Bishop Hill Lawson lays down law
Jul 12, 2013 GWPF Royal Society The GWPF has issued a press release about the putative meeting with some climatologists nominated by Paul Nurse.
Lord Lawson, the chairman of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), has invited five Fellows of the Royal Society to meet him and his team in the House of Lords to discuss issues surrounding climate science and policy.
The five climate scientists, nominated by Sir Paul Nurse, the President of the Royal Society, refused an earlier invitation to meet with the Director of the GWPF, Dr Peiser, and a small group of experts nominated by the GWPF. Although they gave no reason for their unwillingness to engage, the Fellows stated they would be happy to ‘advise’ Lord Lawson personally.
Lord Lawson said he was willing to give the Royal Society a last chance to engage in a genuine dialogue, at which he would be personally present. “If this [invitation] is not acceptable, I can only conclude that, regrettably, you and your colleagues are unwilling to engage in genuine discussion and debate about this important issue.”
At the same time, the Foundation has published the correspondence between the two men, which is well worth a read. My report on the Royal Society is discussed.
See it all here.
Reader Comments (127)
snotrocket
I see your problem. My surname is spelled 'Smiff'. What school did you go to ? :-)
To make it clear. My opinions are my own and do not reflect those of the wider 'Smiff' clan or the Socialist Worker's Party of Zimbabwe (oops!)
I've always been annoyed by the politicisation of science, which is probably why I am (perhaps unjustifiably) not that interested in the GWPF. Also my interest in climate predates 2009, when the GWPF was formed, so to me it's a latecomer to the table in terms of sites like ClimateAudit and BH. I' not sure what great gains you consider the GWPF has won for our side. Most people haven't heard of it.
I'm not hostile to it, I just don't see it as a big player.
AGW is too big to fail -- far too many egos and billions too many pounds wasted for anyone to admit that the whole thing was balloon juice.
Even when we are all freezing in our yurts reading by tallow candle, the great and the good will be telling us that they predicted this......
Roy says: "Most committed atheists know as much about Christianity as a ..."
How odd - most people I know are I suppose agnostic, including most of my direct relations who were all raised as Catholics. The ones who are rabid atheists (like myself) are those who managed to reject the indoctrination by Catholic priests at school. The others didn't go to strict religious schools, so never had the motivation to examine the faith in any great depth.
One characteristic of these rabid atheists is that they defend Christianity against for more trivial arguments from others. It's only the really big arguments that count.
To any Latin scholars out there, does anyone know the Latin for "On the word of no one else"?
I thought that one of the main tenets of the GWPF was embodied in its third initial. Even if the worst predictions of the warmists were true, the policies being adopted to combat the situation are nothing short of lunatic. It is the politics that has to be addressed in parallel with the scientific arguments.
I do not think the GWPF is a right-wing think tank. It is a cross-party, no party group who wish to stop the lunacy of the policies being pursued to counter “global warming”
DrJohnGalan
I don't think the GWPF is a think tank, however each of the three GWPF figureheads are on the very extreme fringe of British politics. Delingpole is well into cartoon Rush Limbaugh territory (there was a recent interview between them). Lawson self identified himself with an extreme and discredited economic policy, Monetarism that even Margaret Thatcher claimed she had never believed in.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Lawson#Resignation
Monckton claims AGW is a global communist takeover. That is McCarthyism on steroids. More comedy than politics to the majority.
This is an organisation that publicly projects itself on the extreme right like Heartland. It is not a credible, MAINSTREAM public stance. I am not arguing against it. I am a 'don't know' on the left / right spectrum.
steveta,
you could use neminem instead of nullius in the RS motto:
Neminem in verba
Nullius in Latin means "no-one" whereas Neminem conveys more of a "no-one else" meaning. Or you could rewrite it more pedantically
In verba aliorum non spero
In verba aliorum non credo
"I trust not in the words of others"
spero means trust as in "hope", credo as in "believe"
Apologies for any mistakes in my 30 year old classics.
