* Posts by Dodgy Geezer

1773 publicly visible posts • joined 27 Jul 2007

New science upsets calculations on sea level rise, climate change

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
Meh

Re: Every generation

..The Aussie aborigines don't have it better either. Even if we're not harming the planet, at least half of us will end up with mental illness, the more cramped, nosier, restless environment we make for ourselves.

Ask one whether they would rather be living with modern conveniences, or still having to walk everywhere and live off grubs. And then ask yourself whether you would rather have a mental illness nowadays, or in 1500, when they still burned witches. Or 1700, when they put you in Bedlam and poked you with a stick. Or 1900, when they hosed you down with cold water... You get the idea?

..Having a better life isn't just replacing Oak trees with steel..

No one said that that was the total definition. That was why I used the magic words: "Let us look at an example.". Perhaps you could favour us with an example. I won't hold my breath...

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
WTF?

Re: Bah!

So the ice loss, although not accelerating *is* a fact then? There is a steady, non-accelerating rate of ice loss over Greenland's surface? So Global Warming is, in fact , a fact.

How do you make the jump from 'ice loss over Greenland's surface' to 'Global Warming is a fact'? Inquiring minds want to know...

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
Holmes

Re: If this is true...

Or are we 5 billion people too late?

Or... do we need another 20 billion?

Before people reach for the troll button - consider this:

1 - Every generation before ours has felt that the population was too high, and that the generation before theirs was ideal. Not just some generations - EVERY generation.

2 - Every generation before ours has had a better life than the generation before it. Not just some generations - EVERY generation.

3 - Every generation before ours has had more resources available to it than the generation before it. Not just some generations - EVERY generation.

These are not controversial statements - they are generally accepted, and if you think about them for a moment you will realise that they MUST be true. It's just that humans, particularly activist ones, ignore these facts so comprehensively that they might as well not exist. Humanity has NEVER been held back by a shortage of resources, in spite of using limited raw materials in ever-increasing quantities.

How can this be? Let us look at an example. Around 1750 there was a scare concerning oak trees - we were using them to build ships so fast that they were going to run out - simple calculations suggested that Britain would not be able to run a navy by 1850. And yet by 1900 Britain had the biggest navy in the world. ?

What had happened was that, as oak trees got short, people worked out that you could make ships from steel - and these ships were much better than ones made from oak. It turned out that the resources we were depending on were not just oak trees - they were oak trees, a whole set of things we hadn't discovered yet, and human ingenuity. There were fixed limits to the oak trees, possibly unknown limits to the things we hadn't discovered yet, and, as far as I know, no limits to human ingenuity.

What I have just described is a simple version of Julian Simon's Cornucopia theory. It has the merit that it has been proven right time and time again throughout recorded history. So long as we have people and ideas human life will constantly get better. Try to cut down on these and we will mark time, or get worse.

Of course, this may be the first time in history when the doom mongers are right. They have been on a losing streak for some 3000 years - they must be right sometime? But I'm still betting on Julian Simon...

Greenhouse gases break record again, says top UN weather man

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge

Re: We're putting out lots more plant food...

...Here's a chart comparing actual global temperature to predictions....

No it isn't. It uses GISS data. If you want ACTUAL global temperature you have to use a satellite feed. Like this:

IPCC 1990 Predictions vs 2011 data

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
Flame

Re: Remind me again ...

Sigh.. that's SOOO 2007!

The general 2007 claim (that you propose here) was that the warmth was either hiding in the deep ocean, or somewhere in Antarctica where there were (conveniently) no sensors. The question of why it should hide there when AGW theory says that the tropical air column is the place that gets hot was generally ignored. The warmists just hoped that this excuse would last until the heat came back somehow.

Anyway, it's 5 years later now. The heat hasn't come back. Even the Met Office is now agreeing that the temperature has flatlined. Briffa has jumped ship (have you seen his latest attack on Mann?). The hypothesis has collapsed.

Just for interest - if you still believe that global warming is a danger - tell us what the danger is. By now we were going to be dying of sunstroke if you believe Hansen...

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
FAIL

We're putting out lots more plant food...

Remind me again - with record amounts of CO2 output:

- how much hotter do the models say it should get?

- and how much hotter has it ACTUALLY got?

UN: Greenhouse gas emissions gap is out of control

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
Flame

Re: "not a single person is set to be measurably harmed"

...Thousands of people had to be evacuated and lost their homes to avoid physiological harm..

