Tuesday
Jan282014
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill AR5 hearings
Jan 28, 2014 Climate: Parliament Climate: Sceptics This thread is for discussion of this morning's AR5 hearings. At 9:30 we will have Brian Hoskins, Myles Allen and Peter Stott, with the sceptics - Lindzen, Laframboise and Lewis - following at 10:30.
I gather there is to be another panel in due course which will feature representatives of the learned societies.
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Reader Comments (96)
TerryS
Thanks for correcting my false assertion that Myles Allen hadn’t read the Muir Rssell report. He had, and in his comment in the Guardian which you link to he uses a similar diversionary tactic to avoid answering the question posed.
Anyone who missed it (thinkingscientist, jeremypointon) get it at iplayer,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03t7lhw/Select_Committees_Live_Climate_Change_Committee/
Unfortunately that's just the first 2 hours. Can anyone locate the rest of it?
And just out of interest, can anyone name any of the nine people sitting behind the 3 climscis and Donna at 00:15?
Comments are hotting up on Bob Ward’s eco-censorship rant at
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2014/jan/27/ipcc-hearing-uk-us-climate-change?commentpage=2
thanks largely to just two sceptical commenters, Brad Keyes and JamesMackelroy
GeoffChambers,
Whjat was particularly hilarious about Robertson's stumbling attempts to pronounce the word 'anthropogenic' was that he was not merely unable to articulate it, he was apparently unable to read it. And this from a member of the House of Commons Committee on Energy and Climate Change.
Strikingly similar to a long-time but little-known Monty Python favourite of mine:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_guKhYVr5vA
For those who missed the live "show", you should be able to view it at
http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=14741
And if you run a Windoze machine, you have a choice of Silverlight or Media Player.
Somebody should tell Tim Yeo that the last decade was his tallest since records began but it doesn't mean he is still growing!
Well against my better judgement I started to watch it from the start but I've had to give up.
Myles Allen stating that what has changed with AR5 is that the dissenters have upped their predictions of warming to agree with the mainstream range of the IPCC for a remarkable consensus. This coming from the bloke with his preposterous up to 11 degrees C predictions. Right...
How does he keep a straight face?
Q: Mr Allen, what the F have you ever got right? What is your track record? Why should we believe you when you've been massively wrong for years?
Closely followed by him telling the panel to plug numbers into his spreadsheet ( I kid you not) and lo and behold they all show warming within the IPCC range. No Sh*t Sherlock.
Q: Mr Allen. Have you heard of Circular reasoning? Have you validated your models? No? Then please clear off until you have you absolute buffoon.
And ye Gods whilst I'm typing this, one bloke has raised the fact that the high sensitivity models are closest to getting clouds right. You just knew some numbskull would use this nonsense didn't you.
Charlatans the lot of them.
Testing, testing, that's two posts now I have made that have disappeared into thin air...
I realise that this will be snipped once the Bish gets back from Donna's pub meet (I'm very sorry not to be there), but in the meantime I have to say that - having watched the whole thing - that Myles Allen really is one smug little f*kcer.
Myles Allen was going through contortions to avoid the obvious conclusion that less aerosol cooling means less AGW warming ! I was amused that he also was making a pitch to become FRS! Then we also had Stott justifying the increased confidence in human attribution because of “multiple independent lines of evidence” – but then couldn’t even explain just one of them.
The correct answer to Yeo’s trick question about the last decade being the hottest ever should ld be: If you have climb up to the top of a hill and reach a plateau then it is obvoius that your new altitude will be higher than your average height while trecking up the hill. If the hiatus lasts for more than 20 years then the IPCC will egret resorting to deccadel measures of warming.
One disappointment for me was what was left unsaid. Some examples:
– Climate models cannot explain dynamics of glacial cycles. Human civilization all fits into this last brief interglacial. Before that much of N.America and Europe was uninhabitable. Sea levels rose 100m not 30cm. Previous interglacials were several degrees warmer than this one etc.
– UK unilateral action to “tackle climate change” by taxing fossil fuels and subsidizing wind is both futile and stupid. It just damages our economy while cheap coal is increasing dramatically to power Asian economies. The UK may even be better off if temperatures do rise another 1C by 2100.
– Extreme weather events is not science – it is alchemy. The 1953 flood killed 300 people on the East coast and 1400 people in Holland. Like the coastal flooding this year it was mainly caused by spring tides rather than storms.
Furthermore the IPCC scientists should really be made responsible for the policy decisions they latently are advocating. Global problems cannot be solved by unilateral action, especially if the evidence now appears that previous IPCC reports have been exaggerated.
