Tophers 50:1 project

No one does this quite like Topher :- ) Emails have been arriving all afternoon.

Project website is here.

There are 40-50 minutes versions of all the interviews.

Let me know the highlights from other videos and I’ll list suggestions for those who just want the best ten minutes.

9.1 out of 10 based on 61 ratings

318 comments to Tophers 50:1 project

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    Thus far I’ve watched the main segment and the Dr Evans interview. Quite compelling and well presented. Turned out better than I expected.
    Well done Topher.

    p.s. I’d like to read some counter arguments in the comments.

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        Heywood

        Actually he said counter arguments, not whinging about the source of the calculations.

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          Philip Shehan

          Heywood his argument is based on totally false assumptions. As the pdf I was instructed to consult demonstrates.

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          Philip Shehan

          Heywood, his argument is based on totally false assumptions as the PDF file I was instructed to consult demonstrates.

          http://topher.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/50-to-1-sources-and-maths.pdf

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            Heywood

            So you have an issue with his global figure, but the fact that Australia’s policy will (best case) only abate 1/20000 of a degree over a decade yet cost $162B doesn’t raise an eyebrow?

            It seems you have missed the whole point. Monckton uses the Australian policy as representative of “global measures as cost-effective as the [Australian] tax” in his figures.

            But keep playing the activist though. Obviously you have nothing better to do in your “semi-retirment”.

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              crakar24

              Heywood,

              Dont worry about facts and figures its all about the vibe man its the vibe, Phil is defending his religion and what does this new religion give you?

              Well like most people here i have two bins one for rubbish and one for recycling (the new religion in action) but it does not stop there i am now about to be subjected to random recycle bin inspections by the religious police.

              There is no mention of what wrath comes my way when i could not be bothered washing the bottles and whether i will be smited by their God if i dare leave the tops on.

              Although it is not shown on the lid I believe shit is recyclable along with brown paper bags.

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    I’ve still got one full interview (Morano) to watch.

    Been at it since I got up this morning. Between promoting the project on blogs and on various Facebook pages. The full length interviews have been very useful in Facebook comments as the real flat-earthers go on trying to defend their beliefs.

    The biggest “disappointment” with the project that I felt was that Topher didn’t have the resources and/or opportunity to interview Dr Fritz Vahrenholt in Germany.

    Still, the schedule was tight and I’m very pleased that the project is online before the federal election.

    I’ve downloaded the interviews so watching them again to pick out salient points not already in Topher’s 10-minute summary won’t be painful. Best to watch all of them first, then review them again before picking out another ten minutes of gems. There are probably TWO sets of quotes to pick up; one that addresses the politics/social agenda/profiteering/social impact and another that deals with just the dearth of real science in climate science and how that is damaging real research and proper science.

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      Bernd, ooh, you are dedicated. That would take hours. For all the busy people out there, can you pop in a list of highlight moments they (we) can look out for. I don’t know many people will have the time to watch the lot. For what it’s worth I think 29mins onwards in my part is more fun for those who’ve heard my other arguments.

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        Andrew McRae

        Topher really put you in the hot seat there. I’m kind of glad he did because a softball interview isn’t going to convince anybody still on the fence.
        I’m always impressed by people who can recall facts and figures quickly during conversation. That is more difficult than developing a written argument with plenty of lead time and references on hand. Well done.

        One gotcha moment for Bernd’s list has to be 34:25 in Donna’s interview…
        But Sir, we can’t say that, that’s not true!” – said nobody in the IPCC ever!

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        Hamish McDougal

        Jo
        You were (are?) magnificent. Bar the one moment where you lost the thread – but that only adds to the credibility. You and Watts destroy those who have swallowed the Kool-Aid.

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        Bernd, ooh, you are dedicated.

        I don’t recall ever claiming to have a life.

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    Pathway

    But if we stop being afraid then we won’t need the government to take care of our fear. Hence, the end of the nanny state. Oh well, we can only dream.

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      Streetcred

      If ‘civilisation’ is measured by the amount of legislation that is needed to ‘manage’ the citizens, then by that measured the the LEFT is uncivilised.

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  • #

    What is amazing about this 50-to-1 project it that it accepts all the climate consensus assumptions. It is presented for those who have accepted the entirety of the skeptical science translation of the UNIPCC bible. That includes:-

    1. A doubling of CO2 equates to 3 degrees of warming.

    2. This will have catastrophic consequences. It uses Stern 2006, which in turn used the most extreme estimates of catastrophe at the time. The UNIPCC is much more muted in these predictions, after the most extreme predictions in 2007 turned out to be its biggest howlers.

    3. Stern also used near-zero discount rates, going against mainstream economics and government’s time preferences.

    4. It assumes that the policies are implemented optimally. No fraud; no diluting of the effectiveness; no jobs lost abroad; no dilution of economic growth; no silly regulations and form-filling tagged on that do nothing; no allowance for the billions on useless research, like carbon capture…….

    NB – For those with access to a university library, a short examination of Stern is to found in A Review of the Stern Review Richard S. J. Tol & Gary W. Yohe WORLD ECONOMICS • Vol. 7 • No. 4 2006

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    Lorne Clinton

    I thought it was well done Jo had the time to watch it all

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    Roy Hogue

    Admitting that the opposing point of view is correct and then trying to argue that adaptation is a better solution than cutting emissions of CO2 is to admit something that has absolutely not been shown to be true. It admits that skeptics have been wrong. It admits defeat.

    Jo, anyone, show me a convincing argument that temperature will rise by 3 degrees C by the end of the century. And what’s even more necessary, show me a convincing argument that CO2 will be responsible for it.

    I’m sorry to be so in your face about this but the real evidence all around us says you can’t do it.

    I don’t disagree that if temperature were to rise that much and if CO2 were to be responsible, adaptation would be cheaper than the present madness. But the whole premise that CO2 is doing something harmful is simply not shown by anything I can find. It is assumed from an unproven theory. That is such bad policy I can only call it suicidal.

    You can show me all the sophisticated mathematical analysis of past temperature records, proxies or what someone read off the wall in a public restroom but it doesn’t mean a thing about the future, not even so close in the future as next week or next year, much less 80 years from now.

    Their whole case has failed and we should not give it any credence with this 50:1 project.

    Please, keep the faith with the truth. They have no case.

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      Mark D.

      I see your point Roy but it isn’t so bad from a political standpoint to have more than one position to argue from. For example if the 50:1 argument compels 10 to 30% of the fence sitters (and don’t get involved types) to change their thinking towards skepticism then you have gained politically. One doesn’t need to concede the other position (that there is no AGW) to support the 50:1 showing how financially terrible the warmist taxing ideas are.

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      Rod Stuart

      I can understand your perspective, Roy.
      However, illustrating that the waste is enormous and for no purpose, even granting the warmists the benefit of the doubt, is powerful stuff.
      It doesn’t mean capitulation. It allows one to convey the insanity without allowing them to dispute the argument.

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        Roy Hogue

        Mark, Rod,

        You cannot hold that two contradictory positions are true. This amounts to trying to come to terms with the devil. You always lose that way.

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          Roy,

          I think you misunderstand the power of the tactic. There was no admission that the IPCC’s position was true. There was simply the observation that by using the IPCC’s on figures and equations, the cost of preventing climate change is fifty times the cost of adaptation should the predicted change happen. This is a powerful argument against the effort of attempting to prevent climate change by controlling CO2 emissions even if it could work.

          It is the next step to show that the IPCC’s position can’t stand up to actual evidence. Then one can argue that the climate change as predicted by the IPCC will not happen. Hence the adaptation costs are even less than the 50 to 1 ratio of the cost of prevention. Thereby showing the total absurdity of the proposed prevention efforts.

          Unfortunately there are vested interests in both government and industry who are addicted to the take from demonstrably fraudulent schemes to give up without a fight. They will not go away so easily. This is because it was not science, nor concern for the poor, nor the desire to save the earth that drove them to become addicted to the transfer of wealth.

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          FIN

          Well said Roy, I have the uneasy feeling that the line is starting to blur here. Why would we waste our breath/time adapting to a cooling planet?

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            Safetyguy66

            I think the point is not necessarily what the climate might do. Its simply putting the extremely valid point that no matter what the changes ahead might be (if any) its cheaper and more sensible to adapt to the change than to stand in the water like King Canute yelling at the waves.

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      Roy,

      Arguing that adaptation is the only viable policy option rather than mitigation shifts the focus from using the climate models as as propaganda tool to a sophisticated tool of prediction. Suppose for a minute that (a) catastrophic global warming is going to happen and (b) policy will be a failure / too expensive. Given that the IPCC claims the impacts will be uneven, we could do with having a good idea of where, when and the size of impacts. For instance, AR4 made the claim that

      By 2020, in some countries, yields from rain-fed agriculture could be reduced by up to 50%.

      If that claim had not been totally bogus, it would have been good to know which of the 50+ African countries were of the greatest risk. Knowing that it actually related to the middle income countries in North West Sahara is not as concerning as it affecting Ethiopia,. Mali or Congo. In Morocco crop failure cause severe hardship to farmers and maybe a recession. In Ethiopia crop failure could lead to mass famine. By creating panic for useless policy, alarmist could endanger lives if there was a genuine problem.

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        Roy Hogue

        I don’t mind the disagreement. It’s always good for debate. But since my metaphorical example doesn’t convince, let me try the real world instead.

        First, by starting to talk about adaptation rather than mitigation you make a tacit admission that there’s a problem. In fact, there is no problem and that should be the argument. Admit there’s a problem and it weakens your position and they then have a way to say, “See. Even the skeptics believe we’re right.”

        For over 100 years the left — call them what you want, communist, liberal, progressive, secular humanist — has worked with a very single minded purpose to subvert democracy and individual freedom. They may have pretended to be something they were not. They certainly lied a lot more than once. Some even believed and still believe their cause is righteous and just. But they never once conceded a single point to the conservative view; not even a hint of that can you find. And now they have a virtual stranglehold on most of western civilization. They no longer fear exposure. Indeed, Obama openly appoints self identified communists to positions in his administration.

        Conservatives (so-called) are now busily compromising with principle to legitimize 11 million (or whatever the real number is) illegal aliens, allow them permanent residency and eventually citizenship. Their cry is, “You can’t deport all of them.” Well, you don’t have to deport any of them. Instead you make them self deporting by making it nearly impossible to work in this country. We’re now in the process of setting up a national medical record database (another exercise that I dread) which is proof positive that if we wanted to we could set up a similar database identifying everyone legitimately privileged to work in this country. The rest will leave soon after judging by the exodus that happened because of bad times when jobs started to disappear. But Republicans are too busy worrying about their political skins and Democrats know better than to compromise.

        We’re losing our country because we’ve not had the wit and the guts to defend The Constitution for the last 150 years. Obama has now positioned conservatives in the public mind as radical and dangerous. Just listen to him if you don’t believe me. And he’s now become very credible. Say it often enough and it becomes true. And if you want to see it I can provide evidence now in the hands of Judicial Watch that the Department of Defense has prepared official training material that makes anyone with a personal freedom, Constitutional, States Rights point of view not only radical but unsuited for military duty.

        No! You cannot compromise with the devil and win. I don’t care what argument you present.

        Don’t fall for it.

        If that isn’t convincing take a clue from Ronald Reagan who never compromised with his adversaries or any enemy of The United States. He spent long years building his credibility and when Jimmy Carter’s foolishness left him flopping around like a fish on the dock, Reagan could step in and win handily. Never compromise your principles. Never!

        Reality is simple. Faustian bargains never work.

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          Greg House

          Roy Hogue #6.3.1: “First, by starting to talk about adaptation rather than mitigation you make a tacit admission that there’s a problem. In fact, there is no problem and that should be the argument. Admit there’s a problem and it weakens your position and they then have a way to say, “See. Even the skeptics believe we’re right.””

          Roy, I agree with that, but you yourself unfortunately have weakened your position by saying in your #7 “water vapor is also a very potent greenhouse gas”. Since there is no “greenhouse effect” ( I allow me to refer to my argumentation in the comment #3 in the previous thread), there are no gases causing the “greenhouse effect”, which means there are no “greenhouse gases” at all.

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            Roy Hogue

            Greg,

            Good point, except that I do not recall ever stating that there is no greenhouse effect. It is quite obvious that water vapor and clouds moderate the Earth’s temperature. You don’t need much more than ordinary human power of observation and a little interest in using it to figure that out.

            My problem is, as I have been saying for a long time, there is no demonstrable connection between CO2 and anything happening on this planet. My push for a long time has been simply this one point — they cannot make an empirical connection between CO2 and anything.

            To do what 50:1 is doing is a tacit admission that there is a problem. Watch for them to try to use it against us. And I hope I’m wrong.

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              Greg House

              Roy Hogue #6.3.1.1.1: “Greg, Good point, except that I do not recall ever stating that there is no greenhouse effect. It is quite obvious that water vapor and clouds moderate the Earth’s temperature. You don’t need much more than ordinary human power of observation and a little interest in using it to figure that out.”

              Sorry for misunderstanding you. I thought your “there is no problem” was about “greenhouse effect”. If you meant “there is greenhouse effect, but it is no problem”, than you need to better look into the notion of “greenhouse effect” as the IPCC presented it. It is complete nonsense both physically and mathematically. Adding “greenhouse effect” (back radiation warming) to a system always leads to creating energy out of nothing. The IPCC seem to have known that, because in their 2nd report they “let” “greenhouse gases” radiate in only one direction to the surface, to avoid an obviously absurd outcome: http://imgur.com/gDRQL15.

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                Roy Hogue

                Greg,

                We seem to be disagreeing over semantics. I do not believe that water, clouds or for that matter, anything else in or about the atmosphere warms or cools the planet. But clearly the water in the atmosphere both slows heating and cooling under the right conditions.

                Does that set us straight? And what term would you prefer when some in the skeptical camp say CO2 can warm the planet, just not by enough to worry about?

                Yes, the IPCC is absurd.

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                Greg House

                Roy Hogue: “And what term would you prefer when some in the skeptical camp say CO2 can warm the planet, just not by enough to worry about?”

                I would say they do not have a scientific point, since they apparently adopt the non-existing impossible “greenhouse effect” as real. We can not really argue about how much effect a non-existing process would have, can we? Nothing can warm anything by back radiation. Still “just not by enough to worry about” can be seen as mathematically correct, because warming by 0 degrees is certainly not enough to worry about 🙂 .

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                Roy Hogue

                Greg, I think we’re in agreement. 🙂

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              CyrilH

              Roy, I agree with you 100%. We are already seeing the State governments here in Australia preparing coastal management plans for expected sea level rises and the various little dictators in local councils using these to harass people living near the ocean with all sorts of restrictions on their property rights. This is all done under an adaption to climate change excuse. If the adaption path is accepted as the only way for them to go we can expect much more of this nonsense.

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              Mr. Hogue has perhaps not been exposed to the medieval canons of disputation, which were – and remain – very powerful methods of attaining to the truth. One of these methods is to adopt facts and data from the other side ad argumentum, i.e. purely for the sake of argument.

              The reviewed paper that underlies my calculations for the 50-to-1 project makes it explicit that IPCC climatology and Stern’s economics are adopted not because they are at all likely to be true (they are not), but because, if one adopts them for the sake of argument and still demonstrates that it is monstrously cost-ineffective to attempt to mitigate global warming today rather than to adapt to its net-adverse consequences (if any) the day after tomorrow, then a fortiori (another useful medieval technique) it will be still more obviously cost-ineffective to mitigate global warming if there is going to be a whole lot less of it than the usual suspects predict, and also if the cost of any given quantum of warming is also less than Stern has predicted.

              In short, the ad argumentum and a fortiori techniques give the climate-extremists no wriggle-room whatsoever. That is why the attempts to attack the deceptively simple line of argument summarized in my one-page paper supporting Topher’s excellent presentation have so conspicuously failed. There is nowhere for the extremists to go, if one accepts all of their climatology and economics for the sake of argument and demonstrates that, even then, there is absolutely no point in having a CO2 tax because it is 50 times cheaper to do nothing.

              And that is before one takes any account of the opportunity loss from diverting money that could have done some good to where it can do no good whatsoever. I have carried out investment appraisals at a senior level in government in many countries, but I have never seen any proposed or actual measures so in-your-face cost-ineffective as the various ludicrous attempts to control the weather by regulating the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere.

              Canute, thou shouldst be living at this hour.

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                There is another way of looking at this. As part of an economics course I took a few years ago, we were taught about the distinction between “necessary” and “sufficient” conditions. I hope that nobody disputes that a carbon tax or carbon trading will have adverse consequences. As a result of either, businesses and households will face higher costs. The justification is that as a result of these higher costs they will take actions to reduce their carbon emissions. An individual or business may be worse off, but globally the planet and humanity will allegedly by better off. There will be net benefits.
                But for a climate policy to give net benefits, a number of conditions are necessary, both in the science (greenhouse gas effect, significant warming, adverse consequences) and in policy area (policy with theoretical net benefits > costs of doing nothing, large enough policy area, effective policy management). Sufficient for policy success (net policy benefits > costs of doing nothing) all are to some extent necessary. For policy failure, it is only sufficient for one of the necessary conditions be false, or shown to be exaggerated, or shown to be an hypothesis unsubstantiated by any evidence. It does not matter whether this is
                – climate sensitivity being much lower than assumed
                – or adaptation at the non-governmental local level is much more effective than assumed
                – or the net adverse consequences of any given amount of warming are grossly exaggerated
                – or the theoretical economic case for policy is flawed (such as demand for energy is far more inelastic with respect to price over time than assumed, or that renewable energy is not a close substitute to fossil fuel energy)
                – or the actual policy enacted does not encapsulate the economic theory, diluting or nullifying the effectiveness
                – or unilateralist policy where success requires that requires the vast majority of the biggest economies to participate
                – or the policy on paper is potentially successful, but it is not project managed to drive through the maximum benefits at least cost

                This leads to an imbalance in science that is also present in English Common Law. If the scientific hypothesis (case for the the prosecution) relies on a number of sub-hypotheses (pieces of evidence) being verified (substantiated) then the major hypothesis (case for the prosecution) collapses is one of the sub-hypotheses (pieces of evidence)is shown to be false OR capable of an alternative explanation.

                What this means for the case against is that no tacit admission of any part of the case for policy is necessary. It is merely necessary to show that one of the hypotheses is incorrect. It is the same for the PC I am working upon. There are a huge number of components, with sub-components all required to work together to make the total work. There are thousands of laws of science necessary to make this PC work. But for it not to work, only one component to malfunction, or one scientific law to be false (or misinterpreted) is sufficient. Science is tough like that, which is why climatology relies on spin doctors.

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          Adaptation to things we can’t really do much of anything else about is the default option for man and always has been. It is not a compromise position. It is a simple truth in response to what is and what can be.

          Clearly, implementing their proposals will have a horrendous cost. Its cost, even if their proposals did work, would totally devastate the global economy. What is worse, there would be no margin to use to adapt to minor events (aka weather as usual). With the wealth already spent, the minor events would be transformed from minor inconveniences into wipe out events.

          Now, if you want to argue the science without reference to the fact that their proposals are horrendously costly compared to a known alternative, it is your choice. However, most of the people who can be convinced by the science have already been convinced. What then do you use to convince those who ignore or refuse to understand the science?

          I suggest we need a variety of weapons in our arsenal so we can adapt to changing circumstances and continue to progress in our battle against the green thugs. A lot of people may not pay attention to the complexities of the science but they will pay attention to pocket book issues. I say convince them on the finance issue and then teach them the science to make it a done deal.

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            Roy Hogue

            Adaptation to things we can’t really do much of anything else about is the default option for man and always has been. It is not a compromise position. It is a simple truth in response to what is and what can be.

            Lionell,

            I don’t disagree with that. But whatever the future may bring I doubt that it will be caused by CO2. And in the meantime, the human race is doing and will certainly continue doing adaptation to whatever problems it faces. Adaptation will be automatic wherever it’s necessary. And by the way, at least in Australia the pocketbook issue is already boiling over. And I think it will soon boil over here too. It won’t take an argument about mitigate vs. adapt to get people’s attention at that point.

            In my view the weapon we need in our arsenal is to get the emphasis off the science and onto the fact that the problem is a political one. Our enemy doesn’t care about the science. They care about power and money. And perhaps most of all, they care about turning the world into their vision of a utopia (for them) where the government (read UN) controls everything.

