate in the manner and magnitude suggested by the “consensus”, then what do you think the effect on the climate would be if it was possible to reduce CO2 levels instantly to X.
1A. Describe the climate of the planet in a value X scenario in detail.
2. If you have an answer to 1. What is the value of X in ppm?
3. If you have an answer for 2. show your workings.
Anyone can have a go…. Matt, JB, Micheal… anyone?
20
NICE..:-)
Dr Brain is your guy.. he’s the mathematical genius.. just ask him 😉
11
Well one thing I perhaps forgot to add, but I assumed its obvious. Is that X will of course represent the answerer’s expectation of an ideal global climate for all life….. since there wouldn’t be much point in choosing anything else…. would there?
Apparently that’s what we are doing now.
So I figured if someone thinks they know that the current level of CO2 and present climate is “wrong” or less than ideal, it presupposes a comparison climate, which assumedly could be both calculated in terms of CO2 values and described in the kind of detail we see in the descriptions of why the present climate is manufactured(poorly) by our CO2 outputs. eg rates of tornadoes, hurricanes etc, severity of bushfires, floods, droughts, average temps in say 50 random locations etc etc.
In fact the more I think about it, it should be pretty easy for anyone with access to any of the consensus climate models to answer. Just plug in say…. 200ppm CO2 and watch all the dolphins sing koombayah right? Ok that’s probably an over simplification lol.
20
The guy doesn’t know anything and doesn’t want to know anything
(just like the moronic trolls around here).
And who says it not a religion. !!
What’s the saying…
When ’tis folly to be wise.. ignorance is bliss.
Well these fools are hanging onto that saying,
like, flies to a cowpat.news for them.. it is not folly to be wise.. they should try it sometime !!
31
This is an interesting watch if your a fan of Suzuki.
http://youtu.be/6nARIP90l9Q
Personally I prefer the motorcycles.
00
I was a Kawasaki guy myself.
Unfortunately, niggles in the shoulder and left elbow forced a cancellation of bike riding.
Wear and tear does that.
00
Off topic, but I see another slice of Australia has gone to China.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/chinese-firm-acquires-sp-ausnets-stake/story-e6frg9df-1226794608150#
10
Anthony Watts has an interesting article up today that deals with the psychology of those in the pay of government. The article includes a very nice summary of some of the Climategate material.
It is important to remember that politics – and science – is about people. When you understand the person you understand their politics.
As regards the suggestion that there is a link between government service and a greater tendency to be dishonest, I suspect the reason for this is that those who seek the comfort and safety of government service feel less able to survive in the non-government economy and are therefore more desperate to secure their place in government service. They see it as their one and only chance for economic security.
51
That is true, until the government runs out of money and defaults.
20
.. then being in the employ with the government is the last place one would want to be; unless they are suicidal.
20
Ironic, isn’t it.
00
No real drug company would EVER adjust the results like Hollywood did in the 1983 Tommy Lee Jones movie The Fugitive.
There is no incentive to cheat with the results of a drug like “Provasic”.
Or would they?
Hmmm. Didn’t the Australian government spend $500 million on Tamiflu.
That’s worth cheating for.
Worth lying for.
Worth adjusting the data for.
Maybe for some the $ involved in Big Green are similar?
30
Yes some are in it for the money and/or prestige. However, the Greens and the like are simply brain dead and/or stupid.
40
No, quite untrue. The greens want a totalitarian world government dominated by the chinese, it’s right there on their website. World government based on one vote one value. 3 Billion chinese Vs the rest of the world. Australia would be too small to even be represented, didn’t even mention parties, so I presume it’s also a one party system.
The greens are not dumb, their aim is world domination via the UN and a world goverment run by greens, and they are too damn close to getting their way.
10
This pretty much covers your question ….. BMJ – Pharmaceutical industry sponsorship and research outcome and quality: systematic review
Objective To investigate whether funding of drug studies by the pharmaceutical industry is associated with outcomes that are favourable to the funder and whether the methods of trials funded by pharmaceutical companies differ from the methods in trials with other sources of support.
10
Ridley is a little slow off the mark. The Tamiflu fraud has been known at least since 2009 when the Australian government decided to stockpile 10 million doses of the drug to use on Australians. In the end around $500m was spent by the then Health Dept. to purchase the doses to use on Australians yet not even half were used (Australians are smart) and the rest sold off to 3rd world countries at bargain basement prices.
Tamiflu was an untested product and the public were going to be the unwitting guinea pigs …
From the WHO website at the time … [Emphasis added] “Since new technologies are involved in the production of some pandemic vaccines, which have not yet been extensively evaluated for their safety in certain population groups, it is very important to implement post-marketing surveillance of the highest possible quality. In addition, rapid sharing of the results of immunogenicity and post-marketing safety and effectiveness studies among the international community will be essential for allowing countries to make necessary adjustments to their vaccination policies.”
Children and Pregnant Women Targeted in U.S. Swine Flu Mass Vaccination Program
SCENARIOS-Children go to front of flu vaccine line
Tamiflu might not work against swine flu, Government’s own scientists warn
The British Medical Journal has a bit to say about Tamiflu here ….
WHO recommends Tamiflu, but has not vetted the Tamiflu data.
EMA approved Tamiflu, but did not review the full Tamiflu dataset.
CDC and ECDC encourage the use and stockpiling of Tamiflu, but did not vet the Tamiflu data.
The majority of Roche’s Phase III treatment trials remain unpublished over a decade after completion.
In Dec 2009, Roche publicly promised independent scientists access to “full study reports” for selected Tamiflu trials, but to date the company has not made even one full report available.
It was also reported that Donald Rumsfeld made a killing out of bird flu hysteria in 2006. The US Defence Secretary made more than US$5m in capital gains from selling shares in the biotechnology firm that discovered and developed Tamiflu, the drug which was bought in massive amounts by Governments to treat a possible human pandemic of the disease.
Research is not as it seems.
10
KR (at #10) links to a document that on every page says “Do Not Cite, Quote or Distribute ”
Here’s a temperature chart you can use but it is not very scary:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/
And this page:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/index.html
. . . will tell you that while the temperature is not going up the atmospheric CO2 continues to do so. When observations do not agree with the hypothesis, the hypothesis fails.
70
So John I guess you missed the bit in Roys graph where it shows that almost all the temps before 1998 are below the 81=2010 average while after 1998 almost all of the temps are above the 81-2010 average. You have probably missed that ocean warming continues throughout the record and that ice volume and arctic extent has also continued to fall through the record. You may also have missed that solar has been flat for 60 years and that the oceans have generally been in cooling cycles.
But then that would have taken a thorough analysis of the data, natural variations and the state of the science, which would likely not have fit your agenda. Observations DO agree with the hypothesis, more than ever when alll of the science, data, natural factors and observations are taken into account.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/monitoring-references/faq/indicators.php
214
Yawn.. NBS !!
41
“You may also have missed that solar has been flat for 60 years”
What a load of outright unmitigated BS !!!!!
http://cc.oulu.fi/~usoskin/personal/lrsp-2008-3Color.pdf
51
And just in case you have trouble getting past the first paragraph..
