Thursday
May192011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Back from the brink
A sudden outbreak of sanity seems to have taken hold Canada. Firstly the idea of a carbon tax appears to have been killed off for good:
Conservatives kill carbon tax
Conservatives have kiboshed a carbon tax, Environment Minister Peter Kent confirmed Thursday.
"It's off the table," he told reporters Thursday after accepting an award from World Wildlife Fund International on behalf of Parks Canada.
"There's no expectation of cap-and-trade continentally in the near or medium future."
...and then this:
Government delays pulling plug on old-fashioned light bulbs
Tories propose pushing deadline to 2014 over lack of alternatives to incandescents
(H/T to Ross McKitrick, who offers to send a real estate guide)
Reader Comments (63)
Unfortunately in Ontario we have a Liberal government committed to wind, almost as much a the idiot Huhne. Fortunately there's a provincial election in October, and Tim Hudak, the Tory leader, has promised to cancel the Samsung deal to build wind turbines and roll back the feed-in-tariff (FIT) program which subsidises alternative energy projects. http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Politics/2011/05/10/18128521.html There's more vocal opposition to wind farms here than in the UK, too. Expect a Tory victory in Ontario, in the fall.
That's what you get when you elect a proper Tory government...
Some very nice real estate at a fraction of UK prices around Quebec.
Now Ontarians just have to decimate the Ontario Liberals this fall just as we decimated the federal Liberals in the recent election. I had taken comfort in the belief that the Tories were just playing lip service to the notion of CAGW while they were a minority government and now that they have majority status, they don't have to suck up to the delusions of the other parties. The leftist New Democratic Party's policy would have Canadians enact ritual carbon seppuku and the Liberal's carbon policy was not much less insane. So we appear to have dodged the bullet for the next four years at least. Perchance we will drive a wooden stake through the heart of CAGW before four years elapses.
This is a long video but well worth watching. It seems that the government are being highly reliant upon consumers taking up their schemes within the Green Deal. Not surprisingly the banks are heavily involved by providing finance. An intriguing point is that there will be additional means of redress, which could presumably used if the savings from the installation do not exceed the overall cost.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b011d9qb/House_of_Commons_Live_Energy_and_Climate_Change_Questions/
There's more work to do, but for the moment Im proud to be a Canadian!
A coming incandescent light bulb smuggling racket over the southern border,eh?
$2.00 - 4 pack 100 watts.
Delivered to Buffalo.
Canadian funds only.
"The U.S. is scheduled to get rid of 100W bulbs on Jan. 1, 2012"
How do they feel about that? I thought it was a peculiarly EU obsession, i.e. bonkers but not surprising.
In breaking news, it has been announced that Jim Hansen has supplied details of speed camera records in the Arctic and Keith Briffa has contributed a photograph of a single car speedo he found in a scrappers in a Norwich back street.
Michael Mann has homogenised this and other data from Essex and London (including a specially inverted series from Neasden) and has run a PC analysis.
Based on all this scientific evidence, Phil Jones has written a peer reviewed paper conclusively proving that Huhne is innocent.
"The evidence is in!", says Jones.
"And if Vicky Pryce says any different, I'll be very tempted to kick the shit out of her", added Ben Santer.
Good sense will ultimately prevail and I am convinced that the outbreak of it in Canada will spread world wide. I suspect the madness of CAGW is one of those odd happenings that afflict the human race from time to time. I also suspect the phasing-out of bloodthirsty and spine-chilling folk tales for children by the do-gooders and the introduction of electronic games has had a very negative effect on the psyche of most gen-X adults who are now just coming to the realisation that fresh air and weather are natural phenomena that are not being controlled by mankind using a very natural desire to innovate and improve.
In Canada we have all the stuff; the iron ore, coal, wood, oil, gas, water, bauxite, nickel, uranium, food, low corporate taxes, freedom, infrastructure, year round ice free harbors, universal health care, etc, etc, etc; and the will to use them all to attract the best and the brightest, grow the economy, pay our debits and secure our future. That is the plan.
What we need are more industries and more skilled people that actually do useful work. If you speak English or French and are a journeyman in a trade, have a useful degree or money for investment, you will be welcomed into Canada.
If you or your company is being wrecked by the politics of ‘Global Warming’ in the un-developing world, Canada is open for business. Take a look.
(Climate Alarmists and Telephone Sanitizers need not apply)
“As economic policy, the Kyoto Accord is a disaster. As environmental policy it is a fraud”: Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada.
"A fraud", I could not have put it better myself.
