If you know some climate science, we’d love your essay

Jarrod Gilbert, NZ Herald, 22 January, says:

Based on all of the information available to us, there is no sound argument against the existence of anthropogenic climate change, only ignorance of the scientific consensus and an arrogance to argue against it – often by people armed only with an elementary education and an internet connection.

When you have highly educated scientists amassed on one side, it’s prudent to stick with their assessment of matters relating to science. If you want to understand how to be a complete twonk, seek notes from those peddling the other side. But for science, definitely stick with the scientists.

It’s a bit early for arguments against its existence. Continue Reading →

Visits: 13

Ignore sceptical thought at your peril

Associate Professor Janet Stephenson says a few thoughtful things on Newsroom. Here’s one.

When it comes to re-starting New Zealand’s economy, we can’t afford to have a mind-set of ‘we’ll do whatever it takes’. That would just lock us back into those train tracks that head to a future in which everyone loses.

Continue Reading →

Visits: 0

Climate rebuttals to crack the activist grip on our mind

Reblogged from CFACT

By

Heartland launches 22 climate science “gatebreakers”

“Gatebreaker” is a word I use to describe a special kind of document that until recently has been few and far between. It is a one or two-page non-technical refutation of a specific alarmist argument. It is something a student or citizen can use to confront an alarmist gatekeeper, hence the name gatebreaker. I wrote about the need for gatebreakers several years ago.

The Heartland Institute has just published a whopping 22 gatebreakers, with more promised. This is a true wealth of important skeptical material, unlike anything we have seen before. My dream is coming true. Continue Reading →

Visits: 164

Anthropologist becomes arrogant climate activist

Here is a letter I sent this evening to Dame Anne Salmond, anthropologist and historian, Professor in Maori Studies and Anthropology at the University of Auckland, and 2013 New Zealander of the Year. An opinion piece she wrote on climate change in Stuff today considers climate sceptics beneath an honest anthropologist’s contempt.

Dear Dame Anne,

You expressed pride in a letter you signed ten years ago describing climate sceptics as “climate deniers”, even though ‘sceptical’ has long been a deeply admired virtue of all good scientists. Continue Reading →

Visits: 8

The bare-faced cheek

Now, I’m a sceptic about man-made climate change and though I frequently reproach those, such as the Royal Society of New Zealand, who give some inaccurate account of climate science, I have no particular position to defend but that of dispassion. To tell you the truth, I don’t know what position to adopt.

Because, quite simply, I have questions, which of course are unanswered, which explains my uncertainty. If my questions were answered, they wouldn’t survive, because answers destroy questions — it’s either that, or you go back to sleep. Credible answers will certainly decide the matter, then perhaps I too, like King Canute before me, will turn and contest the climate. Or not. Continue Reading →

Visits: 302

A climate denier? Ha ha ha!

Climate Science 101: that tiny Sun heats this whole gigantic Earth and that little moon.

Oh, I’m no denier, I just have a few questions. But first…

I’ve been called a “climate denier” hundreds of times because I lie about global warming, ignore unfavourable reports, obscure the truth and all this is funded by big oil. For over ten years I’ve apparently bamboozled the public by introducing doubt where no doubt exists, stirring up needless arguments over climate science that’s already settled, I’ve delayed crucial emissions policies and killed millions of people by allowing global warming, so I certainly deserve prison after all this and maybe a death sentence as well. Continue Reading →

Visits: 962

I write therefore I think

Hurricane-force winds tilt slabs of ice, allowing the water beneath to freeze and forming the intriguing icy scales shown here, called “dragon skin” by the poetic. This striking image in a recent story caught my attention and I couldn’t resist adding it. Though I wish we could see the scale of the scales.

Scientists have captured drone footage of sea ice called dragon skin, formed by hurricane-force winds.