But against that you have to count many millions of green followers who have been THRILLED to hear about the disaster, and have immediately begun earning lots of money by spreading scare stories and extracting contributions from governments round the world.

I would say that there has been a net increase in human happiness as a result. That is, if you count green activists as human...

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge

Re: Errata

Who cares about generating lots of CO2? The plants could do with it, and it sure as hell isn't making the Earth warmer...

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
FAIL

Re: The cry wolf story

"It's not some cult. It's the scientists saying it."

No it's not. Scientists can join cults like anyone else. You appear to think that they are a different type of human....

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
FAIL

Re: 'The issue here is resources - especially fossil fuels'

How are we going to run out of water? Read your Julian Simon!

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
Childcatcher

Re: Not evenly distributed, methinks

"...Instead, the 1% (or perhaps the 0.01% as it might better be termed, although that's less catchy) will continue to get richer and richer, while everyone gets even poorer..."

Read your Julian Simon. That doesn't happen. EVERYONE gets richer, ALL the time (ignoring short-term disasters like wars). These have been the big lessons from human history - 10,000 BC to the present day:

1 - populations increase

2 - living conditions (and general wealth) for EVERYONE always gets better

3 - people often refuse to believe this, however, and each generation thinks that it is about to collapse, and the only appropriate way to live is the way that the last generation lived....

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
Flame

Re: Sorry, third world, you need to STAY POOR

"FACT: There is not enough resources to go round!"

1 - "There ARE..."

2 - You know, there have been stupid people like you in EVERY generation. Historians have complaints from Greek city-states of 400BC that there will soon not be enough land in Greece to feed everybody. And that was when there were about 3.5m people there.

Do you remember the government panic in the early 1700s, when they worked out that there would not be enough oak trees to keep building navy ships by 1850? And yet, in 1900, we had the biggest navy in the world.

People don't seem to realise that resources are not just the things you are using at the moment. They are ALL the things that human ingenuity can put together to do a job. Most of which we can't recognise as resources until someone works out how to use them.

Last I heard, human ingenuity has no limits. Unless you know differently?

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
WTF?

An anagram of Alien Doctor

Red Location

Yes, this system seems to work...

Texan schoolgirl expelled for refusing to wear RFID tag

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
Boffin

Re: Christ (oops!) bloody religion again???

I'll second that. One of the few impressive pieces of prose to have come out of a committee.

And, you know, Shakespeare was around at that time, and they didn't co-opt him. Didn't need to. THAT'S how good they were at writing English prose in the first decade of the 1600s...

British Ruby conference cancelled after diversity row

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
WTF?

I must be a bit behind the curve here....

... the last thing I recall about equality legislation was that you were not allowed to discriminate on the basis of sex or race, etc. So as far as I can see, requiring there to be a black welsh lesbian jew on the panel would be illegal in this country anyway>?

And Chuck J Hardy's statement:

I stand by my decision as I will not condone or be apart of any personal racial and sexist accusation.”

seems a bit of a hostage to fortune. I'm not sure precisely what it means, but it seems to imply that all we have to do is make an accusation of something racial or sexist to get him to back off. He will find life gets difficult for him if he doesn't have the courage of his convictions...

Kiwis demo DARPA-funded rocket project

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
Go

I seem to remember that the Kiwis...

...are also working on a rocket-propelled Land Speed Record challenger, using a simple and novel engine. We need to keep an eye on our antipodean cousins - and not only on the rugger field...

How can the BBC be saved from itself without destroying it?

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
Facepalm

.. there is no way to avoid paying for the commercial channels through the advertising premium we all pay on all our goods and services. The figure is approximately £200 p.a.. If you don't watch commercial channels or can't pay the subscriptions you are still paying for the channels - exactly the same situation as you are complaining about with the BBC..

You appear to have difficulty understanding commerce - indeed, life of any sort.

Companies try to sell their product at the cheapest price they can, to undercut the competition. If it costs £1m to set up a factory making widgets, and they get 1m customers without advertising, they will have to sell each one at £1 to break even.

If they spend £0.5m on an advertising campaign, and attract 2m extra customers, they can sell the widgets at 50p and break even.

Advertising enables companies to LOWER prices and increase market share. Not raise them - which would lose market share. If advertising only ever raised prices, nobody would advertise...!!!

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge

Test Comment

The BBC should not be spreading one-sided propaganda.

Now let us watch the votes....

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
Thumb Up

Comment seen at 'The Bishop'...

