Sceptics meet reality in the 'Moral Maze' 17 February 05

OK there may have been a lack of balance in the choice of contributors but I thought George Monbiot was excellent. Calm, well informed and persistent. Well worth listening to.

With Lomberg the discussion was about priorities. He admits GW/CC is happening but prioritises other large scale problems over it. While there clearly are many other large scale problems, poverty and HIV/Aids to mention but two, putting GW/CC at the bottom of the priorities actually runs the risk of worsening the position of those already disadvantaged. It’s clear to see that his logic is flawed and I for one question whether he is participating in this debate with “good faith”. Steven Rose challenged him successfully.

Richard D North, new name to me, was not convincing offering a rather torturous and laboured point.

But of course the “star” of the show was Melanie Phillips. She’s increasingly completely off the scale. She had the effrontery to state that scientists who believe GW/CC is happening were “promoting a lie”. (Is someone going to sue her?) She referred, without naming it, to the Oregon Petition which Monbiot picked up. He pointed out it had been put together by eccentric fundamentalist Christians and was completely discredited. She was also stumped on her point about melting ice (floating and land based). Assuming Phillips is not stupid, she is, putting it politely, being disingenuous and has no credibility whatsoever.

I’d encourage all to listen to the programme. It’s available for a week. I thought it established GW/CC is happening and that we have a clear responsibility to do something about it.

Douglas Coker

Just “Googled” Richard D North and he’s associated with the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) a free-market think tank.

Last came across these characters in my undergraduate days and they seem to have done very little thinking since then. They have one idea it seems to me – free market forces can do no wrong and are the solution to everything. Externalities and the future don’t seem to feature in their thinking!

Douglas Coker

I thought it was very useful. George Monbiot was excellent – but we are still a long way short of most of the answers. We need to do so much more figuring out, and keep open-minded about how to do it. (Indeed, this is the main reason why I find this blog so useful & interesting.)

One thought is that I would like more discussions on the ethics of keeping “nature” in good order rather than just of what is best for humans. We have a beautiful planet & I would like to preserve all of nature’s beauty – coral reefs, wild animals and other biodiversity issues etc. etc. It bothers me enormously that we might be going through a mass extinction (of other species), but that is often missed.

PS. That Melanie Phillips!!! Reminds me of 20 years ago when I was at university & having an extremely annoying conversation with another earnest undergraduate with one thought in his/her mind – and the conversation gets stuck in first gear.

Mark,

I listened to it and I thought it was a good discussion and they touched on many important points. I share your opinion about the participants.

I have many comments to make but only time to share a couple and maybe more after others share their thoughts.

Mark, I refuse to believe that so many scientists and so many institutions would be intentionally biased just to get research money. This is so bogus for two reasons.

First, scientists and institutions want to be correct and are very cautious or they would not be good scientists or good institutions. They also publish the uncertainty of their work.

Second, why would anyone suggest a cut of 80 percent emissions when 60, 40, 20, 10, or even a 5 percent reduction would still more than promote to keep their research going anyway! I think I make a very valid point here!

Also, Lomborg’s main weakness is that his analysis is based on complete certainty of the future as to what will actually happen. From my understanding, climate science is very uncertain to what the climate will actually do or what damage it may cause to the ecosystems will not be easy to predict. I will let others elaborate on this.

You mentioned the possibility of mass extinction. How would that fit in with Lomborg’s economic forecasting and altruistic concerns?

I have heard Lomborg speak a few times now, and he seems to keep making the same point.

I get the sense that he thinks that the rest of us (at least those who don’t agree with him) are a bit thick – and that if he makes the same point often enough, we will eventually “get it”.

Unless he comes up with a better/evolving argument, I am coming to the conclusion that Lomborg is rather a stupid man.

Here’s the text of an email I have written to Feedback, the Radio 4 complaints programme:

Dear Feedback,

Many of us working in the field of climate change have become increasingly frustrated by the BBC’s choice of pundits to comment on the issue – a frustration that was doubled on listening to the Moral Maze this week. The truth today is that a clear scientific consensus exists surrounding the reality of global warming, and that the number of real experts who dissent from this consensus are tiny. Yet almost every time climate change is discussed on BBC media, editors and producers seem to feel the need to ask a ‘sceptic’ to contribute to the debate in the interests of ‘balance’. Thus the erroneous impression created in the public mind is that climate scientists are split down the middle, and the public is left confused rather than enlightened and educated about this critically important global issue.