The final conclusion is…………….
The modern level of solar activity (after the 1940s) is very high, corresponding to a grand
maximum. Grand maxima are also rare and irregularly occurring events, though the exact
rate of their occurrence is still a subject of debates.
70
So Michael, I guess you missed the bit in Roys graphs where it shows that although the temps before 1998 are below the 81=2010 average and those after 1998 are above the 81-2010 average, they are essentially flat, within the two different bands. But when you compare these flat temperatures, against the second graph that John presents, the one from NOAA, which is the atmospheric CO2 content, which continues to rise linearly, throughout that period, then you realise that temperature and CO2 level must be totally disconnected, because there is no correlation whatsoever.
150
You also missed that the oceans have been warming, that globally ice volume is falling and the Arctic ice is crashing, that 2001 to 2010 was the hottest decade on the instrumental record and that the 2001 – 2010 decade was finished on back to back la ninas. But the people who keep saying that it is natural factors consistently ignore naturalfactors. But then the facts are inconvenient to your story, aren’t they?
16
You also missed that the oceans have been warming, that globally ice volume is falling and the Arctic ice is crashing, that 2001 to 2010 was the hottest decade on the instrumental record and that the 2001 – 2010 decade was finished on back to back la ninas. But the people who keep saying that it is natural factors consistently ignore natural factors and other places the extra energy can go but focus on the 5% that goes into the atmosphere only. But then the facts are inconvenient to your story, aren’t they?
06
The atmosphere doesn’t warm the oceans, only the sun can do that. Net transfer of heat is from the ocean to the atmosphere. the relative heat capacities of the ocean
is ~3,300 x greater than the atmosphere, and the volume of the world’s oceans is so vast that there is insufficient atmosphere to heat to any appreciable amount, and additionally with insufficient variation in temperature to be physically capable of increasing the global ocean temperatures by any measureable degree.
For every tonne (1000kg) of water per unit volume (1m3), there is ~ 1kg of air for the same volume (1kg of air to ~1.2m3)
The oceans contain:
1,500,000,000,000,000,000,000 Litres of water.
To heat it by a mere 1˚C, for example, requires:
6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Joules of energy
After taking into account the relative masses and heat capacities of air and water, the atmosphere would have to be heated to 4,000 deg C to affect a 1 deg C change in ocean temperature. Conversely, a less than 0.001 deg C change in ocean heat content can cause a 1 degree C rise in atmospheric temperature. This would tend to suggest that small fluctuations in ocean temperatures are much more likely to influence atmospheric temperature rise than vice versa as alarmists would contend.
And since “back-radiated” LWIR can’t penetrate beyond the first micron of the ocean surface, this can only be related to solar activity.
The following graph shows that short wavelengths, visible and UV penetrate the ocean, and not long wave infrared:
http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/images/instruments/sim/fig01.gif
This graph shows wavelength versus depth.
http://www.klimaatfraude.info/images/sverdrup.gif
This graph shows the absorption co-efficient.
http://klimaatfraude.info/images/MODIS_and_AIRS_SST_comp_fig1.gif
And this graph shows the amount of energy in the UV/Visible wavelengths that are penetrating the ocean versus the energy in Earthshine.
http://www.udel.edu/Geography/DeLiberty/Geog474/energy_wavelength.gif
So, Michael, I eagerly await your treatise, in your own words, how the atmosphere and LWIR (putatively increased due to CO2) can possibly heat the oceans.
30
Actually, I suppose you were right.. it has been flat for 60 years…
FLAT OUT .. on full burn !!
11
“The amount of solar energy received at the top of our atmosphere has followed its natural 11-year cycle of small ups and downs, but with no net increase. Over the same period, global temperature has risen markedly. This indicates that it is extremely unlikely that solar influence has been a significant driver of global temperature change over several decades.”
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/monitoring-references/faq/indicators.php
24
“The modern level of solar activity (after the 1940s) is very high, corresponding to a grand maximum.“
10
I gave you a .pdf to read.. I do not believe you read even one word of it, or are capable of reading and comprehending it.
Your link goes to a general NOAA page.. meaningless as usual.
22
Damn Michael you’re good, you caught us out.
So, could you answer Safetyguy66 questions at
11.1.11, shouldn’t be too hard for an expert like yourself ????
Oh, while you’re at it. Can you provide us with the optimum average global temperature ??
I thought not !!!!
20
The question is stupid, and nobody has said there is an optimum temperature. Firstly the problems are 2 fold. One is that the temperature will fluctuate naturally just as natural events have caused it to fluctuate over 4 billion years, and have also affected its temperature over the last decade and six decades. This is not under our control, nobody has said it is. What is under our control is the enhanced greenhouse gas forcing that we have introduced due to our CO2 emissions.
This is putting strain on our climate due to the extra energy being retained and shown by measurements in the energy balance changes in the TOA, this then causes the rate of change to be faster than our natural environment and us can adapt. So when natural factors are flat or warming the enhanced greenhouse effect will add more warming on top of that, when natural factors are cooling then the temps may stay flat or only cool a little. The long term record shows both periods of fast warming as well as flat or falling periods but with an obvious warming trend, seen most prominently in the last 60 years where natural factors have been flat overall but temps have increased 0.6 deg c, with fast warming and flat periods within that due to short term natural factors.
Really, until you guys can learn the basics you are going to keep asking stupid questions and cherry pick flat periods and claim warming has stopped while ignoring the long term trend and natural factors. Such basic mistakes are to important to make in this issue. Make an attempt to understand the science please.
05
It is YOU who is ignoring the natural factors .. the BIG MAJOR ONE !!!
The Sun has been at a GRAND MAXIMUM during the latter part of last century
Read if you can. comprehend if you are capable of it. http://cc.oulu.fi/~usoskin/personal/lrsp-2008-3Color.pdf
The Sun is now having a siesta and the small amount of warming from the 1960-2000 has levelled of and is now starting to drop.
EXACTLY as one would expect given a GRAND MAXIMUM followed by a deep lull.
I’m going to be a parrot for a while. Repeat this to you over, and over, and over, and over again.
I have it on cut and paste now 🙂 Enjoy
41
Cryosat is the European Space Agency’s (Esa) dedicated polar monitoring platform.
It has a sophisticated radar system that allows scientists to work out the thickness of the ice floes covering the Arctic Ocean.
In the three years following its launch, the spacecraft saw a steady decline in autumn ice volume, with a record low of 6,000 cubic km being recorded in late October 2012.
But after a sharply colder summer this year, the autumn volume number has gone up.
Measurements taken in the same three weeks in October found the floes to contain just shy of 9,000 cu km.
Ice breaker Thicker ice has been retained in the Arctic
Part of this stronger performance can be put down to the greater retention of older ice.
This is evident particularly around the Canadian archipelago and North Greenland, where there is much more two-year-old and three-year-old ice than in previous years.
“One of the things we’d noticed in our data was that the volume of ice year-to-year was not varying anything like as much as the ice extent – at least for the years 2010, 2011 and 2012,” explained Rachel Tilling from the UK’s Nerc Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling (CPOM).
