In an appalling lapse of editorial judgement, TVNZ has given notorious Climate “Science” Coalition propagandist Bryan Leyland four minutes of airtime this morning [TVNZ page removed: but available here.] to rubbish the work of the IPCC. Yes, that’s right, the nation’s public broadcaster presented a man way out on the crank fringe who has made a late-life career out climate denial, against one of the largest scientific undertakings of all time — the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report. The IPCC, lest we forget, warned yesterday that world faces “severe, pervasive and irreversible” damage from climate change unless we cut emissions steeply.
Leyland was allowed to lie about about computer models and modellers, present a shonky graph, claim that increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was a “huge benefit” to agriculture, and completely misrepresent the scientific consensus on the reality of warming. The presenter, Rawdon Christie, did try a little scripted pushback early in the piece, but was woefully underprepared to deal with a Leyland obviously gleeful at his opportunity to spout nonsense to the nation.
Here a list of Leyland’s lies, roughly transcribed from the video:
“Everything’s based on computer models – they’re programmed to show warming”
No they’re not. One of the oldest climate lies on the block, and Leyland uses it shamelessly. Worse, he’s allowed to get away with it by a woefully underprepared presenter.
Models predicted warming and it hasn’t happened [with graphic1]
Warming continues: ice melts, sea levels rise and oceans warm
No indications of rate increase in sea level rise
Sea level rise has accelerated, and is expected to accelerate further as warming continues and ice sheets disintegrate.
Computer modellers are a small group — everyone else just goes along with them.
Absolute nonsense. This is a childish and overtly conspiracist misrepresentation of reality.
We’re entering a cooling period.
Another piece of wild nonsense from Leyland, betraying his parlous relationship with reality, and allowed to pass unchallenged by the presenter.
Increasing CO2 has been a huge benefit to plant growth — “not doing us any harm”
More completely made-up nonsense, allowed to pass unchallenged by Christie.
None of this is unexpected from Leyland. He has a long track record of persuading the more gullible NZ media to give him a platform to mislead, misrepresent and play fast and loose with the facts. TVNZ must have been aware of his notoriety, which makes their decision to present him on screen as “a renewable energy expert” grossly misleading and very likely a breach of broadcasting standards2.
But the biggest editorial lapse of all was the decision to put him on the show at all. Leyland is a lonely man out on the crank fringes of climate denial. To suggest that he has any sort of valid view on the reality of climate change — to set him up against the work of thousands of scientists around the world and the entire NZ scientific community — was outrageous. Climate change is far too serious an issue for the planet for a responsible broadcaster to play silly false balance games. They must broadcast an immediate correction and apology, and in future treat the issue with the seriousness it deserves.
[Update 5pm: It appears TVNZ have pulled the video of Leyland’s interview and the accompanying news story from their site in response to the many formal and informal complaints they have received. However the full interview can be seen (for the time being, at least) on Youtube. And the TVNZ News Facebook post about Leyland’s interview is still there.]
- Leyland’s shonky graph:
It appears to be a thinly-disguised and uncredited reworking of a graph that first appeared in the Wall Street Journal in February of this year, accompanying an op-ed piece by John Christy — itself a tidying up of a long-debunked graph created by Roy Spencer. [↩]
- Should you wish to make a complaint against the programme, you may do so here. [↩]
I agree with Gareths concerns. What amazes me is the totally thicko, weak mainstream media that let Leyland get away with this nonsense. Any science editor should have the capability for robust questioning of Leylands claims, and come prepared with graphs and data.
Perhaps the media secretly want to sabotage the IPCC report, but then they probably sold out years ago to the corporate sector. There are no real journalists left.
Maggie Thatcher: “I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.”
Michael Crichton, MD Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.
You have certainly made a good job of the personal attacks! And, quite obviously, you do not believe in open debate even though Pachauri recently said that it was needed.
So, it seems, you do not agree with the IPCC which says the world has not warmed for 14 years and this was not predicted by the climate models.
Obviously, you have not read any of the literature which points out that the climate has cycles nor any of the literature that points out that, according to a past analysis of the length of sunspot cycles, we are due for a cooling period.
And you are certainly ignorant of the fact that all large commercial greenhouses aim to operate at a concentration of 900 ppm because this enhances production by 40%. This extra production is achieved without additional water. CO2 does increase plant growth.
Can you answer me a single and vital question? How many more years of no warming will be needed before you reconsider your blind belief that man-made carbon dioxide causes dangerous global warming? All I want is a number.
I have asked two senior IPCC people the same question and they refused to answer. Which is not what a true scientist would do.
“How many more years of no warming will be needed before you reconsider your blind belief that man-made carbon dioxide causes dangerous global warming? All I want is a number.”
Only andy and you would ask such an inane and stupid question which clearly shows a complete and utter lack of understanding of Global Warming. The simple fact remains that Global Warming is proceeding right now and has been for the past 17 or how ever many years you want to claim a “pause”. The temperature record you and andy place so much stress upon represents but 3% of total global warming – and you know it! – but choose to ignore the 97% of warming elsewhere. This is nothing but charlatan stuff – snake oil misrepresentation. As for the complete and utter bollicks of your “presentation” this morning – well you should be ashamed of yourself. A total misrepresentation of the science.
What a wonderful rave!
You have confirmed that nobody in the global warming world wants to answer a simple question. Yet every true scientist would have no problem admitting the possibility that he is wrong. As Einstein said “a single fact can prove me wrong”.
But this “97% of warming elsewhere” is a new one. And if it is elsewhere, – wherever that may be – why did not the computer programs predict it? But how the world can get warmer without the temperature changing is something that puzzles me.
But all I am is a simple engineer with a lifetime of experience in computer modelling.
Bryan, I know you’ve done a wee bit of investigating into the climate change scenario. But i get the feeling you’ve missed out on a few factors.
As for your argument on the pause in temperature rise for the last 14 years is because of our ocean. The ocean is a giant heat sink and while the temperature of the air has not increased over the last 14 years or so. The ocean temperature HAS risen.
You have also failed to mention the release of Methane Hydrates (CH4) from the Siberian Arctic Shelf. Remember that methane is anywhere from 20-100 times greater at heater the atmosphere than C02. Such activity is now occurring and the scientists doing the research in the arctic, Natalia Shakhova and her team, stated last year that we are very close to having an 50 gigatonne burp of CH4 release in the atmosphere. Which is 10 times the amount of methane currently floating around the atmosphere.
Usually the sea ice in this part of the Arctic is 2m thick. But over the last 7-10 years it has been observed that the temperature has risen 3 degrees above average. Causing a rather fast melt each arctic summer. Thinning the 2m Sheet ice which protects us from methane release, to 40cm thick.
There are 100’s to 1000’s of gigatonnes of methane in the siberian shelf. If but 1% of methane is released. Which it can do within one small burp. We will have witnessed the firing of the clathrate gun. The moment in which abrupt runaway climate change occurs.
Even the IPCC very seldom mention methane hydrates. We are in trouble. I do not know why you were asked to go on Breakfast this morning. Maybe your opinions are more suited to the intellectually neutered 7 Sharp viewers and National Voters. Who knows. But my only suggestion to you would be to expand your studies past C02, Sun Spot Cycles.
Computer models don’t mean shit if you don’t have all the data to build them.
Good day to you, Sir. Good luck arguing your theories against those who are qualified climate scientists.
The temperature record you and andy place so much stress upon represents but 3% of total global warming
Hang on, what about the scientists and the IPCC? They also depend rather a lot on SST and surface temperature records
This stuff about the heat in the oceans is just one of many possible explanations of the missing heat.
The IPCC seem to have changed their tune to the “extreme weather” meme but even their own reports don’t really support a lot of the recent claims made in the media
Maybe if some actual scientists (i.e working in the field) had the stones to show up on telly and claim that we don’t know everything then people might take it all a bit more seriously, but I really get the feeling that the public (and the media) are suffering from alarmism fatigue.
You might be interested in this
http://www.cfact.org/2014/10/31/watch-apollo-astronaut-walt-cunningham-blast-global-warming/
I have met Walter Cunningham and Schmidt but not Buzz Aldrin. But, like me, they do not share your blind belief in dangerous man-made global warming. So you have to add them to your list of “Climate cranks”. And there are lots of others like them.
And, by the way, the “consensus” of the comments I have received on my television appearance is that I am on the right track. So you people who have a blind belief in consensus will have to agree that I am right!
Not that I would agree with this. In my mind, it is the evidence that counts, not the votes. And certainly not personal attacks.
“Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right”. True, and not one scientist has written a credible paper disproving the validity of the science of climate change.
“What is relevant is reproducible results.” Could you please reproduce evolution for me? You might need a large laboratory.
“the IPCC which says the world has not warmed for 14 years and this was not predicted by the climate models.” The IPCC has not said this. It is a typical misrepresentation of what the IPCC has actually stated:-
“the rate of warming over the past 15 years (1998–2012; 0.05 [–0.05 to 0.15] °C per decade), which begins with a strong El Niño, is smaller than the rate calculated since 1951.”
‘Rate of warming is smaller’ does not mean ‘no warming’, or do you have an issue reading English?
“you have not read any of the literature which points out that the climate has cycles nor any of the literature that points out that, according to a past analysis of the length of sunspot cycles, we are due for a cooling period.”
Who’s insulting now? Yes, it’s a straw-man – the climate has cycles, everyone knows that, including Gareth. WRT the ‘cooling period’ and ‘sunspot cycles’ please provide links to credible scientific publications on these Milankovitch cycles that back up your claim.
“large commercial greenhouses aim to operate at a concentration of 900 ppm”. Totally irrelevant straw man. Greenhouses are not the atmosphere.
“All I want is a number.” Exactly how much is going to be in your bank account this time next year? Down to the nearest cent. It’s a simple question. All I want is a number.
That Sir, Was awesome. *Slow Clap*
“Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right”. True, and not one scientist has written a credible paper disproving the validity of the science of climate change.
>>I am not surprised: the climate is always changing. But can you produce any hard evidence that shows that man-made carbon dioxide causes dangerous global warming? It is you people have made the proposition,so it is up to you to prove that the null hypothesis – that the climate changes naturally – is wrong.
“What is relevant is reproducible results.” Could you please reproduce evolution for me? You might need a large laboratory.
>Irrelevant.
“the IPCC which says the world has not warmed for 14 years and this was not predicted by the climate models.” The IPCC has not said this. It is a typical misrepresentation of what the IPCC has actually stated:-
“the rate of warming over the past 15 years (1998–2012; 0.05 [–0.05 to 0.15] °C per decade), which begins with a strong El Niño, is smaller than the rate calculated since 1951.”
‘Rate of warming is smaller’ does not mean ‘no warming’, or do you have an issue reading English?
>> By “no warming” I should have said “no statistically significant warming”. But I did assume that most people would realise that that is what I was saying. The point is not statistical niceties but the large gap between the predictions and reality. A tiny amount of warming does not do anything to the large gap.
please provide links to credible scientific publications on these Milankovitch cycles that back up your claim.
>> It is not only Milankovitch cycles. You could try looking up the research of Scafetta and, for instance, the relationship between sunspot cycle length and temperature in the next cycle. Antrim in Ireland and Hansford in the USA will be easy to find on the Internet.
“large commercial greenhouses aim to operate at a concentration of 900 ppm”. Totally irrelevant straw man. Greenhouses are not the atmosphere.
>> The claim was that carbon dioxide did not promote plant growth. I showed that it does. Absolutely relevant.
“All I want is a number.”
>>Yes. A number like “five years”, “10 years” or something like that. Do not forget that several eminent climate scientists have said that if there is more than 15 years of no warming they have got great problems with the theory. If they are correct, then you have to abandon your belief right now. Several years ago, David Wratt implied that the time limit was about 10 years. Previously, he had given a lower figure.
Bryan Leyland @ 16:00 hours:-
“By “no warming” I should have said “no statistically significant warming”. But I did assume that most people would realise that that is what I was saying.”
Isn’t that a Nixonism – ‘I know you think you understand what you thought I said but I’m not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.’
But I digress, Bryan Leyland @ 16:25
“How many more years of no warming are needed before you will change your views?”
So he excused his misleading and incorrect phrase @ 16:00 by assuming people would read it completely differently to its meaning.
And then in a post immediately below the first, @ 16:25, he repeats that misleading and incorrect phrase.
I think it’s a perfect example of a circular denialist argument. I badly mislead, and was caught out, but then I’m simply going to mislead again.
I don’t let things like facts and truth to get in the way of my arguments.
“But can you produce any hard evidence that shows that man-made carbon dioxide causes dangerous global warming?”
Bryan, there is multiple scientific evidence that CO2 from burning fossil fuels (from measuring CO2 isotope concentrations for example) is a significant factor in climate change. Why don’t you look up some scientific papers on the subject?
“It is you people have made the proposition,so it is up to you to prove that the null hypothesis – that the climate changes naturally – is wrong.” Um, in a word – bollocks. The null hypothesis of the science of AGW is not that natural climate change is wrong. All scientists acknowledge background climate change. Look up Palaeoclimatology in the IPCC reports when you get the chance.
“What is relevant is reproducible results” I was being sarcastic about your statement. Please advise how you can reproduce results when predicting future events?
“The claim was that carbon dioxide did not promote plant growth” Incorrect. Yet another misleading and inaccurate statement. Gareth was commenting on your claim about “Increasing CO2…. not doing us any harm”.
“How many more years of no warming will be needed before you reconsider your blind belief that man-made carbon dioxide causes dangerous global warming? All I want is a number.”
Since you have admitted you were misleading and inaccurate with your incorrect claim about ‘no warming’, and that the planet is therefore logically, still warming, then I think we can discard the basis of the question as misleading, irrelevant and fundamentally wrong.
Bryan, you perfectly entitled to hold whatever opinions you wish, but you are not entitled to lie to the public on national TV, and the broadcaster has a duty to ensure that are not given that opportunity.
What you stated on Breakfast this morning were not facts, they were direct and obvious untruths. Attempting to shift the goalposts here will do you no good.
