Bishop Hill A right royal showdown
Nov 28, 2013 GWPF Royal Society 
The long-awaited meeting between representatives of GWPF and the Royal Society has at last taken place. Nigel Lawson has a brief report on the meeting at the Spectator, revealing little about the content, except for the fact that he is prevented from telling more by a demand for secrecy imposed by the Royal Society fellows themselves.
This is, to say the least, monumentally pathetic of them. Lawson sounds as though he found the experience slightly frustrating:
But what did emerge was that, if anyone needed educating, it was them. Despite the fact that they were headed by Professor Sir Brian Hoskins, the Director of the Grantham Institute, which has pronounced views on climate policy, and a member of the Climate Change Committee, which is concerned with the implementation of the Climate Change Act, they were very reluctant to engage on the crucial issue of climate change policy at all.
I have heard a few other details on the grapevine and I gather that the Royal Society fellows are more inclined to believe computer models than empirical data. So I wonder if some revision on that whole "scientific method" thingy might be in order too.
Reader Comments (168)
1. Allow an ambivalent/vague request for discretion to be interpreted as a demand for secrecy;
2. Leave everyone hanging in the wind for a while;
3. Drip-feed elements of the actual content of the meeting to the media which were excluded from the meeting itself;
4. Wait for the other side to then feel free to respond to their own supporters' demands for information;
5. Disclaim your own drip-feeds and accuse the other side of dishonouring their own undertakings - claim you only intended to delay an account until a joint communique could be agreed.
6. Allow implications to be made about the behaviour of the other side both at and about the meeting;
7. Celebrate - the actual substance of the meeting has now been completely overshadowed by anger over your/their attitudes.
Stuart B
@geoffchambers
But where is the evidence for "censoring"? Who asked for things not to be repeated? Nowhere and nobody, as far as I can see.
As you say yourself, not inviting the press is fair enough, as they'd very likely just put their own spin on it. But that's different from preventing attendees from discussing the meeting. I don't see where Lawson says he is being prevented from discussing it. He drops in the word "secret" but then qualifies it as meaning "no press".
The truth. Uttered quietly, hushed tones, in secret.
Scientists have problems, as talking is hard. "Why don't they believe us?"
"Stop Progress!" is shouted. We must detour the march. Forwards to poverty, and backwards in time.
Call up the hopeless. CND march again. Pour hearts out with yearning. "We care! We care SO MUCH!" Weeping for children, for grandchildren too.
Then watch the self victims. They'd pull us all down.
The downtrodden, tearful, beneath their own feet.
Richard Betts:
"He drops in the word "secret" but then qualifies it as meaning "no press""
Indeed, there's nothing in the article to say they can't publish their own minutes of the meeting, which would be interesting to read.
I wonder if more details will emerge.
Richard Betts
Yup, so why is nobody talking? The only clue we have to date is the Lawson reference to "secrecy" which is at best ambiguous. But it will and must lead the debate until an FRS (in attendance) or the establishment publicly differs.
At present the silence is deafening, why? Wouldn't have thought that the "learned" would need to report back?
Also "this month’s meeting" doesn't smack of something that happened yesterday? But maybe it did? Anybody have an actual date?
Green Sand/Richard Betts: Why rush to judgment either way? I'm sure Richard Tol or somebody will be able to clarify before long. The final level of openness may still be being hammered out. But I thought today's GWPF mailing The Secret Meeting With Royal Society Fellows gave a pretty good clue where that side stands, Latimer Alder's excellent highlighted comment particularly.
Yet again we see one side attempting to introduce an open, transparent public debate, and we see one side close down public debate, remove transparency and introduce only smothering subterfuge and suppression of details.
But rest easy, folks, for the science is settled.
Richard Drake
Why? Don't know about Richard Betts, but for me the reason is very simple, do you remember:-
A report from the Royal?
It contained the following:-
In the ensuing comments and debate I was told the comment was out of context and I should await the forthcoming audio of the meeting which would make this clear.
Have you seen or heard of any such audio? Feel free to search the RS site they have lots of audio and video. If you can find one of the meeting "Next steps in climate science" held on the 2nd and 3rd of October 2013 I will be appreciative and indebted.
