Bishop Hill Nurse left licking wounds
Feb 27, 2013 GWPF Royal Society Nigel Lawson has responded to Paul Nurse's wild accusations of cherrypicking, accusing the Royal Society president of lying:
You claim that I “would choose two points and say ‘look, no warming’s taking place’, knowing that all the other points that you chose in the 20 years around it would not support his case”. That is a lie.
and continuing with a withering put-down
I hope that, on reflection, you will recognise that there should be a difference between the behaviour appropriate to a President of the Royal Society and acting as a shop steward for some kind of scientists’ closed shop.
Ouch.
Bishop Hill
Interestingly, Nurse's comments about Lawson appear to have been added at the last minute. This version of his speech, which seems to have been prepared on the day of the lecture itself, does not seem to mention Lawson at all.
Bishop Hill
The transcript as broadcast is here.
Reader Comments (62)
@Feb 27, 2013 at 1:37 PM | Paul_K
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Since the death penalty in England has been abolished, is there a case to answer that MPs in passing the Climate Change Act which has, is and will substantially increase the cost of energy thereby consigning people to death because they cannot afford to pay for heating (it not being a criminal offence to be old and poor still less an offence that should carry the death penalty), is an example of a criminal act?
HaroldW - I don't see how you can make that assertion. For example, think about particulate scrubbers. Considered to be cost-effective in that they reduce health hazards from poor air quality although it incurs some expense in power generation, yet an international agreement to install them is a curtailment, in that countries/industries are subject to additional regulation.
Well, it might be, if we take as our understanding of freedom 'the right to emit smoke without scrubbing it'. But what's really at issue is the electricity, not the smoke. Were scrubbers to be expensive, such that it was no longer viable to produce energy (E.g. EU LCPD) we can now ask if the benefit was worth the cost. In the case of a doubling (or more) of energy prices and the excess winter deaths etc, we might decide that scrubbing smoke is not worth the putative benefits it would bring. China is a good example here. It's pollution problems are terrible. But the pollution is a problem it has exchanged, through the process of industrialisation, for the problems of a more basic level of existence - poverty. (Rural poverty was always more picturesque than industrialisation).
There's an important aside here, raised by your example -- the issue of an international agreement to install scrubbers. Under any normal democratic political system, why would it be necessary to create an international agreement to fit scrubbers? The fact is, people are naturally fairly 'green' in the sense that they want clean air and water etc. But supranational agencies have a different conception of 'green', which is difficult to assert through democratic politics. Such institutions are premised on the view that national democracies are insufficient, and indeed are a problem. You can find many instances in UN/EU discussion where the concept of sovereignty is explicitly attacked, and identified as a something that needs to be modified, if not attenuated. The idea of global ecological crises is a boon to such an project.
@ Harold W & Ben Pile
The 'fall-out' of particulates frequently occurs in countries remote from the chimney.
JP - The 'fall-out' of particulates frequently occurs in countries remote from the chimney.
Indeed, but any country sneakily building power plant on its borders will nonetheless be exposing its own population to the same. Meanwhile, it's not beyond the realms of possibility that a neighbouring country could raise concerns about any planned developments, or ongoing problems. The benefits of fixing scrubbers to the stack would then include good diplomatic relations.
The biggest tragedy is that I'm sure Nurse is convinced his views are totally correct, having been taken in so completely by the anti-sceptic propaganda.
The reason he feels the need to defend the climate science establishment is because he is a geneticist and would not approve of climate scientists making judgements about genetics.
Many AGW sceptics, like me, are scientists of a different field to climate science. But all science uses basic statistics in some way. The reason we are confident in judging some of the major failings in climate science is because the biggest arguments for AGW are founded on very basic statistics. Mann's principal climate work is not even climate science. Its based on fiddling around with proxy data.
We are also familiar with reading scientific papers and learning to read between the lines and to recognise convoluted waffle to 'make the case' for a conclusion based on limited evidence. Much of this is so blatantly evident in many pro-AGW writings.
Ben Pile -
I agree with all you say above. The point is merely to observe that there is a recognition of the existence of diffuse harms which cannot easily be addressed by tort law, and which sometimes (as Joe Public notes) cross borders as well. So, for good or ill, regulations and international agreements have ensued where mitigation is not costly. "Costly" is contextual, of course, and what might be acceptable added cost to one state may appear excessive to another (typically poorer) one. At which point, aid is considered etc.
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This creates a "slippery slope", and leads into such things as the Montreal Protocol -- which, it should be noted, was facilitated by the development of efficient and relatively inexpensive alternative refrigerants. The slipperiness also led to the US Supreme Court's declaration of CO2 as a pollutant despite the extremely diffuse effect and the relatively high cost of mitigation at the current time.
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I don't have any ready answer to such issues, as one who believes that "the less government we have, the better, -- the fewer laws, and the less confided power." (Emerson) From a historical perspective, I believe that more efficient alternative energy technology will emerge, and AGW concerns will accelerate the transition. It is difficult, however, to convince people that patience is an acceptable policy. [Not least when there are so many with financial interests to promote more active approaches.]
Feb 28, 2013 at 11:03 AM | oakwood
Sorry, Oakwood ... it may be, well, worse than you thought. As I had posted a few hours ago in unthreaded, according to the Guardian Sustainable Business who are desperately seeking "dangerous climate change" abolitionists (I kid you not) who are "fighting for a more sustainable world", prime candidate:
"Danger Ahead ... to prove it, new statistical techniques are required". Must be "transformative" (buzzword gaining increasing currency in UNEP sustainable development docs and speeches)
Heh, H, the 'transformation' is not 'robust'.
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Hilary Ostrov: thanks for that Guardian link. Very funny, but also quite depressing. Surprising because Guardian Sustainable Business has been a bit more balanced, recognising good work of businesses instead of just being anti. That article is complete sycophantic driveling crass.
Lord Lawson's letter is devoted to what he wrote in his book. What he has been heard to say in many fora since goes well beyond its guarded content,and it is to those rhetorical excesses that Sir Paul has responded.
Russell, please just once try to offer substantiation for something you say here. You claim that there are "many" examples of Lawson's "rhetorical excesses" which earn Nurse's censure. We're waiting.....
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Mar 1, 2013 at 4:08 AM | Skiphil
Since he seems to genuflect at the altar of Big Green, perhaps Russell mistakenly believes that anything he says here will be transubstantiated,
[Edit better link/version. Lehrer live in Copenhagen, of all places:] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvhYqeGp_Do