If the UK switched off all power tomorrow and returned to neolithic living by camp fire it would make no difference whatsoever to the climate. although millions would die. Probably the political elite would still be driving around in Bentleys with well fed bodyguards to protect them.
The reason why is that an additional half million tonnes of annual carbon emissions from coal are added to the atmosphere in Asia each and every day. It would only take 2 years for China and India to effectively neutralize our noble national suicide.
60% of CO2 emissions are due to coal burning in Asia.
Well done!
1. Amazing to see. how British MPs even tried to go into Batesian mathematics. One of them even schooled the alarmist alarmist panel, that diverging expectation from measured data should decrease and not increase certainty.
Very interesting note from Nic Lewis, that Francis Zwiers book, climate science #1 source for statistics, does not even contain Bayesian maths.
2. Nic Lewis focussed on “his” 2 points and the panel clearly got the message. Sensitivity is low and climate models are failing.
Which new study was he talking about, with ocean heat uptake now halfed for 2004-2011 ?
3. Tim Yeo – of course – an utter and painful disaster. Should be noted, that elsewhere in the US Congress, such disruptive behaviour was common practise from Boxter / Clinton and friends.
Stott not appearing really trustworthy, trying to bend EVERYTHING in one direction.
Hoskins rahter useless, very hard not to fell his affiliation with US big green money
Allan appeared more trustworthy and likeable.
geoffchambers at 6:01
I posted a few comments on the Bob Ward article you mentioned. All were removed.
Even the warmists were beginning to notice that all the sceptical comments were being disappeared before they could get an argument going. The level of censorship was just ridiculous, probably accelerating the demise of that newspaper.
Clearly all p*ssed at the pub - wish I were there - come back tomorrow.
Schrodinger's Cat its not a little ironic that Bob 'fast fingers ' Ward is paid PR merchant with zero qualifications in the area , is writing an article telling us how 'none-experts' should be ignored partly because they may be in the pay of big something or other .
Although to be fair he is rubbish at it and without a friendly audience quickly finds himself out of his depth , so perhaps he does warrant a place in 'the Team' after all.
Just got back from the pub. Very enjoyable. I look forward to watching the recording tomorrow.
The rather large labour Scottish MP John Robertson who asked about the role of aerosols at 9:47. He suggests that "aerosols are one of the things the public could latch onto because they all have em".
http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=14741
Now that's what I call under arm tactics
My god if we switch,to roll on deodorants then warming really will take off!!
OMG this man is more stupid than me. He then goes on to ask about the stadium affect and whether Ibrox Stadium and Park Head were causing AGW.
My god is this the level we've reached, Labour MP's who waffle on about climate change and want to compensate the whole planet at the tax payers expense think old ladies spraying their blue rinses are increasing aerosols in the atmosphere
I think this has been done before but it bears repeating in light of the Scottish MP's apparent understanding:
Aerosols
I thought it went well from a sceptic's viewpoint. Although, I thought that there were many opportunities to drive home a point that were missed. That is easy for me to say from a safe distance and under no pressure. For instance:
► The point about a WWF member being a lead author. Would they approve of a Big Oil executive as a lead author?
► Should they not encourage diversity as the MPs had done by asking 3 from each "side". Yes, but the lead author is only one person.
► Which IAC recommendations have not been put into effect? The one about conflict of interest. (The evasion was impressive, though!)
► The last 10 years - the hottest ever? Your last 40 years the tallest ever?
► Sceptic funding. Perhaps more could have been made of that.
► The %age figures described by Stott and rebutted by Lindzen. The point that they seem to be guesswork did not come across although it was implied by the good professor.
In fact, Professor Lindzen showed his usual signs of being quite bright. When Yeo asked if the SPM was reliable Lindzen asked him what was he going to use it for. Even asking twice Yeo failed to realise that he was supposed to be using it for something not just filing a copy. Lindzen's points can sometimes be missed by people with the intelligence of climate scientists!
I thought Donna wasn't going to get much of a look in but her turn came mainly at the end so I don't regret my contribution to her expenses.
Nic made his points, as did they all, you need to repeat things a few times to get a point across and that seemed to be successful.
Did Myles Allen actually say anything? He did say that he had emphasised everything earlier - several times. I wonder how big a supercomputer they will need to run his spreadsheet? I wonder if he gave Peter Stott a copy? Brian Hoskins hasn't got to be where he is without being a safe pair of hands. From the same mould as Oxburgh and Russell, I suspect.
But, it has to be said that the mere fact that it took place at all I view as constructive progress.
