Scaring the proles

A commenter called Sleepalot posted this on the thread about Mike Hulme's new climate course (for context see here).

Today we have scaring the proles. Yesterday,
We had narrative writing. And tomorrow morning,
we will be taxing them into the dirt. But today,
Today we have scaring the proles. CO2 bubbles
harmlessly through coral reefs east of Papua New Guinea,
And today we have scaring the proles.

This is the adjusted temperature data. And this
Is the residual anomaly, whose use you will see,
when you are given your graphs. And this is the raw temperature data,
Which in your case you have not got. The trees
stand unflinching, steadfast against all adversity,
Which in our case we have not got.

Now this is the graph, and you hold it like so,
And you cover this end with your thumb. And please do not let me
See anyone grinning. You can keep a straight face,
if you have enough faith in the Cause. The daisies
shadow the lawn with their leaves, never letting anyone see
Any one of them grinning.

And this you can see is our model result. The pupose of this
is to extend our reach. As you see, We can change these
parameters just as much as we please: we call this
building consensus. And rapidly backwards and forwards,
the advocates are alarming and corrupting MPs:
They call it building consensus.

They call it building consensus: it's easy enough
if you can keep a straight face: like the trend,
and the scale, and the narrative, and the tipping point,
which in our case we have not got; and the skeptics
excluded from every arena, and the advocates going backwards and forwards,
For today we have scaring the proles.

Reactions to Leo

A couple of Richard Betts' Twitter exchanges in response to Leo Hickman's article on climatologists talking to sceptics are interesting. Firstly this one with paleoclimatologist Kevin Anchukaitis, who tweets as ThirstyGecko.

Anchukaitis: Hopefully the Met Office had actual paleoclimatologists on hand for their 'conversation' with these folks?

Click to read more ...

Me and Richard B in the Guardian

Leo Hickman has written an article about the Met Office's outreach to sceptics, covering my visit to Exeter in some detail.

Last June, I wrote a blog post in which I proposed that a "meeting of moderate minds" within the climate debate might be a productive way forward, even if it's just to see if any common ground could be identified. The idea wasn't exactly warmly received - not least by Montford's readers! - but I still hold firm that there is some sense to this idea. It is, therefore, refreshing to hear that the Met Office is now holding such "conversations" with its critics. The testimony of both Montford and Betts show that such efforts can produce positive, if tentative, steps forward.

Hulme's new climate course

Times Higher Education reports on Mike Hulme's latest idea - a course combining environmental studies and the humanities:

"I have worked in the field for over 30 years," he said. "I started with a very numerical approach but became increasingly frustrated that science alone cannot motivate social change.

As a taxpayer, I must say I struggle with the idea that I should be forced to pay people to work on coming up with new tactics to get me to amend my ways. This seems to me to be political campaigning rather than academic research.

This bit made me laugh:

Professor Hulme - who also teaches an undergraduate class on scientific controversy - acknowledged that UEA had been at the centre of a political row over climate change.

"We have gone through a big controversy here with the 'Climate-gate' scandal, which raised questions about whether some scientists were trying to subvert the peer-review process and who counts as a legitimate expert."

He added that although his own emails were among the batch obtained by campaigners who cited them as evidence that scientists were manipulating climate data, he was "not in the spotlight".

As did this:

Insights from nature writing and eco-poetry will be considered alongside those of philosophy and science.

Who leaked the Hintze correspondence?

Updated on Mar 28, 2012 by Bishop Hill

Updated on Mar 28, 2012 by Bishop Hill

Updated on Mar 28, 2012 by Bishop Hill

There is some fascinating web-sleuthing going on in the comments on the Hintze email post, as readers try to work out who leaked the correspondence to the Guardian. Some clues have come from the correspondence itself, redacted versions of which have been published by the Guardian.

• Original begging letter
• Hintze's reply.

The original letter reveals that the requester was involved in the relationship between climate and health:

Click to read more ...

SciTech III

I hear on the grapevine that Professor Edward Acton of UEA was back in front of the Science and Technology Committee last week. Apparently there was a private hearing.

No details as yet.

Horizon on global weirding

This is a thread for anyone whose stomach was strong enough to both sit through BBC's Horizon and talk about the experience afterwards.

Beddington going

The Cabinet Office is advertising for a replacement for Sir John Beddington, the government chief scientific adviser.

