Hugo's howler, Harrabin's howler

Updated on Nov 26, 2015 by Bishop Hill

The Spectator doesn't do a great deal on the climate front, but when it does, it does it very well. At the moment they have a long piece (£, but you may get a free look) by David Rose on Judy Curry, which although containing little that will be new to BH readers will be informative for many.

If it's pure entertainment you want, they also have a preview of Paris from Hugo Rifkind (£), a man with a wonderful facility for words, but also one who is just a moderately loud repeater of metroliberal certainties on the state of the climate. His effort this week is rather more thoughtful than usual, but he still retains some odd notions. Observing, quite correctly, that everyone in the UK is backing off green policy, he says that as a country we are starting to look a bit provincial:

Germany’s big push for renewables (which was admittedly predicated on an hysterical and frankly stupid post-Fukushima fear of nuclear) is surging ahead, in precisely the manner that Scotland’s could be if anybody still gave a damn.

Click to read more ...

A few recent headlines

UK climate diplomats face axe after COP21 Paris summit

UK scraps £1bn carbon capture and storage competition

Spending Review: Support for fracking and green energy, DECC budget slashed

You know that austerity is biting deep and hard when we can no longer afford battallions of climate diplomats to arrange showings of An Inconvenient Truth to the natives.

Yeoful fail

Tim Yeo's libel action against the Sunday Times has failed. You will recall that this was over the newspaper's sting operation, in which Yeo was caught on camera offering to be a paid advocate for what he thought were a group of green lobbyists.

According to Guido the Sunday Times has said that Yeo's evidence was dismissed by the judge as:

“implausible”, “unreliable”, “not honest”,”dishonest”, “untruthful”, “untrue” and “unworthy of belief”.

Oh dear. :-)

The perils of being a mouthpiece

One of the problems with being a PR guy for an environmentally minded billionaire is that you sometimes find yourself having to utter complete drivel in public fora. There has been a lovely example of this in recent weeks, when, in a letter to the FT, Lord Stern claimed that 7 million deaths each year were caused by pollution derived from fossil fuels. This was disputed by Matt Ridley, who pointed out in another letter that most of these deaths were actually caused by burning wood and dung.

According to the World Health Organisation, the majority of these estimated deaths (4.3m) are from indoor air pollution, and the vast majority of them are caused by cooking and heating with wood and dung.

Click to read more ...

The Royal Air Farce - Josh 352

Prince Charles famously talks to his plants - nothing wrong with that, of course. Our host suggested a cartoon where we listen in to what he might be saying (H/t Climate Expert James Delingpole). Let's hope His Highness reads Roger Andrews too.

Cartoons by Josh

P.S. Is there any interest in a calendar this year? I am a bit late in getting round to it but do let me know if you would like one - I should be able to get some delivered before Christmas.

Closing minds

The quality of reading out there on the web today is very high indeed. Take a look at Jonathan Haidt's post about his experiences when he spoke at a high school in the the Pacific North West.

But then the discussion began, and it was the most unremittingly hostile questioning I’ve ever had. I don’t mind when people ask hard or critical questions, but I was surprised that I had misread the audience so thoroughly. My talk had little to do with gender, but the second question was “So you think rape is OK?” Like most of the questions, it was backed up by a sea of finger snaps — the sort you can hear in the infamous Yale video, where a student screams at Prof. Christakis to “be quiet” and tells him that he is “disgusting.”

You can't help but think that children would be better off outside the American education system. I'd be interested to know how far down this rather scary path we in the UK are.

Nurse's last hurrah

In a few days time Paul Nurse will be leaving his position at the helm of the Royal Society. I think it's fair to say that his time as President has not exactly been a success.

Evidence of the rot, and Nurse's determination to leave the society as a campaigning left-wing environmentalist organisation continues to emerge. It seems that he has committed it to a ten-year involvement in Future Earth, "a ten year international research platform providing the interdisciplinary knowledge needed to support the transition towards a sustainable and equitable world". It remains unclear to me how such political objectives are connected to the Society's purported role of "improving natural knowledge". Perhaps they should rename themselves the "Royal Society for Promotion of Equality".

Syria drought claims are demonstrably false

Roger Andrews, writing at Euan Mearns' site, has just demolished the claim that the Syrian uprising was something to do with climate change. Firstly with an analysis of rainfall changes in the country:

The average [change in rainfall] for all seven stations was 7% below the pre-2006 average, decreasing to 4% when only the five “cropland” stations (Lattakia, Aleppo, Kamishi, Hama and Damascus) are considered...

When the Palmer Drought Severity Index is analysed, it's the same story. These:

lend no support to the claims that Syria suffered severe and widespread drought after 2006.

There is also some very interesting analysis of what may have been behind the Syrian uprising (our old friend the government).

This is devastating. Read the whole thing.

Security oversight

The Commons Energy and Climate Change Committee is going to be considering security of supply this morning from 10am (they are doing the Green Deal at time of writing). The are going to hear from:

• Cordi O'Hara, Director, UK System Operator
• Duncan Burt, Head, Operate the System
• Ro Quinn, Head, Energy Strategy and Policy, National Grid.

With this latest incarnation of the committee, it's probably best not to hold any great expectations of penetrating questions being delivered.

More 403s

Readers are still complaining of 403 errors, which seems to be caused by posting of multiple comments in a short space of time. I have chased Squarespace and they have asked for more screenshots of the error messages - they think there may be a different one now. If readers could oblige by sending pics to me or to Squarespace (via the email address given previously) that would be good.

Quote of the day, science with Guardian characteristics edition

Without a Paris agreement, global warming is set to reach as much as 5C (41F) above pre-industrial levels. Scientists estimate that warming above 2C (35.6F) will result in catastrophic and irreversible changes to the weather, including droughts, floods, heatwaves, fiercer storms and sea level rises.

Fiona Harvey, award winning environment writer for the Guardian, struggles with mathematics

Exxon knew what the IPCC didn't

Bernie Lewin has posted another of his must-read climate history pieces, this time looking at the history of claims about detection and attribution of temperature changes to mankind. His point is that claims that "Exxon knew" back in the 1970s are absurd when set in the context of what climate science was saying on the subject of an anthropogenic influence ten, or even twenty years later.

It's beautifully written and confirms Bernie's place as an important historian of global warming science. You must be able to get a very comical juxtaposition by reading Bernie's erudite thoughts after perusing the effusions of a "proper" historian like Naomi Oreskes.

A change to the playing field

Doug Keenan has posted a note at the bottom of the notice about his £100,000 challenge, indicating that he has reissued the 1000 data series. This was apparently because it was pointed out to him that the challenge could be "gamed" by hacking the (pseudo)random number generator he had used.

Brandon Shollenberger emails to say that this is a terrible thing, but I can't get terribly excited about it. Presumably it doesn't make any difference to those who think they can detect the difference between trending and non-trending series.

Settled science

Much amusement is to be had from a posting at a blog called Sudden Oak Life. The author has recorded images of the Radcliffe surface temperature station in Oxford, part of the Central England Temperature Record and one of the longest temperature records there is.

It's fair to say the quality of the record has declined since the 18th century.

Read the whole thing.

Backing fracking

In a bit of a turnup for the books, a pro-fracking demonstration took place in Lancashire yesterday ahead of the appeal against the county council's decision to block Cuadrilla's planning application.

Video here from 9 minutes (expires tonight).

Ironically the following item is about the "Northern Powerhouse" strategy, with one talking head saying that it is a mirage and that there is no new investment coming to the North of England.

Funny that.