Whose logo is this?

It's your local nursery isn't it?

So whose logo is it really? Well actually, it's the new logo for the Department for Children, Schools and Families.

Is this meant to be reassuring? Have you ever been inside a nursery school? It's a great place to be if you're under the age of five. There's lots of yelling and screaming and chucking of drinks and wiping of bottoms and mewling and puking and running round like nutters. But no decisiveness or cerebration or anything like that.

So doesn't this logo conjure up completely the wrong mental images? 

 

Oh, and the logo cost a cool £5k. Cheap by government standards, but I reckon you could have got it done by Logoworks for a couple of hundred. Still, better twenty times too expensive than the usual hundred or so times.

Any economists out there?

The other day I was flicking idly through the channels on the telly when I chanced upon BBC Parliament, which was showing recorded coverage of Adair Turner's evidence to the Environment Food and Rural Affairs Committee. This is not something any self-respecting citizen should be watching, of course, but  it represented a welcome respite from the children.

During his evidence, Lord Turner said something which appeared to my untutored ear to be a load of old codswallop. He seemed to be saying that the Stern review had stated that reducing carbon emissions by 60 - 80 % would only reduce GDP by 2.5% - ie a one-off hit of 2.5%. On the face of it, this is highly implausible, but it none of the MPs picked him up on it. I made a note to look into it when I got the chance.

I've now located the transcript. While it's uncorrected, what I read there is pretty much as I recall from the television. This is what he said:

I think there is a very compelling case which is set out in Lord Stern's report and other reports that the developed, rich economies, and ultimately the whole world, can run on a fraction of the carbon emissions that they have at the moment. They can reduce it by 60 or 80 per cent from present per capita levels in, for instance, Europe, and the estimates that he produced are that the cost of that might be between minus 0.5 per cent, ie you do a set of things and we are actually better off at the end of the day, through to plus 2.5 per cent, ie we do all these things and the GDP in 2050 and ever thereafter is 2.5 per cent below what it would otherwise be but, as I made the point earlier, that simply means that you have slipped by a year the rate of increase.

[Emphasis mine] Can this possibly be right? Doesn't he mean that the rate of growth in GDP will be 2.5% less than it would have been otherwise?

Here is an excerpt from the conclusions of the Stern Review:

This is a major challenge, but sustained long-term action can achieve it at costs that are low in comparison to the risks of inaction. Central estimates of the annual costs of achieving stabilisation between 500 and 550ppm CO2e are around 1% of global GDP, if we start to take strong action now.

[Again, emphasis added]. This looks pretty damning to me, but I'd prefer a trained economist to confirm that I'm understanding this correctly.

Mind you, Lord Turner is a trained economist too (as he states elsewhere in his evidence). If he has got it wrong, I'm not sure what excuses might be available to him.

Sir David King flounces out

There's a lovely anecdote doing the rounds of climate sceptic blogs about Sir David King, the climate alarmist and former chief scientific adviser to the British government.

It seems that President Putin asked some of his leading scientists to meet Sir David when he went to Moscow as part of the entourage of the foreign secretary. King apparently launched into his standard spiel about how we're all going to fry, but was a bit taken aback when the assembled scientists told him he was talking rubbish. When they had the temerity to list all the scientific evidence which refuted his claims of impending armageddon, our man was left looking a bit of a ninny and turned on his heels and stormed out of the room.

The story is doubly interesting because it's related by someone called RCE Wyndham in a letter in which he tells Robin Butler, the master of University College, Oxford, that the college can expect no donations from him this year because the appointment of King to head Oxford's Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment.

The letter can be read here.  

Hadley numbers

One of the most annoying things about the Hadley numbers is that if it was, contrary to appearances, an honest oversight then it was all completely avoidable. Hadley is famously secretive about the data behind the HADCRUT index, only releasing the raw data to carefully selected people. They even have even stood firm in the face of Freedom of Information requests.

To that end I've written to Derek Twigg, the minister responsible for the Met Office and Hadley to ask him to do something about it. I wonder if he will try to convince me that it's something to do with national security.

Dear Mr Twigg

I am writing to you in your capacity as minister responsible for the Met Office.

I note that the Met Office’s Hadley Centre has today announced that it has found an error in the way it calculates its important HADCRUT3 global temperature index. I’m sure it will have been very embarrassing to everyone at the Met Office, and to yourself, to find that the figures reported to the public for so long have been erroneous.

For many years now, many members of the public have tried unsuccessfully to obtain the raw data and computer code used in the calculation of the HADCRUT index. As I understand it, all such requests are refused, even when via a FoI request.