Hobart scientist Guy Williams said: “Dragon skin ice is very rare, bizarre, evidence of a darker chaos in the cryospheric realm, not seen in Antarctica since 2007.” So colourful: a “darker chaos.” Wow, I’m impressed. And uneasy. Surely this is caused by man-made climate change. Continue Reading →

Visits: 106

One letter to faze them all and in the darkness blind them

Professor Howard C. Hayden, physicist, makes a simple promise: he’ll show us a one-letter proof that the theory of a dangerous human influence on global temperature (DHIGT) is false.
Can you fault his logic? – RT

October 27, 2009

The Honorable Lisa P. Jackson, Administrator
Environmental Protection Agency
1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20460

Dear Administrator Jackson: Continue Reading →

Visits: 242

Royal Society whitewashes climate complaint

rs-logo-490In July 2016, Professor Tim Naish and Professor James Renwick embarked on a whistle-stop tour of 11 towns and cities giving a public slide presentation they called Ten by Ten: Climate Change (“Ten things you didn’t know about climate change”). Senior scientists with the NZ Climate Science Coalition raised concerns about the accuracy of the material being presented and on 26 August, before the tour was over, they lodged a complaint (pdf, 2 MB) with the Royal Society of New Zealand.

This blog reported the complaint on 28 August. On or about November 23, a Confidential Draft Report came in from Professors Tennant, Scott and Watts, of the Royal Society Professional Standards and Ethics Panel. Now the the Final Report of the Panel (the Report) has been released, received by the complainants on December 7. Continue Reading →

Visits: 284

We trusted them

We must change our path, but not as the alarmists would have us believe.

Now we must change direction, but following reason, not fear.

About thirty years ago we first heard reports that the world was warming. The scientific papers noted that levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide were the highest recorded in the last 8 million years (or some large number, depending on the study). The language made it seem that CO2 caused the warming, but it seldom said so directly. At first.

We trusted the scientists and as more and more of these papers appeared we slowly came to accept that the planet was warming because of our CO2 emissions. Continue Reading →

Visits: 204

Renwick distorts evidence

Auckland mayoral candidate Vic Crone

During an interview a few days ago, Auckland mayoral candidate Vic Crone would not say if she believed the earth was warming due to man-made pollution, saying only: “Gosh, that’s a very contentious debate.”

Dr James Renwick, a professor of physical geography at Victoria University of Wellington, has slammed Crone’s statement. “The climate is changing and it is due to human activity and that is very clear from all sorts of lines of evidence,” he said. “To say that it’s very contentious suggests a real lack of understanding of the area.” The evidence showed that human influence was the dominant cause of global warming, Renwick said. “To try and say that we’re not sure is very backward thinking.” [emphasis added]

But that’s just not the case.  Continue Reading →

Visits: 354

NZ about to ratify Paris agreement – will they ask our opinion?

Paula Bennett says the Government intends to concrete the Paris agreement into place by the end of the year.

She will “within weeks” announce terms of reference and the members of an expert group that will help implement our transition to lower carbon emissions. They hope our trading friends will be mightily pleased by our righteous eagerness to save the planet. Or so they imply. Continue Reading →

Visits: 473

Pontificating piffle on climate

UPDATE – see below

Dr Jarrod Gilbert, a sociologist at the University of Canterbury, advises us to trample on the right to free speech by making it a crime to “deny climate change”, wants climate sceptics to stop “ignoring best evidence” and “turning against experts” and gives us all the juvenile middle finger by saying amusingly “the term climate sceptic is now interchangeable with the term mindless fool.”

Continue Reading →

Visits: 238

Bulk of global warming fears gone — storms won’t increase

UPDATE NZDT 1845 Monday 7 March

My apologies. There were distractions while I was writing this post that caused a silly error: I mistook the author of the post I wanted to report on. Richard Cumming alerted me to it (thanks, RC) and the references are now corrected. Insertions shown by green highlighting.


The trickery has been going on for years. First, an alarmist paper will describe details of a hitherto unknown peril of man-made global warming. The media picks it up and circulates it for months. Then, maybe years later, once our selfish ruin of the environment is established, a rebuttal comes out, showing the peril is against the laws of physics.

But does the rebuttal get the fanfare of trumpets that greets the warmy paper? Not likely. Continue Reading →

Visits: 161

Contempt is not evidence

Climate warmistas mouth off at us for the global warming we cause but universally, staunchly and ignorantly refuse to say how we cause it. It’s time this was stopped, and the only way to stop it is for us to keep asking for the evidence and complain fairly loudly each time we are ignored.

The warming experts paint endless scenarios of different amounts of warming in different decades up to a century from today, describing multifarious ills and tragedies that might befall various kinds of living things. Continue Reading →

Visits: 86

Reminder: your stubborn sceptical mind will be dissected this week

UPDATE 1600, Monday 20 July: Lecture cancelled – see below
Manukau Institute of Technology

Manukau Institute of Technology, Otara. Look for the theatre. Click to enlarge.

