And another thing…

Thank goodness for sanity, i.e. a post that’s not about Doctor Who. Is the Tardis environmentally friendly? Probably not. It’s an old tin can with several billion light years on the clock.

Whilst I agree with you wrt Ms Lucas and many other self-appointed green “experts”, I don’t think you’re right to conflate sceptics with deniers.

Sceptics are people open to rational argument, deniers are not.

In my view people such as Ms Lucas do the cause they (and I) seek to advance no good at all. Quite the reverse, their hectoring and presentation of speculative data as though it were undeniable fact must turn many “neutral” people off and probably drives them closer towards the swivel-eyed deniers’ camp…

This is a very typical Green smear: accuse anybody who casts doubt on any apocalyptic predictions as a sceptic. That way, you can close down any debate without having to talk about the scientific facts, even though the International Panel on Climate Change has admitted that one of its predictions was untrue,

What’s this Tom? Someone of the party that has used the shout of racist as an unfounded smear for decades complaining because someone is using Labour’s own tactics against them.

Oh it tugs at my heartstrings, it makes me want to weep. Poor old Labour getting a taste of their own medicine. Oh dear, what a shame, never mind.

Perhaps if you deal with those in your own party who use such tactics (Harman and Miliband Jnr, come to mind immediately) then you may get more sympathy when dealing with the loons in the Green Party.

This is my serious comment, and it’s one that was made by Lord Monckton, that it is the Climate Change Scam that has caused millions of deaths by starvation because of the increase demand for biofuels.

Surely you were not surprised Tom? If anthropogenic climate change truly does not exist the Greens would find it necessary to invent it. What else could justify the power they crave?

It’s really clear to me that the people who have decided to make a huge noise in denying the evidence about climate change and global warming are in the ascendancy, at least when it comes to filling the public space of argument. Whether one calls them sceptics or deniers is beside the point. The comments columns of the Scotsman, for example, are filled with obsessives convinced that there is a dastardly scam by mad scientists and evil communists to take over the world in the name of “AGW”.

People like Caroline Lucas treat the contrary view as an article of faith, not scientific fact, and in doing so are likely to exclude and deter reasonable people like me who think there’s probably something in it, that most scientists have probably got it right, and it can do little harm to take sensible precautions in the management of the earth’s resources. But by screaming and squealing and flinging accusations like those she hurled at you she appears to be just as unhinged as her opponents even though she probably isn’t.

That is extraordinarily stupid, and I hope you told her so. Politely, of course.

Top marks for comedy value:

“This is my serious comment, and it’s one that was made by Lord Monckton…”

It works on so many levels!

Top post.

My acceptance of science is irrelevant next to my fear and dislike of those willing to employ the tactics on display. Counter-productive in the extreme.

Wondered why the BBC were (yet again) pushing AGW hard this week.

Guess?

Their pensions are relying on it

http://bastardoldholborn.blogspot.com/2010/02/bbc-and-climate-change.html

Frankly I’m amazed the fraud squad hasn’t been called in. It very, very nearly cost us trillions (instead of just the £100 billion Gordon has promised to African Learjet owning Dictators)

Hello, it’s Patrick “won’t publish your comment on my blog if you disagree with me on climate change” Harvie!

For once, I don’t agree with you, Tom.

You say that Caroline Lucas (correctly) attributed the figure to a UN report, and that the UN report gave the figure as an estimate, presumably its best estimate.

So you might reasonably debate the merits of the report itself, but instead you criticise someone for citing it.

Of course in a detail article the caveats should be included. But in a radio discussion, no one can be expected to quantify the margin of error in every statistic that they quote.

In any case, you’ve given no evidence that the figure is more likely to be an overestimate than an underestimate.

So do you have a view on what the correct figure is? Do you even have a view on how great the uncertainty is?

If so, you ought to say, and say why! If not, then it’s sophistry to criticise someone for quoting something with which you do not really disagree.

We need a new terminology re climate change sceptics/deniers. I am sceptical about the science. I am not convinced that over eons of time as opposed to the evolutionary nanosecond for which we have recorded data (of dubious quality) that the earth is warming. But even if I grant that it might be true I still do not believe that human impact is likely to contribute more than a miniscule amount. Why else could we have had ice ages and hot periods when there were no humans. So I am a sceptic squared.

But that does not necessarily imply that I think it is a good idea to continue to pollute the world. There are lots of other reasons for thinking this unwise.

Great, so now we have different levels of doom mongery based on how much damage those concerned think climate change will do to the world.

I’m so happy that our social leaders are such visionaries, I’m sure this type of debate will make the world a much happier and richer place to be.

“The public are not as thick or as gullible as Lucas would have us believe – they’re prepared to be convinced by fact and reason, not by scare stories and slander.”

