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It looks like the Ratcliffe-On-Soar defendants will be acquitted. The prosecutor has allowed all sorts of bogus 'scientific' claims to go unchallenged. She preferred to witter on about composting toilets, secondhand clothes, Zac Goldsmith and Cheryl Cole, seemingly in the hope that this would convince the jury that she was relevant and street-smart and down-with-the-kids. Yo!

One example among many: earlier this week, an expert witness told the jury how flooding has already become more frequent and severe under the influence of GHG-driven climate change and that things are now so bad that in this year's Pakistan floods water levels in one place rose by seven metres within five minutes! If the prosecution knew its business, it would have pointed out that researchers haven't managed to find any correlation between GHG concentrations and the incidence and severity of flooding, that such a rise isn't unusual and that, for example, during the 1952 Lynmouth flood the West Lyn rose by 12 metres within seconds. But apparently Felicity Gerry waved this through and went into a long and irrelevant exploration of the merits of burying poles in East Anglia.

Gerry has yet to sum up but it looks as though the defence will win and the politics of self-congratulatory self-loathing will get another big PR boost. Mystifying and depressing. Such people are bulletproof. In ten or twenty years, these same activists will quietly backtrack on their more extreme claims and adopt positions identical in substance to those of people they currently deride as swivel-eyed fascist maniacs - and yet they won't have been wrong and their opponents will still have been swivel-eyed fascist maniacs. That's the way trendy lefties operate - and are allowed to operate. ('Join the euro? No, we only ever suggested that as a Gedankenversuch, old chap.')

By the way: the expert witness who lectured the jury about floods? His expertise is fish. Coldwater seafish. But he's a scientist, so whatever he says about anything even vaguely scientific must be scientific and correct, right?

Dec 8, 2010 at 7:22 PM | Unregistered CommenterVinny Burgoo

Past Actions, Present Woes, Future Potential: Rethinking History in the Light of Anthropogenic Climate Change
A Model University Syllabus for History and Related Subjects (HEA)

Either this paper is an excellant spoof or we should be really worried about the state of our higher education. An excerpt follows:

Points to draw out in discussion

In asking students to compare Holocaust denial and climate change denial, one might explicitly consider some of the underlying political and ethical problems with this undertaking. Appendix 1 illustrates some of the attitudes taken to this comparison and could be used to generate debate within the seminar. The key arguments against making this comparison are:

1. That it may be seen as belittling the Holocaust- This raises the question of whether different instances of suffering can be comparable. Can we, either qualitatively or quantitatively, compare the human consequences in two such different contexts?

2. That it may be seen as an attempt to suggest that those who do not accept the official line on climate change are as bad as Holocaust deniers - This accusation, some suggest, is already implicit in the language. One response has been to distinguish between 'sceptics', who sincerely dissent from orthodox views, and 'deniers', who are politically motivated, but this is a hard distinction to maintain in practice. Could we comfortably apply such a distinction to Holocaust denial? How can we do justice to sincere differences of opinion, while also recognising that other people may have to suffer the consequences of inaction?

These are important points and the seminar should probably begin with an exploration of the problems with this comparison.

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/heahistory/resources/co_Levene_PastActions_20101031.pdf

Not finished going through it yet, 154 pages, but jaw is firmly on the floor!

CONTRIBUTORS
Teresa Ashe is currently studying for a Ph.D. ('The Politics of Climate Change: Power and Knowledge in Environmental Politics') at Birkbeck College, University of London. She also teaches at the Open University

Sharla Chittick is currently completing her doctoral thesis at Stirling University where she teaches British, American, and Environmental History. Her inter-disciplinary and comparative research explores the way in which attitudes, behaviours, and values affect environmental practices and perceptions over time.

Tim Cooper is lecturer in history at the University of Exeter (Cornwall Campus) with research interests in environmental, urban and labour history. He is currently working on the history of waste as a way of exploring the political ecology and environmental ideology of capitalism.

Jim Galloway is a Fellow of the Centre for Metropolitan History in the University of London's Institute of Historical Research. He specialises in the economic and environmental history of the later middle ages, his most recent publications focusing on storm flooding around the Thames Estuary between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries.

Vladimir Jankovic is a historian of climate and environmental medicine and currently is a Wellcome research lecturer at Manchester University's Centre of History, Science, Technology and Medicine where he runs an ESRC project on municipal strategies in addressing urban climate change.

Mark Levene teaches history at the University of Southampton, is better known for his work on genocide but is also founder of the Rescue!History network and coordinator of this project.
Jean-Francois Mouhot is Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham working on the history of UK Non-Governmental Organisations since 1945. His background is as an Early Modern Historian.

Jan Oosthoek is a visiting lecturer in environmental and world history at Newcastle University. His research interests include landscape history, the historical geography of forestry and land use and environmental globalization.

Kate Prendergast runs the research and communications consultancy ISIS. Her research interests include prehistoric architecture, art and ritual and the ways they encode and preserve memory.

Dave Webb is Professor of Engineering, and co-founder and Director of the Praxis Centre for the Study of Information and Technology in Peace, Conflict Resolution and Human Rights, in the School of Applied Global Ethics at Leeds Metropolitan University.

Dec 8, 2010 at 2:30 PM | Unregistered CommenterLord Beaverbrook

Apparently Labour's refusal to pair the UK climate change secretary Chris Huhne with a Labour MP could force him LEAVE the climate talks in Cancun in order to take part in a tightly contested tuition fees vote tomorrow.

