[Vision2020] The green hijack of the Met Office is cripplingBritain

[Paul Rumelhart]

I agree with this.  Pollution is a cause I can get behind.  Conservation 
of resources I can also get behind.

Classifying CO2 as a pollutant, I cannot, though.  But I am for reducing 
real pollution that is causing known harm to ourselves and the environment.

Paul

Andy Boyd wrote:
> Try this analogy.
> Would you let the exhuast from your car be piped into your house?
> I imagine the answer is no for obvious reasons.
>
> the earth is the home to all humans and of course all life.
>
> the stuff we pump into the atmosphere is not good whether it is causing 
> climate change or not.
>
> It would seem prudent to limit this as much as possible...
>
> Andy Boyd
> Manager/Education Coordinator
> Moscow Recycling
> 208 882 0590
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Joe Campbell" <philosopher.joe at gmail.com>
> To: "Paul Rumelhart" <godshatter at yahoo.com>
> Cc: <vision2020 at moscow.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, January 05, 2011 2:17 PM
> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] The green hijack of the Met Office is 
> cripplingBritain
>
>
> Suppose you're right -- which I don't believe -- that the data is
> flawed and that the belief in global warning is completely irrational.
> What follows? Does it follow that we can't use the beliefs of global
> warming theorists as a basis for passing laws that restrict behavior?
> Is your view that laws must be based on scientific evidence that is
> absolutely certain?
>
> Now maybe this is something I can wrap my head around! If this is your
> view than you should be completely against laws based on moral or
> religious beliefs. Is that your view? That laws should be based on
> reason and evidence and nothing more? Again, this is an attitude I can
> agree with.
>
> Now if you don't think there is anything wrong with, say, someone
> passing a law on the basis of a personal religious belief, then what
> does the issue of scientific evidence have to do with the global
> warming agenda? Why does science and evidence matter here when it
> comes to policy decisions but not elsewhere, not in fact EVERYWHERE
> else? What is so special about this particular issue that it needs
> scientific evidence to support it or it should be ignored altogether?
>
> Again, I think the evidence is there -- or enough of it at any rate.
> But at the very least there is a lot more evidence that CO2 emission
> is causally related to a rise in world temperature than that gay or
> lesbian unions are harmful to the moral and social fabric of the
> country, so harmful that they should be prohibited. Not that the right
> to marry whomever you damn well please is as important as the "right"
> to drive whatever you damn well please, but I'm just saying.
>
> On Wed, Jan 5, 2011 at 6:00 AM, Paul Rumelhart <godshatter at yahoo.com> wrote:
>   
>> It's not like I'm tearing through intricately detailed publications 
>> looking
>> for anything at all that might be wrong with their rock solid research,
>> finding maybe one in a dozen spelled something wrong.
>>
>> Looking at an increase in CO2 from 280 to around 390 ppm made me wonder 
>> how
>> big of an effect that could actually have. I mean, for each million
>> particles of air, we're throwing out 110 nitrogen molecules (dropping it
>> from 780900 to 779790 or whatever) and adding in 110 CO2 ones. That lead 
>> me
>> to look at greenhouses.
>>
>> Learning about the greenhouse effect as a practical thing (i.e. how does 
>> an
>> actual greenhouse heat up it's air), the glass holding the air in place 
>> does
>> far more than CO2 does to warm it.
>>
>> Of course, it's a big planet, and small changes over time can affect
>> climate. How do they compare to natural processes, still not understood?
>> We're coming out of an Ice Age, and locally we are recovering from the
>> Little Ice Age (at least we were, until they tried to get rid of the LIA 
>> and
>> the Medieval Warm Period with their Hockey Stick). CO2 is probably helping
>> this along, but how much? Nobody seems to know, because nobody is looking
>> at natural processes with the same fervor they are looking at CO2.
