Has 1984 finally arrived?
By Paul Homewood
Euan is at it again:
Has 1984 finally arrived?
Sir, Mike Hannan has referred to my view on climate change as Trumpian, and he calls into question my competence (letters 8th Nov).
I have a BSc in geology (hons) and PhD in isotope geochemistry and read physics for 1 year at university under R. V. Jones. I was awarded a merit. Much of the evidence for historic climate change comes from stable isotope data and cosmogenic isotope data from ice cores and fossil wood. I consider myself to be well qualified to analyse and provide commentary on these vital data sets. I am now retired, but my last employment was at ETH Zurich, regarded as Europe’s top university.
Mr Hannan accepts the 95% consensus of experts. This is normally cited as 97% consensus based on a paper published by John Cook et al in 2013 “Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature”. I wonder if Mr Hannan has read it?
The statistic is based on an analysis of abstracts from 11,944 papers on climate change published between 1991 and 2011. Abstracts were scanned for those authors who expressed an opinion on the cause of climate change. 66.4% of abstracts did not express a view and therefore the opinion of those scientists were excluded from the survey. 32.6% of abstracts endorsed the view that anthropogenic global warming was real while 0.7% rejected it. The trouble, is that universities and research institutions working on climate issues tend to only employ individuals who endorse the official line (see final paragraph of this letter) and so this statistic is heavily biased and has little validity. While Mr Hannan says he is content to simply accept the consensus view, I do not, and I am widely read on this topic, especially on climate history. I have 250 colleagues and associates, all experienced and reputable scientists, who broadly share views that are aligned with my own.
Furthermore, Cook, et al simply record those individuals who endorse the fact that anthropogenic CO2 leads to a warming atmosphere. If I was asked that question, I would also respond in the affirmative. Hence, Mr Hannan is quite mistaken to suggest that I belong to a Trumpian minority. What is accepted as fact among my 250 friends is that the observed warming has 3 components to it: 1) greenhouse gas forced warming, 2) natural climatic warming (we are still emerging from the Little Ice Age) and 3) urban heat islands affecting thermometer readings. The climate alarm community (the IPCC etc) apportion all observed warming to manmade greenhouse gasses and simply ignore points 2 and 3. The moment you allocate a significant portion of observed warming to points 2 and 3 – perhaps 50% or more, the climate emergency disappears.
Mr Hannan goes on to say “generally severe weather is escalating”. A claim like this needs to be backed up by evidence. The main source of data on severe weather comes from the number of hurricanes making landfall in the USA. This number is actually flat to showing a small decline since 1851!
Mr Hannan opens his letter with the following quite chilling statement. “Claimed certainty on climate change to the public is very important”. This seems to be taken from some handbook on “Scaremongering and thought control”. Only 39 years late, it seems like 1984 has finally arrived.
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Euan is quite correct, as always. I wonder why he hasn’t signed the World Climate Declaration? Have any of his 250 colleagues and associates signed it? They all should.
See: https://clintel.org/world-climate-declaration/
I’ll be refering to this ad infinitum. It’s the perfect response to the alarmist climate crisis drivel.
The problem is, they don’t want to hear it, won’t listen, so it’s a waste of time. It’s a cult and what they live for. Take it away and life has no meaning for them – for a substantial number, the gravy dries up.
I signed the Clintel declaration recently. Still waiting for it to appear on the list. Its very well written and I had no issues at all in signing it. I’m on two lists, Geol Soc London Rebel group where I was kind of involved in setting up at the beginning since it grew out of futile discussion with Colin Sumerhayes. There are about 100 members there, a few very senior.
CO2 Coalition is about 150. Many VERY senior individuals. Pulling the strings there is Will Happer and Gregory Wrightson is the daily manager. They are both very excellent. They are making some inroads to being noticed by politicians and media. When I read through the Clintel list of signatories, I recognise many names.
https://co2coalition.org/about/
Check out the CV of Tom Stafford.
Excellent. We should all encourage our qualified colleagues who have looked into the climate to sign.
My name is on the “Oregon Petition” — long ago, I’ve forgotten when.
John Bowman says “it’s a cult” — My term is “ClimateCult”™
This is one of those ‘madness of crowds’ situations and there is no clear means of scattering the critters. One at a time, it is said.
How do I join the Geolsoc rebel group, please?
Phil Marshall, FGS.
@ Phil Marshall, I asked Paul to put us in touch.