Meanwhile, when do you and your fellow NZ CSET trustees plan to pay the $90,000 dollars of court-ordered costs you have so far welched on? You’ll be welcome back in polite company when you pay up. Until then, shut up.
Gareth, if I am asked to appear on a TV programme I am entitled to agree to do so.
As Pachauri has said, it is something on which there should be open debate. It would seem that you are scared of open debate because you know that your position is weak. If the facts were on your side you would have been able to demolish our arguments years ago. Or, alternatively, the world would have warmed as the models predicted. Had it done so, I would have withdrawn from the argument. But you, the reverse position, still hang on to your views.
How many more years of no warming are needed before you will change your views? Or will you still hold them while people are freezing to death in the next little ice age?
I did not tell any lies and you have not provided hard evidence that I have done so. I regard this remark as seriously offensive. Please withdraw it.
Regarding the NIWA case, NIWA were the architects of their own misfortune. We tried and tried to have a discussion with them on the subject and they flatly refused. But they finally had to admit that they had no foundation for Jim Salinger’s temperature record and withdrew the claim that it was the New Zealand temperature record.
You were asked? You didn’t phone or email to offer your services as you have so often done to the NZ media over the years?
You clearly told lies, and your misrepresentation of the facts is outlined in this thread by at least one senior climate scientist and atmospheric physicist.
I will not withdraw a statement of the facts of your interview, and if you find that offensive then tough luck.
What I find offensive — as chairman of a charitable trust that goes to great lengths to operate within the spirit and letter of the law (and has very successfully launched and run a community radio station for North Canterbury) is that you abused a charitable trust for your own stupid political motives and to protect yourselves from the financial consequences of your actions. That is truly disgusting.
“Bryan, you perfectly entitled to hold whatever opinions you wish, but you are not entitled to lie to the public on national TV, and the broadcaster has a duty to ensure that are not given that opportunity.”
Gareth,
With the Video having been taken down from the TVNZ site they must realise that they screwed up on that interview. This could be a good chance to get your own good self on the box to set things straight with, you know, facts.
—
Au
The reason they took down the video is because they received a number of formal complaints which they are investigating. They have also received a number of emails supporting the interview. In due course they may follow up with some further news.
I don’t think that gutless interview would have much effect on the uncommitted. The open cast coal mine and belching smoking would probably have the opposite effect anyway. Leyland just comes across as an idiot except to idiots and you won’t change that in
A thousand years. Don’t panic folks. The smarts are already on the case.
I’ve put my complaint in to TVNZ. I hope they’ll be deluged with them. The item was an insult to viewer intelligence and an astonishing trivialisation of a deeply serious issue.
He is a renewable energy consultant. He consults on hydro schemes around the world, and has a share in a small hydro scheme
Exactly Andy, he’s an engineer, who’s never written a climate paper in his life. And whose failed court case cost the NZ taxpayer $90,000.
Maybe, but I’m not sure why claiming he is a renewable energy consultant is a breach of broadcasting standards.
It’s the misleading claims about climate physics and the factually incorrect material about observations failing to show warming. These claims lack accuracy and fairness, and show a lack of balance.
So his graphs are wrong and the “pause” doesn’t exist?
I think Bryan’s claims about CO2 fertilisation on plants was correct. Didn’t Matt Ridley do something on this a while back?
Also, you seemed to miss the point about “$2 trillion wasted on wind and solar”
I got the figure of $1.7 trillion from Euan Mearn’s blog
http://euanmearns.com/the-failure-of-green-energy-policies/
Leyland’s graphs seem to be of the tropical mid-troposphere and show one view of the issues between data and models in that region, (if the model projections are of that region (the slide is unreferenced, and there was no information about which models were used)).
The clear implication was that models fail to match the data. IPCC (WGI chapter 9) point out that this is a challenging area in which there *is* lots of debate, and states that models seem to over-respond *in that region*. But the IPCC also say (and highlight) the point that: “There is very high confidence that models reproduce the general features of the global-scale annual mean surface temperature increase over the historical period, including the more rapid warming in the second half of the 20th century, and the cooling immediately following large volcanic eruptions.” etc.
As for the hiatus – again it’s a balance thing. Arguing that there has been reduced warming since some peak year which has no significance on its own (other than being a local maximum) is like arguing that, over the last two weeks, Australia has become the world’s worst test cricket team since they have had back-to-back thrashings larger than any other test cricket team has experienced across the same period. ie – it’s a spurious argument based on selective use of data. The hiatus is interesting, and I personally think it should affect our beliefs about the climate response. But we should not form those beliefs about the climate response based only on the numbers that would give us a low (or high) answer.
David, I am glad you agree that there is lots of debate and problems with the models.
But you do not go as far as Pachauri who agrees that the world has not warmed significantly for 17 years. How can you disagree with him?
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nothing-off-limits-in-climate-debate/story-e6frg6n6-1226583112134
Do I take it that you do not support open debate? Is that because it would put your livelihood at risk?
Do you not think that the relentless alarmism that we are subjected to in the media also represents a lack of balance?
I seem to recall, Dave, that you made comments at the WG1 meeting in Wellington recently that there wasn’t much discussion in the middle ground
The UK media is giving more air time to guys like Nic Lewis who does actually have a publication track record these days, although he is presented as a “sceptic”
Yes – alarmism is a problem too. I make that point fairly often. It’s a pity that the edges of the debate have political amplifiers, while the more evidentially-grounded centre doesn’t.
If you point me to particularly egregious examples in the NZ media where coverage of alarmists violate the balance, accuracy and fairness requirements, I’ll take a look at them. I don’t want to be a serial complainer, but you’re right that it’s important to be consistent.
http://maps.unfccc.int/di/map/
Well, it’s grand that NZ has such an array of sober, serious, responsible, middle-of-the-road folks about to ground the debate, ain’t it? In fact, it appears the entire country’s entering a purple patch…
You see, the way the ‘centre’ regularly congratulates itself you’d almost imagine something was being achieved…
So, Andy, are these leading climate scientists demonstrating “relentless alarmism” when they warn of the likelihood of abrupt climate change, a.k.a. “nasty surprises” in store for us?
http://youtu.be/7zA4FEWWmFM
Actually, it is more the NGOs and their drip feeding of alarmist messages to the media that I have issue with, something that Myles Allen has taken issue with, claiming that this is “not helpful”
Phhhh – handwaving! A relevant instance of something directly comparable to Bryan’s remarkable performance, please.
Because they fail to mention that he is a founder member of the NZ CSC, a climate denial lobby group with financial ties to US groups campaigning on behalf of fossil fuels, that also recently tried to sue NIWA and lost – then folded a charitable trust in order to avoid paying the costs. In short: he is a mountebank and a charlatan, whose views on climate are not worthy of consideration.
In short: he is a mountebank and a charlatan
And a cad and a bounder by golly!
I hope you got that Bryan, you rapscallion!
I chose the words with care. You may wish to look up their meanings. They are not used lightly.
I’m sure you did. I was just having a Blackadder moment. Even trying times like this need a little light heartedness
Blackadder moments – or as I have come to think of them as I have grown older and more prone to dad jokes, Slackbladder moments, are always worthwhile. But not perhaps when Bryan Leyland is around and annoying Baldrick.
(That’s an in joke)
Leyland is a good example of Einstein’s dictum that stupidity is a renewable resource:
Maggie Thatcher: “I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.”
Good idea, Bryan, let’s quote Margaret Thatcher; let’s see, what did she say about climate change?
http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/108237
“The danger of global warming is as yet unseen, but real enough for us to make changes and sacrifices, so that we do not live at the expense of future generations.
Our ability to come together to stop or limit damage to the world’s environment will be perhaps the greatest test of how far we can act as a world community. No-one should under-estimate the imagination that will be required, nor the scientific effort, nor the unprecedented co-operation we shall have to show. We shall need statesmanship of a rare order…
We must remember our duty to Nature before it is too late. That duty is constant. It is never completed. It lives on as we breathe. It endures as we eat and sleep, work and rest, as we are born and as we pass away. The duty to Nature will remain long after our own endeavours have brought peace to the Middle East. It will weigh on our shoulders for as long as we wish to dwell on a living and thriving planet, and hand it on to our children and theirs.
…the need for more research should not be an excuse for delaying much needed action now. There is already a clear case for precautionary action at an international level.”
Bloody hippy! Which UK political party did she lead – the Greens?
Amen. (I’ve also complained.)
So? He’s on the payroll and dog whistling to the gormless.
Maggie and Ronald were early “alarmist” about global warming. A “pause” in global warming happened during the second world war and resumed after. Presumeably because of particulates and aerosols. Can anyone point to explanations in the literature? Of course if the figures were “cooked”, why would “they” show pauses? Deniers love playing games with terms like “theory” and “model” because they know many lay people don’t grasp the concepts.
And if the models were any good, they would have predicted these pauses and they would have been able to predict things like el Nino events – the biggest climatic disturbance in the world.
The models are worthless: they have never been validated, they do not have accurate input data and they do not accurately represent the climate system. On top of that, they are programmed with a “climate forcing factor” that amplifies the 1.1° of warming that would be expected from a doubling of carbon dioxide to something between two and 3.5°. So if you feed it carbon dioxide, it predicts warming. Never mind that any system with a feedback factor greater than about 1.6 is inherently unstable. So if it was all true, the world would have frozen or fried millions of years ago.
More tosh. The “climate forcing factor” you mention is nothing more than a physical law: the Clausius-Clapeyron relation. You can Google it. It means that as the atmosphere warms it holds more water.
For people other than Leyland, people who might want to see what models can really do, this TED talk by Gavin Schmidt is extremely interesting.
Models generate ENSO like variation, Brian…the fact that they rarely line up with observed variations is because real ENSO is not predictable in initiation.
So saying the models are no good because they cannot exactly time ENSO is to reveal your ignorance of what models do, what modellers claim, and what the scientific community already knows. IOW yours is an ignorant claim targeted at the ignorant.
Meanwhile, no ‘models’ presented by pseudo-skeptics have got anywhere near the accuracy of the ensembles used by real researchers. Most of them predict global cooling should have started years ago….
Seems TVNZ has had such a backlash they’ve taken the piece offline.
Fantastic
Now we can go back to stories of goats shrinking due to climate change
Do they wonder why no one watches TV these days?
This denier shibboleth of sneeringly proclaiming one’s incredulity with regard to the well-documented cases of shrinking species across the globe really only reinforces what a bunch of callous, insouciant biological ignoramuses you all are.
I believe it Bill, and I am concerned that we will all be living in dolls houses and commuting on model railways by 2100
The science is in on this
QED. Smug inanities only make you look silly, andy.
Do you actually take this shrinking goat stuff seriously? There may be many reasons why Chamois population are declining in size, including, perhaps, that the large ones are being hunted first.
Tagging everything with “climate change”, including the shrinking goats, makes the whole of climate science look like the Daily Mash
The problem is, of course, that “climate change” is so dreadfully serious that anyone can tag “climate change” onto their research publication and everyone starts tugging their forelocks
There must be *some* climate scientists – esp the atmospheric physicists etc – who find this stuff cringeworthy
Yes. Because biology. And biologists. Do you ever actually read the linked material, andy?
Why the hell would atmospheric physicists – who you routinely deride and ignore, I’ll note in passing – find the determinations of biological scientists ‘cringeworthy’?
Do you honestly think that increasing temps are going to be magically exempt from the genotypic/phenotypic selection process because a handfull of aging dismissive curmudegeons can’t imagine it?
No I didn’t read the piece
If I see a paper or newspaper article entitled “goats shrink due to climate change”, I immediately file it in the round filing cabinet
Life is too short to deal with this kind of claptrap
Finally an admission from andy that rings true – he doesn’t read the science if he just knows that it must be bogus. Because Bergmann’s Rule is just something those dodgy biologists made up so they could get more grant money.
QED. Thanks for providing such a text-book illustration of the reactionary mind in action, andy.
Maybe I need to read about shrinking goats and feminist eco-theology (with a Rabbi in tow)
But there are so many more interesting things to occupy my mind with…
Yes, anything except reading science that conflicts with your world view, eh andy? That would be far too troubling. Much better just to tell yourself that global warming is just a great big hoax, that way you don’t have to take any personal responsibility for what’s happening.
I will say this one more time.
I am not interested in shrinking goats.
There is lots of stuff I find interesting, and lots of stuff that challenges my world view
Shrinking goats isn’t on the list
Yes, Dear Reader, this is really how they ‘think’!
Yes, this is how “they” think. “They” are interested in maths, physics, statistics, etc
“They” are not interested in half baked babble about shrinking goats.
If I spend my life researching shrinking goats, the time I have left for more pressing and interesting topics becomes diminished
I presume that you are fascinated by shrinking goats Bill.
Maybe you could write a guest post on shrinking goats, try to spice it up a bit for us so we don’t nod off in the first 5 minutes
The fact that you can’t be bothered spending ten minutes reading a short and really quite interesting article about the real world effects of climate change tells us all we need to know about you, andy. You are not interested in actual science, only in spreading lies and misinformation. I hope you sleep well at night.
Ok, since you think I am a bad person for not reading about the shrinking goats, I will devote some of my time reading about the shrinking goats
I will report back shortly
which funnily enough was in the Daily Mail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2802123/goats-shrinking-climate-change-researchers-find.html#ixzz3IFNV1KVo
So both climate and population density can effect the body mass of Chamois
Fascinating
Um, fascinating that the response to do you ever actually read the linked material, andy? – where the linked material in question is 2 journal papers – is to find a nice, safe ‘the Denier’s Friend’ Daily Mail article!
Particularly after you’ve already been mocked for using it as your primary source!
Very, um, revealing, but this whole exchange really has had significant pedagogic value.
I repeat what I said at the outset; smug inanities only make you look silly, andy, and your neurotic desire to always get in the last word has only succeeded in wedging your foot still further into your mouth…
Bill, I found several articles on Shrinking Goats via Google and The Daily Mail was one of them.
I thought I would link to that not because I prefer it as a source (though I thought the article was a fairly good summary of the research from Durham University), but because I thought it would elicit the Pavlovian response we are seeing in your behaviour
The must more serious and politically correct Grist has, on the other hand, have these words
http://grist.org/list/honey-climate-change-is-shrinking-the-kids/
How do these people sleep at night?