Have you mentioned this to Ed Milliband who casts any sceptic as a ‘flat earther’ or a ‘denier’? Just wondering…

Agree totally. David Attenborough’s decision to accept that climate change was a reality with human actions being a major component, was what convinced me – he took years making up his mind on the issue and that’s enough for me.

But the Greens and others are so keen to convert the unbelievers that they begin to sound like wee frees or Islamist – pointing to everything as evidence that the end days are come. It’s become like a religious movement which is a great, great shame – and so counter-productive.

One of your very best this one.

[...] Harris has, gamely, made a post about the sinister Caroline Lucas and her tenuous connection with science or reality. Sadly, he didn’t mention her desired population of the UK which is [...]

“But that does not necessarily imply that I think it is a good idea to continue to pollute the world. There are lots of other reasons for thinking this unwise”

Absolutely spot on. The “science” around Climate change is far from settled in my view. I’m quite prepared to accept that the climate might be changing, but the reasons for it are very much open for debate IMO.

What we are doing is spending billions in trying to prevent something that may well not be preventable. Pushing water up hill.

While what we should be doing is approaching the thing from the position of adapting to a new environment & spending money on that. In the process we should of course be economising on use of resources which are finite – and everyone will buy into that. Energy preservation etc is a good thing whatever is happening to the climate.

But Peppering the countryside with Wind farms which are an eye-sore, will only work less than 50% of the time (so will require eaual “backup” generation capacity) & then will require huge amounts of energy just to deploy and commission in the first place is just reactionary nonsense.

All our efforts to “deal with greenhouse gases” by addressing fossil fuel consumption are also shown to be ridiculous when compared to the fact that 18% of greenhouse gases are emitted by the world’s 1.8Bn cows! (More than all the planes, trains & cars put together!).

That’s not to say we shouldn’t be trying to reduce consumption (of all natural resources) because we should. BUT for the right reasons & not as a means to tax.

As to taxation, take for example Air Passenger Duty. A blatant revenue raising tax that isn’t going to change anyone’s behaviour. Yet fairly shortly, if one happened to have relatives in say America, it will add £200 to the cost of traveling there for a family of four.

It isn’t going to prevent people from travelling, its just a nasty , opportunistic tax.

When it gets high it has the potential to have a major (negative) economic impact as Airlines and passengers start to focus their business around other European hubs instead of the UK. Ill thought out & ill conceived populist nonsense really.

It’s so refreshing to see a Labour MP with principles and a rational thought process.

The problem with the global cooling deniers is that they are Marxists. Marxism demanded ultimate loyalty and they thought the end justified the means. The collapse of communism in 1991 left the socialists emasculated and some genuflected towards market forces. Others took up the environmental movement. The greens are merely the old commies and socialists; watermelons, green on the outside, red on the in.

The whole anthropogenic global warming theory is like an inverted pyramid. There is a tiny base of flimsy evidence, with so many contradictions and irregularities piled on this base of shifting sand. It has collapsed under the weight of its own stupidity. It uses shrill language to scare the public, and attempts to make us feel guilty about our affluent lifestyle. Lucas compared taking a holiday to Spain with stabbing someone. That is an insane comparison. The Green movement is dying quicker than the Tories’ poll lead. The climategate emails, the Himalayan glacier scandal, the three consecutive freezing winters and cooler than average summers etc. Global cooling deniers were very quick to attribute every freak weather event to global warming, yet now they are even quicker to distinguish between weather and climate if the weather events don’t correspond with their climate theory. They haven’t been able to explain the Medieval Warming Period, or the Roman Optimum, or the Little Ice Age. Global warming has become climate change because the planet hasn’t warmed since 1998, and NASA recently confirmed that 1934, not 1998, is the warmest year on record. Climate change is obviously happening, but climate changes in perpetuity, without human influence. Global warming on the other hand is like Santa Clause… a myth. The Thames used to freeze over, and we used to farm on the Greeland ice sheet.

You may be an advocate of anthropogenic climate change theory Mr Harris, but I must congratulate you for avoiding the nastiness and scare tactics of the Green Party.

Wow, Tom, you’ve certainly helped spread common sense on climate change here. Sympathetic crowd, too: I’m waiting for “Lord” Monckton to arrive.

Many years ago, when I was an Ecology Party member I knew and respected Caroline Lucas. I fear my respect for her has taken a nasty knock. Then I remember that it was this type of daftness that helped speed my resignation from what had then become the Green Party. I am disapointed in her. I would have expected better.

words that should start the alarm bells ringing
1 ’scientific concensus’-a collection of closed minds leading to
2 ‘the science is settled’. science should never be ’settled’, it must always be open to challenge and
re-evaluation
3 ‘flat earthers’ especially when spoken by govn ministers – it isn’t so long ago that challenging the ‘flat earthers’ resulted in being lead away by the men in white coats.
4 ‘deniers’, an accusation that was directed at those who said the earth wasn’t the centre of the universe – usually resulted in an unexpected visit from the spanish inquisition

A very rational post on a very irrational political opponent.