            I have to rest my case at this point because I don’t have time to answer every objection.

            I will add a postscript to this. Yesterday I sent Jo an email I received containing what purports to be a UN document about gun confiscation and how the UN will assist nations in doing exactly that. It appears to be genuine. If it is it tells us all exactly how they view the future — the UN shall be dictator. I don’t know what Jo will do. It’s got to be authenticated carefully before she can do anything with it. But as I said, it appears genuine and directly in keeping with the proposed UN treaty on gun control. That treaty is frightening enough without the letter.

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          Roy,

          You are right in your comment

          But they never once conceded a single point to the conservative view; not even a hint of that can you find.

          Whether “Michael the Realist”, Bob Ward or Stephen Lewandowsky, the alarmists never once concede you may have a single valid opinion. Which means no matter how right you are, you will never be listened to. 50:1 project shifts the problem. It confronts those wanting to impose climate change policies with the fact that the policies they wish to impose will not solve a problem. It is saying to politicians that you are there to serve the people. At a minimum they should make a positive difference. It is far from sufficient to identify a problem. It is also saying that any painful and potentially harmful policies should be worth it. To make a positive difference, it is necessary to show that there is a problem AND to show you have a potential solution, AND to drive through that policy to a successful outturn.
          I like analogies. Politicians should have ethical standards on a par with the medical profession. They need to properly diagnose problems (including the severity), understand the efficacy of any proscribed treatments, along with pain and side-effects, then monitor progress to get the best possible outcome for the patient.

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      Safetyguy66

      I watched the interviews and I simply did not get that viewpoint. I came away feeling that Jo and David had stuck to their guns on the topic of sensitivity and forcing factors and maintained their position that any warming, should it happen, would be in the range of natural variability, ie. 1c(ish). They then went on to suggest that adapting to that change was smarter than trying to reverse or affect it.

      I really didnt get any hint of defeat or acknowledgement that the IPCC rubbish was somehow now accepted.

      But thats the beauty of English isnt it, we all interpret and perceive things differently based on the same information.

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      Admitting that the opposing point of view is correct and then trying to argue that adaptation is a better solution than cutting emissions of CO2 is to admit something that has absolutely not been shown to be true. It admits that skeptics have been wrong. It admits defeat.

      That isn’t what was done.

      What was done was not to admit that the CO2 persecutors were correct; it was formulating an argument based on assuming that they are correct that these are the costs of trying to stop climate change.

      By taking their point of view as a given and comparing the costs, the CO2 persecutors have no reasonable argument against only doing what people have always done with respect to climate change; which is to adapt.

      Remember; climate change is not a scientific argument. If it were a scientific one, it’d have been over in 1997. It’s a political one. Political means are necessary when dealing with political issues.

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        Greg House

        Bernd Felsche #6.5: “What was done was not to admit that the CO2 persecutors were correct; it was formulating an argument based on assuming that they are correct that these are the costs of trying to stop climate change.”

        I do not think so. They never said “there is no CO2 induced warming” or anything like that. It came over as a confirmation of 2 main warmists’ points: a)global warming and b)CO2 warms the world.

        The point about future costs came over as a speculation. A quick reference to a single paper is not enough to convince anyone. The video makes an impression of a propaganda film, they are not really debating there.

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    Roy Hogue

    And if you want to look at it another way — water vapor is also a very potent greenhouse gas; a proven one too. And there is so much more water in the atmosphere than CO2 and it’s concentration varies so widely with weather and season that worrying about CO2 is a joke.

    Then there are clouds…

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      Ross

      Roy

      I think you have missed the basis of the project. The idea was to show up the econonmics of all the schemes that are supposed to reduce emmissions, to be absolutely ridiculous.
      To do this Topher said– well let’s do it on the basis that we assume the science / IPCC is correct and that will take any distracting scientific debate out of the equation.
      He and his team are NOT AGREEING with the IPCC and the warmists at all. They are just showing the economics don’t stack up for their ideas.

      But having said that, you are not alone in assuming they are agreeing with the IPCC. There was alot of confusion on WUWT when the idea was first muted. So if I have a criticism it is that their objective was not presently clearly enough to overcome the confusion.

      But I think it is a fanatasic piece of work and I hope all the MP’s and policy makers get to see it, because they are the ones to influence.

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      When the Climategate (2009) files came online, the keyword for which I searched for first was “clouds“.

      Almost immediately, that led me to Trenberth’s “travesty” statement in a response to Tom Wigley; which happened to be included in Mann’s hand-waving response when asked to identify e.g. the physical processes for the “missing heat”.

      Trenberth to Wigley:

      How come you do not agree with a statement that says we are no where close to knowing where energy is going or whether clouds are changing to make the planet brighter.
      We are not close to balancing the energy budget. The fact that we can not account for what is happening in the climate system makes any consideration of geoengineering quite hopeless as we will never be able to tell if it is successful or not!
      It is a travesty!

      Further included is the widely-published “travesty” statement, which according to some was “taken out of context” and didn’t mean what the sceptics said it did. Simply a diversion because Trenberth subsequently (as above) reiterated his concerns.

      Salient to this 50 to 1 discussion is “makes any consideration of geoengineering quite hopeless as we will never be able to tell if it is successful or not!”.

      Geoengineering such as e.g. controlling CO2 emissions.

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    Brian G Valentine

    The assumption that “stopping climate change” is possible makes the ratio finite. That is my only problem with thus argument.

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      Brian is right. However, if one adopts ad argumentum the more than faintly ludicrous notion that we can influence the climate at will (a notion that Canute tried to cure his courtiers of during a day trip to the seaside), and if one demonstrates that even then it is not cost-effective to do anything about CO2, then a fortiori it is not cost-effective to attempt mitigation that is in any event impossible. Adopting the other side’s climatology and economics and then showing that the numbers still come nowhere close to working is a very powerful method in disputations of this kind. So don’t knock it.

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    Owen

    Jo: I thoroughly enjoyed your interview with Topher, and that of David Evans. Two different but complementary angles and both worth the full view. Thanks for your down-to-earth approach and good humor. The best weapons we have are reason, fact and an open-mindedness that forces the zealots to engage on fair terms. You are showing the way.

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    Peter H

    Terrific interview with yourself, Jo. Can’t explain how important your clear and concise explanations of the true position on AGW have been for a long time to me and to many others, no doubt. Well done. Will throw a couple of bucks in the tip jar, make sure you spend it on drink!

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    clipe

    Can someone explain the difference in the accents (I hear) between JoNova and Topher?

    Spent the first twelve years of my life in Scotland where I developed an ear.
    In Canada since 1967.

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      There is more than one Australian accent.
      Accents are regional amd more or less subtle, as in Canada.

      Topher’s from Melbourne. Joanne is not! 😉

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        Ian Hill

        Jo says “graph” as in “graphite” which to me is an eastern states thing. I say “graph” as in “giraffe”. Maybe only we South Australians say it like that!

        I liked Jo’s “dead dog” description of carbon trading.

        I thought Topher was a bit harsh on Pluto. It has five moons for goodness sake, surely that makes it more of a planet than not!

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    Margaret Gooding

    I was very glad to hear about the 50:1 project. It is a great idea whose time has come. I am a geologist by training and have been a global warming skeptic (a denier and proud of it) for a very long time. I agree that there is really no proof for man-caused global warming, indeed no real proof for global warming at all (other than perhaps coming out of a mini-ice age over the last 100 or so years). This whole debate reminds me very much of the stories about Galileo and the issues he had with the Church regarding Helios-centric vs earth-centric theories of the solar system. Science will out in the end!
    Rock Lady

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      Roy Hogue

      …indeed no real proof for global warming at all…

      So then why any need to adapt if there’s no problem?

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      • #

        Sorry Roy, you are trying to use science in a situation where the science is actually irrelevant. I do agree with you that no proof equals take no action with respect to the thing left unproven. However, the powers that be are totally uninterested in any thing that does not justify more power, more government, more taxes, and more restrictions on We the People. The actual science is irrelevant to them so it might be better to recite “Mary had a little lamb” than the science. This is because the science sounds like blah…blah…blah…blah…blah to them. They don’t care what the truth is.

        Like I said, we need more weapons in our arsenal than the science otherwise we will have no impact where we need it most.

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        Streetcred

        I think that ‘Rock Lady’ was referring indirectly to anthropogenic warming. There’s no argument that the Earth naturally warms and cools in naturally driven ‘cycles’ over millennial time frames … for which there is no need for alarm but merely adaptation to meet those challenges — just as Mankind has done throughout history.

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  • #

    We can reliably detect global temperature changes of .05degrees? Bullshit.

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      Joe V.

      Wasn’t that rather, we can measure temperatures (individually) to an accuracy of only 1/20th. of a degree. Global temperatures of course aren’t directly measured but arrived at by other means, the implication being that they cannot therefore be more accurate than the individual measurements on which they are based.

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    Evgueni

    I had no idea Jo was so pretty. 🙂

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      Truthseeker

      You missed the photo at the top of the web page?

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        Russell

        The photo is nice, but she is way more charming and attractive in the video than I would have ever guessed from the photo.
        She is also much nicer to listen to than I would have guessed; even for a professional communicator, her presentation style is excellent.
        I had no intention of allocating that much time to these interviews, but after watching Jo’s I’m working my way through all of them.
        (Sorry to talk about you in the third person on your own blog, Jo!)

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      Brian G Valentine

      Pretty is as pretty does. I look at some “starlet” with nothing upstairs clamouring for some greenie nonsense, and suddenly she looks so dreadful I can’t stand it

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        Safetyguy66

        Wow Im the same Brian. Australia’s next top model, check it out… 20 people in the room and they all share a collective neuron, the ugliness of the spirits so greatly overwhelms the physical its hard to believe. My ex-wife has 2 honors degrees, Environmental Biology and Micro Biology, she was also stunningly good looking, but what I loved most about her was her ability to have a challenging conversation at the drop of a hat, its a rare thing to find in anyone male or female. But your spot on, the brains will outweigh the looks everytime. I always keep in mind that the looks will fade, so you better like the person underneath because thats what your gonna be stuck with when your both pushing your zimmer frames.

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        Roy Hogue

        Why Brian, don’t you know you’re supposed to pay attention to the T & A and be so entranced you’ll believe anything?

        Surely you know what you should do in such a case!? 😉

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        Eddie Sharpe

        Have we taken our eye off the ball ?
        When is the last time you watched the weather presented by a bloke ?
        Where have all the weather blokes gone ?

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      Safetyguy66

      Looks and brains, the complete package does exist gentlemen. Reminds me of my Mrs 🙂

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      Yonniestone

      Yeah Jo’s a bit of a looker but David’s pretty cute too. 🙂

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    Bryn

    Much to view. Like others I am downloading (via YouTube)for later viewing. But I am being plagued by preceding Labor Party ads. Ugh!!!

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    These links are to the mp3 audio files, at Tubescoop, that I stripped out from the Topher interview videos on Youtube so that JN readers can load them into their iPhones, Android devices and music players.

    Anthony Watts
    http://tinyurl.com/n4la7xn

    Fred Singer
    http://tinyurl.com/kxxw9k7

    Joanne Nova
    http://tinyurl.com/lv8gunn

    Donna Laframboise
    http://tinyurl.com/n7qpb7l

    David Evans
    http://tinyurl.com/oq2bx3m

    Henry Ergas
    http://tinyurl.com/lag69ag

    Christopher Essex
    http://tinyurl.com/kgurk43

    Marc Morano
    http://tinyurl.com/lywhg7q

    [What does that do for copyright, I wonder? -FLY]
    [I think Topher wants them to spread – Jo]

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    The warmunists are simply going to use this to say “see, even the sceptics agree that CO2 warms the planet” and the argument will be derailed into what to do about it – adapt or try to prevent. IMO this project is a very bad idea. An argument about whether or not to take ineffective and expensive action against a non existent problem. What a wonderful idea.

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      John Knowles

      Yes. Arguing a point gives the other side sense that they are actually defending a corner. These days I go on the offensive about solar cycle induced cooling and the role of cosmic particles and when people chirp up about AGW I dismiss it as a passé theory which has been proven largely irrelevant to climate because of “x,y and z”.
      I find the vast majority have no idea about astrophysics so they have little come back and I suggest they Google “Abdussamatov” or search the NASA site about a deep solar minimum.

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      Joe V.

      Methinks Mike, like Roy, you’re missing the essential point about adaption being as & when (& implicitly only IF) required, as opposed to the Canutian approach of trying to stop it, which all has to be paid for upfront whether it’s effective or required or neither.

      This approach avoids the distraction of arguing the if, which will however become apparent by itself in time.

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    I watched all of the interviews – absolutely brilliant, in-depth, insightful and covering every aspect. I think – I hope – all of these will go far and wide. Topher’s done a fantastic job.

    You, Jo, and Dr Evans, and all the interviewees came across very much with your fingers on the pulse and your minds full of credible knowledge, based on data not hype. Very, VERY refreshing.

    I hope all of these videos go viral.

    A big Thank You to all who made it possible.

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    Albert

    good video

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    Safetyguy66

    Watched the interviews. Very high quality questioning, I like the way he asks questions on both sides of a topic, his views are clear but he is professional about allowng people to say what they think whether it fits his overall plan or not. Im impressed.

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    Asking you to watch the full interviews is a bit of a stretch, but I’m doing just that with the Doctor Evans interview, and there’s 48 minutes of it.

    However, it’s just so damned interesting.

    There I was listening away, and then I heard something. Thank heavens it’s not TV where you can’t scroll back, so I did scroll back and listened again, and there it was.

    The brain is an amazing thing. You hear something and then a second or so later, you get a message from somewhere in your head that tells you, “hey, wait a minute, that was important.” Luckily, this format gives us the ability to play it back.

    It starts at the 14.30 mark and a second or so after that Dr, Evans says this (My bolding):

    A quarter of the human CO2 emissions in the whole of history have occurred since 1998.

    Say, isn’t that about the time that the warming is supposed to have slowed and stopped.

    Tony.

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    Philip Shehan

    Just saw this on Bolt’s blog so I will reproduce my comment here:

    Just to expand on the economic nonsense going on here.

    The pricing of carbon put barely a dent in Australia’s economic growth since it’s introduction.

    According to the presenter, extending Australia’s scheme to the rest of the world for 10 years would cost 3.2 quadrillion (3.2 x 10^15) dollars.

    The total annual value of the world economy is 70 trillion dollars ( 7.0 x 10^13). So for 10 years, the total economic out put for the world is some 700 trillion dollars (7.0 x 10^14).

    So according to the presenter, a rate of carbon pricing that barely dented the Australian economy will cost the world economy approximately 4.5 times its entire output.

    Meanwhile, in the real world,

    Arctic Ice-Melt Cost Seen Equal to Year of World Economic Output

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-24/arctic-ice-melt-cost-seen-equal-to-year-of-world-economic-output.html

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      Brian G Valentine

      This is based on that “methane” nonsense Mister Bone Head, which has been debunked some 3.2 x 10**15 times and doesn’t need to be debunked again.

      Why don’t you and Greenpeace go do something useful with your lives like eliminate an element from the periodic table. You didn’t have much luck with chlorine, go try again.

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      Ross

      Typical of Philip, twisting the figures to suit the narative or maybe it is a case of not being to listen very well.
      Topher says that if the Australian cost was theoretically extented globally to achieve a ONE DEGREE reduction then it would cost $3.2 quadrillion over the 10 years.

      NB. All the figures and references are available for you Philip in the PDF put out with the the video. Unlike some the warmists research nothing is being hidden here !!!

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        Ross

        A further thought for Philip. You little calculations have actually helped prove Topher’s point.
        Based on IPCC science and data etc it would cost 4.5 times the total global economic output to “save” ONE DEGREE of so called warming over a ten year period.
        That is the real world for you and your fellow believers.

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      Philip Shehan

      Ross: I get it now. The presenter plucked the figure 1 degree out of the atmosphere so he could shock people and go on about 3.2 quadrillion dollars with those cute graphics etc.

      Then he abandons the pea and thimble trick and comes back to the real world and informs us that the predicted warming for the time period he has been discussing (10 years) is 0.17 degrees. Now he says the that the cost of extending Australia’s price to the whole world,(which left barely a dent in Australia’s economy less than 0.25% of GDP) will cost the world 540 trillion dollars.

      Or 77% of global output. So a scheme which costs Australia 0.25% GDP will cost the world 77%? Sorry. Still does not add up.

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        Philip Shehan

        Pardon me. I was quoting the reduction on GDP growth for Australia.

        The effect on the GDP for the next decade is expected to be a reduction of 0.7%. Still along way off a cost of 77% GDP.

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        Philip Shehan

        I have looked at the calculations supplied in the PDF. It is by Lord Monckton, so the pea and thimble tricks don’t surprise me.

        In my post on Mr Bolt’s site I queried an apparent assumption that Monckton specifically confirms he has made.

        Monckton takes the cost per capita for Australians, who have advanced economy which is highly dependent on coal and has one of the highest per capita incomes and carbon footprints on the planet and multiplies by 7 billion and declares this the global cost. A fair proportion of the world’s population have nothing like the average Australian’s carbon emissions.

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        Philip Shehan

        I have looked at the calculations supplied in the PDF. It is by Lord Monckton, so the pea and thimble tricks don’t surprise me.

        In my post on Mr Bolt’s site I queried an apparent assumption that Monckton specifically confirms he has made .

        Monckton takes the cost per capita for Australians, who have advanced economy which is highly dependent on coal and has one of the highest per capita incomes and carbon footprints on the planet and multiplies by 7 billion to get the global cost of carbon reduction. A fair proportion of the world’s people have nothing like the average live in nothing like Australia’s econonomy and have nothing like the income or carbon footprint.

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        Ross

        OK I made a error with my first comment. The figures for one degree were not for 10 years, they were for saving one degree over time. Perfectly reasonable fact to point out given we have been told we are potentially heading for 2-3 C warming over time.

        He doesn’t abandon the “pea and thimble”. He brings its back to predicted figures over a set time. The figures are still obviously ridiculous to the average person –pointing this out was the goal of the exercise.

        You are still missing the point
        (probably deliberately). The current Australian scheme will contribute to 1/20,000 C reduction at a cost of 160Bill ( which I take from you is 0.25% GDP). To get near the 0.17 C reduction would cost the 540 trillion dollars globally, based on the Australian costs. That is what he is illustrating.
        I hope that clarifies it for you.

        PS. I note I made same error in my second comment of referring to 10 years for the one degree.I probably picked it from reading your first comment where you made a similar error.

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          Philip Shehan

          Ross, certainly Australia acting in isolation can make no difference whatsoever to reduction of CO2 emissions, but it is not acting in isolation and early conversion to a lower carbon economy has economic advantages. 16 billion dollars a year is 1.1% of Australia’s GDP and the tax encourages other economic activity in the form of renweable eneregy sources etc.

          But it’s Monckton’s 540 trillion dollar global figure I dispute. He is taking cost of large per capita carbon footprint , large per capita income Australians as reperesentative of the worlds population for per capita income and carbon footprint and multiplying by 7 billion to come up with that number.

          That is why he comes up with a global cost that is worth 80% of global GDP, rather than 1.1 % for Australia’s GDP.

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            Philip Shehan

            I forgot to add. If we are going to compare apples with apples, take a look at how British Columbia, which has had a carbon price since 2008 rising to currently $30 and and see how it has done economically compared to the rest of Canada (sorry the table does not copy in the right format):

            http://www.sustainableprosperity.ca/dl872&display

            Table 6: British Columbia and Canada GDP per capita since 2008

            Jurisdiction
            2008
            2009
            2010
            2011
            2008-11 Total
            British Columbia
            -1.16%
            -3.90%
            1.64%
            1.92%
            -0.15%
            Rest of Canada
            -0.45%
            -3.88%
            1.91%
            1.38%
            -0.23%

            Source: Statistics Canada

            The difference in GDP change is small (0.1% from 2008-11); moreover, the carbon tax is just one small factor in BC’s overall economic picture. Therefore, while it would be a stretch to claim that the tax shift has had a positive impact on the economy, the data appear to indicate it has not had a negative effect.
            That is a very significant result. BC has brought in a serious policy to curb fuel use and GHG emissions. It has a carbon price that is higher than anywhere else in North America, and most other countries in the

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              Heywood

              So, how much global warming was abated by BC’s carbon tax?

