I had the misfortune to agree to meet Neil Craig at the Glasgow Skeptic society last night. I had hoped that by arriving late I would have missed the talk, but unfortunately like all priests before their parishioners, this sermon went on and on and on.
I knew the kind of half truths we were in for as soon as she mentioned the 97% of climate scientists – the ones who had been specially asked to fill in a questionnaire effectively asking whether it had warmed since the little ice age. Even I could answer yes … only idiots or scoundrels would refer to such a disreputable statistic.
But my real anger was not at this lacklustre presentation, but at the audience. There she should before a crowd of “sceptics” repeating ad nausea: Global Warming Sceptics are right wing luddites who must not be listened to because they are just trying to throw doubt on the settled science.
And what is the definition of scepticism:
- (a) an attitude of doubt or a disposition to incredulity either in general or toward a particular object;
- (b) the doctrine that true knowledge or knowledge in a particular area is uncertain; or
- (c) the method of suspended judgment, systematic doubt, or criticism that is characteristic of skeptics (Merriam–Webster).
OK, I can forgive the fact that she did not know that scepticism is a noble and honoured tradition in Scotland, I can forgive the fact that she may only have met the right wing republicans with no more knowledge of the science than her who latch onto global warming scepticism with no real idea of the evidence and science and give it a bad name, but I can’t forgive an audience of “sceptics” who showed not the slightest sign of scepticism.
Call yourselfs Humanists, or perhaps “humourists” even the “global warming fan club”, call yourself whatever you like, but unless you are going to be sceptic, be inquisitive, question the dogma, you have no right to call yourself a sceptics much less a “skeptic”.
σκέπτομαι – to think, to look about, to consider
Thanks Mike it was good to meet you. I have blogged today on the subject giving my view. I think the audience, based on The Committe members we met were more ignorant than dishonest. They have simply gone through life without our media or “education” system allowing them to ever be exposed to facts or the principles of free enquiry.
Likewise. I’m so pleased you had the guts to put your question. By the time we got to questions, I was so angry I wouldn’t have been able to string a coherent question together.
It was also very useful walking back with the organiser. he was saying that is was very important to plan a lot of events because it was only when they had the high profile events that a lot of people started to participate.
Was this “Evolution and Global Warming Denialism: How the Public is Mislead”
Featuring Eugenie C. Scott?
If so, I’d be very interested to hear more details, could you email me please? A similar lecture is planned in October at the National Association of Biology Teachers in California, which I hope to attend.
That’s her. She only asserts that the comparison is valid. She has no evidence for the claim that we are experiencing CAGW. She can’t answer anything because “she’s not a climate expert”
But she boasts of how her organisation stopped Al Gore’s film, proven in court to be a pack of lies, being “balanced” by a debate. in which kids would be allowed to here both sides.
In which case she is, …[Futureboy, whilst I don’t expect her to read this blog, could you reframe from attacks on individuals. (And yes it probably is the pot calling the kettle black!)]
Hi Mike,
Ian here. I enjoyed our walk back to Queen Street station, but I don’t quite remember the context of this particular thing that I said or – for that matter – saying it. I’m also not quite sure what ” it was was very important to plan a lot of events” means. Of course it’s important to plan events – if you don’t plan them, they don’t happen.
Wondered if you could jog my memory as to specifically what I said and the context. If I did say it, I was certainly mistaken.
As you can see, numbers for the next event, on porn (http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=277247538957969), are very similar to the numbers for last night’s high-profile event, so that can’t be it. In terms of actually getting the audience to participate, we always run out of time for questions, at every event, so that can’t be it either.
It’s certainly true that questions have been particularly fierce, or more likely to be from those who are not of a consensus view, at events which have been higher profile, e.g. the event with PZ Myers, and the event with Eugenie Scott. However, you’ll find that PZ Myers’ talk discussed evolution, and was attended by several members of the Centre for Intelligent Design, and that Eugenie’s Scott’s talk discussed evolution, and was attended by several members of the Centre for Intelligent Design. Apart from global warming (which was also discussed in Eugenie Scott’s talk), evolution is probably the largest issue about which there is perceived to be significant controversy, so that seems like a fairly good explanation for that.
As I say, hope you can remind me of exactly what I said, but I hope that what I’ve written above might clear up any confusion.
You were saying that there used to be a small group which didn’t do very much, and then you arranged a program of talks and it inspired people to come along. It’s really that I been focussing on the “education” of politicians and not on the kind of program you had. This is a particular need in Scotland.