Mike Hannan would have it that ” claimed certainty on climate change is very important to the public ” ….To pose the question Euan and Paul : what is of greater importance – the claimed consensus or the veritable empirically deduced certainty per se ? What is Hannan snobbishly inferring – that a scientifically illiterate infantilized public needs reassurance?
Now , until the Orwellian clock struck thirteen in January or February 2011, NASA’s website uploaded this page titled : ” What Are the Primary Forcing’s of the Earth System ‘ NASA climatologists then were quite certain the ” Sun is the primary forcing of Earths climate system …..Sunlight warms our world ….THE SUN DRIVES ALMOST EVERY ASPECT OF OUR WORLDS CLIMATE SYSTEM ….. Sunlight causes convection
which carries warmth and water vapor up into the sky
where clouds form ……Other important forcings of Earths climate system include such variables as clouds , airborne particulate matter and surface brightness . Each of these varying features of Earths environment has the capacity TO EXCEED THE WARMING INFLUENCE OF GREENHOUSE GASES and cause our world to cool ” [ capitalization my emphasis ]
Thankfully the Wayback Machine has archived for eternity this ” Access Denied ” NASA bulletin otherwise vaporized in the Ministry of Truth under – not Donald Trump – but rather the Obama administration. So much for Hannan’s “Trumpian ” pejorative Euan
Yes, some of us have. Along with the letter to the Geol. Soc and other missives. I also signed the Great Barrington Declaration, so my conscience is clear.
” signed the World Climate Declaration? ”
As a non-believer, I might want to sign the World Climate Declaration, am I forbidden from signing it because I’m not a “climate scientist” ?
Extract from https://clintel.org/world-climate-declaration-form/ : ” It is a summary of what critical (climate) scientists agree upon. ”
The increasingly open criticism of the believers by a section of the “scientific community” is welcome , but – with a broad brush and not aimed at any posters here – it’s a pity that it did not occur years ago.
There is an application form. You don’t need to be a climate scientist, but I think they appreciate signatories who understand what they are signing. Go for it.
It is also worth noting that some data suggests that the sun’s output is increasing, leading to increased temperatures, and that Hunga Tonga’s ejection of water vapour into the stratosphere will increase the greenhouse effect for as long as a couple of years. You can also add the fact that CO2 ppm’s effect on GHG is not linear: Planck and Schwarzschild established that a doubling of CO2 from 400 ppm to 800 ppm would result in a mere 1% increase in the greenhouse effect, maybe increasing temperature by 0.7 Celsius.
If mankind’s CO2 contribution is really 3.5% of the increase, there is no case for Net Zero at all.
Correct
The sun’s output *is* (slowly) increasing over time. In about five billion years it’ll turn into a red giant and swallow the earth. At least that seems to be the current understanding.
James Lovelock pointed out the slowly rising solar output in several of his books. Not that I think it’s very significant in a human lifetime. The output might be fluctuating also, which would be.
Lovelock partly recanted on human-induced warming towards the end of his long life, saying that he may have been too dogmatic. Also he complained that the MSM were tending to seize on some points and make stories out of them but not report his other comments. Funny, that.
Looking through Met. Office records of temperatures at sites across the UK, it does seem as if on some rural sites summer 1976 was warmer than 2022 and on most urban sites summer 2022 (defined as Jun-Aug) was warmer than 1976. Heat island effect, making summer 2022 seem warmer? Don’t know yet, need to look at more figures. Also it’s not always clear where the weather station is.
But in many places, summer 1976 and many previous months of 1975 *were* drier than summer 2022. The non-record weather in 2022 seems to have been used for propaganda.
Hi Dave , re site locations. This is the current list of all stations which give approximate (no idea why not exact) co-ordinates.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/uk-synoptic-and-climate-stations
Some years ago Tim Channon identified and evaluated many of them here
I am currently grinding my way through the latest full list identifying where exactly where the rest are and any relocations.
Here is an interesting example where a solar farm has been built around one of them but the Met Office say it makes no difference!
https://www.bing.com/maps?cp=51.398376~-0.497818&lvl=17.0&style=h
APW. Anthropogenic Pollution Warming. For the most extreme example see the surface warming on the Sean of Marmara and Lake Tanganyika.
JF
RE 2022 have a look at this from Mike Hulme at UEA
“In the context of the last few centuries the summer of 2022 in Central England/ England and Wales was hot and dry. But it was not exceptionally so. The summers of 1976 and 1995 were both substantially hotter and dryer”
https://mikehulme.org/the-2022-uk-summer-in-long-term-perspective/
It is astonishing that Hunga Tonga is never mentioned. 0.7˚C going from 400 to 800ppm is about right.