Richard Betts, I stand corrected. You are right.
28gate was a BBC meeting. I don't know why I said the Met Office.
Richard Betts @geoffchambers
Agreed. There is none. It’s all surmise. Richard Tol and His Grace could perhaps clarify.Lawson’s article was a diary entry at the Spectator and he can be forgiven for not having gone into detail there. The science story here is that a meeting of scientists like Hoskins, Tol, Lindzen (and Nurse? and who else? Will we even be allowed to know?) is a major event. The fact that the substance of the meeting is (so far) confidential should turn a major science/energy policy story into a major political scandal in any functioning democracy.
Green Sand: Infuriating though that experience was it doesn't preclude something better this time, when they know they're messing with Nigel Lawson and his merry band of cross-party policy wonks and scientific experts, if they decide to be so stupid. Richard Betts may be right. I'll be delighted if so. Let's wait and see.
No legitimate scientist should contemplate conducting a meeting like this in secret. All involved should resign now. Right now.
So...who was Bob Hoskins representing, at the secret meeting? What about Ray Winstone, or Ian McShane?
ps it's difficult to deal with Richard Betts sometimes, it feels almost like there is some piece of great comedy on TV and the one person in the room who refuses to laugh
pps who cares about the press not being invited...the original sin of this meeting is in the fact that only those invited were told in advance about it. Please somebody find me half a sensible reason to behave like that. Presumably, it was a decision by the Royle Society.
ppps there goes another joke
Max Roberts (Nov 28, 2013 at 10:42 PM)
Any other oldtimers like me noticed how the first-time commenters are getting it right again and again? There’s a revolution going on in our little world of climate scepticism, and we haven’t even noticed.Richard Drake
Neit comrade! Not "Infuriating"! Enlightening and as an ongoing issue it cannot be waived away as "experience". It is just indicative of the way of the establishment and needs to be shown as such.
Every time you waive such incidents you abet the ability to obfuscate.
What makes you think this particular incident will be different? Track record is that we will be back here in another 2 months awaiting answers for both incidences plus what ever else has been concocted in the meanwhile.
PS thank you for checking the RS site to see if the audio existed.
Geoff/Max/Green Sand: I would give them till tomorrow. If they're still insisting on secrecy, then they should resign. I'm conciliatory like that. :)
I do sense that the settled science is becoming decidedly unsettled. As each day passes there are more cracks appearing. Just today it is reported that the Austrian weather service finds the models inadequate; Judith Curry has a post that claims the planet is showing a radiative deficit.
More scientists are beginning to question the whole thing. I guess that those at the heart of the warming scare will never admit they got it wrong. I doubt if the establishment will either. The RS Fellows have probably tried to keep well away from the controversy but their president has dragged the Society into it. The RS is involved now, whether they like it or not.
"In the ensuing comments and debate I was told the comment was out of context and I should await the forthcoming audio of the meeting which would make this clear."
Green Sand - I recall that discussion. I'm still not sure how I'm supposed to have taken it out of context! It was readily apparent that many people present were worried about "the hiatus".
SC
To be fair to the current President of the Royal Society inherited a compromised society whose establishment had already declared its chosen way. All it thought it needed was a "media savvy/friendly" figurehead President! Who better?
On the other hand to be fair to the RS I don't think they were aware of the deep seated desire the media savvy "Pres" would have to attach a V8 to their hand cart, media junkies do that sort of thing, tis their MO.
Transition stage for the RS, been there many times, will do it again. Style changes abound with Carlton House Terrace still trying to match Carnaby Street.
In the meanwhile the benevolent angels are restless, becoming malevolent
Katabasis
"Green Sand - I recall that discussion."
First Katabasis may I add my thanks to many for your report. Having had similar responsibilities in a previous life I think I understand the scenario.
Only those there will know and fully comprehend the context. I wasn't there so I had to seek confirmation of your report.
Tamsin gratefully gave her view which did not appear to differ factually, but was one of claiming a different context. Experience dictates that those who attend with the responsibility of writing a subsequent report will pay more attention than a "member of the audience" especially if the audience member is already wedded to the performance. Science or pop stars!