“This is why we’re really quite surprised by what we’ve seen in 2013.
“We didn’t expect the greater ice extent left at the end of the summer melt to be reflected in the volume.
“But it has been. And the reason is related to the amount of multi-year ice in the Arctic.“
30
“What is under our control is the enhanced greenhouse gas forcing that we have introduced due to our CO2 emissions”
WHAT A LOAD OF UNMITIGATED B***S*** !
Off you go to China, India and Germany and other productive countries. Tell them to control it.
Of course, you have to walk or cycle or paddle.
The world is, THANKFULLY, destined to reach 700+ ppm at some stage. Nothing anyone does will stop this.
All your whinging and carrying on is just that !!
The next 2-5 year will show you just how stupid your understanding is, as temperatures start to ease off after the SOLAR MAXIMUM of the second half of last century.
20
Micheal the (what a joke) Realist!
Rabbit on all you like about your religious Science God you pay homage to.
Global Warming, Global Cooling, Climate Change, blah blah blah!
Look now at North America and Canada, and the extreme cold, and I know you’ll find a way to blame the emissions of CO2 on that as well, and hey, The White House has even got in early and put this cold freeze down to Global Warming as the video at this link shows where the President’s Science adviser, that [self snip] John Holdren says, with attribution to The White House at the end of the video.
Say what you like about your Science religion Michael, but until you actually have an answer for this, then, you’ve got nothing, just talk.
There have been literally hundreds if not thousands of lowest temperature ever recorded, and hey that’s just by the by, because your religion says that only HOT temperatures count.
What has actually happened, and so far I have seen 4 Independent media reports indicating that (so far) three electrical power companies have reported the largest consumption of electricity they have EVER had. There will be more reports to come in, and while these may be passed off by your religion as anecdotal, I’ll have actual data in early April, not just media that you can brush off, but actual hard data on consumption, and I’ll be letting go with both barrels when that data does come out.
ALL of that power has come from a considerable ramping up of coal fired power generation, and an ever bigger ramping up of Natural Gas fired power generation. These two forms of power generation create 40% of all your CO2 emissions that cause your precious religious belief of CO2 induced warming.
Was any of that supplied from renewables?
Well no.
Solar power generation crashed from it’s normal 0.18% to a percentage barely distinguishable from Zero.
Wind power. Well that also has crashed dramatically from its’ average of barely 3%. Nearly every wind tower in the North was stationary, as the fluids and oils froze solid, so, no rotating blades and the generators inside the nacelles just would not turn, hence no power generation from Wind Power.
The only power plants working were in fact those CO2 emitters, and working overtime, pumping even larger amounts of CO2 into the air, measured in extra MILLIONS of tons of CO2 per day.
In fact, without those power plants, there would have been thousands of deaths, Michael, and actually some of them would no doubt have been the children and grandchildren you seem to quote so emotively at every chance you can get.
Michael, when extra electrical power is actually NEEDED the most, as shown so graphically in this case, there is only one form of power that can actually be relied upon to deliver, and that’s those CO2 emitters you so detest.
You, Micheal, YOU, have absolutely NO answer to this.
All you do have is blind talk that your masters tell you to spout.
Not only do you have tunnel vision, even that is blocked by a bloody great scotoma.
You, Michael are one of the biggest hypocrites I have ever had the misfortune to come across.
You have literally no answers whatsoever, just blind jibber jabber.
Tony.
50
Michael: All that is seen on Roy Spencer’s graph is a series of oscillating temperatures deviating from the period 1981 – 2010 by a paltry plus or minus half a degree or less.
I’d say that this shows a remarkable ability of Earth to maintain its atmospheric temperature – and certainly no indication for panic or the spending of millions of dollars on ‘mitigation’.
That aside, CO2 is of course a trace gas, currently just short of 400ppm, having risen from 315 in the late 1950s.
Real world data, and it certainly doesn’t indicate that CO2 is the danger that’s been suggested.
10
Carbon, what you are saying is basically opinion, draw a trend line and you will find that the increase is around 0.4 deg c since 1980, this is .1 per decade, which is consistent with other temp data sets and does indicate a warming world, especially when you take into account major natural factors which have an overall cooling effect on this period (ENSO, Solar, Volcanos).
Seal evels have increased, the Arctic is drastically losing ice and globally ice volume is falling, extreme precipitation events are up, the oceans are warming and its ph is falling. Most of that is occurring worse than expected or predicted, indeed indicating that enhanced greenhouse forcing is the danger thats been suggested and probably worse than predicted. Thats what science says, so your eyeball minimising is incorrect opinion not borne out by the facts.
15
Michael – what I’m doing is inspecting the graph. It’s all very well plugging values into a statistical package, but the contours of a graph surely tell you things that a trend line won’t.
I notice that you’ve mentioned the 1998 ENSO or El Niño Southern Oscillation as a cooling factor – a typo surely? It’s clear from the graph that temperatures have ‘flatlined’. There is a clear change in behaviour showing the 17 year period of so-called stalling from about 1997 -98. Yet atmospheric levels of CO2 were 364 in 1998, and are now 400. That’s almost a 10% increase, which to me doesn’t sit readily with the notion that CO2 is a driver of the Earth’s temperature. And yes, I know that’s an opinion!
You mention sea levels. There is no proof whatsoever that changes are caused by CO2 and nothing else. I’m not a meteorologist, so let me give you the view of one. William James Burroughs in his book ‘Climate Change’ comments on changes in levels historically. He says “It is not possible to make a direct connection between rises and falls in sea level and climate change, because other factors could have been the driving force for both sets of variations – so factors such as tectonic activity, including both volcanism and continental drift……have to be considered in seeking to explain the observed changes.” He also comments that “What is clear is that over the last two millennia the sea level has varied within a range of no more than a few tens of centimetres.”
The University of Southhampton also published a study (which I no longer have but doubtless you can chase it up) which found that sea level changes seen off the British coast were not outside natural variability.
You also mention sea ice. Satellite monitoring has only been possible since 1979, so it can be argued that we only have a very incomplete picture of how the Earth behaves at the polar regions. I think the doomsday merchants protest too much – take a look at a few actual figures on the NOAA website.
In February of 1979, Antarctic sea ice area was 3.1 million square kilometres. Over the years, it’s fluctuated around that level, and in February of 2013 it was 3.8 million square kilometres. This accords with typical figures stated by Burroughs to be around 3 million square kilometres in late summer.
As regards the Arctic, in February 1979 the sea ice occupied 16.3 million square kilometres. In 2013 it was 14.7. The extent fluctuates of course from winter to summer – Burroughs gives values of a maximum of “some 15 million square kilometres in early spring”. This again doesn’t sit well with the doomsday scenario.
Perhaps I’m running out of space for continuing a website riposte – I could say plenty about ‘acidification of the oceans’ for example!
In closing, yes, these are my opinions – but I’ve supplied my reasons for them using real world data and the views of a qualified meteorologist. Catastrophic man-made global warming is very far from a valid concept as far as I’m concerned.
20
This new line of argument of trying to tie every bad science story to climate change and arguments from authority of people unqualified in the field is a disturbing trend that is against democracy.