>>
>> Looking into global climate models made me immediately skeptical for a
>> variety of reasons about their conclusions. It turns out they aren't 
>> trying
>> to model the physics and seeing how close it matches the real world, they
>> are assuming that global warming is happening and are modeling scenarios
>> based on that assumption. All these models are worthless, because they
>> don't model clouds, which have much more of an effect than CO2 does.
>>
>> Looking at the temperature record led me to surfacestations.org which 
>> showed
>> me that quality control is not their highest priority. Continually 
>> watching
>> historical measurements be adjusted every fricking month made some alarms 
>> go
>> off. No where can you find the original data, before any adjustments, nor
>> can you find anything about how they are doing their adjustments. What
>> procedure are they using? What experiments have they conducted to verify
>> them? All I see is a slow movement towards increasing the recent temps and
>> downplaying any earlier higher temps. It's crazy.
>>
>> Looking for quantified amounts declaring what CO2 increases will bring led
>> me to the IPCC's own numbers. Given no feedbacks, expect an increase of
>> about 1.2C for a doubling of CO2 from pre-industrial times. So how do we
>> get those catastrophic scenarios? Assume massive positive feedbacks. More
>> and more research is coming in from the field showing smaller positive or
>> negative feedbacks in nature on-going, but does that get the climate
>> modelers to change their model inputs? No.
>>
>> I could go on, but what's the point? You choose to believe some guy in a
>> white smock that has "scientist" emblazoned on his lapel. Hell, there are
>> very few people out there that even have a bachelor's degree in climate
>> science, because it's so new of a field.
>>
>> In answer to your question about what's different about climate as 
>> compared
>> to medicine, car mechanics, etc, here is what is different:
>>
>> Climate, by definition, requires decades of measurements just to get a
>> baseline. It's similar to the geological sciences in this regard. It's
>> horribly complex, because it's basically the aggregate of weather, which 
>> is
>> the field that inspired the development of chaos mathematics. So many
>> things are affected by so many other things that modeling it reliably is
>> still a few decades off. You can't easily do experiments in the climate
>> sciences that can really be finished before your career is over, 
>> especially
>> if you are incorporating new measurements that have no history 
>> before-hand.
>> Pharmaceutical researchers might have to wait a few years for the results
>> of a study. Car mechanics can take the damn thing apart and physically see
>> what is happening. Climate scientists might have to wait decades for their
>> results to come back. That's why they rely on modeling so much - without a
>> time machine, your options are greatly limited. Also, climate science is
>> young. Almost nobody was doing it before the 1970's. That's around 40
>> years in a science that measures things on decadal time scales.
>>
>> So, with the money-changers frothing at the mouth over a carbon credit
>> scheme and politicians looking for any excuse to take over control of how
>> much energy people use, I don't think that "trust us, we're scientists" is 
>> a
>> reasonable approach to take at this point in time.
>>
>> Not that I expect anyone to agree with me.
>>
>> Paul
>>
>> Joe Campbell wrote:
>>     
>>> The man point is if you apply this same level of skepticism toward
>>> anything, it will lose. We can't know anything for certain. If certainty 
>>> is
>>> the standard, you shouldn't believe anything. End if story.
>>>
>>> It's the perfect approach for maintaining irrational beliefs that can't 
>>> be
>>> sustained with a more realistic method, one that asks which among a set 
>>> of
>>> options is best. (On this matter, check out Wilson's own skeptically
>>> inspired epistemology.)
>>>
>>> Nonetheless not all beliefs are equal. So pardon me if, in the case of
>>> empirical beliefs, I side with the folks who are in the best position to
>>> know: the scientists who are trained to study climate. Pardon me if I 
>>> ignore
>>> your misuse of skeptical reasoning since it would undermine anything you 
>>> had
>>> to offer as well.
>>>
>>> My method, on the other hand, works for you too when it comes to 
>>> medicine,
>>> car mechanics, and most other areas. If there is something different 
>>> about
>>> the climate you've been unsuccessful in showing what it is. What is it?
