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« The Economist on the Climategate anniversary | Main | The Arctic gap »
Sunday
Nov282010

Christmas is coming...

...so it would seem churlish not to remind readers of an excellent book for the geek in your life...

Buy it from:

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Reader Comments (32)

There are no geeks in my life. How are the sales going?

Nov 28, 2010 at 8:34 AM | Unregistered CommenterPhillip Bratby

Cripes! Where’s the attached free tee-shirt ;-)
3XL would be nice (growing room... honest)

Nov 28, 2010 at 8:36 AM | Unregistered Commentermartyn

I'm the geek in my life.

I already have it from the early days....Feb 2010

A follow up book for next Christmas might get me to open my wallet a tad!

Any chance?

Peter

Nov 28, 2010 at 9:19 AM | Unregistered CommenterRETEPHSLAW

I would purchase it but it is not available on the Kindle for some reason

Nov 28, 2010 at 9:57 AM | Unregistered CommenterRocky

Kindle??

I would buy it in that format.


Cheers

Michael

Nov 28, 2010 at 10:25 AM | Unregistered CommenterMichael

On a Kindle please!

Working away & travel means that that wood pulp stuff isn't convenient...I love my kindle

Nov 28, 2010 at 12:43 PM | Unregistered CommenterGendeau

I think a graph, showing sales over time, with any particular trends identified with links to world events and revelations would be of interest.

I ordered my copy of HSI from Waterstones in Fareham in May 2010, for the simple reason that when I purchased a book titled "Global warming and other b0110x" in Oct 2009 from the same shop, I found a a hand written note inside it, to advise me the book had not been written by a climate scientist, and I should ignore the book.

So to that EcoFascist employee, I would offer congratulations, for demonstrating why your entire thought process is flawed ab initio.

I found HSI a good read, and very educational. Most of the critics have not actually read it!

Nov 28, 2010 at 1:01 PM | Unregistered Commentergolf charley

Don't suppose the note was signed.

Nov 28, 2010 at 1:33 PM | Unregistered Commenterjaffa

+1 for a Kindle version.

Nov 28, 2010 at 1:47 PM | Unregistered Commenterpax

I'd recommend the book for interested non-geeks too. My eyes usually glaze over when exposed to numbers but, as others have said, this is a fascinating detective story.

Nov 28, 2010 at 2:15 PM | Unregistered Commenterartwest

Andrew, OT I know, but clock the statement attributed to John Beddington in the Sunday Times. At last he seems to be talking some sense, maybe the penny has dropped.

Nov 28, 2010 at 3:38 PM | Unregistered Commentergeronimo

The Times is behind a paywall, Beddingtons comments must be these

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/no-hope-for-climate-talks-says-chief-scientist-john-beddington/story-e6frg6so-1225962362751

Nov 28, 2010 at 4:18 PM | Unregistered CommenterJohnH

I'd buy it on iBooks if it was available.
Any chance of that happening, Bishop?

Nov 28, 2010 at 4:36 PM | Unregistered CommenterRoyFOMR

Churlish? You would be downright daft not to do your own promo. Apart from that it is a damn good read.

I have read it, re-read it, and now it is a reference book.

We are told that AGW (call it what you may) is the greatest ever threat to mankind, if so we should all invest a little time to research the subject. This book is a good place to start.

Nov 28, 2010 at 4:58 PM | Unregistered CommenterGreen Sand

I seem to recall that some time after this book, and other critcisms of the Hockey Graph came out there was a short period of warmists trying to disown it and claim that it never was an important part of the argument anyway and was certainly never used to promote the cause. This was then followed by sceptics presenting numerous examples of the graph being used to promote the cause.

Is it still regarded as being discredited? Micheal Mann seems to be carrying on as if nothing has happened.

Nov 28, 2010 at 5:42 PM | Unregistered CommenterStonyground

Stonyground asks if the Hockey Stick is still discredited.

The answer rather depends on who you are.

If you are McIntyre, Judith Curry, the Bish or me or just about everyone else here, then yes, it's very much broken.

