back to article Global warming stopped in 1998? No it didn't. If you say that, you're going to prison

In extraordinary developments, assorted scientists and other academics have waded into the debate over the widely-acknowledged absence of global warming seen over the last 15+ years. The various researchers, one group of whom are based at Stanford, say that actually the hiatus simply didn't happen. "There never was a hiatus, …

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  1. Voland's right hand Silver badge

    Interesting law to apply

    RICO is special as it allows asset confiscation long before a court decision.

    It is interesting, do the esteemed scientists writing this letter understand that it cuts _BOTH_ ways and for example a grant from let's say Company X building solar panels can look very interesting from a RICO perspective.

    IMHO this crossed a fine line as far as debate is concerned. Sure, you can investigate specific cases under whatever statute you want. Labeling EVERYONE disagreeing with you as a RICO target is beyond the pale.

    1. Eddy Ito

      Re: Interesting law to apply

      Yes but Senator Whitehouse is an unmitigated buffoon. If he really wants to abuse RICO I say they should start with his trading extravaganza a month before the beginning of the market crash in 2008.

    2. Charles Manning

      Re: Interesting law to apply

      Socialists never expect things to cut both ways.

      Both Al Gore and Hillary Clinton tell everyone they need to ride bikes.... but need to use private jets.

      1. Fraggle850

        Re: Interesting law to apply

        You've got a pretty odd idea of socialism if you think either of those two are socialists. I'd colour them as centre right at best. I guess that the USA has had a pretty distorted political system since they demonised proper socialism in the McCarthy witch hunt, shame really as they had a fine tradition of socialism prior to that. Thought we were going the same way in the UK until last Saturday and the selection of Corbyn as the Labour leader.

        1. WalterAlter

          Re: Interesting law to apply

          "Proper socialism"?, snicker. Socialism is a technophobic reaction to feudal-monopolist early 19h century oligarchic capital accumulation for putting hand built craftsmen out of work by allowing the the unwashed access to cheap household durables. Yah, people were tired of eating with wooden spoons and not being able to afford a "proper" tea cup. Know this in your yarbles: technology is INHERENTLY DEMOCRATIZING. This is why the aristocracy and their shill priesthoods are caught in a schizophrenic conflict much like the radicals who are in bed with Islam because it is anti-American while at the same time spits on every issue of human justice that they hold "proper".

          The aristocracy watched helpless as INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY erased all barriers of scarcity in commodities AND education for the working class, and created the bourgeoise which challenged their birthright power with meritocracy and productivity. The aristocracy hates technology as much as the dumbed down New Age Druid/pagan animist left, a left recognizable by its aristocratic libertine hedonism and delusions of superiority,

          To reiterate: what is called capitalism today is not. It is an insecurity/neurosis-driven monopolist feudal war lord overlay upon money symbol value exchange. "Proper" capitalism is anti-monopolist and anti-corporate in so far as the primary concern of the corporation is to pay out dividends rather than create excellence in its products and efficiency in its society. "Proper" capitalism is not money driven, it is humanely driven by the desire to create perfection over the long term and recognizes that exploitation will come back to bite it on the ass. "Proper" capitalists recognize that the wealth of any nation is in the mind of its citizen and emphatically not to be found in profit as a goal.

      2. Charles Manning

        Re: Interesting law to apply

        Oooo... down votes!

        It must have been for my terrible grammar in the last sentence. I'll fix that. "Both Al Gore and Hillary Clinton tell everyone to ride bikes, but need to use private jets for themselves."

        Or maybe the lefties just can't handle facts and do what they always do: try to shut down anyone that does not put their ideology ahead of reality. That's the sort of mindset that tries to use RICO laws to shut down any discussion.

        1. Naich

          Re: Interesting law to apply

          "Or maybe the lefties just can't handle facts and do what they always do: try to shut down anyone that does not put their ideology ahead of reality. That's the sort of mindset that tries to use RICO laws to shut down any discussion."

          Nah, you get downvoted when you spout a load of old bollocks.

    3. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

      Re: Interesting law to apply

      There is a bigger chance of sea levels rising by 25 meters tomorrow morning than of a US court accepting a RICO complaint such as this.

    4. john devoy

      Re: Interesting law to apply

      Welcome to modern debate, either agree with the mob or be shouted down as a heretic.

      1. Richard Altmann

        Re: Interesting law to apply

        @ john devoy

        What´s modern on that?

    5. Faux Science Slayer

      Re: Interesting law to apply....THERMODYNAMICS !

      There is NO Carbon climate forcing, NO magic greenhouse gas and NO phantom 'back radiation warming' force. There is a rigged, three sided FAKE debate, and two sides are wrong, see

      "Greenhouse Gas Ptolemaic Model"

      "Lukewarm Lemmings and the Lysenko Larceny"

      coasttocoastam.com/show/2015/03/18 > Climate Change & Thermodynamics, a two hour interview on 615 radio stations with 2 million listeners. The GHG hypothesis is FRAUD.

    6. Tom 13

      Re: Interesting law to apply

      As Lewis noted in his bootnote, a RICO investigation might actually be in order. It is just that the people who need to be investigated are the ones calling the most loudly for others to be investigated.

  2. Groaning Ninny

    Is this some sort of Turing test?

    Apparently my post must contain lettuce.

    1. Tromos

      Re: Is this some sort of Turing test?

      Yes, it's sorely needed here as we've already got the bacon and tomato.

      1. Mark 85

        Re: Is this some sort of Turing test?

        All we need now is some toast.

        1. Eddy Ito
          Pint

          Re: Is this some sort of Turing test?

          Cheers!

  3. heyrick Silver badge

    So if I understand this correctly...

    ...climate "science" is one bunch of lunatics arguing with another bunch of lunatics?

    Wake me up when something science-like happens.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Up

      Re: So if I understand this correctly...

      Yup. That's about the size of it.

      Found this titbit worth a chuckle though: "Stephan Lewandowsky, a psychologist who has previously produced research proving to his satisfaction that climate sceptics are mostly lunatics who refuse to let their children be vaccinated"

      More proof that you can spin statistics to "prove" absolutely anything at all.

      I also second your quotation motion:

      Dear Reg,

      "Climate science" is an oxymoron. While there's obviously actual science involved in studying climate you'll find those sciences to already have proper names... physics, chemistry, biology, geology etc... lumping little niches of proper sciences together, then stirring in liberal lashings of politics, superstition, simulation, paranoia, corruption, dogma, speculation, fear, etc., does not a new "science" make.

      Henceforth, please remember to always enclose "climate science" in the appropriate punctuation.

      Otherwise, keep up the good work.

      AC

      1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
        Headmaster

        Re: So if I understand this correctly...

        mostly lunatics who refuse to let their children be vaccinated

        It's a tradition over there. "Progressive" and "Left-leaning" sites publicize out such studies to prove that gun advocates, truthers, conservatives, libertarians, stand-your-grounders, those who doubt that people of colors can do no wrong and doubters in the god-given wisdom of socialist policy have been wrongly raised and are suffering some kind of brain damage (probably to be corrected in an institution).

        "YOU SHALL BELIEVE!"

        1. Desidero

          Re: So if I understand this correctly...

          It would be more consistent to not trust the scientific establishment on global warming *AND* vaccines/disease control, *OR* believe in them both.

          The scientific and PR methods in both are similar - why should 1 be sound & the other flawed?

          Unless there's a huge money motive to gin up one and not the other - but from where I sit, there's lots of cash to be made in both expanded vaccines & mitigating warming.

          1. Tom 13

            Re: to not trust the scientific establishment

            The scientific establishment is never to be trusted. They tend to be a bunch of fuddy-duddies trusting to yesterday's bone throwing prognostications.

            The scientific method is quite another story. And if "Climate Scientists" ever actually engage in writing a scientific paper in which lays out both their scientific methods and data (as in raw plus corrections and the precise reasons for the corrections) then I shall consider what they say.

      2. Tim99 Silver badge
        Joke

        Re: So if I understand this correctly...

        you'll find those sciences to already have proper names... physics, chemistry, biology, geology etc.

        My Chemistry tutor said the same thing over 40 years ago, and he was not too sure about anything other than physics and chemistry. There is a quote by Rutherford about only physics being science and everything else being stamp collecting, although that may be ironic because his Nobel Prize was in Chemistry (because what he did for the Prize, was).