The hockey stick as said above, was misprepresented by science misinformers and has been confirmed repeatedly since in many different data sets. Especially temperature but not limited to that.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/globalwarming/ar4-fig-6-10.gif
Climate gate was a non event, promoted by dishonest tampering of stolen emails taking comments and emails out of context and order. It has been cleared by at least 6 inquirees that I know of.
The only people cherry picking is the continued reliance on the supposed pause of 15 years while completely ignoring natural factors and other sinks for energy in the climate system. This question has been resolved and answered, just like every other dishonest argument put forward by climate misinformers. But you continue to ignore the answers and continue to put forward the uncorrected information as if it has not been answered.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/monitoring-references/faq/indicators.php
Shame on you all.
127
When relying on 12 Larch trees in Siberia (out of a hundred or so) as proxies, would an honest researcher when confronted with an obvious single outlier:
a) include it and skew the results, or
b) exclude it as an outlier?
No, shame on you.
161
Don’t be too hard on Michael, Winstone.
He doesn’t know how these proxies are constructed and used, and I doubt if he even knows where Siberia is.
He is certainly unaware that a scientist at Stanford managed to produce a hockey stick graph by statistically analysing a bus timetable 🙂
160
Oh, Michael’s doctor must have signed the consent form for a day pass.
41
All this talk of larch trees takes me back…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ug8nHaelWtc
10
roflmao.. NBS is strong with this one.!
You and those like you are a JOKE !!!
32
Lets go back a little further shall we Michael CO2 vs temperature to 4.6 billion years ago …
And thanks for the NOAA link but unfortunately it only references the IPCC models ….
The thing is there is still NO ’empirical’ scientific evidence anywhere in the peer reviewed literature which supports the hypothesis that human CO2 emissions are causing runaway catastrophic global warming.
Finally, comparing graphs of CO2 versus temperatures only indicates a possible relationship. One has to use multiple regression to regress numerous independent variables (including CO2 etc….) against the dependent variable (temperature), come up with an appropriate equation, test the significance of the regression, work out error of the estimate and then determine how well the equation describes the observed data. There are other methods to use also but all models need to be verified against actual observed data, and that’s where the IPCC’s (as quoted by NOAA) models fail.
PS: the ClimateGate emails weren’t stolen they were released by a whistle blower. If you read all of the emails you will know they weren’t tampered with and not taken out of context. A good place to start is Climategate – The CRUtape Letters – Mosher & Fuller
132
Well, that could have come out of the Komsomol cookbook, well done, comrade.
Last time I looked, here in the West, Democracy was all about freedom of speech, so discussion, or argument if you want to be contentious, whether qualified or not, is perfectly acceptable. In fact diversity of opinion is the way that new ideas are created, and formulated, and honed. But of course, you would not be familiar with that, living in a world where there is a hierarchy of knowledge where foot soldiers, like yourself, are expected to proselytise, but not really understand even the fundamentals.
And while I think about it, can you please tell me what qualifications a “climate scientist” requires? Is there a professional standard that they must meet and maintain, like Medical Doctors and Registered Engineers? Or is it just a case of knowing the right people, or living in the right place? Active and querying minds would like to know.
141
What is “disturbing” is that I read that statement as a thinly veiled advocacy for the suspension of said democracy, in order to mitigate against inconvenient attention being drawn to holes in your pet scientific theory. Channelling your inner totalitarian, Michael?
If the evidence needs shoring up in order to convince those sceptical, even if CAGW was true for argument’s sake, then so be it- the truth will out one way or the other. I think you are very afraid, Michael, that the truth lies somewhere south of your present position on the issue (perhaps stuck in some “fast ice”), and possibly the truth even lies diametrically opposed to it- poles apart in fact.
132
“arguments from authority of people unqualified in the field ”
THEN SHUT THE **** UP !!!
102
“This question has not been resolved
andor answered because just like every other truth, it was countered using dishonest arguments put forward by AGW climate mis-informers”Fixed !!
82
“But you continue to ignore the answers and continue to put forward the uncorrected information as if it has not been answered.”
Right back at you, NB !!
52
Michael, You better back up a step and explain what you believe is democracy. Otherwise I think you’re just trying on a new propaganda angle.
51
I think Michael has been reading a book about Lysenkoism, and has decided that it is a great idea. That is the only rational explanation that I can come up with.
71
You have to remember, this fool is one of the GREEN 9%
They think they and only they have a right to democracy, so long as it ruled by them.
They disgust me !
32
Only slightly OT. There’s a story going the rounds that Australian Labor are trying to cut themselves free of the Green hydra so they can get their bedrock support back. Any truth in that?
10
Not going to happen while they hold onto the mantra of the CO2 tax.
That tax links Labor and Greens together like a massive big chain.
30
Cmon Michael… when are you answering the questions
Is it ok to burn food in your car
Is it ok to bury the worlds oxygen for millenia
Is it ok to make power so expensive that pensioners die in heatwaves or cold snaps (eg like the USA) because they have to choose between eating or heating
Is it ok that thousands of bird and bats die cruel death or are wounded or blinded in wind farms or concentrating solar arrays
Is it ok that the worlds children are dying of hunger, measles and malaria, while a trillion dollars is being spent on a mitigating a fraction of a degree of warming.
Is it ok that millions will die of cancer for want of a cure, that might be found if we put the billions wasted on climate change to work for them.
Is it really ok to make energy so unreliable people will die on a operating table because the wind drops or the sun goes behind a cloud.
Is it really acceptable to you – to push the world back towards a preindustrial temperature that was so cold half of Europe died.
Michael, are you a misanthropist? Search within yourself, what’s more important, the environment, which on the whole is doing ok, or the people in it
51
It seems that Michael has turned into a seagull.
He will fly in, make a lot of noise, leave his droppings of ill considered idiocy, and then fly away again.
20
Sometimes I have trouble with
“Forgive them o lord for they know not what they do”
In the CO2 debate, the cure is far worse than the disease – Lets remove your lung, spleen and half your brain because the computer model says there is a 90% chance you have a cold. After all your temperature is up 2 degrees!
10
What a twisted load of rubbish Bobl. In British columbia wher they have a carbon tax, they have the lowest tax rates inCanada and the economy has performed as well as or better than most of the other states. The majority of what you say has nothing to do with climate change and none of it affects the science of climate change. It was shown when the story of pensioners paying to much for energy were a result of fossil fuel company profits.
Then in regards to animals or birds being hurt it is false concern, there is no energy that does not cause damage, whether it is from the aerosol pollution from power plants or the damage done from spills or the abandoned fracking wells etc etc. Your crying popsicles you hypocrite. You can also not even come close to the damage from enhanced greenhouse gas forcing that occurs from the extra CO2 which is altering the planet in ways that will affect most life on this planet and future generations for milenea.
If you want to improve renwables then stop the false argument about the science and start focussing on solution, that would free up a lot of wasted money and time.
I could not find anything else that had enough substance to provide an argument.