Wow the lefties get nasty across the ditch don’t they!
I didn’t see the interview so I can’t comment on its entirety but Leyland does make valid points about the models.
[Snipped: Read the comment policy before posting again. Pay special attention to the section on not posting stuff that isn’t true. The rest of this comment has been snipped because it broke that rule. GR]
OK lets deal with the “untrue” points one by one;
1: the models predictions have not been borne out by reality?
Measured climate parameters track well within model projections – some run high (Arctic sea ice, for example, is melting faster than projected), some low (surface temperatures increasing more slowly some datasets), but all are within the bounds. You may wish to consult the report of IPCC Working Group 1 for more detail.
Please: no more tripe about models in this thread.
Ahh I see the final resort of the left: censorship! I shoulda guessed as this is what this is all about: silencing any opinion!
[Tosh about models snipped. No censorship – just an insistence that you play by the rules. Read the bloody comment policy! GR]
So any discussion of the mathematical failures of the GCM models upon which the predictions of the IPCC are based is off limits!
Considering that was one of the key issues in Leylands interview the only policy that would invalidate being discusses is plainly on display!
The subject of this post is Leyland’s distortion of the facts and TVNZ’s absurd decision to put him on air.
If you really want to talk about climate models, go and do it on an open thread. Tip: every week’s Carbon News post is an open thread. But you will still need to ensure that your comments do not deliberately misrepresent matters of fact.
To help you with that: remember that simply asserting something does not make it true. You will need to provide references to support your contention/s. If those references are from climate denialist or crank sites, you may expect them to fail to pass moderation.
Thank you for your attention.
“If those references are from climate denialist or crank sites, you may expect them to fail to pass moderation.”
“If they do not agree with what I believe, then I will kill them off.” You sound just like the mediaeval church that claimed to be the mouthpiece of God on earth.
Maybe you would like to see all us burned at the stake? After all, we are heretics. As was my Hugenot ancestor who escaped from France by the skin of his teeth. So I suppose it runs in the family.
But do read this. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nothing-off-limits-in-climate-debate/story-e6frg6n6-1226583112134
Regarding open debate, Pachauri seems to be on our side!
As I said before, if you had decent scientific arguments, you would have killed us off years ago – or the world would have followed your models and warmed. But we know it did not, because Pachauri said so.
Open debate about what to do about climate change? Most definitely needed. I’d encourage you to join in – in fact I suspect our views about the structure of the electricity generation business in NZ might be remarkably similar.
But to pretend that action isn’t needed, that CO2 doesn’t cause warming and that cooling is coming? That’s not up for debate, that’s just wilful stupidity.
We know enough to know we need to act, and urgently. To pretend otherwise is simply perverse.
As I said before, if you had decent scientific arguments, you would have killed us off years ago…
Obtuse claim, Brian. You do not have any scientific arguments. Your ‘arguments’ have been killed off over and over in the science domain. The idea that you are arguing with science is a self-serving delusion you cannot exist without.
That’s why you have to resort to the media, where your fabrications will usually get a run if you can find some over-worked, under-resourced hack to let down their guard.
Icedvolvo, you have not demonstrated any ‘mathematical failures’ in the models, so it’s hard to discuss them, eh?
You made an assertion. You did not start a discussion by bringing data, facts, links or any information at all.
Another trivially true point: model predictions to 2100 cannot be called failures in 2014 in any meaningful or decisive way.
Note: I have had to snip three or four comments by “icedvolvo”, and have placed him/her on moderation until such time as they comment within HT’s established policy.
For MANY years the terms ‘sceptic’ and ‘denier’ have been applied as an insult to those who oppose certain popularised theories – a cheap means of diminishing their expertise. It conjures up unpleasant visions of the ‘deniers’ of the holocaust and so earns derision. It renders suspect any data that they may present in their favour without necessarily having to produce specific counter data that bears directly on that presented.
An attack on the credentials of the ‘denier’ shows how totally unscientific the attacker is. Throughout scientific history many unqualified amateurs have stumbled upon facts that disproved long-held dogma. Any true scientist must be prepared to change his/her beliefs if they do not stand up to observed events under all circumstances.
Ah, the concern troll.
Leyland is not now, nor has he even been, a “true scientist”. His opinions on climate science are not informed by any expertise in the subject, only by his ideological objection to emissions reductions. He has a very long record in that field – and his views have remained stubbornly unresponsive to the facts of the matter.
Oh, for God’s sake! The Holocaust canard! Look up the word ‘denier’ in the dictionary some time.
And the rest is no better…
Bryan Leyland wears his obdurate ignorance like a badge of honour; for starters, he appears unable to distinguish temperature from heat!
Lord knows, I’ve tried to educate him, by sending him helpful links to remedial physics courses, and suggesting basic texts he could try to read, but he continues to make an even greater fool of himself.
No wonder he and his mates were fooled by Dedekind’s innumeracy into taking their prolix, incoherent and quixotic action against NIWA.
Re said High Court case, when are NIWA going to get off their collective butt and ask the judge to set aside the phony charitable Trust and force the trustees to repay us, the long-suffering taxpayer?
When push comes to shove, I’m sure Koch Industries will pick up the tab for them…
Gareth – perhaps this gif animation based on Schmidt (2014) should be posted ahead of Leyland’s bogus graph – just to reinforce the fact that climate models with their 3°C of climate sensitivity do a very good job of simulating the recent slower rate of surface warming.
Of course climate models cannot predict the timing of volcanic eruptions, La Nina/El Nino, or the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO), but no one ever claimed they could.
Bryan Leyland’s deliberate misinformation suggesting “debate continues” is immoral. I have notified TVNZ. He would not survive a moderated debate with an informed opponent. It’s a sad day when a liar is given free run.
I find it interesting that the deniers get all upset about being called a denier. Faux-upset, I’d say.
Also very interesting that one of their heroes, Richard Lindzen, who is Jewish, is quite happy with the term, and thinks it’s appropriate. Another who’s unconcerned is Steve “The Junkman” Milloy, whose work gave birth to many of the denial campaigns today (he was hired by Philip Morris to challenge the science of second hand smoke).
In any case, those who deny the holocaust, which killed millions, are not too different, in my view, from those who deny climate change, which will kill millions.
Well…so Bryan Leyland thinks he is more knowledgeable than the collective wisdom of the UN Secretary General, and Rajendra Pachauri and IPCC…I think not!!
The UN Secretary General is not a scientist with knowledge of climate. Rajendra is a railway engineer. The IPCC is made up of political sycophants who have a vested interest in keeping the scare wagon on track. Bryan Leyland is an Engineer who has made a study of the subject in conjunction with leading internationally recognised climate scientists for many years.
Be careful when you start going into personalities instead of scientific data.
“study of the subject in conjunction with leading internationally recognised climate scientists for many years.”
Go on Ross, name those “leading internationally recognised climate scientists” with whom Leyland has conjunctified the scientific study.
Oh, and while you’re about it, please list the credible journals in which his peer reviewed papers have been published.
Thank God he’s a ” railway engineer ” imagine the kerfuffle from the deniers if he was a climate scientist.
Rajendra Pachauri is a resource economist, bought in by the US to replace the previous IPCC chair, Robert Watson, who was a climate scientist.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg17423392.400
Randy Randol? This does rather sound like one of the characters out of Pachauri’s steamy books.
EDIT
The gory details are here
Please go easy on who is Jewish Cindy because many excellent climate scientists e.g. the late Steve Schneider, was and are Jewish and one of the world’s greatest. Steve used to refer to us as ‘MOT’ = ‘Members of the Tribe’…..But I agree on the analogy between the various groups of deniers, which is the correct term in my view!
When I gave a talk at an Eco-theology Conference with a Rabbi: this was the Judaic position – summary of paper below published in the 2000s:
Environmental issues can be examined from an ecocentric or anthropocentric perspective. The latter approach places human, religious and financial values above those of nature and the universe. Ecocentric perspectives stress the centrality of all ecosystems, their integration, and planetary processes above any individual or species. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have increased 50 percent, and are expected to double during the 21st century. These are expected to produce unprecedented environmental change than could threaten the integrity of planetary life and systems, because of dangerous climate change. Jewish religious tradition views the entire complexity of creation, and commands us not to destroy any part of God’s universe. Hence both modern ecological sciences and Jewish theology give us both warnings and guidelines to value, recycle, sustain and restore the natural balance. This paper provides an eco-centric integration of the latest discoveries in climate science with 4000 years of Jewish sancta.
Sorry to get ‘theological’ but the Jewish tradition does not see humans as the pinnacle of creation,…..
Would it matter if a comment were made by a noted Rabbi – would that count for more than a Catholic Priest or a mere scientist? Of course all the ‘deniers’ agree that climate changes and also separately that humans should not pollute or damage the planet unduly – BUT – CO2 is NOT a pollutant, it is essential for the sustenance of the planet. Without it, all plant life would perish. The smokestacks that the warmists love to show as polluting the atmosphere are usually belching steam. CO2 is not a visible gas.
Coal-fired power stations etc will not destroy the planet, but extremists that want to replace them with solar and wind will most certainly cause great damage to the economy, and if the dreamers think that the economy is unimportant, they should perhaps retire to a mountain peak and indulge in other fanciful contemplation as well.
Ross, rather than merely parroting standard denier half-truths and straw men, I suggest you watch the following video from the Yale Climate Forum, to educate yourself on the threat that CO2 / CH4 emissions pose to our economy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLCgybStZ4g
“Coal-fired power stations etc will not destroy the planet”
Don’t be infantile. No-one has said that they will all by themselves, but they are a major contibutor of pollutants that will have long-term detrimental effects worldwide. Steam and CO2 are not the only substances emitted from smokestacks.
For example the US Environmental Protection Agency notes that: “Coal-burning power plants are the largest human-caused source of mercury emissions to the air in the United States, accounting for over 50 percent of all domestic human-caused mercury emissions ”
Mercury is highly toxic, accumulates in the tissues of living things, especially fish, and damages the human nervous system, the brain, heart, kidneys, lungs, and immune system.
Even if there were no other problems with coal that alone would be enough reason to urgently phase out the burning of coal.
“if the dreamers think that the economy is unimportant” No-one has said that either but as Canadian environmental scientist David Suzuki says: “the economy is a subset of the environment”
You need to think about that for a while. The ‘economy’ is a man-made construct which exists entirely within the natural world. All the matter and energy used by the economy comes from the environment and all the discarded waste products go back into it.
Environmental concerns won’t destroy the economy but an out of control economy can most certainly render our environment hostile to life.
Coal fired power stations, so I am told, emit more Uranium into the atmosphere than nuclear stations
They do indeed; uranium and thorium in fact. These elements exist naturally in coal but at low concentrations. However, when coal is burned to ash uranium and thorium are concentrated at up to 10 times their original levels.
Disposal of coal ash by burial or in landfill then leads to leaching of radionuclides into soil and water. This is as undesirable as releasing mercury into the atmosphere.
So we agree, then, on the matter of coal fired power plants? They should be phased out and shut down worldwide as a matter of urgency.
It depends on what you are going to replace coal with. Germany is ramping up coal to replace the nuclear fleet it is phasing out
The interview is back up on the TVNZ website at this link
http://tvnz.co.nz/breakfast/s2014-eptuesday-video-6122325
(about 22 mins in, I think)
Bryan Leylands temperature graph has some issues. The graph is rather short term, and has no error bars, so doesn’t give much of a picture.
How do I know the model simulations used are representative? They could well be selected to produce a required result.
The graph uses an average of balloon and satellite data, but omits surface temperatures for no reason. There are limitations to the accuracy of “all” data sets particularly balloons, so it would make sense to me to use an average of all datasets.
Land surface temperatures have slowed since about 1998, nobody disputes that. Early modelling has always had error bars and acknowledged ocean cycles can cause flat periods, but does not have the ability to predict exactly when. This makes the models less than perfect, but still useful.
Land surface temperatures are still within error bars. The planet has an ongoing heat imbalance from satellite data at the top of atmosphere and the rate of this has not changed. The additional heat is going into the oceans more than in previous decades, hence the slowdown in land temperatures. A low point in the sunspot cycle also has an influence.
Statistical analysis that subtracts the el nino / la nina cycle shows recent temperature trends are similar to previous decades ( Foster and Rhamstorf). Ocean dynamics mean the heat energy won’t stay there forever, or even for an extended period. I’m not aware of any science that says it will.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2261577/Global-warming-stopped-16-years-ago-Met-Office-report-reveals-MoS-got-right-warming–deniers-now.html
For a overview of all temperature records see climate4you.com
They all show no significant warming.
To check the model predictions, go to the IPCC. or http://www.drroyspencer.com/2014/02/95-of-climate-models-agree-the-observations-must-be-wrong/
Pachauri has agreed that there has been no warming for years. Why do you disagree?
Fulfill your trustee obligations and pay up Bryan. You owe the NZ tax-payer a lot of money.
Fulfill your trustee obligations and pay up Bryan. You owe the NZ tax-payer a lot of money.
Hear hear.
Bryan Leyland, your and your associates’ use of a phoney Trust to escape responsibility for your mendacity in taking NIWA to court with no intention of ever meeting court ordered costs should you lose the case, exposes you for what you are: a pack of dishonest scoundrels of the first order..
Despicable people.
Well, I reckon we should all give up our scientific arguments now. Brian has linked to that most authoritative scientific source of all – The Daily Mail.
And he’s linked to one article that has been repeatedly shown to be misleading and false by other scientists, especially the Met. Office itself.
http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2012/10/14/met-office-in-the-media-14-october-2012/
If you are wanting to be taken seriously Bryan, you really must try harder than that.
Oh, and Climate4you has been described as a ‘stealth denier site’, and is definitely not the final authoritative word on temperature records.
Try http://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?n=670 for a rebuttal.
Bryan, you moron. yet again you conflate temperature and heat; didn’t they teach thermodynamics in whatever kind of engineering school you claim to have attended?
Sheesh, this has to be deliberate; no-one could be so obtuse by accident!