To reduce UK CO2 emissions, I posted this to YouTube: http://youtu.be/6GzNATrGH7I
Andrew, I have purchased and read you major book, I have read your blog for years. I read the comments of the threads and I follow the major contributors to your blog on their own blog. If you should find me somewhere in the ether listening to this last climate hearing in your government's science committee please shoot me in the head. I should not be made to suffer any longer. Andrew there is no hope for your government. Nothing can be done.
ZT -
Thanks. The YouTube version is much more bearable than the original.
ZT -
Thanks. The YouTube version is much more bearable than the original.
quote
Pity it wasn't possible to add Julian Flood's 'Chihuahua of Doom' illustration to back up Robin and Lindzen, bearing in mind that the committee chairman is a Suffolk MP!
unquote
Fen's masterpiece is on my Facebook page.
JF
Finally got through it. One of the more interesting exchanges was right at the end, when Mr. Owen (?) contended that "doing nothing is not an option", and Dr. Lindzen replied that Nordhaus's economic opinion was that the best policy was in fact doing nothing for 50 years. Mr. Owen then opined that in fifty years one might feel guilty for not having done anything... completely ignoring the fact that in fifty years it is even more probable that one might regret having pursued a pointless and wasteful policy. Clearly a case of having decided in advance that he wasn't going to listen.
I really don't understand the view that we must do *something*. It is clear that in some cases -- perhaps most cases -- the best decision is not to take action. Why is this seen as "not acceptable" for climate change?
Because the doing nothing option takes the wind out of their catastrophilia completely! If they do nothing then clearly things aren't as bad as everyone thought and we can lay off building windmills, mirrors and ground unicorn horn power stations. It would also mean fossil fuels aren't satans spawn and fracking isn't another way of destroying the country side!
So you see, it's all perfectly understandable why doing nothing is not an option.
Regards
Mailman
Judith Curry has a detailed view of yesterday's proceedings HERE.
I was (unsurprisingly) pleased to note these quotations from Lindzen:
I hope the warmist MPs were listening.
Jan 29, 2014 at 3:14 AM | Unregistered Commente
Paul in Sweden
Paul I'm ex pat in france. Been here for many years. It is uncanny how your view looking back at your country from abroad changes from the one you had while there. Within a couple of years of being here it became really obvious just how poor the quality of our public figures is. It is really hard to find one person in UK public life that shows even a flicker of intelligence or knowledge.
By past observation, the person getting the most aggression in questions is the one on the panel who has scored the most irritating points in the past. That would be Donna.
The reaction that interest group activists could also be fine lead authors in IPCC reminds me a little of the stories about intellectual-based spy rings in British history.
I'm not saying that present lead authors are like past spies. I'm simply saying that a culling process, as people reach positions of influence, can have benefits. That's one reason why we now have organisations with non-descriptive names like MI5, MI6.
By the politician's reasoning, these organisations are not needed. A bloke was a real firebrand activist at Uni, gung ho, he'll make a top lead author.
Really?
geoffchambers/agouts
To be fair to Robertson, his main problem is being a Glaswegian (and that's not intended to be offensive) with the accent that goes with it. A number of English people honestly need sub-titles when faced with a deep-down west of Scotland accent.
He's not the sharpest knife in the box but, as you said Geoff, he is working hard for the people who elected him and at least he is one of them and wasn't parachuted in by the party hierarchy. I do have doubts about somebody who may be an excellent constituency MP and probably not much more sitting on something as crucial as the ECC Committee.
But then it depends what you expect that committee to do, I suppose.
One easy step for Alex Salmoan to gain English, Welsh and Northern Irish support for Scottish Independence.
1 Poster Campaign : "This MP John Robertson will never leave Scotland if you support Independance."
What a rude pustule of a man imitating a lump of lard.
HaroldW
Doing nothing is never an option for a politician and for all sorts of reasons not least that the first thing the media say if the Queen's Speech has less than about three Bills per Department for the coming year is that the guvmint isn't doing its job, they've run out of steam, etc., etc.
Ask Sir Humphrey: "we must do something" - "this is something" - "therefore we must do this".
Quick before we're caught standing still.
There is also a theological argument (sorry!) which I suspect is related to human nature in general that sins of omission or more heinous than sins of commission, ie deciding on a course of action and carrying it out (even if turns out to be the wrong course) is better than just not doing anything.
It never occurs to anyone that it is possible to decide that the best course of action may be to take no action!
Robertsons accent was no worse than the frankly comical regional accent of the person sitting next to him. Btw us Scots also need subtitles for many English regional accents, which must be toned down for telly because in real life they can be inscrutable. By far the worst is Liverpudlian: Each time I visit I pray I am served by a Pole instead of a local. Brummie, Cockney and Geordie are not far behind. Furthermore Robertsons rudeness was no worse than Yeo's., which was mere browbeating with false logic rather than serious questioning.