Come along and hear all about it

This is a reminder to readers in and near Auckland about the free public lecture next Wednesday to address the problem of sceptical minds stubbornly clinging to questions about global warming. Since there can be, by our definition, no genuine scientific questions unanswered by our mainstream climate scientists, there must be something in the mind interfering with the acceptance of climate change.

Can sceptics help themselves or do we have to help them? Can they ever put their denial behind them? Victoria University has a highly-skilled psychologist who will dissect their anti-social behaviour. Continue Reading →

Visits: 282

EPA’s McCarthy: ‘Every voice needs to be in this discussion’

Of course, we only listen to normal people

h/t Richard Cumming. When he pointed to Jamie Glazov’s article I discovered the McCarthy outrage.

Lots of people have stopped listening to climate science, which observes no warming for 20 years. They are now being exhorted to stop listening to ‘climate deniers’.

US EPA chief Gina McCarthy is spouting insidious totalitarian doctrine hidden beneath a pretended admiration of democracy and camouflaged by appeals to the good of the majority. So she prepares the ground for legal restraints against honest free speech, and someone must point it out. Continue Reading →

Visits: 178

Climate science should abandon the cudgel and present evidence

Further to Are you a scientist?:

Someone the other day was telling me I shouldn’t have criticised the VUW lecture on the basis of a brochure—she said I should wait to hear the lecture first. She made a good point, but she knows nothing (because the TV news never mentions it) of the unbelievable saga of flawed “climate” papers presenting patronising descriptions of the inadequate mindset of climate sceptics. Continue Reading →

Visits: 74

Modern journalism meets a lion of a man

hyena handler of Nigeria

While sceptics learn to laugh at themselves

A Harley biker is visiting Taronga Park Zoo, Sydney, when he sees a little girl leaning into the lions’ cage.

Suddenly, a lion grabs her by the jacket and tries to pull her inside, in full view of her terrified, screaming parents. Continue Reading →

Visits: 65

Slip on a list, a humorous list

We were circulated a list published in Wikipedia of scientists sceptical of the IPCC version of dangerous anthropogenic global warming (DAGW). The list has been published and updated since 2005 and it appears still to be provoking discussion.

On seeing the list yesterday, a sceptical scientist offered some wry observations:

Unintentionally by the writers, this is actually quite an amusing list, despite it managing to omit more than a few known sceptics of standing. Continue Reading →

Visits: 112

Eight climate claims debunked, debunked

the atmosphere

Part of the atmosphere from above. Thin, isn’t it? All the weather we’ll ever see happens right there.

Climate counter-claims

AGW theory may not be a hoax, but it fails because it’s wrong

I’d never heard of Bill Moyers until Bob Carter circulated the link to what Bob calls this piece of malignant venality (have to love that wordsmithing!).

Mr Moyers, an ancient US journalist, runs billmoyers.com, on which Joshua Holland, a few days (oops) three weeks ago, published “pseudo-scientific climate claims debunked by real scientists“, which he sought from climate scientists and offered “as a public service.” Joshua gets sceptical thinking all wrong and regurgitates errors, while the arguments his scientists rely on have been widely discredited. Still, he does us a service, conveniently listing eight arguments for us to refute. Mr Holland finally reveals, at the very end of his post, that they come from the famous alarmist web site, home of John Cook, Stephan Lewandowski and their disreputable, widely discredited and fraudulent “97% consensus” paper: the Skeptical Science web site.

Joshua introduces the sceptics:

Most people who deny that human activity is warming the planet just dismiss a massive body of scientific evidence as a big hoax.

Continue Reading →

Visits: 137

Heated climate debate continues

Professor Bob Carter

It can’t be over yet. When people are still being fired for not believing in global warming, it’s far from over. The war continues.

Professor Bob Carter (an expatriate Kiwi) lost his job the other day at James Cook University (JCU) in Townsville. He had worked there for 31 loyal years, his professional life devoted to stratigraphy, understanding events in the deep past recorded in ocean sediments, and teaching.

Significantly, because it led to his dismissal, Bob made an honourable name for himself and earned a world-wide reputation for remaining faithful to scientific principles while analysing the outrageous predictions from global warming alarmists. He was never afraid to speak out against the alarmists and their dubious claims. Continue Reading →

Visits: 137

Taxing Air out soon

Brochure for Taxing Air. Download the pdf (986 KB).

