Thursday
Jun112015
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill David Davies does climate change
Jun 11, 2015 Climate: Parliament This speech from David TC Davies in the Commons yesterday was quite unusual in that the speaker seemed to have actually studied what the IPCC and other scientists have to say.
Reader Comments (62)
Phew! when you said the speaker, I thought you meant that little oik with the funny voice. Scarecrow or Berk or something
anyway, this Davis chap impressed the heck out of me, some of my faith in our representitives has been restored
What a great piece of debate. The socialist prat doing what they do best can't believe what the IPPC report says because it doesn't jive with what he has been told by greenpiss
This guy knows his subject, just wow. Well done TC
who's the head-shaker impersonating an illiterate ignorant?
Like the sun breaking through storm clouds.
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He'll never make minister. Unfortunately, He'll be consigned to a career on the backbench until He retires or is voted out.
There was more sense spoken in that short delivery to the House than there has been in the last 20 years.
When MPs make blatant and easily proved erroneous statements, such as the incorrect claim about all warming in the last 60 years being man-made, why isn't the person concerned made to correct himself immediately. That clown on the opposition benches has either read the IPCC report or he hasn't. If he has then he was deliberately misleading the House, if he hasn't then he is ignorant of the facts. Either way, the Speaker should have demanded an immediate retraction of the statement.
What a breath of fresh air! An excellent speaker making some very clear, factual points.
Can't believe how badly misinformed the 'member opposite' was when he stated: ". . .one of the IPCC's recent reports actually said that 100% of the climate change (global warming), in the last 60 years was due to humans. They were 95% convinced overall. You know, the IPCC has made itself very clear on this point". Even worse, this statement was accompanied by much murmuring of agreement by other members.
I just hope David TC Davies continues his efforts and other like-minded MPs will put their heads above the parapet and support him.
Wow, that was impressive. Wonder if he was on a personal mission or whether there is a general undercurrent of change finally emerging. Well done, anyway.
I watched mister Davis in a committee meeting on parliament tv about a year ago, he and Redwood and a few other intelligent MPs were making a case for repealing the Climate Change act, a genuine good guy indeed!
Very impressive stuff: he clearly has command of the facts, and marshals them with force and precision.
Don't get too excited, it was very noticeable how nobody present was listening to him.
From Hansard:
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David T. C. Davies: Let me read out something for the hon. Gentleman. Under the title “Summary for policymakers” on page 17, fourth paragraph down, the IPCC says:
“It is extremely likely that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was caused by the anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas concentrations and other anthropogenic forcings together.”
What that means in simple English is that slightly more than half of the increase that has taken place in the second half of the 20th century is down to man. The overall increase over the past 250 years is 0.8 °C, but in the second half of the 20th century, the increase was about 0.5 °C. What the IPCC is saying in this report is that slightly over half of that is likely to have been man-made.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201516/cmhansrd/cm150610/debtext/150610-0003.htm#15061064000001
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In the absence of a document reference, for those who want to check, the quoted IPCC text appears bottom para page 5 of this report:
Climate Change 2014
Synthesis Report
Summary for Policymakers
https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/syr/AR5_SYR_FINAL_SPM.pdf
Brilliant, especially warning the dumb politicians riding on this arguably fake science (easily proved**) that they will be held responsible for the consequences of their actions.
**If the atmosphere were to absorb and thermalise mean 157.5 W/m^2 (difference between surface Radiant Exitance, an Electromagnetic potential energy flux, not real, never proved experimentally, and OLR, also an Exitance), the temperature of the first ~20 m atmosphere would have to be ~0 deg C, colder than at any time since the Ordovician Ice Age, 444 million years ago. No-one has ever proved this experimentally (NASA tried but failed), or that 'back radiation', another Exitance is real: it's time to restore the 230 year old Scientific Enlightenment by ejecting this new Lysenkoism.
Remarkable speech. Mr.Davies is destined either for great things or obscurity.