I think Hunga Tonga is an embarrassment. A single subsea volcanic eruption that can fling that much water vapour into the atmosphere and thereby possibly add as much to the temperature almost immediately as their precious CO2 has managed in close on 200 years! Wow!
Yes, it feels like the effect of water vapour on the weather/climate has been overlooked/ignored for some reason not just with Hunga Tonga – does anyone know what climate scientists say about this?
I have always found it weird we ignore all the water (isn’t water vapour meant to be a potent greenhouse gas) produced by burning hydrocarbons particularly when comparing natural gas (more energy coming from the hydrogen it contains) vs coal (more energy coming from the carbon it contains). Also coal tend to contain sulphur and produces soot/particulates thereby reducing the solar radiation reaching the ground – an effect you can clearly see when you look at British weather (temperature and amount of sunlight) records.
“What is accepted as fact among my 250 friends is that the observed warming has 3 components to it: 1) greenhouse gas forced warming, 2) natural climatic warming (we are still emerging from the Little Ice Age) and 3) urban heat islands affecting thermometer readings.”
I would add:
4) the switch from manual reading of mercury thermometers to automated electronic thermometers
5) temperature records from unsuitable sites e.g wall gardens & airports with more aircrafts & buildings than in the past.
6) the artificial cooling of urban areas via coal burning particularly in open fires in the past.
Also I’m suspicious natural gas use in urban areas today has artificially raised particularly the night time temperature due to all the water vapour this produces?
Hunga Tonga is not mentioned because it has no effect on surface temperatures. Just think about it for a moment: if water vapour has the effect of warming the atmosphere near to the Earth’s surface (which it most certainly does), then in the stratosphere, any warming effect is going to have to pass through all that water vapour contained in the troposphere: the greenhouse effect in the reverse direction.
It is also the case that at this altitude the atmosphere is less dense, and hence the greenhouse effect is lessened, as well as the I/R bands in which water vapour absorbs are going to be mostly saturated.
Confirmation can be seen in the fact that no rise in temperature has been recorded during this time in the stratosphere or upper troposphere.
That’s not what NASA say:
This extra water vapor could influence atmospheric chemistry, boosting certain chemical reactions that could temporarily worsen depletion of the ozone layer. It could also influence surface temperatures. Massive volcanic eruptions like Krakatoa and Mount Pinatubo typically cool Earth’s surface by ejecting gases, dust, and ash that reflect sunlight back into space. In contrast, the Tonga volcano didn’t inject large amounts of aerosols into the stratosphere, and the huge amounts of water vapor from the eruption may have a small, temporary warming effect, since water vapor traps heat. The effect would dissipate when the extra water vapor cycles out of the stratosphere and would not be enough to noticeably exacerbate climate change effects.
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/tonga-eruption-blasted-unprecedented-amount-of-water-into-stratosphere
Paul do you really trust what NASA say? You have complained about them enough in the past, now you quote them to back up your understanding of the issue.
You have also quoted many a time that TOA measurements show that I/R frequencies are saturated. Do you deny that now?
It is simple logic that any greenhouse effect from water vapour in the stratosphere would show up with a warming there.
That has not been the case, as was well shown on WUPT.
Back to NASA, I take note of the way you and others become suspect when every other word is ‘could’ or ‘maybe’ or ‘might’. Note how often these words are used in the NASA report you give. Does that not ring alarm bells as to the accuracy of their report? They have just included greenhouse effect to keep up the alarm, but without giving any thought to whether their use of the term is correct.
I have never said that the water vapor I/R bands are saturated.
What I find remarkable is that NASA, who first said Hunga Tonga could influence surface temperatures, now seem reluctant to mention it now, or bother to analyse it.
Can’t find it now but James Dyke, climate scientist at Exeter Uni and author of ‘Fire, Storm and Flood: The violence of climate change’, remarkably noted in a piece in the i newspaper that the recent warm summer in Europe and elsewhere had probably been affected by both Hunga Tonga and the agreement to phase out sulphur emissions from world shipping.
