Horizon open thread

Here's an open thread for those who want to discuss the BBC Horizon show on climate change coverage.

Comments

[M Courtney]

I watched it all and my constructive conclusion was posted on the Unthreaded thread.

Climate Change: A Horizon Guide was most illuminating.

It charted the decline in Horizon. That may be a reasonable proxy for the BBC License Fee's justification.

It should have been scrapped around the year 2000.

In my opinion.

Or for short; Tsk.

[richard verney]

I do not know what to make of the programme since it was in essence a history piece replaying past episodes of Horizon. Seeing a re-run of the Nurse presentation reminded one of how woefully inadequate his presentation was and how it disenguously gave the imprssion that following Climategate, the science had been reviewed and found not to be wanting. There was no critical examination of where we stand today, and whether the past programmes need to be updated/corrected in the light of matters that have since come to light and in particular the pause which has not beemn anticiapated or modelled by any of the CGMs.

Some good comments were made on clouds, and the complexity of the system but no attempt to tie that in to the shortcomings of climate models.

I fully agree that the licence fee should have ben scrapped long ago.

If people want to pay for political and environmental/liberal/left wing bias, that is fine, but it should be a personal choice and not forced upon everyone. Commercially funded TV should be free to watch (indeed I would go as far as saying it is a human right and I am a little surprised that the BBC licence fee cases have not been defended on the basis of infringement of human rights given how woolly that legislation appears to be), and the BBC should be funded by those who wish to watch BBC output by way of some form of viewing card subscription levied on those who wish to see it.

[Gavin]

Aye - like yourself Mr. Courtney, I am a left leaning sceptic and 20 years ago would have defended the BBC and the licence fee as flawed, but yards better than anything else on offer. Not so now; arrogant, unaware of their own partisan tendencies, self obsessed, and ultimately no more credible than Fox News. Time to scrap the licence fee and let them sink or swim according to the quality of their product.

[dodgy geezer]

Alas, I do not pay the license fee and therefore do not watch broadcast BBC.

But since most things are available on Iplayer for free, I don't think I'm missing anything...

[BLACK PEARL]

Mar 4, 2015 at 11:42 PM | Gavin
******
Ditto on that

[Paul]

Programmes like this demonstrate exactly why it is pointless to paint oneself as a lukewarmer. The only way to combat this propaganda is to state that there is no human induced climate change. None!
To do otherwise is tantamount to saying that carbon dioxide has some effect on the climate which it most certainly doesn't.
It is obvious to anyone that this programme had it's own agenda from the first frame. They spent little time discussing the global cooling alarm. They had virtually no opinion from the denial side. All in all it turned as yet another propaganda piece from BBC greenpeace.
Even Attenborough disgraced our screens. Ugly. Very ugly.

[Stuart B]

I remember reading Kuhn's (now much referred-to) book 'The structure of scientific revolutions' in the 70's and thinking it would be rather exciting to live in one of those times he described, of scientific paradigm-change. Times when an increasingly embattled 'standard' world view was being defended, against the evidence, and by increasingly bizarre and extreme means, including vicious personal attacks, a refusal to debate openly, and a collective 'circling of the wagons' by the ruling elite..

I didn't dream I would have the privilege of actually having a ringside seat, as it were, during such a period of revolution and upheaval - but here we are, right in the middle of it! How wonderful! It looks very much to me as if the collective failure of climate models to provide adequate forecasts, despite all the increasingly desperate attempts to shore them up with dubious statistical methods, various 'data crimes', ad hom attacks on the opposition, secrecy of all kinds - this is so reminiscent of the attempts to shore up the classical physics model of the universe, before it was all swept away as the dominant, authoritative account of how things were..

The only thing missing in order to topple the apple-cart of climate orthodoxy, is an identifiable single alternative model which gives a compelling account of the same phenomena. It doesn't have to explain everything - that is a task for post-revolutionary science to complete. All it has to do is pass a 'proof test' where it can definitively predict one aspect of the behaviour of climate, that is distinct from, and in opposition to, the predictions of the orthodox. That is, surely, the scientific task with the highest priority right now. The old models don't have to be comprehensively disproven, just undeniably shown to be utterly wrong at a single crucial point.

[Mikky]

More shameless propaganda from the Beeb, the only redeeming feature being that it was cheap to make, no expensive helicopter filming of Brian Cox on top of a mountain just to show how big the world is.