The Labour member intervening is Steven Doughty http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Doughty who is MP for Cardiff South and Penarth.
The debate is in Hansard: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201516/cmhansrd/cm150610/debtext/150610-0003.htm#15061064000001
Excellent speech! A courageous man. Trouble is, there were as always sod all in the way of MPs there to listen to it bar a dozen or so. At least it has been recorded for posterity! Anyone copied it just in case the BBC accidentally erase it by pure coincidence, you know the sort of thing, the "incident" never occurred, where's your proof, you must have imagined it? Knowing the Beeb I am suprised a technical fault didn't occur during the broadcast such as noise disruption making audibility almost impossible. Gosh I am getting too cynical with age!
I recall back in the 80s when a 2-3 part US mini-series on nuclear war was broadcast globally, a pretty good one really, on the futility of it all, it was even broadcast in the east GDR, only the bit of dialogue about a "revolt of East-German troops" was wiped by a "technical" fault apparently. I am sure the Beeb know even better how to do it!
Mr Alan Campbell (Tynemouth) (Lab) claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36).
Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.
Question agreed to.
Main Question accordingly put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House believes that the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change conference in Paris in 2015 is vital in ensuring that the target of keeping global temperature increases below two degrees is met; further believes that the UK Government should push for ambitious emissions targets for all countries, strengthened every five years on the basis of a scientific assessment of the progress towards the two degrees goal, a goal of net zero emissions in the second half of the century, transparent and universal rules for measuring and reporting emissions, climate change adaptation plans for all countries, and an equitable deal in which richer
10 Jun 2015 : Column 1303
countries provide support to poorer nations in their efforts to combat climate change; and further notes the importance of making adequate plans for domestic mitigation and adaptation and ensuring communities are protected from the worst effects of climate change, including flooding.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201516/cmhansrd/cm150610/debtext/150610-0004.htm
The warmer you think we've made this Earth
The colder we'd be without man's worth.
If worry you will about the heat,
Remember instead, it's got cold beat.
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Doughty is member for Cardiff South and Penarth; Davies is MP for Monmouth, so there's a bit of "how dare a Tory think he can speak for Wales?" in that intervention, I suspect.
The motion is meaningless showboating. All parties agree about global warming even though most of them, like Doughty, don't have a clue what is going on.
Alan the Brit
The BBC can do what it likes (and normally does). That speech is recorded in Hansard as is Doughty's intervention and Davies' response to him. I'm not sure when the last time was that anything was removed from Hansard — if ever!
Pitty he is wrong in most. Temperatures have increase since 1850, the end of the LIA, naturally and expected given the cyclic nature of climate.. Most CO2 is generated in the SH not the northern to the astonishment of the alarmists so not human caused in the industrial north. Ocean acidification cannot happen given the bicarbonate/carbonate reaction that increases pH. In fact the GHE cannot happen given the laws of thermodynamics and Planck's law.
AND rainforests should be hotter than deserts given the GHE but they can be 20C COOLER!
Duly recorded and stored on my hard drive. An excellent speech, but as others have suggested it will probably make no difference. Am I right in thinking that he was one of a handfull (6?) of MP's who didn't sign up to Miliwatts Climate Change Act? The only small bit I take issue with is his claim that "It costs £95 MWhr to generate electricity by nuclear" Is that not the strike price agreed for the output (if it's EVER completed) from the new plant at Hinkley Point? I'm sure existing sites are less than this - would Philip Bratby be good enough to advise?
Wow, that's a breath of fresh air :-) I'm not sure he got the bit about electricity prices correct though. UK is about the middle of W European countries.
http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/File:Electricity_prices_for_household_consumers,_second_half_2014_(¹)_(EUR_per_kWh)_YB15.png
Phil D, thanks for the link to Hansard.
A couple of quotations:
Caroline Flint: "That 2 ºC target was agreed at the UN conference in Cancun in 2010. As we know, above that the risks of climate change move beyond our control."
