Scottish Sceptic

“to encourage the best quality science and engineering assessment of the impact of human activity on the climate, help determine and assess the impact of any changes to our economies, society & environment and to assist governments to develop the most appropriate policy recommendations”.
After posting this comment as the suggested aims of sceptic, I got a detailed reply from Derek Alker which highlighted some deficiencies  but also suggested it might make an interesting conversation. So, I’m posting this as an article in its own right.
This in particular was a very good point:

After many years unpaid work observing academia: during several different stints in University where I several times had a chance to view academic culture anew; after years on various forum, particularly BRITARCH (British Archaeology) and on global warming; after studying the development of renewable energy in the UK compared to Denmark around 2000, and now having set my mind to understand the reason for the hostility in the online climate debate, the survey of online participants to the climate debate, and the reaction to several articles, has now endorsed a theory** I have been developing describing this situation and explaining the nature of the on line debate.
That is the good news.
The bad news is that this theory which I will call “The Cassandra++ Theory”, predicts that nothing I ever write will ever be believed by academia. In other words, my current strategy is not only ineffective but is positively counter productive.
That is not to say that there may be one or two people in academia who are “oddballs” who might appreciate what I say, but in general, the very fact I am not an academic means anything I say will be seen as a threat: it will either be ignored, rejected or as in the global warming debate, viciously attacked in in person or via proxy groups.
Yes I can egg on the crowd of sceptics, yes I can create a huge fuss, but no, nothing I do will ever change the mind of academia, indeed egging on the sceptics & proving we are right will just make academics more hostile and more motivated to reject us.
Indeed, the Cassandra theory strongly suggests, that the single factor that is most likely to elicit this hostile reaction from academia is the one I thought was my strongest: my methodical and academic investigation of the subject in an entirely academic and altruistic way without working for any money at all.
The more I know, the more I will be attacked and the more vehemently anything I write will be rejected. And please note, their reaction is not “motivated” hostility or political hostility, it is simply a consequence of the situation and whilst I don’t like being attacked, I will not blame anyone for doing so. They do not know what they do or why they do it.
So, I’m going to have to think about what I do. There may be a way forward – but I haven’t yet thought of it.
However, there is a strong likelihood that I will stop blogging and it is likely I will close the Scottish Climate & Energy Forum. I also need to think hard about how I handle the survey of the climate bloggosphere. I think the results are dynamite, and there have been so many times in the last few weeks I just wanted to rub certain people’s noses in them and it was heart breaking not being able to do so. But now I realise that may be entirely counter productive.

**I use theory as the word is used in social science which is a descriptive narrative not a testable hypothesis.
++Cassandra was a Greek who was cursed by being given the gift of prophecy – so she could foretell the future, but it was ordained that she would never be believed.

From Jo:Nova: UK Met Office in December predicted a 15% chance of Jan-Feb-March being the wettest category

SUMMARY – PRECIPITATION:
Latest predictions for UK-precipitation show a slight signal for near or just above average rainfall during January-February-March
as a whole. The probability that UK precipitation for January-February-March will fall into the driest of our five categories is around 20% and the probability that it will fall into the wettest category is between 10 and 15% (the 1981-2010 probability for each of these categories is 20%).
http://joannenova.com.au/2014/02/uk-met-office-predicts-15-chance-of-heavy-rain-britian-gets-biblical-floods/

More proof that we can’t yet predict the climate just a few months in advance to add to the evidence the Met Office cannot predict climate one year or even a decade ahead, to add to the evidence that none of the climate models predicted even something as simple as the pause.
PS. I’m disabling comments as you can comment at Jo Nova and I’ve got other things to do at the moment.