But why the need for this spurious balance? Would Radio 4 invite someone on to deny the link between HIV and AIDS every time the disease was mentioned? Or the relationship between smoking and cancer? Both rely on science which is no more robust than that confirming the reality of manmade climate change. Yet the public continues to believe the opposite, thanks to the BBC and other media.

This week’s Moral Maze was a particularly egregious example of this effect. In fact, in many ways it was worse – since two out of three ‘witnesses’ disagreed with the mainstream scientific viewpoint on global warming. (Although Lomborg doesn’t dispute the basic facts, his downplaying of the magnitude of global warming amounts pretty much to the same thing.) With Melanie Phillips’ bizarre diatribe added to the pot, the result was – despite valiant efforts from George Monbiot and Professor Steven Rose – a highly confusing argument about science, where morality hardly got a look in. Roger Bolton did try at various points to move the debate on, but because of the editors’ choice of ‘witnesses’, the whole programme was stuck on this very basic initial point.

Yet there are serious moral questions surrounding climate change – which the programme singularly failed to address. What rights have people who bear no responsibility for causing the problem to seek redress from those who have? How seriously should we take the rights of future unborn generations to live on a habitable planet? All important questions, and all ignored in favour of a pointless and outdated ‘debate’ on a question which science has long settled.

Yours,

Mark Lynas Author of ‘High Tide: News from a Warming World’ www.marklynas.org

Mark,

Concerning skeptics, I would like to hear directly from the IPCC since the critics have made accusations of political bias with them.

I would love to see a cross section of scientists from the IPCC directly interviewed on the issues. I think it would not be out of line to have a prominent skeptic have a shot at asking that panel some questions.

In this way, the IPCC can have an opportunity to clear many things up and I would be most interested to hear what they have to say directly.

What do you think?

BTW, a well written letter! I wish I could be as articulate when making my points.

Best, Dan

I think that it is a stretch to say “Many of us working in the field of climate change”. Perhaps you could say “Many of us working the field of climate change”.

Your claim that “The truth today is that a clear scientific consensus exists surrounding the reality of global warming, and that the number of real experts who dissent from this consensus are tiny” is both incorrect and illiterate. Talented and competent climate scientists have reservations about the conclusions that IPCC hypes. (Yes, hypes is an excellent choice of words.) It may be a minority, but it is not a tiny minority. Competence abounds among them. Vincent Gray was an IPCC lead author. Lindzen clearly is competent and has participated in the IPCC process.

Actually, the science linking HIV and AIDS and the science linking smoking with lung cancer are both robust. Epidemiological studies showed that smokers are 100 times more likely to have lung cancer than non-smokers are. The science includes a description of the physiological mechanism by which the smoke causes the cancer. Similar data document the link between the HIV and the AIDS. Can you name any scientist who disputes either of these links?

The case for climate change rests solely in the output of computer models. No observational data confirm that the models are accurate. The models cannot even predict present climate from a 1900 start. Nor can the existing models explain either the Medieval Climate Optimum or the Little Ice Age. Both of those events occurred and the general circulation models do not include the factors that caused them. Climate science cannot explain why those events occurred. How then can climate science pretend to know what will happen in the next 100 years?

It is well that the radio argument got stuck on the science; the science is disputable. Despite your desperate need to believe that the science is settled, it is not.

What moral rights would future generations and those who have no say in the selection of a course of action have if we pursued the Kyoto approach, sapped our vigor and caused millions to starve for lack of fuel with which to produce food?

Those too, are important questions; questions that global warming acolytes refuse to address.

1. Harms from smoking & AIDS, for the most part, happen to those who choose to engage in the risky behavior. Harms from global warming, for the most part, happen to those (poor, future generations) who contribute least (or less) to the problem than those who per capita are the main contributers. Therefore, it is a question of justice, morality, and equity. For that we do not need more than a “balance of evidence,” and at 95% certainty about GW we have greatly exceeded that standard. And the truly moral person only needs the possibility that their behavior may be harming others to jump into action and redress the supposed wrong.

