I fully agree that the climate realists lost the PR battle some time back and a need to reduce carbon concetrnations in the atmosphere was created. but once you get past the fact that we are basing decisions to spend billions of dollars on a bunch of unvalidated computer models, the debate becomes, if possible, even stranger.
The UK engineers may have pie in the sky solutions, but the one now being widely adopted - the use of renewables in electricity networks - may have no effect at all on reducing emissions. The judgement from those who have to incorporate renewables on networks overseas is clear, see report from E.On Gmbh
http://www.wind-watch.org/documents/wind-report-2004
and various reports the UK's Royal Association of Engineers, and those are just a sample. The evidence is overwhelming that wind is nearly useless for reducing emissions, but this very strong consensus has been ignored.
For that matter there is also a consensus that on any rational analysis, and assuming that the earth will warm substantially, there is no economic case for trying to reduce emissions. Almost the sole contradictory voice of any authority is Nicholas Stern. The money should be spent on mitigation, rather than trying to reduce CO2, which is proving impossible anyway.
The debate is degenerated into activist-driven madness where we will spend billions to achieve virtually no result. The report by the UK engineers is the least of our troubles.

Rowan Cross makes some good points, but he does not appear to practise what he preaches. He is correct in saying that informed debate should precede any spending of public funds, but the problem is that governments have jumped on the greenhouse gas reduction bandwagon on false political grounds. They do not have any scientific or economic justification for implementing such policies.
If he had done his homework, he would discover that there is no irrefutable scientific evidence to support anthropogenic climate change. The environmental-activist-dominated IPCC has been able to bluff politicians, the media and the misinformed with mere assertion, complemented by unvalidated alarmist computer modelling. The IPCC has failed to explain actual climate history. For example, it was unable to explain why there was a cooling trend from 1940 to 1975, and why there has been a cooling trend since 1998 despite increasing greenhouse gas emissions, and it has failed to predict the El Nino and La Nina effects.
The socalled climate change denialists ( an emotive misnomer -- they are in fact realists who recognise that climate change is not man-made) must continue to oppose the irrational behaviour and decisions of governments who assert that they can control climate change.

"Whether climate change is real or not is irrelevant ...
....
The climate denialists have lost the battle..."

Saying that is an impudence.

We need to stick our heads in the sand, not listen any more and push ahead, do you mean that?

If it is irrelevant we could as well do nothing.

It's wonderful that OLO provides equal opportunity for climate change deniers. However I'm not one of them since 2009 in much of Tasmania has been both the hottest and wettest year recorded. That gives me a teensy weensy suspicion that the climate is changing.

I think a distinction needs to be made between rent seekers who want to amuse themselves with pointless experiments and those who might be on to something. Recall the Minister for Silly Walks in Monty Python. For example some back of the envelope calculations suggest carbon capture and storage could not work on an adequate scale for coal fired emissions. The experimenters still got millions in government money. On the other hand nonvolcanic geothermal might just work but some practical difficulties need to be verified. In that case public funding may be justified even if it doesn't lead to success. Some mothballed ideas (eg fuel cell car engines) might have to be revisited because the relative economics has changed. Therefore I think it would be prudent for the funding bodies to state their reasons for granting or declining funds and see how well they hold up to public scrutiny.

Taswegian - I don't think the term "deniers" means that people deny climate changes - no one does that, the reference to "deniers" is to people who "deny" that man is contributing to climate change.

I'm skeptical of man's contribution to climate change, and I have no fear of climate change - in fact, bring it on, it's part of the essence of life to enjoy the challenges of change.

Mind you there seems to be a lot of people who are just downright terrified of change, climate or otherwise who want the world to remain exactly as it was .. well I'm guessing sometime in the last 30 years, when it was apparently "perfect".

We should spend money adapting, not trying to stop or reverse the climate changing. I can't believe the arrogance of people who truely believe we, motes on the surface of this planet, can change climate at will.

You will see here bullying, exaggeration, flaming, name calling and all manner of attempts to stop debate or even conversation or opinion, by people I'm sure will tell you they are open minded, they just hate other people's opinions.

