Wednesday
Mar232011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill King says "Don't panic!"
Mar 23, 2011 Energy Sir David King calls for calm and rational behaviour in response to Fukushima. He explains what is required:
In a serious nuclear incident, panic will win out over reason unless there is someone who is both trustworthy and informed to speak out on behalf of reason.
I don't suppose someone who splices datasets to hide declines is quite what is called for then.
Reader Comments (33)
I do find it interesting that we should not 'panic' when confronted by the events in Japan and at least 21000 visible immediate deaths, but we should panic given a small rise in CO2 and no visible immediate deaths.
The human mind is a strange thing. Mine tells me we should remove most funding from climate science and spend it on predicting earthquakes and tsunamis.
That wouldn’t be the same Sir David King who, as the Blair government’s Chief Scientific Advisor in 2004, made a quip as irresponsible as it was stupid that AGW was "worse than terrorism"?
You know. The chap who, also in 2004, told anyone who’d listen that Antarctica would be the planet's only habitable continent within a century and appalled Russian scientists by trying to prevent their speaking at a Russian-organised (!) climate conference.
It couldn’t be. That one was a real panic-monger.
So it must be the one who last year claimed that Climategate "bore all the hallmarks of a coordinated intelligence operation" with Russian spooks as likely culprits. (The Independent, 1 Feb 2010).
No over-reaction there. That's our chap.
I suspect King is now so immersed in politicking that his every utterance, when it cannot be ignored, deserves to be held between tongs and examined from many angles. The piece you reference also has this fatuous 'aside':
'It is worth remembering that the biggest natural disaster in central Europe for centuries, in terms of fatalities, was the summer of 2003, which caused 35,000 deaths. This was a direct result of the rising baseline temperature (coupled to an unusually hot summer) which was, in turn, a consequence of human-induced climate change. Any perceived threats from nuclear power pale beside the very real danger of global warming. '
and this, near the end, may be revealing an interest in more power for himself or an ally:
'What was missing in Japan, the European Commission and Germany was the authoritative voice of a chief scientific adviser, who can quell the panic and point out any problems.
Any appointments panel he comes near would be remiss if it did not find out more about wny the following words were written in connection with the severe distruption of an international conference by Sir David:
'...when the more or less normal work of the seminar was restored and when the opportunity for discussion presented itself, when questions on professional topics were asked, and being unable to answer these questions, Mr. King and other members of the delegation, turned to flight, as happened this morning when Mr. King, in an unprecedented incident, cut short his answer to a question in mid sentence realizing that he was unable to answer it and left the seminar room. It is not for us to give an assessment to what happened, but in our opinion the reputation of British science, the reputation of the British government and the reputation of the title "Sir" has sustained heavy damage.'
Source: http://www.lavoisier.com.au/articles/climate-policy/politics/illarionov2004-5.php
DaveB I almost had a beverage moment <lol>
He also said the Iraq war was the first of the resource wars, before being snapped up by über bank UBS, I'm sure his motives were philanthropic /sarc
Perhaps we should be concerned about Nuclear Power (normally I'm not) if 'Post Normal' science becomes prevalent in the Nuclear industry (gulp!)?
Questioner: "How do we know this reactor is safe?"
Post Normal Scientist: "We asked our experts at the plant, and many many more agreed than not."
Questioner: "Not all agree then?"
Post Normal Scientist: "Unfortunately we found out some of our staff were actually being paid by an oil company, or tobacco company - it doesn't matter which, and we had to let them go. Since then we have 100% consensus based on our computer model results. Our computer projections for safety say we will be ok for at least a thousand years, this result cannot be disputed."
Questioner: "What statistical confidence can you ascribe to your computer predictions"?
Post Normal Scientist: "Ahh, a Nuclear safety Denier. How dare you question the millions of lines of code we use! Don't you know its based on peer reviewed theory?"
Questioner: "Which peers?"
Post Normal Scientist: "Our own, they are the only ones who really understand the science. Hey, come back! Why are you running away?"
He isn't a man given to hyperbole, well at least not while he's sleeping. Here's his assessment of the future:
“Fifty-five million years ago was a time when there was no ice on the earth; the Antarctic was the most habitable place for mammals, because it was the coolest place, and the rest of the earth was rather inhabitable because it was so hot. It is estimated that it [the carbon dioxide level] was roughly 1,000 parts per million then, and the important thing is that if we carry on business as usual we will hit 1,000 parts per million around the end of the century.” Sir David King, Chief Scientific Adviser
Currently we're holding steady at 2ppm/ annum, if we are to reach 1000ppm we'll have to increase our CO2 emissions to give an increase of around 5ppm/annum to 7ppm.In other words to reach 1000ppm we'll have to take a step increase in CO2 output of over three times our current output globally, and we are assuming the increase is caused solely by humans burning fossil fuels.
