In which I catch a Turner

I hardly know where to start with Lord Turner's talk, and to be frank I gave up trying to record my thoughts after a while.

He was quite good on the uncertainties in the science, going through the a series of scientific steps emphasising that we knew little about this one, this one was very unclear, there were huge uncertainties in this area and so on. He went on to describe how, based on this uncertain science, he and his colleagues had formulated a global plan for reducing greenhouse gases. This struck me as a little foolish, not to say rather hubristic.

The moment of drama came in his final slide, which was a graph from the famous work of Layard, which purports to find that above a certain level of wealth, more money does not make you happier. Turner's point was that even if the Climate Change Committee's prediction that their plans will not affect our lifestyles very much proved to be wrong and we did in fact become poorer, it would not make us less happy. There was, he said, "no doubt" about Layard's findings. The evidence, we were told was "overwhelming".

The only problem with Turner's story is that it is not true. This is of course a hotly disputed area of economics, with the so-called Easterlin paradox having been fought over for forty years or so.

I managed to get the first question and I called him on his misrepresentation. He then changed his story, declaring his full agreement that the subject was disputed. He said that he hadn't had time to go into these details.

Shameful.

A service

Last night's public event at the Royal Society of Edinburgh had the feel of a church service about it. The lecture theatre was packed and anticipation was high, a wizened congregation fiddling with the straps of their bicycle helmets as we all waited for proceedings to begin. Everyone was eager to hear Archbishop Adair Turner, newly arrived from the capital to give the sermon for the day. Also on the rostrum was a lesser eminence, the Right Reverend David Sugden, who just written a very exciting encyclical, we heard, on better forms of worship and how one's soul could enter the Kingdom of Gaia. Events were presided over by the vicar of the parish, whose name, alas, I failed to record, but who moderated in a straightforward and efficient manner.

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Haunting the back issues

Barry Woods is doing an excellent impression of the now-silent-again Haunting the Library. Barry has been trawling back issues of the newspapers for global warming predictions and has come up with this:

The UK is to be hit by regular malaria outbreaks, fatal heatwaves and contaminated drinking water within five years because of global warming, the Government has warned the NHS.

It warns that there is a high likelihood of a major heatwave, leading to as many as 10,000 deaths, hitting the UK by 2012.

Following a major consultation with climate change scientists, the Government is issuing official advice to hospitals, care homes and institutions for dealing with rising temperatures, increased flooding, gales and other major weather events.

Five years later

Guardian, 2 Feb 2006

Research published last week in the US journal Science found that not only could bioethanol replace petrol with big energy savings, it would produce up to 15% less greenhouse gas emissions.

Guardian, today

Turning corn into ethanol is not environmentally sound," said Bill Freese of the Centre for Food Safety. "It's really an environmental disaster."

Once again, we see that environmentalism is very bad for the environment and that its combination with big government can bring about catastrophe. 

The respected David King

The former chief scientist Sir David King is in the news again, this time calling for the Kyoto Protocol to be replaced with carbon rationing.

The world should abandon the Kyoto protocol on climate change and move instead to a system where each nation would have a carbon emissions quota based on population, the UK's former chief scientist has urged, in an explosive contribution to the long-running climate negotiations.

Sir David King is one of the most respected figures in climate change policy. He is the architect of the UK's response to global warming, credited with reviving the flagging climate talks in 2004 when he called the problem "a greater threat than international terrorism".

As readers here know, Sir David was responsible for a truly extraordinary bit of "hiding the decline" in his book on global warming. It therefore speaks volumes about the Guardian that they describe him as "one of the most respected figures in climate change policy". I hate to think how the less respected ones behave.

Mike Hulme on ABC

This lecture by Mike Hulme is interesting, if slightly drawn out. It is also frustrating not being able to see the slides. I liked the bit where he recalls rediscovering his former activism in support of the Kyoto protocol through reading the Climategate emails.

As he lists all the damage done by global warming activism, it's hard to avoid a certain feeling that the taxpayer would be better off without funding all these people paid to research climate change and promote "solutions".

(Tip of the hat to Shx)

So what about solar?

Following on from the previous posting, this thread is for any findings from a perusal of the solar chapter.

So what about bioenergy?

In the comments on the last thread, Pointman wonders whether there might be problems with some of the other chapters of the IPCC renewables report. This thread is for any findings on the bioenergy chapter, which can be found here.

This time it's hydro

Mark Lynas is back in the groove, relaying new allegations of bias in the renewables report - this time related to the hydropower chapter.

“The value of the IPCC report is weakened by the strongly biased treatment of hydropower,” says Peter Bosshard, policy director for International Rivers, which campaigns to raise attention of the damaging effects large dams can have on riverine ecosystems. “At least half of the lead authors of the hydropower chapter are not independent scientists, but have a vested interest in the promotion of hydropower. This creates a conflict of interest, which is reflected throughout the report.”

Really Useful Reporting - Josh 103

Links and a slightly bigger version here

Plus Lynas

Mark Lynas's willingness to criticise the IPCC seems to have created a great deal of interest. The comments on his blog post are pretty interesting, with Bob Ward on hand to apply the thumbscrews to the waverer and Lynas indicating an interest in reading the Hockey Stick Illusion.

Meanwhile the story has been picked up many others, including the Independent here, and also by Judith Curry, who warns Lynas about what he is getting himself into.

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Climate video nasty

These videos of a conference run by the Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences popped up on one of my Google alerts. There's a lot to see but it's all interesting stuff.

First up is a presentation by Tim Palmer, an Oxford climate modeller, who is particularly interesting on the large biases in climate models and the "misleading" way these are dealt with in "some reports".

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Ecocide - Josh 101

Sounds daft? I can think of a good example...

More cartoons by Josh here

Greens, scientists and bad people

Updated on Jun 2, 2011 by Bishop Hill

Updated on Jun 2, 2011 by Bishop Hill

Australian politician Peter Phelps has, in that quiet underspoken way that Australian politicians have, compared climatologists to scientists working for the Nazis.

At the heart of many scientists—but not all scientists—lies the heart of a totalitarian planner. One can see them now, beavering away, alone, unknown, in their laboratories. And now, through the great global warming swindle they can influence policy, they can set agendas, they can reach into everyone's lives; they can, like Lenin, proclaim "what must be done". While the humanities had a sort of warm-hearted, muddle-headed leftism, the sciences carry with them no such feeling for humanity. And it is not a new phenomenon. We should not forget that some of the strongest supporters of totalitarian regimes in the last century have been scientists and, in return, the State lavishes praise, money and respectability on them.

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Lord Turnbull advises caution

GWPF has issued a report by Lord Turnbull advising caution over UK energy policy.

Lord Turnbull, the former Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Home Civil Service (2002 – 2005), has called on MPs and ministers to consider more carefully the rising costs and economic risks of Britain’s unilateral climate policies.

In a dispassionate but devastating critique of current policies, Andrew Turnbull also criticises the blind faith in the propositions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) given that they do not bear the weight of certainty with which they are often expressed.

In his briefing paper for the Global Warming Policy Foundation, Lord Turnbull outlines the many doubts and disagreements that exist about key IPCC assumptions.