Wednesday
Feb092011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill His rude highness
Feb 9, 2011 Climate: Sceptics Prince Charles has decided to step into the climate fray. This is excellent, because if there's one person you don't want on your side in a debate it's the heir to the throne. His speech was rather predictable stuff, demonstrating a shaky grasp of, well, pretty much everything. This, however, took my interest:
I have to say, this process has not exactly been helped by the corrosive effect on public opinion of those climate change sceptics who deny the vast body of scientific evidence that shows beyond any reasonable doubt that global warming has been exacerbated by human industrialized activity.
We "deny" scientific evidence do we? Is that not an interesting turn of phrase for HRH to adopt?
Does he owe us an apology?
Reader Comments (102)
I think Chuck should look at the history of his forebears: Charles I and II. Will Charles III do as badly. My guess he will.
(re-posting to more appropriate thread)
So Charles wonders about sceptics.
The implication is that if it weren't for sceptics, then a massive anti-AGW effort would already be under-way.
So where's his evidence for that, I wonder?
Does anyone take this benighted git seriously? Seriously?
Cool word - benighted - could guess a meaning, but looked it up and found this:
Perfic!
He's an old hypocrite, of course. He has an organic brand called "Duchy Originals" and the marketing blurb on these states that HRH is "offering consumers natural, high quality food". That's why they put sugar into their Cornish pasties then, huh? I don't remember my mother ever doing that.
He also launched an attack on the fast food industry, without realising that many of his products contain more fat, salt and calories than a Big Mac. However, it's only Waitrose shoppers who pay any attention to what he says, so his intervention here isn't really all that significant.
NO ONE RISES SO HIGH AS HE WHO KNOWS NOT WHITHER HE IS GOING.
Walk like an Egyptian
Can’t recall who to give the credit for the following but is rather apt:
“Every time he opens his mouth I feel my head getting a little rounder!”
Maybe your Clown Prince might like to have a look at this; 31000 scientists including 9000 PhDs reject Global Warming.
http://sherdognet.craveonline.com/index.php#http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=64734
He is now, and always has been, a buffoon
Peter Walsh
OOPS, I've made a clown of myself with the above item. Back in a few minutes with the correct ref for 31 000 scientists etc, unless someone beats me to it..
PW
Is there no way that QEII can send this twit into retirement and bypass him in favor of one of her grand children? This is another example of someone's reach exceeding their grasp.
It is no secret that Prince Charles loathes many aspects of the modern world, and I suspect he would be very happy to live in a world that more closely resembles the 18th Century, at least for the majority of his subjects. But not for him or his cronies of course, who would continue to reap the benefits of the modern world while making sure the rest of us are excluded.
Reading his ill-informed nonsense reminds me how the environmentalists' greatest trick is that they are able to play the hip youth card while enjoying almost total support from the world's political establishment.
Coming from someone who thinks chucking two aspirin into an ocean could cure every headache in the world this is a bit rich.
PW, are you thinking of the Oregon Petition? http://www.petitionproject.org/
Think I got it, on Climate Realists blog:
UK Telegraph: 31,000 scientists sign petition denying man-made global warming
31,000 Scientists Shatter the Myth on Global Warming
31,000 U.S. scientists deny man-made global warming
Global Warming’s New ‘Consensus’
Phew.
Peter Walsh
Bish
Some targets are too easy. They demean the skill of the marksman and are not worth the cost of the rounds fired.
However... since PC seems to have the kiss-of-death effect on any topic he gets too close to, perhaps we should even be cautiously encouraged by his ill-expressed and misleading statement above.
> The implication is that if it weren't for sceptics, then a massive anti-AGW effort would already be under-way.
No the implication is not only that, but that sceptics ought to be punished ("held to account").
Remind me. After all that expensive schooling, what exams did he pass?
I don't think he owes us an apology, he's just out of his depth. His error is allowing himself to be surrounded by those with partial views, and he doesn't have the intellectual capacity to see when he's being taken advantage of. I think he's an honorable chap, and well meaning, just ill-informed.