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                Philip Shehan

                The point is Heywood the carbon price does not appear to have done any harm to BC’s economy, which is much more like Australia’s than that of a hunter/gatherer or subsistance farming society that Topher/Monckton says can be equated to Australia.

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                Mark D.

                The point is Heywood the carbon price does not appear to have done any harm to BC’s economy,…..

                Not everyone thinks as you do Dr. Shehan: http://thetyee.ca/News/2013/06/28/BC-Economy-In-Decline/

                Externally, BC’s international merchandise exports struggled in 2012, falling by
                4.2 per cent over 2011.

                Then:

                Fuel tax
                Revenue from fuel tax was $47 million lower than budget reflecting lower gasoline
                consumption, likely due in part to higher pump prices.

                Carbon tax
                Carbon tax revenue was $52 million lower than budget due to weaker sales of gasoline
                and natural gas.

                Coal, metals and other minerals
                Revenue from coal, metals and other minerals was $242 million below budget due to
                a one-time prior year adjustment, the effects of higher mining costs and the impact of
                lower commodity prices.

                Source: http://www.fin.gov.bc.ca/tbs/F&Ereview13.pdf

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                Philip Shehan

                MarkD: “The surplus for 2013-2014 is now projected at $153 million, down from $197 million in February, on a total budget of $43.9 billion.”

                And how is the rest of Canada doing in comparison?

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      Phillip Shehan says at #22

      The pricing of carbon put barely a dent in Australia’s economic growth since it’s introduction.

      I have checked Lord Monckton’s figures. 5 minutes on Excel confirms his cost of He makes no allowance for an impact on economic growth.

      The relevant quote is

      The cost of the tax: The tax, as enacted in Australia’s Clean Energy Act 2011, is costong $10.1 bn/year, plus $1.6 bn/year for administration (Wong, 2010, p. 5), plus $1.3 bn/year for renewables and other costs, a total of $13 bn/year, escalated under the Act at 2%/year, and by a further 2%/year to allow for economic growth. Conservatively, the total cost over the ten-year term will thus be $162.3 bn.

      I have checked Lord Monckton’s figures. 5 minutes on Excel confirms his cost of $162.3 bn. He makes no allowance for an impact on economic growth.
      Now suppose the policy reduced growth from 2% to 1.8%, and that Australia’s GDP in the base year is $1500bn. Cumulative output over ten years will be $16,753.1 bn with 2% growth and $16,568.2 bn with 1.8%. This leaves cumulative output forgone of $184.9bn.
      0.2% is hardly detectable, especially for any Government that caused it. Any impact on growth is liable to increase over time, as businesses when making long-term investment decisions will know that, ceteris paribus, Australia’s energy costs will be increasing relative to China or the USA where there is no such policy in place.

      Lord Monckton’s figures also broadly reconcile with the Stern Review of 2006, which said that an effective policy would cost 1% of GDP.

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    John

    Well if you fell for this argument then you have bought into paying for the cost yourself instead of the CO2 generators. Open your eyes and look at the BOM site at river inflow trends expect significant increase in water cost. BOM predicted climate zone shifts and stop and think about the implications. If Melbourne moves to a climate like Echuca as predicted that sounds great doesn’t it? However what zone does Echuca move to and BTW what grows in that zone? So Victoria’s food production is done where? The implications are that one will have to make significant life changes, it’s not just going to be Africa.
    Go further and look at world populations, do you really think they are just going to stay put while there ability to live is removed. Are you ready and able to stop/feed/support the impending migrations?

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      You didn’t heed Professor Essex’s statement at the end of the 10-minute video:

      Stop being afraid and start thinking.

      Put down the Kool-Aid.

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      Streetcred

      Shame, poor boy ! There should be a LAW against emotional bullying by the Catastrophists.

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        ianl8888

        There is

        It’s called “Just Ignore the Ungrammatic, Incoherent Troll” (The Law of JIUIT)

        UIT’s are breaking out all over – one wonders if they fear some impending loss of relevance, perhaps even by this next weekend

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          JPeden

          Here in the U.S. I’ve recently been spending a lot of time on the National Public Radio and left leaning “Politico” blogs. No one’s kicked me off yet, like I’ve previously experienced at “Progressive” blogs, while the average Progressive commenter seems even dumber than is possible. Maybe it’s only as per usual, but I’ve been very impressed with their use of invective and wild speculation about me at the slightest provocation. I’ve been very assiduously staying on point and rational, but they seem unable to even read without having some kind of Full Bore Alinsky response resembling a Grand Mal seizure. I’ve been seriously trying to help them out in life by pointing out the logical problems with their thinking, but they only seem to get worse. Suddenly Obama is in serious trouble here, of his own making, and so I’m wondering if these Progressives have at least sensed it and are thus getting progressively worse, as in a disease. We can only hope they’ve reached a true tipping point and that they won’t go down en masse like the World Trade Center did!

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    Safetyguy66

    Well I just voted. 54 boxes on the Senate Ticket….. Greens got 54, 53 and 52 (was going to use the word respectively, but I don’t)

    My only regret is that I can only vote them last once.

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    JPeden

    It’s great to just read all of your insightful comments. I’ve watched Anthony’s piece and thought it was Great, no matter what the alleged deficiencies, but have been unable to see the others, since my computer is pretty well screwed up and doing all sorts of weird things. One of them is that it is telling me here at Jo’s and at another site, that I’ve already voted thumbs up, when I haven’t voted at all. I’m thinking it’s my computer, but maybe not?

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    Yonniestone

    Finally got to watch the video, it’s just so uplifting to see the truth getting out there, I’m going to link it whenever I can.
    I’ll try to watch the rest, can’t wait this is brilliant. 🙂

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  • #

    […] Topher’s 50 to 1 project Share this:EmailDiggRedditStumbleUponTwitterFacebookLinkedInGoogleTumblrPinterestLike this:Like Loading… Tagged: Climate Change Debate, Global Warming Debate, Topher Posted in: Australia, Climate Change, Global Warming, Public Opinion, Videos ← Yahoo’s Shapiro Sings Praises Of ‘Obama’s History-Defying Decision To Seek Congressional Approval On Syria’ Be the first to start a conversation […]

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    Andrew McRae

    I have some concern that Mr Evans is so enamoured with advanced mathematics that he neglects simple arithmetic when diagnosing the origin of the modern CO2 rise. Upon reaching 38:29 in his interview he seems to temporarily suffer from Salby Syndrome. The half life of decay for a CO2 emission pulse is irrelevant as we are interested in the bulk change of reservoirs and not in tracing individual CO2 molecules to see where they go. If CO2 shows any reluctance towards sequestration (apparent lambda of 35 years vs 14C’s 5 years) this is obviously due to the oceans being warmer now than in 1950s atomic tests and hence slowing the uptake of industrial CO2 as compared to the 14C case. But make no mistake about the direction of net flow.
    The carbon accounting argument is the only diagnostic method we have which requires only quantities that have been reliably observed or calculated with low error (eg the biggest unknown in the equations is the estimated total mass of the atmosphere and yet the variability in that published figure is in the 3rd decimal place).
    Based on previous guest posts it seems Mr Quirk knows what’s going on. Would be interesting to see a Quirk vs Evans debate about the origin of rising CO2.

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    Philip Shehan has misunderstood the basis of my calculations for the 50:1 project, and has at one point incorrectly stated that I had confirmed I had made an assumption that I had neither made nor confirmed I had made.

    He argues against working out the cost of abating 1 K global warming by worldwide measures whose unit cost is equal to that of the Australian carbon tax. However, unit cost, as the term implies, is the cost per unit. And the unit of temperature is Kelvin. In order to establish the mitigation cost-effectiveness of any proposed measure to mitigate global warming by abating CO2 emissions, one establishes the unit costs of all existing or proposed measures and goes with the lowest cost.

    I could also legitimately have determined the cost of abating the 3 K global warming the IPCC predicts for this century: it would almost $10 quadrillion.

    Next Mr. Shehan says he disagrees that the cost of mitigating future warming by roughly 0.17 K (the warming the IPCC projects will occur over the ten-year design lifetime of the Australian carbon tax) would be as much as £540 trillion. If he taks 17% of the $3.2 quadrillion cost of mitigating 1 K by 6, he will find the answer is about $540 trillion.

    He goes on to say I had taken the cost per capita for Australians and had multiplied by 7 billion. It is clear that I had done no such thing. Instead, I had established the cost of forestalling 0.17 K warming over the ten-year term of the Australian scheme by worldwide measures whose unit cost was identical to that of Australia’s carbon tax and had then divided that global abatement cost by the global population to arrive at the mean global per-capita cost, which was $77,000 per head of the world’s population.

    He also suggests that the net cost of Australia’s carbon tax was only 0.25% of GDP. Even if that were the case (and the figure seems too low), the quantum of global warming prevented over the ten-year term of the tax in Australia is so small that the cost of abating the 0.17 K global warming projected to occur over the term would be very great: after all, the tax will only forestall 1/20,000 K of warming.

    For these reasons, it seems to me that he has deliberately tried to sow confusion. However, he should know that the results in the underlying paper were peer-reviewed with more than usual rigour by the World Federation of Scientists before being published this month in its prestigious journal, the 45th Annual Proceedings. If he has concerns that are genuine, then let him refute my analysis in a reviewed journal.

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      NoFixedAddress

      Philip Shehan
      September 3, 2013 at 12:17 pm · Reply

      The pricing of carbon put barely a dent in Australia’s economic growth since it’s introduction.

      I have one question for you sir, Why is the Australian Labor ‘Government’ paying carbon tax compensation?

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      • #
        Philip Shehan

        Because the punters like getting handouts from the government.

        The government is recycling most of the money it is collecting to consumers so they are not disadvantaged. The point is to give inductry a financial incentive to cut carbon emissions.

        Why is the Liberal (conservative) Party going on about fiscal responsibility in the current election campaign while offering a paid parental leave scheme that even those in the Party think is ludicrously generous middle/upper class welfare? Because Tony Abbott thought it a vote winner.

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        • #
          NoFixedAddress

          Philip Shehan
          September 4, 2013 at 5:49 pm · Reply

          Because the punters like getting handouts from the government.

          So that would be the wind and solar spivs your actually referring to as ‘punters’?

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      NoFixedAddress

      John
      September 3, 2013 at 12:22 pm · Reply

      Well if you fell for this argument then you have bought into paying for the cost yourself instead of the CO2 generators.

      Who pays for your energy John?

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      so this paper? http://www.federationofscientists.org/PlanetaryEmergencies/Seminars/45th/Monckton%20publication.pdf

      I am interested in your definition of “the usual rigor”… do you have experience of the usual rigor or is this an aspersion about the publications that host research reports that you don’t agree with? Or maybe it is a comment on the rigor that your publications are usually held to?

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        Sneering trolls ought to learn that they do harm to their religion by not producing scientific arguments. The furtively pseudonymous “GI”, plainly upset by the conclusion of my paper to the effect that it is 10-100 times costlier to mitigate today than to adapt the day after tomorrow but utterly incapable of refuting it, childishly implies that my growing record of peer-reviewed publications in climate science and economics is subjected to less rigour by reviewers than other papers would be. I know of no rational basis for that implication.

        The World Federation of Scientists’ method of peer review worked as follows. The paper was read by several reviewers in climatology and economics. It was thought interesting. I was asked to present the paper in a lecture before 200 of the world’s most eminent scientists. My lecture was followed by an hour and a half of questions. One of the questions, for instance, was why I had used a 5% inter-temporal discount rate. I explained that that was the minimum commercial rate, and gave references. The questioner, a strong believer in the climate-extremist position, demanded that I should redo the calculations using a zero discount rate and report the answer to him the following day.

        When I reported the results (not vastly different over the ten-year lifetime of the carbon tax), the questioner said my paper was too long. I was compelled to produce a one-page summary of the calculations for the Australian CO2 tax, which I was then obliged to go through with him line by line. At the end, he said he was unable to find any error. The paper was duly accepted for publication, and is now published. That is what I mean by “more than usual rigour”.

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          Ok, so you meant different not more. You should have said.

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            Don’t continue to be childish. I meant what I said. The review process for this paper was more than usually rigorous, in that there were additional (or, as we say in Scotland, more) stages of review after the original reviewers had read the paper. If you are unable to find any errors in the paper, then stop whining. If you are able to find errors, then publish a reviewed paper of your own.

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            • #

              I can be very childish when I want to be. Do any of your rigorous reviewers assist you with proofing your the headlines the SPPI site linked to your name?

              Medieval Warm Period in the Artic

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              • #

                Surely Gee Aye, you’re not resorting to that old stand by,

                You lose the debate because of a spelling error.

                I thought we’d dispensed with that fallback with the Dr. Smith fiasco.

                Sounds like nyah nyah, nyah nyah nyah to me.

                Tony.

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                Tony, sure was; I inserted some editorial errors in my own post so that the reader wouldn’t think I was some sort of perfectionist robot.

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                MemoryVault

                I can be very childish when I want to be.

                Too true. It’s behaving like an adult that continues to elude you.

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      Philip Shehan

      Monckton of Benchley. My contention is that given the vast disparity of carbon footprint per capita of people in various economies of the world it is an error to take the cost per head for the Australian population and multiply by the global population to arrive at a global cost if the Australian scheme were introduced globally.

      There is a correlation between carbon footprint and economic output. Broadly speaking, the richer the economy, the greater the level of carbon emissions.

      The Australian economy is worth $1.4 trillion per year. You put the cost of Australia’s measures at $16 billion per year. The Australian scheme’s cost is therefore $87 billion per trillion dollars GDP.

      The world economy is worth $67 trillion per year. Extending the Australian scheme to the entire global economy would therefore cost approximately $87 billion x 67 = $5.8 trillion per year, or $58 trillion dollars per decade, not $540 trillion dollars per decade.

      I have indeed acted as a reviewer for scientific journals, and that is precisely the point I would have put to you had I reviewed your article.

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      • #
        Philip Shehan

        Errata:

        Pardon my arithmetic. I jumbled the ratios and percentages. The Australian economy is 87 times larger than the cost of the carbon scheme.

        The scheme’s cost is $11 billion per trillion dollars of GDP.

        So the cost to the world economy of Australia’s scheme would be approximately 67 x $11 billion = $740 billion per year, or $7.4 trillion per decade, not $540 trillion.

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        • #
          Philip Shehan

          And in case anyone is confused about whether the world’s population was factored in here, from Monckton of Benchley’s PDF

          The cost of abating 0.17 Cº warming by global measures as cost-effective as the tax is 0.17 x $3.2 quadrillion,
          or $540 trillion in cash, which, divided by global population of 7 bn, is $77,000 per capita. Divided by ten
          years’ global GDP of $670 trillion (derived from World Bank, 2011), it is equivalent to 80% of global GDP.

          As I pointed out above Australia’s scheme applied to the world economy would cost 1.1% global GDP.

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          • #
            Heywood

            We aren’t confused, we just don’t care what you have to say.

            Perhaps you should take the Lord’s advice and ” let him refute my analysis in a reviewed journal.”

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            Mr. Shehan appears not to understand the distinction between an input and an output in even the simplest first-order model. The cost per head of making global warming go away this decade using worldwide measures whose unit cost is identical to that of the Australian CO2 tax is an output. No other part of the calculation depends upon it, for it is one of the results of that calculation.

            As others have pointed out, Mr. Shehan’s calculation to the effect that Australia’s scheme applied to the global economy would cost only 1.1% of GDP is fundamentally misconceived, since it does not address the quantum of projected global warming that falls to be abated. Once that is taken into account, the cost – even on the profoundly conservative values that underlie the first-order model – is, as I have said it is, more than 80% of global GDP.

            Even if per impossibile Mr. Shehan was right that the cost of abating global warming worldwide over this decade were only 1.1% of GDP, since Stern (2006) says the cost of inaction is only 1.5% of GDP, and only then if the warming predicted by the IPCC actually happens, it would still be pointless to implement the CO2 tax. That is a measure of just how silly it is.

            To illustrate just one of the assumptions in the first-order model that heavily favours intervention, I have assumed that even the smallest increase in global temperature will do some harm. In practice, however, it is generally understood that CO2 fertilization and the hydrological benefits of warmer weather would actually be net-beneficial at least until another 1.1 K global warming had taken place. If so, given the now-embarrassing and prolonged absence of the global warming so arrogantly but misguidedly predicted by the usual suspects, any measure to mitigate global warming at present would be infinitely cost-ineffective.

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          MemoryVault

          Philip,

          I have worked out that it will cost me about $1.6 million to buy and equip a submarine to save my family from rising sea levels.

          I have also worked out that it will cost me about $1.6 million to buy, instal and equip a bunker to protect my family from an extreme weather event.

          Regrettably, I cannot afford to finance either project. So, your sage advice, Philip:

          Regarding my failure to implement either of them, to which of these two impossibly unaffordable projects should I devote the bulk of my wailing and gnashing of teeth?

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        Hmm Philip Shehan,

        don’t tell me you’re still rabbiting on about that Carbon (Dioxide) footprint per capita fallacy still.

        China’s emissions are 17 times higher than ours are here in Australia.

        China’s population is 61 times higher than ours is here in Australia.

        India’s emissions are 4.3 times higher than our are here in Australia.

        India’s population is 56.4 times higher than ours is here in Australia.

        Do they get to come up to our standard of living, or do we go back to theirs.

        Tony.

        Post Script. I note you then included an errata to correct an error. You proof read your comment enough to note the error in your text, without noting that it’s Monckton of Brenchley. (and the people on your side of the debate are sticklers on chipping us for bad spelling.)

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          NoFixedAddress

          @TonyfromOz

          There is a horrid fascination in watching and reading the true “Future Eaters” as they expose their arguments.

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        Philip Shehan

        Monckton of Benchley says of me: “For these reasons, it seems to me that he has deliberately tried to sow confusion.”

        Well, having looked at Monckton’s PDF in more detail it is he who is responsible for the confusion.

        Take a look at it here.

        http://topher.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/50-to-1-sources-and-maths.pdf

        He goes all around the houses in a confusing manner entering irrelevant parameters such as calculating costs in quadrillions per degree, introducing per capita expenditure and global population figures to come up with his $540 trillion dollar figure based on Australia’s carbon abatement scheme.

        All he had to do was take the 0.00005 degrees abatement which he says costs 162 billion dollars for ten years, divide that into the 0.17 C he says would have to be totally abated in 10 years and multiply by Australia’s GDP to get the total cost:

        0.17/0.00005 = 3400 x 162 billion = $550 trillion, in agreement with $540 trillion within rounding errors of the calculations.

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        • #

          Mr. Shehan continues to try to sow confusion. Having earlier said that he “disputed” my global abatement cost of $550 trillion, he now says he agrees with it. But he says he was himself confused by my arguing around the houses.

          So here is the relevant passage from the not particularly difficult one-page document, prepared at the request of the deputy president of the World Federation of Scientists, which explains the calculation from top to bottom:

          “The mitigation cost-effectiveness of the tax, which is the cost of abating 1 Cº warming by global measures as cost-effective as the tax, is $162.3 bn / 0.00005 Cº = $3.2 quadrillion per Cº abated.

          “Projected anthropogenic warming over the ten-year term will be 0.17 Cº (IPCC 2007, p. 803, Table 10.26).

          “Discount rate: The minimum market discount rate is 5% (Murphy et al., 2008). The US Treasury’s standard rate is 7%. However, in line with Stern (2006), the discount rate assumed in the present appraisal is 0%.

          “The undiscounted cost of abating 0.17 Cº warming by global measures as cost-effective as the tax is 0.17 x $3.2 quadrillion, or $540 trillion in cash …”

          It seems to me that anyone not wilfully pretending to be confused would understand the method of calculation quite clearly. Anyone with any knowledge of the standard techniques of inter-temporal investment appraisal would know that it is necessary to have a discussion of the appropriate interest rate, which – for the sake of maximally advantaging the interventionist case so as to be fair to the other side – I set at zero.

          I have already attempted to refer Mr. Shehan to the reviewed paper in which every step of the calculation and the source of every equation are made explicit.

          One realizes that my results, showing that it is typically one or two orders of magnitude costlier to mitigate today than to adapt the day after tomorrow, are likely to prove uncongenial to true-believers in the New Religion. However, Mr. Shehan’s rather feeble attempts to sow confusion merely reinforce in readers’ minds the fact that the calculations – though they took years of study so as to know what to include and what to leave out – are very simple and very robust. In short, there is nothing wrong with them, and Australia should immediately abandon the CO2 tax as being 50 times costlier than adapting to the net-adverse consequences of global warming – if any.