2. I heard on the radio several years ago that the last member of the Flat Earth Society had died – so there are people who cling to their views no matter what the evidence. Since I turned it on mid-program, I was not sure if it was a joke, but now I think it was real – there really were those until recently who believed the world was flat.

I understand from your posts that you are a gentleman and well educated. I would hope that you would humor us by helping to reduce GHGs out of a sense of noblesse oblige.

What you have done is to beg the question. You have assumed that there exists 95% certainty about the cause of climate change and then used that assumption to prove that we are causing climate change. You then follow by using that proof to prove that we should do something when we don’t even know if anything that we do will have an effect.

I do not agree that a truly moral person would necessarily respond to a mere possibility that his action has caused harm. I am sure that he would want to know that it was more than a baseless claim made by persons who might benefit from his change of behavior.

The Flat Earth Society was more than a joke; it was a group dedicated to educating all of us about the critical need for skepticism about what we see and hear. Their prime message was that it takes more than allegation to make a scientific proof.

I think that we have replaced noblesse oblige with freedom from arbitrary rulers and a new emphasis on individual responsibility. We, Americans, choose to help those in dire need and do so more often than any other country on earth.

Insofar as I can see, the warming and increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have been beneficial. Growing seasons are longer because of the warmth and crop productivity is better because of the increased plant food (carbon dioxide) in the air. I see many who have benefited and none who are harmed by the warmer climate. Therefore, I see no need for action.

There was an article in the journal SCIENCE in 1995 that found 95% certainty for anthropogenic global warming (96% in summer and 94% in winter, or vice versa). I can’t find that source right now. Of course, one scientist and one study does not equal massive consensus among scientists—that has been building over the 10 years since then.

But the real point is I did not need that 95% certainty even to start reducing my GHGs through cost-effective measures back in 1990. The idea that I MIGHT be harming others was impetus enough, at least for me.

Later I realized there were other benefits from those measures, such as reducing other environmental harms and other problems, and I was saving money without any sacrifice. My heart started singing, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and its righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.”

You may not be a religious person. I do sort of detect a bleakness in your soul, or a sense that everything you hold dear and important - what you have stood for all your life - is at stake if you were to open your heart to considering that GW is a threat and we should be abating it. Being a man it might be difficult to consider you may be wrong or you may be doing wrong. I can understand, having gone through life crises & being humbled by experience. The process was painful, but I now a peace of mind and happiness I did not have before. Sort of a finding self, by letting go of self & ego. It probably sounds like “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” to you.

Norbert,

There is one specific issue I would be interested in your thoughts on, and that is with regard to your open-mindedness to the impact of new evidence.

I have a specific example in mind.

At the recent conference in Exeter, it seems there was new evidence about how the increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is also making the oceans more acidic. This could threaten our ocean-life, corals etc.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1405647,00.html

You seemed to have made up your mind about the non-threat of carbon dioxide emissions to global warming / climate change. However, this seems a separate issue.

My impression is that you would immediately dismiss this new threat – but am I wrong?

Yours,

Peter

Imagaine this: The moral maze comes on, and the title of the show is “does the earth really orbit the sun?” They pull up three witnesses. First, we have Mel Phillips, a top tabloid journalist “well, I’d say no. You see, a couple of thousand years ago, this group of top physics buffs proved that in fact, the sun goes around the earth.” next we have George Monbiot, defending the Copernican Revolution “well Mellanie, it is certainly true that people used to think the earth goes around the sun, but scientists now think that the opposite is true. we can prove it relatively easily with a think called the paralax effect…” our third expert is top stacistician, and all round expert in everything, Bjorn Lomberg: “you see, the thing is that, when we look at the opinion of every person who has ever existed, we see that overwhelmingly, the sun goes around the earth, and the earth is, in fact, flat. Modern economic theory proves that Wall Atreet is the centre of the Universe, therefore, the sun must orbit us.”

What is wrong with the BBC. I love radio 4, but when it comes to climate change, they are totally insane.

presumably Lombergs logic would go like this: if we have a total extinction of nearly all life, then global financial reserves will be concentrated in the hands of the few. Everyone will be very cash rich, and so we will solve the problems of inequality, and we will all live hapilly ever after (apart from the people who died)

I noticed the comment about acidity in the report of the Exeter meeting. I have never seen any other reference to it or any technical papers that describe it, so I cannot comment.

