Friday
Feb252011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Edinburgh Climate Conference
Feb 25, 2011 Greens There is a climate conference this weekend at Edinburgh. Speakers include Gabi Hegerl.
The programme can be seen here. It looks to me like a "gee up the activists" kind of thing, so I don't think I will be missing much.
(H/T Cameron by email)
Reader Comments (23)
Influencing the world since 1583
The University of Edinburgh
Um..now trying to take us into a dark age.
The University of Edinburgh
At the end of day one you can enjoy:
'Session 4: The Royal Society’s: Facing Up to Climate Change'
Something missing there? A word? Grammar?
'
O/T but two things you may with to look at.
1) - Climate science exonerated again by Commerce Department. What's that now - 5 seperate enquiries finding no evidence of wrongdoing?
2) - Really interesting article from the excellent George Monbiot - http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2011/feb/23/need-to-protect-internet-from-astroturfing?commentpage=all#start-of-comments - it'll be even more interesting when he finishes his investigation. I've been busting to hear from a whistleblower about this for ages, because the one other place I comment is awash with it.
@ZDB
1) I don't think "exoneration" is the right word if the inquiries don't look at the charges for which they have been convened, or when they do they simply ask the defendant "did you do x?" and leave it at that.
2) Yes the internet needs more regulation. It was founded on the principles of regulatin of the population /sarc. Astroturfing isn't a problem if our legislators respond to their constituency postbag instead of pandering to lobbyists.
As any bishop would know, there are indulgences and there are indulgences.
There are carbon indulgences, in which several of the sponsors of this conference have expertise (http://www.edeconsoc.co.uk/events.html).
There are self-indulgences, of which the conference itself is an example.
And there are spiritual/temporal indulgences such as described here (http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/GLOSSARY/INDULGE.HTM) over 3 phases:
(1) 'The logic of indulgences is hard for moderns to understand, but in reality they make a great deal of sense. The whole concept of an indulgence is based on the medieval Catholic doctrine that sinners must not only repent of sins that they've committed, they must also confess these sins and pay some sort of retribution. ... Part of this temporal punishment involved doing "good works," that is, deeds that are charitable such as feeding the poor or caring for the sick. A truly repentant person would show that repentance by behaving in the most charitable ways towards fellow human beings.'
(2) 'In the late thirteenth century, the church came up with the idea of indulgences. In the spiritual life of sinners, indulgences function exactly the same way money functions in their economic life. Here's the logic: since the expiation of sin involves temporal punishment and this temporal punishment involves the doing of good works, why not substitute someone else's good works for the good works you're required to do? Why not pay someone else to do the good works demanded of you as temporal punishment? '
(3) 'The church, however, was forced to sit up and listen when Martin Luther (1483-1546) attacked the practice in his famous 95 Theses. He did not, however, stop with indulgences, but attacked the entire logic behind "good works." In part responding the the humanism of Erasmus, Luther rejected any exterior qualities of an individual as being relevant to that individual's relationship to God. Just as indulgences do not really mean that the purchaser has achieved good works, so good works do not mean that the doer is either repentant or faithful. The logic of indulgences, for Luther, indicted the logic of most church practices that relied on exterior behaviors, such as good works, rituals, and icons.'
Now we have had members of the Computer Climate Faith imitating Martin Luther by attacking carbon indulgences.
But if the CC Faith is shown to be heretical with regard to Truth, Decency, Honour, Scientific Method, and Suchlike Stuff, then perhaps one day we shall see CC Faith apostates going out into the world to do good works, and help repair some of the damage they have done. Much as per phase (1). Although it may not save their souls, as per phase (3), it will be better than the carbon trading as per phase (2).
I see a conference, perhaps ECC.15, and it could use the same programme as this ECC.11 which you have kindly drawn our attention to:
Session 1: The state of the world – the cost of inaction
Session 2: The world stage - Global solutions
Session 3: Scotland’s environmental policy
Session 4: The Royal Society’s: Facing Up to Climate Change
Session 5: Business solutions – A green Economy
Session 6: Technologies to change the world – Adaptation, Mitigation
Session 7: Civic action – Student and community initiatives
Session 8: The global effort
Only in this version, there would much mea-culpating, expostulations of regret, and no end of schemes to try to make amends to science and to society, and indeed to their spiritual development.