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            Philip Shehan

            Monckton of Benchley,

            I did not say I agree with your value of global abatement cost. I said you could have reached it in a much more straightforward manner and that it was you who thereby introduced an element of confusion.

            You have not explained the entirely unnecessary inclusion of calculating costs in quadrillions per degree, and introducing per capita expenditure and global population figures.

            These do not feature in the passages you quote but elsewhere.

            “Mitigation cost-effectiveness of the tax, which is the cost of abating 1 Cº warming by global measures as cost-effective as the tax, is $162.3 bn / 0.00005 Cº = $3.2 quadrillion per Cº abated…

            The cost of abating 0.17 Cº warming by global measures as cost-effective as the tax is 0.17 x $3.2 quadrillion, or $540 trillion in cash, which, divided by global population of 7 bn, is $77,000 per capita.

            I have shown very simply that these matters are entirely unnecessary in the calculation of your result, which as I have pointed out can be calculated using only these values:

            0.17/0.00005 = 3400 x 162 billion = $550 trillion

            No need for quadrillions per degree, per capita cost, or the population of the world.

            Given your expertise as a mathematician I can be forgiven for assuming that you would not have included the world’s population etc. unnecessarily in a calculation, thus committing a sin amongst mathematicians – a lack of simplicity and elegance.

            Thus my initial confusion in thinking the world’s population must have something material to do with the result. The presenter of the video went on at some length about 3.2 quadrillion dollars, so again I can be forgiven for thinking it was important.

            So yes, the inclusion of these superfluous numbers and extra calculation steps confused me. My confusion was not contrived. It arose from your lack of simplicity and elegance in arriving at your result.

            If this formulation took years of study, why did you not notice these values are not required to make your point are not required?

            And your Lordship, who gets very huffy about what he perceives as ad hominem attacks, accuses me of trying to confuse others: “One realizes that my results, showing that it is typically one or two orders of magnitude costlier to mitigate today than to adapt the day after tomorrow, are likely to prove uncongenial to true-believers in the New Religion. However, Mr. Shehan’s rather feeble attempts to sow confusion merely reinforce in readers’ minds..

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              Mr. Shehan appears to be getting further and further out of his depth. I shall try to use as many words of one syl-la-ble as poss-i-ble.

              The purpose of determining the unit cost of a CO2 mitigation measure in dollars per Kelvin is to allow direct comparison with the unit costs of other measures to establish which of them is the most cost-effective (or rather, the least cost-ineffective).

              The reason for using quadrillions of dollars per Kelvin as the unit cost is that the unit cost is so enormous that it is in quadrillions of dollars.

              In my not particularly difficult-to-understand one-pager setting out the calculations in outline, I had not only provided the global abatement cost (i.e. the cost of abating all global warming projected to occur during the ten-year lifetime of the carbon tax by measures worldwide that are of equivalent unit cost) in dollars ($540 trillion) but also per capita of the world population (to illustrate the absurdity and impossibility of implementing such schemes globally) and as a fraction of global GDP over the period (to provide a direct comparison with the benefit of the carbon tax in the avoided cost of adapting to the warming prevented by today’s interventions. All of this is standard economic practice.

              If he wants to simplify the calculation so as to leave out inconvenient truths such as the staggering cost per head of trying to eradicate global warming by measures such as the CO2 tax, he is of course free to do so. But he has no need to whine about my including them to illustrate just how absurd the CO2 tax is, economically as well as environmentally speaking.

              Since Mr. Shehan is plainly not well versed in any of these matters, he is urged again to read the underlying paper, which is available on the website of the World Federation of Scientists. If there is anything he does not understand, he can simply drop me a line and let me know.

              But it is evident not only to me but to other commenters here that he has not been raising his questions in a constructive spirit of attempting to learn the truth, but snidely and – considering the ignorance he evinces in almost every sentence – arrogantly. However, I am glad to say that several future Ministers are avid readers of Jo Nova’s blog, and they have been alerted to study the 50-to-1 calculations and the comments here, precisely so that they can form a view of whether anyone has found any error so material as to nullify the principal conclusion of my economic enquiry into the CO2 tax and other mitigation measures, which is that all such measures (with the possible exception of carbon capture and storage, if it can be made to work) are likely to cost 10-100 times as much as simply letting global warming occur at the centrally-predicted rate and cost.

              Mr. Shehan, by raising points that are manifestly erroneous, inconsequential or both, is underlining not only the correctness of the approach I have taken in the calculations but also the real difficulties that any true-believer will face on being confronted with the hard economic reality that, even if the IPCC’s science is right (and 17 years without global warming proves every run of every model wrong), there is no economic case for spending a single red cent today on CO2 taxes, windmills, solar panels or all the foofaraw of taxpayer-subsidized rackets and boondoggles that represent the greatest transfer of wealth in human history from the poor to the rich. And that, come to think of it, is what socialism has always been all about.

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              Philip Shehan

              Monckton of Benchley, objector to ad hominem attacks on himself continues on in that vein toward others.

              (Meanwhile you keep calling him Benchley without the R in it,a veiled insult?) CTS

              All I was doing is to attempt to understand and analyse Tophers video.

              I wonder if one of the future ministers is Barnaby Joyce, who has described Monckton as “on the fringe”, and Janet Albrechtson, no friend of warmist alarmists has described him as “not helpful to the cause.”

              http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/blogs/greenlines/lord-monckton-is-on-the-fringe-barnaby-joyce-20100120-mlfq.html

              And I may indeed be genuinely confused but I will stick my neck out here and ask His Lordship or anyone else to explain to me where I may have got this wrong:

              He states in his working that the sensitivity factor, that is the rise in temperature with the doubling of CO2 concentration is 2 C.

              So with the current CO2 concentration of 400 ppm, an additional 400 ppm would raise the temperature by 2 C.

              Yet he also states that raising the concentration by 10 ppm will raise the temperature by 0.17 C. So for 1 C of temperature rise would require 10 x 1/0.17 = 59 ppm.

              So 59 ppm gives a rise of 1 C but 400 pm gives a rise of 2 C?

              (Meanwhile you keep calling him Benchley without the R in it over and over

              OK, like I said I may be confused here, so someone explain it to me.

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                Philip Shehan

                Dear CTS My apologies to Monckton of Brenchley.

                My wrong rendering of his title was entirely inadvertant. I do not see such mistakes as an insult, just poor form. Again my apologies.

                (I am used to people mispelling my surname, as “Sheehan” and putting to “l”s in Philip and I am regularly called by my first given name “Brian” in spite of correcting people.)

                I may add that your intervention here and further below seems just a tad precious. I have encountered this over at Watts blog too. Monckton of Brenchly is allowed to indulge in insult as much as he likes but criticism of him is off limits.

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                Philip Shehan

                Sorry again. People will be familiar with my regular typos and sloppy edits. Of course that should have been Brenchley, not Brenchly.

                (Thank You) CTS

                07

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                Heywood

                “I may add that your intervention here and further below seems just a tad precious”

                Maybe you would like a teaspoon of concrete so you can harden up. This pales in comparison to the treatment dished out on sites like SkS, where you get abused and banned merely because you hold an alternative view to those in their precious ivory towers.

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                Philip Shehan

                May I add CTS that I give you and Ms Nova credit for allowing such criticisms to be posted.

                Over at Watts I once simply provided a link to an item that was a serious critique of Monckton’s position on something, not at all personal, and my linking the item was in response to a request from someone for the data behind a graph that was not in itself a criticism of Monckton’s views but a graph of global temperature rises by the author of the critique.

                The moderator did not post it and wrote “Take your ad hominem attck on Monckton over to SKS where it belongs.”

                They certainly have Monckton’s back over there.

                I will cease being personal and I expect Monckton to do the same.

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                Philip Shehan

                Heywood they actually have very strict rules against going off topic or personal remarks over at SKS. I have had comments removed over there on these grounds.

                07

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                Backslider

                they actually have very strict rules against going off topic or personal remarks over at SKS

                They have very strict “rules” against alternative viewpoints. Many people have found their posts altered to change meaning, or just deleted, while being summarily banned for no reason other than holding an alternative view.

                No “offtopic” or “personal remarks” are required. If you do not believe this, then I challenge you to disguise yourself as a polite skeptic and see just how long you last.

                That’s the facts sonny.

                You have been challenged to release a paper refuting Lord Monckton et al – I would suggest you get cracking if you think you know so much.

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                Heywood

                “Heywood they actually have very strict rules against going off topic or personal remarks over at SKS”

                Yes, and they define “off topic” as any comment that does not comply with their religion. In my case, I asked a question (politely) about climate sensitivity in an article about, funnily enough, climate sensitivity but because one of the team recognised my name from a skeptic blog, they outed me as a ‘denier’, levelled abuse, deleted my post and banned me. All from one legitimate question, and a follow up question asking why my post had been deleted.

                I guess it is the cartoonist’s prerogative as it is his blog, but it never ceases to amaze how many memebers of Team Warm whinge about censorship of their posts on blogs such as this one, when the darling blog for their cause is a whole lot worse.

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                crakar24

                LOL,

                I got abused and labelled a denier because i ended a MY FIRST comment ever with the word Cheers, apparently it is common knowledge that he who ends a comment with cheers is being sarcastic and henceforth worthy of abuse even by the mods.

                Next time you go their Phil make sure your membership is paid in full first.

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                The desperation of the egregious Shehan now leads him into outright fiction – though not very thrilling. he says I state in my page of calculations that “the sensitivity factor, that is the rise in temperature with the doubling of CO2 concentration is 2 C”. I have examined the entire page and cannot find any such statement, or even the term “2 C”, therein. The equilibrium warming in response to a doubling of CO2 concentration is given by the IPCC as 3.26 C, not 2 C, implying a climate-sensitivity parameter (denominated not in Celsius, as Mr. Shehan seems to think, but in Kelvin per Watt per square metre) of 0.88.

                However, the temperature response to an initial forcing – such as a doubling of CO2 concentration – evolves over time. Initially, the value of the climate-sensitivity parameter is only 0.31 Celsius per Watt per square metre (the reciprocal of the value incorrectly given in Watts per square metre per Celsius degree in IPCC, 2007, p. 631 fn.). So, in the IPCC’s understanding, the initial warming in response to a doubling of CO2 concentration is about a third of the eventual equilibrium warming. But the equilibrium warming is only reached after 1000-3000 years (Solomon et al., 2009), so that, even on the IPCC’s own math, one would not expect much more than 1 C warming per doubling of CO2 within our lifetime.

                However, there is a growing body of scientific papers finding equilibrium climate sensitivity to be 1 Celsius, not 3.26. So it is becoming difficult, scientifically speaking, to make out that there is a CO2 problem at all. Yet, for the sake of argument, I have assumed that the IPCC’s absurd exaggerations of the quantum of warming to be expected in response to any given increase in CO2 concentration are correct.

                Naturally, since Mr. Shehan’s argument starts from the false premise that I had stated what I had manifestly not stated, the rest of his argument falls away.

                At the same time as making yet another – and ever feebler – attempt at confusing the scientific and economic issue, Shehan cannot prevent the knee-jerk waving of the white flag of scientific surrender that he indulges every time he makes an irrelevant ad-hominem attack. It matters not what anyone thinks about the credibility of him who proposes an argument: it is the credibility of the argument itself that matters.

                But, if Mr. Shehan thinks otherwise, he will no doubt go on waving his white flag, and calling out to all the world, “I cannot refute Monckton’s argument, so I will divert attention from it by saying that he (rather than it) is not credible.” That won’t do, Phil, baby. That is intellectual feebleness of the worst kind – the fallacy of argumentum ad ignorationem elenchi, or arguing in a manner that displays fundamental ignorance of the manner in which an argument should be conducted, bu introducing externalities irrelevant to the argument at hand. Every such irrelevance is a white flag, Phil. We already know you have surrendered, intellectually speaking. There is really no need further to emphasize the point.

                If you want to be taken seriously here, then do not introduce irrelevancies such as my peerage, about which you know nothing, or about my credibility, about which you know still less. Stick to the science, and don’t just make up what I did not say. Otherwise, go and play in someone else’s sandpit. You are wasting your time here; and, since your (few) scientific arguments lack any credibility, you tend, by deploying them, to reinforce the credibility of mine – which was not, perhaps, what you had intended.

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                Mattb

                “If you want to be taken seriously here, then do not introduce irrelevancies such as my peerage”

                Where’s he done that?

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                Heywood

                Where’s he done that?

                Here.

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                crakar24

                “If you want to be taken seriously here, then do not introduce irrelevancies such as my peerage”

                Where’s he done that?

                The lapdog yaps.

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                Mattb

                “even on the IPCC’s own math, one would not expect much more than 1 C warming per doubling of CO2 within our lifetime.”

                This is complete crap.

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                Mattb

                Here’s the actual IPCC math/science

                http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/345.htm

                which is about 2C with a further 1.5 C delayed, gettingup to 2.5 within a lifetime as MoB puts it.

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                crakar24

                This is Gold….pure Gold there must have been a “call to arms” across the warmbot net as both JB and MattB have both made a sudden appearance after such a long silence.

                After sliming and smearing Lord Mockton from afar for many years MattB is the first to have a yap sorry crack and enlightens us with

                This is complete crap.

                Has anyone been so far out of their depth? Only time will tell when Jb plucks up the courage to have a crack, one can only imagine the gobbledegook that will pour forth when it is his turn.

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                Philip Shehan

                Gosh. I am reminded of the Princess and the pea story on the incredible sensitivity of blue bloods. I certainly seem to have touched a nerve, given the tone of this and further missives below.

                And there I was attempting to be polite at the request of CTS.

                I wrote: “I will cease being personal and I expect Monckton to do the same.”

                But then I also wrote: “I may add that your intervention here and further below seems just a tad precious. I have encountered this over at Watts blog too. Monckton of Brenchley is allowed to indulge in insult as much as he likes but criticism of him is off limits.”

                Anyway, on to matters of substance.

                Now you can see where I got confused again. I was under the impression that it said in the video that the assumptions presented were in line with the IPCC and others own findings.

                So when I read this:

                “ His implicit 100-year sensitivity parameter, in line with IPCC’s implicit 0.44 Cº W–1 m2, is thus 2 Cº / [5.35 ln(730/280) W m–2]”

                I assumed it was a reference to the IPCC published sensitivity parameter, the rise in temperature with a doubling of CO2 concentration, being between 2 and 4.5 C, and assuming Garnaut was taking the conservative end.

                My Bad. And I take your point about the what will happen to the sensitivity factor in 1000-2000 years, but as you say what we are concerned about here is what happens in our lifetimes, or maybe the next 100 years.

                To be generous here I will take your reduced sensitivity factor of 1, by which I assume (and sorry if I am getting it wrong here) that doubling of the CO2 concentration gives a rise of 1 C.

                So with the present CO2 concentration being 400 ppm doubling to 800 ppm would increase the temperature by 1 C. The current mass of CO2 in the atmosphere is 3.2 trillion tonnes. So to get an extra degree of warming we will be adding another 3.2 trillion tones.

                In the video it does not state what Australia’s price per tonne is, other than to say it is among the highest in the world. So let’s say $30 per tonne.

                So the cost of mitigation for 1 degree is 3.2 trillion x $30 or 96 trillion dollars.

                This seems to fall short of your calculation of $3.2 quadrillion per Cº abated.

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                Philip Shehan

                Fellas, just to be clear here, I introduced the subject of Monckton’s peerage in the discussion at the Press Club because I recalled specifically his complaint there about “ad hominem attacks”, which is strange given the personal abuse he has been heaping on me here. I could not care less about his Peerage as such.

                Later on he accused me of misrepresenting his comments there, to which I forthrightly responded “bollocks”, and the youtube clip backs up my version entirely.

                Again it was his subterfuge at trying to equate his Peerage to membership of the House of Lords that I drew attention to in my response. Again I could not care less about his Peerage as such.

                These are simply examples of how Monckton plays fast and loose with the truth.

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                Eddie Sharpe

                Heywood they actually have very strict rules against going off topic or personal remarks over at SKS. I have had comments removed over there on these grounds.

                The partiality with which they apply such “rules” at SkS says a lot for why the legislature and the judiciary should be independent.

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                Heywood

                ” Again I could not care less about his Peerage as such. “

                Yet, like a typical wamist activist, you felt the need to bring it up anyway, knowing that it would spark a reaction.

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              Mattb

              I see… however he was already being acused of making ad-hom attacks at that stage.

              MoB MOA… make incoherent rants, get called out, claim ad-hom.

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              • #
                Heywood

                “he was already being accused of making ad-hom attacks at that stage”

                Actually Shehan accused him of pea and thimble tricks quite early in the conversation.

                Philip Shehan
                September 3, 2013 at 6:22 pm · Reply

                I have looked at the calculations supplied in the PDF. It is by Lord Monckton, so the pea and thimble tricks don’t surprise me.

                Seems to imply that the good Lord is some sort of trickster. If that isn’t an ad hom, I don’t know what is

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                Mattb

                lol it is a pretty big ask to consider him not to be a trickster… the boy who cried wolf didn’t end with the boy lamenting being ad-hommed.

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                Heywood

                “lol it is a pretty big ask to consider him not to be a trickster”

                So you are drafting a response to his paper to be peer reviewed and published too? Or is this something that only warmist activists can demand from skeptics?

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              Eddie Sharpe

              That seems to be where it all began, setting the scene for the treatment that was to follow.

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        Ross

        Philip

        Take a breath a reread the figures given and comments made to try to explain several times to you.
        Where you seem to be getting mixed up is that the CURRENT Australian cost is $16 billion will only abate 1/20000 k. The $540 trill relates to abating the 0.17k globally predicted by the IPCC over the next.
        Put another way, the Australian cost to abate 0.17k is not $16Bill but a much higher figure.
        All your calculations are mixing up the the costs and the amount of abatement being considered.
        That is why you total cost is not as high as the $540 trill.

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          Philip Shehan

          Ross. Yes I admit to another initial source of confusion. Tophers presentation was about Australia’s mitigation scheme. The aim of that scheme is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Australia by 5% below 2000 levels by 2020 and 80% below 2000 levels by 2050.

          It is therfore not a 10 year scheme as is implied by Topher/Monckton.

          It says nothing about Australia’s contribution to a total mitigation of the projected temperature rise for the next 10 years of 0.17 C.

          Completely shutting down all carbon emissions to morrow would not prevent a rise as it is in the pipeline. Confusing.

          So I assumed the cost was that for achieving the goals of Australia’s scheme globally. OK my confusion. I am just a klutz but that does not give His Lordship who chucked a tanty at the National Press Club when someone asked him about his false claim to be a member of House of Lords, squeeling about ad hominem attacks to impune my motives and engage in name calling.

          09

          • #

            Mister Sheen,

            Your string pulling boss Mr Rudd was all so vocal when he signed us up with that all important second signature ratifying Kyoto in a flash of camera bulbs at COP13 in Bali, and he told us, and he told us, and he told us, that we would be abiding by the Protocol.

            Funny isn’t it?

            Here we are aiming to reduce CO2 emissions by 5% below 2000 levels by 2020, and Mr Rudd is oh so serious about that.

            The really odd thing is that The Kyoto Protocol called for reductions to a level 5% lower than they were in 1990.

            So, dear old Kevin isn’t even agreeing to what he signed up to in the first place.

            But hey, who cares. No one will ever get to that original called for level anyway, so, hey, who cares, let’s just move the goal posts.

            Tony.

            Postscript: Oh, and Mister Sheen, if you can choose to show a lack of respect to call people by their correct name, then I guess it’s OK that we can do that to you also, eh!

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            • #
              Philip Shehan

              Sorry, to whom have I shown a lack of respect?

              Mr Rudd is not my boss. I think he is a treacherous narcissistic egomaniac.

              I am not discussing here what Kevin Rudd or anyone else has said or done. I am attempting to understand and analyse Topher’s video.

              08

            • #
              Philip Shehan

              Do you mean Monckton of Benchley, who accused me of deliberately attempting to confuse people and said of me

              “One realizes that my results, showing that it is typically one or two orders of magnitude costlier to mitigate today than to adapt the day after tomorrow, are likely to prove uncongenial to true-believers in the New Religion. However, Mr. Shehan’s rather feeble attempts to sow confusion merely reinforce in readers’ minds..”

