I was invited to be on the Murnaghan programme on Sky News this morning – which I always find a great deal more intelligent than the Andrew Marr alternative on the BBC. I declined because I did not want to get up and get a 7.30am train from Ramsgate on a Sunday morning. I had a meeting until 11.30pm last night planning a conference on human rights in Balochistan [I still tend to say Baluchistan], and I have a newly crowned tooth that seems not to want to settle down. But I am still worried by my own lack of energy, which is uncharacteristic. Is this old age?
I also have some serious work to do on my Burnes book, and next week I shall be staying in London to be in the British Library reading room for every second of its opening hours. So there may be a bit of a posting hiatus. I have in mind a short post on an important subject on which I suspect that 99% of my readership – including the regular dissident commenters – will strongly disagree with me.
This is a peculiarly introspective post, perhaps because my tooth is hurting, but I seem to have this curmudgeonly spirit which wishes to react to the huge popularity of this blog by posting something genuinely held but unpopular; a genuine view but one I don’t normally trumpet. The base thought seems to be “You wouldn’t like me if you really knew me”.
Similarly when I wrote Murder in Samarkand I was being hailed as a hero by quite a lot of people for my refusal to go along with the whole neo-con disaster of illegal wars, extraordinary rendition and severe attacks on civil liberties, sacrificing my fast track diplomatic career as a result. My reaction to putative hero worship was to publish in Murder in Samarkand not just the political facts, but an exposure of my own worst and most unpleasant behaviour in my private life.
I am in a very poor position to judge, but I believe the result rather by accident turned out artistically compelling, if you don’t want to read the book you can get a good idea of that by clicking on David Tennant in the top right of this blog and listening to him playing me in David Hare’s radio adaptation.
Anyway, that’s enough musing. You won’t like my next post, whenever it comes. Promise.
Sorry for typos…
On crap ancient laptop and keyboard right now. Can barely see my mistakes – let alone correct them 🙁
Anon, I cannot find any reference to Huffman in your link – but the verbiage may have hidden it.
There was criticism of Huffman failing to account for albedo but in my link he updates his argument (March 2012) and demonstrates that his analysis is perfectly sound.
Do you understand physics yourself or rely on these “incompetents” as Huffman describes them?
I prefer Occam’s razor and classical physics.
Scouse,
Yes I understand Physics quite well thanks. Do you have a link to Huffman’s qualifications? I can find the qualifications of those he labels “incompetents” easily enough. For “incompetents” they seem very, very impressive indeed.
What are his qualifications? He claims to have a “Masters in Physics” (1976) but doesn’t say where from. Even if true that makes him a lot less qualified than almost anyone he criticises.
I also note Huffman says: “I can tell you what and where the original “Holy Grail” is, when and why the Great Sphinx was carved, the location of Atlantis, and many more answers to the most famous mysteries of the ancient world”
Seems he knows it all.
Trying to get agreement on man-made climate change in an unrelated thread? Heh, optimistic :p
On the royal couple, I just noticed, from Sky News: “The news [that two more European magazines will publish the pictures] comes as French police raid the offices of the magazine”
I wasn’t strongly in favour of publishing, but if authorities start raiding offices, they’ll turn it into a freedom of speech case.
http://news.sky.com/story/987024/two-more-magazines-publishing-kate-pictures
As this creature is coining from it, you know it’s phoney.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7054986/Tony-Blairs-climate-change-project-paid-for-by-Oleg-Deripaska-oligarch-who-entertained-Lord-Mandelson-and-George-Osborne.html#
Also this from Wikipedia.