Most of the climate change high priests are just sprouting their religion using pseudo science to justify their ridiculous and failed predictions. We spent millions on the cooling problem the High Priests predicted in the 70's and 80's and now billions on the next lot of outragous claims. This religion even makes the Catholic church look good with its ridiculous spending and heretical statements. I wonder what the next dogma will be when people get sick of the rhetoric of man made climate change. Bring it on I for one am sick of this one.

It's absolutely amazing that anybody still has an issue with AGW. This has been evidenced so often it becomes tedious in the extreme to have to regurgitate that empircal evidence, which is largely ignored by the patrons of denial such as the Heartland Institute. What's even more mind-boggling is this continued furphy of "computer models". It is thoroughly hypocritical for the anti AGW acolytes to try and discredit the science whilst relying on the "statistical computers models" of the ilk of McIntyre McKitrick (see here for rebuttals)
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/false-claims-by-mcintyre-and-mckitrick-regarding-the-mann-et-al-1998reconstruction/

or Wegman vs The National Academuy of Sciences:
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11676#toc

And what of the hero of the last year Prof Ian Plimer, supposedly with that new bible of climatology "Heaven+Earth". He can't or won't substantiate even the most simplistic of his data sources, see here for the latest:
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/09/ian_plimer_is_a_big_chicken.php#more

So let's get past these pissant minority postulations, nit-picking at the edges of the "greenhouse theory" without disproving any of that science and evaluate the impact of AGW on climate. That's now the problem, let's all be part of the solution.

The greenhouse theory is just that – a theory. No scientist, nor anyone else for that matter, has been able to prove that it is the main driver of climate change, whether warming or cooling.

Heads in the sand people can never be convinced. They would fry and shrivel and still deny it was humans that caused it.

The evidence is there and the denialists completely ignore it, never attempt to debunk it, dont even bother looking at it. As if by pretending it doesnt exist and never acknowleding it they somehow make a credible argument.

Bunch of fools who will need catastrophic destruction and massive dislocation before they will even contemplate AGW and even then idiots like runner will say it some curse from their magical imaginary fairy friend in the sky punishing us for some sin we committed (not fouling of the planet their superfriend gave us thats ok) but because we allow abortions or because we are not exterminating the muslims well enough or maybe because we didnt drink the purple coolaid.

If nothing else the principle of "just in case" and "leave it as you found it" should sway some of these so called "spiritual" types but coupled with their love of money and irrational hatred of anything they perceive as "social" (even if its not) the majority of them live in their own sniping, craven little world, always fearful of "them" and totally convinced of their own greatness and infallibility. Narcissus had nothing on this lot.

Its the ignorance of these people that makes me sad. They dont want it to be true so they deny everything and bully and defame anyone who stands against them. True immorality and evil and in the end they WILL lose. Even if they take the rest of us with them.

Socialism by Stealth!

haha. Beat you Col!

Man I love the sound of that.

sillyfilly, are you seriously still trying to defend Michael Mann's hocky stick graph? But even the IPCC has dropped it. They wiped all mention of it from their 2007 report (it featured prominently in the 2001 report) after the Wegman congressional report you decry and have not referred to it since. They never explained the change, never apologised for it, just never referred to it again. Nor will anyone on the AGW side of the debate. The Wegman report people were all senior statisticians who looked carefully the hocky stick reconstruction and found it to be false. The US national academy of science gave Mann an out - I forgotten the details - but the IPCC rightly dropped it as no longer defensible.
They had to fall back on the use of computer models, which are all essentially unverified - that is, they have no forecasting record of any kind.
In any case, the article is about not buying snake oil to fix this supposed problem and, as noted, we have already bought several billion litres of the stuff in wind energy and, perhaps, trading schemes that will have no effect.

Curmudgeon - sillyfilly is a Scientology AGW type combatant from Andrew Bolt's online Blog. Since he is on holidays for a month, I guess sillyfilly has come to OLO looking for sport.