The last three occupants of the post - May, King and Beddington himself - have been, to say the least, eccentric old coves. All of them have specialised in computer modelling and they have all seemed guilty of an unquestioning belief in the pronouncements of in-silico sybils, occasionally with disastrous consequences. Beddington has compounded these failings by appearing to work as a tax-funded lobbyist on behalf of the scientific civil service rather than someone who toiled for the public benefit.

It would therefore be nice if Beddington's replacement was:

• someone grounded in the empirical sciences
• someone who saw himself as a public servant.

I'm not holding my breath.

GWPF donor outed

So says the Guardian.

But he has nothing to do with big oil.

Ho hum.

Medics have too much time on their hands

The British Medical Journal returns once again to the theme of climate change, with the current edition of the august journal featuring an editorial and no less than seven articles on the subject. Here's the editorial.

Last week was Climate Week in the UK, featuring a host of awareness raising activities across the country. And next Wednesday, 28 March, is NHS Sustainability Day (http://doc2doc.bmj.com/forums/off-duty_general_nhs-sustainabilityday-of-action). So it seems a good moment to be publishing our Spotlight on climate change. The seven articles have been specially commissioned from among the speakers at last year’s high level conference on climate change, hosted by the BMJ in partnership with a consortium of other organisations (http://climatechange.bmj.com).

Click to read more ...

Happer in the WSJ

Will Happer has an article in the Wall Street Journal reviewing global warming science. Bob Ward says it's unscientific. I must say it seems unobjectionable or even irrefutable to me.

What is happening to global temperatures in reality? The answer is: almost nothing for more than 10 years. Monthly values of the global temperature anomaly of the lower atmosphere, complied at the University of Alabama from NASA satellite data, can be found at the website http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/. The latest (February 2012) monthly global temperature anomaly for the lower atmosphere was minus 0.12 degrees Celsius, slightly less than the average since the satellite record of temperatures began in 1979.

The lack of any statistically significant warming for over a decade has made it more difficult for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and its supporters to demonize the atmospheric gas CO2 which is released when fossil fuels are burned. The burning of fossil fuels has been one reason for an increase of CO2 levels in the atmosphere to around 395 ppm (or parts per million), up from preindustrial levels of about 280 ppm.

Climate lessons on Scotland

The Climate Lessons blog, run by BH regular John Shade, has republished an article from the Scottish Mail on Sunday, looking at how climate change is being taught in Scottish schools.

It's scary stuff.

A surprise from Norfolk Constabulary

Norfolk Constabulary have previously released details of their spend on the UEA emails investigation - Operation Cabin. This showed that no money had been spent on the investigation since February 2011, something that strongly suggested that the investigation was in fact closed. Despite this, the Constabulary insisted that the investigation was ongoing.

In order to probe this a little further, I requested details of man-hours spent on the investigation by month. If no man hours had been actually been clocked up over the same period then it would amount to pretty much incontrovertible evidence that everything had ground to a halt.

Today I had a response:

Norfolk Constabulary does not hold information relevant to your request.
...
Our Major Investigations Team have advised that whilst we have previously been able to provide details of expenditure which includes non-basic salary costs for example overtime costs, we do not record the time spent by officers and police staff on a specific investigation.
Officers and staff engaged on the investigation will have been involved in a number of other enquiries at the same time. Police officers may record details of specific activities relating to investigations within their pocket note book or their enquiry officers rough book. However, officers would not record all time spent on a particular enquiry therefore Norfolk Constabulary does not hold total hours worked by officers and staff on this investigation.

It looks to me as if there is some lawyerly wording here. If I understand correctly, they are saying that because they cannot provide accurate figures, they cannot answer my request.

I've asked them to send any details they do have.

Opengate - Josh 158

(Click for a larger image)

It looks like John Cook and co at Skeptical Science are in a bit of a tizzy because their secret forum has been exposed to public view. Their complaint is that they have been hacked though John Cook admits that their security is almost non-existent.

What is interesting, in reading some of the excerpts from the forum posted here, is the similarities between the SkS secret forum and the Climategate emails - i.e. we know the facts don't support what we say but don't tell anyone!

That's ok, guys, your secrets are safe with us ;-)

Cartoons by Josh

Planet under pressure

Lots of BH regulars are at the "Planet Under Pressure" conference in London today. There is a live video stream here if you can bear it.

Update on Mar 26, 2012 by Bishop Hill

Blimey, the talk from the eco-activist kids was so toe curling I had to switch it off. Interesting to see who is funding this particular bit of greenery:

• British Science Association
• Research Councils UK
• Sciencewise-ERC
• The Royal Society.

There's scope to reduce public spending there then.