Certainly does seem that the global madness of GW alarmism is well and truly on the backfoot. This morning on BBC Breakfast they covered the fact that we are having a nice warm start to the year and that some plants were flowering a whole two weeks earlier than last year.
And not a mention of climate change or global warming!
In fact - the presenters seem to be looking forward to a long hot summer. Long overdue after the Met Office BBQ summers that never were.
Now a year or so ago and such natural variance would have been laid out to the viewer as absolute proof of man made global warming with dire BBC faces predicting that we are all on the way to an AGW hell.
Only those politicians living in a bubble still seem to be clinging on to the spin.
Certainly does seem that the global madness of GW alarmism is well and truly on the backfoot. This morning on BBC Breakfast they covered the fact that we are having a nice warm start to the year and that some plants were flowering a whole two weeks earlier than last year.
And not a mention of climate change or global warming!
You missed the sly comment by the RSPB bloke who said this type of weather was different to the stable climate of the last few thousand years.
They are not weaned yet, sure if they get the chance it will be full steam ahead.
Unfortunately, in Canada, we now have a government of like minded people to those the Americans gave the "sack" to a couple of years ago. A government of religious freaks and extreme Right Wing ideologues. The support is from the same plus that minority of people who vote for anything that calls itself "Conservative" while being too apathetic and mentally lazy to discover just what they are voting for.
Peter Kent is one of the sheep who is in Ottawa to do his master's bidding. We have a one man governing Party with a flock that is rewarded for knowing "Baa, baa, Blacksheep.
What Kent says is of no matter. The world has moved ahead of Harper's horde and there will be no choice for Canada other than to follow. It currently occupies the place of shame but that will change.
@May 20, 2011 at 12:04 PM | John Peate
I claim no expertise is Canadian politics.
But here in the UK, it is the leaders and the huge majority of elected members of every political party with any UK representation who are "too apathetic and mentally lazy to discover just what they are voting for."
If Harper states “As economic policy, the Kyoto Accord is a disaster. As environmental policy it is a fraud” then the man is at least in touch with reality, whether he calls himself (or whether you call him) a Conservative, a Liberal, a Socialist, a Marxist or Monster Raving Loony.
If you can arrange a swap for Cameron / Clegg / Miliband / Lucas / Salmond (take your pick. Or indeed, take 'em all.), I for one would be more than grateful.
John Peate, I would suggest that 'Harpers' Horde', your term, I think, for the new Canadian Conservative government, may be leading the Western world rather than following it. Would you care to provide some elucidation re your comment about 'religious freaks and right wing ideologues' as opposed to the left wing ideologues and religious freaks who preach the gospel of 'decarbonisation' that they think will save us from wilfully burning our planet.
How is this "leading " the Planet when it is dredging up, economically, ideas that died with Thatcher and her kind? Harper follows the Calgary "school" which follows the Chicago "school' which follows the Austrian "school.'
All thoroughly discredited long ago.
Religious freaks. Try Charles McVety as the chief religious influence on Harper and the Family Values Coalition whose "values" are those of several of the Conservative Cabinet.
If you think that those who want action against the causes of Climate change are Left Wing ideologues and religious freaks, then I suggest that you ponder the fact that, by actual count, 98% of the world's published climate scientists are in that camp and that there is not one denier who has a credible scientific support for denial - not a single study.
Try looking for the video of Richard Alley, one of the most brilliant of climate scientists, and a Republican, in which he treats American Republican Congressmen like Grade schoolers, ridiculing them in his testimony to a Congressional committee.
There has been no debate over this for the last fifteen years. Only a few rogue scientists bought and paid for by the fossil fule industry and several Right Wing "Think Tanks" and PR people. There is not a credible scientist in this world who is not of the opinion that AGW is happening and is the most dangerous situation that mankind has ever faced.
John Peate,
"There is not a credible scientist in this world who is not of the opinion that AGW is happening and is the most dangerous situation that mankind has ever faced."
Can I suggest that you give all your time to panic rather than wasting it on typing.
Simple!
Might I suggest that you give SOME of your time to thinking and actually looking for truth. I gave a suggestion for where to start. I could give you hundreds of others.
Truth does not just happen.
Please ignore the Troll and it will die of starvation (or panic LOL).
John Peate, truth does not exist in science, there is stuff we are fairly sure of and stuff we are very unsure of. Religious zealots talk about truth, scientists attach error bars to their statements. I could quote Einstein, but there is obviously little point as he did not pronounce eternal truths.