Clearly of Google link wars behaviour, loves to duel your link versus my links, since that's what gets attention on those type of blogs, and eventually proves nothing.

Lost the battle, well yes, but that doesn't mean science has won, merely that the side with better propaganda, funding and the most to lose has won. Wouldn't there be a huge hue and cry if all the funding for AGW type research dried up?

Anyway, all the vitriol in the world won't change what is happening, the climate changes, yes it can - can we stop it, unlikely. We'll see in a few years what is happening, and then I imagine we'll all get excuses and see the blame game in full flight, since the Scientology AGW types appear to be getting more and more shrill and bitter as the world refuses to follow the "modeling" script.

RPG - its true that the side with the better funding has won, for the moment. Although the truth must eventually come out it may be perhaps two or three years before the present cooling trend in temperatues becomes undeniable. The trend looks like its about to reverse, temporarily, due to the El Nino cycle (just as la nina caused temps to drop sharply last year). Once that works it way through the system and, perhaps, temps drop back to below where they are now, then a lot of scientists will suddeny find that they never really agreed with global warming.. funny that.

Mark

<< The US national academy of science gave Mann an out - I forgotten the details >> ... funny that.

<< the IPCC rightly dropped it as no longer defensible. >> Wrong, actually – the so called ‘hockey stick’ is in the AR4, together with about a dozen others, all from different researchers and different proxies ... funny that.

<< They had to fall back on the use of computer models >> No they didn’t, you obviously don’t understand how science works ... funny that.

Now, the jewel in the crown:

<< Although the truth must eventually come out it may be perhaps two or three years before the present cooling trend in temperatues becomes undeniable. The trend looks like its about to reverse, temporarily, due to the El Nino cycle (just as la nina caused temps to drop sharply last year). Once that works it way through the system and, perhaps, temps drop back to below where they are now, then a lot of scientists will suddeny find that they never really agreed with global warming >>

So Mark, given your understanding of time series analysis, natural variability, radiative transfer and the enhanced greenhouse effect:

Do you think that this next El Nino would lead to a higher GMT than in 1998 (notwithstanding 2005 was up with it)?

If so, why?

If not, why not?

________

Houelle,

Sorry about this, but it's an OLO policy that whenever there is an article about, well ... anything - Col is automatically and unreservedly given 1st dibs at the mantra "Socialism by Stealth".

An interesting article in New Scientist recently (16May 2009).

It has some interesting implications for scientific certainty/conclusions – especially re the Climate Change “debate” – see if you can guess why!

heading: Don’t be so sure that our universe is flat
Thanks in part to the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) satellite, which revealed the density of matter and dark energy in the early universe, MOST ASTRONOMERS ARE CONFIDENT THAT THE UNIVERSE IS FLAT. But that view is now being questioned by Joseph Silk at the University of Oxford and colleagues who say it’s possible that the WMAP observations have been misinterpreted.
In a paper accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (www.arxiv.org/abs/0901.3354), they took data from WMAP and other cosmology experiments and analyzed it using Bayes’s theorem, which can be used to show HOW THE CERTAINTY ATTACHED TO A PARTICULAR CONCLUSION IS AFFECTED BY DIFFERENT STARTING ASSUMPTIONS.
Using modern astronomers’ assumptions, which presuppose a flat universe, they calculated the probability that the universe was in one of three states: flat, positively curved or negatively curved. This produced a 98 per cent probability that the universe was indeed flat. When they reran the calculation starting from a more open-minded position, however, the probability changed to 67 per cent, making a flat universe far less of a certainty than astronomers generally conclude.
“It’s a reasonable assumption that the universe isn’t entirely flat,” Silk says, ADDING THAT THE CALCULATIONS REVEAL HOW STRONGLY ASTRONOMERS PREJUDGES CAN AFFECT CONCLUSIONS…Silk says astronomers need top achieve a 99.9999 per cent level of confidence on the flat universe high enough that the case starts to look compelling no matter what the starting assumptions are.