From our good friend, the always-in-touch Val Majkus, comes a reminder about Bob Carter’s new book (which she’s ordered already!) and encouragement to pass it on to anyone you know who may be interested.

Bob says the book will be available from July 1st, and he would appreciate any support or publicity we can give it. It’s especially significant in the context of the forthcoming Australian election and the new-old PM’s just-announced ditching of the hated carbon tax.

The book has its own web site, and a Twitter account is available.

Visits: 45

GWPF, RS talk climate change

Barriers coming down?

Press Release 22/05/13

Global Warming Policy Foundation Invites Royal Society Fellows For Climate Change Discussion

London, 22 May: In response to a suggestion by Sir Paul Nurse, the President of the Royal Society, the Global Warming Policy Foundation has invited five climate scientists and Fellows of the Royal Society to discuss the current state of climate science and its wider implications.

In a letter to Lord Lawson, the GWPF chairman, Sir Paul stated that the Royal Society “would be happy to put the GWPF in touch with people who can offer the Foundation informed scientific advice.”

Sir Paul suggested that the GWPF should contact five of their Fellows: Sir Brian Hoskins; Prof John Mitchell; Prof Tim Palmer; Prof John Shepherd and Prof Eric Wolff.

The GWPF has now invited the five climate scientists to a meeting with a team of members of the GWPF’s Academic Advisory Council and independent scientists and has proposed a two-part agenda:

1. The science of global warming, with special reference to (a) the climate sensitivity to carbon dioxide and (b) the extent of natural variability;

2. The conduct and professional standards of those involved in the relevant scientific inquiry and official advisory process.

“I hope the Fellows of the Royal Society will be happy to meet with our team of scientists so that something positive can come out of Sir Paul’s recommendation,” said Dr Benny Peiser, the Director of the GWPF.

via Press Release: GWPF Invites Royal Society Fellows For Climate Change Discussion.

I like it when they talk to us.

Visits: 120

Will release of AR5 draft help IPCC make good?

Let us hope so

From Judith Curry comes a remark of such simple goodness I pause in admiration and slowly nod my agreement. Of course there’s hope for the IPCC!

In a learned comment on Matt Ridley’s analysis of the draft AR5 discussion of climate sensitivity, including aerosols, clouds and water vapour, Professor Curry concludes:

JC summary: The leak of the SOD was a good thing; the IPCC still has the opportunity to do a much better job, and the wider discussion in the blogosphere and even the mainstream media places pressure on the IPCC authors to consider these issues; they can’t sweep them under the rug as in previous reports.

via Climate sensitivity in the AR5 SOD | Climate Etc..

There’s nothing difficult in that statement; it’s quite ordinary, really. So it would be easy to overlook the obstacles to making it. Like the instinct for revenge against the IPCC for making so much of a non-existent climate problem to so many for so long. Continue Reading →

Visits: 364

What drives climate change?

Actually, what IS climate change, again?

From page 7 of the leaked Summary for Policymakers from the IPCC WGI Fifth Assessment Report comes this statement about CO2 “driving” climate change (emphasis added):

Natural and anthropogenic drivers cause imbalances in the Earth’s energy budget. The strongest anthropogenic drivers are changes in greenhouse gas concentrations and aerosols. These can now be quantified in more detail, but the uncertainties of the forcing associated with aerosols remain high.

Globally, CO2 is the strongest driver of climate change compared to other changes in the atmospheric composition, and changes in surface conditions. Its relative contribution has further increased since the 1980s and by far outweighs the contributions from natural drivers. CO2 concentrations and rates of increase are unprecedented in the last 800,000 years and at least 20,000 years, respectively. Other drivers also influence climate on global and particularly regional scales.

It’s a mere fragment of grit from a mountain of a report, but still curious enough because it raises the definition of the problem, and statements about climate change have no clearer meaning just because we stopped questioning it. Continue Reading →

Visits: 419

Death of Kyoto – a Scottish view

Dear fellow followers of the Climate debate,

As a result of finding out that the Kyoto commitments technically comes to an end on the 31st December, the Scottish Climate & Energy Forum have been investigating the likely consequences of this both in terms of what is likely to happen to the protocol and the wide implications when (as it seems) the protocol effectively ends operation on the 31st December.

We have written this up as a report. The main intention of this report has been to try to find the actual facts and having sorted the chaff from the wheat, ascertain what this might mean (with particular emphasis on Scotland). Continue Reading →

Visits: 406

An insanity of global warming

The inexplicable lunacy of the learned

How was academia infected with the climate change madness?