The clear problem is that few of them to want to have to think for themselves; they want clear direction from the scientists so that when the s hits the f, they can deny any responsibility. Advocating doing nothing is not a winning approach unless you remind them that they might be wasting money they don't have for stuff that is of no use - which Lindzen attempted. Hence they can be reminded to spend on easier win-win scenarios such as CO2 reduction by shale gas, adaptation, continuing research and hopefully getting our own nuclear programme back on track rather than depending on foreign blackmailers.
I didn't think the skeptics came out well. They made some good points but they were so aquiescently made they were easy to ignore. Not enough was done to clue the panel in that the supposed manmade warming cannot now be teased out of the natural background warming, that even the IPCC has disclaimed some of the more wild tabloidised claims about the consequences of any warming, that the gentle warming of 0.6/century is nothing unusual and that the scary scenarios are 100% based on models now proven to be based on ridiculously pessimistic assumptions and circular logic. Nick and Dick tried but they were so softly spoken it didn't seem like they were particularly certain of it. Frankly it annoys me to see these pessimistic clods take the moral high ground when in fact they are driving us towards an energy abyss based on mere gut feeling and self-agrandizement of a few researchers pretending to know stuff that they patently don't.
I agree that's a fine contribution from Lindzen, Robin (Jan 29, 2014 at 8:24 AM). Has he already, or might he, perhaps in conjunction with a policy specialist, develop those basic points into a short paper that could be widely circulated?
>we must do *something*
It's Parliament's raison d'être, unfortunately, which is why they keep making new laws to add to an already incomprehensible statute book, and to which end they employ 5000 lawyers. No wonder it's a shambles.
How many times is Ernest Benn's definition (he being the late uncle of Tony Benn MP) so very, very true:
'The art of politics is looking for trouble; finding it everywhere; diagnosing it wrongly and applying unsuitable remedies...'
The muse of Doggerel (assisted by the shade of Dr Mascall) has inspired me:
"So, trumpet forth the gladsome news
Both sure and undeniable:
'No action is an option!'
And furthermore, it's viable!"
You have noted a major point there, in my view. The media will blame it on the scientists too. That is why the scientists use: could, might, perhaps, up to etc as well as hiding the caveats as footnotes. They will claim that they were misrepresented. It is also why the press releases are more scary than the SPM and the SPM is more scary than the output of WG1 which is also more scary than the original papers.
It is all hype telling people what it is thought they want to hear.
Just finished watching the whole thing, including the later part cut off on live TV. Yeo came over as the slimy toad we imagined. He was far more aggressive with the sceptics than he was with the warmists, a bit like BBC interviewers. It was obvious Linzen didn't think much of him. Linzen, for the most part, was very effective, calm & measured in his responses even in the face of aggression. He came over as a true academic, giving honest answers. He might, however, have made more impact if he'd stooped into the gutter and tried to sell himself more. Nic Lewis also stuck with the facts and came over as very credible. Donna wasn't of course so involved as the other two in the scientific arguments but made her points well when given the opportunity. It's a pity that she often wasn't allowed to make them in full. As someone mentioned above, perhaps they were scared of the truth she was revealing. It was a pleasure to meet her in the pub last night. The warmist team offered far more generalities to make their points. This only became fully obvious in the second session when Linzen and Lewis were offering facts and statistics at a rate of knots. Miles Allen came over like a smooth estate agent having to show an impecunious young couple round a Victorian end terrace when he'd rather be selling a big country house to a rich client with no need of a mortgage. He was condescending to Peter Lilley when PL called bullsh*t on his explanation of uncertainties. Would you buy a used car from man with such an obviously false smile? Sir Robert smith, the LibDem MP, came over quite effectively as a "quiet assassin". His questions on uncertainties certainly put the warmist team on the spot. Stringer and Lilley asked some good questions but when they weren't getting proper answers they should have been more forceful. Not sure about Robertson, apart from the fact he definitely should go on a diet. I won't knock him for stumbling over some words; many of us have that problem at times. He was definitely out of order with Donna when he more or less accused her of prioritising book sales over telling the truth. That said, I wonder if he was playing the Devil's Advocate in some of his questions.
At 2:13:40 on the youtube clip, Robertson quoted a Hollywood film to tell Professor Lindzen what Science is. The film was “The Core” (2003).
From IMDB “The only way to save Earth from catastrophe is to drill down to the core and set it spinning again.”
