Thursday
Aug212014
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Oi, Lord Stern! Your boy took one hell of a beating
Aug 21, 2014 Climate: WG2 Climate: Ward Matt Ridley Bob Ward has one of his tedious disinformation pieces at the New Statesman blog, yet again attacking Matt Ridley.
Bob is getting something of a pasting in the comments.
Reader Comments (46)
"When climate change denial is promoted in mainstream news"
Which Nazi chose that headline?
My comment:
"Dear Mr Ward, that you are resorting to these tedious tactics of ad hominem ranting will not deceive intelligent readers of this journal. The fact is, mainstream climate science is based on an almost full house of basic mistakes in IR and radiative physics which no professional scientist or engineer taught standard physics accepts.
They arose because Carl Sagan 49 years ago, made two major errors in his analysis of the Venusian atmosphere. With other errors from Meteorology, this led to atmospheric science teaching bad physics. It is no wonder the models don't work. Until a year ago I had believed there would be 1.2 K 'no-feedback CO2 climate sensitivity'. Recent work has shown however, that the Earth's atmosphere reduces that climate sensitivity to near zero.
There was AGW from a different source, but it stopped 5 years ago. Go and tell your Master that the game is up.
You have to wonder what it's like being a person whose whole "working" life involves telling lies and spreading misinformation. Is he the same in his home life?
PB - Well said.
He is just an attack dog. How can people take the rest of the crew seriously? Perhaps they don't.
What is that polar bear doing in the image ? Last year it was in danger from a lack of ice, this year it must be because of too much ice
EO: The caption tells us 'Greenpeace activists led by Aurora, a giant polar bear puppet, through Westminster'. But my eyes and 40-year-odd experience of London tell me they're actually the other side of the river, in Lambeth. But Westminster sounds so much more influential doesn't it?
It's smoke and mirrors all the way down.
The NS comments have been turned off.....
Could someone link me to the comments, please? When I access the page, I do not even get a 'click here to see comments' button.
I may be being stupid, but I cannot find the comments referred to .......
Never mind, I see that comments were turned off. Rats!
Why would they turn off the comments? Were they not going Bob"Fast Fingered" Wards way?
Mailman
Yes, I wanted to see the "comments" as well, just to get a fair picture you'll understand. Obviously censorship trumps debate....and impartiallity.
Ah! I see comments are turned off so I can't even read them, let alone add to them. However, I note that Ward has a poisonous way with the invective, even stooping to claim that Matt Ridley has no qualifications in 'climate science'. Of course, Ward won't want it broadcast what his qualifications are.
If you go to the 'Most commented' tab, you can see that there were 36 comments 5 minutes ago,
I see it also says that it is the 'Online comment site of the year'. It must be a mistake that comments have disappeared ;<)
Yep - I have the same problem, can't see the comments.
If they've been turned off then it's pretty pathetic on an article complaining about censorship!!
But I suppose that's pretty typical for Mr Ward - oh the irony of this particular comment!! -
"I wrote a short letter to the newspaper to correct the mistakes in the article, but it refused to publish anything that indicated Ridley had made errors. "
How do I see the comments on the New Statesman page?
OK - I see that others have said that the comments have been turned off.
Frit - to quote The Iron Lady.
Philip: Seems they beat you to it. I just clicked on the most commented: Ward's piece was at the top but as soon as I clicked on it the link disappeared. Am I surprised? Ha!
Correction: My bad. If you click on the link to the comments you just get the piece back again - sans comments. So there may have been 35 comments in the last 5 mins but you can't see them - and I'm damned if I can figure out who could have access to post them (friends of BW, perhaps?)
@Richard Drake
County hall counts as Westminster I think.
It now says there were 38 comments 15 minutes ago.
FWIW: I've just emailed the comments editor to ask why the comments were turned off - even to the extent that could not even be read.
(His email address is in the 'Contact us' bit at the bottom of the page.)
Nothing coming up now Phil, even when you click on the comment bit on the right.
Mailman
"Although Ridley has no qualifications in climate science "
And Ward's qualifications are what, exactly?
Harry - I have just done the same thing !
Comments have been re-opened - BUT only for viewing.