Unlike the usual sort of scare, such as over vaccination or fluoridated water, the more people know about the science behind AGW, the more likely they are to believe in it. This big survey from the earth science journal Eos shows that 97% of active climatologists support AGW

http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf

While the truth isn't decided by majority vote, this degree of consensus only leaves 3 logical alternatives:

1. The scientists are correct. To the best of our current knowledge, there is a real threat from AGW.

2. The scientists are telling the truth as they see it, but they are mistaken because they are overlooking something important. How likely is it that you can imagine an influence from solar variation, volcanos, cosmic rays, dodgy computer models, etc., but the people who know more about atmospheric physics and chemistry than anyone else are too dumb to see it? If there really is a devastating counterargument, why isn't it appearing in journals such as Science or Nature on the way to giving its originator a Nobel Prize, and not in some obscure denialist blog aimed at the general public? As Q&A and sources like realclimate.org point out, the climatologists have considered all of these factors. It is amusing that you denialists are usually willing to respect nuclear scientists and engineers - because they happen to be saying things that you want to hear.

3. The scientists are lying for nefarious reasons of their own. This implies a vast global conspiracy, because the scientists who live amd work in Russia, China, India, Brazil, and elsewhere, where they have different cultures, religions, funding arrangements for science, etc., etc., all have to keep their lies consistent. Furthermore, they have to be able to squelch any young scientist anywhere in the world who might be tempted to break ranks and go for a Nobel Prize plus unlimited grant money by conclusively discrediting AGW. Where is the evidence for such a conspiracy? It might be more credible to stick to showing that the Moon landings were faked or that there are alien bodies hidden in Area 51.

Divergence,
I beg to differ.

You claim: “This big survey from the earth science journal Eos shows that 97% of active climatologists support AGW”.

But the survey you cite tells a different story:
10,257 were surveyed – of these only 3146 responded (i.e. 30%)
[hardly the voice of the scientific community, or even, the ‘active’ climatologists subset of it ]

Those that did respond answered two ––pretty ambiguous—questions:

1) When compared to pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen or remained the same ? [ 96.2% of the 3146 answered ‘risen’]
My questions about this question are :
i) “when compared to pre-1800s” – does the --PRE-- bit extend to the mid-Pliocene when the earths temperates were much warmer than presently?
ii) Is a measure of 200- 220 years sufficiently broad, AND has the trend always been on one direction during this time span?

2) Do you think human activity is a significant contributory factor in rising mean temperatures? [ 97.4% of the 3146 answered yes]
i) My question about this question is: what is their definition of ‘significant’?

I would have expected any competent scientist – IF THEY TOOK THE SURVEY SERIOUSLY (?) – to have had the same queries!

You listed three scenarios that might invalidate the popular position on AGW –I can think of a fourth:

4. Those --religiously committed -- to the new faith haven’t yet read this book:http://www.amazon.com/Extraordinary-Popular-Delusions-Madness-Crowds/dp/051788433X
(Incidentally, tell them Horus sent you --they may give you a discount --I send a lot of snake oil sales persons their way!)

Divergence

You won't be able to stop some people cherry-picking the data, as we have seen. When pressed, they always seem to side-step, change the goal posts or move to a different the playing field altogether.

It is worth noting that whatever happens, it won't be the scientists who decide - it will be the politicians, captains of industry and their respective bean-counters - that is where the real debate is, and it is global.

Your 3 points are logical. Horus' 4th is not - his is predicated on science being a faith based religion.
Clearly, whoever thinks this does not understand how science works.

It is disturbing when people repeat the same old distortions and misrepresentations time and time again. I am not calling these people pathological liars - some are certainly not stupid. Their recalcitrance appears to be founded on some ideological perspective.

Having said that, there are clearly some 'whackos' out there who are just plain anti-science.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-science

Q&A twists words around again and again, I'm not saying you're a mealy mouthed tricky wing bolt, dumb nut pathological lying whacko - sometimes you even sound reasonable.

Horus did not say that science is a faith based religion - you fall into the same hysterical intolerant mode every time you feel threatened, you must be a challenge to your management.