On a lighter note Bryan quotes the Daily Mail and expects to be taken seriously. It’s absolutely true because I read it in the Daily Mail”
Thanks Mr Leyland, but I’m afraid I don’t regard Roy Spencer as reliable or objective on this issue. There is plenty of valid criticism of his claims on this model prediction issue on skepticalscience.com.
Temperature increases have slowed recently, or aren’t statistically significant, however it is not all about surface temperatures, it is about heat content as I noted in my post, and as others have noted. Why do you ignore all the issues other people raise? I have addressed your concerns, you ignore other peoples concerns.
Dear Nigel, as you have been polite, I will respond.
I talk about temperatures because that is what the IPCC talks about. All I am doing is using a comparison of the IPCC predictions with actual temperatures. As all the temperature records are much the same, it does not matter which one you use. As the British Met office and Pachauri seem to agree with these temperature records, I see little point in debating them.
I know there are theories at all the heat has mysteriously disappeared into the ocean. But there are also 28 other theories (or was it 52?) – many of them mutually incompatible – and the 30th argument is that the climate changes naturally. Which is what I said on TV.
Bryan, you are merely mistaking short-term noise in the system for the long-term signal.
Clearly, your ideological bias and Walter Mitty tendencies have blinded you to science.
Bryan Leyland. Thanks. My complaint was the way you present a graph, that in my opinion distorts the issue to try to show the greatest diversion possible from the models. People don’t win me over when they do that. However I have given my specific reasons, and I won’t labour the point further.
No “significant warming”. This depends on definitions. I just use my eyes and look at the giss or hadcrut data ,and there is a recent warming trend, although slower than in previous decades.I would not expect a perfectly linear increase in temperatures, due to short term natural cycles interacting with the greenhouse effect. I don’t know why sceptics would expect a perfectly linear trend, or some sceptics at least.
There are a couple of decent theories on the ocean heat content issue. Granted I agree with you it isn’t well resolved, but you are not adding anything. You are complaining and moaning that things aren’t perfectly understood!
I don’t see natural climate variability as an adequate explanation for global warming since about 1970. This has been well analysed and there is just no compelling explanation. The obvious possibility is solar energy or irradiance, but that is a flat trend overall. That leaves sceptics grasping at very unlikely explanations that have not gained traction with the IPCC and which don’t have much evidence.
Your CO2 plant food statement may be true but the other side is that we fry the planet, and higher temperatures can also retard plant growth. The IPCC have reviewed the research and conclude a net negative effect.
The issue of CO2 benefitting plant growth was covered by the WSJ in an article by Matt Ridley (with scientific references to support)
here
The benefit is superficial and short term. Experiments conducted by the Smithsonian show a growth spurt lasting only two years before lack of sufficient nitrogen in the soil put a brake on any extra plant growth. This is the so-called ‘nitrogen plateau’ discovered by botanical researchers.
Balance in nature is everything. If you increase the availablity of only one nutrient (co2 for example) you upset the balance of all the others and eventually your net gains disappear.
The increase in agricultural output envisioned by the denialist camp is, in fact, a mirage.
Are you claiming that people who observe extra greening from CO2 are “denialists”? (e.g Keeling, of Keeling Curve fame, mentioned in the article)
does this make greenhouse tomato growers “denialists” too?
Do you have some evidence that the greening will stop, or is this based on models?
No, I’m stating that those who see increased agricultural output as a future benefit of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide are deluding themselves. Realtime experiments both indoor and out in the fields show clearly that increased growth is only temporary.
Research papers showing this are readily available from many sources. Try starting with Scientific American or the Smithsonian.
My point is that Bryan was not “lying” when he stated that CO2 was resulting in increased plant growth (temporary or otherwise) when there is evidence to support his claim
The second part (it is doing us no harm) is open to discussion, of course, but that is a separate issue
I have not said in any of my posts that Bryan was lying. I have not said that plant growth does not increase along with co2 concentration.
What I have pointed out, however, is that the effect is temporary, of no use to our food supply in the long term and should not be touted as a benefit of increased co2 in the atmosphere.
Leyland stated in his TV appearance that there would be huge benefit to agriculture. He is delusional.
I am actually responding to this statement in the original post rather than your comments Gary
This is my one response to Bryan Leyland. See point 3.
1. Courteously, Bryan wrote: “David, I am glad you agree that there is lots of debate and problems with the models.”
Everybody knows models are imperfect. But they are not, as you assert, worthless. They have considerable skill, as Chapter 9 of IPCC WGI shows. It is misleading to imply otherwise, as you did yesterday. There is a big difference between being imperfect at something and being worthless at that thing. My Toyota Camry has an imperfect stereo. this does not mean it is worthless (i.e. resale value=$0). Liberal democracies are imperfect; this does not make them worthless. etc. Climate models are good at some things and not others. Specifically, they are good at simulating bit some of the most important aspects of large-scale response: “There is very high confidence that models reproduce the general features of the global scale annual mean surface temperature increase over the historical period, including the more rapid warming in the second half of the 20th century, and the cooling immediately following large volcanic eruptions.”
2. “But you do not go as far as Pachauri who agrees that the world has not warmed significantly for 17 years. How can you disagree with him?”
There’s nothing climatologically significant about 17 years. Why not 37 years, or 7.8, or 88/pi? The justifications for using a reference period ought either to be on significant climatological grounds, data grounds (1979 and 1957 get a lot of attention because of new data availability) or for institutional reasons such as a prediction having been made in year x and seeing how we’ve gone since year x (e.g. Allen, Mitchell & Stott 2013). We’ve seen greenhouse gas-induced warming over the last five or so decades(IPCC WGI Chapter 10). The period since about 2000 has seen less warming – as also discussed in Chapter 9 of IPCC WGI (“the hiatus”). It seems part forced, part internal variability. (I would have liked to have seen the IPCC box vary the start date to show the role of data selection in the hiatus, but it wasn’t to be.) The hiatus is interesting, if physically unsurprising (see Easterling and Wehner 2009).
3. “Do I take it that you do not support open debate? Is that because it would put your livelihood at risk?”
I support informed, reasoned debate with sincere participants. I’m not very interested in “debate” with the ill-informed, unreasonable and insincere, since this brings large opportunity costs in terms of my time. Ultimately, as an academic in a civic university, I am accountable to taxpayers for how I spend their investment in me. Some of us take our responsibilities to taxpayers seriously. As for my livelihood – I’m always open to new ideas in terms of career.
Dear David, thank you for your courteous reply. It is not something that I have met very often on this forum.
1 By “worthless” I meant worthless from the point of view of predicting future temperatures. They certainly have some useful functions but does not seem to include a reliable prediction of future temperatures. As Lennart Bengtsson and many others have pointed out climate models do not handle clouds very well and, as the IPCC WG 1 admits, there are a huge uncertainties in many aspects of the inputs to the models.
2 I am glad that you accept that there has been no significant warming for 17 years. Whether or not that is significant in terms of climate change is something quite separate. I think it is, you think it is not. But given that senior climate scientists have said that anything over 15 years of no warming would give them cause for serious concern, I am sure that you two are concerned.
3 I am sorry that you do not consider me to be a sincere participant. I find it sad that you consider me to be ill informed, unreasonable and insincere. I am a Fellow of three Engineering Institutions and I have been recognised as one of the 60 most influential people in the hydro industry worldwide. I am sure that if you talk to Ralph Chapman who once worked for me, you might get a rather different picture.
I have a Masters degree in power system analysis which means that I am very familiar with computer models and I understand how important it is that they should be an accurate representation of the system, have accurate input data and have been proven to give accurate predictions.
You might be interested to know that I am a majority owner of a small hydropower scheme whose income is increased as a result of the Emissions Trading Scheme. So I am speaking against my own financial interests.
I sincerely hope that you will follow the lead given by Pachauri and encourage open debate. I would be happy to arrange a debate between you and Bob Carter, Christopher de Freitas or Willem de Lange.
Finally, how many more years of no significant warming will be needed before you seriously reconsider your belief in dangerous man-made global warming? When I put this question to Ritu Mathur of TERI, she would not answer it. In fact, I have yet to find anybody who will answer it. Given that every scientist should be always aware of the possibility that they are wrong, I find this somewhat strange.
Hans von Storch made this comment last year in and interview with Der Spiegel
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/interview-hans-von-storch-on-problems-with-climate-change-models-a-906721.html
The article is well worth reading and very candid from someone in the profession.
AndyS. The temperature slowdown. Several reasons have been given for this. Quite compelling reasons, but granted not 100% proven.
Neither you or Bryan Leyland add anything to clarify the slowdown, you just moan that climate science isn’t perfect.
Leyland says:
This is typical denier nonsense since he does not define what he means by “significant”. In fact he is being disingenuous since he is twisting scientists’ words. The scientist says “there is no statistically significant” warming for the past 17 years and deniers like Leyland twist the words to say “no significant warming” for 17 years. These two statements, of course, are not the same. One can have warming over 17 years which is not significantly significant at the usual 95% level (which is an arbitrary number) but it can be statistically significant at the 94% (or lower) level. Thus we know that it is a lie to say no warming for the past 17 years since it can easily be shown that there has been warming at a rate of 0.08 C per decade during that period.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1997/plot/uah/from:1997/trend
Why do deniers engage in these silly word games when it can easily be shown that they are lying?
The statistical significance is relative to the model upon which you are basing your assumptions on. Doug Keenan had quite a long battle with the Met Office via the House of Lords over this issue
Please re-write that in understandable English and not denierese.
You miss the point entirely, he is trying to confuse the general public by mixing up the use of “statistically significant” and “significant”. Please try harder, after all you do claim to be university educated.
Surely somebody with your supposed education can see though the nonsense spouted by Doug Keenan?
https://metofficenews.wordpress.com/tag/doug-keenan/
Keenan explained it in the WSJ
http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704615504576171863463697564
If your hypothesis is “global warming stopped in 1998”, then the null hypothesis is that “warming continued at the same rate as prior to 1998”, not that “there is no warming trend”. By simply doing a linear regression on the data since 1998, you are testing the wrong null hypothesis, so the lack of significance in your test is not significant.
Tamino explains it quite well here. In order to claim that global warming stopped, you would have to demonstrate a significant departure from the previous warming trend. This has not happened, and any assertion that it has is simply not supported by proper statistical analysis.
Summing up…
I claimed that the world had not warned (in any statistically significant extent) for ~17 years. The UK Met office, Pachauri and David Frame agree with me.
I said that computer models were programmed to show warming if carbon dioxide levels increased. Computer programs have a “climate forcing factor” – the increase in temperature for a doubling of carbon dioxide that, instead of the generally accepted 1.1°, has been escalated to between 2.5 and 3°. The latest IPCC report admits that there is much uncertainty around this figure.
I pointed out that there was now a significant difference between predicted temperatures and recorded temperatures. This seems to be accepted. It can, of course be reduced by “adjusting” predicted temperatures.
I pointed out that USD2 trillion has been squandered on renewable energy without any change in the steady rise in carbon dioxide levels. No one challenged this.
I pointed out that carbon dioxide enhances plant growth. This is demonstrated by the fact that greenhouses spend millions of dollars to increase carbon dioxide levels. They do not do that for fun.
I pointed out that cooling is a possibility. And it is. Here is but one example http://www.climatedialogue.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Blog-Nicola-Scafetta-def.pdf
So I am rather puzzled when people say that I have been telling lies and it is all my own opinion.
The plain fact is that the science is definitely not settled – even the IPCC agrees on this – and, as Pachauri says, debate is needed.
It is distressing that so many people on this blog are so hostile towards open debate and want to suppress any one who dares to say anything different from what they believe. Some people would argue that this lines them up with the mediaeval church, ISIS and the Nazis.
“I disagree with what you say and I will defend to the death your right to say it” is not in their vocabulary. Yet it is one of the foundations of democracy.
As TVNZ have reinstated the interview, it would seem that they too agree that open debate is needed.
You said there had been no warming: there has. Heat continues to accumulate in the system.
You clearly don’t read people’s replies to your comments. I’ve already pointed out to you that your invented “climate forcing factor” is in fact basic physics – the Clausius-Clapeyron relationship.
My list of your deliberate untruths in the original post remains an accurate summary of your propagandising.
One issues you refuse to address, however. The question of the cost imposed on the NZ taxpayer by your legal action, and your failure to act properly as the trustee of a charitable trust by using it as a cover to prevent your personal liability in your failed court case against NIWA.
Pay the money, or shut up.
The UK Met office, Pachauri and David Frame do not agree with you. You are misrepresenting what they say. Check out Tamino’s analysis. At least twelve of the past sixteen years were hotter than expected even according to the still-warming prediction, and all sixteen were above the no-warming prediction.
Long-run cooling is not a credible possibility; Scafetta’s theories are not taken seriously by most climate scientists. The basic science is settled, the debate is in the detail. You might believe that you are not lying, but you certainly don’t know what you’re talking about. The problem is that the average TVNZ viewer might not be able to tell the difference.
Have some integrity Bryan, pay up.
You guys seem very keen to get $80,000 back in the public purse but not too worried about the $1.7 trillion spent on renewables that have had zero effect on net CO2 emissions. (this point remained unchallenged here)
Snort! Trying to impress facts upon those for whom the Daily Mail is a primary source of information is the real energy that can be sure to yield a ‘zero net effect’…
Leyland repeated his list of lies and switching words then complains:
Here is a word of advice for liars like Leyland, when caught telling lies do not repeat them it only makes you look even more dishonest than you were before.
You seem to have a bit of a track record for calling people liars Ian
I am still trying to find specifically which bits are lies. There may be points that we disagree on, but to call them lies doesn’t seem correct.
In fact, it is a lie
Claiming that Dave Frame agreed with him when Frame specifically said that he did not agree, for example. You don’t think that’s a lie? Interesting…
“The hiatus is interesting, if physically unsurprising ” Dave Frame
He agrees it exists but doesn’t think it is very important. He is entitled to his beliefs.
No lies then..
The “hiatus” is specifically defined in AR5 as a slowdown in the rate of warming, whereas you are claiming that warming has stopped altogether. Your position is not based on science, but on the denial of science.