Chris Huhne needs to ly out by midnight tonight GMT if he intends to arrive back in time for the vote.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/dec/08/labour-force-chris-huhne-return-climate-talks

Dec 8, 2010 at 2:04 PM | Unregistered Commentermatthu

Here's something curious from ScarletPumpernickel's comment on Steven Goddard's blog. Apparently you can send money to the KKK but not WikiLeaks.

http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2010/12/08/assange-denied-bail-for-not-using-a-condom/#comment-19108

It's a strange world.

Dec 8, 2010 at 11:03 AM | Unregistered Commentertimheyes

Donna Laframbois has a post up today describing the work of a Canadian blogger and an Australian computer programmer. The dynamic duo has produced an annotated and hyperlinked version of AR4. The search capabilities are “robust!” Donna’s post is at nofrakkingconsensus.wordpress.com/2010/12/07/a-powerful-new-research-tool/

Please take a look at it. I think it is worth mentioning on B-H to publicize its availability. That should result in additional detailed scrutiny which I think that you will agree AR4 needs.

Dec 8, 2010 at 2:25 AM | Unregistered CommenterRayG

The mad Slingo is at it again - apparently the Met Office computers aren't up to the job:

"We recommend the creation of a small number (at least three) of highly connected multinational facilities with computer capability for each facility of at least 20 petaflops in the near term, 200 petaflops within five years, and 1 exaflop by the end of the next decade."

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2010BAMS2900.1

Dec 6, 2010 at 4:27 PM | Unregistered Commentersteveta_uk

From the Department of Clutching at Straws:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/8182279/Cancun-summit-cutting-carbon-emissions-will-help-combat-obesity.html

Apparently, even if AGW is a myth, cutting down on fossil fuels will still be good for us, because they cause obesity.

You couldn't make it up!

Dec 6, 2010 at 2:10 PM | Unregistered CommenterTurning Tide

In the Telegraph - Louise Gray

Says sea level rises predictions halv halved from 14 feet...

She say 6 feet is the worst case..
.http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/8182278/Climate-change-Met-Office-halves-worst-case-sea-level-prediction.html

Mail, says 59cm......


Met office only has press releases up to the 3rd Dec, at the moment

Dec 6, 2010 at 12:37 PM | Unregistered CommenterBarry Woods

Last years pre COP 15 6 feet (2m) alarmism has been officially called wrong by the Met Office.

Alarmist Doomsday warning of rising seas 'was wrong', says Met Office study

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1335964/Alarmist-Doomsday-warning-rising-seas-wrong-says-Met-Office-study.html#ixzz17KZaXtHJ

"Alarming predictions that global warming could cause sea levels to rise 6ft in the next century are wrong, it has emerged."

"However, the report says the IPCC was right to warn of a sea level rise of up to 2ft by 2100, and that a 3ft rise could happen".

Note it says up to 2 feet, and that 3 feet could happen........

Where as the most likely scenario based on observed sea leavel would indicate the lower end of IPCC predictions - 1ft - which is totally within the realm of a natural rise in sea levels since the last ice-age.

Of course if you are the Met office, at a time when the UK is in a massive deficit, you need to try to justify your exisatnce and research (1 ft natural, why do we need to fund you - asks the Coalition) especially as the Met Office were predicting a mild winter for the UK as recently as October 2010, when all other forecaster were predicting an exceptionally cold winter (cold records being broken across Europe)

I complained to the BBC about the 6fett sea level rises and uncritical coverage of the COP 15 video, showing a tidal wave engulfing a small child...

I had this response from Richard Black BBC - (complaint email - attached)
(which did not cover my exact complaint, cop 15 tidal wave engulfing child video, the BBC uncritically showed it)

Dear Mr Woods,

Thanks for your email.

Yes, the IPCC said a maximum sea level rise of 59cm. But it also said it
was unable to include a contribution from accelerated ice sheet melting
as modelling was not yet advanced enough - so the 59cm was an
underestimate.

Best wishes,
Richard Black
--------------------------
I might ask them to be a bit mnore critical next time...

Who exactly says 6ft, on what authority was it said, and what evidence is there?
Also, is then any conflicting evidence or papers on sea level....?

Questions that might be expected of an public service (BBC) organisation, faced with PR from a political conference (Cop 15)


To me, it was ALWAYS only a scary 2m sea level rise announced to encourage policy makers at Copenhagen, with no basis in reality....

A good friend - co editor of the 2001 IPCC Synthesis report (Working Group 1 Science Technical Support - confirmed 59cm WORST case, at the time)

So on whose authority and where did 6m come from?


Also: "In 2007 the IPCC reported preliminary evidence that the Atlantic conveyor belt that brings warm water north and keeps Britain relatively mild for its latitude during winters was breaking down."

The Met Office article also mentions that the atlantic gulf stream was not shutting down (Day After Tommorow doomsday scenarios) ?This was reported as a scare by the BBC this year as well, earlier (quietly) this year

BBC: Gulf Stream Not Slowing Down - Richard Black, March 2010
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8589512.stm

This year at Cop 16, it has been reports of 4.0C of AGW by 2060...

No doubt some 'alarmism' to encourage the policy makers at Cancun to Do something

I take that announcement in the same vein as the previous pre Cop15 sea level scare...

Dec 6, 2010 at 12:23 PM | Unregistered CommenterBarry Woods

Chris Huhne's trip to Cancun - like that of Vicky Pope - has also been delayed because of the "bad weather", according to the Graun: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/dec/05/cancun-climate-talks-ghosts-copenhagen.

Excuse me while I snigger.

Dec 5, 2010 at 11:36 PM | Unregistered CommenterTurning Tide

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