You are a living example of how reading the Guardian rots the brain.

You should post comments on timworstall.com each time he skewers the Guardian. Be a knight in shining armour, defend Polly Toynbee.

I'll post here the next time it happens.

The "you" is Phil Clarke, of course.

You are a living example of how reading the Guardian rots the brain.

Your point eludes me. Is it that there were not 40,000 gun US deaths last year? That suicides are not up? Or that President Trump is in fact, scrupulously honest? Maybe that Trump is not the comedy gift that keeps on giving?

Or could it be you just don't like the Guardian? ;-)

You should post comments on timworstall.com each time he skewers the Guardian. Be a knight in shining armour, defend Polly Toynbee.

Logical fail. Just because I use the Guardian as one of my sources, you should not infer that I agree with or would defend every word that appears in it's pages.

I confess I had heard of Worstall before today but never read any of his stuff, much less posted at his blog. So I Googled him and 'climate change'. He writes for the Adam Smith Institute so perhaps unsurprisingly seems to favour a free market solution to most problems. On climate change, he seems to accept the scientific consensus (or at least he concedes he is unqualified to dispute the consensus in depth). He seems to support the Stern Review and its proposal for a carbon tax. For example, here are his thoughts on a 2010 blog post by William Connolley, which starts

The main points that most would agree on as "the consensus" are:

1. The earth is getting warmer (0.6 +/- 0.2 oC in the past century; 0.1 0.17 oC/decade over the last 30 years (see update)) [ch 2]

2. People are causing this [ch 12] (see update)

3. If GHG emissions continue, the warming will continue and indeed accelerate [ch 9]

4. (This will be a problem and we ought to do something about it)

I've put those four points in rough order of certainty. The last one is in brackets because whilst many would agree, many others (who agree with 1-3) would not, at least without qualification. It's probably not a part of the core consensus in the way 1-3 are.

And here is Tim's response (assuming it is the real Tim), I've left Connolley's inline responses intact:

Sadly, I'm often classed as a skeptic, even though I agree with 1 through 3 (although I'm not totally convinced about acceleration). Where I disagree is here:

"4. (This will be a problem and we ought to do something about it)"

Not even with "we ought to do something about it", but with *what* we ought to do about it. For as the IPCC process itself says, what we do is an economic question, not a climate science one. It's a matter of trade offs and economics is the study of those trade offs.

[I agree. What-to-do is largely an economic / political problem. However, having raised points 1-3 I think the scientists (validly) feel they have an interest in seeing 4 done, and (accurately) a belief that the econ / poli's don't understand the science -W]

All of which takes us off into the world of the SRES, the Stern Review, Weizman on uncertainty, Nordhaus , Dasgupta on discount rates, working with the technological cycle or against it, sunk costs, etc etc etc. Economics all.

And we get at the end of that process some disagreement, yes. Over discount rates, technological cycle mainly. But at the end of that process we do get agreement as well. Carbon taxes at the correct level (Stern says $80 per tonne, possibly too high, but let's go with it) and perhaps cap and trade in sectors where taxes don't/can't work.

But there we do have agreement: if we do this then we're done. We've set in place the incentives for the world to be as good as we can make it. We've incorporated into prices all of the various trade offs that can be made. Which is what leads to people like Richard Tol saying that, well, you know, here in the EU we've probably done it now. Done what we needed to do. Now we just have to wait and see how those incentives work out.

What annoys intensely is two things.

1) Those who would use the IPCC to prove that we should do something are insistent on not listening to what the economists at the IPCC say we should do.

[Agreed: whilst I think the desire to influence "point 4" is valid, a failure to listen to the economists isn't acceptable. However... have you demonstrated that this problem actually occurs (outside Greenpeace, etc) -W]

2) Those who would use their credentials as climate scientists to tell us what we should do in economics: no, I don't listen to economists trying to explain hydrology to me so why on earth is anyone listening to hydrologists on matters economic?

Good points, in the main.

https://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2010/07/04/what-i-think-about-global-warm#comment-1766753

Notable that the MSM is studiously ignoring it

Or are they?

The FBI did not intentionally delete anti-President Trump text messages exchanged by two former employees at the center of a congressional investigation into potential bias at the bureau.