@ NPW I have some friends who are very experienced in the field of atmospheric physics. I have asked what impact Hunga Tonga might have and received no replies => I don’t think anyone is sure of the answer. Assuming the data are correct, I think it was Sept that showed a spike in global mean +2m temperature. Roy Spencer ran a post “We’re gonna need a bigger graph”. With radiative transfer theory, it is the T structure of the atmosphere above the emission height of CO2 that is crucial. The latest papers I have from Will Happer is that the emission height is effectively the tropopause and the T structure above that is isothermal for some kms. => colder higher no longer holds => increasing emission height does not shift the T equilibrium and the CO2 greenhouse fails. I have a shitty graph comparing 1974 with 2022 irradiance spectra as viewed from space and this shows virtually no change in the emission T of CO2. I will get around to sending this to Paul. The water ejected from Hunga Tonga into the stratosphere will very quickly freeze. After that, I don’t know what, stratospheric hail? If some remains, it will be as micron sized ice that will reflect incoming solar and result in stratospheric cooling. Cooling the stratosphere, would lower the emission T of CO2 and this would cause surface warming. I don’t think any surface emitted IR in the band width of H2O would ever make it to the stratosphere to cause “greenhouse” warming. Please note, I am flying by the seat of my pants here and so please do not assume any of this is correct.
Paul H
Looking back it was CO2 bands you mention being saturated. My assumption was that you were also aware that the amount of saturation applies to all GHGs.
Here is a simple graph as a reminder.
https://nov79.com/gbwm/atmo.html
I think NASA were just guilty of assuming that the greenhouse effect would have the same effect in the stratosphere as at the Earth’s surface. Deeper thought into the processes of the GHG effect made them realise that was not the case. My initial thoughts were the same, but thinking more broadly, and interested in processes and how they work made me think on a broader scale.
Euanmearns:
Appreciate you taking the time to reply. To calculate the result of what has happened is complex and needs some lateral thinking. Too complex to discuss further here (unfortunately).
Can I just pick on one of your last comments, about the water vapour freezing out. The stratosphere is actually very low in water vapour content, the 10% value given is only so high because there is so little there. The relative humidity is low enough that it could take more water vapour before any would precipitate out, which would form stratospheric cloud. As an example, we have temperatures of -30C in the Latvian winter and the RH is low enough for moisture to still be taken up from the ground/sea.
Also interesting to observe contrails during different RH values: in dry air they disappear immediately but with moist air they can stay for hours. Temps. would be around -50C, with the upper stratosphere temps of up to -5C.
jeremy23846 : “Planck and Schwarzschild established that a doubling of CO2 from 400 ppm to 800 ppm would result in a mere 1% increase in the greenhouse effect, maybe increasing temperature by 0.7 Celsius.”
Do you mean Happer & Wijngaarden ?
Happer was discussing the Planck Curve and the Schwarzschild curve, yes.
One on Happer’s slides in that excellent lecture highlights Planck and Schwarzschild’s original work which they (W&H) have expanded on with the aid of satellite data that proves all their theses. A brilliant piece of work (P&S’s too of course).
Its actually Wijngaarden and Happer. White papers 2 and 3 here:
https://co2coalition.org/publication_category/white-papers-other-publications/
I’m not sure what the peer review status is.
See also Nikolov and Zeller.
” my last employment was at ETH Zurich, regarded as Europe’s top university.”
That must be a definition of Europe that excludes the UK with Cambridge Oxford, Imperial etc.!
Depending where you look, ETH is 7th or 11th in the world, definitely behind MIT, Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, Harvard, Stanford. Definitely not Europe’s top university.
Is there any other Non-UK European university ahead on the list? If not, then using the fairly common usage of Europe being the continent on the other side of the North Sea and Channel as Britain is different and not part of it*. then you could say that Euan is correct
*in the case of Scotland some of the land is on the wrong side of the Atlantic
I don’t follow the comment about Scotland. Unless you mean the bit NW of the Great Glen which is a recent addition?
The UK was definitely part of the continent of Europe when I was at school.
Continents may have moved since you were at school?
They have certainly grown in numbers. There used to be Five. Now there are Seven!
But none of the five universities you have cited are in Europe!
If ‘Europe’ = Continental Europe, Euan is correct.
AmIRight1
Yes that breakaway
Why are MIT, Harvard and Stanford relevant to European rankings?
Imperial College does not meet my definition of top level or trustworthy .
When a scientific report came out saying that the London ULEZ made almost no difference to air quality , Khan made Imperial change it to say that it did make a difference because he was paying for them to say what he wanted .
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously must Imp’l answer it.
Imperial College certainly certainly ranked highly. I taught an invited lecture series on Geostatistics for 14 years to the Petroleum Geoscience MSc course. That course is now toast. Wokery in action.
