Bishop Hill It must be serious
Jan 25, 2011 Climate: CRU Climate: Parliament Wow. Even Louise Gray is emphasising the SciTech committee's criticisms of the inquiries. She also has more from Graham Stringer.
Graham Stringer, a Labour MP on the Committee, said there are questions over how the scientists chose the figures they used to back up the case for global warming.
He said the ‘missing email’ may refer to how researchers tried to further influence how their science is accepted by the scientific community.
He said both reports had failed to answer these questions.
“It does not say this is the end of the scientific case for global warming but it does say that people at the centre of this research did some very bad science,” he said.
“It is not a whitewash, it is the establishment looking after their own. They are not looking hard enough at what went wrong.”
Reader Comments (18)
Nah, wait for it, there will be another from Louise shortly, complete with quotes from Capn Bob.
Graham Stringer will become the eco-loons new hate figure along with Peter Sissons.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1350206/BBC-propaganda-machine-climate-change-says-Peter-Sissons.html
It is not a whitewash, it is the establishment looking after their own.
Seems as though it is a whitewash, then.
I remain convinced that AGW geomancy will decay rather than collapse overnight. The consensus among the public is that they're being had, despite the overwhelming bias among state funded institution and media towards trying to suppress and marginalise this majority view. Despite this it has been seen through, and will now fall apart bit by bit as various predictions are either falsified or shown to be opportunistic "retrodictions". Increasingly AGW is simply not passing the laugh test.
The emissions trading fiasco is a case in point. Last week the EU suspended the movement of carbon indulgences in the wake of all the recent alleged phishing attacks: 1.6 million indulgences alleged stolen from the Romanian registry in November, 475,000 stolen from the Czech registry a few weeks ago, rumour of more still lifted from the Austrian, Greek and Romanian (again) registries.
Supposedly this suspension is only for a few days, but the issue is systemic - the registries are simply not secure. As I've noted before, emissions trading was thought up by econutters, designed by Enron and implemented by the council, so of course it's going to be poor. There is no way the EU commission is going to find and implement a solution to this in the two days of the suspension remaining. The idea is laughable.
My guess is that the freeze on indulgence transfers will be extended, but the trouble is that the end of March is a deadline for 2010 emissions compliance. So if they are not moving again by then, a whole bunch of people will be unable to deliver what they have, buy what they need, or sell what they don't need. Either the registries will have to be reopened, or they'll have to permit transfers on only certain days, which is going to knacker the day to day trade that the whole thing rests on.
Love the comment by thejollygreenman at the DT - "This is fantastic news! Phil Jones is as innocent as OJ."
Meanwhile, I found this in the Grauniad, which made me laugh:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jan/24/crematorium-heat-swimming-pool-redditch
A council is proposing to save money – and combat global warming – by heating a leisure centre and swimming pool using heat generated by the crematorium next door.
If any of the deceased is a denier, they could make lampshades out of them first, then cremate the rest! And why stop there with those filthy deniers? Why not make soap out of the ones who aren't cremated? You could put it in the toilets at the municipal swimming pool.
I posted this link on an earlier thread. Well worth reading:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmselect/cmsctech/444/444vw11.htm
They are notes by Kelly (the statistician on the Oxburgh panel) submitted by Graham Stringer MP
O/T
I am not sure it has been referred to elsewhere but Sir Paul Nurse was a student at the UEA during the 1970s. While I doubt he knew Jones, I am sure that he does not want to dump on his alma mater.
Thank you for the link to the Kelly notes, oldtimer!
Here is one quote which should have made everybody on the panel sit up:
"(i) I take real exception to having simulation runs described as experiments (without at least the qualification of "computer" experiments). It does a disservice to centuries of real experimentation and allows simulations output to be considered as real data. This last is a very serious matter, as it can lead to the idea that real "real data" might be wrong simply because it disagrees with the models! That is turning centuries of science on its head."
How on earth can scientists not take note of this?
This is, in fact, one of the main arguments sceptics have been trying to bash into the heads of the AGW proponents. And they all just let it slide by ... words fail me!
OldTimer: Prof Michael Kelly of Cambridge Uni is an engineer/physicist. The statistician on the panel was Prof David Hand of Imperial College.
