I started the Scottish Climate and Energy Forum in 2012 and I spent much of the next year trying various ways  to get publicity but without much success. Most of the time was spent trawling the internet looking for news to put on the SCEF website, but occasionally this process highlighted something worth going to the media and then I’d start a frenzy of activity trying to get a press release ready. But with the exception of one story about the corruption of parliament, these stories failed to get any press coverage. We even produced a leaflet – but again nothing came of it. Unfortunately, with so little success I had no idea where I was going wrong.
So, after the end of Kyoto, I decided that I had had enough of fruitless campaigning and put SCEF on hold. But seeing that UKIP were the only party with any common sense on climate, early this  year I decided to join UKIP. Very unexpectedly I was hastily given the job of party spokesman on Energy. I was naive. I took the job, because I thought the press would pay more interest to press releases on energy and climate from UKIP. But the reality was no different from SCEF and it turned out the Scottish organisation had no more idea how to get press coverage than I. (Incredibly, it was not even possible to get information about climate to UKIP members in Scotland as there was no newsletter, magazine or other media through which to communicate ideas to Scottish members.)
However, as a spokesman of a well known organisation, clearly I no longer had the excuse that the lack of press coverage was because we were too small or not known. But they certainly did not give coverage to any of the deluge of material about climate which I was asked to send them by the Scottish leadership. There was something more fundamentally wrong.  I talked to a few journalists – some friends – some less friendly.
Then one day, when a journalist in the Glasgow Herald nearly printed a story but it was ditched at the last minute I pushed the issue and asked why they were not printing my press releases. They said it was because:

their boss said we were just opinionated individuals pushing our views.
(By which I took “we” to mean sceptics in

I learnt a lot from that exchange – not by denying any truth in it – as many sceptics are want to do, but by really understanding what they were saying – particularly when considered in light of various other comments from journalists and my own problems with sceptics.
Unfortunately, there was probably a lot of truth in what they said and combining my experience, I would now like to suggest the reasons we do not get good press coverage is as follows: Continue reading →

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Following today’s announcement on WUWT that Tim Flannery has had his position terminated by the new Australian administration, I’ve been wondering what implications this has for the demise of the global warming scam in the UK … and (sitting with my coat on inside in September because heating costs too much and the early cold in Scotland) I had rather more to say than would fit on a WUWT reply.
Watching the global warming scam end is a bit like watching paint dry. It really doesn’t look like anything is happening until something inconceivable happens like Black (BBC) and Hansen(NASA) being invited to spend “more time with the environment”. But during all this time watching this paint dry, I’ve had plenty of time to speculate how the Global warming scam would come to an end.
So what can these events in Australia tell us? Continue reading →

IPCC models getting mushy
“Third, what is commonly called the “mainstream” view of climate science is contained in the spread of results from computer models. What is commonly dismissed as the “skeptical” or “denier” view coincides with the real-world observations. Now you know how to interpret those terms when you hear them.” (Financial Post)
World’s top climate scientists confess: Global warming is just QUARTER what we thought – and computers got the effects of greenhouse gases wrong
“Back then, it said observed warming over the 15 years from 1990-2005 had taken place at a rate of 0.2C per decade, and it predicted this would continue for the following 20 years, on the basis of forecasts made by computer climate models.
But the new report says the observed warming over the more recent 15 years to 2012 was just 0.05C per decade – below almost all computer predictions.” (Daily Mail)
AR5: In what Prof Judith Curry describes as “incomprehensible to me” and I would describe as “delusional” given the failure of previous predictions and their own assertion that any human global warming must be smaller and therefore less important relevant to natural variation, the IPCC now says it is MORE CERTAIN that humans caused the 20th century warming. In the last report they said “very likely” when there are proven statistical tests that show natural variation can explain all the changes we saw in the 20th century. Now they say it is “extremely likely that human influence on climate caused more than half of the increase in global average surface temperature from 1951-2010.”