Yep. IC is now for sale. Any integrity it had is long gone.
Found a report of the Imperial College item .
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1804151/sadiq-khan-ulez-scientists
Seems to show that any integrity the College had was made to go under orders , [ and money ] from the political rulers .
Money matters:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/imperial-college-vice-chancellor-pay-rise-ulez-covid/
Aah well, that’s what they told me at ETHZ 😉 Some of it was great, other bits not very impressive at all. Still going from unemployable to ETHZ was a major boost to my oft sagging self esteem 😉
An easy opening question for the likes of Hannan is ‘what caused the Medieval Warm Period when it was obviously warmer than now given the widespread farming of Greenland [the name must have come from some observation or somebody having a laugh] by the Vikings that is not possible now?’ A follow up could be to ask how come the Romans grew vines as far north as Newcastle when you have no chance currently. Hannan has no thoughts of his own and so follows the groupthink that has spread over the western world. It was shocking, but alas not unexpected, that when 2 young women holding Palestinian placards their opinion of 7 October Hamas attack they looked puzzled and could not offer a response. One even questioned whether it had happened.
He would probably give you Mann’s explanation that- conveniently- the MWP was not ‘global’. But then, I doubt Hannah has read much about Mann, other than what believers say of him.
Harry P:
Have you read A Disgrace to the Profession? By Mark Stein.
It was written in response to Mann suiting him, a case that Mann has delayed for about 10 years, and has the comments of 116 (approx. 30% of believers).
Was it the case against Tim Ball where nobody would come forward to support Mann’s case, having decided that he had become an embarrassment to the even to the climate science fiction crew.
On Greenland, Viking graves are melting out of permafrost. The warmists hail global warming is melting the raves as if the Vikings had used Nick axes to hack holes in the ice to bury their dead. The cycles of Roman warm period, Dark ages cold, Medieval warm, Little Ice Age, Modern Warm period etc correlate with cosmogenic isotopes strongly suggesting that solar activity is involved. The cycles are about 1200 years. It depends where you take the low point of the LIA. Half cycle length is 600 years and if you take 1750 as low point of LIA it means we have another 200 years of warming to go. A another few hundred years of very nice weather after that. I am glad I will not be around to witness the witless hysteria.
http://www.john-daly.com/hockey/hockey.htm
The late John Daly lists 13 research papers which proved that the LIA and medieval warm periods were worldwide.
Well done Euan. Any letter or commentary which has to start with abuse is immediately enfeebled. The next word in that spectrum is Nazi. It’s all so predictable.
There is nothing more upsetting for a devotee than to have to listen to a counter view especially one that demands robust evidence to support general climate disaster. That is perhaps the point.
There may be change for a variety of reasons but that does not constitute the disaster that catastrophists almost appear to seek to validate their obsession.
” There is nothing more upsetting for a devotee than to have to listen to a counter view ”
This applies to believers in many situations, not just involving climate change
Anyone know what Mike Hannan’s qualifications are?
Or where his letter was published?
For Euan to be concerned about his opinion, I assumed Mike Hannan was of some importance thus I guess it might be this chap.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-hannan-49680929/?originalSubdomain=uk
“Sen Pet Eng
Department of Energy and Climate Change”
If it is him it kinda says it all!
The Cook paper is nothing but a sleight of hand; a terrible piece of so called scientific analysis. Brian Catt was castigated for appearing on GB News and referred to the Cook so called paper.
If Euan has not already made it to the DeSmog data base he must now be on the fast track.
Cook paper here. Written 10 years ago.
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/024024/pdf
Monckton’s calculation was 0.3% not 97%. Highly recommend Mark Steyn’s ‘A Disgrace to the Profession’ on Mann’s appalling ‘hokey shtick’.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26085162-a-disgrace-to-the-profession
The number is irrelevant to scientific truth and as the letter above explains, it will be 100% in any discipline in which conforming is required.
The Cook paper is bad propoganda, an utterly appalling political manipulation of non-data. That climate science refers to it and uses it to show it is “right” simply demonstrates how bad the evidence for their claims is and how willing they are to use fraud to further their aims.
Apart from what is in the article, I have no idea who this guy is nor what organisation he and his 250 colleagues belong to. Has anybody got a handle on this?