        I have come to a similar conclusion about engineering - Unless it involves big lumps of metal, engines, and hammers - That many professions with engineering in their names may not be.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: So if I understand this correctly...

          "was" ? What what, stamp collecting?

        2. Sgt_Oddball

          Re: So if I understand this correctly...

          There's a few software engineers and computer scientists who might disagree....

          But refusing to acknowledge data outside of your conclusion is not science, calling everyone else heretics because they don't agree with you is taking us back to the dark ages.

        3. razorfishsl

          Re: So if I understand this correctly...

          So you have a problem with "software Engineering " then?

          1. Andrew Williams

            Re: So if I understand this correctly...

            Yes, I do have a problem with "Software Engineering." I am a victim of it every day. It is an odd coincidence that the car I use, the roads I use, the buildings I live and work in and most of the planes and boats I've had occasion to use have orders of magnitude less failures than I experience with the products of "Software Engineering."

            I suspect it has to do with the rise of hacker culture, where getting things to work in a sometimes, somewhen manner is the height of "Software Engineering" practice in the modern world.

            At this point in time I am wondering how long it is before some evil bastard decides to remote control my car because of frankly inadequate "Software Engineering."

            1. Fraggle850

              Re: So if I understand this correctly...

              All of those oh so reliable engineered things that you refer to have long histories of fail behind them, many of which were incredibly hazardous until our understanding grew over time. The De Havilland Comet ruled the jet age briefly until metal fatigue led to fatal crashes, the first steam boilers of the industrial revolution were prone to exploding and going back to the Tudor/Stuart period early city buildings had defective chimneys that served to poison their inhabitants and acted as a flash point which led to buildings catching fire.

              Engineers have always been hackers first and foremost.

              Software engineering is still relatively young and incredibly complex, given the interconnectedness of so many systems. It will mature over time but no doubt have its traumas along the way.

    2. Craigness

      Re: So if I understand this correctly...

      "Wake me up when something science-like happens."

      There is some science-like stuff going on, but there is a lot of politics-like stuff attached to it. I think what would wake people up is if the people telling us there is an emergency behaved as if there were an emergency.

      I have no car, holiday in the UK and am too cheap to turn on the heating in the winter (the flat below can heat mine, I'll just wear a jumper!). I bet I use a tiny fraction of the CO2 which climate lobbyists use. And unlike them I'd not come out in hives if RICO was shone in my direction.

    3. Charles Manning

      Re: So if I understand this correctly...

      Climate science must be a real science. After all, it is a branch of that other real science: political science.

      As some wag once remarked: If it has science in its name then it probably isn't science: political science, social science, domestic science,...

      1. Bob Armstrong

        Re: So if I understand this correctly...

        Ken Iverson ( father of APL ) was one .

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not sure about global warming myself, I do think more co2 = more tree's and plants as there has to be some sort of balance however the thing that confuses is me is that they can predict it will be warmer over the next two years however they can't get the weather right for the next two weeks.

    Maybe it's a vegan conspiracy where they are blaming the cows for methane so they can bump them all off and get us to follow their dungaree wearing bearded bean eating shoreditch hipster religion where we can all sit round a solar panel listening to blues basking in the glow of our own beard stroking hipness.

    Anon for obvious reasons.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Yawn.....

      Gosh, I can't predict whether I will down four pints of IPA or a bottle of red, but I can predict I will have a hangover. I also can predict with fair confidence that it will be colder in January than it this month, and I don't know who is going to win Stoke City vs Leicester City on Saturday, but I can predict that neither will win the title come end of season.

      And no, it's not a vegan conspiracy, we have much more sinister plans than that (basically it's the old UN World Gov., confiscate your guns and SUV, tattoo 666 on your forehead, first 5 chapters of the Apocalypse, but don't tell anyone.. it's meant to be a secret)

      1. h4rm0ny

        Re: Yawn.....

        >>"Gosh, I can't predict whether I will down four pints of IPA or a bottle of red, but I can predict I will have a hangover. I also can predict with fair confidence that it will be colder in January than it this month, and I don't know who is going to win Stoke City vs Leicester City on Saturday, but I can predict that neither will win the title come end of season."

        None of these are good analogies for what the person you're replying to said. A better response would be "I can't tell you what the next three coin tosses will come up as, but I can tell you that over the next 500 they'll be fairly evenly split between heads and tails".

        I'm actually a skeptic on AGW but the OP's argument was poor logic. One does not need to predict immediate results in order to predict and overall trend.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Yawn.....

          Of course and I agree wholeheartedly, my logic was also supposed to highlight the unpredictable nature of weather and climate whether that is long or short term.

          I might as well consult rune stones or ask a shaman or just make up my own weather forecast.

          At tomorrow's climate change parade there will be rain due to 14 years of no increase in temperature. I did however run it through a separate statistical model and it's going to be sunshine and government grants all round. Yay.

          On a serious note we have a plethora of satellites and weather stations now so realistically the answer should be straightforward and not need different calculations to prove or disprove a theory. It's either getting warmer or it's not, either the ice caps are melting or they are not. Though basing theories on around 100 years worth of data when the planet is 4.543 billion years old (2 millionth of a percent) is a bit silly especially since we know of ice ages, were the woolly mammoths an industrial society producing co2? I think not, they were too busy playing in the snow playing with sloths.

    2. Teiwaz

      Why anon?

      Are you expecting a low-fatwa to be issued against you, or just fear a tribe of 'dungaree wearing bearded bean eating shoreditch hipsters' to come round and incessantly plague you with home made vegetarian quiche and parsnip non-alcoholic wine?

      They are unlikely to come brandishing machettes, more likely paper-mache.

    3. Sarah Balfour

      I'll agree with you about Veganists

      I've always referred to them as such because it is, let's be honest here, almost a religion and, like Xian fundies, and creationists (which are, almost always, one and the same thing), they refuse to listen to any counter-arguments, all of which are likely to be based on ACTUAL SCIENCE ("Christian/creation science" is another oxymoron). The only way veganism will save the planet is by killing off the human race.

      Please forgive me - I know you're all bored of my favourite soapbox - but the truth is this: every organism on Earth has its own unique dietary blueprint, set down by evolution and genetics; Homo sapiens didn't evolve to be herbivorous, nothing in our physiology is 'designed' (for want of a better word) to derive nutrition from plants, they have extremely low density, both in terms of energy and nutrition, and humans lack any physiological features for deriving either from them, at least in any quantity worth bothering about. Not only that, but plant proteins (mostly) aren't complete - herbivores don't require the same amino acids we do, nor do they require the same vitamins and minerals (there's no plant source of 'true' B12, for example, and we can't really do anything much with non-heme iron; furthermore, many plants - grains and legumes (particularly soy) - contain substances which are toxic to humans if consumed in large quantities (grains contain phytates which prevent the body from absorbing many vital nutrients (many mimic B complex vitamins, for example, tricking the body into believing it's assimilating more Bs than it really is, leaving people deficient), spinach, and other leafy greens to a lesser extent, contains oxalate preventing iron absorption by mimicking iron (oxalate also prevents the absorption of iron from any iron-containing foods the spinach is eaten with, so greens and steak isn't a sensible idea) as well as leeching Fe from the body. Soy contains phytoestrogens (those hormones touted as being good for you because they're "clinically proven to lower your cholesterol. You don't need your cholesterol lowering, high cholesterol - except in very exceptional circumstances - is a GOOD THING, as the higher your overall cholesterol, the lower your risk of developing heart disease). Phytoestrogens bugger up your thyroid as they mimic thyroxine, tricking your pituitary gland into believing it's telling it to produce too much T4, so it produces less TSH. Eat soy for long enough and, eventually, the opposite will be the case - your thyroid will quit producing T4 altogether (which means your TSH will shoot stratospherically high and you'll develop hypothyroidism).

      (If you want an IT angle, Steve Jobs likely developed pancreatic cancer because he was vegan; an all sugar diet (which is what a vegan diet is - all carbs turn to sugar once consumed) will, obviously, hammer the pancreas far harder than a standard diet (which is still FAR too carb-heavy) and, when you abuse an organ like that, bad things are liable to happen. Despite what the NHS wants you to believe, eating meat DOES NOT cause cancer, of any kind (what the meat might have eaten, or been injected with, might, hence it's always best to eat grass/naturally-fed if at all possible). A vegan diet is also devoid of B12, which is anti-carcinogenic).