I was reading Judith Curry’s Leaked IPCC report discussed in the MSM and wondered how many of our points in the sceptic view have now been adopted by the “science is settled and what the sceptics think is lunacy” brigade. It turns out that in all but one area mentioned by Judith they have moved substantially in our direction. Which makes it all the more bizarre that they INCREASE their certainty that natural variation did not cause the 20th century warming.
As such it seems that a lot of good work is going to be utterly wasted because I cannot see this report being taken seriously by any but the lunatic fringe in the media.

• Carbon Dioxide (CO2) has been increasing. In 1960 it was 0.032% of the atmosphere, today it is 0.039%.
• There has very probably been warming of average global temperatures in the last 150 years.
  AR5: warming of the climate system is unequivocal.
• There is a greenhouse effect and CO2 is a greenhouse gas. The best scientific estimate of this effect (for doubling CO2) is about 1C warming.
• People think there are mechanisms that could increase warming further than the direct effect of CO2. This is not supported by the evidence.
  AR5: Has a reduced predicted warming ‘likely in the range 1.5C to 4.5C… The lower limit of the assessed likely range is thus less than the 2C in the [2007 report], reflecting the evidence from new studies.’
• Current estimates of about 0.8 C temperature rise in the past 150 years are very likely too high.  There is compelling evidence of malpractice, urban heating and poor instruments & siting. A figure of 0.5-0.6C warming appears more likely.
  AR5: “The global combined land and ocean temperature data show an increase of about 0.8°C over the period 1901–2010.” But they admit “Rate of warming reduced from 0.2 to 0.12C per decade.” This is below their lowest previous estimate.
• Man-made sources have increased global levels of CO2, however scientific analysis shows part of the increase is natural and no one is certain how much or little of this rise is man-made.
  AR5: CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion and cement production estimated from energy statistics have released 365 [335 to 395] PgC to the atmosphere, while deforestation and other land use change are estimated to have released 180 [100 to 260] PgC since 1750. Of these 545 [460 to 630] PgC, only 240 [230 to 250] PgC have accumulated in the atmosphere
• Water in the atmosphere is far more important than CO2 in determining global temperature.
  AR5: Not an exact match but we have: ‘Climate models now include more cloud and aerosol processes, but there remains low confidence in the representation and quantification of these processes in models.’
• The harmful effects of warming have been exaggerated as shown e.g.  by the absence of substantial evidence for increasing weather extremes.
  AR5: “Precipitation data indicates little change in the global mean since1900, which is a revision from previous assessments.”
  [Because modern equipment can measure it ..] “There have been statistically significant trends inthe number of heavy precipitation events in some regions.”
  “There is low confidence in observed large-scale trends in drought”
  “Tropical cyclone data provides low confidence that any reported long-term changes are robust, “
• Known benefits have been hidden. It is estimated there are more than 20,000 extra winter deaths each year in the UK and increasing fuel costs will make this worse. CO2 is essential for plant growth and increasing levels are beneficial to plants.
• Even under the worst case scenario warming, when the usual method of comparing the cost and benefit of policy is used, it is more cost effective to deal with any problems that occur than to pay to try to stop them.
• Climate proxies are not reliable. If we consider all the evidence including historical records, the evidence suggests the world was warmer during the “medieval warm period” as well as being cooler during the “little ice age”.
  AR5: Now admits Medieval Climate Anomaly  (950-1250) were in some regions as warm as in the late 20th Century.’
• Climate varies naturally. Most of the CO2 rise occurred in the latter half of the 20th century. If this change were man-made the global temperature change for the early and latter 20th century should be very different. They are not. This suggests a natural cause for much of the 20th century warming.
  AR5: In what Prof Judith Curry describes as “incomprehensible to me” and I would describe as “delusional” AR5 states an increase in certainty from “very likely” to “extremely likely that human influence on climate caused more than half of the increase in global average surface temperature from 1951-2010.”
• In 2001 the IPCC stated with a high degree of confidence that global temperature would warm. It has not. In science a theory is not valid unless the data supports it. Climate scientists must accept this theory is not validated and acknowledge that the IPCC confidence in warming was greatly overstated.
  AR5: now admits the pause and the failure of models: ‘Models do not generally reproduce the observed reduction in surface warming trend over the last 10 – 15 years.’ ‘There is medium confidence that this difference between models and observations is to a substantial degree caused by unpredictable climate variability, with possible contributions from inadequacies in the solar, volcanic, and aerosol forcings used by the models and, in some models, from too strong a response to increasing greenhouse-gas forcing.’
• We condemn the many instances of malpractice seen in climate science and those who condone them.