Sorry Helen, but your PhD is now null and void. How can you open with some extreme weather events and claim that "Climate change is all around us"? How can you go from "Climate models are wonderfully complex" to "Climate models are accurate, though there is still plenty of work to do"? How could you front up this monstrosity, and parrot the party line at the end about "its up to us what we do about it"?

This is clearly a BBC campaign being conducted at license payer expense.

[DaveR]

Many of the comments above would be entirely accurate after substituting (Australia's) ABC for BBC. There is no licence fee here; the ABC receives its funding via an annual government budget (hand out). Any reduction in budget, in an attempt to reduce the excessive bias and refocus the broadcaster on its Charter obligations to provide politically balanced commentary, is very deliberate and very public.

[Rob Burton]

Haven't seen the program but I remember Horizon and Equinox being good in the eighties. Interest in these made me go into science in the first place. Am I remembering correctly? Everything I see now is terrible. I saw one on the moon over Christmas and it started well with good explanations of the basic science, but then jumped to some barmy bloke who could provide all the planets energy with solar panels on the moon fort only 1/2 trillion dollars I think with a reference to that being only 2 years cost of our current fossil fuel extraction. Then it did a climate change bit related to the Earth's tilt and the ensuing disaster before casually slipping in the many millions of years this will take.

The seemingly smart presenter must have cringed having to do those bits though they seemed to fly her out to that wacky Aussie moon solar power prof (with the obligatory 'we need more money to research this...' guff)

[Micky H Corbett]

Stuart B

I appreciate what you are saying about an alternate model but that strays into the prove me wrong kind of argument. You don't need an alternate model - the default is we don't know. The task on modellers is not to data match. The task is to produce a consistent scientific argument with clear assumptions and methods as well as provide results.

And this is only to show a workable idea. A climate model needs to be subjected to rigourous review in order to make it safe for use in the real world. That's one of the problems. Essentially you have someone doing something in their back shed ( quite an expensive back shed mind ) and this drives economic policy. At no point in this whole process does any climate scientist or politician actually think that maybe if you're going to change how people live your data and predictions should be given the same scrutiny as those that make cars. Climate models are being used as if they are safety critical - but would you trust your life to one?

[Rob Burton]

Stuart B ( and Micky)

Plate tectonics was a revolution of the science. geologists jumped through hoops trying to explain things using the prevailing theories. Also the current CO2 hypothesis is useless at explaining even the last 20000 years as we have come out of the last glacial maximum. We don't need another theory as within my lifetime essentially nothing of note has happened.

[Phillip Bratby]

@Mikky Mar 5, 2015 at 1:19 AM:

I agree, but Helen Czerski gave up doing science once she got onto the BBC propaganda gravy train. As well as hosting "science" programmes, she writes a regular column for the BBC Focus "science" propaganda magazine.

When she talks about the heat-trapping property of CO2, the "scientific consensus", ignores the chaotic nature of the climate processes and ignores the "hiatus", you know she's given up science in favour of the fame and fortune that goes with working for the BBC.

All in all, a dreadful propaganda piece, showing how far Horizon has declined and how biased the BBC is.

[AndyG55]

I know its a bit OT, but people need to see this video. It speaks loud of either the blatant ignorance or the blatant lying of the climate agenda, very much in line with the meme of the BBC.

https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2015/03/04/settled-science-at-the-epa/

[Micky H Corbett]

Rob

Yes, I agree. My point is that theories are everywhere. Testable theories not so much. Plate tectonics didn't get traction until enough evidence was presented. And even then it was a fight.

Currently we have a material called Dark Matter. But in reality it only exists in theory. No one has actually measured and quantified it, at least to a level where it can't be something else. But it serves a certain purpose right now so it stays in the lexicon.

[Jonathan Jones]

The first 35 minutes were excellent, showing how good programs like Horizon used to be when the BBC actually did science reporting. Then there was a phase transition to 25 minutes of modern BBC infotainment and political posturing. All very sad.

[CharmingQuark]

Who was the Executive Producer? None other than chief activist and not too honest (as we saw in climategate II) Jonathan Renouf?

After "Meltdown" and "Climate Wars" how can anyone be surprised that Renouf disregards the viewers and drums the beat of his own zealotry.