"..But here's my take. With this article Andrew Orlowski has become one of the most important journalists of our generation..."

RD

Hope he doesn't get a big head....

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
Alert

...and I have to agree about RT. I don't expect a balanced exposition of Chetchen politics from them, but their editorial line (unsurprisingly) encourages the presentation of 'dissident' views from the US and the UK.

Consequently, they are one of the few places to obtain stories which the BBC won't run. Kind of ironic, really, given that I grew up during the Cold War, when the BBC were famous for providing this service to the Russians...

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
Happy

Re: Independence is vastly overrated

I entirely disagree with your sentiments, but I felt that I had to upvote you purely on the basis of the witticism... :)

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
Flame

Re: The most frightening part of this arcticle

Given the lack of ANY convictions of policemen under any circumstances whatsoever, I thought that the (police) Mafia DID run the judiciary.....

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
Boffin

Re: Flat Earthers

..A bit of a rethink needed to your post. If a peer reviewed paper that stands up to inspection gets published the BBC do put out a news story about it, they do I have seen it...

I haven't seen any in the last two years. Cite or reference, please?

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
Thumb Up

Re: Flat Earthers

..If any paper comes out showing the opposite (ie increasing droughts/hurricanes/sensitivity) then the BBC will give it the widest possible publicity...

If any paper comes out CLAIMing the opposite ....

There. Fixed that for ya...

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
FAIL

Re: "guess what you still have to pay"

.Unbelievable freetard. You admit benefiting from something you refuse to pay for. Lucky not everyone is so selfish, but I guess so long as you are ok the rest of the world can go fornicate itself. I comfort myself with the knowledge that you are a random number selection away from criminal prosecution.

Unlucky Iain15! Everything he is doing is quite legal - indeed, I and thousands of others (soon to be millions) are doing the same thing.

The complete lack of reason and the raving hatred you display suggest that there is something wrong with you - probably to do with blood pressure. I would see a doctor if I were you...

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
FAIL

..If you care to check the (vast) majority of scientific journals you would see that the consensus states we're changing our environment. Substantially...

I check them. There's no such thing as consensus in science, but there is no proof whatsoever that we're 'changing our environment substantially', whatever that means. Nature had to do an editorial a few months ago, specifically rejecting the idea that there was any increase in 'extreme weather' detected.

you're pretty close to the oil companies not-at-all-biased-views-honest as far as denial and blinkered reporting goes.

That charge is always humorous :) . The oil companies are some of the biggest supporters of the global warming scare. They even had a rep at the 28-gate meeting. I know of NO recent oil company attack on global warming theory. Can you provide any examples?

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge

Re: Or...

...The McAlpine case is a classic case of "chickens coming home to roost." He should have sucked a hell of a lot more money from them. Perhaps it could come out of Newsnight producers' salaries....

He specifically pointed out that he was not going to - because ALL the money in the BBC comes from licence-payers pockets. I can't think of many left-wing politicians who would have done that...

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
Mushroom

Congratulations!

This is one of the most balanced and powerful statements I have ever heard on the collapse of Establishment thinking when faced with climate activism.

Note that it does not only apply to the BBC - it applies to the UN and almost every Government...

What are quantum computers good for?

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
Coat

My first degree was in Philosophy...

...and now I've finally found a real-world application for it!

Hat and Coat because I'm just off to meet my two friends M and V, in order to set up an Earth Chapter of the Amalgamated Union of Philosophers, Sages, Luminaries and other Professional Thinking Persons....

Sorority girls gone wild: '1 to 3' casual sex 'hookups' every month

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
Boffin

99 comments! How can I resist?

These are averages. Out of ... 484, was it?

Has anyone considered the possibility that what we have here is 464 virgins, and 20 swingers with an average of 2 'hookups' a day/night?

(only commenting to make it up to 100. Really...)

Curiosity latest: MARTIAN DUST DEVILS assail prowling robot rover

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
Facepalm

It's starting to get like the shuttle...

... You remember? After the tenth flight or so? When the novelty had worn off, and they were looking for experiments from nursery schools to take up in a vain attempt to 'reconnect with the public'?

Now we're expected to get excited about the winds in a crater being from a direction they didn't expect....

'I'm a PIRATE' confessions spew from OED iPhone dictionary

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
Flame

The libel point is clear..

... and I can't see how the company can avoid it. They are stuffed, legally.

About the only thing they can do is offer immediate compensation with an agreement not to sue...

