All this talk of sueing the cyber bullies has led onto an interesting subject.
In  the good old days when I ran a small business designing off-grid power systems and temperature control equipment, I set the business up as a company in order that my own personal liability was minimised to the assets of the company. That should have meant  that if one of the temperature controllers went faulty and burnt down a University, then the University should not be able to take our family house. I also had insurance, but that did not cover my advice or consultancy for which I needed indemnity insurance.
For your average engineer, particularly those working in safety critical areas, it is a real and present threat that if we do not do our job properly, that we could end up in court.
So, when we talk about people being sued for bad advice it appears quite natural. so I was initially taken aback today when two commenters (Wottsupwiththat and Rachel) were highly indignant at any suggestion that climate academics might find themselves in court. Yes, the discussion was whether any of them could face the death penalty, but I had a strong feeling the indignation was as much the idea that any academic should face court as that they should face the death penalty.
Which got me thinking.
Crossing the line between academia and consultation
Have climate academics inadvertently crossed a line. That between the normally safe and secure world of academia where their views are extremely unlikely to face any form of penalty … and the world outside of consultants, engineers and investment advice where professionals (like sceptics) have to be very careful of the advice they give. Advice that can land them in hot water because there are real and serious implications for other people – and even their own livelihood and assets (like their house) if their advice proves wrong?
Are they liable and legally at risk of being sued?
As I’m not a lawyer, and have only ever done one term of Scottish commercial law as part of my MBA, I do not really know at what point someone crosses the line from being an academic into being a consultant. But I seem to remember that if advice is relied on by the person being advised, that the person giving that advice can be liable if that advice is wrong.
As the climate models increasingly look like they cannot predict the climate, at a time when the IPCC have increased their certainty and words like “unequivocal” are commonly stated, it does seem very possible that anyone who relied on that “unequivocal” advice could have a case against one or all of those climate academics who made those statements.
What is their risk Continue reading →

Because sceptics are culturally resistant to seeing themselves as victims.
Sceptics are loners … not social loners but intellectual loners. We do not need our views endorsed by our peers. We are resilient, self-reliant we have often worked in time-critical high-risk industries where the pressure of work means that tempers can fly and so we are pragmatic and tolerant of others.
Non-sceptics value group identity. Unlike sceptics they see loners as being weak and needing to be brought into line within the social consensus. As such non-sceptics feel it is legitimate to attack those who reject their social consensus.
But sceptics don’t value their group identity and instead argue the facts.
Such behaviour is extremely frustrating to the non-sceptic. They cannot understand how sceptics can reject their group, but neither can they attack our arguments because we state the facts which cannot be attacked. So non-sceptics find themselves having to attack the people for not arguing in a way that allows us to be attacked.
But, the fundamental reason for this cyber bullying is that in a culture where this bullying has been legitimised by every authority figure from government ministers to the BBC to the moderators of the Independent and Guardian as well as every University in the land …
… even sceptics have grown to believe it is justifiable.

It is not

Sceptics have a right to be treated with respect, to have our legitimate views heard without being insulted and attacked. Likewise sceptics should try to recognise that others may not share our views and that not accepting their views or concerns about CO2 and the environment may be taken as a personal attack on their values.

Last night in the Independent I spotted several more libellous comments about “deniers”,

plus one about “in the pay of oil”

Of course I reported these posts. But even after about an hour they were still sitting there. So, I posted a comment along the lines that “As Chairman of the Scottish Climate & Energy forum I would like to make it clear that Sceptics are not deniers because as “the Sceptic View” we do not deny global warming, we do not deny the climate changes nor do we deny that CO2 has risen and much of it could be due to mankind. And we certainly do not deny the science of CO2 warming, etc.”

Imagine my horror, when not only didn’t they remove the libel on their comment page, but my own comment was removed!
But the last straw and the reason I realised I had to contact the police was when I saw this:

The police came around within a few hours and were quite sympathetic. They (and later I learned the Independent) agreed that it was beyond the pale. But I learnt is is quite a difficult part of the law to prosecute and it would be difficult until we had more evidence of a sustained campaign or specific emails containing abuse or threats as there is better law in this area. However I was encouraged to come back if it continued and they were keen I spoke to a solicitor as the standard of proof is lower in civil cases.

