Scottish Sceptic

BBC’s Glenn Campbell tweets: It’s amazing how many ways Edinburgh voters have found to spoil ballots. Knots n crosses. Multiple Xs. Anti-trams abuse. #bbcvote2012 #sc12

I think my “party” is winning. I think if a majority of electors either stay at home or spoil their ballot (like me) then we should have less politicians.
Take my ward (sounds like a hospital). There were three seats … and four candidates. The councillors do nothing. Some won’t even respond to emails just before an election. They seem to think they have some god given right to their seat … and most people just let them get away with it. I might have stood myself if I could have said what I was standing for:

“save Lenzie Moss” Continue reading →

A while ago a group of Scottish Sceptics met with a view to forming some kind of association. The meeting was positive and the will was there to move ahead, but as should have been expected amongst a group of strong willed individuals, we disagreed afterwards and I felt the best thing for the group was to exit as graciously as I could.
However, as there were several consultations which needed some kind of response from a Scottish Sceptics as a group when nothing materialised in time, I created a temporary pseudo-association called the “Scottish Climate and Energy Forum” … a loose alliance of Scottish Sceptics. The hope was that this would only be a short term thing until an  organisation could be formed to represent sceptics in Scotland.
Several more months have passed and there is nothing to show from just waiting. Something needs to happen. Continue reading →

Any sceptic who has ever tried to edit a wikipedia article will know that the climate articles are just a propaganda rag for green-spin. Many of us suspect that many of the editors are either the prominent team members themselves or post-grads in their employ.
This was obvious when there was open discussion, not about papers that were published, not even about ones being reviewed (which itself shows inside knowledge), but ones that were still in the process of being written … even “it’s time (we) had a paper on”. It was just their way of boasting to us sceptics that there was nothing we could do to stop them. They had total control over the content, and even if we could find some way to justify a change …. they would just get their buddies to write a new paper refuting it. I will repeat that: there was a strong suggestion that papers were written merely to serve as “evidence” to force article changes in wikipedia. Continue reading →

First my bias. I live between Glasgow and Edinburgh. I have links with both cities. I do not like “touristy” places like Stonehenge, nor do I go much for “Celtic”** culture. But if someone like me were to visit Scotland, the places I’d recommend:

1. The Barrowland in Glasgow … it’s a market with a warren of small shops. It feels like it ought to be full of pick-pockets, but I’ve never had my wallet stolen.
2. Glasgow itself has some superb architecture. I hadn’t e.g. realised that Glasgow has the only building in the Crystal palace style. There are some superb buildings (but it took a guide to point these out) Continue reading →

I think this picture just about sums up Scotland’s attitude to science, but particularly engineering. It shows James Watt’s workshop at Kinneil where he did much of his work developing the steam engine. Beside it rusting away and covered in graffiti (worse when I visited) is one of the most important artefacts of the modern world: part of his steam engine.
What we need to understand, is that this need to create traction engines for mining was what drove the development of science. It was the impetus for Boyle and others to investigate the behaviour of gases. It is often suggested that science created the industrial revolution, the truth is that the industrial revolution drove the scientific revolution in the UK. Unfortunately, history is not written by industrial engineers but by academics.
Now Watt lived just a few years after the Jacobite rebellion which ended at Culloden. So Culloden is a famous defeat for the Scots. One which is celebrated and visited and generally made a fuss of. Culloden, was an English victory not over Scots, but over a King who had hardly seen Scotland who had an arrogant belief in his divine right to rule his people but was so incompetent it is a miracle he won any victories at all. Continue reading →