How can a trace gas that was 0.3% and is currently 0.042% but in then past was 500x higher possibly affect the climate? It fails to do so, because the only wavelengths of IR radiation are 2.7, 4.3 and 15 micrometres, other wavelengths have no effect. To disprove the effect of CO2 even more, any CO2 molecule in the same trajectory, but at a greater distance, is unaffected.
The final nail in then coffin, is the fact that any heating of a CO2 molecule is transitory, within microseconds the CO2 molecule emits an IR photon of a longer wavelength and returns to its resting state!
By collision, once excited by a photon, it can loose that received energy to a non GHG molecule.
Ad hominem is a wearyingly familiar response. I wrote to a well known sailing association’s magazine, that had recently climbed aboard the Climate Crisis bandwagon, to say that swanking about in huge diesel propelled plastic boats (I was a bit more polite) made the handwringing seem a little hypocritical. The ‘incoming’ abuse in response, led by their ex-Met Office ‘expert’, made me decide to cancel my membership (bit of a sacrifice, I was enjoying updating the chart collection records). I have a small wooden sailing boat (87 years old) and a small plastic sailing boat (53 years old) neither have inboard engines so reasonably green I think.
Ad Homs are a professional hazard. At Energy Matters I tried to allow a spectrum of opinion to be discussed, but developed the skill to detect Green Trolls from the first 3 words they wrote, and ended up with loads on comment moderation. I think the P&J are being very skilful in the way they manage this. It is very notable that the conversation here is all very polite and objective 🙂
At ‘Battle of Ideas’ weekend conference my pointing out that climate catastrophism was a luxury belief that causes terrible damage to the energy deprived (Germany buying coal from Botswana being the most glaring recent example of this hypocrisy) was met with accusations of Ludditeism and aversion to all the ‘exciting’ new green technology. Responses from the floor to ad hominems were discouraged but I was able to point out later my 52 years of engineering, starting at a university higher up the list than even ETHZ (information met with a sarcastic sneer of course!). A depressing but useful experience.
” Ad hominem is a wearyingly familiar response. ”
It is evidence that a believer is uncertain of his / her argument; that evidence should encourage the non-believer.
Hi Nigel, as an aside, a bouquet! Visiting the mother in law recently (in Bysing Wood Road) I noticed a leaflet she had re a certain “Friends of the Westbrook and Stonebridge Pond” winning a national award last year (equivalent to an MBE it was described as) and a Queens Garden Party invitation as well. Did you go?
Anyway, a belated very well done. Used to take my children down to the pond to feed the ducks most weekends. Hadn’t been there for a long time so took a walk down and it was looking much better now. Thanks
Ray.
A great pleasure Ray, thanks, really life affirming to be part of Friends. Not at garden party but we had a great day when the Lord Lieutenant presented us with our award. Westbrook being added to official list of World’s chalk streams (most in England but also includes Seine!).
Well done Euan-and actually well done to the P&J for publishing his letters
A compelling argument from Dr Euan Mearns, however, it may be wise to read it in the context of his background.
Extract from his bio on co2coalition.org:
“In 1991 he returned to native Aberdeen to establish a commercial radiogenic isotope analysis laboratory providing services to the international oil industry. In the period 1991 to 2002 his company worked for 65 oil companies and oil industry service companies, world-wide.”
Please enlighten us, this is far too cryptic. Working for oil companies good/bad? The underpinning of modern civilisation good/bad? Affordable energy (hence water and cooking, rather than dung, wood or charcoal) good/bad?
“Backing up their campaigns, Pile argues that the foundations shape academic research priorities. The universities stress their independence, but the amounts they receive are huge. Imperial College, which has been at the centre of Covid and air pollution policy controversies, received $320 million from the Gates Foundation. While the College claims that it doesn’t take funding from fossil fuel interests because that would seem to undermine its research, Pile observes that $60 million has been received from the billionaire green investor Jeremy Grantham to fund Grantham Institutes at Imperial and LSE, both of which are extremely involved in U.K. climate policy.”
https://dailysceptic.org/2023/11/18/how-green-billionaires-groom-the-public-into-accepting-unworkable-net-zero-policies/
Exactly. They don’t take money from one side because that might compromise their “independence” but they do take vast amounts from the other side and that doesn’t affect their thinking or conclusions at all.
These jobs listed by A-joke seems like excellent experiences to qualify a person to comment on the idea of ‘just stop oil’ and the attempt to transition to intermittent electricity.
Maybe I misunderstood. 🙂
Art probably subscribes to the idea of slavery reparations: in time, he and his descendants will be demanding reparations from oil users. I do note joke.