I bet he wrote (or dictated) this in the Radio Times about the Horizon programme:

"There are some great clips – the scene where Professor Iain Stewart and a colleague get blown off their feet by setting fire to the methane emanating from a melting frozen Siberian lake is a hoot – and although the sceptics get their moment in the spotlight, there’s no doubt about the conclusion"

This smacks of "Climate Wars".- what a piece of work he is!

[richard verney]

"We don't need another theory as within my lifetime essentially nothing of note has happened.

Mar 5, 2015 at 6:26 AM | Rob Burton"
/////////////////////////

Exactly what climate change?

I accept that during my lifetime, Spring has come earlier and that Autumn lasts longer with Winter being somewhat delayed but is this anything other than a natural process coupled to the rebound from the LIA is moot, and more to the point what is the problem with this?

Climate is regional. not global, and is made up of a combination of factors, each factor having in itself a range. Temperature is but one of these many factors. There will be warm years, cold years, dry years, rainy years, warm & dry years, warm & wet years, cold & dry years, cold&wet years, years with little snow, years with much snow, there will be cloudy years, and sunny years, windy years and years without much wind, and there will inevitably be periods when a series of such years come in succession. None of that is surprising when one considers that Climate should be viewed probably on a millenial scale,

As far as I am aware no country has changed its Koppen (or equivalent) classification these past 60 or so years, and no country has even moved to being on the cusp of changing.

There is no evidence of any more extreme weather, even the IPCC accepts that this is the case. Infact, there is some evidence that extreme events (such as hurricanes and cyclone activity) is waning. There is a perception of more extreme events simply because of better reporting. We now know what is going on on the other side of the world, wherreas 30 years or so ago, this was not being reported (or at any rate not on a weekly basis).

The fundamantal problem in all of this is the conjecture that a rise in temperatures of around 2 to 4 degrees will prove dangerous, whereas such a rise might well be benficial. What is not being undertaken is a presentation of what parts of the globe are warming, what parts are cooling and what parts are experiencing all but no change in temperature. What is not being presented is how is this warming occuring in the sense of warmer daytime highs, or lowerer nightime lows, or perhaps only milder and/or shorter winters etc. Until one actually knows precisely how each country is experiencing 'global warming' one cannot even begin to assess whether its is adverse, beneficial or neutral.

But there are certain obviouys pointers.
First, bio diversity is greater in warm and wet conditions, and least in cold and arid conditions.
Second, we as a species developed in Africa where it is warm.
Third, for us, planet Earth is way too cold; if it was not for our ability to adapt ourselves and/or our environment, very little of planet Earth would be inhabited by us; we do not wear clothes for modesty but to keep us warm and there are only a few places where man can live wearing just a loin cloth.
Fourth, advances in development occur first in warm places. one can trace the rise of civilisations, and the change from bronze age to iron age skills by warmth; warmer countries have deleoped sooner. The cradle of European civilisation lies around the Med, with no advanced high Northern latitute civilisatiions, well perhaps with the exception of the Vikings and they came to the fore in the Viking/Medieval Warm Period!
There is a reason why the Egyptians were able to build the Great Pyramid, whilst we here in Britain could only muster stonehenge. Egypt was warm and life was easy giving people the time to develop skills and pass these down from one generation to another. The day was not spent simply surviving. In Britain because of the cold, most of the day was spent simply surviving and only survival/hunting techniques were honed and passed down from generation to generation; there was no free time to devote to other matters and hence the lack of development.
The same can be seen in South America, advanced civilisatons were not in the cold South but rather towards Central America where the climate was nice and warm.
Fifth, we know that cold kills and kills quickly. One can survive a day or so in a desert without supplies (and far longer with supplies) whereas in the Arctic or Antarctic survival times can be measured in minutes. There are great cities in the deserts (Dubai, UAE etc) but no great cities in Alaska, Siberia or Arctic, Antarctic regions. Heat is not a problem for us, whereas cold is.
Sixth, there is evidence of starvation and famine during cold periods, eg. the LIA.

In conclusion, there is no evidence of problems in the warm Minoan or Roman warm periods. everything we know about life on planet Earth and our own history points to warmth being beneficial. Why we fear a warming globe is a complete mystery and would appear to be based upon a lack of examination of the historical and archaelogical evidence of this planet and life on planet Earth.

[richard verney]

With reference to my above post "...or lowerer nightime lows" should have read "'''less low night time lows..."

When I talk about the cradle of civilisation lying around the Med, the trend is Egypt, Crete, Greece, and thence Italy and this trend correlates with the warmth of each country which is no coincidence .