ROGUE PLANET WITHOUT A SUN spotted in interstellar space

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
Go

Blish (who is completely out of favour as an SF writer - too intellectual) pointed out that drives which manipulate gravity or space need not be attached to a vehicle - they can just be attached to anything that you want to move. His "Cities in Flight" series describes whole commercial cities which specialise in specific services - often mining or refining - traveling the galaxy looking for work.

At one point a small planet is provided with propulsion in this way. Perhaps.....

SECRET 28 'scientific experts' who Greened the BBC - Revealed!

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
Boffin

Re: Impartiality about what?

"See the attribution section of IPCC AR4."

Er, no, he asked for an unequivocal human signature. The IPCC just lists papers which make a variety of claims and then puts their 'probability' marker on the field. SO they say it is 'possible', 'probable' or 'very probable' that humans are affecting climate.

Nobody has yet produced real unequivocal proof of AGW. It remains the case that you either believe it or you don't. It is not a single process, like gravity or a chemical reaction - we are being asked to believe that out of the whole complex of nature a specific human signal can be identified around the world.

In my case, if the temperatures had been rising in accordance with the models, I would probably believe that there was something in it. But since they have NOT been doing this, I am inclined to believe that the assertions are incorrect...

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
Boffin

Re: Impartiality about what?

It would be nice to get some real data here.

My understanding is that plants vary considerably in their minimum CO2 requirement, but can take as much as possible, up to 100% maximum. They love it at about 2000ppm, which is what they get in a polytunnel (which is quite safe for unprotected humans to enter).

Depending on the plant, you would notice increasing distress from about 300ppm down to about 150ppm, at which point all plants will stop growing altogether.

We are currently about 390ppm, which means that we are on the low side for plant growth, but acceptable. Increasing CO2 would improve crop yields - it already has as we have increased from about 330ppm in 1970. Dropping to 350ppm would not lose much yield - though it would lose some. Dropping to 300ppm would start to constrain plant existence in various habitats.

So I suggest that anyone suggesting that 350ppm should be a minimum target is not endangering plants - anyone suggesting dropping below 300ppm probably is. I think that Hansen is suggesting 350ppm, but thinks that a lower target could be viable.

Of course, all this assumes that we can influence the CO2 cycle. The natural movements of CO2 are far greater than any human inputs or sinks, and there is really no indication that human activity can alter the concentrations - it is just treated as a matter of faith that stopping human output will leave all other processes working in exactly the same way at a lesser concentration.

And of course we have the inconvenient truth that concentrations have been rising, giving us better crops, while the temperature has not been doing the same, as the models say it should. This suggests that CO2 concentrations actually do not drive temperature at all....

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
FAIL

Re: Sauce for the Goose?

The minute El Reg gets funded by a country-wide license fee, and has to operate under a Bias-Free Charter, I am sure they will be providing all the minutes you require...

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
Flame

Re: Equal airtime for both sides of a debate: OK, if both parties are there for debating

"..for climate change, I understand the situation is more difficult for journalists as they have to sort scientific arguments for one side, for the other, and then also the arguments of whackos and lobbies of all kinds who push for the removal of any evidence they do not like.."

As I understand the situation, that's not the case. There are precious few whackos, and the Big Oil lobbies are broadly in favour of being given subsidies to 'address climate change'.

What is happening is that valid scientific objections are being smeared as 'whacko', and ignored. Steve McKintyre is a classic example - he was denied access to publication for a long time on the grounds that he was a 'nutter'. He was actually perfectly correct, and Kevin Briffa has just co-authored a piece agreeing that tree-ring temperatures have a methodological bias.

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
FAIL

Re: tangentially

Can you tell me what the "huge consensus of scientific opinion" is?

Science does not proceed by consensus. Activists and religions do. Every so often we get told that 'the science is settled' or that '97% of scientists agree' to something. But we never get told what in any detail.

For what it's worth, I believe that most scientists would agree that the climate changes, and that the average world temperature has increased from a low point in the 1970s. Or decreased from a high point in the 1920s. Or is on a gradually increasing trend since the last Ice Age, if you wish.

Most scientists would agree that human activity can alter micro-climates - urban heat islands are a classic example. But few would argue that the increasing trend since the 1970s can be unequivocally shown to be human-caused, and that anthropic CO2 release is the primary cause of this trend. Too many papers have shown this argument to be wrong.