              Just how much respect am I supposed to show him in return.

              08

            • #
              Philip Shehan

              And by the way Tony, I emailed my responses here to Monckton of Benchley and he has replied indicating he has read them. Since we were being so formal I corrected his referring to me as Mr Shean by signing off as Dr Shehan. Now I really don’t care one way or the other, but he has continued to address me as Mr Shehan, so where does that leave your comment:

              “Oh, and Mister Sheen, if you can choose to show a lack of respect to call people by their correct name, then I guess it’s OK that we can do that to you also, eh!”

              08

              • #
                Philip Shehan

                In keping with my remarks above about incorrect renedering of names, I affirm that I have done it to myself here. Monckton did not refer to me as “Mr Shean” That’s all my own work. Monckton refers to me as Mr Shehan.

                Again I do not mind if people refer to me as Mr Shehan, Dr Shehan, Phil, or Philip. Forms of address along the lines of Numbnuts or [snip] are another matter.

                07

              • #
                Philip Shehan

                Jeez, more typos in that one. Sorry.

                07

              • #
                Philip Shehan

                Lest anyone think I am failing to show due respect by referring to Monckton of Brenchley as “Monckton” I remember the Fawlty Towers episode where Basil testily says that a guest has not filled in the register correctly, signing in as “Melbury”. The guest replies that he is actually Lord Melbury, and that is how he signs. Basil of course starts fawning. Very Funny.

                010

              • #

                Dr. Philip Shehan,

                In my first comment in reply to you at 29.4.2, a comment you seemingly umm, ignored, I specifically added a Postscript drawing your attention to the Brenchley error you made.

                As you continued to do it without correction, then, quite naturally, I presumed you were doing it as a veiled insult, hence the added Mr Sheen comment, and I’m not sure now whether you got the joke.

                Tony.

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              • #
                Backslider

                It’s ok PrickPhilip…. we all make innocent tyupos, don’t we?

                43

              • #
                Heywood

                Tony,

                Perhaps you need to refer to him by his full title. For some reason it tittilates him.

                Brian Philip Shehan BSc(Hons)(1st class),Grad Dip Hum (History and Philosophy of Science), Grad Dip Ed, PhD (The PhD is in Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) and Warmist Activist.

                60

              • #
                Philip Shehan

                Now Heywood, be fair. (Just a little joke there.) Put it in context. Popular front asked what my PHD was about and i noted that answering such questions has caused me problems:

                Popular Front. I did not start out mentioning my qualifications, but people like Viperous who recently said I know very little about physics or chemistry, attempt to establish what they imagine to be their own superiority in a condescending and arrogant way with comments along the lines of “You clearly know nothing/need to read about science/physics/chemistry /statistics/mathematics/history/Popper/Feynman/Kuhn…..”

                Having bent over and bared their backsides begging for the kicking they so richly deserve, I reply “Well actually I do…”

                Then they and others start sooking: “Oooooooooooh! He’s so arrogant. Spare me.

                So decided that I did not need to apologise for having spent quite a bit of time learning about this stuff and started putting the Dr in front of my name in the hopes that people might think twice before indulging in ill-founded childish insult.

                Heywood likes to use my full name, and today has put a Dr in front of it.

                Fine. Let’s get it right then:

                Brian Philip Shehan BSc(Hons)(1st class),Grad Dip Hum (History and Philosophy of Science), Grad Dip Ed, PhD

                The PhD is in Nuclear Magnetic Resonance.

                54

              • #
                Eddie Sharpe

                That’s all right Phil. Your sloppiness shows. How you regard your own name is personal. How you render the names of others, that’s also personal. Take care to get it right and its amazing the effect it can have on your other work.

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          • #

            The Australian scheme was indeed intended to achieve specific targets by 2020. Those targets will not now be met. To keep the calculations within a time-frame short enough to prevent uncertainties, I used the ten-year time-horizon that is specified in the scheme documents themselves. The cost of achieving a higher reduction in CO2 emissions over a long period itself increases, leaving the cost-benefit ratio substantially unaffected.

            At the National Press Club, when a reporter said he was not sure whether he should call me “Lord Monckton” because a useless clerk at the House of Lords had said I was not a member, I simply produced my passport and the chairman of the meeting read out the words “The holder is The Right Honourable Christopher Walter, Viscount Monckton of Brenchley”. If that’s chucking a tanty, then I’m the plume de ma tante. It was the humiliated journo who lost his rag: he had not done his homework and was publicly embarrassed on national television (with two repeats in prime time).

            Besides, if Mr. Shehan knew any science or economics he would know that the arcana of peerage law are irrelevant to the scientific and economic argument deployed in the 50-to-1 project; and if he knew any logic he would know that to introduce irrelevancies of this kind, inferentially to hit back because he cannot land a blow on my argument, is to perpetrate the fundamental logical fallacy of the argumentum ad ignorationem elenchi, or failure to understand the correct manner of conducting a debate.

            All this chatter among the Hive Mind about whether I am a member of the House of Lords (I am: get over it) merely serves to demonstrate, over and over again, that the climate extremists are intellectually bankrupt. Every time they mention this, they demonstrate not only that they are as inexpert in peerage law as they are in climate science or economics but also that they are capitulating on the substance of the scientific argument. Every mention of my peerage, malevolently intended though it be, is a white flag indicating the abject surrender of those who had not bothered to check the science before clambering on to the global warming bandwagon just as the wheels were falling off.

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            • #
              Philip Shehan

              Bollocks your Lordship. I was watching the Press club performance, and I remember it well. The reporter asked you specifically about your claim to be a member of the House of Lords, and you became hostile you specifically objected to what you claimed was an “ad hominem attack”.

              I remember you waving your passport and thinking, “How shifty. He knows damned well that being a heredetary peer is not the same thing as being a member of the House of Lords.”

              (Please drop this argument and get back on topic) CTS

              013

              • #
                Mark D.

                Bollocks your Lordship

                There is a perfect example of tact and diplomacy. Thank you good doctorship for irrelevant off topic counter preciousness. Useless to your own team as I can ever imagine. Good job! You can join the ranks of a long list of useless warmists.

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              • #
                Philip Shehan

                Mark D. In keeping with CTS request I will not reply further.

                09

              • #

                Another white flag of abject surrender from the absurd Shehan, and factually wrong as well. At the Australian Press Club, a reporter who had also surrendered on the scientific and economic questions said he was not sure whether or not he should call me “Lord Monckton”. I passed my passport to the chairman of the meeting, who read out the words “The holder is The Right Honourable Christopher Walter, Viscount Monckton of Brenchley”. A Viscount is a rare – indeed, endangered – species of Lord. I am thinking of applying to the UN for an endangered-species grant.

                The hapless Shehan witters on mendaciously about my peerage because he now realizes he is altogether out of his depth on the matters of climate science and mitigation economics that are discussed here, and realizes that his fumblings and ramblings are greatly assisting interested observers, including those in Canberra, to understand that the argument presented in the 50-to-1 project, though uncongenial to climate extremists who have no desire to attain to scientific truth or economic reality, is in all material respects sound, and – thus far, at any rate – irrefutable.

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                Mattb

                I see he’s done it here… but only in response to MoB bringing it up out of the blue, and only to demonstrate that MoB is not telling the truth about the exchange at the press club.

                07

              • #
                Heywood

                ” but only in response to MoB bringing it up out of the blue”

                No. Brian Philip Shehan BSc(Hons)(1st class),Grad Dip Hum (History and Philosophy of Science), Grad Dip Ed, PhD (The PhD is in Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) and Warmist Activist did it here first.

                50

              • #
                Philip Shehan

                Your Lordship, Moderator CTS writes above:

                (Please drop this argument and get back on topic) CTS

                I hope this does not contravene CTS request, but as you have ignored it I will reproduce what I wrote above:

                Gosh. I am reminded of the Princess and the pea story on the incredible sensitivity of blue bloods. I certainly seem to have touched a nerve, given the tone of this and further missives below.

                And there I was attempting to be polite at the request of CTS.

                I wrote: “I will cease being personal and I expect Monckton to do the same.”

                But then I also wrote: I may add that your intervention here and further below seems just a tad precious. I have encountered this over at Watts blog too. Monckton of Brenchley is allowed to indulge in insult as much as he likes but criticism of him is off limits.

                Not surrendering. Just abiding by the request.

                07

              • #
                Philip Shehan

                Oh stuff it. From 51:30 to 52:30

                http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfkcpW93Z5Y

                04

              • #
                Joe V.

                I imagine the subject of the initial assault may respond, to whatever extent he feels inclined.. Walk away now with whatever credibility you think you have left.

                100

              • #
                Philip Shehan

                Sorry CTS but in the light of Monckton’s continued personal abuse and misrepresentation of the facts I am not going to let this slide.

                He writes:

                At the National Press Club, when a reporter said he was not sure whether he should call me “Lord Monckton” because a useless clerk at the House of Lords had said I was not a member, I simply produced my passport and the chairman of the meeting read out the words “The holder is The Right Honourable Christopher Walter, Viscount Monckton of Brenchley”. If that’s chucking a tanty, then I’m the plume de ma tante. It was the humiliated journo who lost his rag: he had not done his homework and was publicly embarrassed on national television (with two repeats in prime time).
                He has tried the old pea and thimble trick, leaving out the salient point of my coment, that he was specifically asked about his claim to be a member of the House of Lords, andd my observation that being a heredetary peer is not the same thing.

                In 1999, the Government completed a deal with the Lords to remove most of the hereditary Peers and passed the House of Lords Act 1999 leaving amongst the majority of appointed Peers a rump of 92 Hereditary Peers until the second phase of reform was complete. These 92 were elected from within those who had had a right to be members of the House of Lords as a result of their hereditary status.

                http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_of_the_House_of_Lords

                Lord Monckton is not one of the elect.

                The “useless clerk” was acting on behalf of the Lords when he wrote to Monckton requesting that he cease claiming membership.

                The journalist was not humiliated. He most certainly did not lose his rag. Monckton became typically pompous and aggressive. In addition to the bit from 51:30 to 52:30 of this video, he continues in that manner in response to a second journalist,(55:20) complaining about the right of the Lords to decide is a member, demanding what he imagines is his solely by right of birth, accusing the Lords of impertinance and a lack of courage.

                He also complains that he had an arrangement with the organisers of the debate that journalists should not ask him that question. The pompous twerp.

                http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfkcpW93Z5Y

                05

              • #
                Philip Shehan

                On that white flag, further details of Monckton’s dispute ewith the house of Lords (and other matters) can be found here:

                http://bbickmore.wordpress.com/lord-moncktons-rap-sheet/

                07

              • #
                Joe V.

                After thinking Mr Shehan was a scientist, do we see only a warmist when rattled reverting to type ?

                140

              • #
                Philip Shehan

                Greg House:

                Perhaps we are being too hard on His Lordship. I mean, look at it from his point of view. Born to rule but robbed of his chance by legislation originating in the COMMONS in 1999 before he could take his seat.

                Society has clearly gone to the dogs:

                “The ridiculous House, having been banned at WattsUpWithThat for having used bogus email addresses and bogus aliases, now pollutes Jo Nova’s blog with his fatuities…Jo, I recommend that you exclude the malevolent but useless House from these pages…”

                His Lordship is reduced to recommending

                Why, in the good old days it would have been “NOVA! Yon peasant has been IMPERTINENT! Have the wretch FLOGGED and DRIVEN FROM THE CASTLE!

                (Perhaps I should get hard on you for your flagrant disregard for my request yesterday that you drop the Lordship argument but you persist thus your next one will be deleted) CTS

                08

              • #
                Backslider

                Why,in the good old days it would have been “NOVA! Yon peasant has been IMPERTINENT! Have the wretch FLOGGED and DRIVEN FROM THE CASTLE!

                Thing is Pip that you have already been flogged…. you just don’t get it.

                80

            • #
              Greg House

              Monckton of Brenchley #29.4.4.1.2: “All this chatter among the Hive Mind about whether I am a member of the House of Lords (I am: get over it)”

              Why didn’t you mention you membership in the House of Lords in your full CV: http://web.archive.org/web/20100802130041/http://www.ukip.org/content/latest-news/1675-christopher-a-man-of-many-talents ?

              Of course, this has nothing to do with whether you have a scientific point in the CO2 debate or not.

              29

              • #
                Mark D.

                Of course, this has nothing to do with whether you have a scientific point in the CO2 debate or not.

                What the hell is this? Another useless and divisive comment?

                Very troll like.

                80

              • #

                The ridiculous House, having been banned at WattsUpWithThat for having used bogus email addresses and bogus aliases, now pollutes Jo Nova’s blog with his fatuities. He, too, like the futile Shehan, abjectly surrenders on all points of science and economics, asking with characteristic and self-confessed irrelevance why I have not called myself a member of the House of Lords, while Shehan asks why I have. Keep on waving the white flag, you two, by diverting the argument away from the science and economics with which you are so unfamiliar. Every time you mention my peerage, you acknowledge that you are unable to refute the scientific and economic argument that is the focus of this discussion.

                Jo, I recommend that you exclude the malevolent but useless House from these pages unless he is capable of remaining on-topic. He is one of the dwindling band of flat-earthers who deny – on no evidence – that there is a greenhouse effect. There is a possibility that he is paid to deny this, as an elaborate artifice for discrediting sceptics generally by making it look as though there are many who share his pointy-headedness. If he is not paid, then he certainly wastes a very great deal of his time venomously but illiterately attacking scientific, economic and logical arguments that he is manifestly incapable of understanding.

                70

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                Eddie Sharpe

                Why didn’t you mention you membership in the House of Lords in your full CV:

                While the nature of that comment is unworthy, most observers would realise that membership is inherent in the Title. (Bishops don’t cite their membership of The House of Lords either ).

                130

              • #
                Greg House

                Eddie Sharpe #29.4.4.1.3: “membership is inherent in the Title.”

                No, it is not. Let me quote the House of Lords Act 1999 (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1999/34/section/1):

                1.Exclusion of hereditary peers.

                No-one shall be a member of the House of Lords by virtue of a hereditary peerage.”

                Which means a Lord is not automatically a member of the House of Lords.

                15

              • #
                Mattb

                “(Bishops don’t cite their membership of The House of Lords either ).”

                maybe not, but at least Wikipedia has the decency to mention them.

                06

              • #
                Joe V.

                Our new found expert in matters of the House needs to take cognisance of the application of said Act.
                Section 1 in particular was examined by the Committee for Privileges in the Motion of Lord Twysden of Mayhew. The Committee concluded that the effect of section 1, read with section 7, is to take away the right of any excluded Hereditary Peer to receive and answer a writ of summons and in consequence to sit and vote in the House of Lords.
                It did not revoke the Letters Patent that created the Hereditary Peerages and it did not, therefore, take away membership of the House or of the Peerage in the wider sense.

                90

              • #
                Greg House

                Joe V. #29.4.4.1.6: “Section 1 in particular was examined by the Committee for Privileges in the Motion of Lord Twysden of Mayhew. The Committee concluded that the effect of section 1, read with section 7, is to take away…”

                There is no Section 7 in the House of Lords Act 1999 (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1999/34/contents). There are only 6 sections there.

                The Language of the Section 1 is very clear:

                1. Exclusion of hereditary peers.

                No-one shall be a member of the House of Lords by virtue of a hereditary peerage.”

                (Wow I come back after a day of work to see that YOU and others have gone fully off topic on something that Philip Shehan was asked to drop yesterday.Now I will delete all future off topic stuff about the Lords question if you and others persist in this absurd interest about it) CTS

                16

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                Backslider

                There is no Section 7

                You also have already been flogged.

                Know nothing troll.

                70

              • #
                Heywood

                Wow. This thread has turned into an ad-hom-a-thon on His Lordship.

                If you can’t face the facts, shoot the messenger hey?

                70

              • #
                Mattb

                A clause is not a section.

                06

              • #
                Backslider

                A clause is not a section.

                Well clearly somebody else was not as pedantic about the semantics as you are.

                The point is that what is in discussion is in fact there. Care to argue that further?

                60

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                Mattb

                Backslider… you’ve been given a link to the actual act itself, which only has 6 Clauses.

                You are claiming a flogging victory by linking to Hansard of discussion in the House of Lords regarding a Clause 7, which you take to prove existence of Clause 7.

                But if you read the Hansard you will find the following:

                “I apologise for being a tiny bit technical in so large a forum. My final quotation is from Clause 7, which says:

                “Accordingly, any writ of summons issued for the present Parliament in right of a hereditary peerage shall not have effect after that Session unless it has been issued to a person who, at the end of the Session, is excepted from section 1 by virtue of section 2″.”

                Bear with me now… that quoted Clause 7 is contained in the ACTUAL ACT in Clause 5(2).

                There is NO Clause 7. FACT.

                05

              • #
                Heywood

                Moot point. His peerage has no bearing on the topic.

                50

              • #
                Backslider

                that quoted Clause 7 is contained in the ACTUAL ACT in Clause 5(2).

                Right, so there IS a clause 7 “that quoted clause 7”:

                My final quotation is from Clause 7

                Yep, clause 7 it is.

                There is NO Clause 7

                Yes there is, you just said so yourself. Flogged!!! hahahahahaha

                70

              • #
                Joe V.

                the House of Lords Bill (as amended on Report)

                Being referred to as Clause 7 at the time of the motion, it subsequently appeared in Section 5, as Mattb deduced.

                70

              • #
                Mattb

                “Right, so there IS a clause 7”

                No. There is no Clause 7.

                04

              • #
                Eddie Sharpe

                Clause 7 is still there. It just isn’t called Clause 7 anymore.

                60

              • #
                Backslider

                No. There is no Clause 7.

                As noted, you are just a pedant.

                Now, prove that what was under discussion does not exist, then you may have an actual point.

                60

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            Rod Stuart

            Philip Shehan
            Way back in 22.1 you are the one that said “I have looked at the calculations supplied in the PDF. It is by Lord Monckton, so the pea and thimble tricks don’t surprise me.”
            Cliches appear instantly: i.e. POT KETTLE BLACK You reap what you sow. Your started it.
            For a man of your age, you lack maturity.

            100

            • #
              Philip Shehan

              Guilty as charged Rod, but see His Lordship trying on the pea and thimble trick about the press club appearance above and you can see why. I won’t go looking fort the link to “Monckton’s rap sheet” just now, but again I note that when even Barnaby Joyce and Janet Albrechtson think he has credibility problems…

              011

              • #
                Rod Stuart

                One has to be amazed at the way a given event seems completely different to two witnesses. I suppose that is why detective inspectors interview all and sundry and request “just the facts”.
                I was there, too, and I was embarrassed to be associated with this country in which the MSM propaganda merchants were so intent on a detail (whether or not Lord Monckton is a Lord) which quite frankly is none of your business, mine, nor anyone else’s. It is nothing but a distraction from the real issue of a massive transfer of wealth from poor to rich for no benefit to anyone but the recipients.
                It is indeed ironic that you call that a “pea and thimble trick”, when the whole damned scam that began with Maurice Strong’s assertion in 1972 that CO2 was going to cause another ice age, and had grown to become the ultimate massive “pea and thimble trick” and greatest treachery the world has seen for a very long time. And you, of all people, that are responsible for a substantial quantity of said propaganda, have the nerve to refer to a person’s moniker as a deception. The entire global warming, CO2 come climate change come a “price on carbon” (that’s rich) deception is a con of nearly unimaginable proportions.

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                Mr. Shehan should learn when to stop digging. His childish interventions here are a fascinating insight into the Hive Mind: incapable of rational thought, and condemned merely to hate whatever is beyond his remarkably limited scientific understanding. He waffles on about my “credibility”. But if he will attend a Science 101 class he will be taught that the personal credibility of the proponent of a scientific argument is entirely irrelevant to that argument. It matters not. What matters is the argument itself. Every time Mr. Shehan or his ilk among the adherents of the New Religion resort – as they so often do – to ad-hominem sneering, they raise yet again the white flag of surrender that now flutters from every crumbling rampart of the climate-extremists’ final redoubt.

                It appears not to have occurred to the fatuous Shehan that while the likes of him waste time (and perhaps his paymasters’ money, for he would hardly waste so much time on so much nonsense unpaid unless he were even more foolish than he has already made himself look) mewling and waving their white flags of scientific surrender in my face, the serious scientists who would otherwise have been vexed by his failed attempts at bullying and patronizing and baiting and switching are quietly getting on with the researches that will bring the global warming scare to an ignominious end. It’s over, mate. My advice: get a new paymaster. Oh, and get a life.

