Thursday
Mar202014
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Peiser without
Mar 20, 2014 Climate: Sceptics GWPF RTE's Prime Time show, featuring Benny Peiser and not featuring An Taisce president John Sweeney, was broadcast yesterday and the video can seen for the next few days here (from 18 mins).
It's rather good.
Reader Comments (40)
Peiser was extremely subdued under extreme provocation. I could think of many retorts to the barbs from the eco-loon, who came over as a babbling activist tool. But overall the climate change charade continued on unchallenged. Pity. It was an opportunity missed.
However from a non-EU perspective...you guys have a mountain to climb of EU regulations and climatethink. Good luck with that!
My connection came off very choppy. The small part that I have been able to watch so far leads me to believe that the UK is doomed. Ireland/UK does not respond to problem but to EU regulations. That pretty much says it all.
The discussion seemed to demonstrate one point: The EU targets are unrealistic and suggest a belief in the magic of numbers.
The other point that I felt was quite Pythonesque was the harping on SOlar Panels in Ireland. Wind, understandable. Hydro, OK. Solar, are you kidding.
The moderator puts forward the Guenier argument, based on China and the other BRIC nations, from around 25 minutes. Benny does exactly the same afterwards. Brilliant. But I'd be delighted for 'Niff' to provide a link to where he/she has done better in similar circumstances!
Ok, now finished. Really fascinating. Benny was put on the spot towards the end to provide 'solutions' (41 min) not just 'let the politicians do nothing'. First he gets in that they're not doing nothing: spending 700 billion euros on renewables isn't nothing! It just isn't making any appreciable difference to global emissions. But then he's pressed for solutions, solutions, including from the smarmy green guy to the moderator's left, and rightly he goes to the developing world and the need for the EU to reduce trade barriers to help the poorest. It's an occasion I was watching, couldn't think of a good answer and 'our man' was way better than anything I could think! Very impressed. And there's an excellent message from a viewer about the rest of the garbage too.
I can't in any way relate to those who wish to be negative about this segment - which is almost 30 minutes in total, including ads. Within that there was limited opportunity for some sanity. Hats off to Benny that he came across as sensible under extreme provocation, didn't lose his cool but was rightly firm when his main opponent tried to shout him down. (Compare with Matt Ridley on the Daily Politics recently - that was a stroll in the park compared to what Benny had to cope with here. We have a good team if the media really wants to know.)
When the statement was made that 97% of those working in the Global Warming Industry who are dependent on incessant fear campaigns to ensure subsidies & research funding agree that temperatures have risen since the end of the little ice age and that they further believe along with the IPCC with high confidence that anthropogenic forcings may have been responsible for possibly one half of the 0.36°C warming since the end of 1949. I wish that Mr. Peiser instead of just agreeing with the sentiment brought the numbers out and started pounding on the table about cost/benefits and how miniscule 0.155°C over 50 years is and that it is possible that it is not even realisic to attribute it to anthropogenic forcing and there is nothing at all we can do to change any of this anyway.
Per NOAA's published annual mean temperatures, the modern warming trend for the U.S., since the beginning of 1950, amounts to an increase of 1.35°C by century end. But this modern trend is just +0.36° higher than the trend that existed from 1895 to 1949. For the records, that existing pre-consumer/industrial CO2 trend was already at a significant +0.99°C, by year 2100. Based on the official climate empirical evidence, as the adjacent chart depicts, this recent measly trend increase (a third of a single degree) of climate change (i.e. U.S. warming) is claimed by IPCC scientists to be a result of the modern, gigantic global emissions approximating over 1.2 trillion tonnes since the end of 1949
Yet, the prior period to the modern era experienced a climate change trend that was equivalent to a 1-degree change. Essentially, a built-in, long-term trend some 3-times larger than the additional modern trend increase.
http://www.c3headlines.com/2014/03/per-noaa-us-climate-change-not-so-much-during-the-massive-co2-emission-increase-of-modern-era.html
Paul: Benny decided not to challenge the 'iconic statement' from the IPCC about 95% confidence of man having caused more than half of the warming since 1950. In this surely he's been trained by Richard Lindzen, on the academic board of the GWPF, whose phrase 'iconic statement' is. Lindzen always says what does it matter, it doesn't equate to alarm. So Benny said he agreed. I winced - then realised he was absolutely right, because it allowed him to talk about what really matters. We don't even know, in my view, that the IPCC is right on this. But it doesn't mean alarm is justified and it's reasonable enough to assume, given the reality of the greenhouse effect within a system showing spatio-temporal chaos. Peiser avoided the bear traps so many of us fall into. I feel I learned a lot from how he handled it.