Divergence got caught out doing the snake oil cherry picking act - plain fact mate, your defence is just as bereft of credibility.

Now, that just gives even more credibility to the article doesn't it - you wonder why some people are skeptical when the AGW scientology types have to resort to this sort of behaviour?

Bottom line, is that scientists will have less to do with anything once taxes start to roll into governments, certainly only a fraction will go to any kind of CO2 reduction. Does that make the scientists fell threatened and emasculated, it should.

Trying to win the debating point that the world is actually warming, seems to be a pastime of many on this forum - you can't see that regardless of being right or wrong, it won't stop or change anything - that's what the article is about isn't it. These fora always fall back into hysterical flaming of anyone who might be a "denier", feel better now Q&A?

Even if we agreed that CO2 is warming the world, so what? Do you really think renewable energy or anything else is going to stop or reverse it- when we get talk of tipping points being passed already.

Taking out your anger locally will not change the world, but I must admit it's fun watching some of you turn inside out trying to prove everyone else is stupid except you.

rpg
whatever

rpg and Horus,

Where exactly is the snake oil?

No one has disputed that climate can and has changed naturally.

When scientists use the term "significant" without qualification, they mean a 95% confidence level. (James Hansen has put his confidence level at 99%.)

What is interesting about the survey is that the degree of agreement went up with the background in science. There is enormous literature on the degree of consensus among climatologists. The academies of science in every major industrialised country have endorsed AGW, etc. See the Wikipedia article on Global Warming Controversy for links to sources on this. Are you disputing that there is a consensus? Why would people who disagree with AGW be less likely to reply to the survey?

If you think that the climatologists are wrong about AGW, then they must be either mistaken or lying. There is no third possibility.

Divergence,
Re: “When scientists use the term "significant" without qualification, they mean a 95% confidence level. (James Hansen has put his confidence level at 99%.)”

Sorry Divergence, I must have missed that bit –for I don’t recall seeing it in the article.

The word “significant” related to the second question which was:
“2) Do you think human activity is a significant contributory factor in rising mean temperatures?”

Show me --IN THIS SURVEY -- (not some other survey/study) where it was explained/understood that to answer in the affirmative to question two, indicated the respondent had 95% certainty.

I have an inkling that making up such figure to bolster an argument is something a shyster like a snake oil salesman might do,
but you’ve implied you definitely ain’t one of them – so show us where you derived your 95% figure from?

Is this the beginning of the end of the carbon hype?

"Latif, top climate scientist and author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is facing reality, he is capable of learning, and seems to realise it is not much use to further deny what is happening in the real world as opposed to unreliable computer models.

"Forecasts of climate change are about to go seriously out of kilter."

"However, we have to ask the nasty questions ourselves or other people will do it."

"Breaking with climate-change orthodoxy, he said NAO cycles were probably responsible for some of the strong global warming seen in the past three decades."

Article link: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17742-worlds-climate-could-cool-first-warm-later.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news

Well, if that is not remarkable.

So I guess we all will now forget about the climate hype and get back to what is really important, the energy crisis on our doorsteps.

Horus,

This source explains significance level, or you can do a search on "significance level" to find many sources, including a long article in Wikipedia. There is a long and clear explanation in Walpole, Myers, and Myers' book "Probability and Statistics for Engineers and Scientists".

http://www.surveysystem.com/signif.htm

A 0.05 significance level is the same as 95% confidence. This source makes it clear that the 0.05 significance level is the one mostly commonly used by scientists, the one that I or other scientists would think of if asked if the probability that something is true is significant

http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/significance.htm

As the question is worded in the survey, it appears to be asking whether a scientist thinks AGW has real effects. (How important they are is another question.) Even if you want to quibble about this particular survey, Q&A has repeatedly posted lists of academies of science and other learned societies that support AGW. You can find much the same material if you follow the links from "Global Warming Controversy" in Wikipedia. Are you seriously disputing that a consensus exists?