When people have a track record of lying (and I include andyS in that list) I call them liars. If they don’t like to be called liars there is a very simple remedy, stop telling lies.
Ian, I may have misunderstood some particular piece of data or some graph or whatever, but I have never intentionally lied
So unless you have any proof that I or Bryan has lied about anything then I suggest you perhaps engage in some constructive dialogue
You might even enjoy it. Just a thought
WOW what more proof do I need than for you and Leyland to deny that you lie. You deny everything that you do not like. No wonder you are called deniers. Why don’t you actually provide evidence to backup your lies then they wouldn’t be lies, would they? Of course science deniers have no evidence to support their lies they just deny deny deny (ever notice how deny deny deny rhymes with lie lie lie?).
You have proof that I deny that I lie.
Can you write that out as a mathematical conjecture? The logic seems a little hard to follow in words.
andyS whines:
So you think that “unintentionally” lying is OK then? I’m afraid I don’t see the logic in that but I don’t have the advantage of your supposed education in maths and logic.
Another curious piece of logic from Ian Forrester
I have never set out to lie. If I made an error, then it was not intentional.
Do you actually have anything to do other than hang around on blogs and accuse people of lying?
Maybe write a paper on shrinking goats or similar.
Leyland is wrong again:
What we don’t like is people like him who think that “debating” means telling lies that anyone who has even a modicum of understanding of climate science can see through right away.
Smarten up Leyland and take a course in honesty and ethics.
Feel like I’m shouting at a brick wall. Is this form of deliberate stubbornness on Bryan”s part well known in NZ?
“I claimed that the world had not warned (in any statistically significant extent) for ~17 years. The UK Met office, Pachauri and David Frame agree with me.”
Um, no you didn’t claim the ‘statistically significant extent’. You stated the world had not warmed for xx years. Stop misrepresenting what you have said and written. That is called lying in anyone’s book.
And the UK Met Office, Pachauri and David Frame do not agree with you. Again, stop misrepresenting what people / organisations say.
“I pointed out that there was now a significant difference between predicted temperatures and recorded temperatures. This seems to be accepted.”
Um, no there is not a ‘significant difference’, and current temperatures are within the predicted temperature bands.
And no it is not ‘accepted’ – so again please stop misrepresenting what people / organisations say. Such deliberate misrepresentation is commonly thought of as ‘lying’.
“I pointed out that cooling is a possibility.” No, you did not. You stated – twice – that we are “entering a cooling period”. So here you have yet been caught out on a misrepresentation of the current science, so you have again changed your statement to misrepresent what you originally said. This is commonly called lying.
“So I am rather puzzled when people say that I have been telling lies.” Well, when someone piles misrepresentation – more than once – of what they originally stated, which statements were in themselves misleading and incorrect, then maybe the charge of deliberate falsehood is apposite?
“It is distressing that so many people on this blog are so hostile towards open debate and want to suppress any one who dares to say anything different from what they believe.”
No, I think they are distressed at the continued misrepresentation of the actual facts and data – including that which you yourself have written – by your good self.
No one is trying to ‘suppress’ anyone, despite your continued cry of victim-hood. They are simply asking you to not continually misrepresent the science, nor what you yourself write.
No one is hostile to open debate, as long as that debate is in good faith. Good faith does not happen when one side is continually ‘economical with the truth’, and keeps misrepresenting the facts and data, despite their errors and deliberate misrepresentations being repeatedly pointed out to them.
Open debate requires honesty on all sides. That is sadly lacking on your part.
Bryan, for the umpteenth time, heat = energy, whereas temperature parametrises the “average” (RMS) kinetic energy of system particles.
It is stupid, dishonest, and corrupt of you to try to pretend that the surface atmospheric temperature trend somehow parametrises the thermal energy of the entire system.
You are, of course, ignoring the heat required to melt ice and, much more importantly, heat going into the ocean.
All this has been explained to you many times, but your ideological blinkers are light years thick; you are so lost in your pathetic “David versus Goliath” monologue that you have lost touch with reality.
You are also in the pay of the real Goliaths here; the fossil fuel billionaires who use muppets like you to delay the inevitable move to a greener economy.
On that charity, Bryan, given that it was an “educational trust,” I’d be fascinated to know what activities it undertook apart from the court case. From where I’m sitting, it appears to have been set up specifically to take this case, and to protect the rest of the NZ Climate Science Coalition from being sued for the money afterwards. I really do hope NIWA sues you for the money – they have every right to get that back for the taxpayer.
As Gareth says, put up or shut up.
I have said everything I want to say.
From now on I will only respond to posts that do not include any aspect of personal abuse and actually relate directly to what I have said.
For instance, I understand the difference between heat and temperature. The models predicted temperature so that is what I use.
Global warming is about heat, Bryan.
Think about it this way; would you attempt to track your net worth by monitoring the coins you have in your pocket, whilst ignoring the value of your real estate?
If temperature is not relevant, why is this the measure that is used extensively by climate scientists as a metric for “global warming” and reported on by the IPCC?
Why do we have hockey sticks and the like that use temperature on one of their axes?
Is there some other way that heat energy is reported on that I am missing?
Because, Andy, atmospheric temperature is far easier to measure than, say, the current heat content of the ocean, plus atmospheric temperature records going back centuries exist, or can be inferred from paleo proxies.
Over the long term, the noise of heat moving between the various components of the Earth system becomes relatively less important, so atmospheric temperature improves as a parameter for heat in the system as a whole.
it is, of course, exactly that short-term noise that climate change deniers such as Leyland fixate on!
Well said Rob. Fitting analogy indeed.
Now that I’ve taken the time to watch the video, I thought it was great. The bumbling, memory lapses, and amateurish chart was cringe inducing TV at its finest. I can see why TVNZ pulled the video so quickly.
I would respectfully suggest that Bryan sticks to talking about his area of expertise, but after his recent misinformed comments on the Auckland power cuts, retirement would be a better option.
I just watched a piece on TVNZ on “twerking” and how this is the next health craze
I suggest that we all write to TVNZ via the links provided and encourage this kind of TV content
Bryan, your TV career was short and stellar, but we need to move with the times
Hey, Simon, it’s not all bad – there’s a nice shot of Bryan Leyland scratching his balls at 2.54…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3ZfutRL4Es
First time here . . . I’ve arrived via Watts Up With That, so I’ll probably burn in Hell.
I see by the comments that the whole warming debate has been revisited, probably for the umpteenth time. It’s like World War One trench warfare . . . nobody’s giving an inch. The debate also has a link to WW1 in that warmists are constantly bringing up their belief that “the science is settled” because “97 percent of scientists believe in it”. Well, 97 percent of generals in WW1 reckoned that the war would be “over by Christmas”. I guess they were finally right in 1918 . . . but they’d been saying this in 1914. And these generals were as eminent in their field in their day as “climate scientists” are in the present day. How could so many experts be wrong? Or, were they really as “expert” as they made out they were?
Anyway, forget the debate . . . that’s not going to be ironed out here. What got this Gareth guy’s underpants in a tangle should be the focus of our attention — that TVNZ dared to give four minutes (FOUR MINUTES!) to Bryan Leyland, a “denier”. An admitted “denier”! A proud “denier”! An arrogant “denier”! My god, TVNZ will have to answer for this . . . don’t they know they have to present the other side, the “official” side. And so on and so on.
Well, Gareth pal, you obviously missed TV One News on Monday night; the segment where they reported on the IPCC announcement. It was pure warmist propaganda from start to finish. Simon Dallow put on his grave face and slipped his voice down a cog to slower, deeper, edge-of-doom tone then, accompanied by images of spewing smokestacks, flooded cities, hurricanes, parched earth, open cast coal mines being dynamited, fields of nodding oil drills and storms battering the coast, read his piece with a delivery that would have been spot-on in 1942 when the Repulse and Prince of Wales had been sunk, Singapore had fallen and we were next in line to be overrun by the unstoppable Japanese Imperial Army.
Some local “scientist” was given free rein to spout his apocalyptic warnings, Russel Norman put the boot into the Government, the IPCC’s Pachauri popped up and said a few words, we were told Ban Ki Moon has made Global Warming his personal project and a few others did their “sky is falling” skits.
The thing ended with a farming scene, the camera moving in to close-up mode and showing, gasp, cracks in the ground.
Not one dissenting opinion was heard. The closest they got was part of the script mentioning that New Zealand’s carbon output was tiny; but that was brought up only to make the point that, per head of population, we are the fifth worst “polluters” on the planet.
As a Denier Grade 1, I didn’t froth at the mouth, I didn’t immediately call for heads to roll at TVNZ, I phoned no one, wrote to no one. I just shrugged my shoulders, uttered a quiet “meh” and got on with whatever I was doing (studying the Melbourne Cup form probably).
Here’s the thing: The TV One News approach is the default position for TVNZ. It is the default position for most mainstream media. Your side has the greatest band of boosters pushing the warmist cause for all that its worth. Deniers exist on scraps.
So next time our side gets a say, console yourself with the thought that the deniers are getting no more than five percent of the publicity, if that
And yet, you’re losing.
So I guess it’s no wonder you get all frothy.
The scientist you mentioned that was on TV news was Tim Naish, who made a comment that one in one hundred year storms might become annual occurrences.
I don’t know where this piece of knowledge came from, back of a fag packet perhaps
Unless you’re literally posting from another planet, Graphite, the correct phrasing is:
No doubt you believe that you and your descendants will somehow escape the consequences of the havoc our civilisation is wreaking on our biospheric life support systems, but reality will prove as indifferent to your fantasies, as it is to your ignorance.
I guess after the highly frustrating win of the right wing in the US midterm elections, humanities chances of progressing with reason towards saving ourselves and the planet have taken a hit. We will see further waves of the denier zombies aka Freitas, Leyland and Co and Tea Party nut cases rearing their heads in the public I suppose as the age of Stupid carries on. The Zombie analogy is pretty fitting. Bitten by the lies and the confusion they spread, further minds get infected and Zombidome is preserved.
An education system and responsible public media would be societies best defense. Sadly as the Lyeland appearance shows, editors are not up the challenge at present.
Judging by the comments on the tv one Facebook page, there are some seriously unsmart or uneducated people out there.
For example, some think that climate change was caused by nuclear testing in the pacific. Others think there is no ozone left in the atmosphere and therefore global warming is happening.
Not a great reflection of our education.
Still, we’re doing better than in Louisiana, Andy!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/21/obama-hurricane-katrina_n_3790612.html
Bear in mind that our president Barraco Bermer got his Nobel Peace Prize even before he started killing people with drones, so people can be easy confused.
This from a prominent UK engineer who has followed the debate:
“Bryan: I do not think burning you at the stake would achieve much except silencing an observer on the IPCC work.
Looking to other IPCC references on the internet one sees the many entries are headed with claims of inaccuracy or bias. It’s not difficult to conclude the IPCC is shooting itself in the foot.
The criticisms of you following your NZ TV appearance were deplorable, unworthy of scientists, and shame on those who joined in.
It’s a sad day when dissent cannot be aired without criticism becoming personal and vitriolic.”
Says it all I think.
How can he be “prominent” when we don”t even know who he is or what is qualifications in the area of climate science are?
More rubbish and disinformation from an AGW denier. Why can’t they be open, honest and transparent like they are always urging scientists to be even though in the majority of cases they are?
How can a woman be beautiful if we don’t know who she is?
So early in the day for these existential questions …
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder andy – so if we don’t know who/ he is – how can we assess their beauty?
This prominent engineer might indeed be a woman.
One must not jump to conclusions
I agree though, that beauty is a perceived attribute, as is prominence
Who is this engineer? Are you able to provide a name so we may examine their credentials for ourselves?
Based upon the evidence you provide (ie. none whatsoever) an outside observer may potentially conclude that this person does not exist. For all that we know you may well have written this quotation yourself.
The onus lies upon you to demonstrate otherwise.
Yes, shame on all those who have pointed out your lies. What has the world come to when a man can’t lie on TV without being criticised?
Yeah, and what’s so wrong with hiding behind a fake “charitable trust” so you can rip off the taxpayer? Isn’t that what prominent and respected engineers do all the time?
I am a bit conflicted about the problem here. Is the crime TVNZ giving Bryan Leyland four minutes (a whole FOUR MINUTES!) of air time? Or is it what Leyland had to say?
If it’s what Leyland had to say then I can’t see the problem for warmists. I didn’t see the piece but I imagine there was nothing new — the ammunition for debunking the prophets of doom has been well established for years now and you’ll all have heard it before.
Plus it gave the warmists here an opportunity to release a stream of froth and spit his way that would have been cathartic in the extreme. You should thank him.
Now as to propaganda, I’ve come across another example. The Listener of October 4-10 has a seven-page article entitled “Feeling The Burn”, written by Rebecca Macfie. This summarises the opinions of “author and activist” Naomi Klein on why “efforts to solve climate change are failing”.
Nowhere in the article is the possibility that the dangers of “climate change” have been overstated, that “climate change” may have nothing to do with mankind, that CO2 is a beneficial gas, or that millions upon millions, probably billions, spent subsidising such things as solar power and wind farms is money down the gurgler, money that could have been better used elsewhere.
An opposing viewpoint simply doesn’t get a look in.
Would Gareth complain to the Listener’s editor about this imbalance? Or does he climb on his high horse only when his side isn’t getting a fair go? And does he have any interest in free speech at all?
BTW: “Feel The Burn” is a front-page-featured article but gets just a fifth of the space allocated to “Does Your Body Sabotage Slimming?”
Perhaps there’s a cause for complaint. Get on to the Listener and tell them that the dangers of Global Warming far outweigh anything to do with weight loss.
Good one, Graphite.
The arguments by the AGW fans have become so vitriolically ad hominem that I had given up commenting. They apparently have infinite faith in their references, but cannot recognise opposing references unless one can quote the qualifications and probably the favourite food of the pet cats of the authors.
Probably the best course is to leave them to their beliefs, which may begin to get shaken a bit in 20 years when the cooling phase starts to show ever so slightly (nature’s cycles just won’t be rushed, no matter what we puny humans do).
Just a shame that several more trillions will be misdirected in the meantime.