(Ant)arctic Ice (not mentioned in our statement)
AR5: “Most models simulate a small decreasing trend in Antarctic sea ice extent, in contrast  to the small increasing trend in observations… There is low confidence in the scientific understanding of the small observed increase in Antarctic sea ice extent.”
AR5: “There is medium confidence that the modern sea ice loss and increase of sea surface temperatures in the Arctic are anomalous in the perspective of at least the last two millennia.”
Sea Level
“It is virtually certain that over the 20th century the mean rate of increase was between 1.4 to 2.0 mm per yr, and between 2.7 and 3.7 mm per yr since 1993.” So they are saying it is “virtually certain” that the human change of around 1-2mm rise per year will be about 10cm to 20cm per century – about the same as natural sea level change in the south of England since the last ice-age. So that makes it “virtually certain” those scare stories pushing public money to academic with stories of up to 50m rise in sea level were fraudulent.

When the Kyoto treaty died at the end of last year there remained one fig leaf to hide its demise: that there was still an international agreement to destroy economies by carbon tax. Or to be precise: there was an agreement between the EU and associated countries (like those wanting to join) … and Australia.
Now that very soon after the new Australian government took office we have heard plans to close 33 climate change schemes run by seven departments, it can only be a matter of time before Australia like New Zealand, Canada, India, South Africa and the USA announce that it too is opting out of the “international” treaty on climate.
And how can anyone support action to “tackle global warming”, when the world stopped warming by its own devices over a decade ago?
When Australia ditches any replacement to Kyoto, the Global Warming scam is dead. Just as there is no warming, it is now absolutely clear there is no international agreement: no global consensus.

Government and the civil service are a bit like a dinosaur … even if you kick it between the legs, the nervous system is so slow that the message doesn’t get to the brain for years. And as we all know in Scotland the brain that even at the best of times is detached from reality is currently pre-occupied with the “Alex-endum” (the harder Alex tries to force Scots to accept the SNP diktat that we shall have independence the more people want independence from Alex.)

Are climate sceptics born sceptics or does something happen to make them change their mind? Is there something in the background or outlook of sceptics. Do we share certain political views (as warmists assert) are me mad (as some insane Australian academic rants), or have we formed our views from our greater life experiences than the average climate scientist?
What is it that makes someone a climate sceptic?
How much do we know about science – I have a science degree with a background in commercial engineering. Is this typical? Are we predominantly graduates in science & engineering? How many of us work in the public sector and how many the private?
If you would like to help me answer this please add some details about yourself.
(Answer from non-sceptics are also most welcome)
First me:

1. Am I a Sceptic?
   Yes I’m a sceptic
2. Do I have a Degree?
   I have a science/engineering degree (and MBA)
3. My Occupation?
   I used to be an manager & engineer and then ran my own business
4. What led to my views?
   The clear bias of those involved; lack of “fairness” and professional rigour; the obviousness of better explanations particularly natural variation which were being repressed; the outlandish doomsday predictions and lack of evidence supporting them; the failure of predictions, and the “public spirited” blitz-type attitude of the unfunded sceptics whose heroic efforts in the face of big-green-business and other big organisations deserved support.

I received this from George Lindsay. We now have a situation where the international legal basis for wind non-science disappeared in December when the Kyoto Protocol ceased being legally binding and now the Aarhus committee have ruled the UK is acting illegally.
Stand back for wall to wall coverage by the BBC condemning the UK’s illegal pollution of the countryside with bird-mincers. (Who am I kidding?)
TEXT:
Effects of the Aarhus draft decision on planning applications.
The Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee has ruled unequivocally that the UK is non-compliant with Article 7 of the Convention. Continue reading →