I’d dearly like to say “hear hear!” to eSmiff, but it would only prolong the pointless left-right debate, so I’ll agree instead with
Thanks for that bit of common sense. As an example of what Sir Paul says when he’s addressing the great un(brain)washed, you can do no better than read the script of his infamous Horizon programme.Richard Drake (Jul 12, 2013 at 1:10 PM)
https://sites.google.com/site/mytranscriptbox/home/20110124_hz
Patronising to Singer, offensive to Delingpole, respectful to Jones and Bindschadler - there’s nothing specially trotskyist about it. Nurse is just an ordinary prejudiced human being, defending his climate science as you might defend your football team in a pub argument. Just the bloke you want as President of the Royal Society.
Neminis in verba would probably be more correct.
@eSmiff
I don't think Delingpole (much as one loves him) has anything to do with the GWPF. Neither does Monckon. Monetarism doesn't feature much in Lawson's book on Global Warming and I must say, I found the case he presents there very compelling. The section on effective discount rate were an eye opener for me.
On whether environmentalism is left or right, Pepper's book Modern Environmentalism has an excellent discussion. Possibly the dimension we should be looking at is authoritarian / libertarian which tends to cut across traditional left right.
If you take at face value what the GWPF says about itself (and why wouldn't you?), then John Galan is right:
http://www.thegwpf.org/who-we-are/
This states, "We are an all-party and non-party think tank ... deeply concerned about the costs and other implications of many of the policies currently being advocated."
The names on the board of trustees testifies to the "all-party" claim:
http://www.thegwpf.org/who-we-are/board-of-trustees/
I agree about what the GWPF are, but how are they perceived? They have been tarred with the big-oil brush, and as such are not much use for converting the true believers any more.
The Royal Society is a career advocacy group, working solely and exclusively in the interests of a particular segment of the public sector.
Previous accolades aside, Paul Nurse's present-day contribution is utterly devoid of scientific or intellectual merit. Actually, it would be fair to say that his contribution is moronic in nature.
I'm going to suggest to the Noble Lord Lawson that they bring along to the meeting the Ghost of James Clerk Maxwell so as to explain to the assembled FRSs that his equations prove 'back radiation' can't exist therefore there can be no 'positive feedback'.......
Is this well funded and well staffed pro-AGW organisation a 'thinktank', an advocacy group, or a propaganda machine?
http://www.europeanclimate.org/index.php/en/about-us/staff
Would they be prepared to go head-to-head with GWPF plus their nominees? The result would surely be better than GWPF vs RS, and more revealing in many dimensions.
And while I too am happy to defend my team in a pub argument I am not about to back the owner who is a balloon and who has proved this by appointing another balloon to get in his manager's hair.
Nurse is offensively "defending" a team he has never seen play and knows very little about simply because he likes some of the players and the manager.
And in so doing he is acquiescing in something that is costing a very large number of people a lot of money — not him and his pals, of course.
TheBigYinJames on Jul 12, 2013 at 3:22 PM
"I agree about what the GWPF are, but how are they perceived? They have been tarred with the big-oil brush, and as such are not much use for converting the true believers any more."
1) The only way to be tarred is with a big oil brush! :)
2) Big Oil have participated in Green activities, and profitted by them, so they are all in it together, and some of them are not so keen on these frackking small fry either!
3) They are only posing questions that have not been answered to most learned people's satisfaction.
TheBigYinJames on Jul 12, 2013 at 1:36 PM
"An unwelcome political intrusion into something that lies wholly within the realms of science and economics. Like with Heartland in the US, I don't really like the idea of what is ostensibly or perceptably an "right-wing think-tank" occupying the same hill as me on this battlefield."
There would be some logic to your argument if the Green agenda did not affect levels of taxation, national energy policy and fuel prices and local planning laws,, to mention a few examples.