                170

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                Eddie Sharpe

                Having reviewed said interlude from the Press Club debate it is exactly as Lord Monckton described. A remarkably calm and factual response to a personal attack.
                I must admit to not having encountered the pea and thimble analogy before and it still leaves me a little bemused. Is it a reference to the observed reality that when you shake a warmist they rattle, or just to the relative dimensions of their cerebral development ?

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                Philip Shehan

                No More. I have no time or inclination to moderate a discussion on this topic. An ad hom is not just an insult, it is a fallacy of reason. Are Moncktons statements about farmers in Australia affected by the constitution fine print of the UK peerage? Didn’t think so. The discussion stops now. >

                Heywood says ”Wow. This thread has turned into an ad-hom-a-thon on His Lordship. If you can’t face the facts, shoot the messenger hey?”

                In fact this side excursion started out when I simply pointed out His Lordships double standards on matters of ad hominem attacks and has grown because Monckton misrepresented the facts,as is clearly shown in the video of the event, with Monckton avoiding the point that the journalists question was not about his peerage but about his claimed membership of the House of Lords, accusing the journo of losing his rag.

                [Shehan points out Monckton has tossed ad homs (but they look like insults to me – J), that shehan offered to stop being personal, but evidently doesn’t like it when people claim victory just because someone keeps attacking the man instead of the message, it went on and on. For the record Shehan says he has no paymasters x 2 — Jo]

                [SNIP a very long comment about comments that are irrelevant to the post. This is a waste of time. – Jo]

                07

              • #
                Philip Shehan

                Dear CTS, For the record, (and for the sake of fairness I earnestly request that this be posted) regarding your comment, (and I note you have been away for a few days):

                (Perhaps I should get hard on you for your flagrant disregard for my request yesterday that you drop the Lordship argument but you persist thus your next one will be deleted) CTS_

                I did abide by your request in spite of numerous continuing insults (Ms Nova’s preferred term, although I originally used “ad hominem”, quoting Monckton’s own attack on a journo. I understand the term to mean attacking the person rather than addressing the argument.)

                Philip Shehan
                September 5, 2013 at 12:59 pm
                Mark D. In keeping with CTS request I will not reply further.

                This brought an immediate response from Monckton:

                Monckton of Brenchley
                September 5, 2013 at 3:44 pm
                Another white flag of abject surrender from the absurd Shehan, and factually wrong as well…

                The hapless Shehan witters on mendaciously about my peerage because he now realizes he is altogether out of his depth on the matters of climate science and mitigation economics that are discussed here, and realizes that his fumblings and ramblings are greatly assisting interested observers…

                Still I did not immediately bite back, reminding Monckton:

                Philip Shehan
                September 5, 2013 at 10:30 pm
                Your Lordship, Moderator CTS writes above:
                (Please drop this argument and get back on topic) CTS…

                Then I reread his insults and decided that I really did not have to put up with this in silence

                Philip Shehan
                September 5, 2013 at 10:58 pm
                Oh stuff it. From 51:30 to 52:30
                http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfkcpW93Z5Y

                And yes Ms Nova my post was very very lengthy simply because I was quoting Monckton’s continued insults after posting this:

                Philip Shehan September 5, 2013 at 12:49 pm
                “I will cease being personal and I expect Monckton to do the same.”

                Now I note that in spite these voluminous insults, neither you nor Ms Nova you have admonished Monckton for this, only myself and others, which seems to confirm my earlier statement:

                Monckton of Brenchley is allowed to indulge in insult as much as he likes but criticism of him is off limits.

                011

              • #
                Eddie Sharpe

                Monckton of Brenchley is allowed to indulge in insult as much as he likes but criticism of him is off limits.

                No, Monckton seems to merely be responding with honest insults to the snidely imputes to his good character with which you started this and subsequently seemed unable to desist from persisting in.

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              Philip Shehan

              Eddie, were you looking at the same clip? “the Press Club debate it is exactly as Lord Monckton described.”

              I direct you to the link at 29.4.4.1.9

              Monckton’s version:

              At the National Press Club, when a reporter said he was not sure whether he should call me “Lord Monckton” because a useless clerk at the House of Lords had said I was not a member, I simply produced my passport and the chairman of the meeting read out the words “The holder is The Right Honourable Christopher Walter, Viscount Monckton of Brenchley”. If that’s chucking a tanty, then I’m the plume de ma tante. It was the humiliated journo who lost his rag: he had not done his homework and was publicly embarrassed on national television (with two repeats in prime time).

              Note that the point about membership of the House of Lordsas opposed to being a Peer which I noted is ignored completely. Where is the journalist losing his rag? He is almost comatose compared to the “calm and factual” Monckton. Where is he humiliated? Where is the attack in simply asking a question, which Monckton evades.

              Watch how he accuses the Lords of imperitnance and a lack of courage.

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                Another white flag from Shehan. What on Earth has any of this got to do with climate economics? Shehan, having demonstrated a poor grasp of arithmetic, of climate science, of economics and of manners, now shows a still poorer grasp of peerage law.

                It is 50 times more expensive to have a CO2 tax than to let global warming roar away at the predicted rate and adaptation cost.

                That can no longer be concealed. The diversionary arguments have failed. Shehan has wasted his time and his paymaster’s money. Attempting to discredit the author of a scientific paper leaves the reputation of the paper itself intact. Shehan’s continuing failure to understand this point is not doing the cause of climate-extremism any good at all.

                Perhaps he would like to explain why global warming has stopped for 12 years 8 months (the mean of all five global temperature datasets), or 16 years 8 months (the RSS satellite dataset)? As I have said before, if we do not manage even a single Celsius degree of global warming this century – and that is a possible outcome, though few of the models predict it – then the cost-ineffectiveness of any measure to try to make global warming go away this century is infinite. There is no point in spending a single red cent on it. There is no need for any of the parties in the new Canberra parliament to spend any more of the taxpayers’ money on this nonsense.

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                Philip Shehan

                While I await the moderators approval of my detailed rebuttal of Heywood’s claim that somehow Monckton is the victim of ad hominem attacks,rather than the perpetrator, and pointing out he ignored my attempt to curtail the slanging match, I return to the matters of substance His Lordship says I have been ignoring.

                Monckton says “Another white flag from Shehan. What on Earth has any of this got to do with climate economics? Shehan, having demonstrated a poor grasp of arithmetic, of climate science, of economics…

                As I have said before, if we do not manage even a single Celsius degree of global warming this century – and that is a possible outcome, though few of the models predict it – then the cost-ineffectiveness of any measure to try to make global warming go away this century is infinite.

                He has ignored this comment from me:

                So with the present CO2 concentration being 400 ppm doubling to 800 ppm would increase the temperature by 1 C. The current mass of CO2 in the atmosphere is 3.2 trillion tonnes. So to get an extra degree of warming we will be adding another 3.2 trillion tones.

                In the video it does not state what Australia’s price per tonne is, other than to say it is among the highest in the world. So let’s say $30 per tonne.

                So the cost of mitigation for 1 degree is 3.2 trillion x $30 or 96 trillion dollars.

                This seems to fall short of your calculation of $3.2 quadrillion per Cº abated.

                Earlier he referred to 17 years of allegedly no warming. Now he is cherry picking even further shaving 4 months of that. Well excuse me if I recycle a graphic I have used elsewhere pointing out that not only has there been warming, according to some data sets the rate for the last 17 years is equal to or greater than the previous 70.

                http://tinyurl.com/lpflr92

                Now note that Monckton acknowledges that the effect of the extreme el nino southern summer of 1997/98 and subsequent la nina event on recent short term trends, and in anticipation, wants to shift the goal posts:

                http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/02/22/ipcc-railroad-engineer-pachauri-acknowledges-no-warming-for-17-years/#more-80326

                At some point – probably quite soon – an el Niño will come along, and global temperature will rise again. Therefore, it would be prudent for us to concentrate not only on the absence of warming for n years, but also on the growing discrepancy between the longer-run warming rate predicted by the IPCC and the rate that has actually occurred over the past 60 years or so.

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                Heywood

                “While I await the moderators approval of my detailed rebuttal of Heywood’s claim that somehow Monckton is the victim of ad hominem attacks”

                And you whinge that people call you arrogant. No need for the ‘rebuttal’, you started it.

                “It is by Lord Monckton, so the pea and thimble tricks don’t surprise me.” Philip Shehan September 3, 2013 at 6:22 pm

                You are implying that Lord Monckton is an employer of mere trickery, and therefore his conclusions are invalid. Argumentum Ad Populum.

                You then introduce the usual warmist wan**r ad hominem argument reagrding his membership of the House of Lords, which, as he repeatedly points out, has absolutely nothing to do with his conclusions.

                Take your activism back to the cartoonist’s website.

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                Heywood

                Correction… “Argumentum Ad Populum” Should read “Argumentum As Hominem”.

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                Mattb

                “You are implying that Lord Monckton is an employer of mere trickery, and therefore his conclusions are invalid.”

                No he’s not. He’s pointing out that Monckton is an employer of mere trickery AND that his conclusions are invalid, the two not being dependant on eachother.

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                Eddie Sharpe

                No he’s not. He’s pointing out that Monckton is an employer of mere trickery AND that his conclusions are invalid, the two not being dependant on eachother.

                Thankyou Mattb for confirming that the mendacious reference to the Press Club debate is entirely irrelevant to the discussion.

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                Philip Shehan

                Heywood, like to deal with the points of substance in my post.

                The warming for the last 17 years contrary to Monckton’s assertions?

                So the cost of mitigation for 1 degree is 3.2 trillion x $30 or 96 trillion dollars.

                This seems to fall short of your calculation of $3.2 quadrillion per Cº abated.

                And actually I did not know Monckton was involved when I initially referred to the calculations arriving at $3.2 quadrillion as a pea and thimble trick. I thought it was all Tophers work.

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              • #
                Philip Shehan

                Eddie, there was nothing mendacious about my description of the press club event. It was that accusation that caused me to post it, albeit reluctantly, in contravention of CTS request,which I had abided by up to that point.

                And Mattb, I did not say or mean to imply that Monckton is merely an employer of trickery. (I know you did not write your comment that way but I wish to clarify my position.).

                I do take his writings seriously, which is why I have been attempting to come to grips with his substantive argument here. I did say that Tophers presentation seemed to involve a “pea and thimble trick”, which I later extended to Monckton. He does engage in “pea and thimble tricks”, as his performance at that event indicated, which is why I referred to it in the first place thinking it a throw away line which has taken on a life of its own.

                In retrospect it would have been better left unsaid, if mild by some of Monckton’s concerning others as in but the method of argument employed by “skeptics” on this blog does put one in a somewhat combative mode. In fact Monckton had put my back up shortly before I made the comment with this attack on someone who had merely asked a question about the review process:

                Sneering trolls ought to learn that they do harm to their religion by not producing scientific arguments.

                But you are correct to write that my substantive challenge to his statements such as the ones Heywood has avoided discussing are independent of the way in which he presents his arguments.

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                Eddie Sharpe

                How Mr Shehan can twist :-

                ” the mendacious reference to the Press Club debate is entirely irrelevant to the discussion.”

                by falsely claiming that I had written:-

                “my substantive challenge to his statements such as the ones Heywood has avoided discussing are independent of the way in which he presents his arguments.”

                is beyond belief .
                What does it say about how we should rely on his representation of scientific matters ?

                The attempt at character assassination was mean minded , inept & unworthy but revealing in the execution thereof.
                Lord Monckton’s Title, the object of said reference to the Press Club, is irrelevant to the discussion yet clearly fascinates those who can’t help themselves from bringing it up while admitting they shouldn’t .

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                Philip Shehan

                Eddie, please read my comments carefully.

                This passage

                But you are correct to write that my substantive challenge to his statements such as the ones Heywood has avoided discussing are independent of the way in which he presents his arguments.

                was addressed to MattB, not yourself.

                Similarly, you Monckton Heywood and others keep going that I attacked Monckton about his peerage.

                I DID NOT

                I criticised THE MANNER OF HIS RESPONSE TO A QUESTION by a journalist at a press club debate. The question happened to be about his Membership ogf ther House of Lords not his peerage.

                Eventually I posted the youtube link that showed my version of events was correct, eg, his claim that the journalist has “lost his rag” when in fact he was almost comatose in comparison with his lordships manner.

                That is why I have stated I do not care about his peerage as such.

                51:30-52:30 and 55.20

                http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfkcpW93Z5Y

                And as for complaint about mean minded , inept & unworthy character assassination watch Monckton here compare Roos Garnaut to the Nazis, complete with Swastika.

                But then in Eddie world, Moncktons voluminous and vituperous denunciations are fime because they are “honest”

                http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rizvaJyA-GM&list=PL029130BFDC78FA33&index=29

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                Backslider

                Eventually I posted the youtube link that showed my version of events

                I looked at the clip. Lord Monckton gave a perfectly civil and in fact humorous response. The journalist’s embarrassment was obvious. He also did “lose his rag” which was clear front his pathetic attempt to talk over the top of the good Lord.

                How can there possibly be a “your version of events”? You were not there. You are just clutching at straws because YOU ARE UNABLE TO REFUTE THE SCIENCE.

                As for your second video…. it further reveals your desperation. Surely you must be embarrassed to post such crap.

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                Eddie Sharpe

                Mr Shehan remains unable to resist, continuing with yet another spiteful low blow after the others , yet still expects Monckton to indulge his floundering grasp of science. Monckton has wasted quite enough on his childishness already.

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                Joe V.

                It is not difficult to imagine another member of the Moncktonarazzi putting his own particular spin (though Monckton calls it as he sees it) on Moncktons work in representing it to others, be they scientists or Guardian readers, after seeing Philip’s take on the Press Club events. So much is in the eye of the beholder even first hand accounts are so often partial, as any good detective will tell you.
                I don’t know why Monckton bothers indulging these time wasters, who would be nobody but for the attention they derive from him.

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                Philip Shehan

                Eddie, yes there is something I am unable to resist: You made a false (if inadvertant claim) that I had misrepresented you which was mounted as a personal attack:

                How Mr Shehan can twist…by falsely claiming that I had written…is beyond belief.
                What does it say about how we should rely on his representation of scientific matters ?

                I met your “spiteful blow” against me with a gentle correction.

                You then went on about the wicked character assassination of Monckton, who apparently never engages in this stuff. Or when he does he is excused because his insults are “honest”. Or perhaps merely justified proportionate retaliation.

                Well, no. I put up a clip at the beginning of which Monckton compares Ross Garnaut to the Nazis. Not an unguarded heat of battle comment mind you, but on a prepared slide complete with swastika flag.

                This says a lot about your objectivity with regard to the Press club clip.

                Backslider and Joe V are of course free of any bias in this matter.

                And backslider, if you go to 34.2.1.1. where I write:

                Philip Shehan
                September 6, 2013 at 8:25 pm
                Monckton of Brenchley. Fine by me if we get back to substantive issues. With regard to your statement…

                and a number of detailed comments thereafter I am perfectly willing and able to REFUTE THE SCIENCE.

                On the other hand Moncktons has made no reply ( he would accuse me of “surrender” and your REFUTATION OF THE SCIENCE consists of this contribution:

                Backslider
                September 8, 2013 at 1:41 pm · Reply
                I guess you missed the bit where LABOR LOST THE ELECTION!!!!!

                Sorry sonny, but there ain’t gonna be no carbon tax. Off you go and whimper……

                And JoeV if I am a “member of the Moncktonarazzi”, I am in good company.

                For instance, incoming cabinet minister Barnaby Joyce:

                “Joyce, who famously said that climate change sceptics were being treated like holocaust deniers and likened environmental campaigners to eco-Nazis, believes Monckton is on the fringe of the debate and unhelpful to those who question human induced climate change….

                ‘‘Obviously I and my constituency have some doubts (about the science) but when you find yourself waltzing with the fringe you should take a step back,’’ Joyce said.

                ‘‘Lot’s of people from the fringe often take up causes and it can do more harm than good.’’

                And:

                “On Wednesday conservative columnist Janet Albrechtsen in The Australian wrote that Monckton was an extremist in his language and is hurting the cause of those who want to ask hard questions of the science.”

                Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/blogs/greenlines/lord-monckton-is-on-the-fringe-barnaby-joyce-20100120-mlfq.html#ixzz2eNWAoMZr

                Take it up with Joyce and Albrechtsen

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  • #
    Joe V.

    What’s fantastic about this approach is it uses all the fantastic assumptions that the IPCC have (for the sake of argument) and still manages to demonstrate how staggeringly expensive & ineffective trying to slow Global Warming would be.

    It is a pity there aren’t m

    Great production. The interviews are top notch. A pity there wasn’t time to include more actual economists and scientists putting it across too.

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    Colin Henderson

    Jo, in David’s interview he says warming started in 1680, at the end of the little ice age. I am thinking that date should be 1860. Can you have David clarify this for me/us. It is at about 39:56 n the interview.

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    • #

      Perhaps I can help. The only regional thermometer record that covers the Little Ice Age, which endured for 70 years from 1645-1715 with virtually no sunspots, is the Central England Temperature Record. That record shows that in the 40 years 1695-1735 the temperaature in central England, and inferentially worldwide (for England is on the right latitude), rose by 2.2 Celsius degrees, at a rate equivalent to 4 Celsius/century, compared with the 0.7 Celsius/century over the 20th century. Yet the recovery of temperatures at the end of the Little Ice Age occurred entirely before the Industrial Revolution began. It cannot have been caused by us.

      Global temperatures also increased beginning in 1860, the date Mr. Henderson mentions. They rose from 1860-1880, then fell from 1880-1910, then rose from 1910-1945, then fell from 1945-1976, then rose from 1976-2001, then fell. These cycles correspond very closely to the natural cycles of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, a weather pattern in the Pacific that is linked to other ocean oscillations worldwide. Though there is evidence of a general but slow rise in global temperature since 1950, some of which may have been attributable to Man, the rate of warming during the up-phase of the PDO from 1976-2001 was not significantly greater than the rates of warming in the PDO up-phases of 1860-1880 and 1910-1945.

      In short, it is not really possible to distinguish the anthropogenic from the natural contributions to the global warming that stopped almost 17 years ago. It remains possible that most of the warming since 1950 arose from a continuing general recovery of global temperatures following the Little Ice Age. The IPCC’s conclusion that there is 95% confidence that more than half the warming since 1950 is manmade is as fatuous as John Cook’s ridiculous attempt to pretend there was a 97% consensus in support of that proposition when his own data file showed the true consensus to be 0.3%.

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      Thank you Christopher. Exactly.

      David does mean 1680. See also Christian and Ljundqvist. And others like Lui et al China.

      The warming trend started long before CO2 emissions.

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    Paul Vaughan

    Watts’ video was dull. Something’s pulling Anthony notably offtrack. (It’s not entirely clear what’s up with that, so I’ll reserve further judgement for now…)

    ==
    Refreshing:

    I recommend that everyone watch the Joanne Nova & David Evans 50:1 videos start-to-finish.

    I admit I hadn’t previously taken note of their capacity.
    ==

    One more note:

    Morano has a hilarious butterfly research story (somewhere around 9 minutes in if I remember correctly).

    I merrily laughed out loud listening.

    That was resonance. I know from first hand experience that he’s right:

    I was awarded a sizable scholarship in the 1990s to study the role of population genetics in survival of plant species on a fragmented landscape in the context of a changing climate. I wanted to collect field samples to map genetic variation in tree species, but the university advised just computer modeling (which I knew would be a total waste of my time…)

    =
    Putting aside theories in favor of observation:
    observed decadal & multidecadal solar-terrestrial-climate-attractors (There’s more to illustrate and say when time & resources (luxuries in short supply) permit…)

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    crakar24

    Phil can you stop embarrassing us Australians in front of Lord Monckton, you are clogging up my in box.

    Now on to more important off topic news

    Here is a quote from the Guardian dated 6 August 2013:

    “Starved polar bear perished due to record sea-ice melt, says expert”

    However here, http://iceagenow.info/2013/09/record-gain-arctic-ice-means-record-melt-what/ you will find a graph based on arctic data which shows record ice gain, but how can this be?

    Maybe Phil can debunk these facts when he has finished getting belted by the good Lord.