      Because a vegan diet is so nutritionally poor, far more of the planet would need to be destroyed to accommodate humanity's nutritional requirements (just try telling a vegan much of their food contains palm oil and see their reaction - if the orangutang becomes extinct, it'll be vegans who are largely to blame). A vegan will tell you there's more protein in broccoli than steak; even if that was true (it's not) only around 10% of that protein will be assimilated, and it's not complete (I've a chart somewhere I saved when I was in the habit of trolling vegan FB groups, which makes the extraordinary claim that a cucumber is 24% protein, thus proving being vegan makes you extremely stupid (or perhaps vegans don't believe/think/know a cucumber is 99% water). The owner of this one particular group also had a dog and a cat, both obviously fed a vegan diet, and here was I thinking that veganists were vegan because they didn't like being cruel to animals (I did use to point out that humans are animals too so, by being vegan they were, in actual fact, being cruel to an animal… they never understood the logic…). I never saw any photos of the cat, but the dog… well, if I'd been in a position to, I'd have had her up on cruelty charges, the poor thing looked almost DEAD! Thank FUCK she didn't have kids (feeding kids a vegan diet is abuse as far as I'm concerned, as you're denying them adequate nutrition. A woman in France was a jailed in 2011 for 10 years for manslaughter after her 10-month-old daughter died of pernicious anaemia; her mother was a raw foodist, and she was one of those who believed in breastfeeding for as long as possible. She also didn't believe in hospitals so, when the child became sick, she wrapped her in boiled cabbage and bentonite clay poultices (to "draw out the toxins").

      Us obligate carnivorous omnivores (I've always referred to the human diet as such, as we can live without plants, but NOT without meat) won't be the ones who'll destroy the planet.

      I nearly gave you a down-vote for the apostrophe in 'trees'. I have not the foggiest why some think that, because a word ends in a vowel its plural requires an apostrophe. Apostrophes, in standard English usage, denote possession or omission, neither of which applies here.

      1. Fraggle850

        @ Sarah Balfour Re: I'll agree with you about Veganists

        There is a middle way: vegetarianism and moderate meat eating both offer reasonably healthy lifestyles. We aren't herbivores but neither are we carnivores from a gut-physiology perspective, our physiology is that of an omnivore.

        Being on a meat-heavy diet can also lead to health problems, including bowel cancer. It also leads to environmental problems as the world's population becomes wealthier and demands meat at every meal.

        I've been a veggie for more years than I was a meat eater at this point. I try not to be a prick about it though, I don't whinge about people cooking my veggie sausages on a barbie that has meat on it and when we have friends over for dinner we make it our business to cook them a nice, responsibly sourced piece of meat, after all our friends are good enough to cater for our veggie tastes when we visit them.

        I must be doing something right because the opposing militant camps of vegans and carnivores both dislike people like me, similar to taking a balanced approach in the AGW debate really.

        Fundies are bad in any context.

        So this is my riposte to your meatist screed, in the interests of balanced debate.

        (BTW: I was tempted to put some spurious punctuation in just to wind you up but that would be trolling)

      2. NomNomNom

        Re: I'll agree with you about Veganists

        "Us obligate carnivorous omnivores (I've always referred to the human diet as such, as we can live without plants, but NOT without meat)"

        You are wrong and there are lifelong vegetarians and vegans out there that prove it, with blood tests and all.

        "Homo sapiens didn't evolve to be herbivorous"

        neither did we evolve not to murder. You are confusing evolution with moral behaviour. Just because we can eat animals doesn't mean it's right.

    4. Gordon 11

      I do think more co2 = more tree's and plants as there has to be some sort of balance
      Not necessarily the case when you are cutting down all of the trees at the same time (== deforestation).
      the thing that confuses is me is that they can predict it will be warmer over the next two years however they can't get the weather right for the next two weeks.
      Hint - look up "acute" and "chronic" in a dictionary,

      1. Vargs

        Deforestation must be "Green"

        Interestingly, a large chunk of the deforestation is caused by bogus "sustainable" policies.

        Mandatory biodiesel requirements in the EU and US have led to the clearance of vast swathes of native rainforest for palm oil plantations.

        The almost bizarrely insane conversion of, previously unsubsidised and cost-effective, coal-fired power stations to burn wood chips leads to heavily subsidised generation at the cost of bulldozed US hardwood forests.

        Neither policy leads to any reduction in CO2 emissions and may actually emit more.

        1. Fraggle850

          Re: Deforestation must be "Green"

          If you use wood as a fuel but take it from sustainably managed forests then it is remarkably green, young, growing trees use and lot more co2 than older, mature trees.

          The loss of biodiversity in the destruction of ancient woodlands is an issue but this needn't be the case, sustainability is the key.

    5. siluri

      Met Office :-o

      Yes you are right about predicting the weather lol , just recently the Met Office spent a billion pounds and a supercomputer system to predict the weather 1 week ahead after spending billions over the years buying crays and other supercomputers the 2 weeks has dropped to 1 week so it seems the weather is more Fractal than they thought with a hint a Chaos Theory thrown in so basically they only can predict the weather at 3 days ahead and even then it can throw a spanner in the works so how the hell can scientists pseudo or not claim that global warming is happening ffs its just bad weather because we have the equipment to measure that even fifty years ago could not measure , record or film let alone a hundred years or so when the records started ,, Oh the trees are not the lungs of the world ,,Plankton is the largest supplier of oxygen to the planet ,,i know cause it was on the BBC's QI program and another bit of useless info Tacitus the roman historian said about Britain in roman times having very warm weather for growing things like olive trees and vineyards as well as the wheat and barley because he said that it was too hot in italy or spain to grow most things ,,so there you have it we were warmer in the roman times..lol

    6. Baron Warlord

      Global Warming is a myth devised by Government to create additional taxes that more than pays the wages of the 'Scientists' that they have employed to 'prove' that such a phenomenon exists.

      World studies of climate from the earliest records prove that the climate is forever changing - i.e what caused the last ice age and why did it disappear? How did the gulf streams come into being? etc.,

      Where did the hole in the ozone layer disappear to? That was another money spinner.

  5. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. Ben Liddicott

      Re: this is in the wrong place

      If you had read the article, you would have found out that so-called scientists have written to the POTUS asking for sceptics to be investigated with a view to prosecution.

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: this is in the wrong place

          Hey - no fair - I disagree 100% with almost everything LP says on climate - and tend to say so - but I've never had a comment cut.

          1. asdf

            Re: this is in the wrong place

            He has rejected a few of mine but usually because I was making fun how the El Reg the amateur climate science blog also tended to do much better IT articles (not always but often) on the side. Still LP/AO cherry picking is legendary and quite obvious after a few of these articles so again I have no idea why I am posting except its Friday and I am really bored. Already collected my downvotes for the weak trolling all those dumb bastards defending Irving Texas earlier in the week as well.

  6. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. asdf

      Re: Sun for the day

      Lot of effort simply to increase your downvote total. You think you are changing minds lol or are you just bored?

      1. Geoffrey W

        Re: Sun for the day

        Its no worse than your "Weak Trolling" which you were busy with in the previous post. Get out from under that bridge and do some "Real" trolling, for goodness sake.

        1. This post has been deleted by its author

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Angel

    Kneel!

    Nothing new here, most new religions eventually reach a point where the adherents want to persecute the Unbeliever. Puts the Fear of God (Gaia in this case) into the waverers, and makes the committed Believers feel smug. They know inside that the real danger isn't the actual warming, it's those awful people that won't accept the True Way. Serves them right!

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

  8. Dan Paul

    I hope they are ready...

    for the libel and slander civil suits against each and every so called "scientist" and lying politician that is involved.

    The fact is that if it were all based on actual UNMODIFIED DATA, instead of hypothesis and spurious "modeling", there is absolutely NO PROOF of AGW besides people who are themselves participating in a world wide conspiracy to lie about warming so they can get grant money from various governments and companies.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I hope they are ready...

      Calm down dear. If we can only use 'data', freely downloadable as it is if you bothered to look, we could never predict anything.

      For instance we wouldn't know that the sun would rise tomorrow. You have no data that shows it. You just have 'modelling' that suggests it's pretty probable.