Dr Alan Whitehead: "I hope it will be sorted out in Paris this December, that it will be sustainable and that everybody will play their part in making sure that global warming is curtailed and that the global temperature rise stays below 2 °C by 2050." [Emphasis mine; it seems unlikely that temperatures will have reached 2 °C (relative to pre-industrial times) by 2050, even without any mitigation measures. Is this a way of being able to claim success -- yay! we've slowed global warming! -- if temperatures are at (say) 1.3 °C in 2050 ?]
well said
David Davies has chaired some committees on climate change. Unfortunately the witnesses were either Professors against natural gas or Friends of the Earth and WFF wanting to abandon the use of gas in the home.
Heaven forbid that an MP with a technical understanding be appointed Minister. Not whilst there are all those ladies with social science degrees or similar waiting to fill the gender quota.
SHeildsman:
There is some hope even among the ladies:
http://www.heidisouthcambs.co.uk/about-heidi-allen
Thank you for pointing me towards this performance by David TC Davies. To echo a comment already made - wow! We have been waiting for this. Informed intelligence at work on the subject in the House of Commons. Wow - again.
Kim - most climate alarmist/sceptic poetry that I have read has been pretty dreadful, but I think your quatrain may prove worth anthologising, in some future retrospective on this extraordinary period in the history of ideas.
Blimey - an outbreak of common sense at Westminster..! He must have been reading this blog - because he quoted pretty well verbatim what we have been banging on about for years...
Who'd have thought it..?
Excellent - superb - fantastic - wonderful - great.
These MPs have got away with lying about the climate for decades and either all the politicians were totally gormless and did not understand or they were afraid to speak up.
Apparently this reign of fear and/or stupidity is at an end.
Good on him, but those who he is trying to convince, have already made up their minds, have their fingers in their ears, and sing "lalalalala". There are none so blind as those who don't want to see.
Obviously global warmists will dismiss this brilliant speech on the basis that the massive rise in global temperatures has impaired his brain function, and is a warning to us all to shut up and pay more tax.
David TC Davies does have form. It was reported on this thread:
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2013/9/10/future-of-the-climate-change-act.html
If the link to the clip is not visible, the clip can be found here:
Tuesday 10 September 2013 2.30pm, Westminster Hall
http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/a31901c3-6316-4388-b070-48b2c539d47e
There are several other speakers, some good, some 'not so good', with Graham Stringer, starting at 15:36:40. I posted this on that old thread:
"I have transcribed, as best as I can, what Graham Stringer (Labour MP for Blackley and Broughton, Greater Manchester) said, from 15:39:54 in the clip:
As a member of the Science and Technology Committee, I had a very close look at what was happening at the University of East Anglia and the two studies ... the two enquiries that went into it ... at the time.
And, what those inquires ... looking at it closely, there wasn't science going on there.
There was a group of enthusiasts who were pretending to be Scientists, because what they were doing was not testable in terms of the critical things that were in the public domain
nor Russell's Report didn't ask the basic question about whether emails had been deleted at the University of East Anglia
and the Oxburgh report, which was supposed to look at the science, didn't, but it did turn up the fact that they weren't using the best statistical methods of analysis and they couldn't reproduce their work."
1. Excellent speech.
2. Share the video link.
i.e. copy this string: https://youtu.be/ytzTMqs8XKA
and mail it to your contacts, like it, favorite it, etc.
Devastating short summary of the scientific position. The problem then comes when people say "If this is the science, why is there all this panic?" To which the only reply that makes sense (that there are plenty of people out there there who gain a lot of power, prestige and pennies from the panic) makes you sound like a conspiracy theorist and people then ask you where your tin-foil hat is.
The alarmists have got this catastrophe mantra so ingrained that even when you point to the IPCC's own science, you still cannot get anyone to take you seriously.
"It is extremely likely that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was caused by the anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas concentrations and other anthropogenic forcings together.”
What does "extremely likely" mean in this context? More than 50%? 51%? Is it slightly less extremely likely then that 49% was not caused by human emissions?