We shall need a Bob Dylan (The times they are a'changin) or a John Lennon (Imagine) to write some lyrical accompaniment for this, hopefully imminent, new liturgy for some Reformed Church of the Real Climate.
/daydream
Zed
2) Ben Pile is dealing with it.
http://www.climate-resistance.org/
Edinburgh weather forecast for the weekend
Saturday Hi 9C, Lo 2C, Heavy Rain
Sunday Hi 7C, Lo -3C, Sunny Intervals.
Interesting guest speaker; Simon Humphrey, Principal Consultant in ERM’s Global Sustainability and Climate Change practice.
The ERM endorse the US Securities and Exchange Commission guidance for companies and corporations on full financial disclosure concerning climate change issues. This is in response to increasing scrutiny by investors and regulators.
ERM explain the need to do this by highlighting that companies should;
1. Include climate change information that companies are already publically acknowledging in financial
disclosures.
2. Identify pending actions to comply with federal, state and local provisions or legal actions whose costs could be material.
3. Note significant factors that could render an investment speculative or risky.
4. Disclose decisions concerning trends, demands, commitments, events, and uncertainties around climate change that are reasonably likely to have a material impact.
It would seem that Simon Humphrey will be speaking to those at this Fear-Fest who look upon public disclosure of any sort as an anathema.
Hosted by Edinburgh Uni so presumably our tax dollars at play.
Mac, yes with a good wind, Edinburgh will no doubt feel very chilly on Sunday. We used to refer to a building we had to visit once a week on the western fringe as ice station zebra. I wonder if they will be discussing the ever warming Arctic - fairly extreme conditions in Nunavut just now:
http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=Nunavut&wuSelect=WEATHER
(-48C in Eureka at time of posting)
Protecting the internet from astro-turfing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My oh my, the hypocrisy of the eco-loons never fail to amuse.
From the Campaign against Climate Change website;
Sceptic alerts
Are you fed up with sceptics and pseudo-scientists dominating blogs and news articles with their denialist propaganda? Well, fight back! We are trying to create an online army of online volunteers to try and tip the balance back in the favour of scientific fact, not scientific fiction.
To sign up, enter your e-mail address in the box below:
You will receive one e-mail alert per day containing links to various climate change news articles. We need you to politely explain in the comments section why global warming is actually happening and why it's not a big conspiracy. You can contribute to as little or as many articles as you like, just dive in.
Theres any number of angles you might want to take but pointing out that the vast majority of climate scientists are sure that man made climate change is happening is not a bad one. Or how the fossil fuel companies are funding "think-tanks" whose job it is is to try and undermine the science of climate change. Or ..(I could go on forever). You've probably got lots to say already (so much truth to tell...) but you can also use the links on our Links page to back up your argument, or any of the further information on our Sceptics page.
One last suggestion from us - you can also consider going onto the offensive and explain that the real uncertainty about man-made climate change is not whether its happening but how fast its happening and that in fact there is increasing evidence that the mainstream science of the IPCC is actually underestimating the scale and imminence of the threat. See our Climate Emergency page and the links at the bottom.
Remember: everyone makes a difference.
.... and who is president of CaCC?
Why none other than George "Astro-Turf General" Monbiot.
ZedsDeadBed, Monboit quite often claims his is the victim of web based conspiracies, its shame therefore he can’t actual produced worthwhile evidenced to support the claim nor even a reason why anyone would organise one in the first place, despite being repeatedly asked too .
The irony is the only web based organisation using astroturfing approaches that can be really indentified is the one he heads used to support AGW , whose action are in part is the reason why this blog site has had to bring in more security measures .
O/T
Independent: Letters to a heretic: An email conversation with climate change sceptic Professor Freeman Dyson
Ouch...