>>>
>>> In matters empirical, our best bet is to listen to those with the most
>>> training. Not perfect, as you'll continue to note, but reasonable.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Jan 4, 2011, at 9:30 PM, Paul Rumelhart <godshatter at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>       
>>>> Joe Campbell wrote:
>>>>
>>>>         
>>>>> Speaking if which, I still say the anti-climate change rhetoric is much
>>>>> worse than the climate change rhetoric. Yet you (Paul) never mention 
>>>>> it.
>>>>>
>>>>>           
>>>> Because they aren't the ones in a position of power trying to foist some
>>>> kind of carbon credit scheme on us. Yes, there are plenty of kooks in 
>>>> the
>>>> "climate deniers" camp. People who have jumped on the political 
>>>> bandwagon
>>>> because it feeds into their prejudices and is another bone of contention
>>>> with their favorite enemies. I didn't join this camp, I simply started
>>>> looking at things a little closer, without an approved list of ideas to
>>>> follow sanctioned by the IPCC.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>         
>>>>> Also, you can't draw ANY conclusions from bad rhetoric. It is a fallacy
>>>>> to say "This is an invalid argument, so the conclusion must be false."
>>>>>
>>>>>           
>>>> Sure. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. That doesn't mean that
>>>> I should give any more credence to the truth of a statement arrived at
>>>> through bad rhetoric than I would any other random, unproven statement.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>         
>>>>> The issue is, given everything we know what is the best course of
>>>>> action?
>>>>>
>>>>>           
>>>> In my opinion, we've jumped too quickly to the stage where we think we
>>>> have it all figured out. Which is ludicrous for such a soft and hard to 
>>>> pin
>>>> down field as climatology, where experiments can and probably should 
>>>> last
>>>> decades. So, I think we should put more money into the "other side" of 
>>>> the
>>>> issue. That is, what role does natural variation play? The climate is
>>>> effected to X% by CO2. What about the 100-X% that's left? How big is X,
>>>> exactly? This is hard to argue for when asking for money, though, 
>>>> because
>>>> there is no one to blame and no way to fine Mother Nature into slowing 
>>>> down
>>>> on the warming. We might just learn a bit more about climate as a whole,
>>>> though, if we didn't look at it so one-sided.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>         
>>>>> Status quo loses when you look at things this way. Changes should be
>>>>> made for economic and environmental reasons. The real debate is how 
>>>>> much
>>>>> change, and of what type?
>>>>>
>>>>>           
>>>> I'm not a big fan of "do something, anything!". It's just as easy to
>>>> perform the wrong actions as it is to perform the right ones. We're not 
>>>> in
>>>> danger of death by heat exhaustion in the next few years, so let's take 
>>>> the
>>>> time to do this right. Let's multiply the number of temperature and 
>>>> other
>>>> sensors world-wide by, say, 5. Let's get a crap-ton more ocean 
>>>> temperature
>>>> sensors, and lets go out on the ice and measure the polar caps 
>>>> precisely.
>>>> Antarctica, too, while we're at it. Let's get every single temperature
>>>> station in the world to save their raw, unadjusted readings (historical 
>>>> and
>>>> current) in a place that is publicly available. Lets put CO2 sensors all
>>>> over the world, in every kind of habitat, and let's measure exactly how 
>>>> much
>>>> CO2 is taken in and produced over the year. Let's use the money that the
>>>> rich bastards were going to use to buy carbon credits to fund it, if we 
>>>> have
>>>> to.
>>>>
>>>> Every time I look into this closer, I start to see the men behind the
>>>> curtain pulling the levers and pushing the knobs more clearly.
>>>>
>>>> Paul
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>         
>>>>> On Jan 4, 2011, at 4:40 PM, Ron Force <rforce2003 at yahoo.com
>>>>> <mailto:rforce2003 at yahoo.com>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>           
>>>>>> Paul,
>>>>>> You do know that the Daily Telegraph is the UK's equivalent of Fox
>>>>>> News? Consider the source.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I wonder if climate change would have become a such political football
>>>>>> if Al Gore hadn't become a spokesperson? Suppose George Bush 
>>>>>> had...Naaaaaah!