Good read.

Josh is right. The Global Cooling deniers do nothing to advance a reasonable debate. I don’t think anyone is denying that Climate Change exists so why call them deniers or sceptics? What is logically being questioned is AGW.

Have to agree with William Blake’s Ghost

Maybe the media trainers need to widen their repertoire of customers now that the Labour Party have little more to be taught.

Petard, hoist, own…maybe, but not in that order

Very amusing. With smears like that, you’d think she was a Lib Dem!

Incidentally, even if it is the case that “every year climate change leaves over 300,000 people dead”, this does not necessarily imply that the element of change in climate due to man is responsible for their deaths; the climate does change in and of itself. I suppose, if you wanted to be really controversial, you could say that establishing communities in giant flood plains kills x number of people every year.

I was watching the BBC two weeks ago on climate change. I am sure those old enough remember in the 1970s the new ice age that was threatened. Do you know what they blamed it on?

The burning of coal. The theory was that the burning of coal sent soot and other dark particles which was blocking out the sun.

I can be sold on green issues on the basis of waste and less reliance on fossil fuels from politically volatile areas but do not insult my intelligence, bully me and raise my taxes based on junk science.

It was the appalling behaviour of that self-appointed evangelist George Monbiot, and the language used by the AGW cultists that moved me from believing in it to be very sceptical indeed. Given the original involvement of Enron in “designing” carbon trading, the fact that Goldmann Sachs are(will?) be administering it, suggest to me that this is a truly fantastic scam to empty our pockets of what little money we have after the past 12 years.

Not in my name, is all I have to say. No problem in looking after Mother Earth, and being frugal with our resources, but I do not take kindly to being lectured to by fanatical demagogues.

There is in an interesting passage in Russell’s History Of Western Philosophy, in which he ponders on what happened when science started to impact on religion, and how this affected philosophy.

He lists the defining attributes of each. AGW is, in his terms, clearly a religion, and not science.

Aye to that say I – stick it up ‘em, Bertie. (Hmmmm….)

Tom
The more outlandish the AGW claims become the less the theory is believed.
This could have disatrous implications when it comes to facing the real environmental issues of conservation and pollution.

There is a parallel with the anti-smoking crusade. The claims become more and more ridiculous by the day. Big Tobacco no longer challenge anti-tobacco, as they are sitting back letting their opponents destroy their own credibility.
With both issues, vested interests gain while Joe Bloggs suffers.

@Taxed to death
Tuesday 2 February 2010 at 10:17 pm

Absolutely spot on. The “science” around Climate change is far from settled in my view. I’m quite prepared to accept that the climate might be changing
//

I think you will find that perhaps the central, defining attribute of climate is that it changes. Ice Age anyone?

I often wonder why “global warming” suddenly became “climate change”; language abuse one main weapon of nasties all over the world, as that Mr. Orwell noted.

The real danger in all this is that we create a greater economic disaster in avoiding the effects of global warming than in suffering them.

The time scale is fifty years not six months. And nuclear fusion will change everything.

Everything.

The evidence quite clearly shows that temperatures are rising, at a rate that appears unusual.

There is a correlation between man’s activities and temperature change.

There appears to be a legitimate theory of how man’s activity can affect global temperature (causation).

The ’science’ is absolutely nowhere near good enough to make accurate predictions about how much our activities can and will affect temperature, let alone what effect the increase in greenhouse gas and temperature will have on the environment or humans.

To claim that we have to re-tool the world economy, cost ourselves £trillions because of 300,000 deaths per year is insane. East Congo has a death toll approaching that of the holocaust funded by the rare metal trade yet we don’t talk about avoiding using electronics that might come from conflict metals. We don’t talk about spending the hundred billion or so to fund making de-salination plants viable to give fresh water to the millions that will die of thirst in the next decade or so.

What I have never seen is a comparison between the number of lives lost by climate change and the number of lives lost by the reduction in economic growth that will be caused by abandoning fossil fuels and re-tooling our economies.

Where was your scepticism when the H1N1 “scientists” were making similar claims. It seems that provided scientists are backed by big business, they get a free ride.

One might think that GSK would use this ill-gotten windfall to fund research into drugs that actually help people but why bother employing all those staff [1] when you just need to pay off a few key people at the WHO.

[1]: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d0b8b1a2-0e83-11df-bd79-00144feabdc0.html

This is a very typical Green smear: accuse anybody who casts doubt on any apocalyptic predictions as a sceptic. That way, you can close down any debate without having to talk about the scientific facts, even though the International Panel on Climate Change has admitted that one of its predictions was untrue,

The evidence is overwhelming … the debate is over … if you disagree children will die. It’s a tried and tested ploy used by all manner of vested interest lobbyists.