After Mr Connolley’s outrageous behaviour I got a few emails in sympathy amongst which was this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJho5cHvjJY
Normally I wouldn’t have posted it. But why not? It is hilarious and it so neatly sums up all climate propaganda “science”. This is no eco activist “warrior”, but just another middle age balding man huffing and puffing on a toy pretending to himself he is achieving something but in reality going nowhere.
Correction
Following my post, it has just been pointed out to me that Connolley is not a climate scientist. And yes, as far as I can see has no scientific qualifications and so I apologise for all real scientists and have amended the article to reflect this.
Comments disabled
Given that Connolley has been allowed to say his piece, that he has a track record of provoking stupid and pointless discussions and I’ve got far more important things at the moment. I’m disabling comments.

I need to take some time away from blogging to prepare some material.
So, unfortunately, blogging and commenting will be light for the next few weeks.
I’ll be back!

I noticed this letter From Lord Monckton to Charlie on Tallbloke. Interestingly we had a discussion in the Scottish Climate & Energy Forum which divided between monarchists and republican tendencies or polite and not so, and finally decided not to respond. So I am glad to see Lord Monckton has:
Following HRH Prince Charles intemperate remarks about ‘headless chickens’ reported at the talkshop last week, Lord Monckton has written him an open letter, reproduced below

His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales,
Clarence House, London. Continue reading →

I was reading the evidence on the IPCC inqury and Peter Lilley made an excellent point worth repeating:

Q13 Mr Lilley: … The point I am trying to make is the point you make and particularly the points in the technical report are all good science, but what you entrust us, the policymakers, to know in the Summary for Policymakers is politicised. You think, “We won’t tell them that we have scaled down below the range given by the models”. Today the Chancellor is going to give the latest figures for GDP; if it were to emerge that the figures he was giving were not those given by the Treasury model but his expert judgment and he had not told us that, there would be trouble in Parliament.

Well said Peter! If any government body had misled parliament in the way the IPCC continues to misleed world governments, then there would be hell to pay. Ministers and/or civil servants would be forced to resign, the press would be furious. And for what? We all know that economic models are not exact. No one expects economic models to be better than approximations. In contrast “Science” (as in real science and not professors sitting in front a committee claiming to be scientists) claims to operate at a much higher standard.
It claims, but clearly in the area of climate it does not!
Instead, we have a group of public sector employees claiming their assertions are “science” who far from being scientific are in fact behaving in a way that makes most politicians look angelic.
Now, (yet again) these climate “scientists” have been caught out working not to the level of science, nor even to the standards of economics, but at a standard so appalling it would not be tolerated by any politician. Claiming to be “scientists”, getting public money to be “scientists” and then not behaving as “scientist” is totally dishonest. And when these people obtain public grants as “scientists” and they are not, such dishonesty must be fraud.
And these people are still employed?
If economists or politicians had lied about the origin of their figures and misled parliament in this way, the press, politicians and public would have torn them to shreds. If some minister had lied about the figures, if a civil servant, if anyone else had misled parliament there would be uproar. So, why aren’t these public servants, who say their standards are all the more higher than anyone else, not held to account for being worse than everyone else?
If the police mislead courts – we expect action. If doctors mislead patients – we expect action. If civil servants misled parliament – we expect action. For heaven’s sake if some lollypop lady fiddled her hours – we’d expect action.
But when this group, this group alone of public employees which has knowingly mislead not just our parliament but all world governments and when they have a clear personal financial benefit from grants because of this “problem” … when they mislead … what happens?
The politicians just let them get away with it – why?
It is a public scandal – all the more scandalous because I no longer believe anyone will ever be held to account for the serial dishonesty of climate academics or the IPCC.
[Committee name]

Two articles appeared in uClimate.com almost together:

• The infamy of John Cook
• Science can’t settle what should be done about climate change

Whilst Andrew Montford tends to be a moderate, in this case his comments did not seem appropriate for what appeared to be a good attempt to move the debate forward by Mike Hulme:

Mike Hulme is going to find himself given “the big cutoff” if he carries on like this. “Infamous” eh? Perhaps word is getting round that John Cook and his acolytes at Skeptical Science are a bit of a liability. With quote fabrication now added to the list of misdeeds of which he stands accused.

Whilst there must be more to this, I will focus on responding as well as I can to what was said:

“Science can’t settle what should be done about climate change” Continue reading →