Private sector
In January 2008, it was confirmed that Blair would be joining investment bank JPMorgan Chase in a “senior advisory capacity”[156] and that he would advise Zurich Financial Services on climate change. Some sources have claimed that his role at JP Morgan will pay more than $1m a year.[156] This additional salary will contribute to annual earnings of over £7m.[157]
Blair also gives lectures and earns up to US$250,000 for a 90-minute speech.[158][159] Yale University announced on 7 March 2008 that Blair will teach a course on issues of faith and globalisation at the Yale Schools of Management and Divinity as a Howland distinguished fellow during the 2008–09 academic year.[160]
Blair’s links with, and receipt of an undisclosed sum from, UI Energy Corporation, a Korean company with oil interests in northern Iraq, have also been subject to media comment in the UK.[161]
Speculation places his personal wealth at £60 million, mostly earned since his tenure as Prime Minister, and owns nine properties around the world.[162] In July 2010 it was reported that his personal security guards claimed £250,000 a year in expenses from the tax payer, Foreign Secretary William Hague said; “we have to make sure that [Blair’s security] is as cost-effective as possible, that it doesn’t cost any more to the taxpayer than is absolutely necessary”.[163]
Anon,
A pity you have to introduce the word ‘denial’ with all that it implies Anon. I look at many sites and documents from accross the board,many of them very well funded by governments and international institutions,many of them by independent scientists not funded by anyone. If wanting to know the truth and being open to discuss it means you choose to label that person a denier, i’m afraid that tells more about you than maybe you realise
Maybe you’d like to address the few denialist sound bytes that i have offered as a non scientist? As you probably know, it takes wading through a soup of scientific double speak to get to these kind of important condensed points. If they are so insignificant and easy for you to explain why not address them and get them out of the way? I will gladly be open to any explanation you may offer.
Likewise with chemtrails,if you have any decent explanation as to what exactly they are and what they are for, i would love to hear it. Seeing as we both agree that man made (government implemented) climate change is very possible,i would welcome any view on this
I was going to alter his third name Lynton to Satan, but the page is padlocked – semi protected to promote compliance with the policy on bioagraphies of living people etc. So when he’s dead we can say and so what we like there. Look forward to that day.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Blair
Sorry, Jon 🙂
Ok Anon – argument from authority and ad-hom combo (classic).
Well, my brother in law (1st Physics, Imperial) is more succinct on the subject: “CO2 follows Temp, not the ther way round”!
In other words all analyses of the data going way back show rises of CO2 follow rises of Temp with an average latency of c. 800 years.
It should be obvious that the oceans which dwarf the atmosphere in volume hold (dissolved) CO2 but release this with rising temperature.
Now, I’ve heard all sorts of “expert” doom merchants throughout recorded history telling the ignorant masses that the end of the world is nigh unless they change their ways (or pay absoltions and/or taxes).
This one takes the biscuit.
Why in the past when CO2 concentrations were much higher, didn’t the Earth get hotter and hotter? Because there is no such thing as a greenhouse “effect”.
I restate my original question, where is there real world empirical evidence for greenhouse gasses or a greenhouse effect?
Computer models and PET bottles don’t count, of course 😉
The P of Wales is ‘astonished’ at the large number of those wounded in the wars, by which I assume he means Iraq and Afghanistan. He said this when he opened a new rehab unit at Headley Court today. Really? Where has he been for the last twelve years and before that?
http://www.itv.com/news/meridian/story/2012-09-18/royal-visit-for-headley-court/
Nothing on the BBC website on the royal astonishment.
Chris
“IPCC / International panel on climate chnage, who have been utterly discredited for their man made global warming reports” – utterly discredited by exactly who?
“allegedly came down to one person typing in random figures in to a computer model,” – more details please.
” earth was far hotter during the medieval period than it is now” – no it wasn’t on a global basis.
I put “warmist” in quotes in my earlier post. “denialist” should have been as well.
Quite simply I believe that the people and organisations which have always wanted to put money and profit above everything else, have funded the anti global warming arguments. And they know how to pull the right psychological levers.
Anon, do aquaint yourself with the Club of Rome and reconsider your role as an unwitting Malthusina dupe, please.
“Quite simply I believe that the people and organisations which have always wanted to put money and profit above everything else, have funded the anti global warming arguments. And they know how to pull the right psychological levers.”
Me too, why wouldnt they? But its bigmouth time here – its the less you know…
Scouse,
I can see I won’t convince you. Assuming we don’t have an inconvenient Maunder Minimum and assuming the Israeli’s don’t start WW3 in a few days and assuming we don’t crash into it anyway through resource wars, then I am 95% confident in the science of global warming and we can see if you still disagree in 20 years time.
I seriously hope we haven’t passed the methane out-gassing typing point by that time (if we haven’t already).