It is good, at least, that there are a few MPs who are sceptical of AGW and the poor quality of science behind it. But there are only a precious few and certainly none seem to be in government posts. The 'official' attitude was demonstrated a few weeks ago when a Conservative MP (the member for Ripley, I think) asked the Leader of the House during business questions why the government was spending such vast sums of money on climate change when there has been no global warming for ten years. The Leader, Sir George Young, usually a very sensible and reasonable sort of chap 'answered' with the retort: "the government intends to pursue a low carbon economy," or a similar collection of words. Talk about blinkered!
“It does not say this is the end of the scientific case for global warming ... "
One cannot help thinking that he was thinking that it might, however, be the beginning of the end!
"a low carbon economy"
I long to hear this asinine phrase challenged on air sometime. If only an interviewer would ask what it means and follow through with a question about the role of CO2.
Sorry, just daydreaming...
One of the great mysteries is why your government advocates the devastation of your economy to offset a couple of weeks of emissions from China? Is there a chance that this generation of Pols think that this is their May of 1940? (With the greatest respect and admiration for a people who decided to stand alone against what then must have seemed overwhelming odds)
In September, 2010 the FT wrote of the unsatisfactory investigations into Climategate, and in a followup letter, Simon Buckle of the Grantham institute at Imperial College - not the Grantham where Bob Ward resides at LSE - endorsed the notion of IPCC reform. Kudos to FT and Sir Brian's Grantham Institue.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/environment/climategate-clearings-fail-to-convince
What's notable is how Ms Gray allows the words of Andrew Montford and Graham Stringer to fit together like a glove:
Most politicians said what suited them, but one didn't. And one was enough to make the difference, in this report and, perhaps, much more widely.
Well done Louise. You have the makings of that rare thing in today's world: a good journalist.
"It is not a whitewash; it's a...erm...ah...an application of calcium hydroxide..."
They are not looking hard enough at
whatwho went wrong.Still hoping that a politician will question the wisdom of the low carbon economy, I have written to my MP:
Mark Pritchard MP,
House of Commons,
London SW1A 0AA
Dear Sir,
Global Warming Policy
Britain has embarked on a ruinously expensive programme intended to combat Global Warming, a spurious threat conjured up by scientists who are persuasive but wrong. I would urge you to question the validity of the prevailing science advice behind these policies.
It’s a big ask for two reasons. Firstly because scepticism is often howled down as “denial” - a euphemism for heresy. Secondly, since specialist advice is supposed to be be gold-plated, it takes political courage to claim greater expertise than the experts. But most of your fellow MPs are stranded in groupthink, spouting tosh about carbon footprints. You will gain in stature by spotting the imminent collapse of the rotten edifice of Global Warming and giving it a muscular shove.
Despite the frequent claim that “the science is settled”, a substantial minority of scientists dismiss the claim that carbon dioxide has a significant effect on global temperatures. (I am sure that you are keeping abreast of this great debate without my labouring the point here.) The man in the street – armed only with gumption – is gradually cocking a dubious eyebrow, and daring to mention that the king is rather short on vestments.
I ask two things of you:
(a) One of your fellow MPs, Graham Stringer, a professional chemist, tried unsuccessfully to insert a paragraph into the SciTech Committee report on Climategate. The discarded draft included this wording: “… leaves a question mark over whether CRU science is reliable.” I urge you to seek Mr. Stringer’s view on this matter and on the wider picture. His science, chemistry, is a real science; climatology, in contrast, is in its infancy and barely deserves an ‘ography’, let alone an ‘ology’.
(b) Seek “falsifiability criteria” to ensure you cannot be duped. A key step in scientific method is the testing of hypotheses: identifying conditions which, should they occur, would refute it. Global Warming theory shuns such testing like a prisoner shunning handcuffs. One test would be “the loss of Scotland under an ice sheet”: I suspect that all reasonable people would give the Global Warming Theory the heave-ho in this event! A better one might be “the Mean Annual Central England Temperature remaining below its peak in the reign of George II throughout this 2nd decade of the 21st century”. Leaving aside such detail for the moment, the principle is obvious: we need an agreed measure by which the scare story can be debunked if scare story it is. If Thermageddon is indeed looming and the theory passes its tests, you will be happier voting for carbon countermeasures.
My concern is not over some arcane detail of philosophical debate. My concern is that policy, driven by duff advice from senior figures who should be more accountable, is endangering our energy security; condemning many to energy poverty; draining the public coffers and jeapordising our industrial base.
Yours sincerely,
Brent Hargreaves, Constituent
Justice4Rinka:
Mortality falls in the summer so I expect the crem will need to call for volunteers in order to keep the pool in use. Better love hath no man, than to lay down his life for the community swimming pool.