14
The BC Carbon tax has “little effect on electricity users, considering that 85 percent of the province’s juice comes from hydropower, a low-carbon source. Instead, the majority of the tax is being paid by drivers and by industries or individuals using natural gas, propane or coal for heating and the operation of factories.”
So a carbon tax can be very effective in a province blessed with enormous hydroelectric power resources. That just demonstrates how disingenuous you really are, since all Canadian provinces are not similarly blessed. What should they do, Michael- freeze to death?
30
I might also add that BC has its main sources of income from Forestry, Fishing and Aquaculture, Tourism, Agriculture, High tech, Film and TV, and Mining, with minimal manufacturing industry of note (surprise, surprise)- the former half dozen are not fossil fuel intensive, while the latter has (“co-incidentally”) taken a significant reduction of revenues in the last few years, and faces “challenges” due to falling commodity prices and increasing “costs” (at least part of which is carbon tax related, though no one is game to say so).
Something tells me, Michael, that those chickens have yet to come home to roost. BC is like a Canadian version of Tasmania, and headed in the same economic direction.
20
Misanthropist it is then Michael, what ever the human damage spend the billions on climate change. Clearly you don’t care a hoot about the people hurt by so called “climate action”
10
Oh one more thing Michael, let’s focus on the solution then. Hydro is too destructive, Wind and Solar are too intermittent and the effective baseload equivalent power density is far too low (makes Solar / Wind impossible as baseload sources) and they are ecological disasters, that leaves Nuclear….. OK
Then you think we should switch to safe clean Nuclear power Michael, good on you.
10
More hit and run tactics. What Michael the Deluded wants is that we expend more energy in our responses than he did in the original post. He won’t stick around to defend his position, instead skulking back into the dark depraved corners where he came from.
He is a sickness and a cancer.
22
Its a double edged sword, if I just leave a single comment towards a blog post as Jo and others have suggested I am then vilified for hit and run tactics. If I stick around and answer questions I am accused of spamming the blog post and told to go away. Make up your mind guys, you cannot have it both ways.
12
Michael,
You have said something that I can agree with.
20
Thank you Jo, for another informative article. The crimes committed by the self declared educated, enlightened, progressives, leaves me in an often enraged state of mind. However, on a positive note, I have never logged into this site, without learning something new, or confirming something that I thought I knew, so, thanks to all contributors herein.
61
And now Vitamin D as well:
http://www.smh.com.au/national/health/supplementary-questions-the-vitamin-d-scare-20140103-309nh.html
10
And now Vitamin D as well:
Be very careful about this, the SMH is second only to the Guardian in it’s lack of accuracy and balance.
Vitamin D is possibly the most important vitamin for you, it is involved in cellular reproduction, and nerve function, as well as calcium fixing. Normally it it manufactured from cholesterol on exposure to UV, but sometimes, especially as you grow older that method fails. There is an epidemic of vitamin D deficiency, ironically linked to the cancer councils protestations and the increased use of sunscreens, staying indoors by children and coverings preventing people from getting sufficient sun. It is a fact that statistically cancer has increased since the campaign against the sun began, part of that is vitamin D deficiency.
The Majority, that is 60% or more of cancer sufferers are found to be vitamin D deficient, in fact vitamin D deficiency is probably the second biggest indicator of cancer ( after physical signs ). It’s so highly correlated that many studies have been done on it, most of which show vitamin D can’t cure cancer ( but in high doses does stop it metastisising) – what those studies don’t show though is that vitamin D deficiency doesn’t CAUSE cancer that doesn’t reverse when the deficiency is treated. The presumption is that cancer causes D deficiency, but just like CO2 and temperature, it is just as likely that D deficiency causes Cancer.
The verdict is not in on Vit D, and the risks are high. I recommend that everyone makes sure their vitamin D levels are good.
PS, Sunscreens are another example, the consensus is that sunscreens by preventing UV exposure reduces cancer but there is plausible science that the mechanism of UV absorbtion of most benzoate based sunscreen is carcinogenic, because the chemical emits electrons creating free radicals when it absorbs photons. These free radicals are known to cause DNA damage. In my opinion the only safe sunscreens are the reflective ones, IE Zinc Oxide based sunscreens.
30
See, and here you see the problems of using other non related events to try to attack AGW. You are trying to taint all science as bad so that AW can be downplayed in the minds of the public. This has the effect of downgrading public perception in all science, affecting its status in education and the amount of children following it as a higher discipline, thereby isolating possible scientists that could help us get out of this mess.
It is a very dangerous road you are taking and a rabbit warren to get out of by going down this path.
03
So Michael,
you are saying that because that small group of scientists (by and large) say what you want to believe, then they must be FIRST CLASS.
And because you say they are FIRST CLASS and they agree with your beliefs, then you believe you have a FIRST CLASS mind, and we must agree with you.
Is that what you believe?
10
No, because the vast majority (in excess of snip] of qualified climate scientists [just tell us who decided they were qualified? ] [ snip the rest for lack of evidence] ED
04
No Michael – I have just illustrated that one shouldn’t take the Sydney Morning Herald, the Guardian or then Greens Party – Or their Cited Scientists as truth just because they published an article – One must remain Sceptical!
00
good to see Germany doing the RIGHT THING by its population and the biosphere..
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/07/despite-climate-campaigners-efforts-germanys-new-coal-boom-reaches-record-level/
Also I read somewhere that one of China’s main energy companies has stopped all investment in renewables.
Good on you Germany, Good on you China ! 🙂
The world seems to be finally be coming to its senses.
Time for the Abbot government to wake up to the reality that CO2 is NOT an evil substance and, in all probability, DOES NOT contribute more than even a microscopic amount to NATURAL climate variations.
Time to stop all this wasteful spending on inefficient, irregular renewables.
132
Well said Andy. You are 100% correct. Time for the Abbott Govt to abandon heavily subsidized RE programs and return to the cheapest and most cost effective energy source – “fossil fuels” with the CT eliminated at all cost. As for the ALP and it’s party platform of introducing an ETS – it’s electoral poison Bill, no bull shitten. An ETS would destroy Oz’s “economic viability” – just look at the dysfunctional EU where the fast tracking of RE has all but destroyed their manufacturing industries.
10
http://img706.imageshack.us/img706/622/bwwj.jpg
Why can’t the AGW dopes see the reality.
From the Dalton minimum at 1815ish, a warming then levelling until at a new stable value by about 1900 or so, then a warming to a new level until 1940 as the sun’s activity increased.
(this peak has been squashed out of existence by Hansen’s GISS adjustments. unfortunately he is too old to ever see the personal consequences of his fraud, ie jail time)
Then cooling after about 1940 because of all the crap in the air from WWII
As that crap settled over a decade or so, the temperature climbed back up to about equal to the 1940 level, Maybe climbing slightly above in 1998 as the ocean tried to level things out.
then.. basically dead level until now.
But this decade we have had a massive drop in solar activity. and the effect is just starting to take affect.
So FFS, we MUST improve our electricity supply systems.
We CANNOT put any reliance on irregular supplies, because if Earth’s system does drop to a Maunder type minimum the world would be in desperate trouble.
Many would die from cold.. Young and old. If we don’t wake up and get rid of all this stupidity, , the world is headed for a disaster.