Not the journalists, the businessmen, the bankers, the entrepreneurs, environmentalists, politicians, bureaucrats or even (or especially!) the earth scientists and climatologists — all their infections can be understood to some extent by understanding the various profits that would come to them once they accepted the madness, which slowly but inevitably they almost all did. (We’re talking about departments here, not individuals.)

We need not ask how the man in the street was infected with the madness, for he has been dragged kicking and screaming and had his very money stolen to fund it all. Continue Reading →

Visits: 458

Herald shows what to avoid in climate debate

Here’s an agreeably restrained response to Brian Rudman’s repellent, unsophisticated bluster against the Coalition. The Herald declined to publish this, but we’re delighted to present it in their stead. If Rudman has the sense I think he has, or the slightest genuine interest in climate change, he’ll pay close attention to Tom’s analysis. – Richard Treadgold

Columnist sets bad example in attack on Climate Science Coalition

The September 12th column by Brian Rudman of the New Zealand Herald, “One small word, one giant setback for denial”, exemplifies how much of the climate debate has descended into a sort of murky underworld where logical fallacies, personal attacks and made up “facts” all too often replace rational discourse. While Herald editors are to be congratulated for allowing the publication of my letter to the editor correcting some of Rudman’s more obvious mistakes, his piece is worth analyzing as a sample of what other journalists must avoid if a civilized discussion about this vitally important topic is to be possible.

Rudman’s repeated references to “climate change deniers” is a particularly nasty and nonsensical phrase frequently employed by those who want to silence debate about the causes of climate change. Continue Reading →

Visits: 449

Seeing freedom and truth as disease

A thought-provoking post just went up at WUWT. It’s by Thomas Fuller concerning Stephan Lewandowsky’s ill-born “poll” of climate sceptics and his subsequent paper “revealing” them as believers in various wacky conspiracy theories. Fuller gives an electrifying insight into the attacks on sceptics as suffering a disease of the mind. For he cites a tactic from the days of slavery. Continue Reading →

Visits: 371

Personal message to Stephan Lewandowsky

Dear Stephan,

caption

I have just asked you for access to the data underpinning your latest paper “An Anatomy of the Motivated Rejection of Science” and received an auto-reply to my email because apparently you are travelling for a week or so.

Your message contains a rather odd addendum. After saying you’re travelling, it adds this:

Note that although I endeavour to keep all email correspondence private and confidential, this does not apply to messages that are of an abusive nature.

This is astonishing – even comical. It shows

  1. a tendency to receive large numbers of abusive messages
  2. a disinclination to enjoy them

It challenges the imagination, therefore, to understand why you should have participated in writing the paper about to be published in Psychological Science. Continue Reading →

Visits: 476

Motivated rejection of stupidity – Part 2

Ah, the insight of these cretins, to integrate outrageously diverse concepts into the essence of hogwash.

Reading through this paper identifies extra drivel but it’s an unsatisfactory reward for labour because I just don’t want to find drivel in a scientific paper. Such a paper lets everyone down. Take a look through this mindless vacuity presented (with the unforgiveable connivance of the publishers of Psychological Science) as scholastic acumen.

How to maintain the appearance of consensus

To maintain the appearance of a consensus, Lewandowsky tries to claim that some “core principles” are not in question among mainstream climate scientists. But he picks core principles which are far from it. Continue Reading →

Visits: 380

Motivated rejection of stupidity

New paper (in press, Psychological Science):

NASA faked the moon landing|Therefore (Climate) Science is a Hoax:
An Anatomy of the Motivated Rejection of Science

by Stephan Lewandowsky
University of Western Australia

Remember that name. Lewandosky will soon become a byword for rejection of science.

The entire abstract

Although nearly all domain experts agree that human CO2 emissions are altering the world’s climate, segments of the public remain unconvinced by the scientifi c evidence. Internet blogs have become a vocal platform for climate denial, and bloggers have taken a prominent and influential role in questioning climate science. We report a survey (N > 1100) of climate blog users to identify the variables underlying acceptance and rejection of climate science. Paralleling previous work, we fi nd that endorsement of a laissez-faire conception of free-market economics predicts rejection of climate science Continue Reading →

Visits: 387

Hear the alarm

Here’s good sceptical climate information all wrapped up in a lovely example of how to deliver it.

