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Jul022010
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Bishop Hill
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Reader Comments (125)
I guess we'll just have to hang out on the unthreaded comments then. Have a good break.
That’s the ticket yer Grace. Now school’s finished take those youngsters away somewhere hot and don’t forget to let Mrs Bishop choose the destination. Have a good un.
Thanks Bish, go have a good long one. Interesting times await your refreshed return.
Thanks for your work
Your clarity of expression and topical kowledge are assets that we shall miss for now. Please have a relaxing time in your break.
Lazy git! ;-)
What about this?
http://www.royalsoced.org.uk/events/index.htm#July
I nearly tripped over the pavement sign on George Street (Edinburgh) today...
Re: Woodentop
They advertise 8 lectures on that page. Half of them have "climate change" in their title. Doesn't the RSE have anything else to talk about?
On holiday, don't give this climate nonsense one thought, just the weather.
I hope it's warm.
I hope you're back by the 7th. Have a good break and I hope you find some of that gool old warmth.
Hell!!!!! So the footy comes first ;-) Have a good break and hurry back A.W.
By the way Bish,,, Louise is running out of stuff again!
Prince of Wales counts flowers in his garden
He was once laughed at for talking to plants but that has not put off the Prince of Wales who is now also counting the flowers in his garden.
By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent
Published: 5:57PM BST 02 Jul 2010
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/7867901/Prince-of-Wales-counts-flowers-in-his-garden.html
"Mrs Goodenough, a Canadian who has been running the gardens for two years, said certain trees must be left for only the Prince to prune because he knows them "as individuals."
There are the usual hints at AGW but here is the line that made me smile....
"An electric fence had to be installed recently after a fox attacked the chickens and the invasive plant Japanese knotgrass is a persistent problem that has to be weeded out and disposed every three weeks. "
Electric fence.......I sure hope it is solar or windmill powered.
Dam those foxes! Its their fault not the sloppy landowner ( I have kept chickens since my grandfather showed me the ropes over 40 years ago and have never lost one to old "Vulpes vulpes" (got to stick with the science whilst Bish is away!) !
and dam that Knotgrass!
As usual, Louise does not allow "Comments" these days!
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It all depends on where the second chakra was released.
Pete Hayes
Prince of Wales counts flowers in his garden. He was once laughed at for talking to plants but that has not put off the Prince of Wales who is now also counting the flowers in his garden.
It runs in the royal Hanover family: George III most likely had porphyria. Either that, or he made beaver hats as a hobby. Mad as a hatter, he was.
All you have to do is find a picture of Georgie's digs in Kew (the third palace), which he is credited for designing, at least in part. Or what his son, George IV, had in Brighton, the Brighton Royal Pavilion, to understand where Chuck III (maybe someday) got his interest in architecture.
Have a good time, Bishop. We will find something to amuse ourselves with, we will! :-)
The 2nd chakra led to inconenvient and underreported truths
The 2nd chakra as amply underreported by the once-feral meddjah
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As the parish priest looking after the diocese while the bishop is away, I will brook no vulgarity. JS
anyways we will all get the truth from the BBC any minute now..
They're on it , I feel.
Man, PTW why do you keep bringing up the hotel? You are going to earn a ban.
I'm not to clear about this:-
Guardian debate: Wednesday 14 July 2010
Plus further guests to be announced.
When?
Ok Steve M is making the trip which is great. So has he been officially invited onto the panel by the Guardian now that he is paying his own way or will he be left in the stalls with all the other ticket holders?
Looks like the Bishop took his scissors with him. Good Show!
Martyn
My guess is "the usual suspects" are being invited. I do hope Steve M is as well.
The vulgarities did not start with me, they started with the Nobel peace prize laureate.
Well, it appears that Phinniethewoo does get around. There is an interesting -- almost amusing -- thread about our friend in The BlackBroad about testing a Moderation Plugin Lucia is thinking about turning loose on him.
here
Interesting concept. I wonder if she will sell it as an iPhone app?
In any case, read the main blog and then spin down to (Comment#47524)
It's no wonder the Bishop has gone on vacation. Poor Lucia.
Don P I guess some people have more considerate behaviour than others.
Recognising there own vulgarity is a step in the right direction followed up by a little self regulation would be even better. But then in an attempt to preserve the clarity of the sentenced used by Julia Roberts “I’m sure that type has ducks the size of peanuts” so maybe self regulation is a step too far for them.