Yes CO2 follows warming in the “normal” case but this is not the “normal” case. CO2 is being artificially forced up so in this case the Physics says the temperature rise will lag at first. It’s quite straight-forward.
As for “computer models don’t count”. Well unless you have another planet tom experiment on they are the best we have. The physics of CO2 trapping IR heat reflected from the surface is well understood as I am sure your brother will confirm.
As to my opinion of Huffman. he seems to have a lot of books to sell. Looks like to the gullible to me. If I spend a lot of money he will tell me the hidden history of the human race apparently. Sorry but that sets off my alarm bells even if it doesn’t for you. So we may have to leave it there as we won’t get anywhere.
Anon, my brother (in law) is a fan of Prof. Claes Johnson so no the IR trapping is neither “understood” nor, more accurately, accepted by him nor me nor it would appear by honest competent physicists.
Sorry for duplication.
Anon, I am convinced by evidence not argument – it’s the scientific method.
Claes Johnson seems to have invented his own physics to fit a view he puts forwards. He seeks to overturn a lot of existing physics but has given no experiment which could be done to prove his ideas. In fact real world experiments don’t fit with his strange ideas.
I am not sure what he is trying to do but it is always possible to come up with some new physics but he has to demonstrate first that what went before was wrong and how he proposes to test his “new physics”. From a quick glance (I’ll look at it in more detail later), he doesn’t appear to have done this. Nor has he had his IR theories peer-reviewed and published as far as I can see.
Craig,
“You wouldn’t like me if you really knew me”.
I suspect I would actually. I loved your book so much, I very nearly came to Norwich to help in any way I could in your election campaign. I have dropped leaflets before but never in an election.
I have no evidence whatsoever, that you are anything other than an honest man of tremendous courage. It doesn’t matter if I may disagree with you on some topics, though I tend not to talk about anything political when I meet people.
There are other far more interesting things to talk about.
Tony
@Anon – Aren’t you going to address my denialist sound bites first? Let me ask you ,regarding the IPCC – as,supposedly, the leading international scientific authority on climate change, how or why would they release completely different graphs within a space of five years? Not just small variations but a totally different narrative? And why would they release data that has been been proven to be knowingly incorrectly entered?
Heres a link to the two entirely different IPCC graphs:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1533290/Climate-chaos-Dont-believe-it.html
Below is the link showing Michael Manns famous hockey stick graph;allthough long discredited, is still cited by the IPCC for their global hysteria. To quote from the site:
‘Unfortunately, there’s a damning comment in one of the ClimateGate emails that says: “I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.”
What does that mean? Well, here are two graphs that demonstrate the results of that “trick.” The top one shows Michael Mann’s original “hockey stick” chart complete with his tricks that hide the decline. The bottom one, known as the Briffa Reconstruction, removes the tricks and shows that global warming is, in fact, global cooling’
http://www.ihatethemedia.com/global-warming-hockey-stick-debunked
I would,as Scouse Billy mentions, also refer you to Club of Romes Global revolution publication which reads:
“In searching fot a common enemy against whom we can unite, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like, would fit the bill. In their totality and their interactions these phenomena do constitute a common threat which must be confronted by everyone together. But in designating these dangers as the enemy, we fall into the trap, which we have already warned readers about, namely mistaking symptoms for causes. All these dangers are caused by hman intervention In natural processes, and it is only through changed attitudes and behaviour that they can be overcome. The real enemy theri Is humanity itself”
Regarding your point of:
“Quite simply I believe that the people and organisations which have always wanted to put money and profit above everything else, have funded the anti global warming arguments. And they know how to pull the right psychological levers”
Isnt this question a bit confused and the wrong way round? Shouldnt you be asking what people and organisations always wanted to put money and profit above everything else and have funded the global warming arguments,often as well as the anti global warming agenda (depending on which country is decided to be industrialised or not)and know how to pull the right psychological levers?
Oxygen comes from plants.
Plants eat CO2 and water.
If you want more oxygen, feed plants more CO2.
The Greeks knew the difference between a hawk and a heron; though they had problems distinguishing arse from quim, which is probably why their culture fell.
Chris I couldn’t care less about the hockey stick. Stupid graph as we are not on an exponential rise towards infinity as that tended to imply.