Update: But you can still vote/like them!! :-)
What is funny is the sub-head, “Including articles and comments from figures such as Matthew Ridley and Nigel Lawson without balance misleads the British public.”
And articles and comments from such figures as Bob Ward without balance is not misleading the British public? What I do find particularly irritating is Ward’s disdain of the “British public”, whom he obviously considers to be too stupid to address their own balance to articles and comments.
(btw, I can see no comments on the site; has it already been disabled?)
I cannot find any comments on the New Statesman site.
I've had a response from web editor at New Statesman "I can see them fine. You don’t have an adblock extension on your browser, do you? I know those sometimes mistakenly block the comments tool, thinking they’re an advert."
I don't have an adblock and I still can't see the comments.
Update: disqus has suddenly appeared again and I can see them, but they are closed.
Comments have now returned – but closed. I suspect they are frantically engaged in damage limitation.
Re PB and Adblock: I have Adblock running and I can see the comments - that was a 'poisson-rouge' from the Comments Editor.
Bob Ward on flooding quotes the IPCC as saying there is no credible evidence for any trends (my translation), but poor river management in some regions has caused increases. That is, policy is identified as a problem, not human caused climate change.
clovis:
What, when it's become the booking hall for the London Eye and a McDonald's joint? The London Eye is definitely in Lambeth. Do you have a source suggesting otherwise? The space the ugly polar bear puppet is leading Greenpeace through is miles away in feel from Parliament Square and Whitehall, though a crow wouldn't take long to fly from one t'other. Another striking picture of the over-claiming to which greenshirts are addicted.
Wards latest piece is in keeping with a clear policy shift in the alarmist camp.
They are studiously ignoring the huge elephant/s in the room of 15-18 years of effectively no warming. Discussing that kills them stone dead, so they hunt elsewhere for easier pickings.
Likewise the clear contradiction between the IPCC's stance on sensitivity - increasing the range and refusing to give a definitive best estimate, with their increased certainty of man-made warming now up to 95-99%. Never discussed. I wonder why?!
No, their policy now is to discredited alarmists and project 'unfair levels of media exposure' and 'false balance' It's blatant nonsense of course, as the BBC, C4, Guardian, Independent and every main political party continue to pedal the AGW narrative for all they're worth.
If the likes of Ward are unable to seriously discuss how AGW predictions and models compare with actual observations, then suffice to say he's in trouble.
He is, and he knows he is.
"New Statesman - Online comment site of the year"
No comment.
Bob Ward's behaviour over this is truly shocking, and I find it a continuing outrage that a respectable university like the LSE continues to employ him when he fills his days attacking people through the media. He continually accuses others of distortion but is himself a habitual distorter. Let me show you how he operates with just one small example.
In my original Times article I said that "forest cover is increasing in many countries". That was the sum total of what I said about forests. It is true.
He said "This gave a false impression of reality" and that I had given an "inaccurate and misleadingly rose-tinted picture of environmental degradation". Presumably to justify this wild and ridiculous assertion, he went on to point out that net global forest cover is still falling. Note that does not contradict what I said.
I then pointed out that "Forest cover and density is increasing in China, Bangladesh, Vietnam, the United States and most of Europe, among other regions". I also pointed out that global forest stock is increasing.
He replied that I had made "misleading claims" saying that "more areas of forest are being destroyed globally than are being created". Again, note the bait and switch. It contradicts none of my claims.
He does this all the time, accuses somebody of being misleading or talking "nonsense" then quoting a fact that does not contradict what they carefully said and trying to imply that this justifies his claims of distortion and nonsense.
He also accuses me of trying to keep hidden my political and ideological affiliations from readers of the Times. That's just a simple lie.
Truly if climate change science relies upon people like this then it is doomed. Lord Stern, why do you tolerate such behaviour?
No surprise, i often wonder why he is a 'paid ' shrill, given his so paid at it , rather than just another keyboard banging fool has he often comes across.
@Matt Ridley: the reason why Stern and his attack poodle behave as they do is because Climate Propaganda is the tegument of a far more sinister endeavour; to use fake IPCC science to justify totalitarian control of the West and push the Third World back to the dark age..
The Far Left imagine it will destroy Capitalism. The Far Right imagine it will make them rich. The real nasties in the background intend to grab global capital for those who own the banking system and slash World population in an artificial Olduvai Crash. Renewables' subsidy farming and carbon trading are our version of 1930s' military expansionism.
