Sunday 29 November 2009

350

On 24 October, people in 181 countries came together to speak with one voice on the most urgent issue of our times: the climate crisis. Through http://www.350.org, people in every corner of the planet coordinated the most widespread day of environmental action in the planet's history. At over 5200 events around the world, people gathered to call for strong action and bold leadership on the climate crisis. By the days end, it was clear: people of all kinds in just about every place on earth are calling for a fair, ambitious, and binding global climate treaty.

Of course, there are also still far too many numbskulls who think everything will be all right, like latter day Annies chanting “the sun’ll come out tomorra – bet your bottom dollar…”

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

So Nick, what are your thoughts on the recently exposed emails which appear to suggest some of the world's most respected climate change scientists have been deliberately manipulating climate change data?

Nick Palmer said...

A storm in a tea cup. If you read the interpretation, by the denial industry and the over-eager "sceptics", then I am not surprised that some people have been led to jump to the belief that manipulation (black hat type) has taken place.

A colossal number of emails and documents (169 megabytes worth - by comparison, the Bible is only about 4 megabytes!) were stolen, going back almost 13 years, and those the deniers are muddying the waters with are a very few emails mostly from one individual (Professor Phil Jones - who is taking a temporary leave of absence to allow independent investigators to examine the details of the hacking break-in).

Firstly, the denialists have tried to portray the emails as evidence that some data had been withheld. Over 95% of the station data has been published for ages and is freely available. What remains is apparently still "copyrighted" by the relevant climate monitoring stations worldwide and the University simply has not got permission to release it yet. This is not "covering up" info!

The denier/delayer/inactivists have made a lot of noise about the lack of respect shown to certain highly maverick scientists in some emails. Are they surprised? They should thank their lucky stars they don't see some of the stuff I have written about them. They winge about lack of respect? I think these people are not worthy of respect - they are mad, bad, irresponsible or dangerous to know - prejudiced, evil or just plain breathtakingly thick. In fact I think they are stupider than that - they are actually negatively intelligent and, if their garbage viewpoint convinces too many suckers, they will eventually be seen by history as responsible for the most dramatically criminal consequences of anything humanity has ever done. The few sceptic scientists are simply playing into the deniers hands so will share any blame.

On tonight's (Thurs 3rd) Newsnight they had Benny Peiser, a very well known sceptic/denier, to argue the case of how diabolical the "Climategate" was. It demonstrated quite clearly how deceptive the denier lobby is and how their prime modus operandi is to muddy waters and manoeuvre for delay.

While arguing how damaging the emails allegedly are, Peiser actually confirmed what he has said before.

from wikipedia:
Benny Peiser

"I do not think anyone is questioning that we are in a period of global warming. Neither do I doubt that the overwhelming majority of climatologists is agreed that the current warming period is mostly due to human impact. However, this majority consensus is far from unanimous".

My point is that loads of NON-CREDIBLE deniers are manically and loudly questioning that we are in a period of warming. They are bonkers, thick or so prejudiced that they can no longer see or understand anything other than what they want to see or hear.

Their multiple errors of logic or comprehension have been repeatedly demolished and yet like the mythical Greek Hydra that kept on growing a new head each time one was cut off, their arguments keep resurfacing, simply because they know that they very easily fool the general public. They are so often so stupid etc that they do not realise that the credible sceptic scientists that they so frequently quote - such as Pielke or Lindzen or Christy - actually do not dispute the basic science. Their only difference from the mainstream science position is that they don't believe the eventual warming effects will be as much as, or as dangerous as, the overwhelming majority do. It comes down to do you believe the very few "optimists" - or the overwhelming majority who are shit scared?