If you are Gavin Schmidt, William Connolley, John Mashey etc, then no it isn't.

The real beauty of THSI is that it spotlights a concerted, vicious and on-going defense of the indefensible by people who lack the ability to think strategically.

Or perhaps I do the Team (and all the rest) a disservice. Possibly they believe that they are so invested in the Hockey Stick that to admit now that it was methodologically unsound would be fatally damaging to the wider 'cause' of AGW.

Which is why the damned thing won't just lie down and die.

Nov 28, 2010 at 6:10 PM | Unregistered CommenterBBD

BBD:"Possibly they believe that they are so invested in the Hockey Stick that to admit now that it was methodologically unsound would be fatally damaging to the wider 'cause' of AGW."

If you read the Wegman report he predicts just that, but not in the same prose

Nov 28, 2010 at 6:21 PM | Unregistered Commentergeronimo

geronimo

Are you accusing me of plagiarism? ;-)

Nov 28, 2010 at 6:50 PM | Unregistered CommenterBBD

According to Beddington we have to focus on adaptation to climate change. That must be the next gravy train to get on. How about we start by wearing a coat in the winter and not wearing a coat in the summer and see how we go from there. ALL ABOARD.

Nov 28, 2010 at 7:33 PM | Unregistered Commentermartyn

OT but I noticed that the cablegate release from wikileaks will include material on climate and environment policy! Buy popcorn, lots and lots of popcorn!

Nov 28, 2010 at 7:44 PM | Unregistered CommenterJason F

Does anybody have any idea why this is on The Telegraph site under the heading

"WikiLeaks release: Timeline of the key WikiLeaks revelations"

"From Sarah Palin's email account to the Apache helicopter attack on journalists, we look at the key WikiLeaks revelations."

"November 2009: Climategate emails"

"More than 1,000 emails sent between staff at the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit appeared to show that scientists distorted research to boost their argument that global warming was man-made, causing an international media storm."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/8152326/WikiLeaks-release-Timeline-of-the-key-WikiLeaks-revelations.html

Nov 28, 2010 at 8:31 PM | Unregistered CommenterGreen Sand

Stoneyground asked an excellent question.
Is the Hockey-stick now history, I paraphrase 'cos given the state of the fifth-rate tosh that the UEA ponces out in self-preservation, I can happily say yes. It is. Less a history than a display of histrionics from a gather of gazed-beyonders that thought that their generous pension entitlements were born from their genius rather from the rather more mundane reality of their asinine adherence to the political vpl of their political puppet-masters.
Mann et co, yeh they are but stooges. Charitably they may even be unwitting
Avators of a new word order but, personally, I think that they're just doing the best that they can be.
Mikey, Phil , Kev and soon many others. You as well Monbiot along with an enormity of Euro-guilt, inversely proportional to apolitical understanding, what is that you misunderstand about the application of logic to being Human?
None of you really hates us that much folks, do you?
Maybe, I'm over-hedonistic, but I still love not being a cockroach!
U guys, know something about being spinally deficient as advantageous that I know nothing about?
Please share otherwise I have little option than to believe that you're merely no more than the bottom-feeders that the good Bishop, SMc, simple logic, common sense, the application of bs detectors and a myriad of snake-lubricant avoidance measures.
I understand your desperation folks.
You held the future of the world in your hands.
You had doubts but they succumbed and crumbled before the massed ranks of the tax-seeking artillery of desperate western governments.
OK, you put out the odd porkie or two but, you did it for your family,it's the idiots that continue to ask us to vote for them and then "dim-tim" us into oblivion.