Col. Robert Iverson: Forgive me, but, you know I'm not the expert here, but what if the core is thicker or thinner? I mean, what if it's not what you think it is? Isn't that going to affect the way the explosions are...
Dr. Conrad Zimsky: Yes, yes, yes, yes, and what if the core is made of cheese? This is all best guess commander. That's all science is, is best guess.
Col. Robert Iverson: So my best guess is you don't know.
What Robertson should have been asking Lindzen is how many of the poor of Glasgow will die this winter because of the Government’s expensive energy policies.
"Paul in Sweden
Paul I'm ex pat in france. Been here for many years. It is uncanny how your view looking back at your country from abroad changes from the one you had while there. Within a couple of years of being here it became really obvious just how poor the quality of our public figures is. It is really hard to find one person in UK public life that shows even a flicker of intelligence or knowledge. Jan 29, 2014 at 9:11 AM | Unregistered Commenter Stephen Richards "
Stephen it means a lot to me that you are commiserating this sad state of affairs with myself and others. Sadly, I self-flagellate subjecting myself to the Senate Energy & Commerce Hearings on C-SPAN. The outright falsehoods that are stated in those hearings justify the metal detectors that citizens must pass through to bear witness.
One of the most stark revelations of that video is how antagonistic the Alarmists on that committee are. Trougher Yeo especially, making stupid political rhetoric, bagering, trying to put words in peoples' mouths. Robertson was the same, but an utter utter uttter moron with it.
Compare with Peter Lilley and sceptics. Always even mannered, forthcoming with questions not statements.
The overwhelming impression. Politics is rank and that stench attracts too many rodents.
All very interesting stuff, having watched (most of) it on the BBC parliament channel.
I was reading Lubos Moltis(?) review this morning on the net. What made me sit up and take notice was the impression from overseas that our parliamentarians are a bunch of boorish british blimps.
Much to my chagrin, I cannot dispute this viewpoint.
I do think that 'we' (the realists) could have put up a better show - just saying. Presumably it depends on who gets invited to the gabfest.
When the "Mother of all Parliaments" are reduced to the level of trougher Yeo and that advertisment for Weight Watchers from Glasgow, what hope for democracy is there.
On a related subject, I listened to a BBC radio 4 programme last night at 2130 called the Long View. It was about the catastrophic floods of 1953 on the East Coast of the UK, mainly around Canvey Island, when over 300 were killed in the UK and over 1400 in the Low Countries.
The real interesting bit was one of the 'experts' was a guy called Michael Hurricane Fish - need I say more?
This is available on the BBC Radio 4 Iplayer.
What I found really beyond a joke was when Fish said that the 'Menopause' Office was about to take delivery of (yet) another better super dooper computer which would get their (inaccurate) forecasts quicker.
At the 23 min point Fish stated that due to Global Warming we could expect more floods like the Canvey Island disaster of 1953,
He also says as Global Warming was causing sea levels to rise, we could expect more dire consequences. For some inexplicable reason he hit on one of the main reasons for flooding in the South East of England - the fact that the land is sinking.
Just as well he is in receipt of his gold plated pension already, otherwise he may get called ashore.
You could not make it up.
Thanks Plenty [all] for all of these interesting comments + infos + links, especially 'ZTs' YouTube-load-up! I have re-linked it & the main thread to some Swedish blogs.
Query, though; what kind of mushroms is the person(?) Yeo smoking? Jeeez, what a moron! (don't have any words for the Scottish guy...)
Well, we have some of that kind here in Sweden, too - starting at the top; Fredrik R. and down... so one should not throw any bricks in this glasshouse...
Apart from, in my view, the rather 'all too much politeness' from the 'Ls' vs. the 'other', it's at least a very good, first step in a, hopefully, direction of getting to a somewhat of a start to regain the lost common sense!
Thanks & cheers from Sweden
//TJ
Delingpole's take on Lindzen - <http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100257206/climate-science-is-for-second-raters-says-worlds-greatest-atmospheric-physicist/#disqus_thread>
Gallery Guido has written it up too ...
http://order-order.com/2014/01/30/sketch-unsettling-the-settled-science-of-climate-change/
HaroldW... I completely agree with your points regarding TCR vs. ECS. We don't have anyway of reasonably knowing how slow the slow response is, so ECS will remain a bit of a mystery. Diagnosing TCR on the other hand carries with it the assumption that the "apparent" relationship between a somewhat linearly increasing forcing and the subsequent response will remain consistent. This assumption doesn't seem unreasonable to me. I wish though that the modelers would define the doubling over a more realistic ~175yrs rather than 70. Given the advances in computing power since the TCR concept was defined, I believe this is achievable.