Bishop Hill Fallout at Geoscientist
Nov 2, 2010 Climate: HSI There has been some interesting fallout from Bob Ward's article at Geoscientist, which you may remember involved some Wardish criticisms of Joe Brannan for having the temerity to write a favourable review of The Hockey Stick Illusion. At the same time, Geoscientist printed an editorial muttering darkly about global warming deniers and the "powerful interests" that back them (allegedly).
This has led to some interesting correspondence on the Geoscientist letters page, which can be seen here. Here is an example:
Geoscientist is a magazine for geoscientists concerned with scientific issues, and in my view the editorials should reflect this. They should be balanced, non-partisan and they should promote geoscience in a rational way. Your article was a call to arms of the worst kind. You address the Fellows of the Society by saying "...the probability of our being responsible for most of the measured warming of the last century ... should be accepted by everyone, everywhere, as fact." This is totally out of order, and I take great exception to being hectored in this way.
Reader Comments (22)
Scales are falling from eyes and people are beginning to connect the dots and hit back.
There can be little doubt that fanatics like Bob Ward do more to turn people off and make the silent majority find their voice.
It is not just politics that is making people resentful, it is also the politicised agenda pursued by Ward and his fellow travellers. The occasional shouts of protest will become louder and more sustained.
I am afraid that the settled science is increasingly being unsettled. Only when sound methods are once again adopted in climatology will it regain its credibilty.
Autonomous Mind, I took encouragement as I emerged from the Select Committee hearing last Wednesday and overheard Bob Ward telling the three witnesses how well they had come across. The man is by now so far divorced from reality that such an evaluation had to be an emotional boost.
In the second letter to Geoscientist John G Gahan says:
As I was saying to His Grace this morning by instant message, an outstanding example is provided by the Geological Society itself and the time it took for it to recognise the contribution of Arthur Holmes, one of the most outstanding geologists this country has ever produced. I'd heard of Wegener as the originator of plate tectonics but not until recently of Holmes. I'm glad to record that I owe almost everything I know now to Wikipedia! That makes ths story even more piquant. Worth meditation. (And informed commentary much appreciated.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Holmes
PS We are sometimes invited to consider 'sob stories' of how much today's climate scientists have to go through for their commitment to 'the truth'. Worth comparing with what Holmes suffered, at every level of life. Utter inspiration.
Besides this reaction to Mr.Ward and GeoScience you should take a look at what happened to Mr. Ward and his Enabler errr I mean Interviewer down under in the Australian Parliament:
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2010/11/eric-abetz-tackles-robyn-williams-on-treatment-of-bob-carter/
Bob Ward is doing a great job rallying the sceptics into action.
Are his employers subsidised by Big Oil?
I'd never heard of Holmes either and I guess his story shows the perils of both field work and challenging a consensus.
Also allows me to lob in a slightly tenuous link based on geological surveys, some of the letters in Geoscientist regarding peak oil/coal and even uranium, and this neat image I found via Rob Schneider's blog-
http://static02.mediaite.com/geekosystem/uploads/2010/10/true-size-of-africa.jpg
showing just how huge Africa is. But for the geologists, how much have that has been accurately surveyed for minerals?
Credentialed dolts and drips are always with us. But since 1988 if not before (see Ehrlich, Holdren, Hansen et al.) peculating Green Gangsters seeking to impose their views as "science" are no more than eco-cultists. Since Galileo's time, western science has devolved to a philosophy of the natural world, an empirical method testing falsifiable hypotheses, above all a practice requiring full-and-fair disclosure of all --repeat, all-- objective, rational, raw-data and procedures with a view to replicating results as publicly reported.
Insofar as native intelligence, technical awareness bears on creative imagination, "science" advances on resolving subtle questions: Does a falling body feel its own weight; riding a lightbeam, looking back, what would you see? (The answers entail General and Special Relativity.) On this basis, "climate science" is a post hoc classificatory exercise akin to botany, valid in hindsight but severely constrained by complex systems' inherently chaotic, fractal-geometric nature, non-random but wholly indeterminate in accordance with non-linear thermodynamic processes.
Now that reality intrudes, Climate Cultists' bleats and squeaks do rise to very heaven. But this reflects their iron rice-bowls, not any disinterested "scientific" inquiry. Briffa, Hansen, Jones, Mann, Trenberth, not to mention Railroad Bill Pachauri and his gobbling ilk, may pursue ocean acidification, biodiversity, anything other than their discredited AGW CO2 scam, but the fact remains: Warmist prognoses are no more serious than the Anabaptists of Munster's (qv), certainly no more worthy of respect.
Here is a link to a warning about Bob Ward generated by his visit to Australia
http://www.ambitgambit.com/2010/10/19/why-you-should-be-careful-dealing-with-bob-ward-director-of-communications-for-the-grantham-institute/
I found the 4 articles I read on the Geoscientist site (written by individuals who are obviously highly qualified writers) to be extremely informative. Also, I found the debate amongst the Geoscientists to be presented in a non combative form. Equals in open discussion with each other. There is clearly a massive amount of both doubt and debate going on in this organisation about AGW. Credit to all of them for a debate which is presented without any rancour.
Now....ZedsDeadBed..................what nasty and narrow minded comment can you disgorge from your twisted little mind to question such competence?
Peter Walsh
P.s., I am going back to read some more.
Are you going to join me, ZedsDeadBed?
If you do, do TRY to open your mind.