Happy 4th July DP.
Don Pablo scores goal.
martyn, Pharos and other long suffering contributors
One of the things I really, really appreciate about the Bishop is he does not have one of those #$*(%&# moderated blogs. And he is very light handed when there are trolls about. That means we do have to put up with the occasional idiot who thinks he is funny.
I, for one, am willing to make that exchange for the relative freedom Bishop Hill offers.
However --- there are limits. And sometimes we need to enforce civility ourselves. I have seen it many times before, and by Martyn twice on this thread alone. And in time, the trolls do figure it out and go away. So much better than having "moderation" and logins, and all that other "progressive" crap too many blogs use. That is the major reason why I only post here.
Now with that said, off to enjoy the 4th of July. No offense meant to our British friends. That fight was all a long time. And out of it came the American First Amendment, the Freedom of Speech, which I value greatly.
OT
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/04/climatechange-hacked-emails-muir-russell
A tentative step in the right direction – and a fair bit of climbing from under the wreckage…
“Science has been changed forever by the so-called “climategate” saga, leading researchers have said ahead of publication of an inquiry into the affair – and mostly it has been changed for the better.”
It even finishes with:
“But greater openness and engagement with their critics will not ensure that climate scientists have an easier time in future, warns Hulme. Back in the lab, a new generation of more sophisticated computer models is failing to reduce the uncertainties in predicting future climate, he says – rather, the reverse. “This is not what the public and politicians expect, so handling and explaining this will be difficult.””
artwest
Thanks. A fascinating article, particularly on the Guardian, the BBC's oracle. Does he know something? Could it really be that Muir Russell will rock the world with the unprecedented straight up inquiry? No. A midsummer nights dream. But Pearce is, rung by rung, climbing head and shoulders above his journalistic peers.
Pearce is like that because he was left holding the baton for his New Scientist Himalayan Glacier issue.
No matter, all for the good.
I was going to cut and paste a couple of paragraphs of this article but it just got more interesting ( especially the first page ). Its not about climate scientists , its economists but you will note the similarities to how some of us view some climate researcher's methods.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/business/economy/04econ.html?_r=1&th&emc=th
Artwest
As I noted, we would amuse ourselves while the Bishop enjoys the sun and fun. Thanks to you, we are keeping that promise. A most interesting article. It was not at all OT.
I will believe Phil Jones is repentant when I see it in writing from him.
Ross
Thanks for the pointer but they wanted come coin to read it. What ever happened to the freedom of the press :)
Don -- thats interesting , I've been getting the online NYT e-mailed to me free for several
years now. Any way heres is a bit of a cut and paste for part of it.
“The mainstream of academic research in macroeconomics puts theoretical coherence and elegance first, and investigating the data second,” says Mr. Rogoff. For that reason, he says, much of the profession’s celebrated work “was not terribly useful in either predicting the financial crisis, or in assessing how it would it play out once it happened.”
“People almost pride themselves on not paying attention to current events,” he says.
In the past, other economists often took the same empirical approach as the Reinhart-Rogoff team. But this approach fell into disfavor over the last few decades as economists glorified financial papers that were theory-rich and data-poor.
Much of that theory-driven work, critics say, is built on the same disassembled and reassembled sets of data points — generally from just the last 25 years or so and from the same handful of rich countries — that quants have whisked into ever more dazzling and complicated mathematical formations.
But in the wake of the recent crisis, a few economists — like Professors Reinhart and Rogoff, and other like-minded colleagues like Barry Eichengreen and Alan Taylor — have been encouraging others in their field to look beyond hermetically sealed theoretical models and into the historical record.
“There is so much inbredness in this profession,” says Ms. Reinhart. “They all read the same sources. They all use the same data sets. They all talk to the same people. There is endless extrapolation on extrapolation on extrapolation, and for years that is what has been rewarded.”
Rogoff and Reinhart have wriiten a book so this article is abit of a promo. for it.
OT maybe but of great interest to anyone who has followed the Hockey stick debacle. Perhaps even something for his Grace to wake up from his very well-earned snooze about..
WUWT has some very interesting news:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/04/new-chinese-study-in-grl-disputes-the-hockey-stick-conclusions/#comment-423279
This new study appears to robustly demonstrate that there was a MWP in China. Worth a read..and probably the driver behind Mann's so out of character interview with Panorama.