Any of these places the subject into the political arena, or is it a case of Left wing good. Right Wing bad? Why it is good to throw money at wasteful projects is beyond me, but then I am not Left Wing!
One need read no further than his remark that he's trying to 'help' Lawson to peg Nurse as a disgusting, self-important buffoon.
TheBigYinJames - AGW advocates believe anyone who does not swallow their story and has the temerity to say so is in the pay of 'Big Oil' so that it is an irrelevant criticism of the GWPF.
Meanwhile, as 'Big Green'; really does 'own' the media, NGOs, most politicians and academia, we should be grateful for any assistance we can get. The GWPF provides much-needed muscle.
"Meanwhile, as 'Big Green'; really does 'own' the media, NGOs, most politicians and academia, we should be grateful for any assistance we can get."
This is big green here. Who else could own all these things ?
International Emissions Trading Association (IETA)
The biggest lobbying group at Copenhagen was the International Emissions Trading Association which was created to promote carbon trading more than ten years ago.
Its members include :-
BP, Conoco Philips, Shell, E.ON (coal power stations owner), EDF (one of the largest participants in the global coal market), Gazprom (Russian oil and gas), Goldman Sachs, Barclays, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley..
http://www.ieta.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&catid=19%3Adefault&id=168%3Aour-members&Itemid=82
Friends of the earth
The eight nominees for the Angry Mermaid Award were:
American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity
American Petroleum Institute (API)
European Chemical Lobby (Cefic)
International Air Transport Association (IATA)
***** International Emissions Trading Association (IETA) *****
MonsantoSasol
Shell
I fail to see the point of this meeting.
Is it intended as a political or scientific debate?
Will you regard it as won by the side with the best evidence (the Royal Society) or the side with the best rhetoric (the GWPF)?
RS have got evidence. Of what, they're not so sure. They vaguely recollect a 2010 piece of paper hopelessly outdated by the time it came out.
ps the "rhetoric" excuse is a poor attempt at playing rhetoric. There are many skilled talkers in the astrology and homeopathy businesses but they can't win any argument.
EM - perhaps you could pop along instead and sort it all out for us? We're only after the truth after all.
However I did see on another thread that you aren't local to London, so why not ask the Bish if you could put together a guest post presenting the "best evidence" of the RS? There are lots here who would appreciate that.
BigYinJames: An unwelcome political intrusion into something that lies wholly within the realms of science and economics</I>
But the policies that are said to stem (inevitably) from "the settled science" of anthropogenic global warming are an entirely political choice. With the alarmists having elided the distinction between scientific observation (which has its own flaws aplenty, of course) and policy decisions, I don't see how you can avoid political intrusions - frankly, from both sides.
Entropic Man
The list of things you do not see the point of is rather long.
it's impossible to imagine why, if the RS is willing to teach young Lawson individually, they would object the presence of an audience (of commoners, mostly). it's science not a mafia scheme.
"They have been tarred with the big-oil brush"
Haven't we all? I'm still waiting for the cheque, though...
I haven't seen the team being fielded by Lawson, but I suspect the Climate Experts will back out.
They are on a loser and if they have any sense, they must know that. These people are used to uttering dire warnings to politicians and funding organisations without needing to provide a shred of evidence other than climate models that are clearly wrong to anyone with half a brain. (Yes, I realise what that says about politicians.)
From my own experience meeting people at the Royal Society meeting I would think that the experts and Lord Lawson may well agree on the two crucial points:
1. We should base our views on the science as established by the facts
2. That people like Paul Nurse really should listen to the experts.
The RS motto was simply lacking some specification ...
Nullius Societatis Regiae Conservi in Verba
In other words to be a Fellow of the RS should be considered from now onwards as a badge of warning forthe general public.
As far as I can recall, this is the first clear acknowledgement that the Bishop's critique of the Royal Society's involvement in climate-related environmental activism has reached the desk of the Royal Society's President Sir Paul Nurse. In fact it seems to have seized his attention- apoplectic seizure.