Obviously during these periods boarders were fluid and each civilisation stretched its muscles invading others thereby spreading sill sets learnt in the heart of their own civilisation. Of course, the romans conquered Europe bringing and spreading skill sets to the rest of Europe but with high Northern latitude countries (such as those in Scandinavia) developing later. As I note the only high latitude civilisation of note were the Vikings (and they were not simply limited to Norway) and once again they flourished only in a warm period.

[And Then There's a Marxist]

I miss a new Brian Scoop "documentary": I need to buy a tight sweatshirt or sandals or something for my gay nephew's wedding.

Anyway, the bbc: my question is, I donut know if anyone has allready brought this up, I donut know why I need
to fund the lcopious privileged ifestyle of liberal retards when I want to watch Sky ??

[Geckko]

I puled the following from a post by an Alarmist on WUWT. He posted it as evidence that the "consensus" does not automatically discount potential positive implications of warming.

I think it does the opposite. Moreover, I think it clearly extends to all levels of climate "science", not just the area of adaption and potential benefits:

12.8. Adaptation Potential and Vulnerability

12.8.1. Adaptation and Possible Benefits of Climate Change

It has not been assumed that all the impacts of climate change will be detrimental. Indeed, several studies have looked at possible benefits. Moreover, adaptation is a means of maximizing such gains as well as minimizing potential losses.

However, it must be said that potential gains have not been well documented, in part because of lack of stakeholder concern in such cases and consequent lack of special funding.

I think that says it all - and straight from the IPCC. "We don't assume it is going to be bad, we just aren't bothered to find out if we are wrong"

No interest in whether it isn't as bad as they thought, or whether, at the order of magnitude likely, it might be net beneficial.

[Mike Jackson]

Micky H Corbett
You are forgetting that the climateers,Trenberth leading, have had their "with one bound he was free" moment and decided (on no evidence that I have seen) that the null hypothesis is what they say it is and it is now up to us to disprove it.
We had this ongoing argument with BBD (amongst others), if you were here at the time, where he insisted that the scientists had proposed the hypothesis and it was instantly incumbent on us to prove them wrong.
But I agree with you. They have yet to provide any empirical evidence that the climate is doing anything abnormal. When they do I will listen.
As for last night's programme, I was not permitted to watch it. Partly because Mrs J also has a high regard for Horizon atsit used to be and didn't trust herself not to send the set through the nearest window.

[JamesG]

I thought the bit that showed Richard Alley's Arctic ice core was most illuminating of the propaganda nature of the piece. The only thing Alley mentioned was that the Earth has seemingly undergone very dramatic and sudden shifts in climate many times before but;

a) they didn't mention that Alley has concluded that none of these natural shifts can be attributed to CO2 despite his best attempts to do so,
b) they didn't conclude that therefore this rather mild and slow 0.85K in 130 years could easily be entirely natural by a mechanism not yet even understood - just like in the ice cores, and
c) they didn't show the resultant temperature reconstruction that shows the medieval warm period, Roman warm period and Holocene maximum as all being much hotter than now.

Instead they skipped those vital clues that undermine the manmade warming hypothesis and went straight into a question of whether we might cause a similar climate shift now via burning fossil fuels and then segued to the now discredited permafrost-methane-release warming accelerator hypothesis.

I don't know if they bothered to mention at any time the Antarctic that should be warming too if the manmade warming theory was correct because I switched over but only an informed viewer would notice the way scientivists casually ignore all evidence that doesn't support the pre-determined alarmist conclusion so that the casual observer is left entirely disinformed.

Nor is there enough humility from the BBC about getting things so wrong with previous alarmist documentaries about ice-age Earth, global dimming, acid rain and a mythical gulf-stream shift, each showing earnest academics predicting manmade harm from fossil fuels that was either hugely overblown or outright wrong. At some point we hope they show the huge benefit that fossil fuels have brought humanity and perhaps even a demo of the optimist view that a little warming is demonstrably good for life on Earth.

[Paul Matthews]

At least the programme acknowledged the ice age scare, with clips from the Weather Machine - which rather contradicted the claim that climate change was 'virtually unheard of' 40 years ago.

It was amusing to hear her say that it became clear that the cooling effect of sulphur dioxide had been overestimated.

Then a few moments later there's a shot of the Jason report talking of warming of 10-12K!

