Sunday
Sep292013
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill The startling foolishness of David Cameron
Sep 29, 2013 Climate: Parliament 
Take a look at this quote from our prime minister, Mr Cameron:
It’s worth looking at what this report this week says – that [there is a] 95 per cent certainty that human activity is altering the climate. I think I said this almost 10 years ago: if someone came to you and said there is a 95 per cent chance that your house might burn down, even if you are in the 5 per cent that doesn’t agree with it, you still take out the insurance, just in case.”
Do you see how he equates strong certainty that mankind is affecting the climate with strong certainty that this means disaster? This is a statement of such startling foolishness that it almost defies belief to hear it from someone who wields such power.
Reader Comments (75)
Neil,
I looked at CET earlier, but I could not see the trend you refer to. Is there any way that you could plot the data for us, and post here? (I have neither the time nor the skill).
If what you are saying is correct it would be a bombshell.
Judging from the photograph of Cameron above it seems he is having problems with a certain nether region sphincter muscle. I think the urban dictionary describes it as squeezing one out.
I think if the salaries of ministers and MPs were tied to one of the satellite temperature indices then they would learn to understand the issue quite quickly.
If someone said there is a 95% chance of the lights going out unless you start to replace those coal-fired stations you closed with something else that can provide the equivalent power then would you do it - or would you just wait and see if the lights really go out?
I'm 95% sure Cameron is spouting this nonsense because he wants his father in law to keep his wind subsidies. Until today I have resisted the lure of voting UKIP at the next election, but after this piece of monumental stupidity by Cameron that is exactly what I will be doing now. I can't bring myself to vote for someone quite so stupid as Cameron even if I have been a lifelong Tory.
Cameron shows that an expensive education can give you confidence and make you articulate, but it can't give you a better brain. However, after endless propaganda broadcast by the BBC, the IPCC message must have convinced a lot of the punters. The statistics they quoted were convincing, a zillion scientists producing a gazillion papers, it did sound very impressive.
The 97% bit was also very convincing if you are gullible, uninformed or just a fool, but again, the BBC pushed that bit of propaganda to the limit.
The IPCC won the battle in this country, 97% due to the BBC. We can all play with impressive numbers. I hope we all punish the BBC when events show that they supported the wrong cause.
Now it is the turn of the sceptics and I would say this to all scientists. Please look carefully at the IPCC case, especially the flawed models. Look at the unconditional support for the warmists by establishment figures and the leaders of learned bodies. Do not be swayed by peer review. The track record shows that some climate scientists corrupt this process and the system means that sceptical papers are neither funded or published.
What sort of pseudo science is it that bases its conclusions and recommendations on models whose output bears no relation to reality? Climate pseudoscience is degrading the good name of conventional science. I ask all scientists to test this for themselves and speak out if you find the sceptical case vindicated. It is time to fight back with truth.
Well they needn't have bothered writing the report at all. Clearly the politicos and hacks just read the 95% certainty number that was just invented for a headline. Nobody wants to bother with the tedious report body that strongly suggests that these scientists got all their model predictions wrong and therefore have no scientific case for any AGW at all.
I was listening to a local County radio station on Friday when the news came on. I almost burst out laughing when the news reader announced that the IPCC stated humans were "95% to blame" for global warming. To be fair, many people do struggle to understand what these percentages mean - ironically, it is probably the sceptics who understand best (and doubt most).
LAWSONIAN REFORM OR CAMERONIAN REVOLUTION
There is a 95% risk of mass unemployment and a “very likely” risk of social and economic collapse, which will spark a republican revolution.
Oh, let the dumb, dumb Cameron spark a revolution.
Forget Westminster.
Brussels is what matters.
Forget Brussels.
Germany is what matters and Germany is waking up to real, not ersatz, coffee.
Pierre at NoTricksZone is documenting the new real-politik and the IPCC will not be a beneficiary.
Uk politicians take note; unlike 80% of tomorrow's weather the short term political forecast is far less predictable.
The startling foolishness of David Cameron.
In the upcoming book by Mathew d'Ancona it is revealed that DC regrets pushing through gay marriage. Is his regret based on a period of soul searching....no it is based on the fact that he did not realise that the policy would go down badly with grass roots Tories and his back benchers! Cameron has no beliefs and no principles, he simply has a need to try and say things that will keep him in power (or keep Sam off his back).
Stupidity from Cameron is not startling, it is to be expected.
John B
Join the club ^.^
The modeled predictions are increasingly wrong, and we have increasing disagreement over climate sensitivity to CO2, so there is only one recourse and that is to be increasingly confident that we are right.
