Phil Clarke:

"Don't forget that 2 million or 1 in 5 of those who responded cast a vote for action on climate."

The corollary is that 4 in 5 of those who responded DID NOT cast a vote for action on climate.

Phil Clarke, don't forget the Hockey Stick Graph and 97% Consensus. They were real howlers, and far from apologising, climate scientists keep supporting them. But what else have they got to show for a trillion of wasted money? Gergis?

A Mini-Fisking. As there is a blog thread and a discussion thread, perhaps it would be entertaining, if not educational, to gather together in one place some of Lord Coal's errors, lies, half-truths and misrepresentations. A full list would take too long, so this is a precis of some of the highlights, bearing in mind that this is the GWPF's annual lecture and so presumably represents something of a highlight for that organisation …

Preamble As Entropic Man observed, there was not a lot new here, indeed the substance of the talk had already been pre-Fisked by Carbon Brief who published an annotated transcript of an Interview that Matt gave to Roger Harribin. The commentary by working scientists there nicely illustrates the gap between Ridley and reality.

Let's start with a lie:

James Hansen in 1988 said that by the year 2000, “the West Side Highway will be under water. And there will be tape across the windows across the street because of high winds. And the same birds won’t be there.”

This is a garbled version of a prediction Hansen actually made in a 1988 interview with Bob Reiss who was writing a book on AGW. The only problem is that Hansen was talking about the environment after CO2 had doubled and made no mention of AD2000. The link Ridley gives is to a page at Marc Morano's Climate Depot blog which naturally does not actually mention the story. Nonetheless a cursory fact-check would have shown that it is bollocks. Is this Ridley's idea of science journalism?

Next, how about a spectacularly selective quotation…?

The climate models have failed to get global warming right. As the IPCC has confirmed, for the period since 1998,

“111 of the 114 available climate-model simulations show a surface warming trend larger than the observations”. [IPCC Synthesis report 2014, p 43]

Let's just restore the context that Ridley carefully edited away

For the period from 1998 to 2012, 111 of the 114 available climate-model simulations show a surface warming trend larger than the observations. There is medium confidence that this difference between models and observations is to a substantial degree caused by natural internal climate variability, which sometimes enhances and sometimes counteracts the long-term externally forced warming trend (during the period from 1984 to 1998, most model simulations show a smaller warming trend than observed). Natural internal variability thus diminishes the relevance of short trends for long-term climate change. The difference between models and observations may also contain contributions from inadequacies in the solar, volcanic and aerosol forcings used by the models and, in some models, from an overestimate of the response to increasing greenhouse gas and other anthropogenic forcing (the latter dominated by the effects of aerosols). For the longer period from 1951 to 2012, simulated surface warming trends are consistent with the observed trend

So, in 2016 Ridley pretends the period under discussion is 'since 1998', quietly adding an extra 4 years, he ignores the counterbalancing period when the divergence was in the opposite direction and discards the inconvenient truth that over the long term, the models and observations agree. Quality journalism there!

Moving on, a half-truth, here's Matt up on the high horse of outrage about academic freedom

“We will not, at any time, debate the science of climate change,” said three professors at the University of Colorado in an email to their students recently.

Um, but the Professors in question are not climate experts, they are Professors of English, Sociology and Chemistry, teaching a course on Medical Humanities, telling their students that they are to take climate change as a 'given' for the purposes of the course, much as a Biology course would not entertain debate about natural selection. Lord 'Coal is wonderful' has some other examples of sceptics being victimised:-

when Philippe Verdier was sacked as weather forecaster in France for writing an honest book. And when Roger Pielke was dropped by the 538 website for telling the truth about storms.

But of course Verdier's book was
far from honest and Pielke was not telling the truth.

Lastly, and, with a dreary inevitability, Ridley posts up John Christy's multiply-discredited graph of models vs observations.

The above took an hour or so of Google-Fu. Once again, I am disappointed that those who describe themselves as sceptics are prepared to be taken in by such easily, and anciently debunked nonsense.

But apparently, for the GWPF, Ridley is as good as it gets.

Phil C

Your Verdier link doesn't work (on my computer at least). Do you have another link please? By the way, did you support his sacking for expressing his views in writing? What of his human rights?

Apologies, the blog software sometimes seems to mangle links …
Link

Plain text:http://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2015/10/12/climat-les-mises-en-cause-erronees-de-philippe-verdier_4787865_4355770.html

It’s a list of some of his errors published in Le Monde.

By the way, did you support his sacking for expressing his views in writing? What of his human rights?

But it was more than just a book of opinions, he effectively accused climate scientists of fraud, accused his employers of a lack of independence from the State and had a potshot at the president, telling him action on climate was useless. And he used his status at the TV station to promote the book. Most contracts have a clause about not bringing the organisation into disrepute. The chief exec initially wanted him to stay but it was the Unions who requested he be dismissed. In France, if your Union doesn't back you it’s a good indication you've done something fairly serious.

And he retains his human right to express himself however he wants, France 2 has denied him the ability to do so using their platform. They have rights too.

Phil

Thanks for the links. I thought only peer-reviewed publications in scientific journals were good enough? But a couple of newspaper reports expressing opinions about Phillipe Verdier's opinions as expressed in his book, are good enough for you? You approve of his sacking then? (I didn't notice you condemning it).

"Most contracts have a clause about not bringing the organisation into disrepute. " Did his? Do you know? Or are you just making a supposition? Does expressing an opinion constitute that(bringing an organisation into disrepute)? As a UK (retired) solicitor, I'm pretty confident he would, in this country, have a good claim for unfair dismissal, and rightly so.