      And please don't drive anywhere, because how would you know when to put on the brakes 'No I have no data that shows I am about to hit that on-coming bus, just a spurious mental 'model' that suggests that if I continue at this speed and direction I might crash. I will wait until i have definitive evidence in the form of properly mangled metal'

      1. Fraggle850

        Re: I hope they are ready...

        I don't think that our ability to predict the movement of the sun is based on modelling, nor is the decision to brake when confronted by an obstacle. The former is an observable phenomenon, the latter an instinctive response.

        In the context of AGW I suspect our modelling is still in its infancy, the sheer complexity of the system being modeled is massive and our dataset is so small. I don't doubt that our pumping co2 into the atmosphere at such rates must have an effect but as to meaningful predictive modelling? I don't know...

        1. Andrew Williams

          Re: I hope they are ready...

          You're so right about it being in its infancy.

          I might add that I suspect that most of the luminaries of AGW have little if any statistical or computational training.

          1. Fraggle850

            Re: I hope they are ready...

            Indeed, I don't deny that there might be an issue with co2 and climate but all this uninformed flack between the two opposing camps makes it impossible to have a reasoned debate, much less come up with realistic and sensible global strategies to deal with any potential problems.

            Greenies putting out dubious, often contradictory stats merely serves to muddy the waters, especially when those stats are used to make predictions that then fail to materialise.

          2. Tom 13

            Re: luminaries of AGW have little if any statistical or computational training.

            Some do, some don't. With the vast quantities of data they have to toss around some of them have to be competent or they wouldn't get anything at all out the other end. The more substantial problem to my mind has always been that as this is a real world system, so you can't (as my college physics text book did) allow the assumption that horses are perfect frictionless spheres for purposes of the calculation.

        2. John Hughes

          Re: I hope they are ready...

          I don't think that our ability to predict the movement of the sun is based on modelling,

          Uh, yes it is. There was this guy called Isaac Newton, you may of heard of him, he made a model, we call it "the laws of motion". Some other bugger called Albert Einstein fixed a few problems later on and now we use his version of the model if we want better accuracy.

          1. Fraggle850

            Re: I hope they are ready...

            I think it's fair to say 'was' not 'is' at this point in history. I'd rather like to think that there is no scientific discussion about 'whether the sun will come up tomorrow', this being the point to which I was responding. Obviously there is modelling in respect of as yet unsettled aspects of solar operation but the basic mechanics that relate to whether the sun will rise every day are settled: the observations fit the models.

            Of course that depends on where you get your 'science' from, given the propensity of some to believe any old crap it wouldn't surprise me if there were still flat earthers out there.

            Isaac Newton? Nah, never heard of him, nor this Einstein fellow - I really am that thick (or maybe you were being a tad condescending?)

          2. Dan Paul

            Re: I hope they are ready...

            Actually, it's based on real science, not a "model". A hypothesis was offered by Newton that a group of equations (the laws of motion, as you state) could accurately predict the movement of celestial objects. when that was found to be correct (by actual testing and physical observation with telescopes and sextants), it went from the realm of hypothesis to scientific fact.

        3. Tom 13

          Re: I hope they are ready...

          In its infancy? It hasn't even risen to the level of alchemy yet although it does seem to share that lead to gold obsession.

    2. NomNomNom

      Re: I hope they are ready...

      "there is absolutely NO PROOF of AGW"

      "there is absolute NO PROOF of EVOLUTION"

  9. Brewster's Angle Grinder Silver badge

    I don't agree with Lewis, but I don't think he's being paid by anyone except El Reg.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Global warming is either irrelevant or a red herring. The real problem is we are breeding too fast and consuming too many resources which mother nature will kindly correct for us. In a few million years time we'll just be a load of old fossils that some other species will dig up and wonder what calamity caused our extinction.

    1. Bongwater

      Amazing how if people stop breeding like Skaven how much better the world would be. Can't upvote that enough even if I had used all the AGW scientists thumbs after I cut them off.

      Just kidding, that would be mean.

    2. BattleBotBob

      What do you mean "we are breeding to fast"? Last I checked most Europeans and U.S.A. Wasps weren't actually increasing in population. We just practice breeding. So now you must be a racist, wanting "them" to stop breeding, and keep their total consumption down to our rates. Or at least not to exceed the burning of Kuwait oilfields. Let's make sure this debate has nothing to do with science. That should have put it out of bounds and lead to prison terms for all.

      1. Fraggle850

        Re: birth rates

        The fact is that co2 emission rates map very closely to population growth, no fancy models with tweaked factors required - the curves just match. I know correlation doesn't necessarily indicate causation but in this case I suspect it's a reasonable assumption. Heck, I think that even the blessed Al Gore of warmism has suggested that condoms might be the cheapest way of addressing the issue globally.

        What the other commenter said is therefore correct. You trying to conflate that with racist thinking isn't helpful (my apologies if you are being ironic).

        The birth rate problem does seem to be self-correcting though, as you allude to in your post when you mention WASPs etc. My own feeling is that it's a byproduct of progress, education and relative wealth (although it does seem to lead to a corresponding death rate problem - aging population and all that brings). Assuming we as people across the planet (rather than we as members of some geographically, culturally & historically defined insider interest group) want to reduce or even halt population growth then we need to ensure that resources are more evenly distributed to enable that progress globally, shine a light in the dark places, negate superstition in all it's forms, whether it's in the form of outmoded religious beliefs or new religious orthodoxies such as 'climate change'.

        As to whether there is the will to do that and whether we can do it quickly enough to get to a settled global population, well, that's another thing entirely.

        1. JeffyPoooh
          Pint

          Re: birth rates

          The best enabler of birth control is wealth and health.

          1. Neobiognosis

            Re: birth rates

            Which is why the human population is exploding at the moment, as the current system delivers neither to the majority of this world!

          2. Apriori

            Re: birth rates

            ... and the decline of religion and increase in the education of girls.

      2. Dan Paul

        @BattleBotBob

        You are the one being racist. The poster you were commenting on was using "we" in the collective sense. As in "Humanity".

        YOU brought up "them" in the argument and thus YOU are discriminating not he.

        Also, please remember that the burning of the Kuwait Oil fields was done by the orders of Saddam Hussein. I highly doubt there were ANY environmental concerns that day.

  11. Speltier

    Damn Statistics

    "There never was a hiatus[...]," states Noah Diffenbaugh, associate prof, [...] arrived at this result by applying new statistical methods of their own devising, as opposed to the "classical" statistics techniques generally used by climate scientists to date"

    Yeah, sure. I'd like to see the delta chain of all the attempts made before a method was found that supported that position. Wait, that delta chain is on the same imaginary server as the delta chain for the now degraded NASA/NOAA climate forcasting model. You know, the model that predicts we'll be frying by 2020? [for the NASA model, the points of interest are the tweaks made to the equation "constants"-- iteration after iteration, tweaking the constants to keep them within published citation ranges but tilted to hot up the future while still staying within error band for past data. Iteration after iteration... tweak after tweak... and now American weather prediction is trashed. Conveniently, no one seems to have kept a record of the changes. Ironically, the current poor reputation for American weather prediction is due to global warming, because the model was compromised to support a desired result instead of trying to predict reality! hahaha]

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: and now American weather prediction is trashed.

      No, it's not. Fortunately a large percentage of the consumers of weather data require that it be accurate so there is a separation between the weather people and the climate warm mongers (cwm). Yes, because the raw data all comes through NOAA and all the new monies are coming from AWG, everyone at least pays lip service to the cwm position; but that's a bit like biologists who all pay lip service to Darwnian evolution then do their jobs on the basis that it doesn't happen.

  12. Jim-234

    So back to Religion/Government running science again I see

    So the new carbon/climate/gaia/luddite religion is exactly like the old religions.

    (And really once it gets to the point that they want to toss people in jail for debating their favourite viewpoint, it really is religious dogma by definition)

    Get the government to throw the book at anyone who disagrees with your point of view.

    Sounds kind of like what happened when people said the world was round or the earth revolved around the sun... quick lock them up... they are speaking against the settled science.

    Scientists will probably still be debating exactly how gravity works for another 100 years and have nowhere near a complete idea of how the mechanics of the planet and the sun work, but apparently in one corner it is the gospel truth that must never be argued with.

    Scientific ideas should always be open for debate, if someone says "The Science is Settled" and then first starts threatening censure, then moves on to arrest and confiscation of one's livelihood for questioning the "word of ...." then you know they don't have a leg to stand on.