Nov 28, 2010 at 9:21 PM | Unregistered CommenterRoyFOMR

Sorry about that but I couldn't stop myself ranting there.
Yes, I despise Jones et Al for jumping on the BandWagon.
Fair does, it seemed pretty safe at the time. Not now though.
Jones will wobble, even Briffa while Mikey, the boy, will dig way beyond the CAGW sell-by and suffer from the justice of poor judgement
.
This will happen; it's the lack of punishment of the politicians that rattles my cage.
FGS, they'll all use the Nuremberg defence (2010 amendment) to escape scot-free with their swollen pensions.
If the Hoi-polloi freeze, what do they care?
They meant well. They knew nothing .
Ignorance is the defence of the privileged. Sticking fingers into pinna and shouting "La la. We cant hear you", is the post-normal required position.
B***ards
One. You've let us down .
Two. You' let the country down.
Three. You've f***ed our kids, as well.
Thanks!

Nov 28, 2010 at 9:55 PM | Unregistered CommenterRoyFOMR

This is a terrific book. I'm hoping for the next edition (hint, hint) to include additional chapters or appendices with more mathematical detail.

Nov 29, 2010 at 12:41 AM | Unregistered CommenterBruceA

Steven Wright: Just buy this string! - It's almost rope'

Nov 29, 2010 at 7:52 AM | Unregistered CommenterErik

But what about this "Since the hockey stick paper in 1998, there have been a number of proxy studies analysing a variety of different sources including corals, stalagmites, tree rings, boreholes and ice cores. They all confirm the original hockey stick conclusion: the 20th century is the warmest in the last 1000 years and that warming was most dramatic after 1920. "

from http://www.skepticalscience.com/broken-hockey-stick.htm

Doesn't mean that they've found hockey sticks in lots of other data types?

Do you plan a book debunking these?

Nov 29, 2010 at 5:08 PM | Unregistered CommenterLouise

Louise

(To save the Bish the trouble) If you were to read the book you would find that chapter 10 deals - in detail - with the numerous paleo reconstructions that purported to validate the Mannean Hockey Stick of 1998/1999.

In every case, either the choice of proxies, or the methodology, or both, ensured a Hockey Stick. McIntyre carefully revealed the problems with the various papers and the Bish describes what he found, and why the studies did not in fact validate Mann.

Do remember that THSI is about McIntyre and McKitrick. Th Bish didn't debunk anything - they did. He tells the story, and most interesting it is too.

You should read it. It's interesting and informative. Once you've done so, you will be better equipped to judge the issues for yourself.

I've nothing really against John Cook (Skeptical Science), but he is not by any means 100% reliable himself. A touch of bias, here and there...

Nov 29, 2010 at 6:58 PM | Unregistered CommenterBBD

Louise

Please have have a look here:

http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/mwpp.php

This site has gathered information on research that shows that the Medieval Warm Period was a global happening and not just an anomaly as Mr Mann would like to have us believe. There is also a comprehensive list of the scientists and research institutions whose work they cite.

I would also like to point you towards this: http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fil:NH_temperature_2ka.png
Which shows a reconstruction by A. Moberg, D.M. Sonechkin, K. Holmgren, N.M. Datsenko, W. Karlén, and S.-E. Lauritzen - which also has a Medieval Warm Period intact. Sources are also given for this at wikipedia page.

Now Louise can you please tell us which parts of Bishops Hill book you object to please.

Thank you.

Nov 29, 2010 at 8:23 PM | Unregistered CommenterJack Cowper

@BBD

You say

'The real beauty of THSI is that it spotlights a concerted, vicious and on-going defense of the indefensible by people who lack the ability to think strategically'.

May I respectfully point out that your sentence is one word too long. The full stop should come after 'think', and the word 'strategically'.is not required.

Nov 29, 2010 at 8:43 PM | Unregistered CommenterLatimer Alder

Latimer

I understand your point, but I'll stick with the original wording.

The failure to think - and act - like players is at the heart of the Team's woes. Thank goodness they do not appear to have learned from their litany of mistakes.

Nov 29, 2010 at 8:51 PM | Unregistered CommenterBBD

Another vote for a Kindle version, even though I already have the paper version.

Nov 29, 2010 at 9:38 PM | Unregistered CommenterMichael larkin

I will buy this book as a Christmas gift for my brother!
He will love it!

Nov 29, 2010 at 11:20 PM | Unregistered CommenterAlex

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