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    • #
      Philip Shehan

      I don’t care about year by year variations in sea ice cover. Arctic Sea ice is in a long term decline, as opposed to a much smaller recent gain in antarctic sea ice.

      http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/n_plot_hires.png

      Sea ice of course dose not directly contribute to sea level rise.

      Much more to the point is the loss of land based Greenland and antarctic ice.

      http://www.sciencemag.org/content/338/6111/1183

      Between 1992 and 2011, the ice sheets of Greenland, East Antarctica, West Antarctica, and the Antarctic Peninsula changed in mass by –142 ± 49, +14 ± 43, –65 ± 26, and –20 ± 14 gigatonnes year−1, respectively. Since 1992, the polar ice sheets have contributed, on average, 0.59 ± 0.20 millimeter year−1 to the rate of global sea-level rise.

      07

      • #
        crakar24

        Phil,

        I find it incredibly hard to believe that anyone would let you anywhere near the peer review process because you show time and again that you cannot fathom let alone comprehend the english language.

        No tips or hints this time, reread my comment and see if you can figure out where you went wrong.

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          Philip Shehan

          I am slow. You need to help me out.

          05

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            crakar24

            So now you are a self proclaimed idiot, ok i will step through this slowly for you.

            It is really quite simple but i understand why you cant comprehend it. On August 6 2013 a warmbot alarmist from the Guardian stated a poley bear died due to the record sea ice melt, now Phil can you explain to me just what record was broken?

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              Dave

              Great.

              Check and Mate in 5 Crakar24,

              Wonderful to watch.

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              Philip Shehan

              crakar24 and Dave

              It is really quite simple but i understand why you cant comprehend it.

              You wrote:

              However here, http://iceagenow.info/2013/09/record-gain-arctic-ice-means-record-melt-what/ you will find a graph based on arctic data which shows record ice gain, but how can this be?

              I wrote:

              I don’t care about year by year variations in sea ice cover. Arctic Sea ice is in a long term decline, as opposed to a much smaller recent gain in antarctic sea ice.

              http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/n_plot_hires.png

              Sea ice of course dose not directly contribute to sea level rise.

              Much more to the point is the loss of land based Greenland and antarctic ice.

              http://www.sciencemag.org/content/338/6111/1183

              Between 1992 and 2011, the ice sheets of Greenland, East Antarctica, West Antarctica, and the Antarctic Peninsula changed in mass by –142 ± 49, +14 ± 43, –65 ± 26, and –20 ± 14 gigatonnes year−1, respectively. Since 1992, the polar ice sheets have contributed, on average, 0.59 ± 0.20 millimeter year−1 to the rate of global sea-level rise.

              No tips or hints this time, reread my comment and see if you can figure out where you went wrong.

              06

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                Heywood

                You can repeat what you wrote as much as you like Brian but what you have stated is a strawman in this instance.

                Crakar referred to an article in the Guardian which stated that “Climate change has reduced sea ice in the Arctic to record lows in the last year”. It was published just under 1 month ago (Aug 6th)

                Yet, based on data from the University of Illinois, shown in graph form here, the year to September 2013 has seen a record ice gain in the Arctic.

                His point is that the Guardian is implying that Arctic ice is currently at a record low, even after a record ice gain. He asks how is this possible?

                Nothing to do with long term ice figures. Besides, your linked data does not discuss causation. Any warming could be the cause, anthropogenic or otherwise. In fact, a recent paper has found that Greenland’s ice is melting from underneath the ice.

                http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com.au/2013/08/new-paper-finds-greenland-melt-strongly.html

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                Mattb

                this polar bear lived in a specific region… the arctic average is irrelevant. “Prond Robertson, at the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, said: “The sea ice break up around Svalbard in 2013 was both fast and very early.” He said recent years had been poor for ice around the islands: “Warm water entered the western fjords in 2005-06 and since then has not shifted.””

                so we are taking specific ice in the localised habitat of a single bear.

                “His point is that the Guardian is implying that Arctic ice is currently at a record low”

                where does it say that?

                the seasonal swings are large is it is large melt, large re-freeze, large melt… so your claims there has been a “record ice gain” ignores that it was from a record low, to a below average maximum, and now tracink higher than 2012 but still 2 standard deviations almost from the 1979 onwards mean.

                http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

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        Rod Stuart

        In fact, in Eastern Nunavut it is becoming necessary to cull Polar Bears, because their numbers have increased so dramatically.
        It is not surprising if someone found a polar bear starving. It is the natural order of things. As they age, they become less able to cope, less able to fight, lose their teeth, and ultimately starve to death.
        The huge bear population increase since 1960 (about eight fold) exacerbates this situation, and, as is the case with other species culling is sometimes necessary.
        If there is any connection with ice, it may be that the recent cyclical ice melt in the high Arctic has provided the bears with more opportunity to catch seals, resulting in a lower infant mortality. Other factors no doubt have a bearing.

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        Arctic sea ice has been in a cyclical decline since 1979, when the satellites relied upon by the National Snow and Ice Data Center first went up. A great Arctic storm last year broke up the ice, leading to an exceptional loss of sea-ice extent, but there has been a vigorous recovery of the sea ice this year. What is not so well known is that from the early 1970s until 1979 there was a very rapid increase in sea ice extent. The NSIDC satellites have been measuring the sea-ice extent from a high point in its decadal-scale cycles of waxing and waning. For this reason, it is not yet possible to ascribe the sea-ice decline in the Arctic as having been caused primarily (or at all) by anthropogenic global warming, particularly since approximately half of the loss of Arctic sea ice has been made up by a growth in Antarctic sea ice.

        Also, too much tends to be made of the supposed loss of albedo when the Arctic sea ice melts during the summer. However, even if it were to disappear altogether for 13 weeks of the year, a not too difficult calculation in radiative transfer and spherical geometry establishes that the resultant warming would be equivalent to little more than that which would be expected from two additional years’ CO2 concentration.

        Furthermore, a far more significant cryogenic variability in the Earth’s albedo is the variability in the extent of northern-hemisphere snow cover. That is far more influential than the comparatively tiny and high-latitude loss of Arctic sea ice. And, in December 2012 and the spring of 2013, the snow-cover extent was exceptional, which is why there has been such a cold summer in much of the northern hemisphere, followed by a far larger sea-ice extent than last year. We simply do not have adequate data to draw the alarmist conclusions that Mr. Shehan here seeks to draw.

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          Mattb

          when you say “What is not so well known is that from the early 1970s until 1979 there was a very rapid increase in sea ice extent.” do you mean you just made it up?

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            Eddie Sharpe

            I think it’s time for Mattb to do his homework.

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            Joe V.

            and learn some manners. Such impertinence does seem somehow emblematic of the warmist cause however.

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              Mattb

              lol who shows me manners? the internet is a great social leveller, whether hero of the common man or potty peer we are all of equal social rank here.

              04

              • #
                Mark D.

                the internet is a great social leveller

                Yes Matt but your inclination is to bring it to a level where everyone behaves as a Dic*headRichard Cranium .

                No thanks.

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                Eddie Sharpe

                Manners are not just something you do but reflect what you are and are not the preserve of particular social ranks.

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            In response to the furtively pseudonymous troll “MattB”, Arctic sea-ice extent was measured by satellites from 1967 onwards. The satellites showed a sharp increase in extent from 1973-1979.

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            when you say “What is not so well known is that from the early 1970s until 1979 there was a very rapid increase in sea ice extent.” do you mean you just made it up?

            The above was written by MattB who make it clear he forgets about the existence of Satellites before year 1979.

            From Steve Goddard who actually looks around then post sources information at his blog about pre 1979 Ice cover based on…… satellite data:

            Arctic Ice Almost As Extensive As It Was 42 Years Ago

            LINK

            In the link is a chart that was published by the IPCC in year 1990 where they show the data back to 1972.Yes THE IPCC committee themselves did that.

            Lord Monckton is 100% correct.

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              Backslider

              Couldn’t be much clearer than the graph, now could we?

              Flogged yet again Mattb!!! hahahahahahaha

              30

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                Mattb

                flogging? yeah I bet you where while you posted that link.

                Look you can go to random single source graphs that back your point, and I’ll stick with the facts:

                http://nsidc.org/cryosphere/quickfacts/seaice.html

                Useful satellite data concerning sea ice began in late 1978 with the launch of NASA’s Scanning Multichannel Microwave Radiometer (SMMR) satellite. When scientists compare average sea ice conditions between years, they often use a reference period of 1979 to 2000. This reference period allows a consistent comparison of changes in extent over individual years. Scientists generally do not include data from 2000 forward because that period has seen especially sharp declines in sea ice extent.

                “Useful” – geddit???

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              • #
                Mark D.

                “Useful” – geddit???

                Yes I Geddit; useful for a particular agenda.

                After all, we just can’t count on ANYTHING but satellite data. NOTHING else could POSSIBLY be “useful”.

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                Yeah MattB ignored MY LINK where it has the IPCC accepting the earlier satellite data back to 1973 showing ice cover level to be LOWER in 1973 than in 1979 as shown in this LINK and also in the link Matt never read shows NCAR saying this:

                In February of 1972 earth-orbiting artificial satellites revealed the existence of a greatly increased area of the snow and ice cover of the north polar cap as compared to all previous years of space age observations.

                LINK

                Matt writes this dumb line,

                Look you can go to random single source graphs that back your point, and I’ll stick with the facts

                Your “facts” started in 1979 based on satellite data while the IPCC,NCAR and Aspen Institute accepted the earlier “facts” back to 1973 based on satellite data you deliberately ignore because it is inconvenient.

                Meanwhile I point to everyone that MattB NEVER did dispute the “earlier facts” based on satellite data showing that 1979 is a peak year for ice cover and certainly higher than ALL years back to 1973 and more into the past.

                Matt you scared ZERO points here.

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                Backslider

                NASA’s Scanning Multichannel Microwave Radiometer

                Oh right, sea ice can only be SEEN with one of these. I bet you don’t even know what it is Matt.

                The fact is that sea ice EXTENT can be easily seen just from simple photographs, which date back to when satellites first launched. Back when that IPCC graph I linked to was made the IPCC accepted this, however no doubt they have changed their tune just to back the warming meme.

                What was it they say about looking at ALL the data.

                Fact: Sea ice peaked round 1979. How convenient for you to have a starting point of 1978. Prior to that it was no more than it is today…. that’s known as NATURAL VARIATION.

                You have been well and truly flogged, just as your political leaders (employers probably) will be today. You would do better to deny the global warming on Mars.

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              • #

                If MattB comes back for more evidence he can look HERE to see a 1971 Arctic Map showing the cap to be similar in size as today’s.

                Arctic Ocean Map 1971

                Click on the map for larger size and see what it looked like then.

                10

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    Mattb

    I’m posting this at the end so MoB doesn’t miss it… but I’ve noticed that the website of the house of Lords has forgotten to list him as a member of the house of lords…

    http://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/lords/?sort=2&type=1

    they even seem to have forgotten him on the list of ineligible members: http://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/lords/-ineligible-lords/

    Chris you may want to get in touch so they fix that up?

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      Joe V.

      Ouch. Such a pity Mattb. We haven’t heard from you for so long and you are no sooner back than seem to have trodden on a moderation tripwire, with a subject that has been thoroughly declared off limits here.
      There was an old thread where that was done to death already, if you have nothing better to do.

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      • #
        Mattb

        I must have missed the “declared off limits here” decree sorry.

        05

        • #
          Joe V.

          @29.4.4.1.1
          The one at
          September 5, 2013 at 11:18 am ·
          as there are several seeming to use that number.

          ending in:

          (Please drop this argument and get back on topic) CTS

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      Backslider

      Really Matt, what does this have to do with the discussion? I would suggest that you take the time to study The House of Lords Act (1999) and come to your own conclusions regarding the corruption involved with that.

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        Mattb

        if I had a dollar for every time some random here posts an “I know this is off topic… but” I’d have a bit more coin than I do.

        16

        • #
          Backslider

          if I had a dollar for every time some random here posts an “I know this is off topic… but”

          But the intention there is not ad hom as yours is.

          Anyhow, educate yourself. The House of Lords Act did not revoke Letters Patent, thus Lord Monckton is a Member of The House Of Lords. Referring to lists of voting members is quite irrelevant.

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            Mattb

            http://cakeofcustom.blogspot.com.au/2011/10/is-viscount-monckton-member-of-house-of.html

            it’s pretty crystal clear.

            “What the 1999 Act did was to break the link between a peerage (and the letters patent that create it) and the right to membership of the House of Lords (as conferred by a writ of summons).”

            06

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            Heywood

            Don’t engage the idiot. The whole peerage debate is a giant strawman and argumentum ad hominem.

            50

            • #
              Mattb

              No it’s not. It is an interesting question as to why BoM misrepresents continually on this issue. It is as though it is blatantly intentional so that over the course of a long debate someone is likely to say “oh and btw you are making stuff up about the house of lords” and that allows discussion to be shut down over squeals of ad-hom, conventiently diverting attention from the fact that the main thrust of criticism is on topic and accurate.

              06

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                Heywood

                How is his peerage relevant to the subject of his paper “Is CO2 mitigation cost-­effective?”?

                You are merely shooting the messenger.

                50

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                Mattb

                well it does indicate that he is not someone who is able to rationally draw conclusions from the available evidence.

                But you are right, his peerage is irrelevant, I guess that is why he has a portcullis on his AGW slide.

                06

              • #
                Philip Shehan

                Actually MattB, Lord Monckton, who says his peerage is irrelvant to his science, displays a very large mock up of the Houses of Parliament symbol. Portcullis, flanked by chains, surmounted by a coronet.

                I think he used to use the exact symbol of Parliament, but having been warned off by the Lords to stop claiming to be a member, he adopted a facsimile which is however almost indistinguishable from the genuine article, which would leave him open to a breach of trademark action in this country.

                06

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                Brian G Valentine

                Shehan, you crack me up. You haven’t provided a bit of “global warming” evidence, so make your argument a little more firm you advertise some “PHD” of something or other and you drag out character assaults.

                Attempted character assaults are the only “evidence” you global warming lunatics ever had or ever will have.

                By the way how does somebody get a PHD in an analytical methodology, anyway. PhD’s are earned in distinct academic disciplines, throughout the world

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                Philip Shehan

                Brian. Happy to bring some joy into your life.

                Actally none of the argument on this thread is about evidence for global warming. Topher and Monckton assume it, if only for the sake of putting their argument. So I have not bothered with it either, although I do dispute Monckton’s “no warming for 17 years” (or is it 16 and 8 months) claim.

                I don’t know where you get the “analytical methodology” from.

                My PhD is in Nuclear Magnetic Resonance spectroscopy, which I undertook in an organic chemistry department, although it has a great deal to do with physics and mathematics, and I ended up in research applying the technique to biomedicine.

                06

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                Brian G Valentine

                So you have a PhD in either chemistry, physics, mathematics, or biomedical engineering.

                Unless you want to start your own academic department and get it approved by the ACS, or the APS, or AMS, or ABET, which accredit academic degree programs in the US and similar organizations accredit degrees in the Western world and degree programs are accredited by the Academies in Russia and in all former Soviet states

                Oh forget it and spare us the details

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              • #

                Dr, Phil,

                say, you seem to know for certain that CO2 is the cause.

                Why not just stop talking about it and get out there and do something about stopping it.

                Shut it down at the source.

                Don’t tell us. Show us.

                I cant see those MRI machines running on wind or solar power.

                Tony.

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                The furtively pseudonymous troll MattB raises the white flag of scientific surrender by maundering on about peerage law and heraldic law, on both of which he is manifestly inexpert. On the former, I refer him to the barrister’s expert Opinion at lordmoncktonfoudation.com. On the latter, I have never used the crowned portcullis for any purpose. Garter King of Arms slapped down the impertinent and politicized clerk in the Lords when he whined that my logo, a portcullis surmounted by a Viscount’s coronet, was a rip-off of Parliament’s logo, the crowned portcullis. Garter confirmed that my logo is not registered to anyone else and I am entirely free to use it.

                MattB, on the rare occasions when he can bring himself to attempt some science, uses another favourite troll technique: he says he disagrees with me, but without saying why. He says he disagrees with my assertion that there has been no global warming for 17 years. No, that assertion was made by Railway Engineer Pachauri, who for some unfathomable reason is the climate-science head of IPeCaC. He also says he disagrees with my assertion that there has been no global warming for 16 years 8 months (shortly to be 9 months). No, that is the least-squares linear-regression trend on the monthly mean global surface temperature anomalies published by Remote Sensing Systems Inc. If he has any more knowledge of elementary statistics than he does of elementary peerage law or of elementary heralry, which I beg leave to doubt, he will no doubt be able to replicate the calculation for himself. Until he does so, his assertion that the result is incorrect is mere yah-boo – the science of the kindergarten sand-pit.

                40

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                Mattb

                “He says he disagrees with my assertion that there has been no global warming for 17 years.”

                have I said that?

                “He also says he disagrees with my assertion that there has been no global warming for 16 years 8 months (shortly to be 9 months). ”

                I think you have me confused with someone else

                As for the crown… how about you make computers with a logo of an apple with a bite out of it… and argue it is a different sized bite lol.

                I HAVE however, pointed out that the claims as to when in the future a certain amount of warming will take place due to GHGs emitted today, are incorrect.

                04

              • #
                Philip Shehan

                Monckton of Brenchley. Fine by me if we get back to substantive issues. With regard to your statement:

                He also says he disagrees with my assertion that there has been no global warming for 16 years 8 months (shortly to be 9 months). No, that is the least-squares linear-regression trend on the monthly mean global surface temperature anomalies published by Remote Sensing Systems Inc.

                I draw your attention to an earlier comment of mine on this matter:

                Well, excuse me if I recycle a graphic I have used elsewhere pointing out that not only has there been warming, according to some data sets the rate for the last 17 years is equal to or greater than the previous 70.

                http://tinyurl.com/lpflr92

                06

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              Mattb

              why is it a strawman. He does make a claim and the claim is false.

              07

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                Heywood

                “why is it a strawman”

                It is a strawman with respect to the current topic. Instead if discussing whether or not CO2 mitigation is cost-­effective, opponents such as yourself decide to attack his peerage and membership of the House of Lords.

                Perhaps you are right, and it isn’t a strawman. It is probably more like a red herring, in that it is a seemingly plausible, though ultimately irrelevant, diversionary tactic.

                Either way, a logical fallacy.

                “He does make a claim and the claim is false.”

                Which claim is false. What about the claim that Australian’s could fork out $162 Billion to mitigate 1/20,000 of a degree of warming? Is that false?

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                Backslider

                Mattb. Simple yes or no question (the other two trolls may answer this also):

                Is Christopher Monckton a Lord?

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              • #
                Mattb

                oh look I used one word to answer two questions. Clever.

                04

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                Heywood

                So what are your figures Matt? How much warming will be mitigated with the $162B?

                40

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                Mattb

                I’m certain it is a logical fallacy to claim that someone’s figures are right because I don;t have any of my own.

                I’ve alread demonstrated that the suggested timeframe of warming is pushed back way too far. Given that is wrong, then the figures of $/unit warming are wrong too.

                05

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                Heywood

                “I’m certain it is a logical fallacy to claim that someone’s figures are right because I don;t have any of my own”

                I never did. I just asked if you have an alternate figure.

                You claimed that 1/20000 of 1 degree is false. So what is the true answer?

                “I’ve alread demonstrated that the suggested timeframe of warming is pushed back way too far”

                Where?

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                Mattb

                #29.4.3.1.13 and 14.

                which relates to MoB’s claim of “even on the IPCC’s own math, one would not expect much more than 1 C warming per doubling of CO2 within our lifetime.”

                where I linked to: http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/345.htm

                So if MoB’s $$$ figures are based upon 1 degree of warming within a lifetime… and he claims that 1 degree is what IPCC says, and I’ve pointed out that IPCC is 2.5 degrees warming within a lifetime per doubling…. well if the warming is 2.5 times faster than MoB would have us believe then the costs would be 2.5 times less per unit temp increase.

                06

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      Backslider

      I’m posting this at the end so MoB doesn’t miss it

      Posting it at the end because you are a masochist who just loves to be flogged!!!

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  • #
    Rod Stuart

    One conclusion I have certainly drawn from this thread is that the sub-nominal PhD must most certainly mean “Piled Higher and Deeper”.