Excellent, so this is something new.

I am not really looking for a response from you, but suggest that, if this new hypothesis interests you, you consider the evidence with fresh eyes. In your heart of hearts, do you think you could be persuaded that this is a threat to the environment (in a way that you do not see Global Warming as a threat)?

BTW, I am not saying that I am open-minded, although I would endeavour to be. I think we all have a “world-view” with which we instinctively consider events (and a major reason why people have different points of view).

It goes without saying that I do not know whether this threat to the oceans is real (though my instinctive reaction is that we should take the threat seriously).

Oh, I hate to share this.

I once took a silly Trivia Quiz on climate and one question was: What percentage of Americans believe the Sun revolves around the earth.

Various percentages were offered such as 2 percent, 27 percent, etc.

I picked the lowest one, 2 percent, believing that the earth’s orbit around the sun is common knowledge. However, to my dismay, the correct answer was 27 percent.

After being in a state of perpetual shock, my sister suggested that a little bit of natural dyslexia caused people to hear the opposite and misunderstand the question to be the correct one that the earth revolves around the sun. Her point has some validity

I hope that is the cause as to why the percentage was so high. If not, then maybe we need a radio show to help some of our fellow citizens become more enlightened.

Dan

Is it just me, when the highly paid agents of the rich and powerful cry victim of some world wide powerful conspiracy to rob them of their shiny toys and status, that I want to laugh and cry at the same time at the absurdity? The audacity and mendacity of the positions is laughable and in any sense of an understanding of moral an inverse of any kind of responsibility.

We are all aware of the complex – aren’t we – nature of the societies we inhabit? But we should have the courage to admit our selfishness and desire to have more and bigger toys in the playground for what it is, insecurity and a world view based on the acquisition and protection of status.

While relative status is still the driving force behind so many of the actions in society, we will still live in a world were ‘Freedom’ is interpreted as ‘doing as I bloody well like and sod everybody else’

“I love the smell of robber capitalism in the morning, it smells like Iraq”

Adrian

The only point I may disagree with you on is when you made an assumption in the form of a question below.

“We are all aware of the complex – aren’t we – nature of the societies we inhabit?”

I consider that to be a false assumption. I think most of us often go unconscious to those points you just made. Your insights may not be common knowledge as you might think.

Understanding human nature and what drives our thoughts is very important to this debate. What aspects of human nature and the complex nature of our societies lend themselves to helping us solve this climate problem?

Continue writing and if you could add more clarity with specific examples.

I think you have much to offer us on Mark’s site and I will enjoy reading and learning from what you post.

Yours Truly, Dan

I have to admit that my worldview is skepticism. I believe that healthy skepticism is the way of science and I believe that the global warming cartel is excessively and harshly critical of skeptics.

In normal science, someone publishes a hypothesis and some experimental data in its support. Other scientists try to reproduce the original experimental results and they undertake additional experiments in an attempt to find physical realities that violate the hypothesis. When the skeptics find exceptions to the hypothesis, scientists modify or discard the hypothesis.

Any hypothesis that successfully describes an ever-increasing portion of the physical reality can attain the status of theory, as in the Theory of General Relativity. Even theories are subjected to skeptical investigations and can ultimately be found wanting and discarded. Eugenics springs to mind.

I see several physical realities that the existing global warming hypothesis cannot resolve. One is the fact that the upper atmosphere is warming more slowly than the surface temperature record implies. Another is that neither the Arctic nor the Antarctic is warming as fast as the surface record implies that the temperate zones are warming. Another is that the existing hypothesis cannot explain the Medieval Climate Optimum or the Little Ice Age.

Those serious exceptions to the existing IPCC hypothesis lead me to believe that the existing hypothesis is not satisfactory and that predictions based upon it are not reliable.

My worldview leads me to ask have other researchers confirmed the conclusions of those who have said that the oceans are growing more acidic. I do know that the oceans have a significant buffer capacity that would not succumb easily to attempts to change its pH.

Beyond that, as I said, I know nothing of this latest offering.