The hockey-stick is now broken and the MWP is back. There's one of your items of contradictory evidence. There's no tropospheric warming. The model projections have now diverged greatly from reality. Cloud creation has been found to be a major determinant of temperature, and this is not modeled at all in the GCMs. How many more do you want?

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
Flame

This story is not primarily about Global Warming...

There are lies within lies in this story.

The seminar we are talking about was not originally intended to be a 'policy-making' meeting.

What happened is that the BBC unilaterally dropped their Charter requirement to provide balance in reporting Global Warming, purely due to internal activists. This change was noticed by outside bloggers, who started asking questions about why the BBC was in breach of its Charter.

So, to shut them up, the BBC responded that they had duly considered the issue, and received proper scientific advice that there was no real controversy. They picked a recent internal seminar (which had been held to promulgate the Global Warming message to internal BBC staff) and claimed that this comprised 'the top scientific brains' who had provided this policy advice. There had been NO minutes - odd, for such a fundamental policy decision.

That was meant to shut up the bloggers, who were crying for more details. The meeting was retrospectively claimed to be under the non-attributable Chatham House Rules, which neatly made it unable to be investigated.

Blogger Tony Newbery submitted a FOI request for the names of these august scientists who had advised the BBC to drop its impartiality position. The BBC fought this tooth and nail, finally spending a 6-figure sum on barristers and packing the Tribunal where, last Friday, the request was rejected on the spurious grounds that the BBC could consider itself to be a private organisation if it wanted to keep secrets from the public.

Now we can see that the meeting which was claimed to be with a policy-defining group of top scientists was, in fact, an activist jolly/propaganda exercise. And trying to hide this has cost the BBC a lot of money and face.

I wonder whether charges of perjury are in order?

FOlA judges: Secret 28 who made the BBC Green will not be named

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
Happy

Well, that didn't take long....

The full list of attendees is on the net here: http://omnologos.com/full-list-of-participants-to-the-bbc-cmep-seminar-on-26-january-2006/

Courtesy of the Wayback machine.

Oh dear! I understand that the lawyers are still in the 16th century, but you would think that the BBC would have some understanding of science and technology. Oh, I forgot, their idea of science is the post-modern climate science concept that 'truth is what I say it is'.

Still, big fail for the Beeb, congrats to Omnologos....

Classic game 'Elite' returns … on Kickstarter

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
WTF?

Ummm.... Reserved..?

I see that if you donate a certain sum of money a 'digital copy is reserved for you'.

Does anyone know what this means? It might be interpreted to suggest that you get a copy of the game - but equally, it could just mean that a copy is 'reserved' for you to buy if you feel like it...

It would be nice to know...

Coffee next on climate chopping-block

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
Devil

Re: Why do eco-catatrophists always assume the planet is so fragile ?

...because their income depends on persuading people that this is the case.

In the early 1970s their income depended on persuading people that the population was growing out of control. By the late 70s/early 80s their income came from pretending that chemicals were going to wipe out all birds and insects. During the 1990s there was a short 'nuclear winter' scare, and then they latched onto the 'Global Warming' scam, which has been hugely successful - paying the green industry billions of our money, and bringing several nations' energy industries to the brink of collapse.

I can't see why these parasites are not crushed once and for all. As the science around modeled global warming catastrophe collapses, they are already looking for new fields to infect...

Stob on Quatermass: Was this British TV's finest sci-fi hour?

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge

Re: Quartermass - Goon Show Style

Yes, the skull discovery scene really demands a wider audience....

Willium: Here, over here, mate. Here!

Julian: Coming, Basil.

Willium: Get your trousers on. Hurry, Julian. Look at this!

[Orchestra: dramatic chord, held under effect]

[GRAMS: Thing sound effect, continuing under next dialogue]

Julian: Oh, dear! Saints preserve us!

Workman (Secombe): (approaches) He, what’s all this about… hey!

Julian: What’s this, now?

Workman: Ohh! That’s a human skull.

Willium: Is it?

Workman: Aye. Must be a woman–the mouth’s still open. Ha ha!

Julian: Here, we’d better call an Irish doctor.

Irishman 2 (Sellers): Yes, let’s get one.

Workman: Too late for that, it’s a goner, man. She’s a goner.

Julian: Oh, dear!

Willium: Call the Chinese police. Here, hold this whistle and play that note.

[FX: police whistle]

[GRAMS: running footsteps approach]

Julian: (over) Listen! He’s coming. He’s almost here. (as foosteps slow down) He’s arrived.