Should add a little more spice to the Guardian debate next week....Monbiot, McIntyre, Keenan, Pearce......the Muir Russell report (which if Fred Pearce's latest article is anything to go by won't be whiter than white whitewash) and who knows what else by then. Exciting times...I am glad I got my ticket early!
Velly intellesting Latimer
It will be interesting to see western reaction simply because the study has Chinese origins. Perhaps there could be recognition that the tide is turning on more than one beach. Remind me, who are the bad guys again?
Mr Don Pablo
I think you can thank us for the second amendment also:
You guys rightly considered that we might come back and reclaim our colony one day ^.^
An interesting example of the pitfalls of the precautionary principle method of reasoning has just come to light.
We know that exposure to midday sunlight in the UK does two things: one it risks burning and hence raises the risk of skin cancer. Two, it produces vitamin D, an intake of which in turn lowers the risk of many cancers.
The traditional (30+ year) consensus was: avoid the sun at midday and use sunscreen. It turns out that sunscreen blocks UVB, so it blocks vitamin D formation, but until recently, did not block the damaging UVA, which is what causes skin cancer.
So the advice given, with the aim of lowering the risk of skin cancer, probably has been increasing the risk and incidence of skin cancer, along with a host of other D deficiency related diseases. It did lessen burning. But it also increased D deficiency, and did little to lower the risk of skin cancer - in fact, it may have increased it.
What should the advice have been? Do not burn. Go out briefly in the middle of the day in summer, without sunscreen. But keep it well under the exposure that will burn you, and be particularly careful if fair skinned.
Don't think sunscreen will protect you, most will not. Do not totally avoid the midday sun, that will not protect you either and will have other bad collateral cosequences.
It turns out to be more complicated and specific than simply avoiding the sun = avoiding danger. The issue is, making sensible choices given all the risks and probabilities, which are more intricately related than the simple minded would like.
A bit like climate, really.
How do we recognise each other at the Guardian meeting, (Latimer, etc)
because of the below it could be very interesting (just put it on Collide a scape - as a thank you to Judith Curry)
---------------------------------
Front page article The Guardian (UK) – 5th July 2010
print edition headline below:
Climategate has changed us for the better, say scientists
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/04/climatechange-hacked-emails-muir-russell
highlights: (particularly, for me, the recognisation of my issues with computer models)
“But greater openness and engagement with their critics will not ensure that climate scientists have an easier time in future, warns Hulme. Back in the lab, a new generation of more sophisticated computer models is failing to reduce the uncertainties in predicting future climate, he says – rather, the reverse. “This is not what the public and politicians expect, so handling and explaining this will be difficult
“Jones seems genuinely repentant, and has been completely open and honest about what has been done and why… speaking with humility about the uncertainty in the data sets,” she said.”
“The climate scientist most associated with efforts to reconciling warring factions, Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology, said the idea of IPCC scientists as “self-appointed oracles, enhanced by the Nobel Prize, is now in tatters“. The outside world now sees that “the science of climate is more complex and uncertain than they have been led to believe“.
“Roger Pielke Jr of the University of Colorado agreed that “the climate science community, or at least its most visible and activist wing, appeared to want to go back to waging an all-out war on its perceived political opponents”.
I have been on the recieving end of some of certain activists vitriol, ie the ‘foot soldiers’ who can only parrot, quotes from how to treat a sceptic propaganda, fed to them. It has not been pleasant, in my local community (transitions towns), online, public meetings
.
I can agree with 95% of the content of the article.. (and I’ve been blocked by the Guardian from commenting, Realclimate are part of their environment network, so I’m not exactly the Guardians biggest fan. Especialy George Monbiots vitriol)
I have received comments put out in the mainstream media, TV, radio, press, like ‘ flat earther’ or ‘anti science’, or ‘climate sabatouer’, ‘deniar’, from UK, Ministers of State, Prime Ministers, and journalists, for anyone even raising the above topics, and insisting that they are an issue.
I, for the last 8 months, have received abuse, called all sorts of names, had my motivations questioned, my mental state questioned, had green peace threats (we know where you live’ ) had people walk away from me in public meetings. Just for saying what about,this, questioning the certainties, questioning the IPCC inaccuracies, questioning the acts designed to ’close down any debate’, questioning the believe in computer models vs real data..