The style reminded me of this recent satire on dumbed-down BBC science.

[Schrodinger's Cat]

It really annoys me that the national broadcaster should get away with waging a prolonged campaign of propaganda on climate alarmism paid for by public money. Where are the complaints and criticisms?

We need to publicise this disgrace. There is plenty of evidence as demonstrated regularly on this site.

[Jeff Todd]

The BBC always misses the elephant in the room; itself.

IF AGW were real and reductions in energy usage are required, the BBC should be the first. It exists only as a parasite and the broadcasting world will continue without it.

Abolishing the BBC would:
a) get rid of a large power user reducing CO2 emissions
b) free up court time and jail; no need t prosecute over the TV Poll Tax/Living Room Tax
c) give taxpayers a £145.50 a year tax break to put towards higher energy bills easing 'Cost of living Crisis'
d) assets to sell off to raise money to squander on windmills and solar panels
e) brownfield sites to build social housing on
f) all the spare 'talent' looking a job will reduce costs for other broadcasters

Simples

[Roy]

The BBC can very easily wipe the floor in arguments with climate change sceptics, thereby doing a favour to 95% climate science researchers. All it has to do is to produce a programme, or a series of programmes, about the Earth's climate in the days before mankind started to mess about with it. When viewers see how benign the climate used to be and how idyllic it would be to live in such times, they will demand that all CO2 emitting power stations be closed down immediately!

All that the BBC has to do now is to have a few quick telephone conversations with a few historians to identify this idyllic period in the history of the world. The ideal climate would be slightly colder than today's in order to disprove the arguments of sceptics who say that warmer is better.

When the right period has been identified the only other thing to decide is who should present the programme. David Attenborough is a "national treasure" but so is Bruce Forsyth and by the time you are old enough to be a national treasure you are too old to appeal to "yoof." Brian Cox is a possibility. If only he were female and from an ethnic minority he would be ideal.

[Ex-expat Colin]

The BBC's intensification of direct political activism is abundantly clear, straight into our personnel living space.
Never a day without Climate Change blasts both on TV and Radio (incl. World Service). Add the commercial channels brainwashing per 7 mins with cr*p advertising and begging for any charity there is. Don't really think they should broadcast that lottery and gambling stuff...thats applying temptation precisely where none should be.

I switched it off as soon as I saw Attenborough again. Old fart obliviously needs a few more quid. I'll stick to the GWPF summary here:

http://www.thegwpf.com/climate-change-by-the-numbers

Horizon? LOL

[Micky H Corbett]

Mike

I think I did miss the BBD spectacle. The prove me wrong idea is quite prevalent. Basically you need another theory to show my crap theory is wrong. Well no I just need to point why your theory is crap.

We often see prove me wrong arguments here with the various special commenters who seem more intent on levelling up in World of Trollcraft than actually having a discussion.

[Leo Smith]

Of Kuhn Philosophy of Science, and climate...

Houston: we have a problem.

And that problem boils down to this. Successful science that predicts accurately relies on the hypothesis of a Causal relationship between a simple natural law and the observed phenomena. Given the hypothesis, one calculates the result predicted and compares it with the actuality. If its way off, theory is bunk. If not, its cautiously acceptable.

For the vanishingly small and all well explored set of phenomena that obey more or less simple linear differential equations, that has been done, and works, and forms the basis for such science as we have.

For the vast collection of phenomena which obey non linear differential equations, it is simply not possible.
What that means is that we have no simple way to validate or refute such theories.

And given that they have almost no predictive power at all, due to sensitivity issues, they are, in any case, even if true, worthless.

Knowing the physics of rolling dice does not allow the outcome of a dice roll to be predicted.

Given that there is strong reason to believe that large parts of the climate are absolutely obeying deeply non linear equations (ice and water vapour represent non linear phase changes for example) that implies that there is no hope of coming up with a competing theory that gives accurate predictions - certainly not enough to be politically useful.

At best we can probably say 'its unlikely to get hotter or colder than X and Y, and extreme weather events of a given cost have a probability of P' ...

And that is of course absolutely flying in the face of everything the cultural Marxists believe to their bones, that everything has an explanation, a cause and a reason and therefore everything can be controlled by a suitably large human initiative.

The best scientific response to 'what should government do about climate change' is a two fingered 'dyb dyb, Be Prepared'

And dont waste another taxpayer penny on doing climate research. Or renewable energy.