Constable (Greenslade): (panting and out of breath) You were playing my song. I’m sorry I’m late, but the frim of the flong succumbed the nim of the ploong.

Julian: A likely story.

Workman: No have a look at this, by here.

Constable: Gad, the head of a skull! I’d better take its fingerprints.

..................................

Bannister: Ohhh! Lord Crun?

Crun: What?

Bannister: This skull is 5 million years old!

Crun and Bannister: (sings) Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you.

Crun: (sings) Happy birthday, dear Minnie, happy birthday to you.

Bannister: Thank you, thank you, Hen, it’s nice of you to remember my skull.

Swedish boffins: An Ice Age is coming, only CO2 can save us

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
FAIL

If the science holds up...

.... we should get a new directive from our Dear Leaders.

Instead of banning the use of Peat in horticulture, we should encourage it. Possibly providing grants for pensioners to dig it into their gardens? And certainly expanding its use in power stations....

Isn't climate science wonderful? Especially allied with a command economy run by moronic politicians with no technical knowledge whatsoever...

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
Boffin

Authoritative is as authoritative does....

"..it's true that 'Mires and Peat' isn't exactly Nature or Cell..."

Umm. I am aware that it hasn't got the same global presence or (probably) highly inflated opinion of itself as those two establishment publications.

But, without having done a lot of research, I suspect from the name that it is pretty hot on the chemistry and ecology of mires and peat bogs. In fact, I would not be surprised to find that it was the world's authoritative publication on those subjects......

Apple is granted a patent on the rectangle. No, really

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
Happy

Re: Email the Judge in the Samsung case.....

@bobbles31

"Portable display device, yeah good luck defending that one. I got a digital picture frame that shape for Christmas in 2003..."

If you still have proof of that, I would imagine that the Samsung legal team would find it worth paying you a modest sum to provide them with your data. At least an expenses-paid trip up to see them and a decent meal...

Teradata customers plead: 'Stop, we can't buy any more stuff!'

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge

A reasonable article - but let's get the important things right!

Shouldn't it be "waffer-thin"?

Monty Python legend Eric Idle and rockstar boffin Cox write a song

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Thumb Down

Unfortunately...

... the last two lines of the song have not been changed.

Because there hasn't been any need to change them....

US climate-change skeptics losing support

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
Stop

Re: Considering the Lewandowsky scandal ...

..Then it's not a great reference unto itself really, is it? It's a secondary source. So is a blog...

Actually, I was never claiming it to be a reference unto itself. It's a history. It makes a number of assertions and provides references to back them up. Another thing this argument is full of is people making statements about what they think the other side's position is, and then disproving that strawman. By now, 'calling for references' is simply a rhetorical trick which just degenerates into smearing the relevant paper's author(s).

Meanwhile, the science proceeds slowly. We have only just got our MWP back, after 10 years of warmists trying to prove that it never existed. During that time there has been no new work developing AGW theory - instead all the AGW work has been aimed at shoring the theory up in the face of ever more inconvenient data. As each explanation of why the theory 'temporarily doesn't work' fails to convince, a new one is offered. And now that's running into diminishing returns...

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
Boffin

Re: --> David W. Posted Sunday 21st October 2012 02:02 GMT

...Have a look at a few web sites; try asking questions on say WattsUpWithThat and SkepticalScience - you may well be insulted on both; but give it a go :

Question 1 : Please explain why Solar input is effectively ignored by the IPCC; surely the SUn has more influance than CO2 ?

Question 2 : Please explain why CO" is not causing 2 degrees per century global warming; after all the IPCC says this is so

and ask some of those questions you may have about the science behind AGW...

If I may, I would like to take a guess at the answers to those questions from each camp. W=warmists, S=Skeptics.

1 - Why ignore the Sun?

W - The heat input from the Sun has been fairly stable over this period, and it has not varied sufficiently to explain the increase in temperatures.

S - But the Solar magnetic activity cycle HAS varied in line with the observed temperatures. And Dr Svenmark has proposed a mechanism whereby this could easily cause the observed temperature variation.

W - We don't accept unproven hypotheses.

2 - Why does the increase in CO2 not result in recent warming?

W - There may often be pauses due to natural cycles overwhelming the signal. A few years may easily show a drop. But the signal is still there. We would only get worried if the temperature paused for a long period - say, 15 years.

S - But it's been 16 years with no warming now....

W - Sorry - did we say 15? We meant 20....