By some of the people in that article (ie Bob Ward, Watson), who have completely changed ther ‘message’ without any apparent shame.
This article is a victory for all science. Let us, all forget about ‘post normal science.
Thanks to Judith Curry for her patience, particulary if she read any of my longer comments and for a number of her comments, particulary, for all of comment 48# in the link below (choice highlights)
http://www.collide-a-scape.com/2010/04/17/some-spicy-curry/
“One element of scientific integrity is when to speak up vs when to stay silent.
The Georgia Tech students and alumni expected me to speak out on this issue When others failed to speak up, I felt that I needed to step up to the plate.”
“I have actually found the people who habituate the technical skeptical blogs and their proprietors to be much more open minded than most of the “warmist” blogs.”
“So how do we proceed from here? We need some open, rational discourse on a range of topics from openness and transparency in the science, improvements to the assessment process, a dialogue on an expanded range of policy options, the politics of climate science, improved communications, etc.”
Anybody here going to the Guardians public meeting, 14th July,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/30/guardian-debate-climate-science-emails
it would be nice to say hello. it sounds like it could actually be very positive, instead of ‘dismiss’ the sceptic, that maybe I was expecting.
With the Guardian organising the affair, Monbiot in the chair and Pearce one of the panelists this will simply be a show trial of sceptics.
I think it is worth re-iterating where climate sceptics stand on global warming.
1. We all recognise that climate change is the norm. (we have had 4 billion years of it - and another few billion years of it to go)
2. We all recognise that catastrophic climate change on a global scale has happened in the past and will happen in the future (ice ages - extreme warm periods).
3. We all recognise that man-made climate change has happened on a local and regional climate change. (Roger Pielke Snr).
4. What we don't agree to is the hypothesis that man's use of fossil fuels will ultimately lead to catastrophic climate change on a global scale. The uncertainties surrounding the current knowledge of the planet's climate are so large on this single factor that it is impossible to predict such an outcome.
Sceptics can profess a good deal of confidence on this matter because of the various scandals that now surround the science of global warming.
We can strike 'unprecedented' from the carefully constructed AGW narrative because of the public exposure of the tricks surrounding the Hockey Stick.
We can strike 'immediate' as well because of Glaciergate.
We can strike 'profound' due to the continuing ramifications of Amazongate.
We can strike 'catastrophic' because of Hurricanegate.
Denied such alarmist rhetoric were does that leave the science?
What is not uncertain is that all the climate models are flawed because they have been denied the 'Hot-Spot'. The greenhouse signature cannot be found in the data.
In summary, current climate science has not moved on from the lab experiment of shining a filament lamp on two plastics bottles with thermometers inside, one containing ordinary air and the other increased levels of CO2.
PS One question to raise with the panel is why sceptics are censored at the Guardian whilst alarmists are enocuraged to indulge in ad-hom attacks.
On a more light hearted note.........must be a ’spoof’ surely !!
(1st post 20th November 2009)
I wonder how this persons sceptical views – a blogging response to climategate – fit into the various sceptical/deniars categories...
Maybe worthwhile of a whole new section……
Be warned, a very pink website, and some interesting about me photos even a cute fluffy kitten…
http://blog.katiekayholmes.com/?p=24
Note, further down, she is refering to the Tom Wigley reponse to the ‘consensus’ statement.. one of the very same emails that leaped out a me (great minds, alike, obviously) A friend of mine being one of the signaturies.
http://blog.katiekayholmes.com/?p=20
By admin on December 2nd, 2009.
Filed Under:climategate
Subscribe via: RSS
The Climategate emails are everywhere, so where’s the front page headlines?
SO just about every good blog has a post on the climategate scandal, yet hardly any of the big newspapers and NONE of the major TV networks are running the story…yet.
It’s disgusting, and shows the gutless nature of the main stream media who refuse to put the story at the top, or on the front page where it belongs.”
Almost my response, Katie is much more photogenic than me.
Of course, the pictures herself, may not make you the most convincing sceptic.. But it lightened my day, especially the ‘fluffy’ kitten.
http://www.katiekayholmes.com/
Sounds like this member of the public, ‘got’ the politics instantly, whilst maybe not knowing the ins/outs of the science…
Or:
(must be a viral marketing spoof, to link to a dating website, surely )
Re recognition:
I will be sailing under my real flag....no need for subterfuge at such a meeting and proud to be there as myself.
