Friday
Mar082013
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Travelling
Mar 8, 2013 I'm off to Oxford today, where I'll be attending the Lindzen debate at the Oxford Union. I have lined up a couple of posts for while I'm on the move, and I may be able to check in from time to time.
Reader Comments (17)
I plan to be there also.
and me. pint after, we could ask Mark Lynas along.
Me too. Any more?
wish I could but a bridge too far
Bish if you get a chance have a look at this - http://www.thegwpf.org/viscount-ridley-writes-lord-deben/ - Matt Ridley calls out Deben
Would love to, but train times wouldn't allow.
Have a good evening. Look forward to your report.
Fingers crossed, see you there!
I can't go but it would be worth going just for the chat in the pub afterwards.
Any chance this might be web cast? The debate that is, not the pub crawl.
The debate is being filmed and will be on AlJazeera. The pub probably not.
It seems in the past year or so Prof Lindzen has been spending a lot of time on the eastern side of the big pond. Enjoy him. His style of delivery is pleasant.
John
Tallbloke and plenty more were present. Expect a post at the Talkshop.
A brief first notes is here
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2013/03/07/free-tickets-available-for-oxford-union-head-to-head-debate-tomorrow/comment-page-1/#comment-45881
Unfortunately I was unable to attend.
This was an interesting debate not so much for the scientific value but to see the attitudes on display and the amount the various sides talk past each other. Firstly, it was aimed at being a TV show so there was an obligatory man with headphones directing and marshalling throughout. When it shows it will inevitably be edited and I hope the gist survives the edit. I hope they do edit my heckling. (For those who will one day watch the show, there is an attractive young woman seated to stage left of Lindzen, That ain't me.)
Mehdi Hasan is a young journo of the Guardian/New Statesman persuasion. I was quite prepared not to like him but in the end it looks like he is just..young. He'll probalby end up like early leftisits like Melanie Phillips or Peter Hitchens. The format was Hasan interviewing Lindzen with a front row of other players invited to contribute clarification or questions from time to time. The front row consisted of Myles Allen, Mark Lynas and David Rose.
Hasan was pushy and a little shouty. Lindzen is calm and softly-spoken and not argumentative. Lindzen alone would not make good telly, so I thought Hasan being pushy was part of the show. A problem was that Hasan had been prepared (or prepared himself) with all the old memes. 97%, Oreskes, the precautionary principle, think of the children, the evil fossil fuel industry funding, the whole bit. He probably thinks they are killer arguments. They are not, and certainly not in his hands. He couldn't back up the assertions against questioning or heckling, often from folks not unknown here. Lindzen ploughed on with facts and science, undeterred. Myles Allen wasn't too bad as the other side's science backup, in fact he and Lindzen were not too far apart. Lynas was not unreasonable even though he is worried by climate change. David Rose was impressive, for a journo he knows his stuff. All the panel agreed that current measures are futile. I call that real progress. Perhaps Hasan will have grasped that and will spread it around the left wing.
(Aside. The subject of IPCC came up. Allen was claiming the process leads to consensus by explaining how about four hundred IPCC authors met in Hobart. Do they really believe in all that evil CO2 if 400 of them can fly to Tasmania to talk about it? )
I was pleased to meet Andrew and Tallbloke and the Hollands for the first time and Ruth and Barry again. And even to meet Mehdi Hasan afterwards. Creature from another political planet he may be, but he seemed nice enough. I always find it hard to keep up a dislike, now I must be as nice to Myles Allen if he ever comes back here as I am to Richard Betts.
rhoda
thanks for you comments above. You say 'All the panel agreed that current measures are futile. I call that real progress.' Interestingly Anthony Watts has a post over at WUWT that seems to offer a solution that everyone should be able to agree on. A fascinating talk by Alan Savory. Well worth watching.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/08/a-bridge-in-the-climate-debate-how-to-green-the-worlds-deserts-and-reverse-climate-change/#more-81728
nTropy, I've just come back from WUWT. That is an inspiring talk, and everybody should watch it. This cynic is impressed, and that man deserves a Nobel if it's as good as promised, it might just be the necessary and sufficient solution to climate concern.
Thanks rhoda - I note Tallbloke's comment the venue was around half full. Does anybody know the typical attendance for these events?
not banned, it was raining and that may have put people off. Personally I'd say Tallbloke was on the low side of estimated attendance, but then he can see a lot more from up there. He really is tall.
I've seen Savory's stuff before.
The only drawback I can see — and it is a major one — is that the proponents of 'climate change' don't really want a nice neat solution to the problem.
Your comment, rhoda, about 400 IPCC authors flying to Hobart makes the point quite succinctly, as does the annual CoP (Conference of Partygoers, as Eschenbach calls it) in Rio or Bali or Durban or anywhere else with a nice beach and some sunshine. Why not video-conferencing or Scunthorpe in February? We know why not — because they don't really believe in it!
Only a few days ago (sorry, can't track down the source at the moment) I read a similar argument about trees and deserts. We say that deserts are places where trees don't grow; the author argues that they are deserts because there aren't trees growing there. Plant the trees and you have the start towards greening the desert.
The same argument has been made about the Horn which could be Africa's bread-basket except that we would rather pour aid money into the pockets of corrupt dictators than meet the challenge of giving local people the technology and education that would eliminate their own poverty while providing the food supplies that the continent desperately needs. The annual "fire-fighting" which guarantees ChristianAid and Oxfam and CAFOD and SCIAF and various other agencies a comfortable living also serves to keep the local populace impoverished because we simply provide enough in the way of meagre rations to limit the number of deaths (though deaths are always good if you want people to dig into their pockets to salve their consciences) rather than address the fundamental problem.
So yes, I think Savory's solution would work (and fairly quickly) but forgive me if I don't hold my breath. As with fracking, the eco-activists and others will find a whole raft of reasons for not doing it since a "solution" to climate change would lose a large number of people and businesses access to an ever-flowing government teat.
Please, please, may I be proved wrong!