I would therefore like to know the answer to three questions:

1. Do you agree that climate change is an issue of overwhelming public importance?
2. Do you agree that making the raw data and code widely available is the best defence against the propagation of errors such as those reported by Hadley?
3. Will you now be telling the Hadley Centre to publish the raw data and code on their website?

I will publish your response on my own website at bishophill.squarespace.com, unless you request otherwise.

Yours sincerely

Bishop Hill 

Update: Thanks to the Adam Smith Insitute for linking to this story. If any readers feel like contacting Mr Twigg too, I'm sure it would help to keep the pressure on. 

The Hadley Agenda

The scientists at the Met Office's Hadley Centre, have discovered an error in the way they calculate the global temperature. Up until now, the smoothed data for a given year has been based upon those months' data which is available - so the 2007 trend, as reported in February 2007, was based on data for January and February of that year. At the time, this gave an sharply rising temperature trend, which was rather convenient for the IPCC Working Group I which was meeting at the time, enabling all and sundry to conclude that we were all doomed.

Roll forward to 2008 and the data for January and February 2008 show temperatures falling at an equally startling rate.

And guess what? Suddenly the disinterested scientists at Hadley have discovered that their methodology is all wrong! They're going to change things to eliminate the bias. Well, bully for them!

Isn't it amazing that this indavertent error has gone unnoticed for all these years? Isn't it more amazing still how it only got noticed when temperatures were falling? Someone with a more suspicious mind than me might think these guys had an agenda!

It's amusing also to note that Professor Phil Jones, the head of the Hadley Centre (update: CRU) is a man with an extraordinary reluctance to release his data and code to outsiders, even refusing to acquiesce to requests under the Freedom of Information Act. We can reach our own conclusions as to why he might do this, but for the moment it's salutory to note that, had he adopted a position of openness, this embarrassing error, which surely calls into question his competence to occupy the position of trust he does, might never have happened.

(Updated to fix Jones' affiliation)

Property law

Much fun at the Volokh Conspiracy this morning, where you can find out more than normal people should want to know about property law as manifested in the Lord of the Rings. Apparently all that fighting and questing and general nastiness could have been avoided if all parties to the dispute had properly followed the law of acquisition.

Apparently Pride and Prejudice is actually a treatise on property law too. 

Muslim weather

The Archbishop of Canterbury has partially got his way. British weather has been declared Muslim.

It's either Sunni or Shiite.

(Pinched wholesale from Vindico Vindico )

More scientists speak out against global warming hysteria

Professor Mike Hulme is a climatologist who heads the Tyndall Centre at the University of East Anglia. He seems to have been starting to speak out against climate change hysteria, and he's put a personal statement up on his website outlining his views.

In recent months I have been chastised for some of my pronouncements on climate change. I have spoken out against the use of exaggerated language in the description of climate change risks; I have spoken about the limits and fragility of scientific knowledge; I have suggested that we should focus on nearer-term policy goals to improve human welfare rather than be so pre-occupied with one large longer-term goal of global climate management. As a consequence I have been accused of burying my head ostrich like in the sand; of undermining the power of science; of lacking passion about ‘solving’ the ‘problem’ of climate change.

This treatment, as anyone who has ever questioned the "consensus" knows, is actually rather reasonable compared to what some have had to put up with.

The rest of the statement sets out his views in more detail - the subheadings give a flavour of where he stands:

• Climate change is a relative risk, not an absolute one
• Climate risks are serious, and we should seek to minimise them
• Our world has huge unmet development needs
• Our current energy portfolio is not sustainable
• Massive and deliberate geo-engineering of the planet is a dubious practice

OK, so there's things to disagree with here, but it's a much more reasonable starting position than the standard "We're aaaall doooomed!!!" which most other commentators adopt. It's also amazing to note how similar this position is to that of Bjorn Lomborg who has been regularly smeared because of his views.

Hulme and some other scientists also have a paper published in Natural Hazards Review (subscription only, so no link) advocating adaptation rather than the economic lunacy that governments around the world have opted for. Predictably this is getting little or no coverage from the mainstream media - the only UK outfit to pick up on it so far is the Telegraph.

The world would be better off adapting to the consequences of climate change rather than trying to fight the causes, according to scientists.[...]

Their controversial view, which they accept will lead to them being branded as "the new pariahs of global warming", is that the world would be better off fighting the consequences of climate change - hunger, storm damage and disease - rather than spending billions of pounds trying to stabilise CO2 emissions across the planet.

Is the tide turning, I wonder?

The end of the enlightenment

Our European colleagues have been demonstrating the meaning of the European Convention on Human Rights, and in particular Article 9, which is on the subject of freedom of speech.