My good friend Bryan Leyland, engineer, sent this exchange. He gives us an admirable example of the best practicality and erudition, conjoined as only Kiwis do it, leavened with a charming humanity.

Some while ago Bryan gave an address to IPENZ (Institute of Professional Engineers NZ) members in Whangarei and one of his audience has been thinking carefully about what he said. Bryan just received a letter from this colleague, who describes himself as an environmental engineer, and Bryan replied. Below, the letter writer, with his name and details withheld to preserve his privacy, is quoted in the green text.

In his responses, Bryan listens to the anxiety and the honest intent of a person who looks like an opponent, keeps a level head and gives informed answers that address the substance of the opposing view. It’s an object lesson for us all, on both sides of the great climate divide. Continue Reading →

Visits: 62

Chief sceptics explain everything about climate denial

h/t – Mike Jowsey

E.M. Smith, known in blogworld as Chiefio, replied at Jo Nova to Paul Bain’s response to Jo’s letter critical of Bain’s Nature “paper” on climate scepticism, which uses the deplorable term “deniers”.

Here is Jo’s delicious letter to Bain, wherein she takes a rational machete to tangled thickets of climate denial and produces an irrefutable exculpation of climate sceptics:

——————–
Dear Dr Paul Bain,

Right now, it’s almost my life’s work to communicate the empirical evidence on anthropogenic climate change.

I can help you with your research on deniers. I have studied the mental condition of denial most carefully. There is a simple key to converting the convictions of people in this debate, and I have seen it work hundreds of times. Indeed, my own convictions that lasted 17 years were turned around in a few days. I can help you. It would be much simpler than you think. Continue Reading →

Visits: 541

… is sauce for the gander

The Heartland billboard in Chicago

What an amazing experiment.

But the alarmists don’t like this. No, they don’t like this at all. Well, many sceptics don’t like it either — it’s the raw, bleeding, white-knuckled edge of hostility. It simply points out what is true: that some loathsome people believe in dangerous man-made global warming. But it sets an objectionable context and tars its opponents with a distastefully black brush.

Of course, it just turns the warmists’ own arguments back on them. They started it, and they’ve been at it for years. The sceptics have been immensely patient. The warmists are the ones with the shredded moral fibre.

For a sample of their complaints about this detestable sceptical tactic, a reader referred me to Stephan Lewandowsky’s article Are Heartland billboards the beginning of the end for climate denial? at The Conversation, Continue Reading →

Visits: 214

The end of scepticism

Tui billboard proxy

Read about the Heartland Institute’s brief experiment with provocative marketing.

UPDATE Thursday 10 May

At five to nine this morning I received an email from Nick Downes, who works for Federation Media (“We specialise in doing the web right”) whose web site displays some spectacular work for some spectacular clients.

After taking some advice, I removed the Tui billboard facsimile above. Continue Reading →

Visits: 370

Ridley warms heretical hearts

Everyone loves well-crafted prose, even when the author of it opposes their point of view. So it is with Matt Ridley, well-known author of The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves, in less than a week earning nearly 9000 Google hits on his “Scientific heresy” address to the Royal Society of the Arts in Edinburgh on 31 October, posted at Bishop Hill. Even alarmist Gareth Renowden appreciates Ridley’s wordcraft before scorning his so-called climate science.

Ridley’s given us an admirable piece of work on several levels. His writing is a pleasure to read, he gives good information and clearly sets out his thinking on a tour of the weaknesses in the current alarmist view of the global climate. In doing so he warms the cockles of sceptical hearts everywhere while enraging the alarmists with his “well-known sceptic tropes”. That’s the view according to Renowden. Poor things; claiming emptiness for Ridley’s contentions is a flaccid stand-in for a cogent rebuttal.

Ridley concludes that science “needs heretics” and one can appreciate the radical point that even heretics should be heard. But he leaves unstated his crucial implication that evidence elevates the climate “heretic” above all the cereologists, astrologers and eugenicists in history, while true heretics need no evidence.

Here’s his address, copied from Bishop Hill with appreciation and thanks. I also repost the document Mr Montford prepared, with its helpful diagrams (pdf, 1865KB).


Matt Ridley

Scientific heresy

by Matt Ridley

It is a great honour to be asked to deliver the Angus Millar lecture.

I have no idea whether Angus Millar ever saw himself as a heretic, but I have a soft spot for heresy. One of my ancestral relations, Nicholas Ridley* the Oxford martyr, was burned at the stake for heresy.