At 0810hrs on Tues 15 Feb on ‘Today’, I thought there was an excellent interview by a climate change expert, Mark Lynas (or some such name). I cannot now find it on the website to listen to it again. Where has that interview gone, please? I am sure it was Today ‘cos that is the only programme I listen to as I am about to go out to work. Please help! It was NOT the interview with Margaret Becket but definitely a very knowledgeable, eloquent man that greatly impressed me!

Tim Weller timweller@blueyonder.co.uk

I was so disgusted by Richard North’s performance on The Moral MAze that I emailed him to say so. This led to the following exchange, which might be of interest (apologies for the length of it):

From: veritext@tconnect.com To: info@richarddnorth.com Subject: The Moral Maze

Dear Mr North

I’m writing to say how utterly repellent I found your “evidence” to the recent Moral Maze programme on global warming on Radio Four.

I was strongly put in mind of the stance of the appeasers in the years leading up to World War II. The threat we face from global warming is every bit as dangerous as that presented by the Nazis in the 1930s, and the degree of certainty of this threat is, if anything, rather better established. Nazism at that time was a new phenomenon, and no-one could be absolutely sure of Hitler’s intentions. Given the evidence, however, it made eminent sense to apply the precautionary principle by taking every possible measure to contain German aggression and prepare for the worst.

Human-induced climate change is also an unprecedented phenomenon, and here too we can not be absolutely certain of the exact extent of this threat. However, almost all scientists who have studied the issue have concluded that global warming is indeed being caused by emissions of greenhouse gases, and that it presents a grave danger to present and future generations.

The preening and self-absorbed sophistry with which you advocated doing nothing whatsoever to address this threat made me feel quite nauseous. It was the moral equivalent of saying, in 1936, “We can’t be sure that Herr Hitler does indeed present a danger. And even if we were, the measures that we would have to take to do something about it would be so burdensome and disruptive that it would be better not to bother.”

I believe that those who do their best to subvert any efforts to address global warming will be remembered in very much the same light as those who attempted to deny or make light of the dangers of Nazism.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

Yours,

Tom Scott

Dear Tom Scott,

Your argument would not be a good even if it were true to the remarks I made. But they are off-target considering that

a) I do not deny the possible seriousness of gw b) I do not advocate doing nothing

I am in the position – which you doubltess find unattractive or silly or worse – of pointing out what I take to be the futility of doing only a little, and quite possibly the futility of doing quite a lot (or even a huge amount).

But I do not write a ticket for either the do-nothing or the do-a-lot school. I could not care less for my own consumption: I am not personally committed to the lifestyle of the moden high-mileage westerner. I have done my airmiles and loved most of them. But I am in the position of being radically unclear about what to recommend to young people. You will perhaps say that it is obvious they should immediately adopt the energy-consumption of Indians: I don’t think they will and I am not sure their doing so would be enormously helpful.

Personally, I would be inclined to suppose that investment in nuclear might be wise.

By the way: I have a lot of sympathy with the appeasers of Nazi Germany: they did not deny the wickedness of Hitler, but could not – as soldiers in one war – easily suppose that a Second World War should be undertaken. They were not “deniers”, but then neither am I in our very different case. Besides, undertaking the long process of attempting to beat Hitler could be assumed to be vitally necessary and capable of success. I am much less sure that “beating” GW is necessary or possible.

But I am very modest in my scepticism. I seek to be useful to young people by teasing out both some relaities and some ethics in this matter. My globalwarmingissues.com is intended to be useful in that work.

Best wishes rdn

Dear Mr North

It seems to me that someone who is ‘radically unclear’ about global warming is probably not well qualified to be ‘teasing out some realities and some ethics’ in relation to this issue for the benefit of young people (or anyone else, for that matter). And although you claim that you do not advocate doing nothing, I find it difficult to see how anyone listening to your performance the other night could have interpreted what you had to say as anything other than a justification for inaction.

Your last email seems to confirm this – what else are we to make of your insistence on ‘the futility of doing only a little and quite possibly the futility of doing quite a lot’? Unless, that is, you are saying that we should do quite a lot in spite of the possibility that we may not succeed. In that case, I would agree with you. Or are you simply sitting on the fence and dithering? Given that so many eminently well-qualified scientists are saying that time is of the essence if we are to have any hope of addressing this problem, dithering and obfuscation would seem to be distinctly unhelpful.