Most of all, he didn't come across as a 'denier' - either in the head-in-the-ground or mouth-frothing sense. He was continually saying we have to face reality and in his calmness and firmness one felt the ordinary Irish punter would believe that, of all those on the panel, this man was. How dare they use that term of us. But that's another story. This was a punch in the mouth for such crude stereotypes.
The EU/Solar obsessed guy with the staring eyes will have done his cause no good. He was really scary. And to anyone who voted 'no' in the Irish Referendum his total obeisance to EU policy will have been distasteful.
There's a lovely cutaway shot of Benny not quite rolling his eyes as the loon embarks on yet another rant. I was reminded of the time that Schmidt refused to discuss climate with (I think) Roy Spencer. And so Spencer was left with a wry smile making his points to the audience while Real Gavin himself sulked off camera.
Good viewing
Unfortunately I am in Africa right now and can't view the video, I think due to region restrictions. Would be super nice if some public spirited fellow could record the programme and post on YouTube.
Do they alert the audience to the absence of the alarmist who cried-off complaining about deniers? I don't actually have the stomach to watch the program at the moment, despite the extremely presentable presenter.
So Ireland a Country steeped in turbulent history.
So anyone Googled Ireland Flooding 18th Century yet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1782_Central_Atlantic_hurricane#1780s
Puts Katerina and Sandy into prospective.
Copy and Paste. So how many of these Hurricanes washed backed onto the west coast of Ireland.
I had no idea that Ireland would have to shut down its dairy industry to comply with EC climate change targets and laws.
The meteorologist and Benny contributed the only science content to the discussion.
The eco - loons are bonkers.
Re Mar 20, 2014 at 8:16 AM | Ed B
I support his request. Unfortunately broadcasters like to slice up the internet in national walled gardens. Similar to everything from the BBC on the internet, I cannot view this in the Netherlands.
Luckily, Parliament TV is much better in this respect.
Bryan: Yes, the equanimity, even smug superiority, with which people talk about the imminent economic suicide they are actively ensuring for their nations, for the greater good of doing absolutely nothing to halt global emissions ... oh sorry, my irony meter's bust again. Must do better. Because it's all our fault. Must remember that at all times. Ouch, the irony meter is hitting me now. Time for bed, Zebedee.
Doesn't work in Firefox, even with all permissions allowed.
Dr Peiser does well to get any views across at all. The rest of the panel ranges from 'moderate-but-on-message' to 'burn-the-heretics'. The audience also appears to be 100% consensus-compliant.
Dr Peiser very kindly accepted my invitation to participate as a keynote speaker at a study day for the business community in Bristol in 2010. There were five other keynote speakers, from academia, utility companies and industry - all of them on the public payroll. They included Dr Vicky Pope for the Met Office. Two things linger in my memory:
- Dr Pope's complaints and evident frustration before the event, after hearing that Dr Peiser would be participating. She phoned almost every day to see if we had heard what he was planning to say. Her view was that it was easy for him to snipe at the 'real practitioners' because he never had to substantiate his views and wouldn't be held to account. Four years later, I would argue exactly the opposite.
- How the (few) genuine private sectors members of audience appeared to appreciate having someone on the panel offering a different opinion to the army of grant-aid academics, public sector and public-funded representatives or consultant, media and PR hangers-on whose daily bread is also provided from the public purse.
Sadly, in forty years the militant left seems to have worked its way from adversary to mainstream. This is largely due to the adoption of its sheep's clothing of care-for-the-environment. Even if the tide is turning, it will presumably take decades to unravel (and there'll be another bandwagon for them all to jump on soon).
Very useful first-hand testimony, Old Forge.
Well, taking the panel and the audience together, the common sense party seemed to be represented solely by Benny Peiser and he was the only one who spoke convincingly and reasonably, when he was allowed to speak at all, that is.
The Eu man was an utter idiot and should have been gagged at the first sample offered, but I’m sure the blood of many of us reached boiling point when that earth-friendly lady spoke from the audience – and I don’t usually like redheads!
____
Mar 20, 2014 at 12:18 PM | Old Forge
I have just started reading Hayek (1944) for the first time. He spent the first half of his life in Austria and the rest in the US and Britain. He compared the political and economic histories of Italy, Germany, Russia, the US and the UK, considering himself an impartial outsider.
His conclusion was that Communism, Fascism, Socialism and Marxism, together known as collectivism, all start out with the best intentions, genuinely working towards a theoretically possible utopia for all humanity. His thesis however is that while they say they want universal freedom, their actual policies gradually lead without exception towards totalitarianism, that is, serfdom for the vast majority.
They have their arguments but in the end they always have to impose their views on the unwilling populace. However, freedom must necessarily include the absence of coercion by authority.
It is evident what we have before us if nothing is done to change direction and whatever our current voting habits we should understand where modern progressivism is taking us, whether or not the party leaders consciously have such a destination in mind.
The Eu man in the above clip is one of the pathfinders.