I probably won’t see it, but I fear for our descendants.
there will be deaths aplenty, all on the hands of those who promoted and followed the warmist agenda.
Yet it is so easily fixed. Good solid energy supply and allowance of progress. Adaptation is not a problem if the economy is solid..
So to all politicians…..
WAKE THE F*** UP !! Its time to kill this AGW beast !
42
Boy you have it all worked out don’t you. You are such a genius. You have the climate all worked out. Accept that the last 60 years do not fit your narrative. You admit that we have seen a massive drop in solar activity this decade, but omit that solar has been flat for 50 years before that. You also ignore that ENSO has been flat overall after 60 years but that shortterm variations show that the 1991-2000 decade was a predominantly el nino decade culminating in a record el nino in 1998 (your cherry picked start year) and that 2001-2010 was a fairly flat to la nina affected decade and then finishing off with back to back la nina in 2011 and 2012. But despite that TEMPS HAVE INCREASED OVER 60 YEARS BY 0.6 deg c. 2011 and 2012 WERE THE HOTTEST LA NINA AFFECTED YEARS ON RECORD and other places where energy increases in the system can go have been showing those affects such as ocean warming and falling global ice volume. In fact despite all the above 2001-2010 decade were the hottest on record. You conveniently ignore this period. 1940 has been left way behind. Your simplistic opinion is destroyed by the actual facts and science.
You will be the one explaining the suffering your ignorance has caused and will cause to your desnedents and future generations.
16
“Boy you have it all worked out don’t you. You are such a genius.”
Thank you.. now go and spend a 10-15 years catching up.
01
And have you booked your walking tour of China, so you can tell them your pitiful tales of woe.
Nothing we do here will make one iota of difference.
A FACT you seem to be IGNORANT of, like basically every other thing pertaining to climate.
Everyone knows that, but you green zealots want to destroy the Australian economy and litter the place with alternative non-energy, for zero gain.
Stupid, stupid, stupid !!!
And please stop the “hottest decade on record” crap, its pure meaningless parroted propaganda because the record is so short and so grossly manipulated.
And you seem to have missed the fact that the Arctic Ice volume is up 50% from last year..
That’s what happens when all your information comes from a CD master several years ago.
01
And even if it really has been a warmish decade, what the heck would you expect after 40 years of a SOLAR GRAND MAXIMUM.
21
Hottest decade on record is important because it is at the end of over 100 years of a warming trend. Much more meaningful than your cherry picked 17 year non trend that ignores natural factors and the long term trend as well as all the other places that energy can go.
The Arctic line shows how much BS your argument is, you are talking about a ONE YEAR TREND, when you have just critisised my 100+ year trend, HYPOCRITE MUCH? Lol you are so transparent in your misinformation. 2012 was a record minimum, only 5 years after the last record, you don’t get that twice in a row but it maintains the falling trend. Do you understand a basic trend?
I am not a green zealot, typical demonising as everybody that accepts the science to call them a zealot. Renewables are an increasing global energy source and a global growth industry, and it is pathetic propoganda to say it will destroy the economy, in most places in the world with a decent carbon tax they have as strong, if not better economy, than comparable economies. It creates jobs and new industries, something Australia sorely needs. Sticking to the old fossil fuel energy source is a dying industry that will see Australia become a developing nation. This is comparable to your pathetic Arctic argument.
40 years of falling solar does not end on the hottest decade, it ends on temperatures as low as they were 60 years ago, just as incorrect skeptic science predicted. (Mcclean et al)
Do you say anything that makes sense?
12
I just cannot figure you out Michael. You say here:
It’s only growing because of the guaranteed access to Government subsidies on a scale that traditional power generation methods can only dream of. Subsided at the construction phase and then at the power generation phase.
And where you mention increasing global energy source, even you know that is a fabricated lie.
I have proved conclusively that these are power generation methods that do not work as claimed, and can never replace the power generation methods they say they can, and never is a pretty harsh word so I’ll capitalise it for you, and then make it bold.
As much as I prove it to you, you don’t even bother to find out for yourself. You’re so hungry for proof of your argument about the science, and yet you couldn’t care less about finding information about something that patently does not work.
If your brand of the science your religion tells you to adhere to is as strong as you think, then surely you’d want the same guarantee about the renewables you seem to just blindly accept.
If you were as diligent about finding out about wind and solar power as you think you are about your science, then you’d see that they cannot be made to replace the traditional methods of power generation.
You don’t believe a word I say about it, and it seems to me that is only done on principle.
Go and find out for yourself. Don’t just blindly believe the deacons of your church. Find out for yourself.
Go and read Comment 16.1.6.1.4, which you have conveniently ignored.
If you like, don’t believe me. Go and look for yourself, but hey, it’ll be meaningless to you, because when it comes to electrical power generation, you know slightly less than nothing.
You have the temerity to refer to yourself as the realist. You’re not a realist. You’re just a one eyed bandwagon jumper who knows just enough to think that you’re dangerous.
When it comes to electrical power generation, you’re really nothing more than comedy relief.
And contrary to what you say, you are in fact a green zealot, in the true sense of its meaning.
Tony.
01
“when it comes to electrical power generation, you know slightly less than nothing.”
When it comes to science, or even climate science, he knows MUCH less than nothing.!
He is SOOOO ignorant about it, he doesn’t even know he is ignorant !!
He has even done a 10 week course to PROVE he is ignorant.
I for one, am not going to waste any more of my time even responding to this poor little ignorant twerp with NBS.
A brick wall would have more chance of understanding REALITY than he has.
01
@ Michael the Zealot
zealot
ˈzɛlət/
noun
noun: zealot; plural noun: zealots
1.
a person who is fanatical and uncompromising in pursuit of their religious, political, or other ideals.
synonyms: fanatic, enthusiast, extremist, radical, Young Turk, diehard, activist, militant;
Hmm Michael, actually I think that describes you pretty well.
Tony from Oz, as usual your logic is largely infallible, in the recent cold in North America, probably as much as 10% of the North American population would have died as a result of that cold snap had CO2 emitting and Nuclear energy not been available. Solar Panels don’t work when they are covered by snow, and Windmills don’t turn when the temperature is too cold, or you can’t unfurl them or turn them into the wind, or there is no wind, or (ironically) when there is too much wind, such as in an arctic gale – death on an unprecedented scale would have occurred had conventional energy not been available.
Michael – that would be a good thing in your book right?
After all, in your own words…
You can also not even come close to the damage from enhanced greenhouse gas forcing that occurs from the extra CO2 which is altering the planet in ways that will affect most life on this planet and future generations for milenea (sic) and 10% percent of the North American population dying would be just fine to prove your ideological puritanism.
10
Show how you have calculated the human valuations for both scenarios, in units of a lowest common denominator, including any discount for futurity and how you know it’s correct; or admit that you have no rational basis for asserting that suffering will be
a) greater in the status quo than your counter-factual supposition;
b) significant.
