Bishop Hill DECC 2 - response to Turnbull
Sep 11, 2012 Climate: Parliament Climate: Sceptics This document, outlining how DECC should respond to Lord Turnbull's GWPF report on climate policy is fascinating. The scientific briefings that ministers get from DECC officials are indistinguishable from Greenpeace press releases.
Bishop Hill
Now this is interesting. Note on page 9 this bit about the Hockey Stick:
In 2006, the US National Academies of Science carried out a full review of the evidence of temperatures in the last millennium, including the so-called ‘Hockey Stick’ diagram. They found that for the Northern Hemisphere at least, the rapid warming of the past half century has resulted in a level of warmth not seen in at least 500 years, and likely for at least the past 1300 years.
Close followers of the Hockey Stick saga will know of course that this is what the IPCC said about the Hockey Stick; the NAS were much more cautious, saying that it was merely "plausible" beyond 500 years.
Perhaps more intriguingly, we have seen these exact words before, in the paper that Julia Slingo prepared for Sir John Beddington in the wake of Climategate (see my earlier post here).
So the falsehood passes from Slingo to Beddington to DECC officials to ministers.
The finest scientific minds in the country and not one of them spotted it.
Reader Comments (21)
I can't access that, says damaged and can't be repaired?
whoops, there it is, sorry.
It would be interesting to find out who in DECC writes this garbage.
Author names are in the document properties.
"Author names are in the document properties."
"aconboy"
Seriously?
That is a shocking document. There are simply too many errors to even begin pointing them out.
My friend works in DECC and he has described the groupthink that permeates it from the senior staff and 'advisors'. But if this is what ministers are getting as briefing, no wonder they don't know what they're talking about.
Alison Conboy. Department of Energy and Climate Change.
Alison says the IPCC are not infallible:
jncc.defra.gov.uk/pdf/IPBES_AC-IPCC_-11-07-05.pdf
and previous job included being a CAGW "facilitator":
http://www.danacentre.org.uk/events/2009/05/12/500
She was also consulted for the Steve Jones BBC science review.
www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/assets/files/pdf/.../science_impartiality.pdf
Really... the Garnaut Review is utter rubbish it has circular reasoning and references carbon related government agencies for it's claims.
He starts off by using Muller's conversion from skepticism as an example of mainstream opinion for crying out loud.
It is shocking that drivel like this is even anywhere near a government department. DECC is an embarrassment to our modern democracy and this document reads like a propaganda leaflet handed out to the citizens of communist Russia.
Acolyte1 'CAGW is real because Acolyte2 says it is'
Acolyte2 'CAGW is real because Acolyte1 says it is'
DECC are, as are most UK MPs, continuing to make a serious and fundamental error. Apart from the dodgy so-called 'science' and the wholly unscientific claim to consensus, the UK Parliament's sole responsibility is to the UK population, it's care and defence. They are also responsible for the CURRENT generation, not future ones, 50 or 100 years hence. They are NOT responsible for the rest of the world, and considering the UK's puny CO2 emissions compared to the global canvas, can have no serious or credible policy that make any dent in the climate record.
One should also pick them up on the confused nature of the report, as in one paragraph they say "The evidence", next paragraph they say "best estimate" (i.e. guess), and the next "We fully understand"!! These statements do not fit together. Either we understand or we don't, and the truth is, we don't (understand the spatio-temporal chaotic climate system). Such is DECC's confusion and blatant advocacy, that they simply cannot be taken seriously.
Let's hope our new environment secretary can bring about some realism, although what influence he'll have over Ed Davey remains to be seen, but he'll certainly strengthen George Osbourne's position.
Overwhelming majority of climate experts, according to Garnaut who references Anderegg and this is being pushed onto our ministers by DECC. The mind boggles.
The DECC briefing paper is chock full of howlers. It's a chilling thought that government policy is based on this sort of junk.
For example, the DECC's view of solar variability:
In stark contrast, this is what NASA's 'Variable Sun' Mission has to say on the subject:
and
Surely only DECC cold be stupid enough to employ anybody really called
A Con Boy
and expect their work to be taken seriously?
The polymath musician, David Bowie, changed his name from Jones to avoid any confusion with the short English one from The Monkees. And I doubt many innocently christened Derek Trotter gave thanks to John Sullivan for Only Fools and Horses.
But surely 'A Con Boy' is a step too far!
It's an interesting document, isn't it? It starts sounding totally reasonable, yes, let's hear your concerns and this is how we respond to them, but it seemed to me the tone became more and more shrill and insistently brooking no argument, even on areas where the evidence is very clear. Saying that the IPCC has addressed the concerns raised, for instance, is simply dishonest, or the summary of climategate etc. This is how totalitarian governments behave.
That is quite a briefing!
If that is the sort of thing all politicians receive when asking for a brief on "climate change" then it is astounding to observe how this present government seems to be rowing back on windfarms and generally winding down its "reduction of carbon dioxide emissions" policies.
Are they brave? Better-informed? Do the eeevil fossil fuel industries have them by the short and curlies? Are we even closer to having the lights go out than I thought?
In the face of stuff like this which tells us we are all going to die? It is a bit curious.
I corresponded with Slingo and determined that her remarks to the SciTech COmmittee were based on Wahl's assessment, as inserted into Briffa's section of the IPCC. The delete-all-emails correspondence.
Googling A.Conway shows she is a cheer leader for the IPCC and has talked at COP and such places so her taking the IPCC line on the LOL Stick is understandable.
Praise be to the IPCC.
Turnbull's report was a clear and balanced call for reason, not something that had to be refuted. His frontispiece summary should hang on every DECC office wall.
"A Conboy" How appropriate.
She has certainly done a good job on Cameron.
I thought the National Academy of Science 'plausible' was pretty similar to the IPCC 'likely'
e.g. http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/06/23/national_panel_supports_98_global_warming_evidence/
The National Academy of Sciences, which advises Congress and the government, was then asked to conduct an independent review by the chairman of the House Science Committee, Republican Sherwood L. Boehlert of New York.
``Our conclusion is that this recent period of warming is likely the warmest in the last millennium," said John M. Wallace, one of the 12 panel members and a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington.
During a Washington press conference yesterday, other members of the panel said that they had a high level of confidence -- 90 percent to 95 percent -- that the planet is in its warmest period in 400 years and that the odds are ``2 to 1" that this is probably the warmest period stretching back 1,000 years, as the original study concluded.