On appeasement: I also have some sympathy with those who strove for amicable relations with Nazi Germany out of a simple revulsion for war (though I think they were wrong). I have none for those (like Astor and Rothermere for instance) who were motivated much more by an ideological view – essentially that any movement that opposed communism so vehemently had to have something going for it. In your case, I suspect that your views on global warming are strongly coloured by the kind of free market/libertarian ideology of the sort promoted by the Institute of Economic Affairs.

For the free market ideologue, it appears to be almost inconceivable that market-driven economic growth could result in environmental catastrophe, or that any restrictions on the operations of markets might be necessary in order to avoid such a catastrophe. It is a mirror image of the situation in the Soviet bloc countries under communism, where Marxist ideologues simply could not recognise or admit that their policies of economic development had led to appalling ecological disasters.

Yours,

Tom Scott

The IEA is of course a free-market institute, but it spends much of its time considering what to do in cases of market-failure, in which pollution (gw and so on) are prime examples. Of course people like me argue for the least and best regulation to meet these situations, and our value in the debate is in interrogating proposed regulations as only those who inherently dislike them can do. That is not be a refusnik, however. I am well used to being accused of ideological positions I don’t hold, and accused by people who do not trouble to read what I and others write.

I admit to being radically unclear on GW because I think the evidence is. A range of 1.5 – 11 degrees is not an agreement or a concensus, it is an agreement to disagree. Read the fat documents from IPCC and you see an amazing range of outcomes from GW, from the highly managable to the terrifying. I insist – with the IPCC – that doing a little is useless. I wonder – less conformably with the IPCC non-consensus – if doing a great deal will achieve very much. That is nothing like the same thing as saying that we should do nothing: rather, it is to ask people to consider seriously what they think they are buying when they invest in that “insurance”.

The situation is a little like that of world poverty. We know we ought to do a great deal about it. But we sleep soundly knowing that we have done very little: that little, by the way, has seemed in surprising degree to fail, or to be damaging. And when we consider what we ought to do about poverty – as in GW – the solutions range from the ideologically socialist to the ideologically free market, with a haze of other possibillities.

I insist that it is right and useful in me to continue to challenge the humbug surrounding GW. At the very least, it forces the pro-action camp to clarify and refine their positions. I have no fear that the young people who matter in this will be bamboozled by me into immoral indifference: rather, by finding the debate more interesting, will find they challenge their lazy consumerism more closely. I have no idea what their decision will be, and insist that I am not personally likely to suffer from it, whatever it is. I have no vested interest in the outcome of this debate, only in its quality.

Best wishes rdn

Dear Mr North

An ‘inherent dislike’ of market regulations seems to me a pretty clear ideological position – in fact just the one I had in mind when I mentioned free-market ideologues in my last email. Your remarks on world poverty are also very revealing. As you say: “we know we ought to do a great deal about it” (I suspect that in your heart of hearts you know this to be true of global warming also). But you then go on to make statements that seem designed to undercut any such impulse and leave us groping around in “a haze of possibilities”. Hmm…A pattern seems to be emerging.

I think there are in fact plenty of quite simple and clear-cut measures that we can take, individually and collectively via our governments, to address both global poverty and global warming. But I see little point in discussing these with you, since I can’t see the sense of wasting any further time in debate with someone whose whole modus operandi seems geared towards doing precisely that: wasting time. The evidence that we have no further time to waste is simply too strong.

But thank you for your full and frank replies.

Yours,

Tom Scott

I can’t help those who think the IEA has done no fresh thinking. I could argue that it doesn’t have to: the free market has been a Good Thing and an under-rated thing for ever and remains one now. But actually, the IEA (which is not so much a corporate body as a “virtual academy”) does wonderful new thinking all the time – as it seeks to build on insights which support the view that money fructifies and does social good when it’s left in people’s own pockets, and is spent on goods and services provided entrepreneurially rather than socialistically.

But the important thing to say is that the IEA is not fundamentalist. It is extremely interested in interrogating taxation and regulation and does so from a position of scepticism. But it is not “refusenik”: doubtless some taxation and some regulation are vital: the IEA seeks to ensure that they are the least necessary to achieve the greatest good.