00
With barely 1 degree of warming we have heat day records beating cold ones by 3 to 1 and 5 to 1 at night, increased droughts and heat waves, increased extreme precipitation events and more extreme weather in the NH due to a destabilising arctic jetstream. Open your eyes, people, the environment and other species are already suffering. In the oceans increased sea level makes storm surges more destructive. Also ocean warming and falling PH has shown in numerus studies to be causing strain and migrations on existing sea life as well as having increasing coral bleaching events.
Obviously you do not value current or future life the same way as I do.
16
What a delusional parrot you are Michael. If warmist scientists are incorrect, we face a far graver and more imminent danger from even a return to LIA conditions, where many of the poor and disenfranchised in the northern hemisphere will die off on a grand scale. Yet a 2-3 degree warmer world, even taking your theory at face value would be a more liveable world with longer growing seasons, increased crop yields, and more benign climate where the poles are closer in temperature to the tropics- a “climate optimum” (Noting that temperate regions of the world had expansion of desert areas during cold swings during the early Holocene, not during the warmer periods). You fail to demonstrate any negative events that have or are occurring at increased frequency other than speculative imaginings of some future catastrophe, and a whole lot of hand wringing and bedwetting. Typhoons, cyclones and the like are no more likely or more forceful now than ever, melting glaciers, so what; melting arctic ice- big deal- these come and go in an oscillating fashion independent of man’s influence over the millennia since the dawn of time. You squeal at ever adverse weather event you can possibly tenuously ascribe to “warming”, but closer inspection shows nothing unusual at all that hasn’t been experienced within the last hundred or so years (eg the misnamed “Hurricane Sandy” and the “Long Island Express” as but one example). Your ridiculous pleas for the sake of the children is completely misguided (not to mention shamelessly manipulative and maudlin), as our children will be far safer and happier in a warmer world with access to cheap energy and modern technology than in the world you intend for them.
I think people such as yourself are actually fearful of technology, can’t cope with the speed of progress and feel a loss of control that their ego cannot reconcile. Otherwise why would you advocate a return to 14th century technology (wind and solar) that cannot allow a modern flourishing society and would actually compromise any hope of evolutionary progression towards a truly modern and egalitarian technologically advanced society. You seem to wish to regress to a romanticised view of a mythic past of idyllic fields and cheerful peasants communing with the earth in harmony with nature- what a crock!. I pity you for your sad attachment to such a delusional utopian fantasy that has completely separated itself from the confines of reality and pragmatism.
21
He really is a PITIFUL creature in his morbid fantasies, yet I feel no pity for him, only contempt.
His irksome kind will cause many, old and young, to die a cold death over the next few decades if they have their way. They must be stopped somehow.
The downgrading of energy systems with irregular, unreliable, expensive non-alternatives is close to being CRIMINAL.
The world WILL NOT forgive them.
11
If they really meant it, they would not be on the grid, no computers, no modern conveniences, no public water supply. Horse and cart etc etc… no.. just cart. But no, they want and need these things.
They are contemptible in their hypocrisy.
11
Michael, see how you’ve just assumed what’s in issue?
That means you’ve completely lost the entire argument because your process of reasoning depends on a logical fallacy – circularity – which means your belief system is irrational. The fact that you don’t understand this provides no excuse whatsoever.
Obviously you were not able to answer my question showing how you have calculated the human valuations for both scenarios, in units of a lowest common denominator and justifying any discount for futurity, otherwise you would have answered my question instead of evading it wouldn’t you?
This also means that your statement
“Obviously you do not value current or future life the same way as I do.”
is incompetent and false, because my question was precisely *how* do you value them, and which we have just established you have no way of answering by any rational methodology. From the circular and therefore illogical methodology you are employing, there is simply no way of knowing whether we value current or future life similarly or differently.
*Real* science, when shown a complete and unanswerable disproof, doesn’t just ignore the disproof and *re-run* the same just-refuted nostrums. But thank you for so openly demonstrating the complete intellectual flakery on which the entire global warming meme depends.
FYI an honest answer would have looked like this: “Justin good questions. I admit that I cannot answer them because I do not have any way of knowing the human valuations in the two scenarios on which my entire argument, or rather assumptions, depend. I admit that I do not know and have no way of knowing what if any discount should be applied to the value of future versus present life or well-being, however one defines the ultimate welfare criterion. I admit that my methodology assumes what is in issue, that this was identified as a logical fallacy over 2,000 years ago, and that you have just proved that my belief system is irrational and I can’t defend it. I admit that my attempt to try to squirm out of your total disproof by hyper-ventilating about natural events was biased, pre-emptive, illogical, deliberately emotive, and morally conceited. I admit that science does not supply value judgments whereas policy requires them and that therefore my whole argument is irrational. I realise I must have been such an insufferable prig with my false pretences to know better about science when my own argument does not even reach the minimum threshold for logically coherent thought in the first place; and my pretences to care more about my fellow human beings were likewise false and obnoxious. I apologise to all my fellow human beings whose life, liberty or property have been violated by policies I have advocated, and which you have so concisely and elegantly demonstrated I am COMPLETELY UNABLE to rationally defend. I promise to *re-think* my beliefs, promise to reject out of hand any reasoning process that rests on the fallacies you have demonstrated including assuming what is in issue and appeal to absent authority. I recognise and DECLARE that my participation in these flagrant very basic errors has been facile, culpable and vicious. And I acknowledge that, if the same slovenly intellectual attitudes as mine and the warmist camp’s gained wider currency, or their policies were more widely adopted, the result would be hundreds of millions of deaths caused by the complete economic ignorance, and irrational, conceited, pious intellectual and moral fakery that I have inexcusably defended.”
Since you obviously neither know nor care what an intellectually honest answer would look like, that’s what it would look like.
31
Thanks for politely tearing Michael a new one. You managed that far more eloquently and with greater precision than I could have hoped to apply.
It is high time Michael confronted a few home truths about the shaky intellectual ground upon which he has constructed the edifice of his naive and ill-conceived world view.
11
The fact that he needed a 10 week course (probably 2-4 hours a week) and now actually thinks he is educated, is really quite hilarious.
His very limited knowledge and zero understanding is on show time and time again for all to see.. except him.
He is blind to his own ignorance.
He is like a Norwegian Blue held on with very rusty nails to a termite ridden perch.
I wish I could find the other Jon Cleese vid.. the one about some people being too stupid to know that they are stupid.
01
Obviously you do not value current life. The amount wasted on CAGW would feed millions of starving children the world over.
00
hidden until now. if true, this explains the MSM’s behaviour!
9 Jan: Australian: Anthony Bergin: Saga of Shokalskiy breaks ice on much-needed polar conversation
It’s interesting that the voyage isn’t part of the official Australian Antarctic Science Program, and was taking paying passengers. The cruise is badged by its operators as the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, appropriating the name of the Australasian scientific team that explored part of the cold continent between 1911 and 1914, led by Douglas Mawson. It’s a bit like stealing the term Anzac for a tourist visit to Gallipoli…
– Anthony Bergin is deputy director, Australian Strategic Policy Institute, and honorary fellow, Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Co-operative Research Centre.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/saga-of-shokalskiy-breaks-ice-on-muchneeded-polar-conversation/story-e6frgd0x-1226797645337#
01
should have included the sentence prior to the excerpt from Bergin:
‘The head of the French Polar Institute has called the Russian ship’s cruise, with its assortment of tourists and Australian scientists, a “pseudo-scientific expedition”.’
