Sunday
Mar132011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Quote of the day
Mar 13, 2011 Economics Greens Politicians This was apparently posted to the comments on Christopher Booker's article today:
I have worked in government for 28 years as an economist, and for the last 20 years I have worked on environmental programs. In that time I have not seen a shred of evidence to justify global warming, let alone man made global warming and I have not seen a shred of evidence that there is going to be a green economic boom. The only evidence I have seen is that there is a green economic bust, that money invested in green technologies is usually wasted and simply consumes investment that could be better used elsewhere. I think that anybody in government or industry who can not understand this is either dishonest, stupid, or both. That applies to Cameron - I think he is both.
H/T Messenger
Reader Comments (60)
Cthulhu
"early 20th century"
Not so much tarmac around then. Or airports..
Zed
"how truly un-sceptical you all are"
You, however, are sceptical? Do tell.
Zed,
"there was no such reports"
We can tell from your grammar that you're from the Blair era of 'education, education, education'.
John C
the Earth had shorter days, and the Sun was cooler.... People should really research the variables of AGW before they start blindly following articles.
Shorter days ? but surely shorter nights too unless the earths rotation varied within 24 hrs and slowed down at night all those years ago.
Sun was cooler Hmmm so its getting hotter, no need for CO2 to have much effect then.
It is sad to read the above comments from both skeptics and deniers. They seem to be arguing about the shreds of evidence. Neither side will convince the other. More importantly, globally governments will continue to impose policies that are both ineffective in constraining CO2 and will make the vast majority worse off.
The yardstick for combatting global warming should be based on whether realistically policy to constrain CO2 levels will be less costly than doing nothing.
ManicBeanCounter
Typical bloody Beancounter.
I don't disagree with you, but one side of the argument will spend anything - because there is a planet to save. You can't put a price on that you see - that's what the warmists will say.
John C on 13th
"There are no peer-reviewed or widely accepted scientific articles that discredit the biasing of climate via CO2. The effects of the warming are what are disputed; not the warming itself which is evident not only statistical trends, but in fauna and foliage migratory changes in the last century."
There are many papers which show that there is no casual link between CO2 and Atmospheric temperature over thousands of years. In all the ice core records CO2 rises follow Temperature (by several hundred years) not the other way round. Worth saying again that there has been no real warming for 15 years and in that time 25% of the man-made CO2 ever produced has been released.
There are no papers that show CO2 is the definite cause of the recent warming. The AGW hypothesis or theory majors on the idea that CO2 must have done it. But it is only a theory, and up to now none of the modelling extrapolated from that theory has come true.
You speak of statistical trends, but there have not been any unexpected trends in the last century. The second graph in this link below uses Phil Jones's HADCRUT3 data and shows that the warming side of the last cycle was at the same rate as the previous two going back into the 19th century. There is a slow warming overall all the way back to the end of the Mini Ice-age, but nothing unprecedented.
http://joannenova.com.au/2011/01/the-warmest-year-antidotes/
When pressed last year in various interviews Phil Jones admitted that.
a. There had been no statistically significant warming for 15 years. (might suggest that this cycle has topped out as postulated in the first graph - who knows)
b. That his work was not really peer-reviewed (only pal reviewed) since nobody asked him for the data to check.
c. That the science was not settled.
Re Mar 13, 2011 at 8:33 PM | Retired Dave:
"There are aspects of the surface instrumental record and how it has been measured and massaged that should concern all honest people with an interest in meteorology and climatology, whether they believe in CAGW or not."
If you really believed doubts over the surface temperature amounted to anything substantial you would certainly not be basing arguments on the least accurate part of the surface record - the 19th century, which you did today. If 19th century HadCRUT is fine enough to draw conclusions from then late 20th century certainly is too.
"We are talking about very small trends one way or the other, often exaggerated to look big by scaling. We now know from recent happenings in a few parts of the world (and from the ClimateGate emails) that some doubtful adjustments have been made - strangely always upwards since 1950. The New Zealand situation is just the tip of the iceberg."
No we know the New Zealand situation isn't the tip of the iceberg because globally we have multiple independent findings of the same result. And we have the satellites too.
"It worries me that AGW foot soldiers like yourself are just willing to rubber stamp these things and believe the obfuscation put out by CAGW Central. Scientists do not delete emails, refuse FOI requests and try to block descenting evidence and its publication."
It worries me that you are trying to cast doubt selectively against parts of the record that don't support your view while wholeheartedly accepting parts of the record that do. Eg you didn't argue the 19th century temperature record is too inaccurate and subject to adjustments.
In fact I don't think I've ever heard skeptics challenging knowledge of the early 20th century warming....funny that.
Cthulhu
As always you warmists try obfuscation - spouting words that are just words. We already know it goes further than NZ. When data does not meet the theory - you just delete the data not the theory.
BUT some at the top of CAGW are already forming exit strategies - it is only the foot soldiers who will be shouting loud about stuff they nothing about really and just believe the instructions from CAGW Central.
The show so far does not disprove AGW - but it does show that the AGW proponents have no idea what drives the Earth's climate. It ain't warming like they said it would and some are wearing brown trousers already.
Retired Dave
When someone is willing to do anything to solve a problem, no matter what the consequences, then that person will probably do more harm than good.
As an analogy - try thinking of a doctor who took a similar attitude. A patient goes to him with a growth under the arm pit. It has been observed that sometimes growths of similar size in other parts of the body can grow into a malignant tumor. That malignant tumor, if not treated will spread to other parts of the body and cause death. Therefore the doctor proscribes some new drugs from a government-funded lab which are heavily promoted by some expert scientists and policy makers, and have some papers that possibly back the drugs possible usefulness in combatting the cancer. A statistical study points to possible side-effects, like teeth loss, paralysis and strokes in elderly patients, but the doctor disbelieves this, as a private drug company had quoted approvingly from the report. The private drug company thinks the drug should be validated with independent trials, like their own drugs.
The "costs" of the doctor ignoring normal practice - of first doing no harm - is untold misery for the patient.
It is my belief if you start measuring the costs - the costs of climate change against the policy cost and effectiveness - then even those who believe in five degrees of warming with consequent disruption to the weather systems - will join the sceptics in opposing the mitigation policies as both ineffective and causing more harm than the original problem.