Wednesday
Mar102010
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Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Power down
Mar 10, 2010 Blogs I'm expecting to have no electricity for much of the day, so posting will be light.
Mar 10, 2010 Blogs 
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Reader Comments (21)
Don't worry Bish. With the government's lack of a sensible energy policy for 13 years, having no electricity for much of the day is likely to become the norm in a few years time. All those windmills plus no wind = no electricity. Think of today as an early rehearsel for things to come.
Look on the positive side, I guess come lunchtime you will probably need to eat and stay warm in the local hostelry which no doubt has a roaring open hearth furnace blazing heat into the room and an ample supply of extra matured Glenmorangie to help wile away the hours.
Well, unlike the Large Hadron Collider, your blog hasn't cost us £5.6 billion, so we won't be too angry.
Still, not to worry, the science is settled and scientists are never wrong.
If you have been without power, you may have been lucky enough to miss Martin Rees's abject performance on the Today programme, in which he clearly had done no homework at all on Climategate or the IPCC, and trotted out all the usual "move along now, nothing to see" stuff. He also managed to misrepresent the GCMs as predicting the most dramatic changes in the tropics, which is unforgivable for a physicist.
Here's the solution to your power crisis. You'll still need candles at night, though.
Just because a German aristocrat suggested it, doesn't mean you should do it.
I also had the misfortune to hear some of "...Martin Rees's abject performance on the Today programme..." It never ceases to surprise me how these people get away with so much prevarication, and the incredible ability they possess to never give a straight answer to a straight question, coupled with the BBC's ability not to really push for one.
David S: Surely he isn't a physicist - well not one who doesn't have his head in the stars. But you would have thought even the most starry-eyed physicist would understand the role of water in moderating temperature.
The Martin Rees interview by Justin Webb is here. It's not all bad. Although Webb started very softball he did well with the questions about journalists feeling they've caught the scientists out for becoming lobbyists and that people are rightly shocked that they won't give others access to their data. Rees gets nil points for courage on both of those, simply saying he's glad about the official inquiries. But Webb took a wrong turn by suggesting that you can tell just from the emails that they were refusing to supply data. That allowed Rees to quibble about context. No, Phil Jones admitted to Graham Stringer before the Select Committee that it wasn't the custom in climate science to supply data to those trying to find fault. Stringer had looked at the emails, asked the key questions and elicited that crystal clear admission. It was typically inept for a BBC interviewer not to hammer home that point.
And the contempt for democracy in people like Rees not taking the least bit seriously something said by the scientist at the centre of Climategate in open session to a committee in the mother of Parliaments is a real concern.
However, his encouragement of sceptics to come to forthcoming scientific debates which we were assured are going to deal honestly with the uncertainties in climate science was OK. We should feel at home he implied because professional scientists are the biggest sceptics of all, trying to find flaws in the arguments of their colleagues. We'll see.
Rees' continuing commitment to 'measures like those proposed in Copenhagen' as a precaution is mad though. I don't think there's any other word for it. You just have to read Nigel Lawson's An Appeal to Reason on that. Economics and policy are not the good peer's areas of expertise is the best one can say.
Still, not all bad. Slivers of light. Better than it would have been on 10 Nov anyhow.
It is important now that a proper debate is opened up on the economics and policy side of the equation. There is a lot of work still remaining on shining a light on the wobbly science, but the downright insane measures being put in place now need at least as vigorous a fight as that already seen on the science side. I don't think the population will stand for being fleeced much more, and it's good to see even the Great Moonbat beginning to realise the scale of the scam.
Be light? or be about light? Has the absence of light been caused by global warming? It seems to have caused blizzards in the Mediterranean, which alarms me as I am planning a trip there and to Europe over Easter. Was hoping for a nice warm visit.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8557570.stm
It was a testicle-shrinking 6.4C around 7am this morning in my bit of Hong Kong. And this is the tropics.
Only five minutes ago, it seems, Rees was telling us all that we would drown in a grey goo of nanoparticles. That would seem to me to be entirely inconsistent with our roasting to death in the fiery flames of AGW. I conclude that the chap's grip on reality has long since slipped.
If I remember correctly, Martin Rees used to be known as an Astronomer, and a Royal one at that. Having heard him speak on numerous occasions, I wouldn't assume any deep knowledge of physics on his part. Not even the "basic" physics that the climatologists keep telling us prove ACO2 implies GW.
Ah, Hong Kong. Normally at this time of year, the entire contents of your home would be growing 10 varieties of tropical mushroom and assorted fungi in the sticky conditions.
Of even more note perhaps than the onset of local cooling, the latest budget there was recently unveiled under the headline
Small Government, Big Market
and amongst the 6 priority areas targeted for Govt. help and stimulation, none included fighting climate change. HK's economy continues to grow rather robustly, and it's residents continue to enjoy First World Healthcare, public transport and a maximum income tax rate of 16%.
Compare and contrast to AGW obsessed western economies.
Wot! No wind generator, Bish? I'd suggest solar panels, but Monbiot wouldn't approve...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2010/mar/09/george-monbiot-bet-solar-pv
Ah Hong Kong, and the now flattened Walled City reminds me a little of the Palace of Westminster, an ungoverned settlement full of prostitutes and gamblers?
Of course, Walled City gamblers only ever risk their own money, whereas the class of Westminster only ever spends ours.
Whoops, sorry my mistake Drew, how remiss of me.....
You're obviously relying on "Clean, Green (windpower) Energy" - which is currently providing 0.1% of the UK's electricity requirements:
http://www.bmreports.com/bsp/bsp_home.htm
Or posting will be in the dark...
Burned the Dilithium crystals again, I reckon...