Ive tried writing more but cut it 'cos it sounded dangerously like a Gwyneth Paltrow Oscar acceptance speech .
My badge of honour from the Deny-o-sphere !
Hmmm Looks like it's time to upload a new avatar 'cos I've been caught in the spotlight of contrarian cartoonist Josh . Josh's previous three targets were Dr Gavin Schmidt, Dr Kevin Trenberth and President Barack Obama so I am in good company. Thank you Josh.
Ive got to say no one actually reads this blog normally but thanks to a link from Bishop Hill my hit rate has gone up like a hockey stick.
Ive tried writing more but cut it 'cos it sounded dangerously like a Gwyneth Paltrow Oscar acceptance speech .
Ive tried writing more but cut it 'cos it sounded dangerously like a Gwyneth Paltrow Oscar acceptance speech .
Adventures in the Deny-o-sphere
Been upbraided by Andrew Montford for calling his website the deny-o-sphere. "Hengist" writes the man who styles himself Bishop Hill and whose followers address him as Your Grace "I discourage use of terms like denier and ecofascist. That includes variants like denialsphere and so on. Please don't - it just makes the threads deteriorate." Trouble is the thread has already deteriorated from the get-go, Montford called mainstream science the warm-o-sphere in his original post.
All in the context of the Lisbon Conference on Reconciliation I have posted
What an utter sham. It's supposed to be a conference on reconciliation , yet what gets discussed is why mainstream scientists don't attend. A mainstream scientist (Dr Schmidt) has been decent enough to give his reasons and that gets interpreted by tallbloke who passes it on to the press (Pearce) and it's the main story coming out of the so-called "conference on reconciliation". There's no reconciliation going on here, it's really a conference (funded by fossil fuel according to Eli) between a few skeptics and deniers who put together a cheap stunt to discredit Dr Schmidt . A lot of time is wasted but please don't pretend this is anything to do with science or indeed reconciliation.
None of that has been refuted but I've had to deal with an army of the Bishop's trolls taking me on on such matters as big oil funding and the protocol of the word denier. A saturday afternoon spent on the deny-o-sphere seems wasted. But hang on, my complaint that Bishop Hill is using an assymetric argot goes unanswered. The deniers are basically dishonest because they paraphrase to their advantage. The thread is here if anyone cares. I am entirely unrepentant, I have been told by one commenter to 'sling your hook'. So much for reconciliation.
All in the context of the Lisbon Conference on Reconciliation I have posted
What an utter sham. It's supposed to be a conference on reconciliation , yet what gets discussed is why mainstream scientists don't attend. A mainstream scientist (Dr Schmidt) has been decent enough to give his reasons and that gets interpreted by tallbloke who passes it on to the press (Pearce) and it's the main story coming out of the so-called "conference on reconciliation". There's no reconciliation going on here, it's really a conference (funded by fossil fuel according to Eli) between a few skeptics and deniers who put together a cheap stunt to discredit Dr Schmidt . A lot of time is wasted but please don't pretend this is anything to do with science or indeed reconciliation.
None of that has been refuted but I've had to deal with an army of the Bishop's trolls taking me on on such matters as big oil funding and the protocol of the word denier. A saturday afternoon spent on the deny-o-sphere seems wasted. But hang on, my complaint that Bishop Hill is using an assymetric argot goes unanswered. The deniers are basically dishonest because they paraphrase to their advantage. The thread is here if anyone cares. I am entirely unrepentant, I have been told by one commenter to 'sling your hook'. So much for reconciliation.
What I didn't say in my email to the President of Peru
Having just read John Vidal's latest post in the Grauniad I see that the uncontacted Amazonian tribe story is in the news again. I find it fascinating , so I click on the link to Survival International and email the President of Peru as they ask, and I urge you to do too. Ive added my name to a standard mesage that goes like this
President Garcia: Oil drilling and logging in uncontacted tribes' territories could wipe the Indians out. Please protect these peoples' right to live in peace and security – stop the loggers and oil companies from entering their land.
But it occurs to me there is so much more to be pondered. Our civilization could learn something from them. They have developed independently from us in a similar environment yet entirely outside the support of human civilization. Our civilization spends billions looking for extra terrestrial intelligent life yet here is intelligent life on our own doorstep that is about to be decimated by loggers and oil prospectors. You might accuse me of being a yoghurt eating, sandal wearing, woolly minded liberal, but there are potential benefits to mankind that risk being destroyed. The bark of the Peruvian cinchona tree for example provided the cure to malaria. I have to suggest the casual destruction of these peoples raises more ugly questions about the philosophy of our so-called civilization than would be comfortable. So please email President Garcia too.