Copner
Yes, I've never liked that meme: 'for expressing less than total confidence in uncertain conclusions based on noisy data, you will be punished for your crimes against future humanity'.
He's a well-meaning airhead, but one can only forgive so much of the latter on the basis of the former.
Whilst laughing at his comments, my initial reaction is very similar to that of Cumbrian Lad.
Surrounded since birth with people feeding him selective information is not an ideal way to form either an inquisitive mind or a balanced view.
Maybe this should stand as a stark warning to why children should have a balanced input through their education.
RayG asks:
“Is there no way that QEII can send this twit into retirement and bypass him in favor of one of her grandchildren?”
Perhaps that’s what HRH has in mind when he worries about
“playing a most reckless game of roulette with the future inheritance of those who come after us”.
You should know that there’s some doubt about the genetic content of at least one of the Duchy Originals.
Bought a few goodies from his vastly overpriced shop(pe) in Bath as Christmas presents.
Was surprised to see, on reading the small print, that they were just repackaged versions of standard commodity brands ( eg.Twinings tea).
I paid him, for years, an extortionate ground rent for the few square feet of mud his "Duchy" owned under my boat moorings (they own all the coastal & tidal seabed in the south west).
I also remember the time he asked his chauffeur to drive his new Bentley Turbo (paid for by the Met Police - natch) all the way to Poland to meet him off the plane.
IMHO he's a whinging, overindulged, overgrown spoilt brat.
.......and I'm a monarchist!
Cumbrian Lad says:
“he's just out of his depth. His error is allowing himself to be surrounded by those with partial views, and he doesn't have the intellectual capacity to see when he's being taken advantage of..”
And in this he’s just like Cameron, Miliband, Sir Paul Nurse, and practially the entire British Establishment.
From the man who aspires to be a womens toiletry product.
Does anyone know Charlies carbon footprint
i took the use of the word 'exacerbated' to be somewhat of a retreat.
To the likes of HRH, denying man-made climate change seems to have replaced minority sexual preferences as the moral perversion du jour. We’ll be tolerated, as long as we don’t frighten the horses, or try to persuade others to adopt our strange tastes. Keep it between consenting adults in private chaps (and chapettes).
@crist,
Stephen Budiansky covers the point you make very well...
I note the BBC gave Charles second-from-top billing in their science and environment section. (Why does the BBC place those two together in one section?):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12403292
Good to see the balance in which Charles' fairly extreme and politically motivated views are given, in comparison to (say) the treatment of Monckton. I can see exactly what Fiona Fox was getting at. /sarc.
The only reason this was second-to-top was that a rent-seeking report by the soil association trying to embarass the government into splashing more taxpayers' money into organic farming. Thank you, oh impartial BBC. Perhaps the BBC could offer some of their £3 billions+ worth of ringfenced taxpayer money?
Sounds as if he wishes he were still living in times where the peasants (us) were tugging our forelocks whenever he passed, and if not - off with their heads.
And since peasants were called 'villains' in those times, one can see how he might be just a tad confused in his choice of words, like 'corrosive' effect ...
(I wonder if he chops off the heads of flowers which offend him?)
He's probably confusing carbon reduction with 'carbuncle' reduction.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/feb/01/design.architecture
I'm with Cumbrian Lad on this, i.e. he's well meaning but poorly advised. My other thought is that it's a pity he didn't spend any time in Balmoral this winter, if he had, I doubt he would be so convinced about the downsides of a little global warming. Especially if he had to pay the castle's heating bill out of his own pocket, and not the taxpayers.
Geoff, I don't think Paul Nurse comes into this category, he has a first class mind and should jolly well know better. Cameron and Milliband are certainly challenged in the intellectuals, but there the sheer lust for power that they have means that everything is to be bargained for, no principle to guide them, and as a result they are the most culpable of all.
Don't for one instance be fooled by Charles de meaner. The Queen may be the sovereign but it's Charlie who runs the family business.
It's Charles who has just negotiated an increase of income from the Crown Estate in return for cutting the civil list.
Jolly good show and all, I wonder what is behind it?
'The Royal Family have secured a lucrative deal that will earn them tens of millions of pounds from the massive expansion of offshore windfarms.
