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Bishop Hill [There has been] a drift of interpretation of the precautionary principle from what was, in effect, a holding position pending further evidence, to what is now effectively a stop sign.
Mark Walport comes over all real worldly
Bishop Hill Rumor has it that the Earl of Deben, the most notorious rake in London and in need of an heir, has set aside his penchant for married mistresses and turned his skilled hand to seducing innocents!
But if Lord Deben expects Henrietta Gibson to respond to the click of his fingers he can think again. For she knows perfectly well why she should avoid gentlemen of his bad repute:
1. One touch of his lips and he'll ruin her for every other man.
2. One glide of his skillful fingers to the neckline of her dress will leave her molten in his arms.
3. And if even one in a thousand rumors is true, it's enough for her to know she can never, ever trust a rake….From the blurb to Never Trust a Rake, by Annie Burrows
Golly. He doesn't look the type to me.
Bishop Hill Oct 3, 2014 Climate: Parliament DECC Quotes The Department allowed inflation indexation [of contracts] because consumers are thought to be better placed to absorb the impact of high inflation than generators.
DECC explains its approach to looking after energy consumers
Bishop Hill Jul 9, 2014 Quotes Royal Society Every profession has its bad apples, but most try to discipline them. The Royal Society purports to oversee British science, but where is it when its members clearly cross the boundary between dispassionate research and commercial interest? The truth is that the one disease to which there is no known antidote is panic. It is a disease that politicians and professionals (including journalists) have a vested interest in propagating.
Simon Jenkins considers alarmism in science
Bishop Hill My default position toward Nature...at least for earth and environmental science papers, has shifted from innocent until proven guilty, to roughly the opposite. I just don’t believe what they claim until I’ve read the paper involved closely, and since I don’t have time to do that, that means I basically don’t accept what they claim. I’ve just seen too much bad science and I don’t trust them to be fully objective and place scientific veracity over hype and headline. Sorry.
Jim Bouldin, an ecologist from UC Davis
Bishop Hill The average person who says they care about climate change actually has a substantially worse than average [carbon] footprint. Generally that’s because they tend to have a bit more money, and they tend to be people who like to think of themselves as multicultural and like to get out and see the world. Which means that they’re flying around a lot, and all that flying generally outweighs any other green lifestyle choices that they’ve made. You have a lot of people who are using reusable bags and water bottles, driving a Prius, maybe eating a bit more of a veggie friendly diet. But then they’re flying to Bali or South Africa or something once a year.
Ian Monroe, CEO of Oroeco. From here.
Bishop Hill Mar 7, 2014 Quotes I recall the extinction of the European textile industry happening before my eyes as a young graduate at Courtaulds in the 1980s. Chemicals could go the same way. It could well be another European dinosaur.
Ineos boss Jim Ratcliffe tells the European Commission that the chemicals industry could be extinct in Europe within a decade.
Bishop Hill
In the circumstances, you have to wonder why chemical companies like Boots, BASF and Unilever are sponsoring environmental groups like the Green Alliance. Perhaps we need to spell it out to them...
Don't do this. They're trying to put you out of business!
Bishop Hill In the modern British university, it is not that funding is sought in order to carry out research, but that research projects are formulated in order to get funding. I am not joking when I say that a physics lecturer called Einstein, who just thought about the Universe would risk being sacked because he brought in no grants.
From a letter to the Times by Prof Sir Fergus Millar.
Bishop Hill May 1, 2013 Energy: grid Quotes [It's a] struggle to find a single fund manager that believes energy policy is credible... That is why they are not investing.
Bishop Hill Oct 16, 2012 Energy: other Quotes I did really hear the story that a Minister, when told that the 'renewable energy facility' he was inspecting was limited by the Second Law of Thermodynamics, suggested that an Act of Parliament could be introduced into The House to remedy the situation?
Bishop Hill Oct 16, 2012 Climate: MetOffice Climate: Statistics Quotes By Today's Moderator.
I rather liked this comment on WUWT about the spat between David Rose and the Met Office and whether global warming has recently stopped or not .
the duke October 13, 7.14pm.
So, should we all conclude that temperatures are relatively normal, or temporarily normal, or abnormally normal, or apparently normal on a continuing but wholly unpredictable basis? Or are there other possibilities?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/10/13/report-global-warming-stopped-16-years-ago/
Bishop Hill Jun 4, 2012 Climate: other Quotes But with regard to the merely contingent, or, as it may be called, constructive injury which a person causes to society, by conduct which neither violates any specific duty to the public, nor occasions perceptible hurt to any assignable individual except himself; the inconvenience is one which society can afford to bear, for the sake of the greater good of human freedom.
Bishop Hill Apr 24, 2012 Climate: Sceptics Quotes ...science writer and academic Ben Goldacre would rather slam his “cock in a door” than engage in a phony debate with climate change deniers.
From here.
Bishop Hill Jan 18, 2012 FOI Quotes Royal Society I am all for making things available but, at the same time, I shall mention something which is perhaps tactless-if not even politically incorrect-which is that the Freedom of Information Act has, as many of your Lordships will know, been used as a weapon of harassment in some circumstances. The climate change community in general, and the community at the University of East Anglia in particular, have not only been subject to criminal invasion of their databases, carefully timed for particular events, but are continually bombarded with very elaborate requests for information that go well beyond the sharing of basic data, so we have to be careful in how we draft this.
Lord May of Oxford seems to oppose attempts to replicate climate scientists' work
Bishop Hill Jan 16, 2012 Climate: other Quotes Royal Society When I’m asked about the science I always start with the measured rise in atmospheric CO2 (the Keeling curve). This rise isn’t controversial; nor is its attribution mainly to the burning of fossil fuels. Straightforward chemistry tells us that the CO2 build-up will induce a long-term warming trend, superimposed on all the other complicated effects that make climate fluctuate.
Martin Rees is seems confused over scientific disciplines