… the debate. But …

I have been thinking about the debate at St.Andrews. I thought we would get a stronger case from the warmists. Instead, where we did have discussion, our half-heated, ill-prepared, sometime ill-informed, attempts to make our case was making huge inroads into their arguments. It was really like a village football team going along to Celtic straight from the pub and only afterwards realising they drew … as none of the village team had thought to keep a tally of the score.
What surprised me was that Andrew Montford did not cover all the numerous bits of science that show the exaggerated global warming hypothesis is certainly unproven and quite probably disproven.
In no way am I criticising Andrew. He clearly has an expertise in climategate. It does take a certain brass neck, to challenge people who have spent their whole lives on a subject and are utterly convinced they are right and know you are using terminology and ideas which sound like baby talk to them … even if you are right.
But, I came away, feeling that even given the huge odds, given time and a little patience on the other side to listen to my “baby talk” I could certainly have convinced a large number, and likely a majority that the science didn’t support the assertions on the warming induced by CO2. But that is only one part in a long chain of argument that all falls if even one part falls.
If you then examine: the claims of a manmade source for all the CO2, as Prof Salby shows, this is highly suspect. If you examine the supposed effects of warming like reduction in cereal crops or deaths in the UK from heat/cold, again is should be blatantly obvious that the figures are highly distorted. E.g. Scotland is at the Northern margin of wheat production. The idea that wheat would be adversely affected here is fraudulent. Even in warmer climate where it is heat stressed, using a variety adapted to the heat stops eliminates the effects of heat, and anyway any adverse effects of heat is more than offset by the increasing CO2.
Then you take the economic costs. Energy use is a very close proxy to GDP. The two are so intimately entwined that I suggest energy would be a better measure of GDP when e.g. comparing pre-monetary societies or when taking into account inflation which distorts GDP.
So, the very idea we would reduce energy is is tantamount to saying we will reduce GDP. I personally think that would have a lot of benefits, but that should be considered as a policy on its own. But in terms of cost-benefit analysis, there is no doubt that even if all the CO2 increase were manmade, even if the feedback induced warming was as much as predicted, even if all the fraudulent claims about effects were true. The costs of stopping fossil fuel use exceed the benefits.
So, why is no one in Scotland telling the public? I think the answers are various. Continue reading →

It’s been a strange day … which is ironically typical.
7:30am wake up to crowing cockerel … mentally make a note that it is about time we got rid of it as it’s bound be be annoying neighbours. Remember youngest son has decided to breed from the current pair. Relax at thought of not having to dispatch chicken this week.
7:40 Wake up again to find that someone governmental is texting wife. Confused by modern technology, I jump out of bed and hand wife handbag … only to be told she knows who it is.
7:45 think of turning on Radio 4 … remember all the times I’ve had to complain because of their biased coverage … not in the mood to write another complaint, so leave it off. Continue reading →

The main thrust of Tom’s argument was “it has warmed” therefore we are right to be worried.
The main thrust of Andrew’s argument was “it has warmed … but as a group there has been dishonesty in climate science and we don’t trust nor agree with your assertions that we should be worried”.
The main contention appeared to be whether the “last decade” of standstill was enough to be significant. Continue reading →

Sorry.
Sorry, we are not a professional bunch of slick PR consultants with all the figures at our finger tips. Sorry particularly to the students, we sceptics are just amateurs … you deserve better than us, that is why we pay academics to research the whole picture and to present the whole story. The only reason we were there was because the academics have failed.
Sorry … personally, I wasn’t quite sure of the etiquette … eventually I thought it was better to speak up and be damned than sit there.
Thankyou
Thank you for the staff for putting on the debate. The very fact they were prepared to allow debate is a credit to them. On the other hand, why did I have this feeling that we were going to be treated like exhibits to be mocked and have our arguments falsely dissected (when we were unable to defend them) when we went away.
What the hell am I doing here?
Continue reading →

“The climate is doing its usual tricks. There’s nothing much really happening yet. We were supposed to be halfway toward a frying world now,” he (Lovelock) said.
“The world has not warmed up very much since the millennium. Twelve years is a reasonable time… it (the temperature) has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising — carbon dioxide is rising, no question about that,” he added.
MSNBC

What does he expect us to do? Applaud him for only taking 12 years? Just look at the tripe he has been producing:

• Revenge of Gaia: Why the Earth Is Fighting Back – and How We Can Still Save Humanity,”
• “The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning: Enjoy It While You Can.”

Apparently he wants to produce a trilogy. Any suggestions for the title:

• The downfall of Science: why people like me are responsible.
• My life as a bullshiter.
• Consensus, global warming and other nonsense.