Bishop Hill A meeting with Sir John
Feb 19, 2009 Climate So, here's the report on Sir John Houghton's lecture at St Andrews.
Sir John is a practising Christian and the lecture was part of a series on science and religion. It was filmed, and I understand that it should be available online in about a week's time at www.jamesgregory.org.
Sir John Houghton (it's pronounced 'Hawton', not 'Howton', I discovered) is a rather unprepossessing looking character. Not slick by any means. He dressed like a bureaucrat. I don't mean this as criticism - sartorial elegance isn't my strong point either - I just wanted to give an impression of the man. He has the darkest eyes I think I've ever seen. He is thinner than I remember him from pictures I've seen in the past. Older, more tired-looking.
The lecture was entitled "Global Warming - is it real and what should we do?". Unfortunately for expectant AGW science buffs, the lecture was mainly on the second bit, and I think this was a shame, because economics is not Sir John's specialism. It would have made more sense for him to speak on something he was actually expert in.
He started out with an admonition not to cheat on our children, our neighbours or 'the rest of creation'. For me, this didn't bode well for the rest of his talk. It's pretty clear that Sir John is a man with a mission. For him it's a moral thing, and he said as much in the lecture.
The scientific content was very thin. There was a graph (with a neatly truncated y-axis) of CO2 levels and an unsupported assertion that this leads to a change in climate. There was also a graph of projected temperature changes of between 2 and 6 degrees, extracted from AR4.
There was a lot of time spent on potential impacts - the European heatwave of a couple of years back (weather not climate, surely), sea level rises (photos of Bangladeshis swimming from floodwaters), more intense storms (these are apparently very noticeable), and droughts (photos of starving Africans. I found myself grinning at the nakedness of the propaganda. I hope he didn't notice.
My interest was reawakened rather when Sir John said he was going to discuss the uncertainties. However, I was quickly disabused of any hopes of a meaningful discussion because all we got was an argument from authority. The IPCC report he said, was the most thoroughly reviewed scientific document ever (or words to that effect). There was he said, a sustained misinformation campaign led by oil companies and the coal industry, which was intended to undermine them, but this attention had made the IPCC much better at their work. So much for the uncertainties.
Mark Lynas's book Six Degrees got a good plug. Sir John said even he found it quite scary in parts. (Ed: It's only a story, Sir John!)
Action to be taken included an end to deforestation, efficient energy generation and use, carbon capture, renewable energy (solar, tidal, wave, biomass (what, no nuclear?)).
Wealth has apparently come from fossil fuels (what, not trade?) and apparently we have to learn to SHARE (caps in original lecture). No political agenda there then.
I very much got the impression that on matters economic Sir John was well out of his depth. He said that the net cost of emissions reductions was zero. I found this a little surprising, to say the least. Sir John is however optimistic about global warming - because of the commitment of the scientific community, because the technology needed already exists and because of 'God's commitment to his creation'. Golly.
There was time for a few questions at the end. Sir John was not good here in my opinion. He waffled rather than giving precise answers.
He was pressed on his failure to mention nuclear power and he admitted that it was an option - one solution among many. On the subject of volcanos as a forcing he said that the impact was small compared to CO2.
He was accused (gently) of cherry-picking examples - he had mentioned warmth in Switzerland but not cold in China. He denied this, and said he needed examples which conveyed the message. The questioner also pointed out flat temperatures since 1998, but I don't remember if he addressed this point.
He was asked about very high levels of CO2 in the distant past (15% or more). Sir John said he is not a paleoclimate expert (didn't he give evidence to the Senate on the Hockey Stick?).
There was some discussion of overpopulation.
I had the final question and I decided to ask the topical question of whether a literature review such as is performed by the IPCC was adequate for questions of such huge import. He spent several minutes telling me that what they did was very thorough. He couldn't think of any other way of doing it, and unfortunately I couldn't get back in to say the word "replication", which I should have got into my question in the first place.
I very much came away with the impression of having listened to a piece of propaganda rather than a cogently presented scientific case, but it was not uninteresting for all that. While he is a perfectly acceptable speaker, this was not a persuasive case even for the undecided, I would say. The talk needed some vivid promotional graphic to help make the case. A hockey stick, say.
After the lecture, there was a chance to mill about in the foyer and have a glass of wine (which I avoided prior to the drive home) but I was able to spend quite a long time chatting to Sir John along with a group of other people. This was very pleasant and quite interesting. At the moment I'm not sure it is appropriate to report the contents of what probably counts as a private conversation, although there was nothing of earth-shattering importance said. If anyone can give me guidance on the jouralistic ethics of this situation, I would be interested: we were in the foyer of the auditorium and there was a constantly changing small crowd around Sir John asking questions.Thus some of what I heard was Sir John's replies to my questions, and some was his replies to other people. I don't know if this counts as public or private and reportable or not.
Sir John was very amiable and I got the impression that his views are quite sincerely held. He was quite forthcoming with his opinions and these were strongly stated (although not scandalously so), including particular disapproval of one sceptic he was asked about by one person there.
I've never met an FRS before, and I found myself rather disappointed that he didn't come across as cleverer. The sense of meeting a bureaucrat was overwhelming for me, although I admit I may have come with a predisposition to see him this way. My views on his knowledge of economics were reinforced though because when I pressed him on some of the points he had made during the lecture, he flannelled his way out of it.
I managed to get in a question about the hockey stick before he was dragged away to his meal with the bigwigs. Unfortunately he only had time to start his answer. Since his case has largely been stated before, I will risk reporting it here: the hockey stick was one graph among many and only gained prominence because of sceptical efforts. Paleoclimate has moved on. Nowadays some reconstructions show hockey sticks, some don't.
To his credit, Sir John was still trying to give me the rest of the answer as he was pulled away. Mind you if you were going to spend the evening supping with a bunch of divinity lecturers you might feel that there was a better time to be had debating hockey sticks.
Reader Comments (7)
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Regards,
I stick with my view that Sir John knew the Hockey Stick was a load of rubbish (contradicting his earlier work) but went along with it because he couldn’t win the fight at that time. He probably rationalises it as the end justifying the means, but to my mind it is scientific cowardness. In his role, he should have been making sure the facts and argument were correct. Even now he disseminates on that subject.
I am continually shocked at the poor quality of the world’s leading climate scientists, and try as I might, I just can’t figure out how they get away with putting out a message, with so little backing evidence, and get such a huge result. Then again, we see that the US government has passed the biggest non-budget spending bill in history without even reading it….. maybe the problem is just us for allowing it to happen without demanding answers.
As forests of turbines march across the landscape towards his retirement home near what was once one of the most beautiful estuaries in Wales, I wonder if he ever considers his share of responsibility for the missery he has caused to himself and others. After all he was IPCC chairman on TAR when the whole AGW thing took off.
Did you get the impression that there were other sceptics in the audience?
Houghtons taking the line about the 'undue' attention by sceptics on the hockey stick does seem a bit slippery or maybe he really doesnt see how bad it looks to anyone not swept up in the dogma.
Ironically the only photo of him on wiki shows him in 2005, standing on what looks like a church platform in front of a very prominent Hockey stick graph!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_T._Houghton
I am always intrigued by the thought of further information, if he didnt ask for secrecy in his after speech conversations, and he didnt say anything obviously scandalous I would have thought you could quote him, if you have an accurate recall. Especially if he was adressing a small group. However I'm not the one taking the risk :)
I think he is sincere, but I'm not convinced he has any idea what he is talking about. I thought, for example, that there was a big hole where there should have been a basic knowledge of economics.