I eagerly await the audio Tamsin assured me would make the context clear.
Katabasis, once again thanks for your efforts
Sad to say, it is obvious that the desire by the Royal Society does them little credit. There can be no justification for secrecy on a matter which , by their own statements , promises massive misery for Humankind. .
The public are entitled to become sceptics solely on the basis of such egregious failure to be open and honest. Confident and honest people do not engage in obfuscation.
The fight against Climate Change is, at the very least, set to cause impoverishment of billions, and , if pushed to its logical conclusion , billions of dead from energy poverty, hunger, and economic collapse. If we are lucky, that will be the minimal cost. The more likely scenario is a new Ice Age, and totalitarian dictatorships built on the unholy alliance of Malthus and Orwell. These outcomes would be far worse than actual climate change itself, even if genuine.
The reluctance of the RS to be open confirms that the cost of fighting climate change is human liberty, prosperity and honesty- ie the proposed Cure is worse than the Disease
See on Google search ; "Can Space Save the Planet? A Wrong and Dangerous Question"
Richard Drake
All your right wing nutters are figures of ridicule to grown up people.Delingpole, Ridley, Monkton, Lawson. That's why they have been chosen. Delingpole vs Nurse must have been the most unequal fight in history.
From the Ecclesiastical Uncle, an old retired bureaucrat in a field only remotely related to climate with minimal qualifications and only half a mind.
It does not surprise me that neither the GWPF not the SocRoy have much to report. "Lawson sounds as though he found the experience slightly frustrating." Of course. How can much of interest emerge from a discussion between a rational (including the scientific subset thereof) person, organisation, etc and faith based ditto. "There's this fact and that fact and that fact" "Your facts are heresies" Report?
"Please note this is not a criticism of anyone not using their real name, here or anywhere else,"
Yes it it.
Will you just eff-off with your obsession with posters real names.
How do we know you're Richard Drake?
It could be a sock puppet persona you've invented to infiltrate us Realists while you feed important intelligence back to Warmist Central. Turning up to a meeting and calling yourself Richard doesn't prove anything.
Lets see a scanned copy of your passport for proof (although that could be fraudulently applied for).
Nov 28, 2013 at 6:44 PM | Unregistered CommenterNial>>>>>
His constant references to 'nyms' gets quite tedious after a while.
Yep, like Alec and his theories, he just cannot resist injecting it into other discussions. Whether it is more to be pitied than condemned is a matter for others to judge.
But I can testify that it is bloody irritating, and does no good for their cause.
I didn't believe they'd have the meeting, but I guess they were forced into it by the unattractive antics of their President.
They kept the press out for the usual reasons, they don't want people to see how easy it is to destroy the arguments for the theory of CAGW. I have seen a couple of debates one with Lindzen and a scientist whose name I've forgotten, on with the idiot "Science Guy" and a couple more. Confronted with scientists asking for evidence and producing their own evidence the alarmists lost hands down. They don't want to let the people seethe weakness of their case.
Richard Betts, without independent presence at a debate both sides can make of it what they wish, it's not the press twisting the facts that's the problem, after all 99.9999% of the press are on your side and would have turned up with the express intention of ridiculing the deniers. What we have here is an inability to discuss the hypothesis of CAGW publically without showing the massive uncertainties, the failed projections and the complete and utter failure of the models on which all our policies are based to predict anything like what's happened in the real world.
Climate scientists are forever talking about "communicating the science", by which they mean a didactic conversation with the great unwashed, if you want to communicate the science you have to communicate it warts and all, and frankly we all know that if they did that the whole edifice of CAGW and the prominence of environmentalist hegemony over our policies would collapse. And we couldn't have that could we.
Chandra, I've never seen the Bishop, or anyone else on this blog, believing in the output of climate models, or indeed any other models, on face value without concomitant empirical evidence. I defy you to produce any empirical evidence to the effect that they have. The reason is pretty simple to those not challenged with common sense, some things can't be modelled to predict the future and the climate is one of them, it's coupled non-linear chaotic system and, according to the science its future state cannot be predicted. It's way too complex and stochastic.