Blah, blah, blah. Any actual points in response to Gareth’s case, gentlemen, or just the mediocre tone-trolling?
Like your fellow traveller andy, above, you really are only providing an object lesson in how you people routinely avoid contending with the substantive issues in favour of noisy demands that your ignorance must be held the equal of merely informed erudition, and absurd claims of persecution.
Here’s a tip, which you won’t embrace: 2014 may yet be the warmest year on record; squawking about how we’ll all be sorry in the ever-imminent ‘cooling phase’ only makes you look like fools, (which many a reader might think is a fair perception!)
bill
Anyone who believes, truly believes, in freedom of speech, believes that all sides of an argument must be heard. To have only one side heard is the stuff of totalitarianism.
There are plenty of things I like about living in New Zealand but none of them top the knowledge that no point of view — no matter how wacky or obnoxious I find it — will be heard.
Suppressing opinions is the stuff of totalitarianism; it has no place in this country.
I have no problem, absolutely none at all, in warmists lecturing the rest of us; I have no problem with them trotting out towers of intellect like Leonardo Di Caprio and Al Gore to push their case.
What makes my blood boil are calls for the state broadcaster to act as a censor on behalf of one group in a public discussion that should be as open as possible. I get mildly annoyed that TVNZ’s general position is as a mouthpiece for the warmist side (as in the Monday night TV One News item) . . . but only mildly as I also have faith in the general public’s good sense and ability to know when they’re being spun a line.
When one side in a debate calls for the other side to be silenced then they are giving out a clear sign that they are losing. If the warmist case is as strong as you believe it to be then you should be welcoming every statement by someone from the other side . . . if they are spouting nonsense then that surely will be picked up on by those listening.
I welcome every outpouring by the “experts” on your side. They are in a hole yet continue digging. And every time they make a prediction that comes to nothing — and there have been an untold number of those — another slice of their support base crumbles away.
Maybe I’m being idealistic, but you are should really be honest when you are on public TV. Granted that politicians often aren’t, but they at least are suitably vague enough that they don’t get caught out telling porkies.
I don’t think Bryan uttered a single sentence that was categorically true. He didn’t even have the decency to explain that his chart was reputedly about temperatures 10km above the surface, not at ground level. I doubt that Bryan was even aware of that himself.
We are talking about Breakfast TV here Simon
I am sure Dave Frame would love to appear on the show and talk about non-informative Bayesian priors. I would certainly vote for that. But you are dealing with people who read New Idea and The Listener so you can’t expect a lot of smarts
True story: I was asked last Friday if I was going on the Bayesian statistics course this week. I said that I would have gone had I known about it but I had no prior information.
I am more interested in posterior distributions. hence my interest int the twerking for exercise piece on TV recently
Graphite, far more is known about the science of global warming than is known about gravity.
For starters, we have a quantum theory of radiative physics that explains, to very high accuracy, how GHG molecules absob and emit IR radiation, but we hardly know where to begin a quantum theory of gravity.
Now, where I live, Council has strict regulations re the height and composition of deck and balcony railings, to protect people – particularly children – from falling to their injury or death.
Suppose, if you will, that Bryan Leyland was to appear on TV as a professional engineer, and announce that deck and and balcony railings are unneccessary, as gravity is an unproven theory, if not merely a conspiracy between “Newtonist” scientists, builders seeking to enrich themselves, and self-serving Council bureaucrats.
“Birds fly, with no fear of so-called gravity”, says Leyland, “and your children can too – tear down those railings, and set the little dears free!”
Are you a parent, Graphite? Would you be happy for that side of the “gravity debate” to be put, particularly if it was known that Leyland had accepted money from undertakers and wheelchair manufacturers?
Or would you decry Leyland’s nonsense as irresponsible, dangerous to public welfare, and corrupt?
Not only am I a parent, Rob, I am a grandfather. And I know how many beans make five.
I can also spot a straw man argument. Leyland wasn’t saying “deck and and balcony railings are unneccessary [sic]”, or anything like it. He was, if I understand correctly, discussing climate change. Let’s stick to that, eh? And your guy’s reaction to it.
When he was on TV discussing climate change (I’ve got the correct term, I hope — it keeps changing), Leyland apparently said some things that you and your pals disagree with. Nothing wrong with that. It would be a dreadfully dull world if everyone agreed with one another and there’s little doubt that forcing people to agree held back civilisation for centuries.
So, when Leyland has said his “disagreeable” things, what was your man Gareth’s reaction?
The first thing he did was call for TVNZ to practise censorship and liberally sprinkled his call with ad hominems. I quote: “In an appalling lapse of editorial judgement, TVNZ has given notorious Climate ‘Science’ Coalition propagandist Bryan Leyland four minutes of airtime this morning . . .”
I further quote: “Yes, that’s right, the nation’s public broadcaster presented a man way out on the crank fringe . . .”
There’s more: “But the biggest editorial lapse of all was the decision to put him on the show at all. . . . They must broadcast an immediate correction and apology . . .”
My field of expertise is not science or engineering. It is semantics. And a reaction of the kind your guy Gareth made causes me to have an equal and opposite reaction. I have an inbuilt automatic distrust of anyone who is absolutely convinced they are right and anyone who disagrees with them is deluded and dangerous and needs to be silenced. That is a trait of the demagogue.
I am also opposed to censorship. More demagoguery.
I stay out of the scientific side of the climate argument. I know enough to follow the science but I keep my opinions to myself.
But when the debate turns political, as it increasingly has over the past decade, then I’ll have my say. Luckily, a turning point seems to have been reached and more and more politicians are shaking themselves free of the influence climate change lobbies once wielded.
I read about this site on Watts Up With That and just thought I’d come over and lend a hand to a fellow realist.
And by the way, I’m too old to fall for guilt trips. When uttered by a warmist, “Think of the children” makes me laugh, nothing more.
Graphite, if you don’t know the difference between a straw man and an analogy, then you’re not much of a “semanticist”.
If you laugh at the thought of what climate change has in store for future generations, then you’re not much of a “grandfather.”
Finally, if you think that WUWT is anything to do with “reality”, then I have a bridge in Auckland that I’d be delighted to sell to you…
In a discussion concerning climate change you put up an argument about gravity. And you then put into your opponent’s mouth these words:
“Birds fly, with no fear of so-called gravity”, says Leyland, “and your children can too – tear down those railings, and set the little dears free!”
That quite clearly crosses the line from analogy.
You then accuse me, because I don’t share your views, of not being much of a “grandfather”. Do the quotes around the word grandfather signify anything? I assure you, I really am a grandfather. Quite a good one, too. My family seem to think so, the teachers at my grandson’s school seem to think so and others who know me and the boy seem to think so. I’ll go with their opinions over yours, thanks.
You have a bridge in Auckland, do you? It’s not the sort of thing I’d buy but if you were happy to purchase it then good for you. I hope you find a use for it.
As a grandfather I too take seriously the unravelling situation that my grandson and granddaughter will face during their lifetimes. I seriously ask you to thoughtfully read “Storms of My Grandchildren” by Dr James Hansen excellently reviewed here by Bryan some 5 years ago. http://hot-topic.co.nz/storms-of-my-grandchildren/
James Hansen really knows what he is talking about – unlike the commentators and posters at WUWT. He has spent his whole life studying the topic and has the education and knowledge to back up what he says. If you do nothing else – I beg you to read that book with an open mind and stay away from the senseless twitterings at WUWT. They are truly false prophets.
Graphite, you said, “When he was on TV discussing climate change (I’ve got the correct term, I hope — it keeps changing),”
I think it’s pretty clear from that remark that you are not very well informed about the reports of the IPCC. Did you know that it was set up in 1988 and that the CC in its name doesn’t stand for global warming?
Fellow realist? What a joke that description is. Leyland is an obnoxious ignoramus and is still retailing falsehoods. I am acquainted with some of the people who had to deal with his insulting lying slurs – whereas you clearly haven’t got a clue about what has happened in the NIWA-CSC matter. Everything Gareth said about him – and more – was fully justified. Go back to your antiscientific conspiracist home territory at WUWT.
Graphite, editorial competence would require to juxtapose the claptrap of any known shake oil seller with a competent rebuke by an expert in the matter.
All things considered, especially also after their lost ridiculous NIWA case and after running away from their fiscal obligations towards the taxpayer in the matter, surely anyone tarnished with such “reputation” would rank as a high risk person to allow in front of a camera on public TV without due editorial caution.
I agree that people should be given a say, but all things considered, messages that are uttered by incompetent people about important issues (such as health for example and certainly also climate science) should be framed appropriately. That is what a competent editor is payed for.
There is a reason nonsense is normally not published in scientific journals and if it is getting through, editors eventually loose their job, especially if they colluded with the authors for personal political reasons. The CF saga is an example.
Thomas, I have no idea what a “shake oil seller” is (a prince from Sandy Arabia, perhaps) so I’ll give your post a miss.
You sound like a nice fellow, though. Enjoy hanging out with your pals here.
I’m returning to where reality prevails.
“I’m returning to where reality prevails.”…. Haha, no Graphite, you certainly won’t. You have likely never been there, judging by your comments. And if you had, you probably did not notice.
“Shake” your Snake Oil then, perhaps you can find some takers elsewhere.
“Science adjusts it’s beliefs based on what’s observed. Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved.” (Tim Minchin: Strom)
“Science adjusts it’s beliefs based on what’s observed. Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved.”
This is spot on, Thomas (apart from the unwanted apostrophe in it’s — the humble ‘pos seems to be your weak point).
There’s the corollary: “If your computer models don’t match your observations, your computer models are wrong.”
“If your computer models don’t match your observations, your computer models are wrong.”
The fact is that the observations DO fall within the parameters of the computer models – so the computer models are right. You may have missed this graphic referred to by Rob Painting above – but it is highly instructive and gives the lie to the meme “the models are wrong” http://skepticalscience.com//pics/Schmidt2014.gif
Its your silly little friends at WUWT who tell you that the observations don’t match the modelling. They are spreading lies, and you are a fool to believe them. If you don’t believe me then go with an open mind to here:
http://web.archive.org/web/20100322194954/http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/01/13/models-2/
Models don’t need to be exact in every respect to give us an accurate overall trend and its major effects – and we have that now. If you knew there were a 90% chance you’d be in a car crash, you wouldn’t get in the car (or at the very least, you’d wear a seatbelt). The IPCC concludes, with a greater than 90% probability, that humans are causing global warming. To wait for 100% certainty before acting is recklessly irresponsible.
Graphite: You get an A in Grammar for spotting the apostrophe. (I am not the only one as the Minchin quote is often spelled wrongly though…)
But for the rest of it, Marco got a good handle on it I see. Fool is appropriate.
Graphite, when was the last time you took your belief system to task, threw all the silly prejudices you hold out, and actually started looking at the evidence bit by bit before forming any belief or opinion on the matter?
@Macro
Storms of My Grandchildren is on my reading list; right after Das Kapital but before Mein Kampf.
What do you reckon? Right slot?
Well having read both of the above – I would give Mein Kampf a miss.
You are obviously a bigger fool than I gave you credit for!
When did you last open your mind?
So, nothing beyond the tone-trolling and semi-hysterical claims of persecution then?
Remind me again, which side of this debate has NASA, NOAA, NIWA, the CSIRO, the BoM, the Met Office, and all the world’s Academies of Science on it?
To my mind, and clearly in the minds of many others, your cronies have every bit as much right to appear unchallenged on a national broadcaster in the guise of credible authorities as do homeopaths, 9-11 truthers, moon-landing conspiracists, iron-sun cranks, believers in the ether, anti-vaxxers, dowsers, and creationists, (in many instances a strongly intersecting set, as it transpires).
These other minorities also loudly proclaim that public complaint about their dubious elevation is also an insidious ‘silencing’ motivated by a ‘fear of The Truth’ and evidence of Stalinism, but I simply don’t agree. You’ve already had far more attention than you deserve, and if you hadn’t been backed by some of the world’s wealthiest – and most reactionary – vested interests we’d hear about as much from you as we do from the others. It’s that simple.
Good on you, bill. You’ve pretty much proved my point.
Oh, you say you have a point? That’s another area where we can only disagree…
I for one am fed up with the endless stream of nonsense from the resident tone troll AndyS. As for the laughable claims of silencing from some quarters, the NZ media I monitor show a massive bias towards “sceptics”. The SquawkZB network consistently pushes the viewpoint of the business right, and showcases ignoramuses like Leighton Smith. The substantial majority of letters published in The DomPost and NZHerald newspapers are from “sceptics”. As for weather forums – there’s a large collection of cranks whose sole mission is to promote their nonsense. As for Leyland, he blusters because he has been cornered and feels obliged to keep promoting falsehoods – perish the thought that he could admit to being wrong, with the taxpayer footing the bill.
I for one am fed up with the endless stream of nonsense from the resident tone troll AndyS.
That is very unfortunate. I had no idea I was a “tone troll”.
I thought a “tone troll” was someone who pretended to care and sought out balance
That isn’t me pal
That’s a concern troll. You’re a generic troll.
At least some useful self reflection then Andy:
“That isn’t me pal” [someone who pretended to care and sought out balance]
At least we agree once more on something then…. 😉
CO2 enhancement
This paper http://www.co2science.org/subject/l/summaries/ltsourorange.php
shows that for an increase in CO2 from 400 to 700 ppm there is an initial growth spurt followed by a partial drop to a steady level where growth is about 80% better than the control. The experiment lasted 180 months.
“not only were there many more oranges produced by the trees in the CO2-enriched chambers, many more better-quality oranges were produced.”
“The ultimate finding of this endeavor was an 80% increase in intrinsic water use efficiency in response to the 75% increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration”
CO2 is really good stuff!
Read and digest…
Don’t bother shooting the messenger….
Gosh, Bryan, the climate change scamster behind co2science.org appears to get more moola from the Koch-funded Heartland Institute than you do – doesn’t that make you jealous?
http://www.desmogblog.com/craig-idso
Desmogblog, the site funded by a convicted money launderer?