    It doesn't help that anyone with an actual practical solution (such as perhaps build a bunch of nuclear power plants, use the electricity to make hydrogen and then burn that instead) get shouted down & run off by the carbonistas demanding instead hugely expensive, unfeasible & improbable solutions that have all kinds of toxic consequences for the planet or other species, while demanding that everybody die off and the few remaining ones live like cave men & all the developing countries be permanently banned from progressing...

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "For heavens sake, won't somebody think about the Pensions!"

    All the heat generated by the detonation of Atomic Bombs/Tests etc, have these been included in any 'Climate Change' calculation?

    What about all the Great Dams, artificially skewing the flow of water around the world?

    BALLS!

    1. Fraggle850

      Re: "For heavens sake, won't somebody think about the Pensions!"

      Not too sure about the effects of a few A bombs but hydro electric dams, I seem to recall that they do contribute to greenhouse gas emissions due to the decomposition of the submerged vegetation over time. Only recall hearing it mentioned once a while ago and not sure of the validity or source but I guess it makes sense - living plants lock up co2, presumably dead ones release it as methane as they rot?

      Obviously there are other significant issues around HEP too.

  14. Fitz_

    What is it with The Register and climate change denial..? Are you taking money from the Koch brothers or something..?

    1. Mark 85

      I don't see "denial". I see "skeptic". A big difference in that a skeptic is open to facts. There's too much BS being flung by the "believers" and the "deniers". That fanaticism gets in the way of logical discourse. The Greens and the Corporates seem to be driving this schism and profiting from it.

      I'm about to get downvoted by both sides now. Meh....

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Like a murderer is sceptical when they pleas not guilty to the televised slaughter of 20 people in a nearby school or theatre?

        1. Mark 85

          It doesn't happen often, but this rebuttal makes absolutely no sense to me in the context of this discussion.

          Oh wait... you won't see this because you've stopped reading El Reg per your later post. ta-ta...

        2. Fraggle850

          @ Maiakaat

          Your 'murderer' example is an example of denial, not scepticism. If you can't see the difference then you presumably adhere to the AGW orthodoxy and are thus blinkered to the subtleties of the debate (in much the same way as the rabid denialists are). Attempting to conflate healthy scepticism with mass murder is exactly the kind of tactic that leads to the threat of RICO to which this article was originally directed.

          As stated elsewhere in this discussion we won't achieve anything positive while the two religious groups of rabid denialists and equally rabid warmists are spouting spurious bullshit at each other, grabbing all the headlines and generally obscuring the debate with FUD in a compliant and uncritical media. Pragmatism is lost in the excessive noise, attitudes become increasingly entrenched and the rest of us get shat on due to a combination of maintained inertia and half-ass, ill-conceived greener than thou policies that do nothing to address the issue at hand.

          Sort of glad that you've spat your dummy and decided to bugger off.

      2. KBasser

        And I don't see a skeptic at all here. I see a journalist that is firmly convinced that AGW does not exist, and cherry-picks facts to suit his agenda.

        That's not skepticism - which is defined, as a reminder, as a questioning attitude towards opinions or beliefs stated as facts. There is another name for selectively present information in a press article in an attempt to push an opinion forward: propaganda.

        That AGW is true or not, that one side or another uses devious tactics to downplay the other, all that is not really the issue at hand here. On the other hand, that a journalist deliberately writes propaganda in a journal like The Register is definitely an issue. I read the news here to get informed and to be able to draw my own conclusions based on what journalists presented me. I'm not here to be presented with what I should - or should not - think.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Anybody would think that there is some sort of junket for all the climate believers about to happen. Maybe it is the Paris thing and they are all afraid that it is going to fail just a Copenhagen did. Hopefully it will and the gravy train will stop for the likes of Al Gore and friends then the world can get back to normal and the UK might not have to use diesel generators to keep the lights on in the winter.

  16. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
    Pint

    I'm in the same boat as

    El reg

    All that effort I put into being a climate skeptic and I would have thought the money would have been rolling in from big oil and other global multinationals eager to destroy the planet by now.

    Sadly my income has been £0.00

    Well I'm off to contribute more to CO2 emissions by driving to work tommorrow and as I pointed out to the electric car owner sitting smugly in his office today "All you've done is transfer your travel pollution from here to nearest power station".

    beer.. because I need one.... hold on what about CO2 emissions from beer , thats got to contribute too...

  17. Tikimon
    Devil

    Attempts to prevent debate ALWAYS show a lack of solid ground

    If one side of a debate tries to silence or demonize their opponents, it raises a red flag to me. if your facts are so strong, let them stand up to honest scrutiny. Shaming and demonizing and calling people lunatics are the tactics of biased ideologues. The climate and its history are nowhere near enough well-understood for anyone to claim authority, much less demand their opponents be silenced.

    Science works by promoting free investigation and debate. The current understanding may be wrong in small or large ways. Gor bless Lewis and his ilk for keeping the debate alive.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Attempts to prevent debate ALWAYS show a lack of solid ground

      Even if you compare to things like smoking, where US tobacco companies successfully resisted warnings and other restrictions on their product for years as evidence mounted, there was no need to silence them. Eventually the evidence became so clear that tobacco friendly or anti-regulation legislators weren't able to stop it.

      Instead of trying to use RICO has a club to silence dissent, if they believe they're on the right side of climate change they should let the same process play out. Oh, I know, "tipping point" and all that so we have to act TODAY or the world will end. Sorry, even if that's true that's no excuse to silence those who disagree with you. Allow that once even for what you believe is a 'noble cause' and it opens the door for its misuse in the future - maybe you get silenced next time, maybe even when you are on what later turns out to be the 'right' side depends on who has control over who the RICO laws go after.

      Bad enough the RICO laws even exist in their current form, but it is a ridiculous stretch to use them in this way. Next they'll be advocating for claiming deniers are eco-terrorists, and allowing the US military drones to target Lewis Page and Freeman Dyson for death from above. That'll teach them to think for themselves and have an open mind!

    2. Brewster's Angle Grinder Silver badge
      Trollface

      More Sealioning...

      If one side of a debate tries to silence or demonize their opponents, it raises a red flag to me. if your facts are so strong, let them stand up to honest scrutiny. Shaming and demonizing and calling people lunatics are the tactics of biased ideologues. [These things] are nowhere near enough well-understood for anyone to claim authority, much less demand their opponents be silenced.

      [Society] works by promoting free investigation and debate. The current understanding may be wrong in small or large ways. Gor bless Lewis and his ilk for keeping the debate alive.

      But enough about Social Justice Warriors; what do you think about the climate debate?

      1. Cari

        Re: More Sealioning...

        You noticed the similarities too huh? It was the Beeb's "there's no debate to be had" attitude that tipped me off.

  18. Chris G

    The more I know, the less I am sure of.

    When the AGW thing first started, it seemed to make sense and it looked as though there was a lot of data to back it up, I seem to remember back in the last century , forecasts that made buying a house at the top of a decent sized hill a good bet. I think some of those forecasts actually made 2015 a likely time for the London Basin to be a new lake.

    I find it amusing that the Yays and the Nays are for the most part equally evangelistic regarding their particular points of view but for the Yays to begin supporting the notion that ' There should be a law against not believing' does suggest that they are running out of useful science and statistics to back up their claims. Cutting back on anything that actually does pollute and damage the planet is obviously a good thing but being dishonest with yourself when you are losing your agument and resorting to spurious legal measures to continue promoting what may be a lost cause is at best childish.

    Good science looks for good proof and continues looking until it is either found or shown to be unfounded at which point one should move on.

    At the moment, more data (years, maybe centuries) is needed not childish behaviour.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The more I know, the less I am sure of.

      Which is why in the last few years talk about a 'tipping point' or 'point of no return' has started up, with claims that we must act immediately in major ways or it will be too late.

      The thing that really made me give this all a closer look was when I found out that temperature records were being 'adjusted', and learned how the adjustments were almost exclusively to lower older temperatures and raise more recent ones. There seems to be no justification for this, other than simply cooking the books to allow the models to output what they want to output. In some cases the same dataset that has been adjusted previously is adjusted again, amplifying this affect.