Best wishes, Richard D North

I thought my correspondence with Mr Scott was pretty useful, so I’m pleased that it appears here. I had even thought to post it to my www.richarddnorth.com. Naturally (as I think it) I would have asked Mr Scott for permission to publish what I thought was a private exchange.

Mr Kellogg seems to me to be partly right about Lomborg. The great Dane does accept too much of the “consensus” view of GW science. What is intriguing is the sheer uncertainty about what small amounts of Greenhouse Gas emission may “buy” us. For my money, Lomborg over-states the cost of reacting a little to GW, but is right to stress that it may buy us less human well-being than being rich enough to help those who may suffer. It may be a bad investment, as Lomborg stresses.

I agree with Mr Kellog that there is not a scientific conspiracy, and that even if there were it need not have coalesced around an 80% sort of figure as opposed to a 20% – or any other lower – figure. Still, there is merit in the argument that the scientists were rewarded for bad news, and would not have been so well rewarded for good news. More to the point, in my experience most scientists (perhaps because they are mostly state-funded) are left of centre, in the sense of liking a large public sector. Such people are inclined not to worry overly about the expense in human well-being of increased regulation. To that important extent, they are inclined not to interrogate thoroughly the down-side of action of the Kyoto kind.

excellent. I wrote a similar compaint, and have been getting my friends to too. It is really sad that the beeb deals so badly with this. I was doing research for an article on CC and went on to their websight. A lot of the things they said were simply factually incorrect (eg they said that the USA produces the majority of CO2 emittions, and so some say that acton is pointless.) I complained about that too. I always trust the BeeB on things I don’t know about, but why should I when it gets things I do know about wrong?

We have one of those in the UK. It is called the BBC (or at least some of it). As you will see on other posting, the Beeb gets a lot of things just as wrong.

Adam

I would pehaps agree that the IPCC is slightly biased. When Bush got into power, Exxon demanded that he sack the leader person of it and replace them with their man. He did. Their man just resigned, saying that it is too late to avoid catastrophic climate change. Fortunately the new leader isn’t such a hardcore climate sceptic.

I would dispute this. The evidence is not based soaly on computer models any more than evidence for evolution is based on computer models. There are countless geological studies which prove that every time CO2 concentrations have changed, temperatures have fluctuated as predicted. There is plenty evidence from satalite and ground based temperature readings that temperature is rising, and there is plenty of evidence for physics and chemistry labs that greenhouse gases trap heat.

In terms of scientific consensus on climate change, I would point you to an article on Climate Change in the New Scientist around the 12th of March which points out that there has been no peer reviewed paper in any scientific jounal anywhwere on the planet disputing anthropogenic climate change. ther have been something like 15, 000 saying that it is happening. The consunsus with smoking and cancer is equally stong. It is based on scientific theory as currently understood, and statistical evidence, as you so eloquently point out.

The idea that those of us concerned with climate change forget the third world is also ridiculous. Many of us campaign hard on third world poverty, and this is often our primary reason for worrying about CC I have worked for development charities myself, and Friend of the Earth recently joined the “Make Poverty History” coalition. Anyway, even if every qualified, independently funded scientist is wrong, and climate change is not happening, oil is running out. the only fair way to distribute it across the world and over time is through contraction and convergence, the same scheme that Mark proposes (and I agree). On top of this, if you study development economics, you will see that cheap air fuel allows third world countries to be forced to prematurely open up their economies, and so western companies move in before indigenous companies can compete, and profit moves abroad (see Nobel Laureate Joeseph Stiglitz). reducing GHG emissions here would in fact be good for the Third world. On top of this, as mentioned above, if developing countries become oil dependent economies, they will undergo the same crash as the rest of the world when oil extraction peaks. I would also point out that the last chairman of the IPCC was recomended by GW Bush, on the advice of Exxon Mobil. If you recognise that the sceptics you mention were listened too in the IPCC process, despite never having pulished a peer reviewed article in a scientifc journal disputing anthropogenic climate change, then surely it is only fair to accept the overall findings?

Would a man who says it is too late to avoid catastrophic climate change really be a skeptic or rather a pessimist? I thought a skeptic did not believe that GW/CC exists.

How can Bush control the IPCC through Exxon? How does that work?

Forgive me for my political naivety. I am more a technical person. I would be interested to hear more details.

Dan