To those who condone this

At this point most non-sceptic who have not been subject to this campaign of hate are going to be thinking to themselves: “that’s an over reaction”. The only way I know to show how serious this campaign of hate has been is to list of just some of the high profile comments that are  found on line:

• “…every time someone dies as a result of floods in Bangladesh, an airline executive should be dragged out of his office and drowned.”—–George Monbiot, Continue reading →

Last night I noticed JoNova’s site was either not responding at all or was very very slow. Then I read that Anthony Watt’s server had been under attack (A note on my cyber attack and communications). Now I’ve read that Andrew Montford’s site had  problems. Any more?
The weeks before the Salby lecture I thought I was going mad.
I put the notice on the SCEF website for the Salby lecture, went off to Amsterdam thinking I would come back to a lot of emails only to find the server had gone down. No emails, no website. When I did get it back up working, it was somehow delisted from google.

IT THEN HAPPENED AGAIN.

Can it be any coincidence that all this is happening as the parties to the (defunct) Kyoto treaty are meeting in the most sceptic country in Europe to yet again agree to another pointless statement agreeing to to hide the fact that Kyoto died last December and none of them want any replacement?

First they ignore us, then when we win the argument they have to attack us
… and then we win.

Climate: What we know and what we don’t

downloadable version

Professor Salby giving his presentation on 7^th November 2013
to the Scottish Climate & Energy Forum.
produced by Mike Haseler BSc. MBA

Summary

In order to understand the importance of the evidence presented by Salby it is necessary to understand the case for attributing the recent rise in CO2 to human emissions. This starts with the assertion that man-made, rather than natural, emissions of CO2 can be shown to be the cause of the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 because:

1. The recorded rise in CO2 from 1958 of about 100ppm is larger than anything apparent in the proxy record. This “unprecedented” rise is seen as a fingerprint of recent human activity
2. The ratio of carbon 13 to carbon 12 in the atmosphere has decreased since 1830. This was thought to be due to the burning of fossil fuels which have a lower ratio of carbon 13. As such the reduction in the ratio was thought to be the “fingerprint” of man-made emissions.

And then it is argued that this rise in CO2 is causing global warming because:

3. CO2 and temperature move together in an apparent relationship in the proxy records

In his lecture Salby showed:

1. Whilst there is a good fit in the ancient record from proxy ice-cores, the measurements of recent global temperature is poorly correlated with the measured level of CO2.
2. Instead, net emissions of CO2 (not the level) is more closely related to temperature.
3. If we model surface conditions with temperature & humidity in the atmosphere:

• net emissions of CO2 can be predicted from surface conditions
• net emissions of Methane can be predicted from surface conditions
• net emissions of Carbon 13 can be predicted from surface conditions

4. Evidence shows that the sources of atmospheric CO2 (as shown by areas with highest concentration) are not related to man-made emissions from burning fossil fuels.

5. The evidence shows Carbon 13 is not a fingerprint of human emissions.

6. The IPCC are wrong to say: “all … increases [in CO2] are caused by human activity.” or “the increased atmospheric CO2 concentration is known to be caused by human activities”.

7. In significant part, changes in the level of CO2 are controlled by global temperature.

8. Furthermore he proposed a mechanism to explain the anomaly between the behaviour of CO2 in the actual atmosphere and that seen in the proxy record from the ice core. This was that there was a non-conservative damping mechanism such as diffusion or loss in removal of the ice core.

9. Non-conservative influences would cause past atmospheric CO2 to be significantly underestimated, so it is likely that the recent rise in CO2 is not unprecedented.

10. All the recent history of CO2 can be explained from surface conditions alone. Continue reading →

Great news!! Professor Hermann Harde who is a German academic who specialises in gas absorption and thoroughly understands the radiative properties of gases, has used the very latest up to date HITRAN database of gas absorption spectra and discovered that the IPCC have overstated the effect of CO2 by some 30%

“Simulations of the up- and down-welling radiation and its interaction with the most prominent greenhouse gases water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane, and ozone in the atmosphere are presented. The radiative forcing at doubled CO2 concentration is found to be 30% smaller than the IPCC-value.” (Radiation and Heat Transfer in the Atmosphere: A Comprehensive Approach on a Molecular Basis)

Continue reading →

I didn’t like Prof Murry Salby’s talk – not because it wasn’t thoroughly convincing that the rise in CO2 was unlikely to be man-made, but because it was so convincing.
I will admit to starting the day as a CO2 agnostic. Continue reading →