Richard Drake
I'd never heard of Holmes either. He deserves to be commemorated. Shall we start a campaign to have the new oceanographic vessel named the RSS Arthur Holmes?
http://www.nerc.ac.uk/press/releases/2010/13-discovery.asp
Be sure to read Joe Brannan's reply to Bob Ward at the URL cited in the original post. It begins:
Below the letter quoted by the Bishop is an even more withering example from one John Gahan. I trust the editor is feeling suitably chastised!
Arthur Holmes's Principles of Physical Geology was a standard textbook for geology and physical geography students in the 60's. Ive still got one in a box somewhere.
Apologies for going off-topic, but I notice that Myles Allen is the climate science advisor for the just-launched Fate of the World video game. The Guardian traces the game's origins, in fact, to a "drunken boast" by Allen.
A quote from game designer Ian Roberts appears here: "Avoiding it [climate change] is the obvious one but we’re utterly reliant on fossil fuels for the world to function right now. If changing that reliance isn’t your thing, you could always just engineer a way to kill off a few billion so we don’t need so many coal plants and SUVs. Virus? War? Military state? Choose your poison."
Isn't Myles Allen the gent who declined to respond to IPCC-related FOI requests on the grounds that he was serving in a personal capacity - despite the fact that the IPCC is an intergovernmental organization rather than a collection of individuals?
Following the links I came across a climategate analysisthat provides a wonderful antidote to the climategate "inquiries".
Bad week for ol' Bob, eh?
Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.
Best, Pete Tillman
--
"Oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous." -- Voltaire
@Martin A 7:42 - great link. I remember reading it some time back but it's well worth a re-read.
As a Fellow of the Geological Society, I am reassured by the letters criticising both Bob Ward and Geoscientist editor Ted Nield. Though Dr Nield's views are those of an entrenched AGW believer, I at least commend him for publishing these letters as well as the original HSI review (though I conclude that either he didn't read it, or its publication was agreed by a stand-in while he was on holiday). In the past, I had recommended to him a survey of members' views on climate change. He just ridiculed the idea claiming only a few naive or biased naysayers doubted AGW. Perhaps these new letters will help him readjust that blinkered view.
In addition, The Geological Society has just published its long-awaited 'Position Statement on Climate Change'. http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/gsl/views/policy_statements
Its long and wordy (7 pages), and I have yet to properly digest it. But in comparison to the Royal Society's first attempt, it is relatively balanced. It talks a lot about the extreme historical variations in climate in the geological past - which only Earth Scientists are really qualified to understand - and therefore putting current changes into perspective. And while it comes out in favour of 'belief' in manmade climate change, it remains cautious, and genuinely aknowledges the uncertainties. Its final sentence: "In the light of the evidence presented here, it is reasonable to conclude that emitting further large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere over time is likely to be unwise, uncomfortable though the fact may be." That does not look to me like a conviction that 'the science is settled and no room for debate'.
I was a member of the Geol Soc from the mid 80s to late 00s when work messed up my subs. I won't be re joining. I still have C.Eng.
As one of the few rock bashers in industry and then in consultancy, I and my colleagues generally, had a low opinion of the geol soc, it was a necessary evil, dominated by academics
(note the decision in the mid 80s for universities to again look for A level geol as an entry requirement- syllabi were hopelessly out of date and the necessary geology to A level standard could be taught in a term or so - but so many geol soc members were school teachers and needed the work...)
The merger of the institute (serving geologists in industry) and the Society (serving as learned society) resulted in existing IG members all becoming chartered geologists, those who weren't existing members had to jump through the hoops - given the oportunity, the society had operated as a medievel guild by pulling up the drawbridge as soon as the existing membership were safely over.
Sour grapes? you bet, I had to wait several years more and work bloody hard to get CGeol, while colleagues a year older than me just ticked a box, and got a pay rise
given the proportion of geol soc members in state funded academia, it's little wonder that they are derogatory to those who doubt the official line.
They have a long tradition, going back to their shameful treatment of Adam Smith, and continuing through such shining episodes as the "Highlands Controversy"
Re Arthur Holmes,
Holmes was prof of Geology at Durham.
He was so poorly paid that he also ran a rock shop in Newcastle to help fund his work
Holmes' post war work on Uranium -Lead and lead-lead isotope dating established the age of the Earth as billions rather hundreds of millions of years.
He is generally best known for his doorstop of a book "Principles of physical geology"
Among his research students was Kingsley Dunham, who went on to head and re-organise the BGS.
Mineral Exploration in Africa:
There are massive chunks which are almost totally unexplored.
It is only in the past few years that any work has been done on the absolutely massive coal seams in Botswana and Mozambique (reputedly there is an 80m thick seam in mozambique. I've drilled 10m seams in the RSA). The same Karoo age sediments run at least up to Kenya and probably into Somalia. A little work was done on a coal seam in Kenya about 2005 (it was crap!) but no systematic exploration work. there is massive potential.
Irish exploration company, Tullow Oil has been having huge success in the eastern rift.
Tanzania liberalized its mining laws in the late 90s and had a big response. same for Zambia. Kenya is still talking about liberalizing, as it hasn't had any real exploration since before independence.
Only the highest value stuff gets looked at in most of the rest of Africa, as there are so many corrupt officials to bribe just to get to the point of looking, eg, to get into Angola, you have to have a 51% Angolan partnership, if it is anything interesting, then your partner must be one of the president's family or a top general, who says "Give me, and I want a car, a salary and an expenses account..."
Sure, it's our carbon emissions making them poor...