>>>>>> Ron Force
>>>>>> Moscow Idaho USA
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>> *From:* Paul Rumelhart <godshatter at yahoo.com
>>>>>> <mailto:godshatter at yahoo.com>>
>>>>>> *To:* Vision2020 <vision2020 at moscow.com 
>>>>>> <mailto:vision2020 at moscow.com>>
>>>>>> *Sent:* Tue, January 4, 2011 11:32:00 AM
>>>>>> *Subject:* [Vision2020] The green hijack of the Met Office is 
>>>>>> crippling
>>>>>> Britain
>>>>>>
>>>>>> There was an article in the Telegraph last week that I think
>>>>>> underscores the problems that the climate change community has with
>>>>>> overconfidence. I've posted that article below.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I think the proponents of the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis
>>>>>> have been suffering from a case of having blinders on. If you look at 
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> history page on the IPCC website
>>>>>> (http://www.ipcc.ch/organization/organization_history.shtml), you'll 
>>>>>> find
>>>>>> that their role as they describe it is to "assess on a comprehensive,
>>>>>> objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and
>>>>>> socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific 
>>>>>> basis of
>>>>>> risk of *human-induced* climate change, its potential impacts and 
>>>>>> options
>>>>>> for adaptation and mitigation." Note that their role as they see it is 
>>>>>> to
>>>>>> look at human-induced climate change ONLY.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Dr. Roy Spencer, a climate change "denier" whose blog I often follow,
>>>>>> states in one blog entry:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> "Twice I have testified in congress that unbiased funding on the
>>>>>> subject of the causes of warming would be much closer to a reality if 
>>>>>> 50% of
>>>>>> that money was devoted to finding /natural/ reasons for climate 
>>>>>> change.
>>>>>> Currently, that kind of research is /almost non-existent/."
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Anyway, here is the article mentioned in the subject
>>>>>> (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/8223165/The-green-hijack-of-the-Met-Office-is-crippling-Britain.html):
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Paul
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The green hijack of the Met Office is crippling Britain
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The Met Office's commitment to warmist orthodoxy means it
>>>>>> drastically underestimates the chances of a big freeze, says
>>>>>> Christopher Booker
>>>>>>
>>>>>> By Christopher Booker
>>>>>> <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/> 
>>>>>> 8:00AM
>>>>>> GMT 26 Dec 2010
>>>>>>
>>>>>> By far the biggest story of recent days, of course, has been the
>>>>>> astonishing chaos inflicted, to a greater or lesser extent, on all of 
>>>>>> our
>>>>>> lives by the fact that we are not only enjoying what is predicted to 
>>>>>> be the
>>>>>> coldest December since records began in 1659, but also the harshest of 
>>>>>> three
>>>>>> freezing winters in a row. We all know the disaster stories – 
>>>>>> thousands of
>>>>>> motorists trapped for hours on paralysed motorways, days of misery at
>>>>>> Heathrow, rail passengers marooned in unheated carriages for up to 17 
>>>>>> hours.