They will net up to £37.5 million extra income every year from the drive for green energy because the seabed within Britain’s territorial waters is owned by the Crown Estate.
Under new measures announced by Chancellor George Osborne last week, the Royals will soon get 15 per cent of the profits from the Estate’s £6 billion property portfolio, rather than the existing Civil List arrangement.'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1323228/Queens-38m-year-offshore-windfarm-windfall--owns-seabed.html
Re Duchy Originals and Waitrose, I heard that when Waitrose replaced some of their products with Duchy at the same price, sales went down.
He is also not above influencing politics and is well renown for his black spider letters to ministers:
'A copy of the letter, complete with the Prince’s distinctive “black spider” handwriting, has been passed to The Times. It confirms the evidence in the High Court last week that the Prince regularly corresponds with ministers on a range of contentious issues from the environment to international development.'
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article736545.ece
The benefit of the Monarchy to the UK has, during my lifetime, be predominantly presented as the cash cow that royal tourism offers the land. Not the 'Family' travelling about but foreigners, mostly American or Japanese, visiting our shores.
All that trravel creates far too much CO2. If the tourist uindustry was disappeared the cuts in CO2 would be real AND offer some beneficial response to the bulk of the British public facubf ever escalating gas tax demands.One could argue a strong case for abolition of the Monarchy on that basis alone. Add in a fleet of Rollers and the odd Aston Martin or two and it's no contest.
Does Charles not foresee this fate?
I'm sure that Schmidt, Monbiot, and Steig welcome the much needed support.
An amusing Guardian comment on another one of Charlies causes here.
(And if the Egyptians can eliminate the hereditary, parasitic, despots - why not the UK?)
Surely, a speech by Prince Charles to such a public body as the EU Parliament is submitted to the Foreign Office (maybe even the Cabinet Office) for Government approval? If so, we know that the Cameroons are warmists, but do they disdain GDP growth?
Josh:
I beg you to give this gift horse a miss - since the Tower still exists and I am sure they can send to France for a swordsman who would love to practice the art of head chopping.
Perhaps Chuck could be sent a copy of this letter, below, sent to members of the US Congress and Senate, signed or endorsed by a bunch of real, eminent scientists, to help redress the imbalance of his lack of perspective:
http://co2science.org/education/truthalerts/v14/TruthAboutClimateChangeOpenLetter.php
February 8, 2011
To the Members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate:
In reply to "The Importance of Science in Addressing Climate Change"
On 28 January 2011, eighteen scientists sent a letter (see also this news story) to members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate urging them to "take a fresh look at climate change." Their intent, apparently, was to disparage the views of scientists who disagree with their contention that continued business-as-usual increases in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions produced from the burning of coal, gas, and oil will lead to a host of cataclysmic climate-related problems.
We, the undersigned, totally disagree with them and would like to take this opportunity to briefly state our side of the story.
The eighteen climate alarmists (as we refer to them, not derogatorily, but simply because they view themselves as "sounding the alarm" about so many things climatic) state that the people of the world "need to prepare for massive flooding from the extreme storms of the sort being experienced with increasing frequency," as well as the "direct health impacts from heat waves" and "climate-sensitive infectious diseases," among a number of other devastating phenomena. And they say that "no research results have produced any evidence that challenges the overall scientific understanding of what is happening to our planet's climate," which is understood to mean their view of what is happening to Earth's climate.
To these statements, however, we take great exception. It is the eighteen climate alarmists who appear to be unaware of "what is happening to our planet's climate," as well as the vast amount of research that has produced that knowledge.
For example, a lengthy review of their claims and others that climate alarmists frequently make can be found on the Web site of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change (see Carbon Dioxide and Earth's Future: Pursuing the Prudent Path). That report offers a point-by-point rebuttal of all of the claims of the "group of eighteen," citing in every case peer-reviewed scientific research on the actual effects of climate change during the past several decades.
If the "group of eighteen" pleads ignorance of this information due to its very recent posting, then we call their attention to an even larger and more comprehensive report published in 2009, Climate Change Reconsidered: The 2009 Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC). That document has been posted for more than a year in its entirety at www.nipccreport.org.