President Garcia: Oil drilling and logging in uncontacted tribes' territories could wipe the Indians out. Please protect these peoples' right to live in peace and security – stop the loggers and oil companies from entering their land.
But it occurs to me there is so much more to be pondered. Our civilization could learn something from them. They have developed independently from us in a similar environment yet entirely outside the support of human civilization. Our civilization spends billions looking for extra terrestrial intelligent life yet here is intelligent life on our own doorstep that is about to be decimated by loggers and oil prospectors. You might accuse me of being a yoghurt eating, sandal wearing, woolly minded liberal, but there are potential benefits to mankind that risk being destroyed. The bark of the Peruvian cinchona tree for example provided the cure to malaria. I have to suggest the casual destruction of these peoples raises more ugly questions about the philosophy of our so-called civilization than would be comfortable. So please email President Garcia too.
What's newsworthy and what isn't?
Here are two stories from today's news. One is hugely important and has implications that we can't quite foresee. The other is frankly spurious. I want to talk about the spurious one. Why O why does the media use off air off the record statements to make a story? I don't condone the remarks made by the two Sky Sports commentators but surely a person in the media is allowed to vent his (or her) spleen. It reminds me of the "bigoted woman" remark made by Gordon Brown . History may say it cost GB the election, but I say that episode was indicative of how the media has a stranglehold on rational thought. Brown lost votes because of an off the record private conversation. Personally I'd prefer a Prime Minister who spoke his mind , rather than an Eton boy who can spin the hind legs off a donkey.
Thud!
Andrew Montford's The Hockey Stick Illusion lands on my doormat. I've bought it because there are a couple of points I want to look up. Does Montford display any moral anchorage whilst prying into other people's emails? There's nothing in the intro to the relevant chapter. Perhaps it's to be found elsewhere in the book but first impressions indicate Montford seems to think it's fair game to read whatever one likes into other people's private correspondence.
Dissing the peer reviewed work of Mann et al is Montford's stock in trade so I'm curious to read why Montford's work hasn't been peer reviewed . I've recently cribbed this PDF from Sense about Science which says "Peer review is an essential dividing line for judging what is scientific and what is speculation and opinion. Most scientists make a careful distinction between their peer-reviewed findings and their more general opinions." Andrew Montford disagrees by omission . A passage entitled So what is peer review for then? makes no reference to this crucial distinction, instead drawing attention to famous scientific work that wasn't peer reviewed. The passage closes with "Yet peer review is the only oversight there is of the validity of the scientific case for catastrophic manmade global warming and on this flimsy basis governments make far reaching policy decisions that affect everyone and will continue to affect our children for decades into the future." Hmmmm, if only there were an ounce of truth in Andrew Montford's words.
Dissing the peer reviewed work of Mann et al is Montford's stock in trade so I'm curious to read why Montford's work hasn't been peer reviewed . I've recently cribbed this PDF from Sense about Science which says "Peer review is an essential dividing line for judging what is scientific and what is speculation and opinion. Most scientists make a careful distinction between their peer-reviewed findings and their more general opinions." Andrew Montford disagrees by omission . A passage entitled So what is peer review for then? makes no reference to this crucial distinction, instead drawing attention to famous scientific work that wasn't peer reviewed. The passage closes with "Yet peer review is the only oversight there is of the validity of the scientific case for catastrophic manmade global warming and on this flimsy basis governments make far reaching policy decisions that affect everyone and will continue to affect our children for decades into the future." Hmmmm, if only there were an ounce of truth in Andrew Montford's words.
Deniers find timetravelling IPCC errors
Poor Fred Singer seems to be stuck in a timewarp. He's been asked by one Larry Bell to write a foreword for his new book on scientific corruption, climategate, politics of power, you know the usual guff . In the context of the IPCC S Fred tells us : "For example, the 1966 report used selective data and doctored graphs".
Not bad for an organization established in 1988. Any chance of supporting evidence for that claim Fred?
Needless to say the timetravelling IPCC errors are being copied and pasted all over the web. I found it in Forbes magazine, but it appears to have been pasted in to the ironically titled Real Science website too . Oooo here's another one. Copy editing vacancy going at Climate Realists too.
Not bad for an organization established in 1988. Any chance of supporting evidence for that claim Fred?
Needless to say the timetravelling IPCC errors are being copied and pasted all over the web. I found it in Forbes magazine, but it appears to have been pasted in to the ironically titled Real Science website too . Oooo here's another one. Copy editing vacancy going at Climate Realists too.
My You Tube video
A case study showing how the work of climate scientists has been distorted by the mainstream media.
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