>>>>>> But central to all this – as the cry goes up: “Why wasn’t Britain 
>>>>>> better
>>>>>> prepared?” – has been the bizarre role of the Met Office.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> We might start with the strange affair of the Quarmby Review. Shortly
>>>>>> after Philip Hammond became Transport Secretary last May, he 
>>>>>> commissioned
>>>>>> David Quarmby, a former head of the Strategic Rail Authority, to look 
>>>>>> into
>>>>>> how we might avoid a repeat of last winter’s disruption. In July and 
>>>>>> again
>>>>>> in October, Mr Quarmby produced two reports on “The Resilience of 
>>>>>> England’s
>>>>>> Transport System in Winter”; and at the start of this month, after our 
>>>>>> first
>>>>>> major snowfall, Mr Quarmby and two colleagues were asked to produce an
>>>>>> “audit” of their earlier findings.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The essence of their message was that they had consulted the Met
>>>>>> Office, which advised them that, despite two harsh winters in 
>>>>>> succession,
>>>>>> these were “random events”, the chances of which, after our long 
>>>>>> previous
>>>>>> run of mild winters, were only 20 to one. Similarly, they were told in 
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> summer, the odds against a third such winter were still only 20 to 
>>>>>> one. So
>>>>>> it might not be wise to spend billions of pounds preparing for another
>>>>>> “random event”, when its likelihood was so small. Following this 
>>>>>> logic, if
>>>>>> the odds against a hard winter two years ago were only 20 to one, it 
>>>>>> might
>>>>>> have been thought that the odds against a third such “random event” 
>>>>>> were not
>>>>>> 20 to one but 20 x 20 x 20, or 8,000 to one.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> What seems completely to have passed Mr Quarmby by, however, is the
>>>>>> fact that in these past three years the Met Office’s forecasting 
>>>>>> record has
>>>>>> become a national joke. Ever since it predicted a summer warmer and 
>>>>>> drier
>>>>>> than average in 2007 – followed by some of the worst floods in living 
>>>>>> memory
>>>>>> – its forecasts have been so unerringly wrong that even the chief 
>>>>>> adviser to
>>>>>> our Transport Secretary might have noticed.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The Met Office’s forecasts of warmer-than-average summers and winters
>>>>>> have been so consistently at 180 degrees to the truth that, earlier 
>>>>>> this
>>>>>> year, it conceded that it was dropping seasonal forecasting. Hence, 
>>>>>> last
>>>>>> week, the Met Office issued a categorical denial to the Global Warming
>>>>>> Policy Foundation that it had made any forecast for this winter.
>>>>>> Immediately, however, several blogs, led by Autonomous Mind, produced
>>>>>> evidence from the Met Office website that in October it did indeed 
>>>>>> publish a
>>>>>> forecast for December, January and February. This indicated that they 
>>>>>> would
>>>>>> be significantly warmer than last year, and that there was only “a 
>>>>>> very much
>>>>>> smaller chance of average or below-average temperatures”. So the Met 
>>>>>> Office
>>>>>> has not only been caught out yet again getting it horribly wrong 
>>>>>> (always in
>>>>>> the same direction), it was even prepared to deny it had said such a 
>>>>>> thing
>>>>>> at all.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The real question, however, is why has the Met Office become so
>>>>>> astonishingly bad at doing the job for which it is paid nearly £200 
>>>>>> million
>>>>>> a year – in a way which has become so stupendously damaging to our 
>>>>>> country?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The answer is that in the past 20 years, as can be seen from its
>>>>>> website, the Met Office has been hijacked from its proper role to 
>>>>>> become
>>>>>> wholly subservient to its obsession with global warming. (At one time 
>>>>>> it
>>>>>> even changed its name to the Met Office “for Weather and Climate 
>>>>>> Change”.)