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  • #
    Philip Shehan

    In order to refute the oft made claim that I have surrendered on matters scientific here, I note that I have yet to hear back from Lord Monckton or anyone else on the alleged lack of warming for 17 years.

    http://tinyurl.com/lpflr92

    With regard to his other question:

    Perhaps he would like to explain why global warming has stopped for 12 years 8 months (the mean of all five global temperature datasets), or 16 years 8 months (the RSS satellite dataset)?

    Firstly I would like to point out that this period of time (and indeed that for 17 years) is too short to be statistically significant in terms of whether the data is showing warming or cooling.

    RSS since 2001
    Trend: -0.056 ± 0.271 °C/decade (2σ)

    That is, the to a confidence level of 95%, the trend is between warming of 0.225 and cooling of 0.327 °C/decade. You can drive a bus through that gap.

    Further I note that the trend for the other satellite data set, UAH, is

    Trend: 0.045 ±0.270 °C/decade (2σ)

    However, I will take Monckton’s preferred headline figure at face value, ignoring the question of its statistical significance.

    The strange thing is that Monckton has given the answer to his question (at least in part) when reflecting on the likely transient nature of claims of an alleged pause in warming based on skeptics favourite cherry picked starting point of the extreme el nino southern summer of 1997/98. (I note again that this non statistically significant value holds only for the headline rate for RSS out of the 5 major data sets).

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/02/22/ipcc-railroad-engineer-pachauri-acknowledges-no-warming-for-17-years/#more-80326

    At some point – probably quite soon – an el Niño will come along, and global temperature will rise again. Therefore, it would be prudent for us to concentrate not only on the absence of warming for n years, but also on the growing discrepancy between the longer-run warming rate predicted by the IPCC and the rate that has actually occurred over the past 60 years or so.

    Recently the ENSO cycle has been in a la nina phase, providing a cooling effect on global temperatures.

    But it is not just ENSO that modulates global temperatures – solar cycles, volcanoes etc also have their effects. That is why models of temperature with and without anthropogenic forcings can be produced and compared to the temperature record:

    http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch9s9-4-1-2.html

    The starting point of climatology is that the anthropogenic and “natural” climate forcings are superimposed on one another to give the aggregate effect on temperature. The shorter term natural variables cancel out over the century and a half since the effects of CO2 addition with the industrial revolution began in earnest and started to affect temperatures. Thus the temperature record shows spikes, dips plateaus, declines with an underlying rise in temperature.

    http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/AMTI.png

    Interestingly, the rise in the temperature curve follows by three decades the curve of atmospheric CO2 concentration.

    http://tinyurl.com/aj2us99

    Moreover, correlation between temperature and the logarithm of the CO2 concentration has a correlation coefficient of 0.91 a with a probability of no correlation less than 0.0001.

    The implied sensitivity factor is 2.075 +/- 0.074 C

    06

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      Philip Shehan

      Just reviewing one of Lord Monckton’ comments where again he supplies in part the an answer to his own question about short term changes in temperature rates.

      Global temperatures also increased beginning in 1860, the date Mr. Henderson mentions. They rose from 1860-1880, then fell from 1880-1910, then rose from 1910-1945, then fell from 1945-1976, then rose from 1976-2001, then fell. These cycles correspond very closely to the natural cycles of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, a weather pattern in the Pacific that is linked to other ocean oscillations worldwide. Though there is evidence of a general but slow rise in global temperature since 1950, some of which may have been attributable to Man, the rate of warming during the up-phase of the PDO from 1976-2001 was not significantly greater than the rates of warming in the PDO up-phases of 1860-1880 and 1910-1945.

      In short, it is not really possible to distinguish the anthropogenic from the natural contributions to the global warming that stopped almost 17 years ago. It remains possible that most of the warming since 1950 arose from a continuing general recovery of global temperatures following the Little Ice Age.

      His description exactly describes the variations on temperature since 1860 that the graph I presented above based on an averaging of 10 data sets indicates, with the exception on the claimed fall since 2001.

      What is not evident from the description, which but stands out glareingly from the graph in the link above is the underlying accelerating rise in temperature which follows and correlates with the rise in CO2 for the same period, with the expected theoretical correlation for a cause and effect relationship of temp vs log CO2 conc r = 0.91.

      Again, the claim that it is not really possible to distinguish the anthropogenic from the natural contributions is refuted by the link I provide comparing the temperature data to models including and excluding man nmade contributions.

      And he again refers to global warming that stopped almost 17 years ago which is empahtically refuted by examination of the temperatyre data for five temperature data sets and an average in the link above.

      06

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      Rod Stuart

      One cannot help but stand back in amazement at the illogical temerity of the warmist.
      17 years of temperature stability i.e. no statistically significant deviation is apparently not sufficiently long from which one can draw a conclusion, whereas the entire basis of the idyllic fantasy is the period from 1980 to 1997, when temperatures supposedly increased a few tenths of a degree, being smaller than the accuracy of the measurement system.

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        MemoryVault

        .
        Don’t sweat it Rod. The slight rise ~1980 – 1998 will soon be fully cancelled out by the downturn ever since, as clearly shown on this graph. At that point trollboy’s bleatings about “statistical significance” will become, well . . . statistically insignificant. Not to mention that his much vaunted “correlation” between CO2 and temperature is now running the wrong way, and will continue to do so.

        Meanwhile, back in the real world where people actually live, the Arctic Circle reversed from thawing to freezing fully four weeks early – the earliest in more than 20 years. The temporary North-West Passage is now closed at both ends – again – the earliest in over 20 years, and the ice is now too thick for the Canadian Coast Guard to operate their ice-breakers – the earliest that has happened in the Service’s history.

        The NH is now rocketing into an early onset of what is shaping up to be a long and bleak winter, the fifth, sixth, or seventh progressively severe cold winter in a row, depending on the location being considered.

        .
        Trollboy doesn’t accept it, of course, and never will, but he and his pseudo-religious cult are becoming increasingly irrelevant to real world events. More to the point, most normal people are awakening to that fact.

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        • #
          Rod Stuart

          And when I worked for Canadian General Electric I played a role in the 1989 refit of the Louis St Laurent in Halifax. If she can’t punch her way through, the ice has to be more than 3 1/2 meters thick. Just to put a fly in the warmist’s ointment about the ice not being as thick as it used to be.

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  • #
    Philip Shehan

    And to show Heywood I have not run up the white fag on matters economic, I gave an alternate figure for the costs of mitigation based on the 162 billion per decade figure for Australia, which thus far no has attempted to show is incorrect:

    To be generous here I will take your reduced sensitivity factor of 1, by which I assume (and sorry if I am getting it wrong here) that doubling of the CO2 concentration gives a rise of 1 C.

    So with the present CO2 concentration being 400 ppm doubling to 800 ppm would increase the temperature by 1 C. The current mass of CO2 in the atmosphere is 3.2 trillion tonnes. So to get an extra degree of warming we will be adding another 3.2 trillion tones.

    In the video it does not state what Australia’s price per tonne is, other than to say it is among the highest in the world. So let’s say $30 per tonne.

    So the cost of mitigation for 1 degree is 3.2 trillion x $30 or 96 trillion dollars.

    This seems to fall short of your calculation of $3.2 quadrillion per Cº abated.

    07

    • #
      MemoryVault

      So the cost of mitigation for 1 degree is 3.2 trillion x $30 or 96 trillion dollars.

      Oh, WOW!! –

      ONLY 96 TRILLION dollars.

      What a bargain!!
      Can I have two?

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        Philip Shehan

        Memory Vault. Try to come to grips with the subject here. Which is the cost of the mitigation according to Topher/Monckton which they put at $3.2 quarillion per degree. Heywood demanded an alternative figure which I have supplied:

        “So the cost of mitigation for 1 degree is 3.2 trillion x $30 or 96 trillion dollars.

        This seems to fall short of your calculation of $3.2 quadrillion per Cº abated.”

        In fact it is less than the Tropher/Monckton figure by a factor of 33.

        Rod Stuart: One cannot help but stand back in amazement at the illogical temerity of the “skeptic”

        Lord Monckton (and skeptics) makes a false claims about the warming rate for the last 17 years, cliaming the linear regression line representing the rate is level, or negative. Statistical significance is not taken into account. But when I point out the real headline trend is in fact positive they cry “but it’s not statistically significant”. Thus stistical significance is ignored or embraced as it suits, all within the same argument.

        Here is the data for the last 17 and the last 70 years.

        The statistical significance or not of the last 17 years has nothing to do with the period from 1980 to 1997 as Rod Stuart claims.

        The 70 year period is chosen to demonstrate the difference between statistically significant and non statistically significant data and the coincidentally equal values for those periods helps in this. Some people seem to think that not statistically significant means that the rate is close to zero, that the line is very close to flat. It does not.

        To avoid accusations of cherry picking, Hadcrut4 chosen as it shows the median warming rate of data sets for the last 17 years.

        http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1943/to:2013/mean:12/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1943/to:2013/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1996/trend

        From 1943

        Trend: 0.088 ±0.019 °C/decade (2σ)

        From 1996

        Trend: 0.087 ±0.115 °C/decade (2σ)

        http://www.skepticalscience.com/trend.php

        They are both warming trends. There is no horizontal or negative line for the last 17 years. Not even close. Warming has not halted.

        The 70 year period is statistically significant with regards to a warming trend because subtracting the error margin from the trend gives a positive rate, meaning there is a greater thn 95% probability that the rate is positive (warming).

        The 17 year rate is not statistically significant, even though it is essentially equal to the 70 year rate because subtracting the error range from the trend rate give a slightly negative rate (cooling). This is because the statistical significance depends largely on the signal to noise ratio of the data, which decreases with shorter time periods, not the slope.

        In this case it can be calculated that there is only a 93% chance that the rate it positive. Pretty high but not quite 95%

        If this strikes you as a somewhat arbitrary cutoff for statistical significance, that’s because it is.

        Even so it is a complete mathematical and logical nonsense to translate a psoitive, though non statistically significant warming trend into a static or cooling trend, statistically significant or otherwise.

        07

        • #
          Heywood

          Ha ha. Typical arrogance from Brian the interfering tosser.

          I never asked you for an alternative figure at all numbnuts.

          I asked Mattb to provide a figure for the amount of warming, in degrees celcius, that the $162 Billion dollars BUDGETED for would mitigate.

          The video stated 1/20,000 of one degree. He said it was false. I asked him what his figure was.

          Moot point now really, as we now have adults in charge of our government again. The carbon tax will soon be gone. Michael the ‘realist’ will be going apoplectic. Good times.

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          • #
            Philip Shehan

            The conversion to the preferred mode of expression of the answer you request is a matter of simple arithmetic.

            You are incapable of discussing these matters without indulging in utterly peurile abuse. Get back to me when you grow up.

            06

            • #
              Heywood

              Hey, you are the one who stuck your beak in. Would you like a tissue?

              Apologies for the short, sharp comment. It was Sunday after all and, unlike you apparently, I have a thing called a ‘life’ which doesn’t involve me sitting around commenting on blogs all day.

              Maths was never my strongest subject, but I’ll give it a go.

              Under the ALP plan (soon to be goooooonnnneeeee!!!), the ETS/CO2 tax etc. was budgeted at $162.3 Billion over ten years. This figure does not include RET costs. This was to have the ultimate goal of reducing Australia’s emissions by 5%.

              Australia emits 1.2% of world emissions. Assuming that the amount spent is roughly equivalent throughout the world and that the whole world decided on the same 5% target, then we would spend $13.5 Trillion to just reduce by 5% of predicted CO2 emissions.

              For the sake of the argument, and to acknowledge your point about mitigation being cheaper in other countries, let’s discount that figure by %50, just because we can.

              So we now look at $6.75 Trillion to offset 5% of emissions.

              Assuming that the amount of mitigated warming by Australia (in degrees C) calculated by the good Lord is correct (0.00005) then the word wide warming mitigation for the $6.75 Trillion would be 0.004166667 deg C.

              So, based on those figures, world wide spend to offset 1 deg would be $1,623 Trillion dollars over 10 years.

              40

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                Philip Shehan

                Better Heyood. See my reply to Rod below. You are also capable of thoughtful analysis. You really do spoil it when you go over the top. Try to keep your inner pit bull on the leash.

                05

        • #
          Rod Stuart

          The cherries in Tassie will be ripe in about three months’ time. I’ll mark you down as a top picker.
          One thing that is particularly significant about the fantasy you have been entertaining is that now the tables have turned. “The Science”, whoever he or she is, has apparently decided that now is the time to repeat the panic of the seventies. After all, how can the masses be managed without panic? So, if you are going to maintain your spot at the tax trough, you will need to join hands with “the science“.
          Speaking of statistical insignificance, it is “the science” that appears to be the little boy who cried wolf, and is about to disappear into insignificance.

          04

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          Rod Stuart

          So much for the fantasy of the freshly picked cherry crop.
          Now for the reality.

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          Rod Stuart

          Since you bring up the subject of “statistical significance”, it might surprise you to know that there are sources of reference other than the “skepticalscience” website.
          The British House of Lords, unlike Oh!Bummer, tend to rely on the UK Met Office (Hadley I believe it is called). On 21 May 2013, Ms. Julia Slingo of the UK Met office reported to the British Parliament an answer to this question posed by Lord Donohue. Essentially it is “Does Her Majesty’s Government consider a rise in global temperature of 0.8 degrees Celsius since 1880 to be significant.”
          The Met Office eventually answered this question as follows:
          “There are many ways to analyse time series, including the use of physical and statistical models. The relevance of any technique depends on the question asked about the data. The Met Office has compared the likelihood of the two specified models for fitting the three main independent global near-surface temperature time series (originating from UK Met Office and NASA and NOAA in the US), using a standard approach.

          The statistical comparison of the model fits shows the likelihood of a linear trend model with first-order autoregressive noise in representing the evolution of global annual average surface temperature anomalies since 1900, ranges from 0.08 (Met Office data) to 0.32 (NOAA data), relative to the fit for a driftless third-order autoregressive integrated model. The likelihood is 0.001 if the start date is extended back for example to 1850 (Met Office data). These findings demonstrate that this parameter is very sensitive to the data period chosen and to the dataset chosen for a given time period, for such a statistical model.

          A high value of relative likelihood does not necessarily mean that a model is useful or relevant. The climate is a highly complex physical system; to model it requires an understanding of physical and chemical processes in the atmosphere and oceans, natural variability and external forcings, i.e. with physically-based models. Work undertaken at the Met Office on the detection of climate change from temperature observations is based on formal detection and attribution methods, using physical climate models and not purely statistical models, as discussed in Chapter 9 of the Contribution of Working Group I to the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report, 2007.”

          In other words, this means that the probability that the temperature rise can not be reasonably attributed to natural random variation — i.e. global warming is real, is one in one thousand.

          To conclude, the primary basis for global-warming alarmism is unfounded. The Met Office has been making false claims about the significance of climatic changes to Parliament—as well as to the government, the media, and others — claims which have seriously affected both policies and opinions. When questioned about those claims in Parliament, the Met Office did everything feasible to avoid telling the truth.

          “The science” only just discovered what most little boys do at six years of age. When the wheels fall off your little red wagon, it’s time to go find another brightly coloured wagon. The new wagon is the “global cooling” panic, which actually might be justified.

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            Philip Shehan

            Rod. I do not share your obsession with SkS. I have not read or contributed to that blog for many, many months. I have no real interest in joining in discussions where most people agree with each other. Unfortunately on “skeptic” sites the preferred mode of debate by a large proportion of participants is mindless head kicking abuse as demonstrated recently by Heywood. I find that depressing, but I persevere. Frankly I find your thoughtful post here with a low level of snarkiness refreshing (try to keep it up) and I will respond in kind.

            Among the references relevant to the global warming debate I have on file are a few from sks which are useful. They are not opinions but simple factual material that illustrate points that come up repeatedly. The ones I have used in this thread are:

            http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/AMTI.png

            http://www.skepticalscience.com/trend.php

            My knowledge of statistical significance does not come from SkS. It comes from decades of applying it in biomedical research.

            I am fully aware that there are other methods of calculating statistical significance. In my comment I allude to the arbitrariness of Fisherian statistical significance with its arbitrary 2 sigma cut off. There are other definitions. Many scientists have declared their preference for Bayseian analysis. I am one of them.

            And note that the use of the term significant you have bolded in the question refers to the everyday meaning of the term, not the technical meaning of statistical significance.

            The material you present is very technical and complicated so you can be forgiven for the error you have made in reaching your conclusion. It took me a little while of careful reading and thought to understand. You write:

            “In other words, this means that the probability that the temperature rise can not be reasonably attributed to natural random variation — i.e. global warming is real, is one in one thousand.

            To conclude, the primary basis for global-warming alarmism is unfounded.”

            No. You are basing your conclusions on this:

            “There are many ways to analyse time series, including the use of physical and statistical models. The relevance of any technique depends on the question asked about the data. The Met Office has compared the likelihood of the two specified models for fitting the three main independent global near-surface temperature time series (originating from UK Met Office and NASA and NOAA in the US), using a standard approach.

            The statistical comparison of the model fits shows the likelihood of a linear trend model with first-order autoregressive noise in representing the evolution of global annual average surface temperature anomalies since 1900, ranges from 0.08 (Met Office data) to 0.32 (NOAA data), relative to the fit for a driftless third-order autoregressive integrated model. The likelihood is 0.001 if the start date is extended back for example to 1850 (Met Office data). These findings demonstrate that this parameter is very sensitive to the data period chosen and to the dataset chosen for a given time period, for such a statistical model.”

            The models being discussed here are not the models commonly referred to in this debate, those matching the theoretical understanding of natural and man made forcings to observed temperature. They are models of statistical analysis. A subtle but vital distinction.

            Now sorry if I repeat myself but it is complicated:

            “The statistical comparison of the model fits shows the likelihood of a linear trend model with first-order autoregressive noise in representing the evolution of global annual average surface temperature anomalies since 1900, ranges from 0.08 (Met Office data) to 0.32 (NOAA data), relative to the fit for a driftless third-order autoregressive integrated model.

            Complicated but I hope my explanation allows you to see the difference.

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            • #
              Philip Shehan

              I do not know the context of the passage from the met office quoted by Rod Stuart, and so do not fully understand the technical argument but I think I can give an indication, if not an exact explanation of the point being made.

              For those who do not like their data sourced from SkS, I provide a graph similar to one I have provided above:

              http://www1.picturepush.com/photo/a/11901124/img/Anonymous/hadsst2-with-3rd-order-polynomial-fit.jpeg

              The third order parameter matches the data better than a linear (1st order) fit.

              http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1850/to:2013/mean:12/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1850/trend

              In other words the data is better fitted by an accelerating curve than a straight line.

              The more “degrees of freedom” you have in the fit, the better it is likely to match any data. It is like trying to match a boundery for a garden bed with a single piece of timber compared to using 3 pieces of timber.

              But you have to be careful not to use to many degrees of freedom (like a flexible garden hose), because you can improve the fit arbitrarily without any real world justification.

              The theoretical justification in the case of the temperature data is that an accelerating temperature curve follows and closely matches the curve for the rise in CO2, justifying the theoretical cause and effect relationship.

              So when the met is discussing comparisons of statistical models it is not surprising that they find the fit the fit “the fit for a driftless third-order autoregressive integrated model” superior to a fit for “a linear trend model with first-order autoregressive noise

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    • #
      Backslider

      I guess you missed the bit where LABOR LOST THE ELECTION!!!!!

      Sorry sonny, but there ain’t gonna be no carbon tax. Off you go and whimper……

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  • #
    skeptic4557

    I have now watched most of the full videos and Jo is easily the easiest to follow (Hubby is a close second). On a related topic I suppose I have just had the following You Tube link emailed to me by a believer and would be interested in a scientific take on the contents:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIZTMVNBjc4

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  • #
    Philip Shehan

    Memory Vault,

    “Don’t sweat it Rod. The slight rise ~1980 – 1998 will soon be fully cancelled out by the downturn ever since, as clearly shown on this graph. At that point trollboy’s bleatings about “statistical significance” will become, well . . . statistically insignificant.”

    To avoid accusations of cherry picking and since we are after all discussing global warming let us take another look at data from 1998.

    Now I am not sure from your previous item whether you are in favour of statistical significance or not when looking at this data. You choose. Fine by me.

    http://tinyurl.com/lt6uqrd

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