      If it turns out AGW is happening, the shady corporate interests who are backing deniers will be to blame, but less so than the warmists who were cheating the system trying to make it look like a bigger problem. You expect the oil and coal companies who are most directly contributing to the problem to act this way, but you expect scientists to methodically pursue science, not to seek shortcuts even if they honestly believe the ends justify the means. That makes people like me stop and question things, and gives ammunition to those who aren't questioning but simply want to stop the whole thing in its tracks.

      Imagine if the Surgeon General was found to have fudged the numbers to turn a 30% increased risk of cancer from smoking into a 60% risk, or to make it so smoking a pack a day looked as bad as what actually required smoking two packs a day? The tobacco companies would have had a field day with that, and it would have set the prevention movement back by decades. We'd be lucky to have warnings on packs, let alone the smoking bans in public places that most states now enjoy. This is what falsely adjusting temperature records is causing.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: The more I know, the less I am sure of.

        What about 5 packs per day of non-filter-tipped. Are you saying I should already be dead?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Devil

          Re: The more I know, the less I am sure of.

          No, just that those who are downwind of you wish they were.

          1. jake Silver badge

            Re: The more I know, the less I am sure of.

            No, just that those who are downwind of you wish you were.

    2. Fraggle850

      @Chris G Re: The more I know, the less I am sure of.

      Well said! Sums up my feelings too.

    3. Tom 13

      Re: The more I know, the less I am sure of.

      Buying a house at the top of a decent sized hill is ALWAYS a good idea. Even if sea level isn't rising, there's the occasional flood. And even if you are lucky enough to not have a flood, it's still the better position from which to throw rocks or whatever.

      There's never been enough data to back up their claims for one very good reason: to make a claim you need a baseline. They've never had a real baseline. The last ice age allegedly ended about 12,000 years ago and started 110,000 years ago and thought to have been the last event in a 2 million year cycle of such events. Even if you assumed our earliest records were as complete and good as our current ones, that gets you maybe 400 years of data. That means at best we've got 3.3% of a baseline, more likely 0.36% of one. That's not enough to calculate a baseline.

      Neither is your assertion that "anything you can do to cut down on pollution is good" true. If you kill 1 million people in London it will obviously reduce pollution a fair chunk. I wouldn't call that good under any circumstances. I think I understand what you were trying to say, but that wasn't what you wrote. It is in that ambiguity that charlatans thrive.

  19. Daggerchild Silver badge

    Oh no not again...

    "widely-acknowledged absence of global warming seen over the last 15+ years"

    Coincidentally the gravity coming from the landmass of Antarctica is still falling measurably. Does anyone remember graphing the temperature of a beaker of water with ice in it in science class, as you heated it with a bunsen? And what happened when it ran out of ice?

    But hey, I'm not a climate scientist.

    I can't quite get over how pleased Lewis is that he can now almost jump into the line of fire to try and get hit. There's a palpable craving for conflict. This is all just so very wrong...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Oh no not again...

      The problem with your example is that you used a bunsen burner as a heat source - I don't see any bunsen burner heating the earth and all the climate models discount the sun as having any influence on the temperature of the earth, especially since it is not man made.

      1. John Hughes

        Re: Oh no not again...

        all the climate models discount the sun as having any influence on the temperature of the earth

        What on earth are you going on about? The sun is where the heat comes from, everyone knows that, the models are based on that.

        The problem is that the sun is not providing more heat, so it can't be the cause of the warming.

        1. Daggerchild Silver badge

          Re: Oh no not again...

          I thought he was joking. I hope he is joking..

        2. Tom 13

          Re: Oh no not again...

          And you go and prove his point in your post.

          All the models assume solar output is constant. It isn't. And it despite denials from the Warm Mongers, it's variance matches well with the variance in temperature. Could there be other subtle effects within it? Sure, but given that the sun accounts for 90%, the flim-flamery of the warmist camp is obvious.

          1. Daggerchild Silver badge

            Re: Oh no not again...

            It's like a nightmare... one man saying the Sun isn't important, another saying it is, and both say it proves the same thing, and the people all around you nod in agreement with both of them.

            Meanwhile the icecaps, glaciers and permafrosts are pretty obviously melting. So, when do 'all the models' say the last equivalent to now was for solar radiation? If it was *more recently* than the last time all of these things melted (and I think it will be) then it cannot be the Sun alone. Since there is no other heatsource, the only other variable is insulation, which can only be the atmosphere. So, we have to look at what's happened to the atmosphere *recently*, because the logic doesn't lead *anywhere* else.

            Meanwhile, we only have until the ice melts to fix this, whoever caused it. I'm thinking we might need climate scientists there, if we haven't killed them all for witchcraft.

            And now someone is going to tell me basic logic cannot be right because 'all the models' (Note: never 'some', always 'all') say whatever they want them to say this time.

            1. Dodgy Geezer Silver badge

              Re: Oh no not again...

              ...Meanwhile the icecaps, glaciers and permafrosts are pretty obviously melting. ...

              Icecaps, glaciers, etc melt ALL THE TIME. The question is whether they are melting more than they did last year, and if so, whether that's within the region of natural variability or not.

              Given that several glaciers have melted back and exposed signs of human habitation underneath them, I suspect that the melting we have seen is not as much as there has been in the past...

              1. Fraggle850

                Re: Oh no not again...

                A little late to the party, aren't we? I thought this month old thread was long dead. Reasonable point though, fair play. I don't suppose you could point me in the direction of a link to an instance of glacial melt revealing prior human habitation? I'm certainly not doubting what you say, I'm just interested in the facts surrounding this rather contentious issue.

                1. Daggerchild Silver badge

                  Re: Oh no not again...

                  Seeing as glaciers go through historical geology like a bandsaw goes through wood, I'll put a fiver on 'when the glacier retreated the evidence was on the ground!' which is a different thing entirely.

          2. John Hughes

            Re: Oh no not again...

            All the models assume solar output is constant. It isn't. And it despite denials from the Warm Mongers, it's variance matches well with the variance in temperature.

            Does it bollocks.

            Any time some clown makes the argument "scientists haven't thought of this" you know he's a D-K sufferer.

  20. Cari

    Gee, it sounds like they're really confident in their arguments and the scientific studies backing them up.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      1. Cari

        The ones trying to silence dissent by any means possible.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'll carry on reading the register when you stop publishing nonsense in support of climate denial based on deliberate misinformation.

    Next up the moon and earth are flat, NASA didn't go to the moon, and lizards are in control of the human race. Planet X is about to collide with earth, but it's in competition with a mysterious asteroid, and the devil is going to turn earth into a living hell for non-believers - if he can get there first, and get any torturing of souls in before massive rocks or planets incinerate the planet.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Maiakaat: Kthnxbye.

      I always know when LP has a article on here, as certain places I monitor have a rallying cry for the believers to come and make a stand against the article known. I have no strong view on the science apart from mild skeptacism and not wanting to be in the middle of middle class lefties trying to be SJW's in support of their chosen course. The poster earlier that said if the officials had misrepresented risks of smoking by a known % would have put the research presentation back years has it exactly right. And thats exactly what the rallying cries do to me.

      My solution at the moment feels more like build lots of nuke plants, make liquid fuels from electricity produced, + keep prime movers moving on lpg and similar in the supply chains + infrastructure we already have instead of having most the populace having to replace all their equipment and vehicles to suit a whim supported partially by people who advocate living in huts again. Extra win for doing the electrolysis at macro plants and only transporting the electricity from the nuke plants to do so and reducing fuel costs for this activity. But that runs the risk of being attainable without causing a return to the dark ages.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        I love technology and am not opposed to nuclear power, it's a shame that you have to place people into your nice right wing stereotypes and resort to personal slurs, for disagreeing with your point of view, typical

      2. John Hughes

        certain places I monitor have a rallying cry for the believers to come and make a stand against the article known

        Where? The only place I've seen Lewis getting noted was on WUWT.

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Well, one thing's for sure

    we'll eventually find out what the climate's going to do the hard way (experiencing it, rather than via models), and some folk are likely to look rather embarrased about the way they've been talking about their position on what's happening to the climate as if it were a religious position. Personally, I say a pox on the extremists houses - both sets of extremists, that is. All any of 'em are doing is drowning the science in vast quantities of cherry-picked noise, so far as I can see.

  23. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Big Brother

    Microaggression? MACROAGGRESSION

    I demand that the black guy with the penchant for out-of-bailiwick concentration camps and the drone kill notches on his Nobel Peace Prize medal immediately put the full might of the military in helping to suppress CLIMATE TERROR REVOLT. It's out of hand and worse than bringing self-made clocks to school. (No wait, that was a colored guy, so that was different. Never mind!)