"None of the models used by IPCC are initialized to the observed state and none of the climate states in the models correspond even remotely to the current observed climate. In particular, the state of the oceans, sea ice, and soil moisture has no relationship to the observed state at any recent time in any of the IPCC models. There is neither an El Niño sequence nor any Pacific Decadal Oscillation that replicates the recent past; yet these are critical modes of variability that affect Pacific rim countries and beyond. The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, that may depend on the thermohaline circulation and thus ocean currents in the Atlantic, is not set up to match today’s state, but it is a critical component of the Atlantic hurricanes and it undoubtedly affects forecasts for the next decade from Brazil to Europe. Moreover, the starting climate state in several of the models may depart significantly from the real climate owing to model errors. I postulate that regional climate change is impossible to deal with properly unless the models are initialized.
The current projection method works to the extent it does because it utilizes differences from one time to another and the main model bias and systematic errors are thereby subtracted out. This assumes linearity. It works for global forced variations, but it can not work for many aspects of climate, especially those related to the water cycle. For instance, if the current state is one of drought then it is unlikely to get drier, but unrealistic model states and model biases can easily violate such constraints and project drier conditions. Of course one can initialize a climate model, but a biased model will immediately drift back to the model climate and the predicted trends will then be wrong. Therefore the problem of overcoming this shortcoming, and facing up to initializing climate models means not only obtaining sufficient reliable observations of all aspects of the climate system, but also overcoming model biases. So this is a major challenge."
KevinTrenberth, Nature Blog, June 2007
Richard Betts may be able to update us on what progress has been made since 2007, but these are the models on which all our climate policies are currently based.
Why was the Royal Society represented by a director of a green institute sponsored by and named after an american billionaire oligarch ?
"Smiffy sees things in his own unique way and that means sometimes people think he gets things wrong......that's because he really does get things wrong. Quite a lot."
From the Beano website.
mike fowle: So true. And that doesn't mean Dave Snooty is always right! (Apologies for the Private Eye crossover.)
johanna: This was the motive for the first set of questions (2:43 PM), put in response to a incisive point from HaroldW (at 8:13 PM):
I almost mentioned Climate Audit there, for I think Steve's moderation approach would be the most suited of older climate blogs. It's not something anyone is being forced to discuss on this thread but I think it is fair to ask, if the criticism of the Royal Society here is that it is being too secretive, what true openness from all participants would look like.
Must be windy in the UK today, all the windmills seem to be going full tilt.
Sorry thought I was on unthreaded.
stewgreen:
Sorry I missed that till now. I also wondered at the strange hashtag. But I find it suggestive that, looked another way, it begins with grant. "We're living in the days of the granthropocene." How true that is.
It's notable how much different all the climate debate is compared to previous cases of debates between scientists and people who objected to the scientists' consensus views.
I am unaware of any scientist (or science communicator) being reluctant to engage in the past on live tv/radio in debates with UFOlogists, astrologers, homeopaths, etc etc, let alone cowering in fear and in secret because of a Chancellor of the Exchequer.
At this point Lord Lawson's or anybody's opinions on the topic are much less relevant than the consensus scientists' self-imposed impossibility to defend their point in public, despite the IPCC report being just a few weeks old.
The RS behaviour strongly indicates that climate change science is not even a hoax, just an empty shell.
There have been a number of calls for a report of this meeting. From the few clues inside the Spectator piece, I have produced a precis of the discussion as I understand it, and I reproduce it here below (also in Spectator comments)
- The RS side opened the meeting by stating that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, that lab physics shows that a gas mix with increased concentration of CO2 gets warmer in sunlight and that consequently the Earth's atmosphere MUST be getting warmer.
- The GWPF replied that it isn't according to observations.
- The RS repeated that it must be, and suggested places where the heat could be hiding.
- The GWPF replied that it was bad science to assume something which wasn't proven.
- The RS invoked the Precautionary Principle, and said that we must act now for the sake of our grandchildren.
- The GWPF said that the current actions wouldn't and couldn't do anything useful for the future, even it the theory was true.