As to “hide the decline” are you seriously suggesting that is documentary evidence of a scientist deliberately falsifying evidence? No it wasn’t – try reading this http://www.skepticalscience.com/Mikes-Nature-trick-hide-the-decline.htm
If you want to talk “Club of Rome”, have you read “Limits to Growth” – I have. It’s not at all what it is often painted to be. Still the choice between Carter’s way forward to a more sustainable future and Reagan’s was made back at the end of the 70s. Out went solar panels and other renewables. In came Thatcher to pump the North Sea dry at rock bottom prices. And it was party on for another couple of decades. Now we buy oil at $115 barrel having sold most of ours for about $10 – $20 barrel. Not to mention the amount of natural gas we flared off so the oil didn’t have to wait for the extra gas pipelines to be built before it could flow. And now we import most of the natural gas we consume as well.
Meanwhile atmospheric CO2 continues to rise http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
There were no PMQs today. Instead this took place. What’s it about?
http://www.number10.gov.uk/news/joint-ministerial-committee-communique/
Joint Ministerial Committee communique
Wednesday 19 September 2012
Communique following the Joint Ministerial Committee meeting in Number 10 chaired by Prime Minister David Cameron on 19 September 2012.
A Plenary meeting of the Joint Ministerial Committee was held today in 10 Downing Street under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister, Rt Hon David Cameron MP.
The participants were:
•from HM Government the Deputy Prime Minister, Rt Hon Nick Clegg MP, the Secretary of State for Scotland, Rt Hon Michael Moore MP, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Rt Hon Theresa Villiers MP, the Secretary of State for Transport, Rt Hon Patrick McLoughlin MP, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Rt Hon Danny Alexander MP and Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Wales, Baroness Randerson
•from the Scottish Government the First Minister, Rt Hon Alex Salmond MSP and the Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, MSP
•from the Northern Ireland Executive the First Minister, Rt Hon Peter Robinson MLA and the deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness MP MLA
•from the Welsh Government the First Minister, Rt Hon Carwyn Jones AM and the Minister for Local Government and Communities, Carl Sargeant AM.
The two principal agenda items at the meeting were the economy and the public finances, and the UK Government’s aviation strategy.
@Chris “Quite simply I believe that the people and organisations which have always wanted to put money and profit above everything else, have funded the anti global warming arguments. And they know how to pull the right psychological levers.”
Well put. When a body of people or experts create a vast network and organisations which seek to radically change the way others consume energy or other resources, anyone who has critical and disinterested faculties needs to ask some basic questions which, in my view, have not been properly asked, and particularly not asked by the mainstream media where climate is concerned:
1. What is their personal vested interest in this “consensus science” being promoted?
2. Do their jobs and funding rely fundamentally on that “consensus”?
3. What safeguards are in place to ensure they don’t fiddle the facts, or exaggerate them?
4. Is there a proper peer-review process that is transparent, flexible and honest?
5. Is there censorshp in the MSM in order to hide facts that should be known?
6. What kind of manipulation of media has been used to promote their cause?
7. Are the promoters of this consensus truly open to a change of view when counter-evidence is presented?
8. Are the scientists involved climbing on a band wagon in order to appear compliant?
9. What is the source of funding for promoting a given view?
10. What do the consensus scientists have to gain personally from promoting it?
11. What business do those involved run and how much income do they receive?
There are quite a few more questions to be asked, but you get my drift. If there is any “consensus” at all, it is that no-one really knows the answer as to what is really causing the small amount of warming currently taking place (the wild estimates from five years ago are being constantly revised down). Does anyone get the chance to propose that some aspects of warming could be as beneficial to some regions as it is “damaging” to others?
If you answer most of the above questions, it is hard not to conclude that, whether warming is a serious as commonly accepted or not, there is a very powerful lobby plus huge personal vested interests and evangelism, none of which should be a characteristic of disinterested, proper science.
Lastly, my suspicions are immediately on alert when powerful bodies wish to panic everyone else into action on the basis of apocalyptic claims. Such claims should always be regarded with scepticism for the same reason that all “the end is nigh” claims should be. If the claims had an entirely believable foundation then they would be better expressed if the big players in the warming lobby had not already amassed personal fortunes from them.