    This message brought to you by MiniTruth and the 5 minutes of ScienceHate™

  24. Araxian

    The biggest issue I have with the whole climate change deal, is not correctly following the scientific method.

    Starting with too small a sample period, even 150 years would be too small. that and they data they have is unreliable as they didn't set out to compensate for growth out to the sample stations, which raised the heat level at a huge number of sites, they then tried to retroactively apply a formula to compensate for inaccurate data.

    This is just bad science, no data should be excluded or modified; unless you can prove the variance, ie do a series of experiments with encroachment of buildings and asphalt on a smaller scale and with one without, then use those results to modify not just making a guess.

    They also cherry pick data only including points that further their view and excluding things that don't. they publish this big prediction of doubling CO2 levels and soaring temperatures in 2010 in the next 20 years. Funny thing is a few weeks later in study NASA put forward simulation data that even if CO2 levels double, it would ultimately have a cooling effect as the increased C02 would cause plant life growth rates to skyrocket and overall CO2 levels would return to lower levels than now, though it also shows that the CO2 level would never actually double as the plant growth rates would keep it in check they just inserted a doubled rate into the model and let it run, and really this is just common sense. for further reading: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/cooling-plant-growth_prt.htm

    Bottom line is if they were conducting themselves as scientists they would be treated as such, as is I don't see anyone can believe anything they say, eventually it becomes chicken little, as not a single prediction they have made as been remotely accurate, junk in junk out. If any real group of scientists can get a hold of the raw data do a proper analysis and opens it for peer review and it holds up then we have something real. otherwise they might as well be living in Fantasyland.

  25. Rik Myslewski

    The Reg has devolved

    Regarding Lewis Page and his contrarian/denialist/skeptical efforts to obfuscate the undeniably demonstrable and indisputably provable rise in global temperatures due to anthropogenic CO2 contributions throughout the past, oh, century-plus, there's only one proper response:

    "Yawwwwn..."

    Lewis is, quite simply, wrong — and increasingly shrill as well as repetitive and boring. As might be obvious to anyone without a denialist ax to grind (and to anyone who realizes that those good folks investigating climate change are, in the main, reasonable and responsible human beings who ain't trying to get rich by scrumming for research grants), the overwhelming majority of non-craniorecatal scientists disagree with Page's manic "It ain't true! It ain't true!" cherry-picking and analytical convolutificationalism. (Okay, so that's not a word. Cut me some slack...)

    The increasing evidence of record global temperatures makes Lewis' stance — and, unfortunately, the stance of his otherwise technologically sophisticated website, The Register — well, pathetic.

    I've learned that to attempt reasonable, data- and research-based arguments here in The Reg's comment forums is rather fruitless, considering that there's a significant percentage of commenters who respond with ludicrously non-scientific, unsupportable, and non-historical statements such as "No one has ever proved that CO2 has an effect on tropospheric and surface temperatures!!" Uh ... well ... no, you're simply wrong. Google Arrhenius, Högbom, Callendar, Suess, Manabe, Wetherald, et al. — that is, if you can take your blinders off long enough to see your keyboard.

    Whatever. I've tried to instill some reason regarding AGW, global warming, and climate change into The Register. I've failed. To unforgivably personalize this post for a moment, and to paraphrase that Olympic-level dickhead, Tricky-Dick Nixon, "You won't have Rik to kick around anymore."

    G'bye — and thanks for all the Thomson, Mellor, McAllister, Nichols, Clarke, Sharwood, Chirgwin, Williams, and others.

    But no thanks to Lewis Page. Let's be objective, analytical, and brutally honest here for a moment, shall we? The man is a maroon, and one who's not only harming the credibility of The Register, but also fueling the abject, blind stupidity — yes, stupidity — that is the majority of climate-change denial. To be clear, I'm not dissing true Judith Curry–level climate-science skepticism that's reasonable, welcome, and fine and dandy. I'm talking pre-decided, brick-minded denial.

    Ooops. Let me correct myself. Characterizing Lewis as a "maroon" is an unforgivable ad hominem attack, and I apologize for stooping to that level of childishness. Seriously. Sorry. He is, in many other aspects, a fine man — and a snappy dresser. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. But do realize that his blind and back-argued denialism is not only wrong, but more importantly his use of his bully pulpit is dangerous. He needs to be refuted — I'm just too disgusted to do it anymore.

    Be well and enjoy — just don't buy any ocean-front property, m'kay?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The Reg has devolved

      Quitter.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The Reg has devolved

      Funny how some people accuse others of doing exactly what they are doing. You are demonstrating classic cult behaviour again.

  26. Yugguy

    Objective my ARSE

    Hang on. I keep being told scientists are all selfless objective seekers after truth? Does this mean they're just like the rest of us? Entrenched beliefs and self-interest?

    1. Salamamba

      Re: Objective my ARSE

      Throughout the history ofscientific endevour,a theory only becomes fully accepted when the last major proponant of the opposing theory dies.

    2. Charles Manning

      Re: Objective my ARSE

      " I keep being told scientists are all selfless objective seekers after truth? "

      Sounds like a great research topic. I'll put in an application for a $100k grant.

      However, if you want a sneak peak at the draft conclusion I can give that to you now:

      More research required.

  27. Pompous Git Silver badge

    Hey Lewis...

    ... is that the same Stanford that ExxonMobil gave $100 million dollars to fund that University's Global Climate and Energy Project? Not forgetting that Shell funds the Climatic Research Unit at East Anglia who in turn supply the IPCC with their scary prognostications. Funny how the warmists accuse the likes of you and me of being in the pay of Big Oil when it's them who are on the take. Still waiting for my cheque...

    Mine's the coat with the 3rd year university text in the pocket. Boundary Layer Climates by TR Oke. For some odd reason I can't seem to find anything in there about CO2 or AGW.

  28. J.G.Harston Silver badge

    All natural processes fluctuate unpredictably, super-complex ones like day-to-day weather and long-term climate even more so. *NOT* having hiatuseses would be strange.

    1. Fraggle850

      @ J.G.Harston

      Good point, unfortunately the AGW orthodoxy (as opposed to realistic science on the subject) can't admit a hiatus, hence the latest round of FUD predicated on a new massaging of necessarily weak and incomplete data.

    2. Tom 13

      Re: *NOT* having hiatuseses

      We've flipped the coin 20 times and each time it came up tails. According to the Warm Mongers, the probability it will come up tails is less than 25%. So either the probabilities on the coin are wrong, or you've had an exceptionally long run of bad luck.

  29. CommanderGalaxian

    Something to hide?

    Why would anybody want to stifle open debate about something by threatening to have their opponents thrown in jail?

    Unless, of course, they have something to hide.

    That's the normal sort of tactics used by the Robert Mugabe's of this World.

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Atlas Shrugged

    Starting to sound like something out of Atlas Shrugged ...

  31. Richard Altmann

    If one is

    taking into account 7.3 Billion people constantly radiating 100W of heat that would be 730 Billion Watts permanently. Don´t know how this figure relates to whatever else releases warmth into the enviroment, but makes me think.

    1. Pompous Git Silver badge

      Re: If one is

      It's not anthropogenic so it can't possibly have any effect. Only carbon pollution is anthropogenic...

    2. John Hughes

      Re: If one is

      Don´t know how this figure relates to whatever else releases warmth into the enviroment, but makes me think.
      Incredibly tiny.

      The sun is giving us around 250 W per M2

  32. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Dear Lewis...

    ...please stop writing articles about climate change; your proselytising comes across as being just as biased and fanatical as the people with whom you disagree.

    No one knows what the consequences will be of anthropogenic green-house gasses; anyone who thinks they do, on either side of the argument, is a fool.

    1. Pompous Git Silver badge
      FAIL

      Re: Dear Lewis...

      "No one knows what the consequences will be of anthropogenic green-house gasses; anyone who thinks they do, on either side of the argument, is a fool."

      Skeptics * and "consensus" climatologists alike use Modtran 5 to calculate the effect of varying amounts of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.

      http://www.modtran5.com/

      Of course a fool wouldn't know that.

      * As always, there's an exception and it's skeptic Dick Lindzen. He calculated the effect of doubling CO2 manually and obtained the same result as Modtran 5. Dick was Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a lead author of Chapter 7, "Physical Climate Processes and Feedbacks", of the IPCC Third Assessment Report on climate change.