And what about the "more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature was caused by ...."?
So are we left with the proposition from the IPCC that it is likely that 51% of the 51% increase is due to man?
While we are at it, how much influence on the climate is due to "greenhouse" gasses and how much is due to "other anthropogenic forcings."?
Phil
Hear bloody hear! Well said that man. At last a politician with a brain.
Notable is the bit of that IPCC Summary report paragraph which David Davies didn't quote:
"The best estimate of the human-induced contribution to warming is similar to the observed warming over this period"
...i.e. the warming from 1951 to 2010 is virtually all down to us. Convenient that he chose not to quote that, don't you think? ;)
Kit - bring on the debate!
Excellent speech.
This debate showed the massive difference between an independent thinker and a mindless parrot.
To Dave Ward - no he was not one of those MPs who voted against the Climate Change Act. I am not sure why. Perhaps he only became an MP after that. The famous five were: Christopher Chope, Andrew Tyrie, Philip Davies, Ann Widdecomb, and Peter Lilley.
Kit
Yes, the full quote from the Summary For Policymakers (SPM) is:
" It is extremely likely that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to
2010 was caused by the anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas concentrations and other anthropogenic forcings
together. The best estimate of the human-induced contribution to warming is similar to the observed warming over this
period. {10.3} "
Oddly, if you look at Chapter 10.3 of IPCC AR5, it is only the first conclusion that appears in the supporting technical commentary. There does not appear to be any technical background given in 10.3 for the second part about "... similar to...". I would hope that there is a supporting technical piece on this in another chapter but haven't had time to download/search the full 375 Mb to find it. Or perhaps it was added as a stand-alone remark when the SPM was drafted?
The two statements seem somewhat contradictory and Judith Curry tries to make sense of this at http://judithcurry.com/2014/08/24/the-50-50-argument/ where she says:
" The best estimate of the human induced contribution to warming is similar to the observed warming over this period.
So, I interpret this as scything [sic] that the IPCC’s best estimate is that 100% of the warming since 1950 is attributable to humans, and they then down weight this to ‘more than half’ to account for various uncertainties. And then assign an ‘extremely likely’ confidence level to all this. Making things up, anyone? "
She has another post on this that's well worth reading too
http://judithcurry.com/2015/01/19/most-versus-more-than-half-versus-50/
From AR5:
If that is true, how can you begin to ascribe any value to the human induced warming with any accuracy?
Excellent speech, very well presented. It's a shame that the official version of global warming that he has to cope with is a catalogue of lies (IPCC reports)
He has actually studied what the IPCC and other scientists have to say?
DENIER!!!
Also shocked. To hear this well prepared speech was a tonic. Mr. Davies take a bow.
I live in a world where the local BBC calls carbon dioxide 'carbon' - well it's a colourless gas not a black solid! A level students refer to CO2 as ' this toxic gas' or 'this polluting gas' Nobody gives a thought as to how our food reaches the table - try doing that without CO2.
Why are we all expected to follow like headless chickens in this dishonesty? Well, my pet theory is that it is all a clever communist plot to destabilise our economy, to make our workforce redundant and to freeze the poor in winter.
Good luck in the future Mr. Davies, but I somehow think your card is marked.
Jun 11, 2015 at 12:46 PM Dave Ward
As far as Wylfa is concerned, they claim that 1.2TWh of output has produced a revenue of about £50 million.
This is about £42/MWh.
http://www.magnoxsites.co.uk/what-we-do/sites/electricity-generation/
Derek @ 5:26PM Thanks. My simple brain is getting confused by the surname Davies...
David T C Davies should perhaps consider joining Ukip where he would find that his views were supported by party policy..
I've never voted Tory but if I lived in Monmouth he'd get my vote. Facts, facts, facts, they win all the time. Onwards and upwards I say.
Wow, Davies seems to know what he is talking about. Very convincing and logical chain of arguments.Above all he is not afraid of questions from "contrarians" and gives the right answers without hesitation.