I perhaps need to explain some background. Back in 1999 when the Scottish parliament was formed, it was given limited powers, but one of those was renewable energy. Now this was rather like given a shiny new bike to a kid … they just wanted to play with this power and see what they could do … and that is I suspect what the shrewd politicians in England wanted them to do.
So, renewable energy and setting high targets has always been a bit of a symbol of the Scottish parliament’s “manhood” (aka gullibility) … which coincided with the end of the period of fast rise in temperatures, then a large number of greens in the second parliament when the electorate were still experimenting with PR, and idiots like me writing to the papers saying we were the windiest place in Europe – which no doubt stoked it all up to a right old lather.
So, Scotland has a particular problem with our politicians who went crazy over wind … naive, gullible politicians, fresh in power, with a brand new power to play with … I’m sure you get the drift.
So, we sceptics have to somehow find a way to make them see sense … they really are deluded about global warming. So, the main thrust of activities we were considering was education of our politicians.
But there’s probably a lot of people who are just mildly interested in Global Warming scepticism in the way the Glasgow Sceptics are mildly interested in philosophical scepticism. So, the way you run a regular series of discussion, the way you have an events program seems to fit these. Seeing the Glasgow sceptics made me realise that enthusiasm could be generated by a program of activities – and as we are proper sceptics (really sceptical), …. we’re a bit sceptical of an organisation with a large social calendar, but seeing the Glasgow sceptics I think it could be beneficial.
The other thing, which it is painfully obvious, is that we are going to have to “train up” some speakers. I’ve already had a couple of requests. So, a program of discussions, debates, might be useful to improve our public speaking.
Not quite sure who is who, given that I asked a question of Scottish Sceptic, whom I assumed to be the Mike I walked with to Queen Street station, and got a response from another account. Hey-ho.
Two questions though: firstly, is it not a bit inconsistent to end with “to think, to look about, to consider”, and yet admit that you only heard any of the talk at all by accident?
Furthermore, after the talk, you said that a doubling of CO2 concentration was thought to raise temperatures by (I believe) 1 to 1.5°C – so where do the IPCC get the figure of 3.5°C from? But a simple search on this topic (see: http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v1/n11/abs/ngeo337.html) suggests “a climate sensitivity value of about 3 °C, with a likely range of about 2–4.5 °C”.
I simply wondered where you got your figures from.
Thanks,
Ian
Glasgow Sceptic, sorry hit the wrong button! I’ve heard 90% of this talk before ad nauseum from other alarmists. It’s always the same rubbish: mankind must be causing the world to warm, it’s warming, look how can anyone deny it’s warming caused by mankind, therefore those against us are luddites who just won’t admit that mankind is warming the globe … because look it’s warming. That’s why the sceptics were so pleased when CERN corroborated the solar activity-global temperature link proposed by Svensmark. Because now we can put a stick in the wheel of this particular bike and say: but the warming could be caused by solar activity. It’s not how science should work, but when you’re up against zealots who won’t even entertain treating the subject as science, that is how we have to argue.
The typical figure for CO2 forcing is 1C, it’s not an easy figure to find because the alarmists don’t want to admit that only 1C is real science. The 0.5C figure, comes from Herman Harde who is physicists who is a trace gas spectral analysis specialist (particularly CO2) who just happened to wonder what his software normally used in real applications based on the latest spectral Data would produce and he was surprised to find the line by line analysis (using finer detail) considerably reduced the CO2 warming effect compared to the previous versions of the HITRAN database.
Unfortunately this paper is only published in German but a synopsis is available in English: http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2011/EGU2011-4505-1.pdf which gives a figure of 0.45 for CO2 warming when the latest HITRAN 2008 data is plugged into a typical climate model. (for a strange reason he hasn’t been published in English, but if other researcher’s experience is anything to go by, he is likely to be having problems getting his work published and a quick look at the Climategate emails will explain “we will keep this work out … even if we have to redefine what peer review means)
So, it is very interesting to read (http://www.pik-potsdam.de/~stefan/Publications/Book_chapters/Rahmstorf_Zedillo_2008.pdf) which tells us “Without any feedbacks, a doubling of CO2 (which amounts to a forcing of 3.7 W/m2) would result in 1°C global warming, which is easy to calculate and is undisputed**.”(**IPCC, Climate Change 2001: Synthesis Report.)