Desmogblog, is a site that, among other matters, reveals the hidden monetary connections between rich right wing oil barons and their pseudo scientist sham “institutes”, which are paid to deliver punch lines for the likes of yourself to regurgitate with the aim to confuse the minds of the public. The perhaps colorful history of one of its founders makes no difference whatsoever to the facts it publishes.
Oh and we would all love to suck the juice of CO2 enhanced oranges. Just a pity they also need water to grow, and lots of it, which, thanks to the climate when CO2 is at 700ppm, is unlikely to be available to the plantations. Already, California’s central valley is running on empty, and this is just the beginning….
http://news.yahoo.com/california-drought-dust-bowl-040440797.html
Oh and BTW at 700ppm of CO2, what do you think Mr. Leyland, will the pH level of the oceans have come to?
Oh well Bryan, when we reach 700ppm you will likely be 6 feet under. Our children’s generation however will probably kick your image (and that of the other figures in your circle of deniers) with their feet. Nice legacy.
That wouldn’t be an ad hom by any chance would it Andy? Shame on you.
No it is not an ad hom. It is a statement of fact
Fact and relevance are two entirely different matters. Confusing [deliberately] some fact with relevance is one of the hallmarks of straw men builders and “confusionists”…
Bryan, please note I am not shooting the messenger. Just questioning their understanding of ‘science’.
You do realise the difference between science, as published in peer-reviewed literature, and opinion dressed up as pseudo–science published on blog posts?
One is science, the other is simply opinion. The two generally do not meet.
CO2Sceince.org is simply a website, run by the Idso’s, and it not regarded as scientific by the majority of scientific opinion. The ‘papers’ – as you call them – published on it’s site are not considered credible science.
It has also been sponsored in the past by Exxon Mobil deliberately to cloud the waters over the science of climate change.
You do realise this don’t you? The difference between credible science and blog posts?
You’re an engineer, so I take it you that when you help design those renewable hydro schemes of yours that you rely on the latest scientific, technical and engineering data, all of which based upon sound technology, principles and data?
Or do you simply look up some stuff on the web, maybe a blog post, which has a methodology that does not conform with the recognised standard engineering principles as you know and understand, and simply go “Oh, I’ll try that method”?
And would you sink your own money into a scheme whose technology and engineering is based upon ‘information’ that is at odds with your own hard-earned and innate engineering knowledge?
Please note I am not shooting the messenger, just questioning their understanding of validity and credibility of what is published on the web.
Yes I think we understand the difference between a blog post and a peer reviewed paper.
The blog post references a peer reviewed paper
Idso, S.B. and Kimball, B.A. 2001. CO2 enrichment of sour orange trees: 13 years and counting. Environmental and Experimental Botany 46: 147-153.
wow! references a peer reviewed paper! The question is – how accurately?
Sorry andy – but you do see the difference don’t you?
I couldn’t comment. Tomatoes and oranges are not my field
I am into goats these days
Is that how you keep fit, Andy?
If you wish to read about CO2 fertilisation, then CSIRO have some info here:
http://www.csiro.au/Portals/Media/Deserts-greening-from-rising-CO2.aspx
Yes, I think we understand the difference between genuine science and fossil fuel funded disinformation. The fact that you leap so quickly to Bryan and the Idso’s defence shows quite well which side your bread is buttered.
It is a bit of a problem that Idso’s work is listed on John Cook’s 97% consensus isn’t it?
Citation, please.
Humm no expense spared “Briefly, eight sour orange trees…”
“The trees have been fertilized and flood irrigated similar to practice in commercial orchards so as to maintain ample nutrients and soil moisture.” and there’s the rub: the simple explanation for improved production from the CO2 enhanced atmosphere trees is that with an abundance of water and all nutrients except CO2 then CO2 becomes the limiting factor in growth. The question is whether in real life, it will be possible to maintain ample nutrients and soil moisture?
What really hacks me off is that Bryan quotes some work from some distinctly dodgy individuals who do shonky research whilst being totally ignorant of the world-leading work in this country, e.g. David Whitehead at the University of Canterbury. Elevated CO2 level can radically change plant physiology. In theory, elevated CO2 will increase plant growth but other limiting factors then come into play.
Liebig’s Law of the Minimum comes into play pretty soon after you leave the greenhouse, but that’s rather inconvenient for the likes of Bryan, so we’d better hush that up or else Bryan will end up looking pretty silly. Oops, too late.
The best analogy I could find for when two ideologically opposed factions get together and try to sort their differences through rational argument and mutual respect:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3X_KyqGf3w
For the uninitiated John key and his cronies are the ones at the climate helm.
[Snipped. Bryan, your commenting here is only tolerated because you are the subject of the post. My patience does not extend to you spamming the comments with tripe. If you wish to comment further, please first explain how you plan to pay the $80,000+ you owe NIWA. GR]
Gareth,
Censoring of very relevant article is typical of your behaviour. Anything that you do not agree with it, automatically, untrue.
As I have already explained, NIWA are the architect of their own misfortune. We did everything we could to try and find out why they had made adjustments to the New Zealand temperature records. They refused to cooperate but they did have to admit that they had no documentation or peer reviews or anything related to Jim Salinger’s record. So much for their quality control! So they had to abandon his record.
We offered to work with them on a new record and they refused. The new record was not properly peer-reviewed and was not in accordance with the Rhoades and Salinger paper that it claimed to have followed. We continued to do everything we could to discuss the whole matter with them and they flatly refused.
Not censorship. Just a requirement that you abide by HT’s comment policy.
Your version of the NIWA story is complete bollocks.
And you still haven’t answered my question. Why have you welched on your debt to the NZ taxpayer, and abused a charitable trust? When will you pay up?
Tell it to the Judge, Bryan… ooops, you already have, and it did not go well for you, did it?
IMHO, you are either pathologically delusional, or a hardened conman; either way, your credibility – and that of your fellow scamsters – is zero.
You offered to work with NIWA? What could you collectively hope to contribute with your strong internal biases and flawed elementary statistics skills?
It’s akin to me offering to help you build an hydroelectric power station, I would be worse than useless.
Replete with falsehoods.
‘…and then the invisible pixie people offered to spread a protective enchantment over all the NIWA weather stations, but they refused, and the meanies wouldn’t let our climate elves in to tinker with their spreadsheets, either. So, you see, we had no choice but to set the trolls on them…’
What a bizarre – and predictably self-exonerating – account!…
Bryan, an article in the Australian newspaper – which is so ridiculously biased towards climate skeptics that a scientist used to run a blog called “The Australian’s War on Science”
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/category/the_war_on_science/
– is not ‘very relevant’ to this discussion at all.
The fact that it is written by the well known climate skeptic Maurice Newman – who has advocated investigating the Australian Bureau of Meteorology’s methodology, because he doesn’t agree with the results – makes it even less relevant to this discussion.
The fact that it is the usual farago of cherry picked codswallop that characterises his pieces in The Australian, makes me seriously question – again – your understanding of what is actually ‘science’, or at least sceintific research.
Opinion pieces, in anti-scientific publications, by non-scientists, which seriously misrepresent the facts to present a false picture, are not ‘science’.
It is just opinion, and totally irrelevant to a discussion on ‘science’.
So it is not surprising that such ridiculousness gets snipped, because it is absolute tosh. It’s not censorship, it’s limiting the discussion to real relevant material.
Bryan
A journalist has investigated some of the claims in Newman’s article in The Australian. And not surprisingly found that in it:-
“Newman misrepresents the latest IPCC study, misquotes experts, pushes debunked studies, claims the Scottish Government commissioned a report that it likely never actually commissioned and rounds off by putting his faith in an internet poll that was gamed by climate sceptics.”
The article is here, if you care to read it:-
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2014/nov/07/playing-whack-a-mole-with-australian-advisors-climate-change-myths
Now, do you really want to discuss how such a ridiculous piece of misrepresentative, misleading and downright dishonest drivel is relevant to this thread?
Simon, you would not necessarily be useless helping me with a hydropower station. In my experience it is not unusual for a very good suggestions to come from people from outside one’s field of expertise. They ask the sort of questions that never entered your head but, when considered with an open mind, are very relevant.
As I travel around the world looking at hydropower schemes I am amazed by the number of bad designs that result from this sort of groupthink. For instance, most spillway gates on hydropower dams are extremely unreliable yet no one in the hydropower industry is taking this seriously. I am working very hard to change this attitude. It has the potential to kill hundreds of thousands of people.
Here’s the latest science on ice sheet melt; again, Leyland is so far off-base that he’s “not even wrong”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TB5ZUnps9k8&
As for Graphite’s love affair with Watts Up with That, here’s an evidence-based site that deliciously debunks each new “theory” from Watt’s coterie of cranks:
http://blog.hotwhopper.com/
This blog has left me more terrified than I have ever experienced. And no it is not because I have been convinced of AGW because I am one of the few outside the cognoscenti to actually see the code/comments for working GCM models and I know they are broken. But here on this blog I have seen the vicious vile spite and sheer hatred that this blind and unquestioning belief in computer models has spawned and it scares me more than any Islamic extremists, nuclear winter or Armageddon virus ever has.
Do not bother replying, I will not login or reply to this “blog” again.
Oh, the humanity!
Such a pity that you had to leave before referencing what “broken code” in which “GCM”…
BTW, for anyone interested, here’s a great book on climate modelling:
http://www.amazon.com/Vast-Machine-Computer-Politics-Infrastructures/dp/0262518635/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1415415877&sr=1-1
” I am one of the few outside the cognoscenti to actually see the code/comments for working GCM models and I know they are broken.” Yeah Right!
Such an assertion requires proof.
In what code are they written?
How is it broken?
What difficulties do you have with the coding?
These would be good starting points.
Nothing but an empty vessel making a lot of baseless noise I think.
Since icedvolvo is perhaps gone to remove ice from his windshield passer byes may enjoy reading about models versus observations:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-models-intermediate.htm
and in case the icedvolvo is simply rehashing crap he found at Roy Spencer: Here is a little story on how the denier “magicians” manipulate the data to defend their silly beliefs:
http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2014/02/roy-spencers-latest-deceit-and-deception.html
So, “Grandad” Graphite, there’s this strange guy across the road who wants to f**k your granchildren – what are you going to do about that?
http://www.salon.com/2014/11/07/mitch_mcconnell_feels_a_deep_responsibility_to_block_climate_action/
Is this another attempt to skewer me with an analogy, Rob?
It’s a bit too grubby for my tastes so I’ll give it a miss, thanks.
I will, though, say this about organisations such as the EPA. In virtually all cases they are set up with the best of intentions but over time are captured by groups with an axe to grind. They are also prone to come under the sway of empire-builders and tend to stray into areas beyond their original brief.
They need to be kept on a short rein by the people’s elected representatives.
Now I realise that, to you, Republicans taking control of the Senate is a nightmare come true. But I’m guessing they put their policies before the American public, as the Democrats also did, and the people decided.
And that’s the way it should be.
Indeed, Graphite, the “people” decided – that is, if you count wealthy corporations as people, and their unlimited money as speech.
In this country, we’d call that corruption, but, over there, they just call it “campaign contributions”, which sure have been a good investment for the fossil fuel pollutocrats!
There are still a few not afraid to speak truth to power, however; maybe Bryan Leyland could land a TV interview with this guy:
Are you saying, Rob, that the election was rigged? That people were paid to vote a certain way? That returning officers were bribed?
Wow! This is dreadful news.
I didn’t follow the election all that closely but I did have an eye on it and haven’t seen any reports of this. I read the online edition of the New York Times fairly regularly and I can’t recall that paper mentioning any vote rigging. The NYT is pretty much a mouthpiece for the Democrats and I’d have thought they’d have been all over it.
It’s either a major lapse on their part or, maybe, something that exists only in your imagination.
A question: if control of the Senate can be bought so easily, why isn’t it permanently in the hands of the GOP?
A nice collection of straw men, Graphite; perhaps you have never heard of SCOTUS and Citzens United?
Or how the myth of “voter fraud” is used to suppress the vote of the poor and the young, Hispanics and African Americans?
Or of the 40,000 voter registration forms from black neighbourhoods in Georgia that went “missing” prior to the election?
Or of “The New Jim Crow”, or of the removal of millions of identifiably black, Hispanic or Asian names from electoral rolls in states with Republican governors?
If you’d like to educate yourself (yeah, right!), here are some links to get you started:
http://www.salon.com/2014/10/20/ruth_bader_ginsburg_destroys_gops_lie_why_voter_id_is_the_rights_new_poll_tax/
http://www.gregpalast.com/gop-led-purge-threat-to-3-5-million-voters/
http://www.npr.org/2012/01/16/145175694/legal-scholar-jim-crow-still-exists-in-america
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120097/40000-missing-voters-georgia-are-unlikely-regain-their-ballot
Finally, the fact that both the Democratic and Repuplican parties are in thrall to the “1%” is obvious from the money spent by both sides. The latest mid-term election cost $4 billion, most of it sourced from defence contractors buying endless war, bankers buying their way out of jail, and fossil fuel companies buying their way out of carbon regulations.
The world is a horrible place in your eyes, isn’t it. The climate is corrupted, science is corrupted, the political process is corrupted — your list is no doubt endless.
Well, I’m going to make it slightly better. I’m logging out, never to return.
It’s been fun but can’t go on forever. I feel sorry for Dave Frame, the only “believer” to appear on here with a sense of proportion.
The rest of you are a sad bunch, indeed.
Graphite, I would rather live in the real world, with all of its uncomfortable and inconvenient truths, than in the Panglossian fantasy the likes of you and Bryan Leyland appear to inhabit. Only through understanding it, can we hope to change things.
For example, you say you read the New York Times – perhaps you missed the article, “Plutocrats against Democracy”, by a Nobel Prize-winning economist?
Regarding the Stephen Colbert part of your post, Rob, you are aware of the format of his show?
It’s an offshoot, I believe, of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart or is, at least, from the same stable.
These shows are satirical in nature and heavily biased toward the left. Their stock in trade is poking fun at Republicans. They make no attempt at balance – and neither do they have to as their point of view is well established.
That English guy featured on TV One News the other night poking fun at John Key raising a debate about the New Zealand flag is another offshoot. It’s not meant to be taken seriously.