[Gareth]

Jonathan Jones said:

The first 35 minutes were excellent, showing how good programs like Horizon used to be when the BBC actually did science reporting. Then there was a phase transition to 25 minutes of modern BBC infotainment and political posturing. All very sad.

Sounds like they moved the station to somewhere warmer without telling anyone. Are these compilation programmes an attempt to homogenise the record? Mixing good old bits with crap recent ones and pretending that makes for good new programmes.

I can guess that it is a canny way to produce content that isn't strictly a repeat but isn't new either.

[Bloke down the pub]

Last night's episode of Horizon was mostly a re-hash of edited highlights from previous episodes. Just about all of the arguments put forward had their errors pointed out when they were first shown. Repeating those points for a new audience has not removed any of the errors, and to do so without opportunity for dissenting voices shows that the Beeb has not changed it's ways.

[Pointman]

@Leo & All,

A link to a very approachable article on the mathematical terra incognita that needs to be explored before trying to model a chaotic system like climate.

http://business.financialpost.com/2015/02/25/save-willie-the-global-warming-movement-is-anti-science-oblivious-to-how-little-we-know-about-climate/

Pointman

[Clive Best]

The cold war ended in 1991. Before that we lived in constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Nuclear war was an ever present threat supposedly being detered by the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction. I used to live near Greenham Common and the convoys of nuclear cruise missiles were supposed to hide among the local villages to 'protect' them from a first strike! Of course it was all posturing, but before 1991 people had a real threat of Armageddon to worry about. Now they have only illusory threats to worry about .

The other culprit of the end of the cold war were the Communist parties of Europe, including various Marxist and revolutionary factions. These all evaporated with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Many of these activists have now adopted enrivonmentalism essentially to pursue the same goals of overthrowing western capitalism.

Like many things there is an element of truth in the global warming scare. Doubling CO2 is likely to warm the surface somewhat over a hundred years, but without too much noticeable impact. You would be hard pushed to notice any difference in one persons lifetime, and afterall mankind has been affected the planet we live on for thousands of years. For example we have cut down most of the trees across Europe, and eliminated dangerous animals. Our countryside is managed for the benefit of humans not for nature. There are just too many of us not to have a huge impact on the environment.

However the medicine being proposed to cure global warming is far worse than the illness. Why would you want to cause yet more damage to the countryside by building useless wind turbines? Their lifetime is just 15-20 years and each one will leave behind a thousand tons of concrete, wasted rare earth elements and 2000 dead birds and bats. Operators should at least be forced to decommission them and return the farm to green fileds - like Nuclear Power. If we were serious about low carbon energy then we would divert the vast wastage on wind subsidies into developing nuclear fusion.

So activists get a new platform to pursue their political aims by flattering scientists. Scientists can become famous and well funded so long as they keep the party line. The media can employ some of these activists who make lots of programmes about how serious it all is, and scare our kids just like we were scared by nuclear annihilation. Meanwhile global warming itself moves like at the pace of an earth worm crossing the Sahara. We continue to go skiing every year in the Alps and there seems to be just as much snow now as there was 30 years ago. The hottest year in the UK with the longest drought was 1976!

[MCourtney]

JamesG

I don't know if they bothered to mention at any time the Antarctic that should be warming too if the manmade warming theory was correct because I switched over but only an informed viewer would notice the way scientivists casually ignore all evidence that doesn't support the pre-determined alarmist conclusion so that the casual observer is left entirely disinformed.

Oh, yes.
They mentioned how the melting in the Antarctic peninsular and nearby islands proved that something seriously warm was happening.
The programme wasn't merely misleading - it was deliberately misleading.

[davidchappell]

As bad as the BBC appears to have become and the extortionate licence fee you really do have a far better quality of service in the UK than others in the rest of the world have. F'rinstance, the broadcasting service we have here in Hong Kong is truly appalling - ladies and gentlemen, despite all the problems, consider yourselves blessed.

[Alan the Brit]

I didn't bother with the 2nd propaganda piece the first one made me sleepy after a while. What would be good is for Bish to put up a link to the Wet Office's explanation to the DECC back in the tail end of 2012 after the very wet spring & summer & autumn, in which he pointed out they all but admitted they hadn't a clue what drove the climate system, with a raft of excuses as to why they hadn't "predicted" the rainfall, after implying that the so called "drought" in Jan/Feb/March could continue until December that year!