The Justice Department's Office of Inspector General released a report Thursday in which it cleared the FBI of deliberately destroying texts sent between former special agent Peter Strzok and ex-FBI lawyer Lisa Page, who were both involved in the bureau's investigation into Hillary Clinton's private email server and, briefly, special counsel Robert Mueller's federal Russia inquiry. The OIG investigation was initiated after it was revealed thousands of messages sent from December 2016, shortly after Trump's election win, and May 2017 via their government-issued phones were missing.

Investigators instead blamed the FBI's automated application that wirelessly gathers and saves data to and from its mobile devices. They found that the software, as of last month, was still not working "in approximately 10 percent" of the bureau's phones that are in service.
"The OIG investigation determined the FBI's collection tool was not only failing to collect any data on certain phones during particularly periods of time, it also does not appear that it was collecting all text messages even when it was generally functioning to collect text messages," the report states.

The FBI welcomed the OIG's findings Thursday.

"As noted by the OIG, because of the level of sophistication and access that would be required, it was unlikely that Ms. Page or Mr. Strzok attempted to circumvent the FBI's text message collection capabilities; and, the OIG found no evidence that they did," the bureau wrote in response to the report.

MSM (Well, The Washington Examiner)

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/no-evidence-fbi-tried-to-destroy-peter-strzok-lisa-page-ig-report-finds

No doubt all an establishment coverup/whitewash/conspiracy.

Technical note: surely everyone nowadays understands that deleting a text from a device does not delete it from every server or intercept tool it ever passed through?

Surely?

Phil Clarke.

I do like the Guardian. A great source of merriment. But I would never pay for it.

Here's one:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/11/climate-change-politicians-un-summit

And here's Tim:

https://www.continentaltelegraph.com/climate-change/but-the-essential-problem-is-that-the-will-of-the-people-is-not-to-deal-with-climate-change/

You can be the first to comment.

Yes, he does think there might be something in AGW. He gets a regular kicking for it on his own blog.

FBI texts. Would be released if they had them, surely? The FBI being incorruptible, 100% beyond reproach, would never manufacture evidence, all that.

Worstall's argument is with the headline of the piece, which probably added by a sub editor rather than the author. His case seems to be that economic policy has so far, been inadequate to meet the threat, because people do not think on timescales of 50-years plus.

Well, duh.

On the actual points made by John Vidal in his article, Worstall is rude but, notably, has nothing to add.

Phil Clarke, don't tell us what you think of Tim's post. Tell Tim.

the rest isn't up for argument is it?

Ah, so you are a conspiracy theorist.

Gosh.

I think you could claim a refund from that charm school. Did I miss the post where you apologised for making the completely fabricated claim that Obama said he was from Kenya?

A claim you made 'cos it fitted your prejudiced, conspiratorial mindset so well it was just too good to fact-check. Not good for one's credibility.

Was that you 'thinking'?

LOL.

One of the more amusing things about Dishonest Don closing his family 'charity' after the Attorney General described it as 'Little more than a checkbook to serve Mr. Trump’s business and political interests.' and demonstrating 'a shocking pattern of illegality','unlawful coordination with the Trump presidential campaign, repeated and willful self-dealing, and much more', is that senior Trump Org Exec Allen Weisselberg, was on the board without even knowing it. ;-)

Reminds me of the time that Trump promised he would never settle the class action against his 'University' for illegal business practices.

Just before he settled for $25 million.

Comedy Gold.

PS Tomo - the usual advice is: 'stop digging'.

PS Tomo - the usual advice is: 'stop digging'.

Dec 20, 2018 at 3:04 PM | Phil Clarke

Is there more to be told about Clinton corruption?

Comin' in from Li'l Angel Rock,
Carryin' in a planeload full chock,
Please mister Generattorneys, please,
Rock 'em all over the clock.
========================

DONALD TRUMP
I hope everyone, even the Fake News Media, is having a great Christmas! Our Country is doing very well. We are securing our Borders, making great new Trade Deals, and bringing our Troops Back Home. We are finally putting America First. MERRY CHRISTMAS! #MAGA
227K
12:18 PM - Dec 26, 2018

Trump im Iraq - here

US MSM not doing themselves any favours at all with getting caught saying "Trump ignores military at Christmas"

Oh I thought the headlines would be about
"Trump cadges free ride to the sun at military's expense" or even
"Military storeman praised for finding XXXXX sized bomber jacket in time.

"Military storeman praised for finding XXXXX sized bomber jacket in time."
Dec 27, 2018 at 10:52 AM | Supertroll

I am sure many USAF Bomber Pilots would love to have a figure like the First Lady's.