My topic today is scientific heresy. When are scientific heretics right and when are they mad? How do you tell the difference between science and pseudoscience?

Let us run through some issues, starting with the easy ones.

Astronomy is a science; astrology is a pseudoscience.

Evolution is science; creationism is pseudoscience.

Molecular biology is science; homeopathy is pseudoscience.

Vaccination is science; the MMR scare is pseudoscience.

Oxygen is science; phlogiston was pseudoscience.

Chemistry is science; alchemy was pseudoscience.

Are you with me so far? Continue Reading →

Visits: 188

Just one fact

Albert Einstein

To defeat relativity one did not need the word of 100 scientists, just one fact.

Albert Einstein.

This statement is not true because Einstein made it — it’s true because it accords with reason. Theory must always bow to observation.

… or just one paper

Unfortunately, in CAGW (catastrophic anthropogenic global warming) we have a theory which is undefined in a peer-reviewed paper, which means it’s almost impossible to refute. This is deliberate. Sceptical questions provoke the inevitable challenge to “produce a better theory” — as though their opponents’ failure to do so proves the half-baked theory correct, which it cannot.

Any evidence contrary to part of the theory is answered by talking about some other part. “Heads we win, tails you lose.”

Any change in the climate, especially any violent weather event which injures us or damages our property, “proves” climate change, which, by a mere trick of linguistic association, “proves” global warming. That, in turn, is our fault. After all, so many people wouldn’t be talking about how to prevent it if it didn’t exist, right?

Well, no, actually. Continue Reading →

Visits: 335

Sixes all around the park from Monckton

cricket ball knocked out of the park

Viscount Monckton of Brenchley opened his debate at the National Press Club in Australia two days ago by reminding his audience that England not only took the Ashes off Australia, but also held on to them in the next rematch. He said: “I just thought I’d rub it in.” Then he proceeded to take his cudgel to his feeble debating opponent.

Economist Richard Deniss must be no intellectual weakling, but he gave the impression of not knowing where he was, so he said the things he normally said. Which usually works, because his normal audience has heard them before and agrees with him. But here, he floundered and had no idea what he was doing. Continue Reading →

Visits: 83

Lord Monckton to visit New Zealand

Lord Christopher Monckton

The Climate Realists have confirmed that Lord Monckton has agreed to come here following his Australian tour. Donations have been received to cover his expenses.

There are some engagement details on the CR web site with more to be confirmed.

Visits: 66

We’re not potty, we’re POTI

People of the Ilk graphic

With regard to Treadgold and his ilk, I have to say that there is nothing they say that I can relate to.

People Of The Ilk (POTI), we stand at a cross-roads.

Around us, people are losing their heads to the global warming madness and blaming it on the sceptics.

They accuse us of being potty, but, secure in our self-knowledge as the POTI, their slurs do not touch us.

Yet the science we revere, being spoken unto them, yea, even unto common, easy-to-understand English phrases, is mocked, and spat upon and reviled. The blessed truth is ignored and trampled on in mainstream media and amateur blog alike. Even the peer-reviewed scientific journals scorn the time-honoured practices and conspire to conceal the scientific truth.

Shall we surrender?

Shall we fight on?

Shall we apply for government funding?

Shall we infiltrate Greenpeace?

Shall we pray for divine assistance?

Shall we poison the water supply? (All right, that’s a joke!)

What are we to do?

People of the Ilk alternate graphic

Visits: 36

Never the twain shall meet

the finger of God

OH, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, tho’ they come from the ends of the earth!

from The Ballad of East and West
by Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936)


Toward a conversation

A reader of the Climate Conversation, Matt Flaherty, has made some intelligent and generous comments after taking yours truly to task for issuing a partially misleading press release last December.

Those comments deserve proper consideration in this separate post, for Matt raises the superb subject of what we ought to call each other in the climate debate. I’d like us to have a go at resolving this.

It would be especially interesting to hear from the ‘pro-AGW’ readers who have commented here lately, like the perspicacious Keith Hunter, David Winter, Matt Flaherty of course, and any others who have been just lurking until now. How would you like to be characterised, if at all?

For simplicity, there are two sides: the ‘warmists’ and the ‘deniers’; those on the one hand compelled to believe that mankind is destroying the planet and those on the other hand who cannot believe it. Continue Reading →

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