Your point? That because he worked for oil companies he will deny climate change? So everyone who works for renewables companies doesn’t believe in climate change, yes? Everyone who works in Green think tanks only says what they say for the money, yes?
Hannan is a cultist, as John Bowman says above.
Not just a climate change cultist. Calling someone ‘Trumpian’ is cultist, as well.
Like climate change, Trumpian is undefined. But elites will tell you it’s bad.
I bet Hannan wears a mask when he’d driving his car alone.
BTW, out here in MAGAland, Trumpian is a complement. [Wikipedia won’t tell you about MAGAland, the bulk of the US that voted for Trump in 2020.]
Nana Akua and Paul Burgess skewer Jim Dale on GBNews.
Thanks for a good watch CW666 and well done to GB News and YouTube. As Mr. Dale says, the BBC/ITV/MSM would never allow Paul Burgess into their studios, nobody wants his dreadful science to get in the way of a widely loved fairy tale. How tragic too that our National policies back the Jim Dale version. Suggest its time to remove Science from the schools’ National Curriculum program and replace it with Theatre Studies.
A BBC programme I missed, to the benefit of my blood pressure.
BBC ‘hypocrisy’ row as reporter racks up air miles to criticise global emissions
Panorama’s London-based Richard Bilton took flights to Dubai, Alaska, California and Berlin for a programme on climate change
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/11/18/bbc-hypocrisy-row-air-miles-emissions/
Scientists want to help society with their expertise, and their work requires accuracy and precision. This mindset does not sit well with politics which often involves compromise and trade-offs. So most scientists prefer to avoid politics and the political aspects of their profession. Climate research is often highly political, and even a quick look at the literature shows it is full of uncertainties and precarious modelling. These aspects make it unattractive to many competent scientists, who go and work in other areas. These people are almost always reluctant to give an opinion because they say they are not experts. So they are never counted as in or out of the “consensus”, but my experience is that almost all are sceptical.
I am grateful to the P&J for being so generous with their column inches. There is a lot of false hope in Aberdeen of becoming a powerhouse in green energy. This goes all the way to the top of the business community.
Commenting here has gone a bit haywire this evening. I have a theme of policy driven research and appointments that, put simply, heavily biases research and appointments to the policy, in this case net zero. This creates a self fulfilling prophecy that all experts agree…
‘I have a BSc in geology (hons) and PhD in isotope geochemistry and read physics for 1 year at university under R. V. Jones.’
That’s nice. Though I don’t think much of arguments from authority.
“Truth is in the statement, not who said it.” – GC
But Euan stating his degreees was in response to Hannan questioning his competence. It wasn’t his argument.
Sir,
degrees ≠ competence
Gamecock, probably before being too dismissive of Dr Mearns ‘earned capabilities’, you might want to go and look at Euan’s site. You can find the posts here
https://euanmearns.com/ .
It’s an astonishing output and combined with Roger Andrews was – and still is – very much a go-to reference.
If RV Jones were alive today, he would despair at what passes for science in the climate field. I recommend his autobiography to all. “the man who bent the beams”
DaveR – seconded.
Especially Euan’s “The Loch Ness Monster of Energy Storage”
http://euanmearns.com/the-loch-ness-monster-of-energy-storage/
And Roger’s series “El Hierro Portal”
“Gamecock, probably before being too dismissive of Dr Mearns ‘earned capabilities’”
Wut? I questioned giving credentials as evidence of competence. You completely made that up. I now question your reading comprehension.
True but this was in response to someone questioning his credentials.
‘and he calls into question my competence’
He didn’t question his credentials. He questioned his competence. Listing degrees is not evidence of competence.
I recommend “Most Secret War” by Aberdeen Professor R V Jones. A cracking read. To have been taught by Jones must have been wonderful.
Mike, the one lecture I recall, he was sat at the front of the rather splendid Nat Phil lecture theatre holding a laser with the beam spot focussed on the distant wall. And of course the spot was flying about all over the place. And he went to explain that this could one day be used to read codes – like bar codes. He was one of the code breakers at Bletchley Park. This was all way over my head at the time.
I believe even he has been tempted to give too much credence to alleged ACW.
That should read AGW
R V Jones inspired me and many others, perhaps yourself.
Professor Mearns, hello.
Sorry about this, but my attempts to interest climate scientists and politicians in the possibility that there is a disregarded fourth warming mechanism has attracted no interest.