These are just two recent compilations of scientific research among many we could cite. Do the 678 scientific studies referenced in the CO2 Science document, or the thousands of studies cited in the NIPCC report, provide real-world evidence (as opposed to theoretical climate model predictions) for global warming-induced increases in the worldwide number and severity of floods? No. In the global number and severity of droughts? No. In the number and severity of hurricanes and other storms? No.
Do they provide any real-world evidence of Earth's seas inundating coastal lowlands around the globe? No. Increased human mortality? No. Plant and animal extinctions? No. Declining vegetative productivity? No. More frequent and deadly coral bleaching? No. Marine life dissolving away in acidified oceans? No.
Quite to the contrary, in fact, these reports provide extensive empirical evidence that these things are not happening. And in many of these areas, the referenced papers report finding just the opposite response to global warming, i.e., biosphere-friendly effects of rising temperatures and rising CO2 levels.
In light of the profusion of actual observations of the workings of the real world showing little or no negative effects of the modest warming of the second half of the twentieth century, and indeed growing evidence of positive effects, we find it incomprehensible that the eighteen climate alarmists could suggest something so far removed from the truth as their claim that no research results have produced any evidence that challenges their view of what is happening to Earth's climate and weather.
But don't take our word for it. Read the two reports yourselves. And then make up your own minds about the matter. Don't be intimidated by false claims of "scientific consensus" or "overwhelming proof." These are not scientific arguments and they are simply not true.
Like the eighteen climate alarmists, we urge you to take a fresh look at climate change. We believe you will find that it is not the horrendous environmental threat they and others have made it out to be, and that they have consistently exaggerated the negative effects of global warming on the U.S. economy, national security, and public health, when such effects may well be small to negligible.
Signed by:
Syun-Ichi Akasofu, University of Alaska1
Scott Armstrong, University of Pennsylvania
James Barrante, Southern Connecticut State University1
John Boring, University of Virginia
Roger Cohen, American Physical Society Fellow
David Douglass, University of Rochester
Don Easterbrook, Western Washington University1
Robert Essenhigh, The Ohio State University1
Martin Fricke, Senior Fellow, American Physical Society
Lee Gerhard, University of Kansas1
Ulrich Gerlach, The Ohio State University
Victor Goldschmidt, Purdue University1
Guillermo Gonzalez, Grove City College
Laurence Gould, University of Hartford
Bill Gray, Colorado State University1
Will Happer, Princeton University2
Howard Hayden, University of Connecticut1
Craig Idso, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change
Sherwood Idso, USDA, U.S. Water Conservation Laboratory1
Richard Keen, University of Colorado1
Doral Kemper, USDA, Agricultural Research Service1
Hugh Kendrick, Office of Nuclear Reactor Programs, DOE1
Richard Lindzen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology2
Anthony Lupo, University of Missouri
Patrick Michaels, Cato Institute
Donald Nielsen, University of California, Davis1
Al Pekarek, St. Cloud State University
John Rhoads, Midwestern State University1
Nicola Scafetta, Duke University
Gary Sharp, Center for Climate/Ocean Resources Study
S. Fred Singer, University of Virginia1
Roy Spencer, University of Alabama
George Taylor, Past President, American Association of State Climatologists
Frank Tipler, Tulane University
Leonard Weinstein, National Institute of Aerospace Senior Research Fellow
Samuel Werner, University of Missouri1
Bruce West, American Physical Society Fellow
Thomas Wolfram, University of Missouri1
1 - Emeritus or Retired
2 - Member of the National Academy of Sciences
Endorsed by:
Rodney Armstrong, Geophysicist
Richard Becherer, University of Connecticut1
Edwin Berry, Certified Consulting Meteorologist
Joseph Bevelacqua, Bevelacqua Resources
Carmen Catanese, American Physical Society Member
Roy Clark, Ventura Photonics
John Coleman, Meteorologist KUSI TV
Darrell Connelly, Geophysicist
Joseph D'Aleo, Certified Consulting Meteorologist
Terry Donze, Geophysicist1
Mike Dubrasich, Western Institute for Study of the Environment
John Dunn, American Council on Science and Health of NYC
Dick Flygare, Engineer
Michael Fox, Nuclear industry/scientist
Gordon Fulks, Gordon Fulks and Associates
Steve Goreham, Climate Science Coalition of America
Ken Haapala, Science & Environmental Policy Project
Martin Hertzberg, Bureau of Mines1
Art Horn, Meteorologist
Keith Idso, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change
Jay Lehr, The Heartland Institute
Robert Lerine, Industrial and Defense Research and Engineering1
Peter Link, Geologist
James Macdonald, Chief Meteorologist for the Travelers Weather Service1
Roger Matson, Society of Independent Professional Earth Scientists
Tony Pann, Meteorologist WBAL TV
Ned Rasor, Consulting Physicist
James Rogers, Geologist1
Norman Rogers, National Association of Scholars
Rene Rogers, Litton Electron Devices1
Bruce Schwoegler, MySky Communications, Inc.
