A new policy to save the bandwagon: Don't mention Global warming.

47 Responses to A new policy to save the bandwagon: Don't mention Global warming.

1. TinyCO2 says:

   29 September 2011 at 19:51

   I agree that most don’t want to talk about AGW but, while there are always scammers, the majority of them don’t understand global warming at all. If all you know is gleaned from Al’s movie and a comfy chat with Phil Jones or one of the other senior warming scientists then it would be hard to set that information aside. Introduce windmills, with their ‘free’ clean energy that will SAVE THE PLANET. What’s not to agree with?
   Once people have signed up to that, it’s hard to get them to listen to anything else, especially if they’ve pinned their credibility to it. Take the Australian chief scientist who said something like ‘I don’t know where these deniers are getting cooling from. This is the warmest decade the planet has ever seen’. People have assumed he was lying but it’s more than possible he thought he was telling the truth. They see the graph of temps since 1850 and they see a meteoric rise. The flat/falling section in the last ten years means nothing to them, it’s a small blob on the end. Even smaller if the graph they’re looking at cuts the last 4 or 5 years off. If they’ve never been told that AGW only really gets going in 1950, they assume it’s all man made. They don’t know that temperatures were probably higher as little as 1000 years ago and for much of the last interglacial. They can’t put AGW into perspective. Mann’s Hockey Stick was all about making people think today’s temperatures are unique.
   If Mann’s hockey stick and Hansen’s 1988 temperature prediction were taken at face value then we’d now be seeing a global temperature anomaly of about minus 0.7ºC which would put us back to Mann’s Little, Little Ice Age. How cold was Scotland back then? Brrrrr.
   Politicians don’t necessarily have more access to sceptical arguments than the majority of the public. If they’re bombarded with messages from WWF and Green Peace types they probably don’t bother doing their own research. Apart from The Great Global Warming Swindle I haven’t seen a decent counter to Al’s movie and it has its own problems.
   We really need to refine the essence of scepticism and package it for public consumption.
2. Alan Simpson says:

   29 September 2011 at 23:05

   I think the whole thing is going to end badly, AGW is now the worst thing in creation for ” Big Green”. Happily AGW is going to haunt the evil Malthusian basts for years. Happy days 🙂
3. Scots Renewables says:

   30 September 2011 at 09:26

   We really need to refine the essence of scepticism and package it for public consumption.
   Sounds a bit like the tobaco executive who once said, “Doubt is our product”
4. PaulH from Barcelona says:

   30 September 2011 at 09:58

   Hey SR,
   How about we run a wee ‘heat or eat’ sweepstake? Whoever gets the closest to guessing how many Scottish pensioners die this winter due to inflated ‘green subsidy’ fuel bills to pay for our inefficient and ineffective windfarms wins a prize.
   Up for it?
5. Scots Renewables says:

   30 September 2011 at 10:17

   Fuel prices may be inflated but this largely due to the rising cost of imported fossil fuels and the wholesale price of gas. Overall the ‘green costs’ on an average household’s gas/electric bill amount to £80 a year (Ofgem figures), or around 8% of the average bill.
   Eventually this will be repaid as increasing renewables capacity reduces our gas burn – although it is unlikely that energy copanies will ever reduce our bills. In the meantime, there are measures in place to help combat fuel poverty where it genuinely exists. Dying pensioners are just another daft sensationalist scare story from the anti-renewables lobby.
6. Bill Toland says:

   30 September 2011 at 11:17

   Scots Renewables, you have claimed that “dying pensioners are just another daft sensationalist scare story from the anti-renewables lobby”.
   There have been numerous studies on the number of people (mostly pensioners) who die every year in Britain from excess cold. All of the figures are in the 15,000 to 45,000 range, depending on the methodology used. If the world’s temperature really does rise significantly, it may well be bad news for some countries but it would definitely cut the number of deaths in Britain.
7. PaulH from Barcelona says:

   30 September 2011 at 14:08

   It’s not just pensioners who will be impacted SR,
   ‘Alex Salmond’s green energy revolution ‘threatens firms with bankruptcy’
   http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/8794860/Alex-Salmonds-green-energy-revolution-threatens-firms-with-bankruptcy.html
   Voodoo energy economics comes to Scotland.
   PS. Naturally, it goes without saying that CO2 is plantfood that is contributing to a flourishing biosphere.
8. Scots Renewables says:

   30 September 2011 at 14:17

   ‘Voodoo economics’ eh? It is increases n the wholesale gas price that are largely responsible for the recent increases in energy bills. The money being invested in renewables will help us cut down our gas consumption, so in the long (or even medium) term it is good economics.
   Naturally, it goes without saying that CO2 is plantfood that is contributing to a flourishing biosphere. – What an irrelevant aside that is. Yes, increased CO2 can theoretically increase plant yields – but floods, drought, hurricanes and frost can dramatically reduce them or wipe them out altogether, and you can’t have one without the other.
9. Bill Toland says:

   30 September 2011 at 15:14

   Scots Renewables says “Yes, increased CO2 can theoretically increase plant yields – but floods, drought, hurricanes and frost can dramatically reduce them or wipe them out altogether, and you can’t have one without the other”.
   There has been no increase at all in extreme weather events in the last 50 years. If anything, there has been a slight decline. According to the theory of global warming, the poles will warm faster than the tropics; the resultant reduction of the temperature gradient over the planet should decrease the number of severe weather events. This is one of the few predictions of global warming theory which has actually come true.
10. PaulH from Barcelona says:

    30 September 2011 at 15:38

    Yes, Voodoo Energy Economics. The numbers simply don’t stack up – the amount of actual delivered windfarm energy (c. 20% of nameplate capacity), fantastical European grid connectivity dreams, massively optimistic offshore windfarm maintenance costs that don’t account for operating in a brutal asset-kicking environment, expensive dodgy gearboxes that fail within a few years that will be a costly nightmare to replace. Need I go on?
    And there’s nothing ‘theoretical’ about CO2 plant yield increases – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsOL5nWkn1k
    .
    And you are aware that that deserts are greening?
11. Scots Renewables says:

    30 September 2011 at 15:52

    Bill, I can assure you that there has been a dramatic increase in severe weather events – and you must think people are idiots if you think you can convince them otherwise. Perhaps you should have a look at this article from Lloyds, the worlds’ leading insurance group:
    http://www.lloyds.com/News-and-Insight/News-and-Features/Environment/Environment-2011/Extreme-weather
    The temperature gradient between the poles and the tropics does indeed play a major role in our weather, but not in the simplistic way you suggest. The polar jet stream is created by difference in temperature between the cold high latitudes and warmer regions to the south; the steeper the temperature difference the faster the flow. It seems that it is now slowing down. The jet stream creates and steers storm systems and so helps set northern hemisphere weather patterns.
    How is this creating more extreme weather events? Well, a slower jet stream takes a more meandering path which shifts more slowly. That can create more persistent weather conditions including floods or droughts. And secondly, the meandering path tends to adopt a pattern which diverts cold air over the eastern United States and western Europe, in a paradoxical impact of global warming, reinforcing the negative phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO).
12. Scots Renewables says:

    30 September 2011 at 15:53

    Paul,
    I am sure you are aware that all new offshore wind turbines are likely to be direct drive designs – try looking forward instead of clinging to an unsustainable past.
13. Bill Toland says:

    30 September 2011 at 16:08

    Scottish Renewables, there has definitely not been an increase in severe weather events. It is true that there has been a huge increase in insurance payouts for weather events but this has been accounted for entirely by:
    a) the huge increase in the number of people in the affected areas
    b) the increase in the wealth of the people in the areas
    c) the increased penetration of insurance coverage.
    There have been numerous studies of the actual number of severe weather events and these studies show no increase. There has been increased news coverage of weather events in the last 50 years and this has given a misleading impression of what is actually happening.
14. Scots Renewables says:

    30 September 2011 at 16:12

    Bill,
    There have been numerous studies of the actual number of severe weather events and these studies show no increase
    Could you please provide liniks to a couple of these? Thanks.
15. Bill Toland says:

    30 September 2011 at 16:40

    Scots Renewables, I have provided a link to an article about the Twentieth Century Reanalysis project. This project has examined the entire twentieth century and has been unable to find any evidence for an increased trend in extreme weather events.
    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704422204576130300992126630.html
    If you want ro reply further, I’ll be offline until Monday so you’ll have to wait for my reply.
16. Scots Renewables says:

    30 September 2011 at 17:41

    Bill, that is an interesting dataset but it is just a dataset. I have yet to find any coherent analysis comparing extreme weather over the period of the dataset and (say) over the last ten years. Couuld you point me in the right direction perhaps?
17. Scottish Sceptic says:

    30 September 2011 at 20:15

    TinyCO2. You have it spot on. I got involved with renewables because it seemed like there ought to be a big industry. I looked at the graph, heard CO2 was a warming gas and the scientific “consensus” and who was I to question it … why was I going to question it? And there are still times I look at some data and it looks so convincing and suddenly I think … wow … what if I’m wrong? And then because I’m a sceptic I check it out and I’ve never failed to be astonished that I was taken in. But if I wasn’t a sceptic, why would I check it out?
18. Scottish Sceptic says:

    30 September 2011 at 20:22

    A good scientist always doubts their results. They look to find how they could be wrong. Take e.g. CERN, when they found neutrinos apparently travelling faster than light they doubted their result, they checked it thoroughly, then still aware they could have done something wrong, they expressed their doubt publicly.
    That is why CERN is such a trustworthy institution, because they really believe in the importance of doubt.
    Scot Renewables when the warmists are put on trial, would you prefer to go before a jury that doubts your guilty or one that has no doubt you are guilty? Doubt is good, because doubt makes us impartial … or do you doubt that?
19. Scottish Sceptic says:

    30 September 2011 at 20:26

    All that article was saying is “look at this disaster, and this and this … doesn’t that tell us things are getting worse”.
    Personally I prefer simple statistics measuring actual extreme weather events and if I thought you’d read it I could probably get half a dozen papers proving there is no worsening trend in extreme weather.
    The only trend is that those extreme events that do occur affect more people and cause more damage: because there are more people, and they have more wealth.
20. TinyCO2 says:

    30 September 2011 at 21:01

    ‘tobacco executive who once said, “Doubt is our product”’ – did he? which one? When? who recorded/reported it? Or is it yet another exaggerated/made up story?
    It never fails to amaze me that one of the most commonly used arguments for AGW is about another issue entirely. Please get a new set of put downs, the ciggy thing is lame. Surely there must be a more recent Big Business versus the Scientists story you can use? Or maybe you could invent something new, like 97% of sceptics have feasted on baby polar bears at some point in their lives. Hmm, tastes like chicken. Be offensive, be subversive but please, please be a bit less predicatable.
21. Scottish Sceptic says:

    30 September 2011 at 21:19

    This is what I cobbled together:-
    (PS. the only trend I found on your side was on US precipitation ..http://blog.chron.com/climateabyss/2011/05/our-new-analysis-of-united-states-precipitation-trends/)
    Global cyclone activity historically low: a research study shows that overall global tropical cyclone activity has decreased to historically low levels during the past 5 years. The researcher demonstrates that much of the variability in tropical cyclone energy during the past 40 years is clearly associated with natural large-scale climate oscillations such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Geophysical Research Letters, doi:10.1029/2011GL047711, 2011(http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2011GL047711)
    No evidence of an intensifying weather trend. A project looking at climate extremes reported that: “In the climate models, the extremes get more extreme as we move into a doubled CO2 world in 100 years, … So we were surprised that none of the three major indices of climate variability that we used show a trend of increased circulation going back to 1871.” In other words, researchers have yet to find evidence of more-extreme weather patterns over the period, contrary to what the models predict. Source: Wallstreet journal (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704422204576130300992126630.html)
    No trend in precipitation“The merged satellite and in situ GPCP global precipitation annual averages were examined for 1979–2004. Most variations are associated with ENSO and have no trend. A separate mode of variation shows a trend over the period. Testing indicates that this trend is significant and is not caused by data inhomogeneities. The trend mode is associated with simultaneous tropical SST variations over the period, with increased tropical precipitation over the Pacific and Indian Oceans associated with local warming of the SSTs. Increased precipitation in some regions is balanced by decreased precipitation in other regions, and the global average change is near zero. (http://www.agu.org/journals/gl/gl0606/2005GL025393/) (http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2006/04/03/new-global-precip-papers-trend-is-zero-or-positive/)
    Global hurricane activity at historical record lows: new paper (http://policlimate.com/tropical/index.html)(http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/06/26/global-hurricane-activity-at-historical-record-lows-new-paper/) Accumulated cyclone trend: Accumulated Cyclone Energy Ryan N. Maue PhD – http://www.coaps.fsu.edu/~maue/tropical/
    Snow slight ups and slight downs
    Northern Hemisphere Snow Cover Winter snow extent: http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/images/nhland_season1.gif
    Winter Eurasian snow extent: http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/images/eurasia_season1.gif
    Decline in deaths from extreme weather: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/25/the-amazing-decline-in-deaths-from-extreme-weather-in-an-era-of-global-warming-19002010/
    New peer reviewed study: Surge in North Atlantic hurricanes due to better detectors, not climate change Source: Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres, doi:10.1029/2010JD015493, 2011
    http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2010JD015493
    No trends in floods
    Every year between 550 and 700 events are recorded. If we look at the number of events over the past twelve years (for which there are verified data, whereas the records for previous years are incomplete), we will see that as far as the number of events is concerned there are no significant trends either globally or in Europe. The number of flood catastrophes varies from year to year and exhibits no trends whatsoever. If we take all natural hazards together, we will see a slight development upwards. This may be attributed to the above-mentioned increase in the flow of information and should therefore not be taken too seriously. These observations do not apply to loss amounts, however, which have increased significantly in the past years and decades. http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Research/RMS/june99/papers/loster.pdf
    This site has many graphs http://www.c3headlines.com/severe-weather-chartsgraphs.html
    Search (un)realclimate
    There’s a graph here: (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/05/are-storms-becoming-more-frequwents-or-severe/) you’ll like, but the commentary doesn’t help you:
    “The topic regarding tropical storms have also been a contriversial topic in the scientific community. Has there really been a systematic long-term trend in the storm statistics? Chan and Liu (2004) found no systematic change in typhoons that could be related to changes in the sea surface temperature. Because trends in sea surface temperature (SST) have been relative weak over the past 50 years, Knutson & Tuleya (2004) have argued that CO2-induced tropical cyclone intensity changes are unlikely to be detectable in historical observations and will probably not be detectable for decades to come. Although there is no clear linear trend in the Atlantic hurricane number (see Fig. 1), there may nevertheless be other indications which may suggest that the tropical cyclone statistics are changing.”
    Death and Death Rates Due to Extreme Weather Events Global and U.S. Trends, 1900–2006
    (http://www.csccc.info/reports/report_23.pdf)
    “Despite the recent spate of deadly extreme weather events – such as the 2003 European heat wave and the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons in the USA – aggregate mortality and mortality rates due to extreme weather events are generally lower today than they used to be.
    Globally, mortality and mortality rates have declined by 95 percent or more since the 1920s. The largest improvements came from declines in mortality due to droughts and floods, which apparently were responsible for 93 percent of all deaths caused by extreme events during the 20th Century. For windstorms, which, at 6 percent, contributed most of the remaining fatalities, mortality rates are also lower today but there are no clear trends for mortality. Cumulatively, the declines more than compensated for increases due to the 2003 heat wave.”
    FOUND ONE!!! YES, Finally found one with “it’s all getting worse!!!”
    Recent Trends (http://www.environmentamerica.org/uploads/dc/98/dc981d0345be1591c171bc3635fb7e83/Global-Warming-and-Extreme-Weather.pdf)
    “There has been a clear trend in recent years toward stronger, more destructive hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean and
    worldwide. The strongest tropical cyclones have been getting stronger around the globe in recent decades.35 There has been an observed increase in the number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes in the Atlantic since 1980.36 Measurements that aggregate the
    destructive power of tropical storms—in terms of their intensity, duration and frequency—over entire storm seasons have
    shown a marked increase in the power of hurricanes in the Atlantic since the 1970s.37 Other research has found that both the energy of and amount of precipitation in tropical cyclones in the Atlantic have increased in recent years, with an abrupt, step-wise increase in cyclone energy and precipitation occurring in the mid-1990s.38”
    34: Energy budgets of Atlantic hurricanes and changes from 1970 (http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/trenberth.papers/2007GC001847.pdf)
    35: The increasing intensity of the strongest tropical cyclones( http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~kossin/articles/nature07234-s1_Supplementary.pdf)
    (For anyone other that Scot Renewables who wants to know the truth, first there could be overcounting as one paper suggests but I was told by Dr Judith Curry that Hurricanes had increased so these papers could be correct but that this was thought to be a El Nino cycle)
    Finally: this (http://www.geology.iastate.edu/gccourse/history/trends/ExtremeWxClim.pdf) report seems pretty sensible. It is a Canada based study, but it has a number of trends which make an interesting read.
    And just for a laugh read the WWF report (http://www.panda.org/downloads/climate_change/xweather.pdf). They clearly can’t find anything either as they resort to the same tired insured cost of losses which is going up for totally different reasons, sea ice loss which is a short term trend and then go on to fill their report with pathetic predictions based on nothing but hot air failing to mention that there have been no previous trends to back up their predictions.
    And … to read the climategate team’s ferrytale read this: http://climatecommunication.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Extreme-Weather-and-Climate-Change.pdf
    Page 9 is the only one worthy of comment: “Changes in the proportion of precipitation falling on very wet days (wettest 5% of days). The vertical scale shows percent change from 22.5%, the average of the base period (1961-1990). The smooth red curve accounts for variation within a decade.”
    To me this simply looks like cherry picking … why don’t they mention the simple trend in precipitation? Because they tortured the data till it screamed! The source is known for their economy of the truth and lack of understanding of science:
    (Trenberth of the “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.” and ‘Given that global warming is “unequivocal”, to quote the 2007 IPCC report, the null hypothesis should now be reversed, thereby placing the burden of proof on showing that there is no human influence [on the climate].’)
22. TinyCO2 says:

    30 September 2011 at 22:41

    1) Coal is the cheapest fuel for electricity. It can be supplied from numerous countries and is easy to stock pile for interruptions of supply (as the old CEGB learnt during the coal miners’ strikes). Having a coal power industry protects us partially from gas wars like the one we had a few years ago when our supply was almost cut off because Russia was having a payment argument with (I think) Ukraine. It has fallen out of favour because of AGW. If all we had was gas and renewables we’d be without protection from gas price extortion.
    2) The ‘dash for gas’ was started largely because gas was cheap at the time but the AGW obsession has meant that we are increasingly reliant on gas. The public has to compete with business and the electricity companies for the same resource. As with any other product, the more popular it is, the more suppliers charge. They will be aware that we are committed to using gas to meet emissions targets and I’m sure the price partly reflects the value that Europe has placed on CO2 reduction.
    3) While the lion’s share of fuel rises may be global, a disproportionate percentage of all rises including green taxes are placed on the smallest customers. Here’s an example where E.ON raises the bill for the first 2680 kWh by 46%. The next 2680 kWh rises by 33%, then 24%, then 21% and the last 2680 kWh by 19%.
    http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/2011/08/17/gas-prices/
    Businesses get even bigger discounts but even they are departing our shores because the gas and electric bills are too high. Eg Celanese Acetate moves production out of the UK this autumn – you’ll appreciate that example because the company makes the stuff that goes into cigarette filters. They also used to make yarns and acetate moulding pellets but those went abroad some years ago, also because of high fuel costs.
    4) We are still at the tip of the iceberg on paying for renewables. Maintenance costs are spiralling and design flaws (eg concrete bases not strong enough) are coming as a nasty surprise. They’re now talking about a supergrid to cope with all the wild fluctuations in supply and the distance between the windmills and where the electricity is used. The lifespan of a power station is almost indefinate as all the components can be replaced. Those coal power stations that are due to be closed will be about 50 years old but are still viable. Windmills have an estimated lifespan of 20-30 years and we are yet to find out if the actual figure is lower or higher. Denmark has a serious disposal issue in the form of it’s broken carbon fibre blades that can’t be recycled.
    Fuel poverty (10%of income spent on gas and electric) in the UK now affects 10 million. How many more fuel poor is an acceptable price to pay for renewables?
23. TinyCO2 says:

    30 September 2011 at 22:54

    Since Scots Renewables is only ever able to quote insurance companies as reliable sources of data for worsening weather should we add Big Insurance to the august group of organisations that twist facts to suit their agenda? It might explain why Big Tobacco keeps cropping up as Big Insurance doesn’t want people dropping dead prematurely and triggering a payout on their life policies.
24. Scots Renewables says:

    30 September 2011 at 22:54

    @tinyCO2: ‘tobacco executive who once said, “Doubt is our product”’ – did he? which one? When? who recorded/reported it? Or is it yet another exaggerated/made up story?
    The Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. produced an internal document called “Smoking and Health Proposal” [1] in the summer of 1969. A copy is available in the UCSF Legacy Tobacco Documents Library. This proposal, and the documents alongside it in the library archive, chart B&W’s plans to deal with the scientific evidence linking smoking with lung cancer and heart disease.
    Here’s the relevant quote:
    Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the “body of fact” that exists in the mind of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy. Within the business we recognise that a controversy exists. However, with the general public the consensus is that cigarettes are in some way harmful to the health. If we are successful in establishing a controversy at the public level, then there is an opportunity to put across the real facts about smoking and health. Doubt is also the limit of our “product”. Unfortunately, we cannot take a position directly opposing the anti-cigarette forces and say that cigarettes are a contributor to good health. No information that we have supports such a claim.
    Read it for yourself here:
    http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/action/document/page?tid=ogy93f00&page=4
    The reason it is relevant is that many of the same people and the same institutions went on to rubbish the CFC problem, acid rain and now AGW. Climate change is a threat to ‘business as usual’ for multi-billion dollar polluters like Koch Industries, who fund massive propaganda organisations. The ‘amateur’ deniers who post on this blog and others are, I am afraid, their dupes, no matter how well-intentioned and sincere they may be.
25. Scots Renewables says:

    30 September 2011 at 22:56

    Since Scots Renewables is only ever able to quote insurance companies as reliable sources of data for worsening weather should we add Big Insurance to the august group of organisations that twist facts to suit their agenda? It might explain why Big Tobacco keeps cropping up as Big Insurance doesn’t want people dropping dead prematurely and triggering a payout on their life policies.
    Add as many groups as you want to your conspiracy theory. Problem is, the more sections of society you add the more isolated you look.
26. PaulH from Barcelona says:

    30 September 2011 at 23:04

    No, I wasn’t aware of that SR.
    Did a wee bit of research, and as a guy with an electrical/mechanical background I have to say it was genuinely interesting to read more about how smart design and manufacturing engineers are coming up with solutions to real-life operational problems (I used to work in the defence industry and have also worked on a few offshore projects).
    I don’t have an issue with renewables R&D. On the contrary, I heartily encourage it.
    My issue is that once again, we have emerging technologies being expensively rushed to market without proving their worth. I totally get that direct-drive COULD significantly reduce maintenance costs (although the ‘wild AC’ it generates creates a whole fresh batch of technical challenges to be dealt with).
    It’s fairly well-established that politicians ‘picking winners’ rarely delivers results (the US phrase would be pork-barreling), and I simply wish that climate-related science and engineering would rely less on words like ‘could’, ‘likely’ and ‘may’. Especially for a non-existent ‘problem’ like ”Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming’.
    That being said, I also appreciate that as a player in the Scottish Renewables sector, you have a job to do,
    Call me sceptical. 😉
27. Scottish Sceptic says:

    30 September 2011 at 23:06

    And real science is a threat to ‘business as usual’ for multi-billion dollar polluters who litter our countryside with bird mincers. So what is your point?
    Surely you haven’t forgotten the scandal of all those depressants being handed out like sweeties by doctors. Because some doctors got it wrong on depressants, does that prove they were wrong on cigarettes? And vica versa because some backed cigarette companies does that prove us sceptic wrong?
    The simple truth is that there are just as many money grabbing profiteers in the wind “industry” as the cigarette companies . What does that prove? That wind energy gives you cancer?
28. PaulH from Barcelona says:

    30 September 2011 at 23:47

    Wow!
    SR, I recall that when we engaged on an issue a few months ago, you said (and I’m paraphrasing here, please correct me if I’m wrong), that you provided an obective (good & bad) perspective on renewables.
    That’ is not what I’m seeing here. Lightly-veiled ad-homs on folk being isolated conspiracy theorists ain’t going to win you this argument mate. Interestingly, I’m seeing a similar trend right across the blogosphere. The strategy seems to be ‘OK, the pseudo-science is crumbling, so let’s double-down and lash out whilst the cash lasts’
    As such, I’m thinking of internally re-branding you in my mind as ‘Scottish Microcosm’.
    And in the polite spirit of ‘proportional response’ to your lightly veiled ad-hom, I simply offer this … ‘It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.’
    To be blunt, I will henceforth view your posts through the lens of industry self-interest,
29. TinyCO2 says:

    1 October 2011 at 01:04

    1969, no wonder I don’t remember it. So is that one quote the basis upon which the AGW sceptics and tobacco industries tied together? We share doubt as a common denominator? Guilt by a single word.
    There are sections in that document that echo both sides of the AGW argument. It sounds like it was written by someone in the sales department. I’d bet Al Gore’s team used much the same phrases when putting together their 24 hrs of dullness.
    “The anti activists are rather orderly, almost as if they had a plan working for them”. “Their activities are accelerating and becoming more damaging to us all the time”. “The anti […] forces can be characterised as dedicated opportunists. They are quick to act and seem totally unprincipled in the type of information they use to attack”. “We have been inept getting in getting our side of the story good though it may be out to the news media and to the public.” “our message as truth, well stated, and our competition as the body of anti […] fact that exists in the public mind.”
30. TinyCO2 says:

    1 October 2011 at 01:49

    “many of the same people and the same institutions went on to rubbish the CFC problem, acid rain and now AGW” I think it is you who creates the conspiracy.
    Much like the tobacco industries, the insurance companies need to make money. They are not charities. When they say that insurance claims are going up they are telling the truth, just not the whole truth. It is the way the world works. I don’t see the AGW machine as a great scam I just see it as a very flawed attempt at seeking the truth. I see choices driven by fears, greed, lazyness, arrogance, caring, idealism, in other words the full panoply of human nature. Why do you insist on see the other side as two dimentional story book villains? In your mind Soros is the hero and the Koch brothers are the baddies. Can’t you accept that each of them believes their own version of reality? As it happens I’m not even sure what the Koch brothers think since I’ve only heard of them giving cash to right wing think tanks who campaign on many more issues than AGW.
    As for isolation, it is AGW believers who are on their own. They whine and point fingers at sceptics but very rarely bother to follow their own CO2 cutting creed. You’re like smokers, puffing away and blaming the tobacco company for supplying it. If you want to make a difference, form the Two Tonne Club, where you start putting your carbon where your mouth is and persuade other belivers to follow suit. Despite the reduction in CO2, don’t hold your breath waiting.
31. Scots Renewables says:

    1 October 2011 at 09:41

    Paul,
    Rebrand me any way you choose. I don’t work for the Renewables industry, and no-one pays me for the SR website, which in fact costs me money and a considerable amount of time. It is – at the moment anyway – largely a labour of love because I love what Scotland is doing with renewables and because I hate the way the organised denial campaign is gambling with my grandchildrens’ futures to make a few more quick and dirty bucks now.
    The utterly uncritical self-rightousness of the amateur denial movement is what appalls me most, although I have to say you are a more civilised bunch on here than the pack of braying hyenas over on the Bishop’s site, where all opposition is hounded off in the most vicious manner imaginable.
32. Scots Renewables says:

    1 October 2011 at 09:50

    form the Two Tonne Club
    Ha!
    The ‘mote in own eye’ argument is a straw man, severely flawed on many levels – although I can see how it would suit your agenda. Committing AGW campaigners to a 2-tonne personal emissions target would of course effectively prevent them from taking any further part in the alleged ‘debate’.
    Your attempt to portray the mainstream consensus as a bunch of loonies who want to drive us back into the caves is ridiculous. If we can do what we have done over the last hundred and fifty years with fossil fuels from a standing start then there is no limit to what we can do to create an emissions-free economy – you just aren’t prepared to even give it a try. The ‘lets not do anything. it’s all too expensive / difficult’ argument is a quitters argument, simply giving up on progress.
33. Scottish Sceptic says:

    1 October 2011 at 16:19

    Scots renewables, unfortunately you are taking the brunt of all the “eco-zealots” who have name called and likened us to Nazis.
    “I hate the way the organised denial campaign is gambling with my grandchildrens’ futures”. First if you think we are the organised campaign, you really don’t have the will to look.
    Second, the whole aim of the sceptic movement is to force the climate “scientists” to behave as proper scientists and e.g. be open, honest and impartial regarding the evidence. It doesn’t matter if politicians distort the facts, so long as we can all rely on the basic evidence from the scientists. That is why it is so critical that we can rely, and that is why is so important that scientists don’t push a particular agenda.
    Unfortunately, science is no longer impartial on the climate, instead it is a one-party state only permitting “party doctrine” to get published, only permitted party activists to get jobs, ensuring that editors are pro-the party.
    In short it is just like the USSR. And when you get a system which distorts the evidence to fit their doctrine what you get is 5 year plans that end in mass genocide, “world class” industry which can’t produce even the basic goods. Corruption, poverty, disorganised anarchy.
    The simple fact, is that when you look at the evidence, it simply does not support what these climate “scientists” says it does. I don’t need some organised republican spin-doctor to tell me they are wrong, it is painfully obvious from any impartial reading of the evidence that they are barking up the wrong tree.
    And even if it did warm, there is overwhelming evidence that Scotland would benefit from warmth and that we should worry about cold.
    So, I thought I would try to estimate the real dangers we should “worry about for the grandchildren” and off the top of my head these are the estimates of the chances of 50,000 deaths (10%) in Scotland in my children’s lifetime (70 years):
    1. A new maunder minimum: 40% (moderate to high risk of occurring 20%, but already signs, so could easily kill 1000 a year in Scotland)
    2. End of oil/gas leading to WWIII: 15% (high risk (50%) of world war(s), but low risk of running out (20%) in 70 years)
    3. Flu epidemic 100% (very likely death rate is already around 1200)
    4. Anti-biotic immune bacteria epidemic 50% (very likely, likely to hit many times each time with many thousands of deaths)
    5. Global warming 0.1% (we are already experiencing the level of warming, there is almost no effect I know that is even causing single figure deaths, it’s virtually inconceivable that 500,000 deaths could be caused by warming in Scotland, I started at 1% and even that was so preposterous as 0x anything is still zero)
    6. Global warming causing change in Arctic drift (“gulf” stream) and severe cold 5% (As cooling has known harm, and it would only take 1,000 deaths from cold each year, even one centigrade cooling could take us over the threshold. But the threat is there, although it is so low as to make natural changes in significant. I’d call this a “theoretical” possibility of a high risk.
    7. Natural disaster: reversal of magnetic flux, meteorite, 1% Individually the chance is low (ppm), but there’s an awful lot of them!
    8. Non-climate related WWIII (25%)
    9. Road deaths (currently around 300/year), 5% chance that this will rise significantly.
    10. Regular winter deaths: already around 2,300 = 100%
    Total risk: certain that something serious enough to cause around 1,000 deaths a year, 5 episodes of 10,000 or a single episode of 50,00 will occur in their lifetime.
    Of that the highest risk is some disease & regular winter deaths which are certain as even now we are over 1000 deaths/year with flu
    War related is 40%
    (new) Cold related is 45% (5% due to “global warming)
    Warm related (0.1% too small to be meaningful)
34. TinyCO2 says:

    1 October 2011 at 18:57

    The Two Tonne Club is a significant issue. Until you’ve tried it, you’re not aware of what you’re asking. Catastrophe aversion tomorrow (maybe) isn’t sensible if it causes catastrophe today. Your cushy UK life is built on fossil fuels and your evangelical pursuit of CO2 redemption is typical of those who haven’t stepped outside their comfy existence. Cutting CO2 maybe necessary but should never welcomed.
    My own carbon footprint is 3-4 tonnes and it doesn’t stop me communicating to you. The big CO2 costs are heating, food, travel and consumerism. Keep your internet and start cutting into the serious stuff. You think that the UK should show the world leadership on emissions but balk at making unilateral reductions on your own. Do you suspect that your leadership would be ignored? Well what makes you think that the children of the Empire will listen to old Blighty either?
    You don’t want to cut your CO2, you want someone else to invent something so that you don’t have to. It’s a poor plan. If money and desire were all it took to achieve our goals there’d be a pill we could take to stay slim and eat whatever we wanted. Other AGW proponents think that businesses emit the lion’s share of emissions and should stop. They don’t care that the emissions businesses emit are to produce stuff they want to buy. Businesses these days don’t waste energy. They can’t afford to.
    Who said I, or the majority of sceptics, advocate doing nothing? Have you polled us? Personally I’m all in favour of nuclear; geothermal is worth investigating; funding climate science is fine, it just needs more of the checks and balances that industry are burdened with; insulation is a no brainer; but windmills are [insert expletive]. You can’t run a country on something so expensive, unreliable, destructive and ephemeral. What I wouldn’t do is piddle money and resources down the drain on vanity projects to make people feel they’re achieving something. I’d save up and try to stay prosperous so that if or when a serious energy contender turns up I can afford to roll it out. Cost HAS to be an issue. Whatever the future holds, poverty is the most assured way to make your grandkids suffer, especially if AGW is real and significant. If there isn’t a new energy source, I’d bite the bullet and advocate cutting CO2 the hard way, by having less.
    And finally, if you want sceptics to treat you with courtesy and listen to you, you need to return the favour.
35. Scots Renewables says:

    2 October 2011 at 13:25

    Tiny CO2 – I don;t think the concept olf the ‘2 tonne club’ is a daft idea and I do have a belief that real change needs support from the grass roots. However, I think that telling people it is all up to them and that this will change the market for carbon from the ground up is a very big ask – especially if the major carbon polluters are then simply allowed to carry on business as usual. Cynically, they will be delighted to see a sizeable majority of their opponents not only denying themselves some useful weapons but also inviting labelling as eccentric hermits well out of mainstream thinking.
    So overall – assuming the meeja don’t suddenly flock to the idea and make it temporarily trendy I don’t think that initiatives like your 2-tonne club are going to make much impact. Initiatives that steer markets towards developing viable less-harmful technologies are IMO the way to go.
    There is actually a Three Tonne Club (which is probably a more realistic target for the average Scot). It is an initiative of the The Women’s Environmental Network:
    http://www.wen.org.uk/your-wen/climate-change/the-three-tonne-club-handbook/
    Re. your other points – I agree that wind is not the best renewable technology but it is the one that was ready to roll out, and I feel we should make the best of it until other technologies are online – it won’t be hard to decommission and dismantle superceded wind capacity when the time comes. Of course it is regrettable that early investment in wind may have limited funding for wave and tidal technology, but as you will have guessed I am very much glass half full on the current renewable energy scene.
    As regards being polite to sceptics – well, I have to say you are a most courteous poster and the best advertisement to date for the ‘sceptic’ cause that I have come across. The majority – if not on here certainly on Bishop Hill – come across as a snarling pack of attack dogs, which is why there is little two-way debate on the majority of climate sceptic blogs. ‘Warmists’ are simply driven off by the mob, which cannot help your cause . . .
36. Scots Renewables says:

    2 October 2011 at 13:31

    SS,
    I didn’t mean you as the ‘organised opposition’ – I meant the anti-AGW propaganda machine funded by the Koch Bros etc and channelled through organisations like REF and the Heartland Institute. I have no doubt that the majority of posters on this blog are genuine, but you are – perhaps unwittingly – giving moral authority to some extremely dubious individuals, groups and forces.
    As far as I can see the most useful function of groups like this is to keep climate scientists honest, and if it serves that function all well and good. I believe that the case for AGW and the case for intervention still hold good though, so on that we will have to agree to differ.
    [Reply]
    Who’s REF? heartland, I’ll agree with you … but you could have added in some republicans.
    But seriously, you are talking to the nearest thing Scotland has to an organised opposition. And I’ve been to Ringkobing and seen Vestas, and Nordic and I was at the Hamburg wind energy exhibition, and I’ve been to meetings of Scottish Renewables and BWEA, I know who is the well-funded and well organised groups.
37. PaulH from Barcelona says:

    2 October 2011 at 17:12

    Two tonne, three tonne, whatever…
    All based upon the unproven assertion that man-made C02 emissions have a material effect on temperature.
    ANOTHER recently-published paper dispelling this notion:
    http://joannenova.com.au/2011/10/this-is-90-certainty-really-yet-another-paper-shows-the-hot-spot-is-missing/
38. Scots Renewables says:

    2 October 2011 at 19:06

    Paul,
    The so-called ‘tropospheric hot spot’ is a fingerprint of warming full stop, not specifically of AGW, and it has proved notoriously difficult to measure. If you genuinely believe it isn’t there then what you are saying iks not that the models are wrong but that the surface of the planet isn’t warming – which is demonstrably not true.
    Even leaving this aside you are claiming rather a lot for this paper. Ms. Nova’s own conclusion was:
    . . . we can’t be sure that the upper troposphere is warming faster than the lower-middle area, though it might be . . .
    So yes, the paper does appear to repeat the difficulty previous studies have had ‘finding the hotspot’. In no way does it ‘disprove’ AGW though, and it really would help your argument if you refrained from making this sweeping claim or banging on about ‘final nails in the coffin’ etc etc every time a study threw up an alleged anomaly. That is not the way science works, and by trumpeting that this or that ‘finally kills off the theory’ you are surely as bad as those you criticise for saying the science is settled.
39. TinyCO2 says:

    2 October 2011 at 21:05

    I’ll split this into two. Part 1.
    While it’s true that businesses have and will pollute, there’s a reason for it, it’s not just evil incarnate. Polluting is cheaper than not polluting. Carbon emissions are similar but there is a key difference. Excess CO2 is wasted fuel. Now to prevent wasted fuel there are strategies for conserving energy but no matter how efficient you try to be there has to be a core amount of energy used to do work. That can only change if there is a technology change (eg conventional oven to fan oven to microwave). Technology change isn’t predictable or guaranteed, and even though new equipment uses less energy it still uses some energy. What we can influence is efficiency, however-
    1) If your costs run too high you exceed the monetary saving from using less fuel and lose your customers to others who don’t make those changes and thus don’t need to charge as much (eg China).
    2) The cost is not solely that of money but of raw materials and energy. You would support windmills as a stopgap until something better comes along but until the windmills have saved as much CO2 emissions as they cost – to extract raw materials, manufacture, transport, install, connect to the grid, maintain, keep gas stations on standby to take up slack and finally dispose of the defunct mills – then they haven’t helped cut CO2 at all, they’ve just created more. It’s a very hard calculation to do and one that most AGW proponents don’t seem to be aware of. Unlike giving presents, in cutting CO2 it is not the thought that counts.
    Personally I don’t think there is much to be gained by trying to force businesses to radically cut CO2 without a global level playing field. It just drives work abroad. So to unilaterally cut CO2 the only option is to get individuals to cut theirs. A key part of those cuts would have to be making do with less. If we buy less, factories make less and they emit less CO2.
    Unfortunately people make the same cost benefit assessments that businesses make. ‘Will I recover the outlay?’ ‘Will it work?’ ‘What knock on costs will it generate?’ ‘What will the disruption be like?’ ‘Will the subsidies run out?’ Etc. The most important question for businesses and individuals alike is ‘is CO2 really a big issue?’
40. TinyCO2 says:

    2 October 2011 at 21:09

    And that comes to part 2
    Why are sceptics cross and consequently rude?
    Many sceptics are technical people. We’re not stupid, or uneducated or lazy or greedy, at least no more than anyone else. We can look at the issues for AGW science and policy and come to conclusions based on our own experience and intelligence, as much as anything we are told on the internet. Many of us have worked in industries that would be considered Big Business and we know from experiences how tight they run the ship. We’ve worked to standards of documentation, record keeping, accountability, quality and accuracy that climate science hasn’t even attempted.
    We look at the science and find it wanting. We see too many deviations from predictions. We see too many things that the models either get wrong or omit altogether. We know what computer programs are capable of what they’re not. We see AGW scientists and supporters acting in ways that for any other subject would scream ‘scam artist’. We see sloppy work and ass covering in the ranks. We see protectionism and tribalism.
    We may be wrong, but that’s how we see it and instead of answering our concerns we are mocked, ignored, lied about and fought with. I regularly post on non sceptics sites and despite my moderate view points, I am routinely insulted (may favourite being that I’m too stupid to be in the pay of an oil company) and often deleted altogether.
    AGW proponents have to lose the ‘them and us’ attitude because when it comes to reducing CO2 we’re all ‘us’.
41. TinyCO2 says:

    2 October 2011 at 21:40

    I believe that the hot spot isn’t a fingerprint of CO2 warming but it is supposed to be a fingerprint of water vapour feedback. Without a water vapour amplifier CO2 warming isn’t greater than the 1.2ºC rise per doubling of CO2 from a pre industrial level of 288ppm.
    http://sciencespeak.com/MissingSignature.pdf
    I rarely try to argue the science of AGW, I’m not qualified. But why are the biggest questions only being debated on blogs? Why aren’t people like Dr Evans and Ben Santer or Kevin Trenberth hammering out the isuues and accounting to an impartial judge? The IPCC should handle the back and forth between sceptic and proponent and report honestly on both sides. It shouldn’t be for them to chose a side and then exclude the other.
42. Bill Toland says:

    3 October 2011 at 08:49

    Scots Renewables, I was going to respond to your last reply until I read Scottish Sceptic’s reply. Unfortunately, I can’t better Scottish Sceptic’s reply so I’ll have to leave it at that.
43. dak says:

    3 October 2011 at 15:32

    Is it really a surprise that an organisation that makes money out of selling insurance to worried people publishes an article suggesting that things are getting worse? You can’t see the vested interest there?
    I think you should do some real research, especially into things like ACE (Accumulated Cyclone Energy) records.
44. RottweilerFOMR says:

    4 October 2011 at 00:15

    @SR, you state:
    “The majority – if not on here certainly on Bishop Hill – come across as a snarling pack of attack dogs…”
    Yer either having a laff or just misunderstanding the meaning of the word “majority” and confusing snarling packs of attack dogs with tickling sticks.
    You need to get out more.
45. Scottish Sceptic says:

    4 October 2011 at 08:24

    Rottweiler, whilst I’d be a hypocrite to say it, we should respect individuals of differing views and be careful how our individual comments may add together and be viewed by those on the other side.
    To be honest, I think SR has a great deal of guts for coming here and stating his views and I respect him for that. I don’t accept those views are right, but he certainly has the right to be heard and when we are arguing that the other side have a closed mind and act like a lynch mob, we have to be whiter than white
46. RoyFOMR says:

    4 October 2011 at 09:18

    Point taken SS
47. Seele says:

    16 October 2011 at 14:29

    Sounds like this essay from Paul Lutus: “The Doubt Factory”
    http://www.arachnoid.com/doubt/index.html

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