'Nullis in Verba' is good, I like that
I wonder what Sir thinks about 'iactas cæli hospita'
or 'boasts to the air hostess'. assuning that anecdote has any foundation
The GWPF can publish on the internet and perhaps more widely through Lord Lawson's association with it. This makes it a huge risk for Nurse and his supporters. The responses from Nurse that are already published in connection with this matter do not show the man in a good light, based on his own words.
Publication by the GWPF of lame arguments by Climate Experts put forward by the RS would not do the Cause any good at all.
AGW is too big to fail -- far too many egos and billions too many pounds wasted for anyone to admit that the whole thing was balloon juice. Rick Bradford
Rick, you are very much living in the past and/or believe far too much in EU & (some) BBC propaganda.
AGW has already failed. 85% of global emissions are not regulated by any international treaty and the remaining 15% might be ... if it were not for the fact that legally Kyoto died as a treaty on the 31st December last year.
Most climate scientists now recognise their models have failed to the extent that last year at a meeting of the Royal Society when the question was asked "are they fit for purpose for policy makers" no one was prepared to say that climate models were fit for use by policy makers.
Which means that if these experts were asked to appraise the evidence afresh, they could not recommend the present policy. THE CLIMATE CHANGE ACT WOULD NEVER GET PASSED IF POLITICIANS HAD TO LOOK AT THE EVIDENCE AFRESH ... IF THEY WERE TOLD THE ACTUAL EVIDENCE AND WHAT THE REAL EXPERTS ON THE GROUND BELIEVE.
So, we are now in a situation where this policy isn't supported by the science today, but by the science as it stood perhaps as much as a decade ago. That is clearly unsustainable. Sooner or later politicians are going to have to change policy to match the actual science rather than the assertions of people like Nurse.
Indeed, there is evidence that process is under way. I met a labour MP on a train not that long ago and I got the distinct impression they were rather regretting having got so in bed with the global warming scare - they were actively questioning me and it appeared to me they were exploring their options for "climbing down" from their former position when in office.
It's a totally delusional that anyone is influenced by science. No sane person is interested in climate science unless they are being paid to do research. There are a few exceptions obviously. McIntyre and Montford.
You ask someone 'do you believe in AGW ? Yes
Do you prefer coke to Pepsi Yes
Are you prepared to pay 25% more for it ? NO
It works in reverse
The Irrelevance of Climate Skeptics
Dan Kahan, professor of psychology at Yale Law School, has conducted several studies of public views on climate change and finds that the causal mechanisms of the "deficit model" actually work in reverse: people typically "form risk perceptions that are congenial to their values." Our political views shape how we interpret facts. On an issue as complex as climate, there are enough data and interpretations to offer support to almost any political agenda
http://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/voices/roger-pielke-jr/the-irrelevance-of-climate-skeptics/
So have I read this right? Nursy baby nominates 5 (five) of his finest, and not one of them has the bottle to communicate their side of the argument in public? At what point did they back down?
Do we have the names of the individuals comprising this holy quintumvirate? Something seems odd.
Very interesting anecdote at the end there Mike H. I agree with every word.
Pharos: Another key point. Nurse reads Montford; Nurse throws toys out of pram, with baby and bathwater. But above all we now know Nurse reads Montford. Keep writing Bish.
omnologos
Lord Lawson is playing politics, not science.. Commoners, as you call them, are very vulnerable to political manipulation.
Remember that a politician's main tools is persuasion and rhetoric, not rational argument.
Publication by the GWPF of lame arguments by Climate Experts put forward by the RS would not do the Cause any good at all.
Jul 12, 2013 at 8:00 PM | Schrodinger's Cat
Past publications by GWPF have discredited their own site as a science source.
For example, in the Spring of 2012 an item was put up pointing out that the Arctic ice extent was close to the long term average. This was given as proof that global warming had stopped.