Who said anything about truth existing in science? That is an irrelevant speculation. The question here is whether science has made the case for Anthropogenically caused climate change.
Thousands of scientific studies and papers make that claim. There is none that contradicts it. 98% of climate scientists agree. The National Academies of every developed nation have issued declarations saying that it is so.
There is no organisation in this world other than a few funded by certain business interests that denies it.
What is left?
A great deal of uncertainty over the actual equilibrium climate sensitivity to a doubling of pre-industrial levels of CO2.
Stop pretending that climate science (or yourself) has all the answers. And ask yourself: why, if the multi-model mean referenced in AR4 yields a decadal trend of 0.2C, do observations average at 0.15C?
If the MMM is biased high, then so is the estimated value for climate sensitivity. AGW may not be the end of everything and there is a vast amount of scientific investigation still to be done.
Alarmism is tiresome and usually connected to a whole slew of left/liberal pseudo-'environmentalist' views, including anti-democratic leanings and anti-humanism (neo-Malthusianism). That's why analysis such as yours above will be resisted here.
Constructive, scientifically sceptical and socially positive responses to the likely reality of AGW will get you somewhat further. Although from what you have said so far, I doubt you are capable of them.
PS Richard Alley is a very engaging and very accomplished scientist. But I do not think he would claim to know the actual value for climate sensitivity to CO2 either.
What might be a good idea is for you to stop pretending that you know what you are talking about and hiding misinformation in a welter of bluster.
Your comment about trends is nonsense and can only come from the deceptive cherrypicking of deniers. Try this to educate yourself about trends.
http://deepclimate.org/2009/06/03/ipcc-ar4-projections-and-observations-part-1/
The uncertainty about climate sensitivity comes from the uncertainty about the relative effects of various feedbacks and forcings, not from any uncertainty in the science about what it is when variables are held constant. You should stay away from the lunatic Lord for your information.
"Alarmism is tiresome and usually connected to a whole slew of left/liberal pseudo-'environmentalist' views, including anti-democratic leanings and anti-humanism (neo-Malthusianism). That's why analysis such as yours above will be resisted here."
That paragraph reveals that you are just a blusterer. No one with any thought of getting to the "truth" would write that way. To accuse the whole world body of science and the Academies of every country of "alarmism" is the resort of one who is defeated but unrepentant. It is the tactic of a Milloy. I will not bother with response to anyone who calls concern for humanity and the future "anti democratic and anti humanism." Left/liberal pseudo environmentalism - you are a joke.
However, if you want that kind of exchange you will find that I am more than capable of engaging in it. It is also easier for me since the science is on my side: you have only a few frauds and crooks to support you.
You clearly have not idea what you are involved in.
John Peate
Thought you might take that tone.
Let's start with the trends shall we:
TREND AND TIME SERIES, HADCRUT, GISTEMP, UAH, RSS (common 1981 – 2010 baseline; 12 month running mean).
Decadal trend 1979 – present:
HADCRUT 0.15
GISTEMP 0.16
RSS 0.14
UAH 0.14
This a statement of the obvious. The no-feedbacks value for CO2 doubling is ~1C. The uncertainties ariser from the fact that nobody - including yourself - has any real idea how the climate system will respond to accumulating energy.
It is perfectly reasonable to hypothesise less alarming combined feeback/forcing outcomes than the one you (presumably) have foremost in your mind.
Presenting scientific uncertainty as known fact is dishonest and should be avoided both in informal debate and policy guidance offered to governments. As I'm sure you know.
I pay no attention to Monckton.
Sentence one: b*ll*cks
Sentence two: ditto. Why not?
Sentence three: misrepresentation. I said you were an alarmist
Sentence four: yawn
The rest: anyone who pretends that they are 'concerned for humanity and the future' using the tools of misrepresentation and intolerance to reasoned dissent is fundamentally anti-democratic. Yes, this means you. And I absolutely bet you go on and on about population growth... as a problem to be 'solved' rather than accommodated through progress and a socially positive rationalism.
No, you're crap. I will run rings round you.
"No, you're crap. I will run rings round you."
OK, now, let's end the argument on that funny note.
Talking about bluster, could someone please explain what the part I have italicised below means:
Does it mean to say climate science is certain but not yet certain whether certain variables will be constant? What is what? Who cares?
Now, BBD, you come this way. You don't want this get out of hand.
And you, whatever your name is, you stay there! Better still, finish your drink and go home!
sHx
Fair comment. Intemperate response to intemperate comment = nonsense.
It's been a long week.