If we can work out a way to communicate (via a proxy?? or would that be a decliningly good idea??), I'm happy to send a picture to a few others so that we can make sure to meet.
Otherwise I suppose carnations behind the ear (times is hard...can't afford roses) and copies of the Pond Keepers Gazette under the left armwould be a bit OTT?
Recognition 2:
OK - having read Barry's latest, let me see if I have got this right??
Barry Woods is a psuedonym for KatieKay Holmes. You have been using this because you do not want fools to imagine that just because you are very nice looking you cannot be bright, knowledgeable and persuasive as well.
But you are going to use the Guardian debate to reveal your true nature, and you are bringing the cute kitten with you.
So I suggest fellow sceptics visiting RIBA merely congregate by the delightful Ms Holmes (aka Barry Woods) and her feline friend, and all ice will quickly be broken (if not melted, blown away. crushed, sublimated or subject to stupid man-powered expeditions).
Did I get that right? Perhaps a minor detail to be worked out somewhere.
Mikey? Keef? PhilBoy? we need a trick over here please...........
Ross
Thank you for the clippings. My question to Mr. Rogoff is why do they do it? Perhaps predicting the number of angels on the head of a Root Unit would be more informative.
Latimer Adler
Not OT at all. There is no specific topic on this thread beyond "be good" and it was a good post. Velly Interesting.
We seem to be doing quite well on our own without the Bishop, thanks to contributions like this and others
Martyn
Remember that the Chinese are dependent on coal to drive their economy and so they do have an ax to grind. In this case, the truth.
Dung
I'm a card carrying member of the NRA. Have been for years. I feel naked in such wonderfully "gun free" cities like New York, Chicago, Washington DC. Dublin and Limerick unarmed. "Out law guns and only outlaws will have guns." Limerick is a city I avoid now, thanks to the gangs running the place. Haven't been to London for years, but it appears that the same is happening there too.
michel
"All things in moderation, including moderation", yeah?
Barry Woods
I would suggest you all appear wearing Josh's "Root Unit" Tee shirt. Now that is in the face.
"Go boldly where no skeptic has gone before!" The Guardian.
Mac
You make good points but I have a new one to add. "Beware of the Magnetic Field decrease!"
One theory is that Mars once was a wet world with an atomosphere quiet like a cooler version of Earth and that when it's magnetic field collapsed, the solar wind stripped off most of the atomoshere and water vapor, leaving it as it is today. I don't know if you get the "Science Channel", but I do on the sat dish. Very interesting articles, and nothing about global warming, although the National Geographic and Planet Earth are full of that crap.
Barry Woods
Re: Katiekayholmes.com.
Having had a relationship with a true blond (I will not define what exactly that means) for years who is one of the sharpest people I know, I must say that your Katie Kay gives blondes a bad rap. Jeezus. But thanks for the laugh.
Latimer Adler
There are several options for an identity signal. Katie could come topless. Or wearing a very tight "Root Unit" tee shirt. It is red, as I remember.
Now what you do, well, who would notice?
Since it is summer can I suggest that a scarf draped loosely somewhere about one's person would be a good way of recognising fellow deiniers?@
@dung
Splendid suggestion. I will be carrying my Aldershot Town FC scarf (predominantly red with smaller blue and white stripes). Since my allegiance to the the team provides half of my nom de plume , this will be extremely appropriate. Come on the Shots!
Could I suggest that there are many of your potential fellow attendees with cherished stereotypes deeply ingrained in their psyches, so perhaps you could humour them by at least remaining true to their beliefs?
While Latimer's suggestion is good, may I suggest an endangered plant in the buttonhole, or perhaps a 'Gulf Petroleum, or 'Exxon', or 'BP sponsored' T shirt? Or 'I love endangered species - in a rich gravy'?
And while 'Pond Keepers Gazette' or 'Practical Gamekeeping' might cut a certain dash, I think the occasion demands that a copy of 'The Hockey Stick Illusion' be discreetly carried ?
For Canadian attendees, an actual Maple Leafs Hockey Stick might be useful for some of the more heated parts of the debate. For entering, or conveying the data manually. As it were.