And Labour have also mastered it brilliantly, I’m afraid, Tom.

Anybody who denies or is sceptical of climate change should be called deniers because their belief is similar to those who deny the holocaust, they are denying something of which there is over whelming evidence.

There is clear and undeniable evidence that over its long history of the earth it has been much hotter and much colder than today.

The argument is not about climate change but, the hypothesis that the rise in temperature which seemed to take place in the late 1900’s is unusual and that it is caused by increasing release of CO2; so called anthrophobic global warming (AGW).

Further there is then the question as to whether, even if the hypothesis is correct, the extent of the warming and whether it will be detrimental or beneficial to the planet.

So rather than call us climate change deniers or sceptics: which we are not. Call us what we are which is sceptical of the current hypothesis of AGW.

Tom – if you what to understand why we are sceptical of AGW you need to discover, how little science currently understand about the balance of CO2 in the atmosphere, the earths heat balance, estimates of how much CO2 man produces and is naturally produced, that even if CO2 does result in warming as a minor forcing agent it may be possible the warming will be very small perhaps even to little to measure, the problems of long term temperature estimates (from before we had any thermometers) which try to show the resent rise in temperatures was exceptional, the problem even of temperature histories since thermometers where available, the problems of modelling chaotic systems. None of these are settled science.

Stop confusing AGW with Climate Change and you might get somewhere.

Climate change kills 300,000 people? And? Are we The Gods to direct the climate? No.

Is it man made? Nobody has proof to confirm that.

The issue is about AGW. Find out where it says AGW has “killed 300,000″!

This “find the lady” three-card-trick seems to work on so many people. The pea is long gone and you are sitting there wondering which cup it is under and each time you are shown to be “wrong” and will continue to be as long as you let them get away with talking about Climate Change, which is undeniable, whilst pushing for social, economic and political fascism based around the concept of reversing AGW which has no proof in science.

We are facing an energy crisis in the not to distant future due to the simple fact that Don quixote’s windmills do not even reach 1% of the current energy requirement.
We are sitting on literally billions of tons of coal ,200 years worth I believe.
Clean burn coal fired power stations are available.
Simple solution.
Er, No.
Why ?
We would have to pay carbon tax to the EU to build them and run them.
Any government presiding when the lights go out. will be to put it blunty.
Gone.
As for AGW it is being hit left right and centre with scandal after scandal after scandal.
Is beginning to look very much like a scam to most people (I am now convinced it is),especially the ones who struggle to pay energy bills as it is.

In fact it is even looking like NASA Goddard have been up to it as well.
Matbe you should have mentioned the 30,000 people (mostly the old and frail)who froze to death in this country last year to her.
How many died this year I wonder and winter is not over yet.
Fortunately for my granparents they died years ago.
Sad how people have to die to line the pockets of the rich with carbon trading.
Buying and selling Carbon.
The south sea bubble springs to mind.

Greens must remember to include 95% confidence limits in any figures they quote to support a political point in future, or face the consequences.

As a fellow Labour Party member and sceptic (not denier), I welcome what you’ve said Tom.

Worth pointing out that the 300,000 figure is in fact all down to increased risks of three causes of death: malnutrition, diarrhoea and malaria, all of which are in fact diseases of poverty. They can all be dealt with effectively by low cost interventions but the countries can’t afford them. So it is low growth and poverty that causes these diseases, not climate itself.

The model in any case ignores the fact that on all the climate change scenarios, these countries will have grown considerably by the time the climate change occurs. So we are asked to believe that countries that have caught up with the industrialised world in terms of income per head will just let their people die for the sake of a few 50 pence mosquito nets.

Completely beside the point.

Climate change is a serious threat that must be tackled head on. Bickering about whether 300,000 is an exact figure is irrelevant.

People are dieing because of climate change, and more will die in the future. Our only hope to reduce the numbers of deaths is to make harsh cuts to our greenhouse gas emissions.

I live in the Hove & Portslade constituency which is the neighbour of Brighton Pavilion, where Caroline Lucas is a parliamentary candidate.

I am “very green” indeed in that I cycle everywhere, I don’t have a car, I recycle as much as I can etc. etc.

The Brighton & Hove constituencies have very strong support for the green candidates. I think that the greens know that the majority of their votes will come from former Labour voters and the strategy of Caroline Lucas is to take opportunities to depict Labour as the bad guys suggesting they are “just like the Conservatives”.

In Caroline’s own constituency the Conservative parliamentary candidate, Charlotte Vere, does a great job of alienating Green voters all by herself, so Caroline doesn’t have to do any work on that front.

By far the best candidate in Brighton Pavilion is Nancy Platts for Labour – yah!!