Rightwinggit - I couldn't get it to work in "normal" mode in Chrome but it did work in Incognito mode.
I agree with Latimer Alder regarding the EU stooge with the staring eyes. He won't have swayed any neutral viewers. And why do these people so often think that they have the right constantly to interrupt anyone with a different viewpoint? The Anchor did her best but zealots are difficult to control. Overall, though, it was good to see a TV discussion that at least tried to air both sides of the argument.
Bob MacLean:
It wasn't just the staring eyes, it was the smug expression when he did the interrupting. And it wasn't just 'anyone with a different viewpoint' it was Benny Peiser of the GWPF. The reason? Benny has been called a denier, so you can do what you like to him.
Well said in both parts. It was a good effort by Irish telly. And there was no mention of the d-word.
But it was there and it explained much.
There is a huge problem with such programmes. Benny Peiser did, in my view, a fine job with the short slots he got - he addressed the questions put to him, or at least started to. He had nothing like enough time to make his case. The others though, and especially the two sitting beside the anchor woman, and some of those from the audience, were merely there to pass on their soundbites and their current package of beliefs. There were so many signs of superficial, or perhaps even entirely lacking, thinking that it would I suppose take some hours of close questioning by experts, noting the responses word for word and subjecting them to critical review off line, before returning with more questions and counter-arguments. In that way some sense of their grasp of the problems, of the data, and some sense of the substance or otherwise off their stances could be had. But no such thing will happen. They will instead move on to the next tv slot, the next interview with a journalist, the next leaflet to be written and so on. Benny Peiser sought to inject some reality into the fog of computer projections, policy-wonking and emotive self-indulgences that the other three on the panel served up. An all but impossible task. But each chipping away, each challenge to the astonishing complacency and conformity about CO2, will surely help a bit. Some viewers and perhaps even some who were present in the studio or on the panel, will have been impressed by what he was able to get in, and will go off on their own to think a bit more about it, and will be even more alert to further insights that might come their way. The anchor-woman did a pretty good job of her task, and seemed to be on the ball with some of the weaknesses of the received wisdom. But I daresay she got briefed on all that, as she will get briefed on dozens of other topical issues which her programme will tackle, and much of that must be ephemeral for her or she'd go crazy. Overall, this was Benny Peiser as a lone voice in a gathering of true-believers. That he was there at all is an achievement and something we should be pleased about. He did not get enough time, but what he got he used well in my viewing of it. I hope they will ask him back to do more.
I didn't like the way that Benny Peiser seemed to accept the fact that man made "climate change" was actually taking place, when it isn't.
Joseph Curtin is apparently a Political Economist - a Eurocrat and I doubt whether if he is concerned about what the actual observed temperature of the planet is, only what the more extreme models say it should be. His job depends on the existence of "climate change".
http://www.iiea.com/staff/joseph-curtin
Temperatures are currently lower than the IPCC AR4 "commitment" scenario which is based on zero emission growth in CO2 since 2000.
The February NDCD/NOAA anomaly fell to 0.41c, which is lower than 1983, for the second time in three years.
You are entitled to your opinion QV. What proportion of sceptics think man made climate change isn't taking place, like you, would you say?
Tried two operating systems and three browsers - not working for me :-(
Worked for me when I clicked on RTE player XL in the bottom right corner of the page and found it from there. On firefox but I had to allow the page on noscript.
rather good!
I found it quite extraordinary. In 50 years time when people look back on programmes like this what will they think about us?
It's like being thrown back into medieval times. I appreciate that Benny Peiser is aware of the fact that you cannot simply say to the other panelists...for christ's sake get a grip , what planet do you live on...but this was a highly depressing programme. God help us if we ever have to deal with a real existential crisis...perhaps smug, over-indulged western europeans need to believe their pampered existence is somehow threatened by an innocuous trace gas..but please don't bore us with it...go to a africa and live in poverty for the rest of your life. Beyond satire.
Richard Drake,
How would I know that?
How much of weather is "climate change"?
Look again at Prof Ray Bates contribution.
I think he is a closet sceptic
Thanks Rc - RTE player XL in the bottom right corner of the page does the trick :-)
I though Benny did really well under difficult circumstances.
The baggage some of the people involved brought to the debate was quite something. Initially, there was some talk about the science followed by some agreement then Joe Curtin started from the standpoint of the EU regulations! As if that mattered in the real world. Still, it is what he does, apparently. Thereby neatly side-stepping anything about science, logic or common sense.
Then there was the contribution from the audience from the committed female activist person. She wanted to be part of something in Ireland but no-one had set it up for her yet. Another one living on a different planet. If only this new organisation existed then she could make things so much better - even though the EU was already doing it.
Joe Curtin needs to have a few days in the Big Brother House ...