[Rob Burton]

Mar 5, 2015 at 8:15 AM | richard verney

exceptionally well put Richard that represents my viewpoint exactly. I am really interested in why the weather has seemed to change over human history. None of the stuff going on now even tries to explain why it might have.

Everything seems to be about money now which isn't what I remember about Britain 30+ years ago, basically every facet of life seems more 'corrupt' now for want of a better word. Even trying to understand economics better everything I have looked into is a massive Ponzi scheme. Being an ex climate modeller where are the morals of my fellow students. I don't have any doubt in my ability so if I don't like what I am doing I will happily walk away and do something different. My Reading colleagues were smarter than me so they should easily be able to walk into a decent new job....

[Rob Burton]

" or example we have cut down
most of the trees across Europe, and eliminated dangerous animals. "

Hence why the WWF and Greenpeace et al are always banging on about the urgent need to fully reforest Europe. I've been to the Amazon and they have a huge amount more trees than us in Blighty..... or is the enviros message different to that?

For the last 2 months I have probably been close to a 28-29 C average temperature. It definitely isn't disastrous. In fact when your bedroom is open to the outside world/vegetation the biodiversity when you wake up in the morning can be very impressive!! ;-)

[Robert Christopher]

Leo Smith on Mar 5, 2015 at 10:23 AM 'dyb dyb, Be Prepared'
We will dob, dob, dob.

Jeff Todd on Mar 5, 2015 at 9:52 AM 'BBC and elephants'
I am amazed at how many films, TV serials and soaps there are: it must be thousands and thousands! I am sure we could manage with fewer! If we can't light our living rooms with 100 Watt bulbs, how do programme makers make a case for consuming so much wealth for so little effect. Every flop is like a failed IT project or building that collapses: a misallocation of valuable resources. And yet, those in the media appear oblivious to the waste.

richard verney on Mar 5, 2015 at 8:15 AM
Thank you for your 'wander through the archives'. It's not 'peer reviewed proof', but it is evidence and it raises 'issues' that need to be investigated, and 'explained' properly. Some time ago, a 'leading sceptic' did make a comment about a composite graph, saying that he was surprised that it looked nothing like any of the graphs from which it was derived. :)

The whole point of a generalised rule is that, having been brought to our attention, it can be seen to be obeyed everywhere, even though it might have been hidden by other effects. What you have described highlights that it is not the case with any of the Alarmists' agendas.

Rob Burton on Mar 5, 2015 at 6:25 AM
Micky H Corbett on Mar 5, 2015 at 7:32 AM
"Plate tectonics"

What is interesting is that the original theory, of rock pushing up and driving the plates across large areas, is not correct. Only recently it has been shown that it is the descending plates that are falling towards the centre of the Earth, pulling the rest of the plate across the seabed. New rock appears from below because it has, in effect, been uncovered. Ergonomically it is a better theory.
It is a good example of a secondary tweak to a theory making it a better theory, instead of it being an excuse for an embarrassing inconsistency.

[Rob Burton]

" Only recently it has been shown
that it is the descending plates that are falling towards the centre of the Earth,
pulling the rest of the plate "

vaguely related I believe the whole thermohaline driven circulation thing has been massively overstated at times. In fact the wind drives the majority of the ocean circulation creating a massively coupled ocean/atmosphere system as they intrinsically drive each other. It really wouldn't be surprising to see decadal/centennial and longer cycles driven by this and the inherent non linearity of the system.

[Stuart B]

Micky, Rob, Leo et al

My point was not about the classical process of constructing methods to test hypotheses, confirm or refute explanatory theories or models, or demonstrating the power (or emptiness) of explanatory frameworks.

Kuhn raised uncomfortable issues regarding science's self-description of the way it actually worked. Issues of reputability, plausibility, free expression in an arena dominated by the mystique of expertise, not to mention the incursion of morality and social cohesion into what had often been assumed to be a 'purely' intellectual enterprise.

We are all familiar with noble-cause corruption, motivated reasoning, confirmation bias, and other phenomena which can infest human intellectual functioning, even in science, that bastion of logic and rigour. We are also familiar with pal review, mobbing, institutional corruption and misappropriation, and other purely social phenomena which it is now clear can entangle the collective organs of science just as they can cripple other cultural and political institutions.