By September the ice extent was the lowest on satellite record.
I have been unable to find that item since.
I have been unable to find that item since.
Jul 12, 2013 at 9:12 PM | Unregistered CommenterEntropic Man
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Try looking in the wayback machine which archives many sites. Maybe you will find it. I don't know.
There you go:-Now try finding someone at the-blog-that-cannot-be-named to help you find posts that have been deleted from warmist sites.
Another reason not to bother with the debate is that GWPF is a propoganda site.
GWPF would claim victory regardless of the outcome and you suckers would believe it.
How much have you had to drink this evening, Entro?
Jul 12, 2013 at 9:27 PM | Unregistered CommenterEntropic Man
One meaning of entropy or entropic:
"a doctrine of inevitable social decline and degeneration"
How apt!
The tide is turning against AGW believers, but it will take a long time.
The eco fanatics will always regard CO2 as the devil even though it is essential for life to flourish on our planet. The left wing enemies of big business will continue to work towards the downfall of industry and commerce using CO2 emissions as one of their justifications.
Politicians will continue to see their green credentials as the ideal excuse for fleecing taxpayers for every form of energy imaginable, especially the extraction of taxpayers' money for the most useless, pointless, wasteful and stupid sources of energy ever conceived.
Academics, renowned institutions and the good and the great will continue to support the findings of the experts and the output of the models because science is about seeking truth, you have to believe the experts and peer review is the gold standard of credibility.
Repeat the above paragraph but note that peer review has been shown to be corrupt by the climatologists themselves, critical ideas are suppressed, opponents are removed, scientific debate is avoided and the data from their own models show that their assumptions are wrong.
However, an endless number of financial leeches are extracting government funding, government subsidies, government bribes, falsely increased tariffs, and massive hand-outs to keep the whole disgraceful milking of taxpayer's money on the road.
The great global warming scam may have lost credibility but it trundles on with huge momentum and huge support from those who have tapped into ways to milk the taxpayer.
The GWFP initiative may expose that RS members have lost the plot but I am afraid that it will make very little difference in the corrupt and obscene state of the climate change movement.
"Lord Lawson is playing politics, not science..."
What a ridiculous comment. Lawson IS a politician, he's not 'playing' politics. We have absurd policies being imposed by other politicians who don't recognise - and worse, show no interest in attempting to understand - how uncertain is the 'evidence' upon which those policies are based. Lawson does understand the economic consequences of these policies (something which DECC shows little interest in understanding, as the attempts by some to extract from them by FoI proper cost/benefit analyses have revealed). Of course he isn't a scientist (for which reason he was not an ideal choice to appear at the HoC STC's attempt at a Climategate 'inquiry'). But his position is entirely rational, and it is utter tripe to suggest otherwise.
BTW, your belief in the RS and the supposed strength of its evidence is touching. In my youth, as I took my first steps along the path to an engineering career, I too regarded the RS as an august society, but thanks to the likes of May, Rees and Nurse, I now regard it as an irrelevance.
Just to put the neutrality and even handedness of the Royal Society into perspective.
Newton and Hooke is no different from the current situation
http://www.frogheart.ca/?p=5652
Then there is the RS treatment of Laurent Cassegrain and Newton's theft of the ideas of James Gregory, The RS has a 300 year track record of this behaviour.
Why shouldn't right wing (for want of a better description) groups be set up to counter left wing (ditto) pressure groups such as FOE and GreenPeace? Why feel uncomfortable about that, there are a large number of people who read The Sun and voted in favour of Fraccing in the UK only last week.
Brian Hoskins et al. state in their letter (first para) to Lord Lawson:
"We are happy to learn that the GWPF accepts much of the scientific evidence about climate science..."
The sentence makes little if any sense. Do they unconsciously confuse the entire edifice of 'climate science' with 'climate change'?
Parapraxis, and as that, a dead give away!