Why on earth would any academic journal bother with a popular science book by a TV weatherman? Once he submits his theories to a journal for review and publication .... never gonna happen.

And why do you persist with the word 'opinion'? A claim that the IPCC deleted uncertainty bands or that IPCC authors are paid by Governments (both demonstrably false) are rather more than opinions, and speak to his objectivity and basic competence.

I was referring to an opinion piece in the newspaper about his views. You regard that as definitive to condemn him?

I must also assume that you are happy he was sacked for daring to write a book, since you still fail to condemn his sacking. How low can "climate science" get. Dissent, and get sacked.

I think you have to be something of a conspracist to believe that 'climate science' has much of a hold over Madam Delphine Ernotte, président de France Télévisions.

I haven't looked into the case in the depth required to form an informed opinion about whether his dismissal was warranted, I was proposing possible explanations, is all. It is rather more complex than 'he was sacked for holding the wrong opinions', it seems to me.

Back on topic, you will recall my original objection was to Matt Ridley's bald characterisation of Verdier's book as 'honest'. I find Le Monde's list of fundamental mistakes, plus what I have read of the book itself, (where he accuses IPCC scientists of blatently erasing data) compelling evidence that it is nothing of the sort. You are free to be unconvinced, of course.

I'm not convinced about all of Ridley's or Verdier's claims; nor am I convinced that Verdier should have been sacked. It's the fascistic intolerance of dissent in the world of climate alarmism that I object to. I'm glad you don't feel you have "an informed opinion about whether his dismissal was warranted" though slightly concerned that it doesn't seem much to bother you. Your starting point, it seems, is to speculate about why he should have been sacked rather than to approach the issue from the point that dismissal from employment is rather extreme and requires extreme behaviour to be justified.

Nor am I convinced that the world of climate alarmism has dealt even remotely with the issue of UHI, despite the links you posted. Climate alarmism has a bigger problem than Messrs Ridley and Verdier, in my opinion.

I've got to go and do other stuff now, so over and out for a while.

It is rather more complex than 'he was sacked for holding the wrong opinions', it seems to me.

It was quite simple, not complex at all. He was sacked for publishing his book. The book appeared. He was suspended at once and sacked shortly after. He compounded his crime by committing it just a few weeks before Paris.

A weather forecaster for French state television has been fired after releasing and promoting a book criticising politicians, scientists and others for what he calls an exaggerated view of climate change.
Grauniad

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnzDn5E8Acc

Fascistic is a bit strong. The fact is that he was dismissed, after an internal process, and the justification never made public, far as I know. The Telegraph reported

France Télévisions management declined to comment its decision. However, it reportedly hinged not on his opinions on climate change but the fact that he infringed broadcasting rules by using his TV weatherman status to promote his book.

Which, if you look at the book's page on amazon.fr is clearly true. It is not uncommon for companies to require employees to have such works cleared before publication. (Yes, I am speculating, so shoot me).

BTW, Daniel Schneidermann, writing in Liberation, described the tome (in rough translation) as 'a non-book, a confused book, full of unanswered questions and unsourced graphics, a book that should never have found a publisher, lacking both balance and a bibliography, levelling accusations against mysterious conspirators of eliminating contrary views (what views is never stated).'

http://www.liberation.fr/planete/2015/11/01/climatosceptiques-fabrique-de-martyr-mode-d-emploi_1410404

Which is not consistent with the coal baron's opinion, to put it mildly.

Phil Clarke, so the BBC should ban itself from broadcasting for allowing the views of people like Harribin to be broadcast without a disclaimer?

I think you are making the case for taxpayers to disinvest from the BBC aswell as Climate Science.

That's an interesting hypothetical. Back in the realms of the actual, it is clear that the book he did publish was a steaming heap of excrement.

And he put his employer's name on the cover.

Phil Clarke, is it ok for all IPCC Reports and Publications to be termed a "steaming heap of excrement", simply because they are written by climate scientists and their loyal disciples, intent on destroying the economies of the developed world?

Game set and match to Verdier. More articulate and believable than Phil Clarke, who is left in a cess pool of his own manufacture.

I'll be there in a pale blue jacket, red trousers and wearing a discreet Aldershot Town FC lapel badge...

That's right @Phil smear the man ..that shows your class.

If that's the Climate Skeptic uniform, how is Corbyn supposed to tell his brother from conventioning Shriners and Traitors in the Class War?

@russell

The Aldershot Town FC badge is an optional accessory to the main couture.

Other (inferior) football clubs are available.

Come on You Shots!

Thanks for making my case for me, Martin. Very whiffy.

Golf Charlie

You might be interested in this. In the US the highest tides now wash over the Long Wharf in Boston Harbour.

Golf Charlie

Incidentally, this is what it usually looks like.

'Ere anyone falls over in a faint at Entropic's 'shock news' from Boston, here's the actual data for the last 95 years.

The trend is +0.92 feet (11 1/2 inches) per century....

The next time anybody repairs the sea wall, if they were to be so far sighted as to put another 1 foot block on the top that should keep their little New England tootsies dry till 2100....

Like so much of climate alarmism - and of Entropic's credulous repetition of the doom-laden memes and tropes in which he revels - ...this too is Much Ado About Not Very Much At All....

Oops

Forgot the data.

Here it is

Enjoy and share

https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?stnid=8443970