Then there is of course what the scientists say about the Eocene:
.
"The Eocene global climate was perhaps the most homogeneous of the Cenozoic; the temperature gradient from equator to pole was only half that of today’s, and deep ocean currents were exceptionally warm. The polar regions were much warmer than today, perhaps as mild as the modern-day Pacific Northwest; temperate forests extended right to the poles, while rainy tropical climates extended as far north as 45°. The difference was greatest in the temperate latitudes; the climate in the tropics however, was probably similar to today’s."
Stanley, Steven M. Earth System History. New York: W.H. Freeman and Company, 1999. ISBN 0-7167-2882-6
That looks like a highly habitable place to me. Moreover the description is consistent with the IPCC forecast that the poles will warm the most with a deline of temperature increases as we approach the equator.
Seems that King's respect for science doesn't stretch to reading the text books.
As I see more and more of these great and the good of science spouting nonsense I'm convinced that none of them have bothered to study the issues, and are relying on they think are in the IPCC reports, or at least the soundbites from them, to support their views. I am convinced that neither King, Nurse and Beddington haven't bothered to read the IPCC reports, let alone the criticism of them.
So people will panic?
Sure they will - when they're fed panic reports, one shriller than the other, 24/7 by our MSM. Odd that the ex-Scientific adviser didn't mention this ...
But the really jaw-hits-floor moment comes where he gets AGW into the mix ('hot summer of 2003').
What he is saying is that we must panic when he, or any other scientific adviser to whatever government, says we must - never mind the science!
He is a prime example for the unbearable arrogance people exhibit as soon as they have an official title. Reminds me of the saying 'stick a German into a uniform and you'll have a dictator' ...
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(Sorry, Germans - I know you've done better than most nations to get rid of that attitude! Nothing personal, see!)
As time goes on, it becomes abundantly clear that our scientific establishment has been chosen not for ability but for other reasons, most notably for adherence to the party line over CO2-AGW.
Now that that scam is being revealed for what it was, specifically since about 2004 the incorporation in AR4 of imaginary 'cloud albedo effect' cooling without which the 'high feedback' hypothesis is unproven, we see them running for cover.
King is exactly the sort of establishment figure whose pomposity, ego, lack of ethics, general untrustworthyness and lack of basic humanity during the First World War so thoroughly convinced the-then British colonials in the Antipodes never to take orders from Whitehall again.
Alexander K
Worth noting perhaps that King is a South African!
Obviously we are dealing with the wrong sort of panic.
I have to ask again, just how do people like King become so respected by our establishment figures?
Don't panic! 14th March;
Sir David was due to address the future of nuclear power in the U.K.. This morning, I received a hurried voicemail from Sir David's press spokesman: thanks to the events in Japan, the meeting had been called off.
John Shade has drawn our attention to King's "fatuous aside" in the same article about the warm summer of 2003 being "a consequence of human-induced climate change" and how that is the real threat.
A good example of someone “both trustworthy and informed” speaking out “on behalf of reason”? Hmm. But the “serious” greens have good reason to be concerned by the current backlash against nuclear power – see also George Monbiot in the Guardian yesterday. They know that, if nuclear power is demonised (after all, they’re the experts in demonisation) and ceases to be acceptable, renewables cannot possibly meet our energy needs. And that would inevitably mean a reconsideration of fossil fuels and, quite possibly, the long-awaited public questioning of the CAGW consensus discussed in the previous thread.
And that would never do.
He is an establishment figure, surely, engaging in the ongoing circular reach-around which represents the political norm nowadays.
Geronimo
"King's respect for science doesn't stretch to reading the text books"
It doesn't sound as though it stretches to reading anything much. He's too important, no doubt.
The title 'Sir' does indeed seem to have sustained heavy damage.
It is not just King that is getting increasingly desperate and losing the plot -
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/03/23/ipcc-author-sea-level-to-rise-7-10-metres/
And did I dream that Pachauri also said something completely bananas a few days ago? I am sure I commented on it at the time but there's now so many blogs that I can't remember which one.
@ lapogus
Perhaps this;
The devastation caused by the tsunami in Japan would have been significantly less had there not been such a high rise in the sea level due to climate change “as the phenomenon tends to be a multiplier of the threats that take place,” Rajendra Pachauri, Chairman of the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC),
Bish, thanks for the correction. I didn't know King is a Saffer, but his origins don't affect his membership of the Establishment or my views about it.
