Integrity and the climate scientist

Here's an excerpt from Matt Ridley's article in the Times a few days ago.

How unusual is today’s temperature? As I did this weekend, you have no doubt had conversations along the following lines recently: “Hasn’t it been mild? End of November and we’ve hardly had a frost yet!” All true. But then be honest: can you not recall such conversations throughout your life? I can. And here’s what the Met Office had to say about November 1938, long before I was born: “The weather of the month was distinguished by exceptional mildness: at numerous places it was the mildest November on record.” In 1953, November was even milder and there was no air frost recorded in Oxford in the last four months of the year at all.

I am not saying it has not generally become warmer, but that the variation dwarfs the trend. Let’s go back a little further, to the Middle Ages. It used to be argued by some that the “Medieval Warm Period” of about a thousand years ago, when mountain glaciers retreated, vines grew further north and Iceland was widely cultivated, was confined to Europe. We now know from multiple sources of evidence that it was global. Tree lines were higher than today in many mountain ranges, for example. Both North Pacific and Antarctic Ocean water temperatures were 0.65C warmer than today.

And here is a letter from Professor Joanna Haigh in response:

Sir, A quarter of a century after Margaret Thatcher first warned of the perils of climate change, it is disheartening to find columnists in the UK media still confusing weather with climate and anecdote with evidence...

Personal conversations about British November weather cannot be a substitute for global observations of climate change — not only increasing temperatures but ice melt, the migration of wildlife, the acidification of the ocean, and so on. These observations confirm that man-made climate change presents real and increasing risks for the future.

The green establishment is not exactly covering themselves in glory on the integrity front at the moment are they?

Comments

[Clunking Fist]

Athelstan Dec 2, 4:03
And yet other commentators on the subject mention the repeal of Glass-Steagal with allowing banks a smidgen of risk diversification. See http://stephen-haber.com/ His book “Fragile by Design: The Political Origins of Banking Crises and Scarce Credit” examines why governments often choose to craft banking regulatory policies in ways that stifle competition and increase systemic risk.

For a few more days, his interesting interview on NZ’s equivalent to the BBC is here:
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/201780918/the-political-origins-of-banking-crises-why-do-banks-go-bust

A spoiler: left winger, anti-capitalist listeners were likely incensed.

[Pcar]

@JamesG, Dec 3, 2015 at 10:06 AM

As for haters; from my standpoint I see as many on both sides. but then what you see depends on where you stand

I would advise you to stand somewhere with a better view then.

If you do you will see that outside Conservative and UKIP conference venues there are Labour - and in Scotland SNP - placard waving supporters shouting abuse, threatening, throwing missiles and spitting at those entering the venue. I do not recall ever seeing or reading about Conservative or UKIP supporters doing that at Labour/SNP conferences.

The most graphic recent examples of the Left's hate of anyone who disagrees is how moderate Labour MPs are now abused, threatened and accused of being "Tory scum". The same behaviour was evident in the Scottish independence referendum campaign where the SNP supporters visibly demonstrated there hatred of pro UK supporters.

Examples:
1. Nigel Farage having to seek sanctuary in a pub on the Royal Mile (Edinburgh) behind locked doors until the police rescued him
2. Jim Murphy having to suspend his soap-box public talks
3. BBC and Nick Robinson attacked in Glasgow

The threats and intimidation were so severe that extra police had to be deployed at many polling stations to ensure all voters could vote without interference and that ballot boxes were not tampered with.

Open your eyes and look around, even left-wing sites like spiked regularly cover intimidation by the left of those who have a different view.