In view of this, is it not ridiculous to suggest that the environmental/political/industrial complex which has wound itself python-like round society can ever be defeated by scientific argumentation? Can anyone point to a single instance of tyranny or oppressive orthodoxy which has been successfully blown apart by the power of superior arguments?

When a troublesome sect, cult or movement makes inroads and demands on society, our first instinct is to ignore it and hope it goes away. If it doesn't, our second instinct is often to reluctantly engage with it and try to demonstrate the error of its ways. If this doesn't work, then depending on whether its activities constitute an active threat to the rest of society, we either just live with it and hope it will eventually die a natural death - or, if it is sufficiently obnoxious, we (finally) treat it like the pest it is, and destroy it root and branch, with every tool at our disposal.

How far along the road are we with Climate Change activism?

[flaxdoctor]

Stuart B,

Stage 4, no question.

[Micky H Corbett]

Stuart B

Good comment. It made me think for a bit about the answer.

I think there are two strands to the argument: one is that only by keeping to the scientific method do you end up with any useful counterargument or comment. But it also comes down to the theorist versus empiricist polarisation that often exists in scientific fields: theory can be beautiful and nuanced, or so theorists believe, whereas experimenting is crude and often ugly, leaving more questions than answers. To an empiricist, theorists are just indulging in self gratification. At some point they have to wake up and smell the coffee - science progresses by testing.

This hope to "wake up and smell the coffee" I think is close to what you talk about in your comment. How do we change the narrative? And that is the second strand, that climate science has been politicised such that common sense and proper scientific method don't get freedom to be appreciated.

There's a lot of hyperbole and hubris that could be resolved by sticking to the scientific method on one hand but then on the other hand I think an argument stating the value of the science would also be useful.

What I mean is that we often debate the "science" but what we should focus on is the irresponsibility of using science to drive policy. And worse letting theorists dictate that, people who use statistics and assumptions rather than rigourous characterisation. The same people who drive in cars, use their phones and fly in planes, who don't seem to make the connection that the reason these devices don't kill them stone dead is that a group of people considered their safety enough to rigourously characterise and qualify/acceptance test these devices.

Climate models and climate science is not fit for human use. The problem is that the lure of theory and the presumed intellectualism of the "science" masks irresponsible decision making.

That's what we should focus on: that the IPCC are wantonly endangering people's lives and all just because people who are supposed to be scientists haven't followed the scientific method to its fullest: they have provided theory and hypotheses, and fair play to them, but it's not science in the true sense. So don't be taking it like it is.

I want to apologise to the Bish here for using a crude sounding analogy, but it is actually a brilliant analogy. It's about what happens when you don't follow tried and tested methods, but it relates to something I've done in the last couple of years : weightlifting.

One popular dietary and lifting regime is called Leangains. It was developed by a Swedish guy called Martin Berkham, a very shrewd guy, who realised that combining intermittent fasting with macro cycling can help people maintain low body fat numbers. And do this in a way that is psychologically easy to maintain.

You also lift with a minimal routine: short and intense. And you stick to the basic big movements: squat, deadlift, bench, chins, dips etc.

Now this regime is not a magic bullet, intermittent fasting will not make you lose fat unless your macros (calories) are controlled. But it does help you comply and maintain compliance with the program.

Martin however wrote a brilliant piece about the culture of working out a lot but actually not seeing any progress. He calls it "F---arounditis" - I apologise if the language in the link is strong but it's meant to be both humourous and serious at the same time - Martin's post

The take away is that you can spend 10 years doing "weightlifting" (insert science) but unless you track against known strength standards, all you are doing is wasting time and money yet to outside observers you'll be seen to be "doing something". Yet real results only come from progressive overload. That's it - progressive overload is what makes you stronger and has been the cause of getting stronger for centuries.

Unless of course you are on gear.

So Stuart, the first part of the argument is that even though we can't use science to turn the tides, we shouldn't abandon it. Because in the end it forms the foundation of everything. It also allows us to see the political side and the ramifications (second argument) but only if we don't spend lots of time "f---ing" around with the minutae.

TL:DR;

1) Pure Science requires experiments not just theory but doesn't produce real things - applied science, engineering, technical enterprises, practical people do.

2) Climate scientists and politicians need to see that by listening to climate scientists (who are mostly theorists) they are being highly irresponsible and downright naive. Why? See point 1.

[Daimon walker]

I think the skeptics here would try and disprove a black cat is black... Or indeed a cat.