In case I wasn't clear about this, I was NOT having a wee anti-Brit rant, I was having a wee anti Brit Establishment rant. And us Kiwis do have an Establishment, which I am not too thrilled with either, but it's a lot less pervasive than the Brit one, partly, I suspect, because we tried an upper house when we were sorting out our version of parliament back in the 19th century, but chucked the idea out as we didn't have a big enough supply of potential Peers of our realm who were actually useful blokes. We also managed to separate Church and State a few decades ago, which the Church of the Province of New Zealand saw as a generally Good Thing as it freed that organisation from a de facto role which it had never really enjoyed.
Further to my post above, the greenies face a critical dilemma. Their “establishment” (the Green Party, WWF, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, etc.) is adamant that nuclear power is unacceptable and that resolve will have been strengthened by the Fukushima disaster. It’s a powerful group and I suspect most grass-roots greenies share its view (look at the comments on Monbiot’s article). But a moment’s thought shows this is not going anywhere: the Government cannot possibly think that our power problem can be solved by renewables and it knows that, without a reliable energy supply, we face calamity. And that, I think, is why George Monbiot, David King, Mark Lynas, etc. are parading their pro-nuclear beliefs. For example, in an article last week, Lynas said:
He concluded: “We need nuclear power”.
This could be interesting.
@Peter Stroud
"I have to ask again, just how do people like King become so respected by our establishment figures?"
Because he's basically someone with first rate scientific credentials who found after a point that it was more attractive to cultivate prestige, get a knighthood and so on, than stick to his knitting. We've all seen these people, angling everything towards getting a knighthood.
I imagine he's very good at handling politicians, knowing what they want to hear and telling it them, without overstepping the bounds too far. He is or has become, a political animal. To be a professor at a UK university, you've more or less got to be a political animal, and if you didn't enjoy that part of the job it would be misery.
simpleseekeraftertruth --
Thanks for that quotation from Pachauri. Yes, I imagine the 8-meter tsunami got a "head start" by standing on the shoulders of the 17 centimetres [Pachauri's figure] of sea-level rise over the last century, of which perhaps a couple might reasonably be attributable to anthropogenic effects. Signficant effect? I don't think so.
But, you know, it really doesn't matter what the math says, the important thing is to get out the message that climate change is a multiplier of disaster. It's all subliminal, to reinforce an association of climate change with bad things. And of course, CO2/fossil fuel with climate change.
Apologies for going on about this, but I've just seen that Mark Lynas is to support the motion "It's got to be nuclear" at a debate in April. He will be opposed by Craig Bennet, director of police and campaigns at Friends of the Earth.
I see that wee Geordie Osborne is still pumping taxpayers' money into the bottomless pit of green energy, including his pointless Green Investment Bank.
He subsidises new jobs with cash incentives and tax breaks and then undoes all the good work with a mania for everything green.
I despair.
Why is an incident that has killed nobody, classified as serious? Calling something that has killed nobody "serious" is alarmist and is likely to cause panic. So King is adding to the panic.
It would be interesting to know what it was that Whitehall did to the South Africans that could possibly warrant the deployment of King's naked stupidity on the unsuspecting British.
Anyway, King's support of nuclear power is one of the most compelling arguments for nuclear caution that anyone could make.
Has King explained yet the fictitious graph in his book? He should not be trusted on anything until he has admitted and explained this 'mistake'.
@ simpleseekeraftertruth -- yes that's the one, thanks. Pachauri must be getting very desperate if he is seriously suggesting that the alleged 15cm sea level rise in the last 100 years would make much difference to a tsunami wave typically over 10m high.
@ Harold W, @ lapogus
I thought Pachi's use of the word 'multiplier' was a new one to CAGW but I may be wrong. In this case a multiplier of 1.17 worst case and 1.0 if no AGW connection is proved.
1.017
Tricky things decimals.
It shouldn't perhaps be so surprising that King hails from SA. No doubt fuelled by their experiences of apartheid, many South Africans who fled to the UK seem to have swallowed every Left/liberal cause more or less indiscriminately.
As so often, one wonders if a proper application of psychology is called for here, just as much as of physics.
ZT, if you wonder what the Brits have done to engender the ire of South Africa, dig a bit into history and you may find a few answers. I am not anti Brit and was very proud to be one until Whitehall removed that from us back in the 1960s, but digging into the British Empire's history does not always fill one with admiration.
"... I don't suppose someone who splices datasets to hide declines is quite what is called for then."
Such words are really just too polite... much too polite for anyone who has been engaged in scientific fraud in one form or another!