Books
Click images for more details
Bishop Hill Sep 30, 2011 Energy: costs ...but this time one that might make it.
A petition for a debate on fuel prices is over 99,000 votes - just a few hundred short of the level required to force a Commons debate.
Sign here.
Bishop Hill Sep 30, 2011 Greens This morning the British Prime Minister handed the Tesco management a final note stating that, unless we hear from them by 11 o’clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their plastic carrier bags from their stores, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this government is at war with both Tesco, and the population as a whole…
From the comments at Delingpole's blog
Bishop Hill Sep 30, 2011 Climate: WG2 Climate: WG3 Having heard Lord Turner the other day I wondered what sort of policy recommendations somebody with his approach to facts might come up with and so I decided to take a look at some of the outputs of the Climate Change Committee, on which he sits alongside such luminaries as Sir Brian Hoskins and Lord May.
This is the report I've been reading, and in particular I've looked at the bit where they try to determine what the global target for temperature stabilisation should be.
As far as I can tell the process is this:
Bishop Hill Sep 29, 2011 Royal Society I'm grateful to Messenger for pointing me to this excerpt from the Royal Society of Edinburgh's Facing up to Climate Change report. This is the winning entry for the schools' climate change poster competition, held as part of the project. Why such a competition would be felt necessary by a learned society is beyond me, but here, such as it is, is what the combined eminences of the society felt we need to be doing to face up to climate change...
Bishop Hill Sep 29, 2011 Climate: Parliament I chanced upon this interesting letter from Michael Singer, Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at Edinburgh, in which he takes Science Minister David Willetts to task for the state of the EPSRC - the funding council for the physical sciences.
His specific gripe is that the direction of funding is decided by the bureaucrats without reference to scientists
Bishop Hill Sep 28, 2011 Climate: Sceptics James Delingpole is interviewed on Reason TV, covering Climategate and the state of the global warming debate.
Bishop Hill Sep 27, 2011 Climate: Parliament
Updated on Sep 27, 2011 by
Bishop Hill
I've just been sent this video and transcript of Baroness Worthington speaking at an seminar called the CDKN Action Lab (H/T Barry Woods). In it she explains the roles she, David Cameron and David Milliband played in bringing the UK's Climate Change Act into being. When the time comes to point the finger of blame this will be a good place to start.
I started out in climate change, possibly like other people. My main passion after leaving university was environmental protection and biodiversity and habitats protection and species conservation.
Bishop Hill Sep 27, 2011 Climate: Parliament Climate: WG3 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.
Bishop Hill Sep 27, 2011 Climate: WG3 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.
Bishop Hill Sep 26, 2011 Climate: other Geophysical Research Letters (GRL) seems not to be bothered about its reputation. Just read Roger Pielke Jnr's latest correspondence with the journal.
Bishop Hill Sep 26, 2011 Climate: other Economics Royal Society Edinburgh Tonight, I'm off to the Royal Society of Edinburgh for a discussion forum:
Facing up to Climate Change
Climate change will affect us all, for example in energy, food security, population migration and competition for resources. Scotland, given its long history as a major contributor to rising greenhouse gas levels and access to renewable energy resources, has a role to play. The RSE Inquiry ‘Facing up to Climate Change’ sought evidence from a wide variety of people and organisations to highlight the opportunities of a transition to a low-carbon future and the barriers to change. Lord Turner and Professor Sugden will discuss what the challenges are and what the future may hold.
I wonder if Geoffrey Boulton will be there. I'll be tweeting occasionally.
Bishop Hill Sep 26, 2011 FOI The Information Commissioner has issued new guidance for universities on FOI compliance.
The guidance has been put together following recommendations made in the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee report on the disclosure of data about climate change involving the University of East Anglia. It aims to increase academics’ and researchers’ understanding of freedom of information legislation and to help practitioners to comply with their legal obligations.
The full press release is here, and the guidance here.
I have no time to read this now, so if commenters can take a look that would be good. The tone seems very much on helping universities to obey the law rather than a change in the guidance.
Bishop Hill Sep 25, 2011 Climate: Sceptics This appears to be the surprising implication of a statement by the American Physical Society. Hot on the heels of the resignation of Nobel laureate Ivar Giaever from its membership, the society has issued a statement declaring that it has all been a terrible misunderstanding.
The APS says it that its climate change statement does not assert that "anthropogenic" (man-made) climate change is incontrovertible – but that the evidence of global warming is.
Bishop Hill Sep 25, 2011 Climate: WG2 Damian Carrington has engaged in a fairly obvious piece of cherrypicking over the Arctic sea ice minimum and is taken to task for it by Ben Pile.
Bishop Hill Sep 24, 2011 Climate: Sceptics Gosselin is reporting that a prominent engineer has resigned from one of France's learned societies over its bad behaviour on climate change - SEII disinvited two prominent sceptics from its conference after pressure from the IPCC.
Thanks to Messenger for this rough translation of the resignation letter:
For the attention of M Philippe Wauters, President
Subject: the resignation of all my commissions exercised on behalf of the SEII and cancellation of my position as member of the SEII.