Remember that you set the tone, bbd. To call anyone who repeats what the science says an alarmist is what I accused you of. As for running rings around me, you make me laugh. I won't be here long since I deal in the real world in this, not some cozy little club of deniers.
Did you read the link I gave? Did you really think that cherry picking bolsters your case? I will not give my own calculations and opinions since there are scientists out there who have answered every quibble you could possibly dig up from the blogosphere.
Try this one!
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/05/what-the-ipcc-models-really-say/
sHx. It means what it says. Climate sensitivity is fixed by the laws of physics. Many variables enter into the actual effects. The best estimates - estimates that are proving accurate from observation, far exceed the fixed.
Stating that Alley would not claim to know the actual values for climate sensitivity is a deceptive ploy. There are no actual values for climate sensitivity that can be calculated without fixing variables.
Here, though, is a brilliant video by Alley in which climate sensitivity is discussed.
http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm09/lectures/lecture_videos/A23A.shtml
"How is this "leading " the Planet when it is dredging up, economically, ideas that died with Thatcher and her kind? Harper follows the Calgary "school" which follows the Chicago "school' which follows the Austrian "school.'
All thoroughly discredited long ago."
So which countries represent your ideal? Cuba, North Korea?
John Peate
I read the Mashey link with interest. His treatment is a little jumbled. I note your assertion that you ‘deal in the real world’ but also that you refuse to ‘give your own calculations or opinions’ which is a startling admission from someone so very sure of their ground.
Even with the focus is on 1979 – present (ie satellite era), the divergence between the multi-model mean and observations is clear.
For example, http://rankexploits.com/musings/2011/hadley-march-anomaly-0-318c-up/
Some ‘real world’ comment:
Which should give pause for thought. With this in mind, let’s examine some more temperature records.
First, here is a discussion of the straightforward and uncontroversial statistical analysis used:
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2011/where-is-the-trend-relative-to-all-runs/
Here are the comparisons with the MMM for the major temperature records:
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2011/noaa-ncdc-april-warmer-than-march/
NOAA/NCDC April. Further explanation of method and graph.
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2011/april-uah-up-from-march/
UAH April.
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2011/rss-april-anomaly-up-2/
RSS April.
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2011/hadley-march-anomaly-0-318c-up/
HADCRUT March.
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2011/giss-march-anomaly-rose-to-0-57c/
GISTEMP March.
I know, I know. All made-up stuff. But no one in comments at the Blackboard has pointed to errors in the methodology. And there are some vast, cool and unsympathetic intellects in there. Who are more than happy to ‘give their own calculations’.
What you say, and the tone in which you say it, is unimpressive. You won’t influence opinion (except negatively) by combining a sneering arrogance with an evident lack of any real knowledge.
Pitiful, Eddy!
But what I expected.
John Peate
Yes. I found Mashey's final figure most helpful in confirming the divergence between observations and the multi-model mean.
What cherry-picking? Are you referring to this graph?
And these trends:
Decadal trend (degrees C):
GISTEMP 0.16
HADCRUT 0.15
UAH 0.14
RSS 0.14
The graph is simply what it looks like: GISTEMP, HADCRUT, UAH and RSS 1979 - present, re-baselined for clarity using the 1981 - 2010 baseline introduced with UAH v5.4.
Feel free to replace this with a different baseline - it will of course make no difference to the trend slopes.
The trends are derived from the raw data (link below the data entry pane on the WfT graph page). Take the annual trend value and multiply by 10 for the decadal value. All four trends are the same as the published results for each temperature record. You can readily confirm this yourself.
"I will not give my own calculations and opinions since there are scientists out there who have answered every quibble you could possibly dig up from the blogosphere."
Well aren't you the mean one! Still I suspect we will manage to soldier on with out them.
I noticed, when I owned a small business that retailed sophisticated electronic eqipment to the general public, that from time to time an individual would walk in off the street and present his or her stunningly odd ideas, so John Peate's kind of silliness is quite familiar. I found that arguing with such people is utterly pointless after the initial exploratory exchange of ideas; all one can do is smile pleasantly, grit one's teeth and hope they will go away soon.
John Peate
The methodology presented at the Blackboard (see above at 10:19 am) provides an exact counter to the claims set out in the Schmidt RC post you link:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/05/what-the-ipcc-models-really-say/
It is actually not even controversial (except to those wedded to their prior commitments) to assert that the MMM is biased high relative to observations.
MMM is not biased high. It is the high end of different emissions scenarios. I have, btw, seen estimates using Woodfortrees that produce an unadjusted trend of as high as .22.