Thomas Sheahen, Western Technology Incorporated
James Spann, Chief Meteorologist, ABC 33/40 - Birmingham
Andrew Spurlock, Starfire Engineering and Technologies, Inc.
Leighton Steward, PlantsNeedCO2.org
Soames Summerhays, Summerhays Films, Inc.
Charles Touhill, Consulting Environmental Engineer
David Wojick, Climatechangedebate.org
Bob Zybach, Ecologist
1 - Emeritus or Retired
Geoff
"some doubt about the genetic content"
You mean the ginger biscuit..?
James P
The very one. Last time I was in Waitrose, Duchy Originals were priced down 75% in the remainder bin.
If I could be so bold as to speak for sceptics -- I think the consensus among sceptics is that humans have contributed to some degree to the magnitude of the warming that has taken place since the last ice age. However, few of us believe that anthropogenic CO2 is the principle agent that regulates surface temperature. In other words, there is little evidence that humans are "largely responsible" for the warming that's occurred since the last ice age. Furthermore, most sceptics argue that ice ages = bad, interglacials = good for humanity. So I'm not quite sure what HRH means when he says that human activity has *exacerbeted* the phenomenon we know as "nice weather". Would HRH prefer that it be getting colder?
Dear James P,
Is it not in poor taste to call the half blood prince a ginger biscuit?
show some respect!
Why would anybody expect the offspring of Diana and Chazza (allegedly) to be more gifted than their parents?
The Queen is alright with me (given the alternative of a political president), but I have my doubts on what happens 'next'. We have a 'leadership' packed full of science-numpties, who only listen to panic-merchant Chicken-Littles who put their own interests above scientific competence / integrity.
I used to be mildly royalist, but no longer. The man is a fool.
HRH claims that the evidence is demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt. The Prince of Wales therefore claims the evidence is on a par with that in a criminal prosecution. So I would ask our future Sovereign
1. Would a climate model stand up in court as a robust forecast of the future?
2. Would the GISS temperature record withstand five minutes of cross-examination by a half-competent barrister?
3. If Mann's Hockey Stick had been pivotal as evidence in a successful prosecution, would Steve McIntyre's analysis have lead to an acquittal?
4. Is the UNIPCC not only Chief Prosecutor, Judge and Jury, but also sets the boundaries of permissible evidence on the fly?
I once heard (many years ago) Charles described as an intellectual pillow, he carries the impression of the last person to lie on him (or something like that).
Vive la République!
Poor Charles, a well meaning chap who, in common with all our 'rulers', has no scientific education to back up his opinions. I wish him well but suggest he starts to read those views that contradict his own. Similar advice applies to those with less excuse for ignorance such as Nurse, Cox, Singh, Rees et al.
Nearly 300 years have passed since the House of Hanover 'inherited' the throne ( I know about Saxe-Coburg, Gotha morphing into Windsor) and none have been very impressive or bright but they still hold the crown.
Even as a defeated Welshman (no not last Friday) I would prefer a harmless Hanovarian rather than an elected Blair etc.
Silence, sadly, from our monarchy about our loss of liberty to the EU.