So, we have an “undisputed” 2001 figure (from memory they used HITRAN 1998 not the latest 2008 … obviously as it was 2001) of 1C for doubling CO2, we have a Hermann Harde paper which suggests 0.45C which he says is because the HITRAN trace gas database he used is more up to date and uses a smaller increment in wavelength to calculate the line by line effect (presumably as the lines are so narrow it matters!)
I’ve seen a range of “mid estimates” of scaled up CO2 from the 3.2 to 3.7. 3.5 seems a good compromise.
So, being very specific. The HITRAN models based on typical climate models shows a doubling of CO2 could warm between 0.45 and 1C (lowest to undisputed). There is then this mystical scaling up of real science by 2 to 4.5 or similar very woolly figures (which if nothing else should set alarm bells ringing) with a mid point of around 3.5(ish). The central question is: “what is the evidential base supporting this massive scaling up of real science?” How is it justified, how is being sceptical of this massive figure with its undoubted massive error bars being a “Luddite”, how is it “denial”?
Then of course, we have the effects: there’s no trends in extreme weather, cold kills in the UK, and read any good history book at it will tell you civilisation (mainly European) flourished in warmer periods.
CHALLENGE TO ALL COMENTERS, TO FIND BETTER ANSWERS
Temperature in the atmosphere is NOT same as in human body; when under the armpit is 1C warmer than normal = the WHOLE body is warmer by that much. Time for mature debate; for real proofs, it’s time for the secular Skeptics to get on the front foot.
Q: do you know that: oxygen + nitrogen are 998999ppm in the troposphere, CO2 only 260-400ppm? Q: do you know that O+N expand /shrink INSTANTLY in change of temperature? Q: do you know that; where they expand upwards; on the edge of the troposphere is minus – 90⁰C? Q: why O+N expand more, when warmed by 5⁰C, than when warmed by 2⁰C? A: when warmed by 5⁰C, they need to go further up, to intercept more extra coldness, to equalize. Q: if O+N are cooled after 10minutes to previous temperature, why they don’t stay expanded another 5 minutes extra? A: not to intercept too much extra coldness, to prevent too much cooling. A2: they stay expanded precisely as long as they are warmer – not one second more or less – that’s how they regulate to be same warmth units overall in the troposphere, every hour of every year and millenia!
Q: do you know that: if troposphere warms up by 2⁰C extra – troposphere expands up into the stratosphere by 1km, how much extra coldness is there to intercept? A: intercepts extra appropriate coldness to counteract the extra heat in 3,5 seconds > that extra coldness falls to the ground in minutes Q: if O+N are warmed extra for 30minutes, why they don’t shrink after 15minutes, or after one day? A: if O+N after cooled to previous temperature; stayed expanded for a whole day extra > they would have redirected enough extra coldness, to freeze all the tropical rivers / lakes.
Q: can CO2 of 260-400ppm prevent oxygen + nitrogen (998999ppm) of expanding when they warm up? A: O+N when warmed extra – they expand through the walls of a hi-tensile hand-grenade. Q: do you believe in the laws of physics, or in IPCC and the Warmist cult? The laws of physics say: part of the troposphere can get colder than normal – only when other part gets warmer than normal. B] if the WHOLE troposphere gets colder -> air shrinks -> intercepts less coldness on the edge of the troposphere > retains more heat and equalizes in a jiffy. C] both hemispheres cannot get warmer simultaneously for more than few minutes – if they doo -> troposphere expands extra -> intercepts extra coldness and equalizes in a jiffy. Q: do the O+N wait to warm up by 2-3⁰C, before they start expanding; or expand instantly extra when they warm up by 0,000001⁰C? Mitich formula: EH>AE>EHR (Extra Heat >Atmosphere Expands >Extra Heat Releases) Tons of extra CORRECT proofs, why I am a GLOBAL warming Infidel. I believe in climatic changes; big and small – I know that human can improve the climate / because water controls climate = to a degree, human can control water. On the other hand, the phony GLOBAL warmings are, yes, phony.
Lots of B/S makes fertile imaginations. Money corrupts even honest people, lying is bread and butter to people involved in climatology, don’t blame them. Present our own ‘’honest’’ proofs. Warmist believe in 90% possibility of GLOBAL warming – the face Skeptics believe 101% in global warming. The leading ”Fake Skeptics” deserve a medal from Al Gore and Hansen.