Occasionally they’re funny but not often enough for me to watch them.
I can understand, though, you thinking it was a serious news show. It ridiculed a Republican and from what I’ve gleaned you have no sense of humour. Put those two together and you’ve got yourself a quotable source.
“Many a true word is spoken in jest”
Oh! it’s meant to be taken seriously all right.
The sad fact is that people like Inhofe, such as yourself, end up as objects of mirth because if you take them seriously they are are far too depressing.
Wow, I had buried my head in the sand so far, trying to deny the bad news….. Pop goes the bubble…. this is all to depressing!
The Republicans are as bad as we knew they were and the people of the USA will again be ruled by the uneducated Machiavellian brutes they obviously so desire…. Good luck America, you will need it!
Sadly the effects of climate change are global. Otherwise one could simply watch the US turn into a dust bowl, until their electorate wakes up and throws the dumb – dumber – dumbest brigade out of Washington.
It slowly sinks in, that the great filter (Fermi Paradox) may indeed be the inability of a competitive and semi intelligent species as ours to survive the mass extraction of energy from chemical compounds found in the crusts of their respective planets. What a dumb idea in the first place anyway! Doing chemistry en’mass in the very ‘laboratory flask’ you live in without knowing and respecting the consequences……. argh….
Don’t be silly, Thomas. The US isn’t going to turn into a dust bowl – according to Hansen and his acolytes, the seas are going to rise 25 metres and flood the joint. It’ll be a mud bath. Quite a different thing altogether.
Don’t be silly, Graphite, the US is a large continent, with plenty of room for interior dustbowls and coastal flooding; plenty of misery to go around, at least for those not living in gated communities in Aspen.
Mind you, smoke from the wildfires may get in their eyes…
I’m pretty sure Thomas had “the US” – which I took to be the entire US – turning into a dust bowl. No mention from him of part dust bowl, part mud bath. And I’m certain the US isn’t a continent . . . you might be thinking of North America.
I had forgotten about the wildfires, though. Every misfortune can be sheeted home to Global Warming. Not sure what the story is with beautifully fine sunny days . . . they must come about by pure accident.
Do try to keep up, Graphite; it’s John Stewart on the Daily Show, the “English guy” is John Oliver on Last Week Tonight, and you are, I’m beginning to think, a PR flunky and professional troll.
By now you must all have realised that I am quite wrong about the safety of spillway gates. After all, the consensus of the experts is that they are safe and, as the experts are a substantial majority, they must be right.
Any gates that happened to fail was because the operators did not do their maintenance properly. There is no doubt that the designer has no responsibility to provide them with the simplest and most reliable system possible. (This is exactly what several senior hydropower engineers have told me.)
So, lie back and relax! You have even more proof that I’m a crank.
Let us not even think about the several thousand people who have died as a result of the Machhu 2 dam because some of the the spillway gates failed to open and the dam washed away.
On the same theme, you should not consider the hundreds of thousands of people who are likely to suffer electricity shortages this year and will havie to make a difficult decision on whether they should eat or heat because they do not have enough money to do both. All the subsidised windmills and solar farms that are causing their electricity costs to increase enormously will, one day, (maybe) bring huge benefits to their grandchildren. Provided of course, that their parents do not die of cold or starvation.
Wow, a veritable school of red herrings being pursued by straw men… a not uncommon sight, however, in this part of the internet jungle.
Please stick to your spillways then Mr. Leyland, people will have no issue with a spillway expert telling how the matters stand with, err, spillways….
Just please stop thinking you have anything at all of value to say on matters of climate change and for your own sake, just please stop appearing in public places or the internet digging holes for yourself and your mates.
And please don’t be to upset if NIWA was unwilling to spend time teaching you and your fellowship of seekers of the Grail (Monty Python comes to mind) a thing or two about climate matters and simple laws of physics. Tertiary education is not free in this country and if you seek to learn about these things, just enroll in an appropriate course at one of our universities. Its never to late to learn they say!
Unfortunately you took NIWA to court as they failed to pay attention to the nonsense you dished up. You lost the case in court through all instances and as a consequence are still owing us (the tax payer) a significant sum in cost and damages. A debt from which you crawled away like a rat that had its tail bitten of by a cat.
I am sorry to hear that some people out there might by now call you a “right old twit”. The evidence seems to suggest however, that these people might have a point don’t you think?
BL – “All the subsidised windmills and solar farms that are causing their electricity costs to increase enormously will, one day, (maybe) bring huge benefits to their grandchildren.” Enormous increase in electricity costs you say? Care to elaborate, as we do not have enormous incentives for onshore wind in the UK. Quite big ones for offshore admittedly, but then you don’t have any off shore wind power in NZ, and your onshore wind incentive is a lot less than the UK.
Our experience in the UK is that gas prices go up, Electricity prices go up sharp. Gas prices fall and electricity prices (belatedly) fall. Claims that onshore wind is pushing people into poverty are the preserve of liars like Chris Heaton-Harris the liar.
So with NZ having no offshore wind and whatever (if any) incentive you have for onshore wind being lower than the UK, other than petulant invective, what is your justification for claiming that wind and solar cause enormous increases to power costs?
We used to have a Leyland – BL in the UK too. By the time of its demise it was a byword for shoddy and out of date products, seeming to revel in a reactionary niche of determinedly not keeping up with events or rectifying the chronic faults of their slipshod efforts. They eventually ran out of sufficient loyal customers of tired old bangers to keep going, but no doubt there is still a small core of certifiable enthusiasts. Perhaps there is something in this nominative determinism.
Actually I am a expert in power systems analysis. I couldn’t design an spillway to save myself…
I know much more about computer modelling..
“I couldn’t design an spillway to save myself…” Oh! But you obviously don’t mind running around telling people who do design spillways that they got theirs all wrong and that we will all drown in due course……. sounds vaguely familiar!
Perhaps next you form the “Spillway education trust” and sue the pants of spillway designers… 😉
This is getting more ludicrous by the hour.
“Lie: an assertion of something known or believed by the speaker to be untrue with intent to deceive” Merriam Webster
Gareth, I believe that everything I have said is true and I have never had any intent to deceive. I have provided evidence to back up what I said. The fact that you won’t accept it does not change the facts or automatically make me a liar.
I request that you remove all references to me telling lies from the website or, alternatively, provide evidence that would stand up in a court that I knew what I said was untrue and I intended to deceive.
ROFL – nice example of a Freudian slip, Bryan!
Now, what about the $90,000 you owe me and the other taxpayers for your failed vexatious and incompetent High Court action against NIWA??
Bryan, given that what you said on TV One was untrue (and if I thought giving you chapter and verse would in any way persuade you to change your mind, I would do it like a shot), and that you have been told here and elsewhere (many times, many, many times) that what you are saying is wrong, then you cannot be unaware of the falsity of the statements you are making.
Also, as a founder member of the NZCSC, and a man with a long track record of proselytising against climate science, it could be argued that you have made it your mission to deceive the public and politicians.
So I will alter nothing in the above post, or in any of the other posts at Hot Topic dealing with your tawdry little propaganda campaign.
And if you are really threatening me with legal action – in a typically slimy and pathetic manner – then you can get lost. I imagine you’ll be forming a charitable trust to bring the case, so you can avoid the consequences when you lose.
That’s your last post here until you’ve paid up the $80,000+ you owe NIWA.
Talk about hyprocrisy! FYI, Bryan, under NZ law, there are three defences to a defamation charge, all of which would apply here:
1. The claim is true (as you are, indeed, a bare-faced liar and confabulator);
2. The claim is an honestly-held opinion (IMHO, you are a pathological liar, paid by the fossil fuel industry to deny and obfuscate the damage they are doing to both the biosphere and our democracy);
3. The claim is made in a politcal context (you are a public figure involved in a politcal campaign to deny, etc).
So, it looks like it’s three strikes and you’re out, mate!
Plus: in order to suffer damage to your reputation, you first have to have a good reputation.
Above Bryan Leyland said:
This clearly is not true. And from the fact that you were part and parcel of the silly law suit against NIWA and have dealt with this matter in great detail, one must necessarily conclude that you are fully aware of your above not being true. In your own definition: You would yourself conclude that your were lying.
Some Evidence:
From 2006, well before your silly legal action, this statement from NIWA about your quest:
http://www.niwa.co.nz/news/clarification-nz-climate-science-coalition-claims-regarding-nz-temperature-trends
And here a website from NIWA from 2010, again before your legal action:
http://www.niwa.co.nz/news/niwa-stands-its-scientists
And especially also, from 2010, a complete analysis of why and how the temperature data were adjusted to accommodate moved stations is on the NIWA website for all to see and read:
http://www.niwa.co.nz/our-science/climate/information-and-resources/nz-temp-record/seven-station-series-temperature-data
This for NIWA not cooperating with you or for their methodology not being subject to peer review.
And for anyone wanting to have another read of the judge Venning’s decision against you and the “Coalition” in the case against NIWA, here you can download it again:
http://img.scoop.co.nz/media/pdfs/1209/NZ_Climate_Science_v_NIWA.pdf
Thomas,
Thousands of people are at risk because of unsafe spillways. I care for them: you don’t.
Google “Problems at Kariba” http://www.news24.com/Africa/News/35m-in-danger-as-Kariba-Dam-faces-collapse-20140320
“Nkulukusa said another problem was caused by the spillway that was no longer opening and closing automatically to maintain the required water levels.”
I warned about this in the 1980s.
Well, Media Watch on Radio NZ National did a critique of it this morning. Apparently there are 44 complaints to the Broadcasting Standards Authority which TVOne Breakfast will need to deal with.
The podcast is at: mwatch-20141109-0909-mediawatch_for_9_november_2014-048
Congratulations for Radio New Zealand Mediawatch team for again dealing with it! They also acknowledged hot-topic!
If this holds up then the only people allowed to discuss scientific matters in the media will be people who have peer reviewed papers in the literature.
For,example, de Freitas, Dedekinds and Brill on NZ surface temp
The really great news for me, though, is that we won’t have to listen to Russell Brand anyone. He doesn’t have any relevant degrees or experience in political revolution.
Parklife.
No Andy, people may well be invited to speak on matters they confabulate about without the depth of insight, knowledge or honesty to back their ramblings up. All sorts of people appear in the public media and it is just fine in our democracy to give them a voice.
However, and this is where responsible editors must take heed, such ramblings (as in Leyland) need to be framed by the editor as what they are: The private opinion of a person and a person perhaps with a grudge or simply a crank. And the case of Leyland, who is a well known climate crank and who owes the public substantial amounts for his failed quixotian quest against NIWA, the editors should have framed his contribution accordingly. Evidently TVOne failed in this regard and likely failed to uphold the standards under which they are deemed to operate. Simple as that.
Under new laws proposed in the UK, Bryan could be prosecuted under “extremism disruption orders” for even posting his views online, never mind TV, so be careful what you wish for
http://reason.com/archives/2014/11/08/britain-poised-to-silence-extremist-spee
Andy, I do not support the proposed British law and you did not read what I said. Otherwise you would have not made this silly straw man argument about an overreacting British law.
Read my comment above again.
Tsk, tsk, Thomas. Don’t you realise that the right to lie on TV is one of the fundamental human rights? Goodness me, if everyone who went on TV had to speak the truth, it would be the end of civilisation as we know it. Bryan passionately believes that action on climate change would be a Bad Thing, therefore it is his fundamental right to make up all sorts of crap, because, reasons. Just like old andy can make up shit to say that wind turbines are bad, because you know, they are. Take away the right to lie, and it’s just like Nazi Germany.
I didn’t suggest you supported the British law. Maybe my comment got lost in translation
That is what I said: ” All sorts of people appear in the public media and it is just fine in our democracy to give them a voice.”
The real question is why TVNZ chose to interview Bryan Leyland on this climate science topic. He is not a climate scientist and the biased views of him and others in the NZ CLimate Science Coalition are well known. I don’t believe that TVNZ selected him by accident or journalistic incompetence. I just don’t believe that they are that dumb at TVNZ. So why did TVNZ select Leyland for this interview? Are they deliberately seeking to mislead the public? Or is controversy more important than accuracy or balance?
I tend to notice who is advertising.
This is modern television. Controversy in current affairs is their bread and butter whether it be real, imaginary, or, if necessary, manufactured.
Yes – having just returned from North America – it was astounding just how much time was spent on Ebola. I’m not saying it isn’t an important issue, but almost every hour of everyday on some networks was spent in whipping up fear.
Back home I never watch the stuff. TVNZ, in particular, is far too facile to even bother.
Yes, Macro, fear is very useful to elites, as it encourages compliance in the general population and tends to make voters more conservative, as well as delivering more eyeballs to advertisers.
In truth, fear is the gift that keeps on giving.
Personally, I’m old enough to remember a panoply of demons who became allies, and allies who became demons: Germans, Japanese, Russians, Communists, Vietcong, Chinese, Mujahaddin, Saddam Hussein, Iranians, Al-Queida, ISIS, Khorasan and – no doubt – many more to come.
http://www.salon.com/2013/12/29/chomsky_governments_are_power_systems_trying_to_sustain_power/
The States in particular is a country living in fear.
You could almost feel it – the moment you get to the border until the time you leave. Drugs, Disease, Terrorists, all out to get them. They have to be on their guard the whole time. If it wasn’t Ebola, or Drugs, it was terrorists, and the IS. The fact that the Right have gained seats in Congress and Senate is totally understandable given the climate of fear under which these people live. It is, of course, a false hope, and I do not look forward to the final outcome in the years to come when the people wake up, throw off their fear, and realise that those in whom they placed their trust betrayed them.
“Fear is the root of all evil”
It is true today just as much as it was when the phrase was coined. Forgot whom it is attributed too.
From Hitler to any dictator you name, to ISIS to “The Establishment”: Fear is the prime lever with which power is wielded over the common people.
I note Brian is not the first Leyland to be less than reliable!
From Wikipedia, apparently due to a poor build quality and reliability issues sales for the P76 Leyland were well below expectations and as such it was considered the greatest failure in the history of the Australian automotive history.
The complaint I made wasn’t upheld. 🙁