... with Marc Morano and Christopher Monckton.
Richard Drake (Mar 20, 2014 at 5:36 AM): one thing you did overlook, regarding the questing for solutions – if there is no problem, why is a solution required?
Like Ed B, I am also out and about, with a link that must use carrier pigeons, it is so slow; hopefully, I will be able to view the link in a few days.
Good points, QV, and, to answer Mr Drake’s question, I would have thought that almost ALL sceptics, while accepting that there could be changes in the climates, doubt that there is any “man-made” climate change (unless he means “Mann-made™”).
Good for RTE. I would have bet money they would fold the programme. It appears Ireland is a considerably more free country than Britain where the totalitarian BBC writ runs.
For some reason, Joseph Curtin reminded me a little of Father Austin Purcell, from Father Ted.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=aE_p0fjwjoI
Radical Rodent:
I didn't overlook it at all. I suggest we all try, please, to distinguish between giving a fair account of what Benny Peiser managed to achieve in extremely adverse circumstances and our own pet peeves about this, that and the other in the climate debate. Benny was not given the option of presenting no solution, either by the moderator or by the annoying green lackey on her left. Well, of course he could have said "I have no solution and I don't need one, because there's no problem or possibility of a problem, anywhere or at any time." However good that might sound in the echo chamber that is Bishop Hill (sadly, not least because of the low quality of troll here) it would have gone down like a lead balloon at that particular moment of the show. And, in real time, under such unfair and unjustified pressure, Benny came out with a quite brilliant answer. I won't reprise it here - I've already summarised it above. But anonymous critics here have a long way to go gain anything like the respect Dr Peiser earned from me just for that one response.
Wow. So burning the savannah made no difference to the climate? Building cities hasn't? Emitting aerosols hasn't? Nor CO2, methane or anything else?
I'm clearly not in the set of 'almost ALL sceptics' and, the way you tell it, I'm highly relieved not to be.
Richard Drake: alas, as intimated above, I have yet to see the programme (and may never see it, if it goes off-line before I get home), so your point is taken and my wrist is slapped. My reading of your post was that it you are of the opinion that there is a problem, which is why I responded as I did.
As for humans changing local climates, there is the point that many species are attempting to change the climate for their own gain; it is just a question of scale – termites control their climate very carefully, as do bees, ants and other arthropods; beaver build dams; elephants rip up trees; all of these will affect the local climate. However, perhaps the most radical attempts to control the climate is performed by plants – many actually depend upon fire for their propagation, and others for the elimination of competition, and pests and parasites (such examples are found in the southern States, South Africa, and especially Australia – where the press releases of last year lingered on the devastated houses, yet studiously ignored the still-lush trees), and it is widely acknowledge that it is because of the trees in Amazonia that the climate is wet enough to become a rain-forest.
As for emitting aerosols, surely volcanoes are amongst the worst of culprits, there, making human efforts appear puny? My understanding is that the proportion of CO2 increase attributable to humans is about 3% - again, we are small fry. Methane? Once more, a lot of that seems to be self-generating, from the soil and slow release from melting permafrost, though what proportion is natural and what is human emission, I have no idea.
RR: Thank you for taking the point. Any perceived slapping of the wrist was I'm sure a mistimed high-five given how much we agree on the essentials.
As I've said again recently I'm the ultimate agnostic on how much man affects climate. All I'm sure about is that we have no rational basis for alarm in this area. Genocide yes, poverty without hope of progress in the bottom billion yes, malaria yes, fuel poverty yes ... climate change doesn't deserve to appear on the same page, except insofar as misconceived 'mitigation' makes some of these problems worse.
This relates to how Benny dealt with the demand on live TV for him to come up with a 'solution' - even though you, he and I would I'm sure agree that the problem itself is far from firmly established. Instead our man took a creative swipe at the bouncer by interpreting it as follows: you are demanding a solution so there must be a real problem you have in mind. Poverty in the world is a real problem - I choose to interpret your demand in those terms therefore. (Actually doing the questioners a favour in the final analysis - but most of all confused listeners.) This umpire signalled a six without hesitation. But there's more cheating in the coming overs (further media debates) to look forward to, no doubt, before the match is decisively swung in favour of truth and justice.
"Wow. So burning the savannah made no difference to the climate? Building cities hasn't? Emitting aerosols hasn't? Nor CO2, methane or anything else?"
Sorry I thought we were talking about "climate change" arising from CO2 emissions, which is the whole point of the debate.
Some of those things no doubt have an effect on climate, but reducing CO2 won't have any direct effect on them.
QV: I've learned to distrust the 'royal we' in the climate debate. Bear in mind that in the segment you quote I was responding to Radical Rodent, nobody else. I feel I've now said enough about how Dr Peiser played the hostile bowling on Irish telly on Wednesday night. Good night and good luck!