Article 9 – Freedom of thought, conscience and religion

1. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance.
2. Freedom to manifest one's religion or beliefs shall be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of public safety, for the protection of public order, health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

Note particularly the second point above. What we have is freedom of speech subject to whether the state thinks what you are saying is acceptable. Don't believe me? Take a look at this:

So it has happened: thoughtcrime is now officially a crime in Finland. Stating your opinion, moreover stating your opinions based of government statistics, is illegal. Finns may now only express a politically sanctioned range of opinions subject to supervision by official Gauleiters like Mikko Puumalainen. The fine is small but so what? The message is clear. Dissent will not be tolerated by the Finnish state. It should not matter a damn if you agree with what Mikko Ellilä says, it is outrageous that he is not being allowed to say what he thinks.

Can we leave yet? 

Something interesting from Belgium

No, really!

Inadvertently, the Region of Flanders in Belgium is positioning itself as a retirement haven for retired entrepreneurs from all over Europe.  In reaction to a decision of the European Court of Justice, Flanders has changed its inheritance tax legislation so that these businessmen can come and live in Flanders and save on inheritance tax on their estate.

This looks like it's going to be a scheme which is open to all but the smallest business owners, and once you're in, the rate of inheritance tax applied is Nil.

Toyota Prius

The Sunday Times assessed the economy of the greens favourite motor, the Toyota Prius, with an oil-burning BMW 5-Series.

And the BMW turned out to be more efficient than the gas guzzling Prius.

David Cameron, who found the Prius too small for his requirements, will be mightily relieved. 

(Via Lubos Motls) 

Government in miniature

Rumour reaches me of another government IT fiasco. Apparently the grandly-named Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care (SCRC) has created a shambles with its system for carers to report on how they're getting on.

Back in the good old days, childminders had a simple business relationship with their customers. If you had to go out to work, you probably found a friend or relative who had children of their own to look after and came to a mutually acceptable arrangement to have them look after your kids too. Money changed hands, and the child went to the childminder for as long as both parties were happy with the arrangement.

In Labour's brave new world, this is not allowed. If someone is going to accept money for childminding, they have to register with the bureaucracy and do as they are told. They have to fill in lots (that's LOTS) of forms, which need to be processed by a whole new bureaucracy set up for the purpose. Another lot of parasites bureaucrats will demand access to the childminder's home to inspect whether it meets the bureaucracy's definition of "suitable" and "safe" or not. They can demand any changes they want. If the cost is too high, that's tough. You can't be a childminder. If the parent has a different opinion on what is suitable and safe, that's irrelevant too. The bureaucracy has spoken. You may not hold opinions different to those of the state.

Now remember that childminding is not a well-paid job. So the result of the government's actions is almost certainly that there will be fewer childminders - who is going to want to go through all that pain, paperwork and cost just to earn a few extra quid a week? This effect is made worse by the fact that the government limits the numbers of children that a childminder can care for at any one time. Again, you have to wonder why they think that parents and childminder aren't felt to be sufficiently grown-up to make these decisions between them.

But that's not all. Every year, SCRC requires childminders to make an annual return. This seems to involve having childminders complete a whole lot more paperwork (it would do, wouldn't it?). There's a self-assessment form to be filled in by the childminder, there's surveys of parents so that they can waste their time too, and there's a new website to negociate. Quite why I, as a parent, have to tell somebody else whether I'm happy with the childminding service is beyond me. If I wasn't happy, why the hell would I send my child there? This isn't being done for my benefit is it?

So cui bono? It goes without saying that there is a whole new bureaucracy to look after the annual returns too. So the chief beneficiaries would appear to be the SCRC themselves. What a bunch of parasites.

Anyway, because they're bang up to date with all the latest interwebby stuff, the SCRC has decided that annual returns can be completed via a whizzy new website. Except that (and we might have expected this) it isn't whizzy at all. It has apparently fallen over big time, with childminders having spent literally days preparing data which has disappeared, apparently without trace, into the bowels of the computer. Apparently some carers have been reduced to dictating their returns to SCRC staff over the phone. These are the lucky ones, because apparently the phones are being diverted to answering machines now.

So we have a set of procedures that are not needed and a bureaucracy that nobody wants, all supported by a computer system that doesn't work.

Government in miniature. 

Today's must read article

An alarming article at Spy Blog.

Danger ! Draft Constitutional Renewal Bill Part 6 tries to remove even the limited constitutional safeguards of the "destroy Parliament" Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006

Read the whole thing, and then weep.

New in the blogroll

This is the first addition to my blogroll for a while - Head of Legal, the blog of a barrister turned writer.

What are schools for?

Robert X Cringely writes a provocative piece on what schools are for in the age of Google. Or rather, he wonders whether there is actually a need for them at all. Well worth a look.