- The RS side said that that was a policy issue, and nothing to do with them..
Does that sound about right?
So the once respected RS now needs a vacuous troll from Truro to do its bidding and cover up for its spineless duplicity. Who needs Ratner when you can get brand damage on this scale?
That looks pretty plausible to me, Dodgy Geezer (10:41 AM). It is of course, just a model of a more complex event, but it could well be a useful one. For example, it accounts for the veil of secrecy that is just about all we can currently see from the RS side. After all, who on that side with an ounce of humanity would be happy to expose their feeble grounds for harming so much of humanity? Nice plump research grants and attractive opportunities for defenders of the faith scarcely move the scales down when the other pan is so full of destruction, deprivation, and dismay.
omnologos:
Thanks for all you've said here. I've been thinking much about this last point the past few months. George Orwell in 1984 gave us Big Brother demanding that Winston Smith should declare 2 + 2 = 5, just because the authorities said so. But I'm taken back further in my own history to Richard Wurmbrand's account (which I read when I was eleven) of how when the Communists took over his native Romania people were forced to sit through the most boring, contentless speeches, then stand and clap in unison. Finally one independent soul on the platform thought "Enough of This!" and sat down. He was taken to the Gulag the next day. These are the pictures that keep coming back to me.
SNTF
Very good. I'm still laughing.
Smiffy
"Delingpole vs Nurse must have been the most unequal fight in history."
Which way?
@ Richard Drake re my motives and methodology:
I have no idea what you are talking about.
Geronimo Nov 29, 2013 at 7:49 AM
This should help!
It's written by those who made and use the models.
Dang - it's been deleted - I thought we'd had a second coming of Phil Jones there with intercounty spittle flecks and all. It absolutely IS my job to 'pick holes' in crap science - I get paid to do it.
johanna: I was referring to my motive for the first of the two posts, the times of which I gave, as explained in the second. Since Climategate I have been particularly interested in what openness of the climate debate would really mean, with special reference to the Royal Society. It may not matter if you don't wish to delve further, for the vision is bound to change as wider social media and their norms do. Google Hangout now looks extremely important as an enabling technology, for example, which I wouldn't have said a year ago. The secrecy stalemate with the GWPF right now is surely laughably opposite to anything any of us would count as openness in any case.
But where is the evidence for "censoring"? Who asked for things not to be repeated? Nowhere and nobody, as far as I can see.
(...)
Nov 28, 2013 at 9:36 PM | Registered CommenterRichard Betts
Yes indeed. We seem to be floundering in a fog where nobody is sure what was or was not agreed to be kept secret - if anything.
A clear public statement from the participants on what was agreed so far as confidentiality is concerned would be very helpful.
It's quite obvious why the RS wanted the meeting to be in secret. It's because the truth about Globle Warming is
that it is "far worse than we thought" and they didn't want to further alarm the public. They didn't want us all running
around like headless chicken littles. Very reasonable and considerate of them.
Len
So the Royal Society say (in reply to an e-mail I sent them):
"The meeting was not a Royal Society meeting so we cannot comment on that."
This “Global Warming by us” thingie is supposed to be the most important news to have ever hit humanity since Moses descended Mount Sinai, a few 1000years ago, with some tables in his hands.
That news should be all data all available all the time.
But the AGW pushers hide the data, hide the forums, hide the names, hide meeting minutes, hide EVERYTHING ...
I wrote to the RS and asked why the meeting had to be in secret.
This is their reply.
communications (communications@royalsociety.org)
Add to contacts
29/11/2013
To: peter oneil
Dear Mr O.Neil
The meeting was not a Royal Society meeting so we cannot comment on that. The Society’s views on climate science are clearly laid out here<http://royalsociety.org/policy/publications/2010/climate-change-summary-science/> . Climate science is also regularly discussed in public at the Society, in fact we held a discussion meeting<http://royalsociety.org/events/2013/climatescience-next-steps/> on the latest science at the start of last month.
peter oneil
28/11/2013
pesadia - interesting response, thanks for sharing it. So the RS Fellows were there purely in their capacity as private individuals. Fascinating.