Although I am not a climate scientist, I find the idea that experienced scientists are less able to evaluate the evidence in their own field than the general public frankly incredible, and the idea of a conspiracy is downright lunatic. You seem to think that the climatologists are mistaken, not because they are stupid, but because they are under some quasi-religious delusion. Even if this were so in the West, why would the Russians, Indians, Chinese, etc. buy into it, instead of puncturing it in their leading journals? Lysenkoism was laughed at beyond the old Soviet Union. Is it legitimate to refuse to believe the majority of experts when they tell you that there is a risk (not a certainty), simply because you don't like the policy implications?

Divergence (1)

Nice intro to stats 101, but it is far from conclusive. I did a quick scan of some science journals on the web. The value applied to “significant” and or “significantly” seemed range widely, see links:
http://www.now.org/issues/diverse/diversity_report.pdf
“ shows that females and minorities are significantly underrepresented …the percentage of women among full professors
ranges from 3% to 15%.”
http://esciencenews.com/articles/2009/05/19/acute.respiratory.disease.poses.significantly.greater.risk.black.americans
"Earlier studies have indicated that black Americans have almost double the risk of developing sepsis, compared to whites.”

So the practice is a little at odds with the thoery --and we still don’t know what the respondents to your survey had in mind.
(what probably is-- significant-- is your eagerness to accept the result without knowing the background!)

But over to your other points:
1--“why would the Russians, Indians, Chinese, etc. buy into it”
When you use the expression “buy into it”, I presume you mean in the same way an audience could be said to be buying into a boxing match by cheering and clapping from the sidelines -- because, it sure as hell doesn’t mean getting into the ring i.e. taking on board all that the USA is required to do under the various AGW protocols .

The above-mentioned endorsement of AGW –if that is indeed what they’ve done (?) -- might just have something to do with the fact that under existing AGW protocols the bulk of the costs will be borne by the USA--and the above ( & most other countries ) stand to do very well from it, by either:
i) Picking up the (polluting) industries that flee the tougher US controls, or by
ii) Receiving reparations for AGW damages –again at the expense of the US.

Divergence (2)

2--“ the idea that experienced scientists …”
3----“Is it legitimate to refuse to believe the majority of experts…”
(You certainly seem to have a regard, a reverence almost , for authority)

But I don’t recall any on this side of the house --denying experts or anyone else-- the right to propose .It is the AGW proponents who are expressing --indignation -- that others (some of whom are also experts) dare to point out inconsistencies in their propositions.

And yes, there is a definite quasi-religious flavour to it all :
--The standard rebuke for a AGW challenger is ‘denialist’ [that plays on holocaust associations —and is not far removed from declaring someone a “heretic”]
--Then we are told AGW has all been settled – there is no room for any more doubts/debate [ ala “the pope has spoken”]
--And Peter Garret is telling us about 30 metre sea rises, super storms & world famine [straight out of the book Revelations]
--And you even have --TV evangelists – e.g. Al Gore .

Real science ( unlike quasi-religious movements) provides a license to doubt, to question, even the most established/popular positions.

Horus,

The science is never settled, as we can only talk about probabilities. Even James Hansen, whom you would consider one of the more extreme AGW proponents, has put his confidence level at 99%, i.e. he admits that there is a 1% chance he is wrong and that the apparent evidence for AGW is due to chance. (This is something different from the examples you have quoted.) The question is not about absolute truth, but whether the risk is great enough to justify taking action. If there is a chance of devastating consequences, sometimes action is justified even for a very low probability event, as with the search for killer asteroids.

"Denialist" has more to due with Kubler-Ross and the stages of dying than the Holocaust. It is like the case where parents are told that their child has cancer. Instead of maybe getting a second opinion and taking the recommended action, they go to doctor after doctor until they find one who will tell them what they want to hear, that their child only has a minor problem. People can be so emotionally committed to an ideology that it interferes with processing information from the real world, sometimes with disastrous consequences. Just think of the doctrinaire Communists on this forum or Runner's denial of evolution. You have been (quite rightly) merciless about this when it comes to the open borders crowd.