To explain a little. I have been doing this for 15 years now and am quite able to respond to the kind of amateurisism that is the meat of the denial world. I do not do so because there are a thousand scientists out there who actually know what they are talking about and their papers and articles explain all that is needed.
What is on display in these "discussions" is an example of the Dunning/Kruger Effect and that is all that the sceptical sites do offer.
You will find more on RC that directly deals with your hang-up and a very good one by Tamino.
All this ceased to be of any importance long ago since all it does is interfere with the reality of an existential threat. Would it matter if the trend was .17 or .22? Would that change the fact that the 300 year heat wave event in Russia last year is expected to a decadal event within 30 or 40 years? Would it prevent the failure of the crops there?
Would it mean that those Pacific Islanders who are preparing to abandon their homelands could stay home? Would it stop the water wars in the Horn of Africa and Darfur?
Would it mean that the arrival of Spring in the Canadian Arctic 50 days early this year did not happen. Would it end the possibility of flooding in all the world's major coastal cities within the next half century?
I looked in here because someone told me of the reference to Peter Kent's obscurantism. I have no time for or interest in pedantic exercises. All the information is out there - and I read it - and there is no quibble in the scientific community. There is always disagreement about degree but there is none about the future course.
I have too many other places where I am active in this to continue here. As a matter of interest, in the Canadian context, a couple of years ago I wrote a long detailed communication to Rona Ambrose, then Minister of the Environment, she responded with an equally long message stating her agreement with me.
The following day she was fired and demoted to a junior cabinet post by this Dinosaur of a Prime Minister who, the suspicion is, is a creationist but who is too smart to answer publicly to the question.
"I have too many other places where I am active in this to continue here."
lol
I think this means BBD was a bit too much for him to bluster through.
"Would it mean that those Pacific Islanders who are preparing to abandon their homelands could stay home?"
Where is this supposed to be happening?
John Peate
Er, what? You're a bluffer, aren't you?
Anyway, I've said my piece (coherent argument that the MMM is biased high, which it clearly is) and you've (ahem) blustered at length. You talk of the 'reality of an existential threat', but are utterly resistant to attempts to improve the definition of that reality.
And you think I'm being fooled by the likes of Monckton? You need a little perspective. Perhaps it will come with age and experience.
As I said, Dunning/Kruger.
If there were any real discussion here I might have been interested in continuing: even at the cost of dropping some more effective places for a time.
But there is not. You all just feed off each other and the childish ones (eddy) chime in.
The fact is, that you BBD , are just a poseur hiding behind some pretended familiarity with statistics. Your dismissal of those effects shows what you are about.
More name-calling; still no actual argument. If you disagree with the analysis of the disagreement between the MMM and the observations, then set out your reasoned argument. Show the errors in the methodology.
I'm sorry John, but on the evidence here, if anyone is bluffing - it's you.
John Peate, I AM a Pacific Islander, the islands of New Zealand, in fact, and I am very aware of the Pacific region and reasonably knowledgeable about it. A very few islands are sinking because of geological, not climactic causes, some have grown in land-mass and some have had really silly things done to them such as blasting channels through coral reefs, thus allowing seawater to swamp the freshwater lens, etc and some are over-populated. Spraying allegations with no basis in fact has defined you as one of the extreme arm-wavers from the climate alarmist camp.
"Would it mean that those Pacific Islanders who are preparing to abandon their homelands could stay home?"
Where is this supposed to be happening?"
Well John? No answer......
Having read through the entire john peate-BBD episode I would say that in the case of john peate he epitomises the current herd of religious fanatics that have infected modern science. All insult and condescension with nothing to back him up save appealing to some authority or other. He went through all the classic stages of someone losing an argument. He started with the appealing to authority bit, and when that didn't fly he went straight to ad hominem and insult. When the insults didn't work either he decided he is far to important to have to deal with such lowlifes and bugs out in a huff without actually convincing anyone of anything other than the fact that he needs to get help with his anger issues.
And they wonder why no-one listens to them outside of their church.
I agree True North. I think JP's post at May 21, 2011 at 3:25 PM above is well worth a read. For many alarmists there is a deep conviction that the world faces an existential crisis. Obviously those who disagree are either deluded fools or cynical manipulators. Some alarmists are there because that is where the money is but for many it is a substitiue for conventional religious belief.
I think the public appetite for this bout of catastrophising is rapidly diminishing especially as there is a growing realisation that we are living through a very real and dangerous financial crisis which will indeed affect us all.