@ZDB
I actually posted that link a few days ago... mainly because I had an amusing 20 mins reading the comments. Paranoia and delusion in equal measure (ignoring the hypocrisy)... quite cheered me up, because when it gets to the stage "that people think that no sane person could disagree there must be other nefarious reasons" then
empires fall... reality bites.
In your honour, we could name the phenomenon..."Zeds under the bed..."
CaCC is attempting to bring together a large section of diverse and geographically distributed individuals to post online comments concerning climate change.
CaCC is actively encouraging commentators to argue that mainstream science is WRONG on climate-change with an aggressive and alarmist response required
Astro-turfing is defined as orchestrating the actions of apparently diverse and geographically distributed individuals, by posting disinformation by both overt and covert means.
As George Monbiot is president of CaCC he is actively involved in promoting astro-turfing.
The hypocrisy of the eco-loons on this issue is utterly laughable.
I wonder how many going to this Edinburgh Fear-Fest have signed up with CaCC?
Link correction:
Letters to a heretic: An email conversation with climate change sceptic Professor Freeman Dyson
JC
Just saw your comments about Freeman Dyson. I think O'Connor would have been safer going a few rounds with David "The Hayemaker" Haye.
"In your honour, we could name the phenomenon..."Zeds under the bed...""
Feb 25, 2011 at 2:22 PM | Jiminy Cricket
*doffs hat*
That's good.
Been daydreaming again. This time, there was a peaceful demo outside the venue. They were singing 'We shall overcome', and bore banners and placards with devices such as these:
REPENT YE OF YOUR SOFTWARE SINS
THE END OF THE WORLD IS NOT NIGH
PLANTS LOVE CO2 SO WHY DON'T YOU?
BUY CARBON OFFSETS HERE - SPECIAL RATES FOR DELEGATES
BAN BREATHING NOW
IN GOD WE TRUST, FROM YOU WE NEED DATA
POSITIVE FEEDBACK: GO DO SOMETHING MORE USEFUL
ALL MODELS ARE WRONG, YOUR MODELS ARE EVIL
ALWAYS LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE OF LIFE
WHAUR'S YER HOT SPOT NOO?
YOU DON'T SCARE ME IPCC
OH STOP YOUR BREATHING, JOCK
BURNS FOR ECC11:
O wad some Power the gift tae gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An foolish notion:
What airs in dress an gait wad lea'e us,
An ev'n devotion!
And, just arrived at the back, a giant copy of JOSH's canard cartoon
Ah but sometimes the virtual world is so much more congenial than the real one. Perhaps I should have taken up climate modelling after all...
O/T but two things you may with to look at.
1) - Climate science exonerated again by Commerce Department. What's that now - 5 seperate enquiries finding no evidence of wrongdoing?
2) - Really interesting article from the excellent George Monbiot - http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2011/feb/23/need-to-protect-internet-from-astroturfing?commentpage=all#start-of-comments - it'll be even more interesting when he finishes his investigation. I've been busting to hear from a whistleblower about this for ages, because the one other place I comment is awash with it.
Feb 25, 2011 at 12:09 PM | Unregistered CommenterZedsDeadBed
In what concievable way are either of these issues relatevant to this thread. The thread is headed 'Edinburgh Climate Conference. So comments relating to that should appear here. Do you not understand how this is supposed to work?
I can understand you exitement in wanting to communicate your notions, but this thread is not the right place. Bish do you think you could provide an 'unthreaded thread' so people can post up items that don't fall under any current heading.
Eddy, there already is an unthreaded thread - third link down below Navigation. But maybe Bish could make a new one just for Zebedee, that way he/she could troll happily away there all day and leave all the other threads in peace?
HA! Thanks Lapogus, I hadn't noticed that. I'm more used to the style where an unthreaded thread is periodically added to the thread list (as for WUWT).
Anyway excellent!
I am a graduate of the University of Edinburgh. On those days there was a lot of fashionable nonsense in the social sciences: it was a hotbed of postmodernism. It is really a shame to see that the infection has spread now to the physical sciences (although I am not sure if climate science qualifies for the second group).