“pseudo” is too mild a word. meanwhile,
9 Jan: Adelaide Advertiser: Katrina Stokes: Adelaide, regional South Australia braces for summer’s first official heatwave
After a slightly cooler weekend of temperatures in the mid 30s, Adelaide will sweat through a top of 39C on Monday before the mercury rises to 41C on Tuesday and Wednesday and 43C on Thursday.
Hot, dry conditions will blanket the state, with the mercury set to rise to as high as 44C in Tarcoola and 43C in regional towns including Oodnadatta, Marree and Roxby Downs…
***The hot weather comes as the Bureau’s (BOM’s) acting regional direction John Nairn released a national pilot heatwave warning service this week.
It uses a series of easy to read maps which shows the severity of heatwaves across Australia over a period of three days.
“It identifies areas that are likely to see three consecutive days of extreme temperatures,” Mr Ray said…
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/adelaide-regional-south-australia-braces-for-summers-first-official-heatwave/story-fni6uo1m-1226798430075
00
“summer’s first official heatwave”
There you go.. I knew it had been a pretty ordinary summer !!
Bring back the old days I say, so people remember what a real heat wave was. 🙂
21
The hottest year on record in Australia during a neutral ENSO period is not ordinary. What ‘old’ days are you referring to? or do you not understand the concept of hottest year on record?
23
Do you understand the concept of MASSIVE data manipulation !
http://www.waclimate.net/bomhq-giss-adjust.html
I could post many others.. there is proof in many places, and eventually BOM will have to answer why.
particularly for Alice Springs on which about 10% of the calculation is based..
It is very easy for an ORDINARY year to be claimed as hottest if the whole of the past record has been cooled significantly.
21
After 40 years of a SOLAR GRAND MAXIMUM, a warmer period is exactly what you would expect
21
I used to play the tamiflugate for the high school marching band.
I don’t know what the big deals about. You just have to remember to empty the spit trap when you’re done. No problem.
52
I can’t believe the Goldacre character used his male chicken bit in an argument about us evil deniers. Someone should slam the door shut and decapitate him. What next for deity sakes??
22
Tough crowd. One red thumb.
02
Goldacre would be funny if he was not a representative of the problem. The big but comes in to play in his thinking. Why is Tamiflu bad? BIG Pharma. BUT! AGW is good because it is the David of Government fighting the BIG private company interests.
Those like goldacre never see the hypocrisy of their proclamations, so they brag about their ignorance. As if it is some kind of merit badge. And to their side of the debate it is. BIG Government good. Big Business bad. They bleat obediently as the sheep they are.
00
Jennifer Marohasy sticks it to the BoM.
92
http://jennifermarohasy.com/2014/01/open-letter-requesting-verification-of-2013-temperature-record/comment-page-1/#comment-547651
10
No discipline is immune to confirmation bias or worse.
But the pharmaceutical industry doesn’t make profits (or losses) based on unvalidated computer-model predictions of what the planet will be like in 86 years time. It is at least possible to falsify claims made, and to do so in a timely manner without impoverishing the human race.
10
This is true. They also didn’t respond to Thalidomide causing birth defects by adjusting the data so that missing arms and legs was defined as normal. When a sceptic showed Thalidomide caused birth defects they (eventually) pulled the drug see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_withdrawn_drugs
10
Ben Goldacre: “Of course I haven’t, you know, these people are idiots. Chris Booker says that what is it, he’s got some bee in his bonnet about how asbestos isn’t really bad for you. You know, I mean, these are – they’re just not very interesting to people to most people, you know. If you’re really, you know, if you’re really into climate change denialism then I’m sure this guy is like a massive figure to you but it’s just boring, it’s a boring, boring argument. I would literally rather slam my cock in the door than get involved in this.”
One can’t help but admire this man’s lucid, rapier-like incisive command of the English language and his deep understanding of the issues involved, giving him the unparalleled ability to immediately convey the very heart and every nuance of the matter being discussed.
12
As I understand it, Chris Booker’s position is that WHITE asbestos when still sealed in concrete is not dangerous.
As the standard method for handling old asbestos cement sheet for disposal is to coat it with a film to stop any fibres being released during transport/disposal, this doesn’t seem an extreme position at all.
By the way, how many types of asbestos are there? The answer seems to be between 14 and 53. All natural minerals out there, weathering away and releasing fibres. As far as I know only the 3 major industrial ones are considered toxic.
00
That is a good article. I am keen to see a few more different articles on ‘bad science’ outside the realm of the ‘climate debate’ to see just how much this ‘group think’ has infiltrated ‘scientific endeavour’ or is that ‘scientific industry’. It is interesting too, to see Goldacre taking the two positions he has on these two different ‘debates’ (but perhaps that door slamming limits the number of issues he is prepared to deny). Putting this ‘climate debate’ more into context with other ‘scientific debates’, I think there are some interesting things to be observed about how the ‘deniers’ or the ‘supporters’ spread themselves across the different issues. It really amounts to ‘deniers’ vs ‘deniers’ and ‘supporters’ versus ‘supporters’ across some issues. The less these Venn diagrams overlaps, the more concerning that should be (from a statistical point of view, at least). I think though, that the ‘Occupy-Science target’ comment was a little dismissive. Those big players, that have such a big effect on our lives, by definition, are going to attract the most attention and scrutiny and justifiably so. Governments backing ‘scientific claims’ are probably in the same boat for the same reason, with of course the added sting, that we are paying money for this government backed ‘science’. Scientific claims about the breeding habits of Gouldian Finches are less likely to attract public scrutiny and while there could be scams or bad science there too, it probably is of a lesser consequence.
00
This article might just have easily been rewritten to compare the tampering of results and information to relevent groups, [Snip]
[If I sent this to moderation it would cause problems with the comment nesting. This post is so full of falsehoods, delusions and misinformation that it just cannot be allowed as is. Snipping the whole thing is sad but necessary since Michael can’t seem to learn to self edit.] ED
12
Still commenting after saying that you wouldn’t anymore…. Like most leftists, your word means nothing anyway.
Easily fixed… Do it on your own blog and stop sooking on this one.
11
Talk about rewritten.. Here is a historic temp record from the USA, pre Hansen-mal-adjustment
http://imageshack.com/a/img35/4914/haw6.jpg
The blue part on the right is a continuation using RSS.
The red part is from old GISS records.. so pretty dubious.
As you can clearly see. 1998 was maybe a tiny amount more than 1939.
Its no wonder the Climategate records show Jones(iirc) commenting that the peak needed removing.
And the peak was removed, adjustments were invented to take that 1940ish peak down and completely erase it.
Its also no wonder that the monkeys all want to start their trends about 1960-1970. !!!
In the un-maladjusted record, the linear trend from 1940 to now is IN REALITY be basically ZERO !!!!
11
where did that “be” come from.. I think I need new glasses.. again !
10