My experience of Mr Ward, being only what I have read in articles published in various media outlets, is that he distorts almost everything he says, & he is not above a little exaggeration from time to time! He is clever indeed, but then so was Hitler, Goebbels, Lenin, Stalin, not that I am suggesting he favours any of those, just saying!
Matt Ridley if it makes you feel you better Bob 'fast fingers ' Ward is not employed by the LSE at all , the Grantham institute pays the LSE a big bag of cash to use part of one of their buildings. And the LSE finds big bangs of cash so attractive that that their academic blinkers switch fully on when they see it.
So Grantham gets to use the LSE has cover , the LSE gets big bag of cash and does not have to worry about Bob and his friends doing any research nor teaching in competition to them has they simply do not do any .
Bob is Grantham's 'boy' first and foremost , he has no academic role and does no work for the LSE, its Grantham that signs his pay check , but why given Bob's 'abilities ' is a good question.
Bob Ward is but the tip of an iceberg, to coin a phrase. Consider this:
Source: http://www.masterresource.org/2014/08/exposing-big-bad-green/
KNR the LSE has past form with turning a blind eye to the unpleasantness of those, like Grantham and his odious creature, Ward, as long as the money trough is kept full.
Does Gaddafi ring a bell?
@ KNR.
It's the Grantham Institute, not 'Graham'. Let's put that down to a typo or 3.
[now corrected. TM]
Having now read the comments, it proves that not all sceptic are right wing. Mr Ward ( Phd failed) is certainly a busted flush.
Matt Ridley
The history of deforestation/reforestation is worthy of another article. For years researchers in the field and activists were saying manmade deforestation was massive and the decline would continue. However Steve Running (not a skeptic of manmade warming) used the MODIS satellite to provided actual evidence that NPP had increased overall by around 6% up to 1999; ie the planet was greening apparently in line with global temperatures and seemingly this reforestation was more than counteracting any deforestation. Lawrence Solomon highlighted this in an infamous article and skeptics were apparently vindicated. However fast forward to 2010 and Running published in in Science magazine that NPP had gone in decline due to worldwide droughts. Here is the abstract:
"Terrestrial net primary production (NPP) quantifies the amount of atmospheric carbon fixed by plants and accumulated as biomass. Previous studies have shown that climate constraints were relaxing with increasing temperature and solar radiation, allowing an upward trend in NPP from 1982 through 1999. The past decade (2000 to 2009) has been the warmest since instrumental measurements began, which could imply continued increases in NPP; however, our estimates suggest a reduction in the global NPP of 0.55 petagrams of carbon. Large-scale droughts have reduced regional NPP, and a drying trend in the Southern Hemisphere has decreased NPP in that area, counteracting the increased NPP over the Northern Hemisphere. A continued decline in NPP would not only weaken the terrestrial carbon sink, but it would also intensify future competition between food demand and proposed biofuel production."
Now look at this blog post from another non-skeptic of manmade warming:
http://earlywarn.blogspot.co.uk/2010/08/climate-alarmism-at-science-magazine.html
wherein we discover that the alarm was totally oversold, there is no real statistical significance or robustness and that Running is quoted as knowing this but ignoring it purely to influence policy.
Taking a step back we can see that NPP increased up to 1999 and then plateaued - ie exactly in line with the plateau of global temperatures and ostensibly providing yet another piece of evidence for the unexpected pause and yet more evidence that warming is actually good for the planet in line with all we know from history. Notice also that whereas alarmists keep reminding us we should take the entire temperature record, not just the last 10-17 years for statistical tests, the authors did the opposite of that recommendation for NPP because using the whole record would not allow any alarming press-release or headlines.
Cheshirered ture , the point however remains Ward is not employed nor does any-work for the LSE he is a paid shrill for Grantham. LES fault is to take the cash while holds its nose over the very bad smell that comes from him.
@Aug 21, 2014 at 4:23 PM | JamesG,
Fascinating. I did not think plant life would be so sensitive to minor temps. I thought it would be water and CO2.
Has anyone ever seen Bob Ward and Ed Davey in the same room, at the same time?