True sceptics are sceptical of BOTH sides of the argument. Science is debased and dishonoured when objective enquiry morphs into a belief system and replaces permanent vigilance to re-examine and re-test theories, clean up the data, allow a proper transparency, welcome proper peer-review, and to be beyond reproach in not allowing vested interests to dominate the agenda.
I do not know whether warming is man made or not, at least to the extent that is proposed. What I do know is that on the current record of behaviour of many who promote it, the wild exaggerations, half-truths and manipulations of questionable data is not helping their cause.
LeonardYoung,
And I put to you the suggestion is that most involved climate scientists are “scared shitless” we’ve already gone too far. For every point that has been made in this thread against global warming, a simple bit of googling will find the opposing view. Instead I am being asked to post them, therefore I find it hard to believe some people on this thread are as objective as they think they are if they need to ask me.
There are plenty in the media who think warming is nonsense. There’s no conspiracy of silence there.
Mary: “There were no PMQs today. Instead this took place. What’s it about?”
http://www.number10.gov.uk/news/joint-ministerial-committee-communique/
At a guess, it’s about the economic effects upon the UK that would follow as a result of either the closing of the Strait of Hormuz or the interruption of Iranian oil supplies due to war. Aircraft fuel, etc.
Grief, the anti global heating argument. How long did it take for the fossil fuel reserves to be deposited? 100 million years? More? You lot really think we can turn all that back into atmospheric carbon in a century or two, a million times faster than it was deposited, with no appreciable affect upon the climate?
Anti global heating people, look up “ocean acidification”.
Clark exploded:
“You lot really think we can turn all that back into atmospheric carbon in a century or two, a million times faster than it was deposited, with no appreciable affect upon the climate?”
Let’s pretend that’s a good rhetorical question. So why hasn’t the temperature ‘rise’ matched your prognosis?
Bare in mind, that the global use of oil has been approximately exponentially rising for the last 150 years [it’s levelling off about now], with a doubling time constant of about 7 to 10 years. This implies that for the last 10 years or so, we have burned more than all the worlds use of oil for the 140 years prior to the last 10. So that if Clark’s proposition is true, then we should have seen an immense change in global temperature during the last decade.
So where is this immense global temperature rise Clark? Is it lying in the gutter somewhere, having been beaten up by a bunch of Guardian Readers with hockey sticks?
http://rt.com/news/israel-golan-war-drills-480/
Either way if the results of global warming are destructive to the earth and effect us so as to cause us harm. The causes are imaterial. Theres no point “closing the stable door…”
More than likely the output of Co2, and other chemicals man created, and the effect or the sun and other cosmic extremes fron nature combined – they will add to more powerful weather extremes.
Surely from experience it`s always a belt and braces to any task;
Wouldn`t it not be wise to try and help our chances , by taking the “worst case scenario” approach.
Living in the real world, as we do. We here know that is to be the only proper and sensible approach to any risk to our childrens future.
Like I said in a previous post, Mans job is to protect his young.
Nurture is the only way.
Common sense does and will prevail!
Jay exalted:
“Common sense does and will prevail!”
It worked for the Germans in the thirties, especially that bit about the ‘will’.
JimmyGiro,
Current world oil and coal use figures are “inflated” IMHO – however we take figures from China and Saudi Arabia as real. Hmmmm…
However CO2 is still rising as it will continue to do even if oil and coal use falls by quite a bit. It will take a crash reduction of fossil fuel use to bring it down again any time soon. That could be forced on us of course.
There is absolutely no reason to believe that temps should have shot through the rood during a solar minimum and current approach to a very quiet solar maximum. In the long term CO2 forcing will overcome the sun but I for one want to be careful here. There is the real possibility we could have an exceptionally quiet sun for a few decades – not a certainty but we do know the sun has done this in the past and some date from HINODE spacecraft is pointing in that direction. If this did happen then the temperature would go through the roof at the end of the minimum.
Btw, even on official figures a doubling of oil consumption every 7 or so years hasn’t happened since the early 70s. As far as conventional crude oil goes, consumption has been flat to declining for a number of years now but is propped up by biofuels, oil sands, and LPG.
We will never double oil consumption from what it is now.