>>>>>> This all began when its then-director John Houghton became one of the
>>>>>> world’s most influential promoters of the warmist gospel. He, more 
>>>>>> than
>>>>>> anyone else, was responsible for setting up the UN’s Intergovernmental 
>>>>>> Panel
>>>>>> on Climate Change and remained at the top of it for 13 years. It was 
>>>>>> he who,
>>>>>> in 1990, launched the Met Office’s Hadley Centre for Climate Change, 
>>>>>> closely
>>>>>> linked to the Climatic Research Unit in East Anglia (CRU), at the 
>>>>>> centre of
>>>>>> last year’s Climategate row, which showed how the little group of 
>>>>>> scientists
>>>>>> at the heart of the IPCC had been prepared to bend their data and to
>>>>>> suppress any dissent from warming orthodoxy.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The reason why the Met Office gets its forecasts so hopelessly wrong 
>>>>>> is
>>>>>> that they are based on those same computer models on which the IPCC 
>>>>>> itself
>>>>>> relies to predict the world’s climate in 100 years time. They are 
>>>>>> programmed
>>>>>> on the assumption that, as CO2 rises, so temperatures must inexorably
>>>>>> follow. For 17 years this seemed plausible, because the world did 
>>>>>> appear to
>>>>>> be getting warmer. We all became familiar with those warmer winters 
>>>>>> and
>>>>>> earlier springs, which the warmists were quick to exploit to promote 
>>>>>> their
>>>>>> message – as when Dr David Viner of the CRU famously predicted to The
>>>>>> Independent in 2000 that “within a few years winter snowfall will be a 
>>>>>> very
>>>>>> rare and exciting event”. (Last week, that article from 10 years ago 
>>>>>> was the
>>>>>> most viewed item on The Independent’s website.)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> But in 2007, the computer models got caught out, failing to predict a
>>>>>> temporary plunge in global temperatures of 0.7C, more than the net 
>>>>>> warming
>>>>>> of the 20th century. Much of the northern hemisphere suffered what was
>>>>>> called in North America “the winter from hell”. Even though 
>>>>>> temperatures did
>>>>>> rise again, in the winter of 2008/9 this happened again, only worse.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The Met Office simply went into denial. Its senior climate change
>>>>>> official, Peter Stott, said in March 2009 that the trend towards 
>>>>>> milder
>>>>>> winters was likely to continue. There would not be another winter like
>>>>>> 1962/3 “for 1,000 years or more”. Last winter was colder still. And 
>>>>>> now we
>>>>>> have another even more savage “random event”, for which we are even 
>>>>>> less
>>>>>> prepared. (The Taxpayers’ Alliance revealed last week that councils 
>>>>>> have
>>>>>> actually ordered less salt this winter than last.)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The consequences of all this are profound. Those who rule over our
>>>>>> lives have been carried off into a cloud-cuckoo-land for which no one 
>>>>>> was
>>>>>> more responsible than the zealots at the Met Office, subordinating all 
>>>>>> it
>>>>>> does to their dotty belief system. Significantly, its chairman, Robert
>>>>>> Napier, is not a weatherman but a “climate activist”, previously head 
>>>>>> of
>>>>>> WWF-UK, one of our leading warmist campaigning groups.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> At one end of this colossal diversion of national resources, 
>>>>>> permeating
>>>>>> every level of government, we have the hapless Mr Quarmby, who feels 
>>>>>> obliged
>>>>>> to follow the Met Office and advise that the present freeze is a 
>>>>>> “random
>>>>>> event” and calls for no special responses – with the results we see on 
>>>>>> every
>>>>>> side. At the other, fixated by the same belief system, we have our 
>>>>>> Climate
>>>>>> Change Secretary, Chris Huhne, hoping we can somehow keep our lights 
>>>>>> on and
>>>>>> our economy running by spending hundreds of billions of pounds on 
>>>>>> thousands
>>>>>> more windmills.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> More than once in the past week, as our power stations have been
>>>>>> thrashed way beyond normal peak power demand, the contribution of wind
>>>>>> turbines has been so small that it has registered as 0 per cent. (See 
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> website for the New Electricity Trading Arrangements: Google “neta
>>>>>> electricity summary page”, and find the table of “source by fuel type”.) 
>>>>>> At
>>>>>> the heart of all this greenie make-believe that has our political 
>>>>>> class in
>>>>>> its thrall has been the hijacking of the Met Office from its proper 
>>>>>> role.
>>>>>> It’s no longer just a national joke: it is turning into a national
>>>>>> catastrophe.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> =======================================================
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>>>>>> http://www.fsr.net
>>>>>> mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
>>>>>> =======================================================
>>>>>>
>>>>>>             
>>>       
>>
>>     
>
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