Fortunately, the media and politicians can't seem to grasp this glaring contradiction.
What I find most curious is that David Cameron still leads the Conservative Party in the UK. In a more robust Party, he would be voted out of leadership by someone whose thinking was more in tune with Nigel Lawson and others. Is there no one in the Party with the confidence and courage to call for a spill? If not, the UK really does have problems.
Neil has asked me to post CETR data. See here.
Neil & Bish - many thanks for posting the data! As soon as I get time I will look at it carefully.
Neil's charts make a good counterpoint to the IPPC charts that trumpet "the hottest decade evah"
Bish, if you use them for a main page post perhaps the GWPF and the Daily Mail may run with it: "England Cooling for 20 Years", or "Not the hottest decade ever in England", showing Neil's charts alongside the IPCC ones.
Roger
If you look at the full CET data (1659-2012) it shows a continuous upward trend. This is easily explained as recovery from the LIA (little ice age), perfectly natural. It is therefore not surprising that the warmest years within this record have been in recent years. So the warmists are quite happy to quote the xth warmest year on record.
However what they do not mention is 3 of the top twenty warmest years were 1733 (14th), 1779 (17th) and 1736 (20th) which were before or at the beginning of the industrial revolution. This reduces the argument re CO2/CAGW.
The warmists also don't mention the warmest year (2006) was 10.82 and the coldest (1740) 6.84 which equates to a mere equivalent of 0.02 deg C/decade.
They also never mention within the record, start (1659) 8.83 deg C and end (2012) 9.70 deg C 0.87 deg C in 353 years, equates to just 0.02 deg C/decade.
Neil,
These are all excellent points - I would encourage you to try to pubish them.
One question, your final chart shoes "raw" CET data. Are these different from the CET data via the Met Office website that states:
"The daily series begins in 1772. Manley (1953,1974) compiled most of the monthly series, covering 1659 to 1973. These data were updated to 1991 by Parker et al (1992), when they calculated the daily series. Both series are now kept up to date by the Climate Data Monitoring section of the Hadley Centre, Met Office. Since 1974 the data have been adjusted to allow for urban warming."
Roger
The data I used is the UKMO data. You will get a good explanation of the adjustments to the record on Philip Edens site at: www.climate-uk.com/page5.html
I did an essay at WUWT on reconstruction of proxy data including UHI which you may like to read.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/04/16/revisiting-temperature-reconstructions-used-in-climate-change-modeling/
The other main point to the these data is between 1739-1740-1741 there was a natural climate sensitivity of -23.6 deg C and 24.6 deg C/decade equivalent in just 2 years! It was probably due to the eruption of Mt Tarumae in 1739.
Life survived those tough times, which make a catastrophic 2.0 deg C seem rather timid!
Ed Davey spouted the same ridiculous analogy when interviewed on tv by Andrew Neil, so obviously they are looking over each other's shoulders at the same hymn sheet...
Do hope Dellers has a succinct dismissal of this lunacy at the top of government...
Correct me if I'm wrong and got the whole thing arse about face. But. I get the impression that the 95% is not so much the chance of your house burning down but that 95% of firemen are saying that your house will burn down. The fact that the risk of your house will burn down is only something like 10% doesn't factor in as its airbrushed out of the narrative - which is to make it all sound really scary. So in the case of your house you will buy the insurance from the firemen to protect your house even though you are probably better off not paying them, saving the money, and re-building your house with your own money in the very unlikely event of your house actually catching fire.
I've got a great deal I'd like to offer Mr. Cameron, should I find out how to contact him. I'm perfectly willing to sell him "insurance" based on a 95% criteria. In fact, to make it fair, I'll use a random number generator. The "insurance" only costs 100 pounds and will pay 101 should the criteria hit. Based on his comments, Mr. Cameron should be eager to buy and in fact will recommend this to all his friends...
I thought the "hotest decade evah" meme came from the annual state of the climate reports, you know the ones they produce every year that are literally "hot" off the press, then a few Months later (after the headlines) the record temperature gets adjusted down "as all the data comes in"; then a few years later if you go back it's even colder. Funny thing this climate change, it affects past present and future temperatures.
I thought the "hotest decade evah" meme came from the annual state of the climate reports, you know the ones they produce every year that are literally "hot" off the press, then a few Months later (after the headlines) the record temperature gets adjusted down "as all the data comes in"; then a few years later if you go back it's even colder. Funny thing this climate change, it affects past present and future temperatures.