      1. Ben Liddicott

        Re: Dear Lewis...

        You do know that "the consequences" go further than changes to the transmissivity of the atmosphere?

        Of course you know that the change of temperature affects (increases) the quantity of water vapour in the atmosphere, leading to a positive feedback. Modtran can add that in which is great. I think we can say this is well understood, and is not the source of disagreement with well-informed sceptics.

        But the change in the quantity of water vapour affects how cloud formation works. Modtran doesn't include that because nobody - nobody - understands sufficiently how cloud formation works to be able to explain current cloud cover, nor how it will change.

        Cloud cover affects albedo and can have both positive and negative feedback effects, depending on the type and altitude of the cloud, and the location and time of day it forms and persists. Cloud of course also affects rainfall, rainfall affects transpiration and transpiration affects water vapour in the air.

        Nobody - nobody - knows whether cloud feedback is positive or negative overall. So nobody knows what the overall affect on temperature or rainfall will be. Only someone uninformed could think so.

    2. Richard Altmann

      Re: Dear Lewis...

      Owh. LP is just taking the piss and you guys fall for it. That´s why i love coming to this site. If he is serious he would piss me off and because of that i would still love to visit this site. Subjective reporting is what the world keeps turning and discussions going. Yet another tip to the hat for El Reg and LP.

  33. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge

    RICO's excessively broad

    RICO really is an excessively broad law. I know why it was written, you'd have various gangsters that would direct criminal activities, but have the best lawyers (as well as judges and juries) that money could buy. (To be honest, it's puzzling to me that any normal person could order a hit and they'd of course be found responsible, but these guys could be caught dead to rights ordering a hit but somehow be able to claim only the hitman is responsible.)

    But, all it says is a group where members have committed 2 illegal acts off a lengthy list can be prosecuted under RICO. So, you find one "climate change denier" who (maybe) dined and dashed once, and you find one who had a check bounce. Done, that's 2 illegal acts, you can charge them under RICO.

    Is this a proper use of the law? Hell no. People I disagree with, even if they're wrong, still have the freedom of speech. People must remember, freedom of speech is an absolute, it's not "freedom of speech unless I disagree with it" (clearly.. since people wouldn't try to restrict speech they agree with.)

    As for the actual issue... on the one hand, I don't think it's reasonable to think that unlimited amounts of CO2 can be pumped into the air and nothing will ever happen -- the climate change deniers are jokers. I do think, just because some politician or other who knows nothing about science has an unscientific opinion, that is no reason to give them so much as a second of airtime though. On the other hand, I also think it's a bad joke to say "Well, temps are going up but slower than modelled, we aren't getting the change we expected, so lets make up new statistical methods until the data matches our model." No reason to give a politician airtime either that believes in voodoo statistics.

    Most likely, some of the CO2 is being absorbed by carbon sinks the models don't account for, then (when those reach capacity) the CO2 level (and temps) will go up faster.

    To be honest, even if CO2 was no problem, the supply of fossil fuels is finite (and becoming increasingly hard to tap into as easier deposits are played out.) The future (a generation or two now) could be pretty bleak if the economy (production, transport, food, energy, and so on) were still as fossil-fuel-dependent as they are now, you'd end up with an economy that has to slow down (and gas shortages, electricity shortages, perhaps food shortages, perhaps plastics-based-products shortages) more and more as it becomes harder to extract the oil and coal at a fast enough rate to meet usage. Or, a few generations from now, you could have vehicles using much less fuel (if any, but I'm just not seeing all-electric given current tech, and given you then have to produce that much more electricity to charge them all....), electricity generation using much less fossil fuels (maybe still coal plants for base load, but not for almost all generation as now), and oil mainly used for plastics production; there'd be plenty of fossil fuels available to meet this lower demand, and hopefully they'd aim to further reduce consumption to avoid using up what's left. Reducing long-term reliance on the fossil fuels really is a necessity even if greenhouse gas didn't exist.

    1. SImon Hobson Bronze badge

      Re: RICO's excessively broad

      > I don't think it's reasonable to think that unlimited amounts of CO2 can be pumped into the air and nothing will ever happen

      I think there are very very very few people believe that.

      > the climate change deniers are jokers

      But we're mostly not talking about "deniers", there's a difference between "sceptic" and "denier". Yes, there are a small number of people with heads in sand trying to claim that "nothing is happening" - and then there are the bulk of us looking at the increasingly "unscientific" methods being applied (spurred on by the ever increasing green money train) and thinking "this just doesn't add up".

      As other have said, it's one of the tactics to label all the "other side" as some sort of nutters (or in the latest revelations, criminals) so as to stifle informed debate. I have no doubt that pumping lots of CO2 into the atmosphere will have an effect - but I am "far from convinced" by the warmist propaganda as to the extent of that effect.

      What I do see is a lot of hot air, and a lot of money dependent on "proving" the imminent armageddon. When non-scientists (I'll include genuine statisticians in that group) are used to pack out panels and speak for AGW that should raise alarm bells. If I needed surgery, then I'd expect the person doing that surgery to have qualifications in medicine - not someone with an honorary "doctor" title because they did meeja studies and made a load of money at something.

      In the same way, I'd put more weight on the warmist propaganda if there were less "not a real scientist" people involved, and a lot less evidence of being warmist being a requirement to put food on the table*.

      * There appears to be plenty of evidence of funding being conditional on the project having the right desired outcome. And of course, the old joke about any project being able to get funding if you tack "... and it's effect on climate change" to the end of it's title :-)

  34. Unicornpiss
    Meh

    Why does this remind me...

    ...of the useless buffoons in Hitchiker's Guide crash landing on the planet they were shipped off to, then adopting leaves as a currency, then burning down the forests because the leaves were devalued...

    It's sad that people are getting worked up that apparently global warming is not as severe as it was made out to be/they'd like it to be. I'm not saying we shouldn't do what we can to reduce greenhouse emissions, etc. But it annoys me when people only accept the 'facts' that fit their existing viewpoints.

  35. M7S

    This does open up a whole new avenue for interesting Reg articles

    As clearly, if anyone has the skill set to make an escape equipped with only a shoelace and a bowl of prison-issue custard, Lewis is that person.

    It could even be a competition, him against the clock-making kid.

  36. Martin Budden Silver badge

    Lewis Page's logical fallacy is...

    Usually Lewis Page's logical fallacy is "the texas sharpshooter".

    This time, it is "tu quoque". Pointing out that some warmists are involved in spin doesn't diminish the fact that Lewis Page is involved in spin.

    1. Pompous Git Silver badge

      Re: Lewis Page's logical fallacy is...

      So why don't you point out where warmists are involved in the actual dissemination of science at the tertiary level? I have already pointed out that the standard text in 3rd year of Big School is TR Oke's Boundary Layer Climates. No mention of CAGW anywhere in that excellent text. The first year geology text The Changing Earth: Exploring Geology and Evolution by James S. Monroe and Reed Wicander is 25-30% about Earth's climates. It contains one sentence relevant to CAGW, and here I paraphrase as my copy is on loan, "some believe that CO2 has an effect on Earth's climate".

      If as Kevin Rudd claimed it's "the greatest moral challenge of our time", why all the spin? Wouldn't it make more sense to present tertiary level science as a tool to persuade?

      1. Martin Budden Silver badge

        Re: Lewis Page's logical fallacy is...

        Dear Pompous Git,

        You just did a "strawman" on me, while at the same time being a "texas-sharpshooter". Well done.

  37. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Get a grip!

    I wonder how many people have EVER been locked up for 'climate change denial' - hmm, that would be a big fat zero. So you can put away your persecution mania and open another can of beer. And how many locked up for protesting against actions that promote climate change - that would be several thousand, several tens of thousand?

  38. Zuagroasta

    Friend of fatherless!

    Fountain of happiness!

    Lord of the swill-bucket!

    Oh, how my soul is on

    Fire when I gaze at thy

    Calm and commanding eye,

    Like the sun in the sky,

    Comrade Napoleon!

    Scratch the green paint a bit and out comes the Stalinist, champing at the bit to rule over your life according to his holier-than-thou utopia and ready with the re-education whip and drugs if you as much as whimper. These guys haven't changed one bit since the days when they were funded by the Stasi.

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