Briefly: having flown at low level over various seas/oceans and lakes I have seen pollution smoothing of the surface which at times was extensive. In 2012 en route to Madeira I observed a smooth from 40,000 ft which was suppressing wave breaking up to Force 4 and covered tens of thousands of square miles.
It is surely obvious that pollution of the ocean surface must be contributing to warming. Benjamin Franklin’s Mount Pond and Lord Rayleigh’s oil molecule demonstration are compelling indications. My reasoning: smoothed water has a lower albedo; polluted ocean surfaces have reduced evaporative cooling; reduced turbulence suppresses the production of salt aerosols; unstirred ocean water produces fewer dimethyl sulphide CCNs. Etc.
The Sea of Marmara shows the extremes. as does Lake Tanganyika. The SeaWifs data should enable someone with the correct training to put an approx number on the contribution of sea surface pollution to the climate scare.
There is more detail on the TCW Defending Freedom blog in a post entitled ‘Are We Smoothing Our Way to Global Warming’?
JF
Not that briefly…
Julian, please don’t embarrass me with Prof. Euan is fine. Though when your competence is challenged in regional press, I think I have the right to defend.
I have written maybe 20 to 30 peer reviewed papers, the most recent was on the Swiss net zero energy plan published earlier this year in Energy Policy. The Finance Dept of the Swiss Parliament got in touch and asked us to write a summary for them that was subsequently published in print and on line in French and German.
You make some interesting points but scale is very important here. What % of global seas and oceans are affected by this? And what is the net effect. Instinct tells me that deforestation is likely to be a much bigger driver of global warming. Trees absorb sunlight, and prevent incoming radiation reaching the ground and hence reduce outgoing, secondary IR. It’s important to declutter the arguments.
E
The percentage of ocean surface smoothed by pollution can be approximated by looking at the amount of oil pollution measured by the SeaWifs satellite. My back of the beer mat calculation came out as total coverage, a single molecule layer, three or four times a year, but as I kept getting lost in all the zeroes — A level physics is a very long time ago — I’d not bet on it. The next problem is how long a pollution film lasts — the one we saw from Porto to just short of Madeira cannot have been very short lived, but even if the average lifetime of each pollution event is only a week that is enough to warm a reasonable percentage of the world ocean. I think.
Smoothed surfaces warm, the effect has been used by fish farmers, and there are papers on the effect. Thoroughly polluted surfaces warm at two to three times the average. Evans and Ruf tried to measure microplastic pollution by looking at the great ocean gyres but found the warming was not caused by microplastics.
The most compelling circumstantial evidence for me is Tom Wigley’s blip. In spite of heroic efforts by climate science to eliminate the blip, Wigley had to ask ‘Why the blip?’ I know academics are unworldly creatures but I’m surprised they never looked for the cause in the Battle of the Atlantic.
Dissolved silica and sewage pollution may be feeding oleaginous phytoplankton blooms, which we might expect to be longer lived than simple oil pollution.
Before long political leaders around the world will be looking for excuses to delay Net Zero for obvious reasons. If Anthropogenic Pollution Warming is a thing (not huge but enough to be pointed to) they’ll bite your hand off.
I never bet but I’d risk a pint on between 0,5 and 1.0 deg C being caused by pollution.
JF
Does he not know that Cook et al (2013) ha been declared multiply fraudulent, unpublishable, unbelievably biased against sceptics and a lot of other adjectives? No credence at all should be placed on this paper. See Andrew Montford’s analysis for the Global Warming Policy Foundation study no 11 ( I think)
Look it up and be shocked. But Obama LOVED IT!
Hi Euan,
I think you will find, if you read Most Secret War, that R V Jones was not a Bletchley code breaker. He was a very young man in 1940 who advised Churchill about the Germans’ use of radio beams to navigate accurately to bomb the UK. He was a brilliant physicist.
Regards,
Mike Post
It’s intriguing how anyone with even a biology degree was called a “climate scientist” when the BBC wants to quote their non-science, but a Nobel prize winning physicist still won’t be called even a scientist, let alone a real atmospheric physicist if they dare to tell facts about the actual science.
Dr. Mearns states he believes that the burning of fossil fuel has contributed to the warming of the planet along with normal climatic change and urban heat islands. The latter two seem to be factual, the planet’s climate is always changing and urban heat islands are a physical fact. However, the effect of carbon dioxide, as far as I know, is an unproven hypothesis backed up by computer models. If this is not the case then I would be grateful if I could be directed to the scientific proof.