T Sett,

I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt that what you’re saying is your gut reaction to scathe me was tempered when you realized my comment was above challenge. Was this the gentle sound of a penny dropping?

For surely, the alternative is inconceivable. The Time article to which I referred talks about increased carbon emission, massive deforestation in Brazil, rising food prices and food shortages. I’ll quote:

“Four years ago, two University of Minnesota researchers predicted the ranks of the hungry would drop to 625 million by 2025; last year, after adjusting for the inflationary effects of biofuels, they increased their prediction to 1.2 billion.”

I can only hope that I have misunderstood you in saying that half a billion starving people isn’t “much to respond to.” Or is it the climate alarmists who are “in denial” of the real issues in the world?

The sad thing is that we are repeatedly told that it is the third world that will suffer most from the effects of climate change (although the IPCC’s emissions scenarios are based on them effectively becoming first world nations – figure that one out for me), yet it now appears that such policies are serving to keep them in their place, or worse, thus either making them more vulnerable if the climate predictions are founded, or has them paying a ghastly cost if they aren’t.

All this further confirms for me that “the issue” can’t simply be left in the hands of “climate scientists” alone, as much as the likes of Prof Karoly are enjoying paroxysms of self-importance in the spotlight.

I have read and re-read your comment about rain and umbrellas but, I’m sorry, for the life of me, it’s still meaningless.

Anyway, I’ve had enough for now. I return once in a while to OLO for some good articles, but find the commentary disappointingly shallow and nasty. I get sucked in thinking things might have changed but I always regret it. I’ve got better things to do

Q&A

Tamino's (Hanson’s Bulldog = HB) post you link to refers to a critique of various bloggers (principally Lucia) who have set up various statistical techniques to falsify, or otherwise, the IPPC AR4 temperature projection. This is a work in process. Note HB's analysis refers to the TAR while Lucia’s relates to last year’s AR4.

HB posts Ramhstorf’s temperature chart (to end 2006) with an updated chart (to end 2007 -courtesy of Ramhstorf).

Lucia’s (& David Stockwell’s – see link) issue is with the smoothing, trend technique used by Ramhstorf & its lack of documentation & uncertainty analysis accompanying its publication.

http://landshape.org/enm/rahmstorf-et-al-2007-ipcc-error/#comment-112759

On another issue, I basically agree with HB that 7-10 years is too short a time to conclude that warming has stopped, as HB argues in another of his posts linked below (You Bet). I like his 2- sigma falsification method.

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/01/31/you-bet/#more-569

However this is a totally different kettle of fish to the proposition that “the warming is actually at the top end of the range predicted by the IPPC in 2001”, which stretches credibility beyond breaking point.

(BTW Q&A I just pinched myself; yes it’s me & not Richard Castles).

Jeez VK

You really should read and check the dates of the links you supply.

The latest link you supplied shows China has been a net importer of CEREALS at various points in the last 25 years.

My statement was not about cereals but about being a net importer of FOOD.

These points are ignored in your earlier links. And in previous years while China imported grain (Cereals) it was still a net exporter of food.

Fantasyland is full of people who lack basic comprehension skills...

Now consider reading this article to see the relation between fuel prices and oil demands and the resultant pressures exerted on food supply and demand and you'll perhaps start to understand my points. It's not all about water shortages and droughts nor diminishing agricultural land.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/apr/06/food.foodanddrink

'you can lead a horse to water but ... whatever'

Oh and note the date of this article ... April 2008

not March 1998, nor April 1998 nor October 2001 which are the dates of the articles you quoted. Seven to ten years out of date.

Jeez really Vk are you keeping up or are you merely doing as the scientists do ... focusing on the past.

And if you think I'm ridiculing you and your attitudes, well I am, but I'm not so coarse as to suggest you are living in fantasyland. You show the evidence that you are doing that all by yourself without much help from me.

I'm sitting here wondering to myself why I bother?

And I'm thinking of Woodrow Wilson when he said

'Why would you murder a man when he's intent on suicide.'

Hope you get my point.

G Larsen

Appreciate your response. A lot of work is in progress (contrary to popular belief) and the links you point to are in one such area.

We won’t know if the "sceptics will have their day" for another 5-10 yrs.

In the mean time, we have some important policy decisions to make and this is where the ‘debate’ is being focussed (by the decision makers anyway) whether we like it or not.

It would help if everybody contributed in a constructive way.

Q&A suggests we should all contribute in a "constructive way". I agree because in issues like AGW it will always come down to ..... does the hypothesis over-ride the evidence? e.g. Just observe how the blinded IPCC and AGW greenhousers led a chorus of approval when they embraced with a complete lack of critical evaluation M Mann's attempted revision of the last millennium's climatic history with his "hockey stick " chart and hypothesis , ..... and "for one reason and one reason only - it told them exactly what they wanted to hear."

The political IPCC is giving us a pseudoscience with an eclipse of reason and total loss of all credibility on climate. It also assumes with anthropogenic grandeur that the debate is over without acknowledging that the case for AGW has been fully created from careless/very selective data acquisition and dodgy data processing. i.e. When you have a virtual monopoly of research funding who needs integrity?

When all we see involves an outcome directed pseudo science trying to force/fudge raw data to conform to something that is expected to be seen I would ask Q&A to take off the blinkers if he wishes to be constructive.

I'm sure I would agree to much of T.Sett's thoughts about the environment but on climate, however, there are numerous well meaning individuals who have allowed a weak media and propagandists to convince them that in accepting the alarmist view that they are carbon sinners, that they are in fact displaying intelligence and virtue. I simply find this profoundly disquieting.

This article by Professor Barry Brook is very interesting.
I am ashamed to say, I have been guilty of feeding trolls. No more!

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/04/24/2226189.htm