Petition to the President
Feb 27, 2017 Guest Post by David Holland
Dick Lindzen has sent to President Trump a letter and petition signed by some 300 scientists and experts (H/T Anthony Watts). The petition is for the US to withdraw from the UNFCCC. I had some difficulty accessing it but eventually located a pdf of the letter and the petition itself here.
I'm sure Dick speaks for many BH readers as well some of our MPs. Even at the high water mark in 2008 only a little over half of British voters thought humans were responsible for most global warming and less than half thought it a pressing problem. Recent opinion polls now show that barely 10% of the public regard climate change as a serious concern. Few can now dispute the global agricultural benefits of increased carbon dioxide concentration, but in the UK and elsewhere we are seeing the chronic health damage resulting from the dash to diesel subsidised by foolish governments.
Hopefully when Parliament debates the Grand Repeal Bill some of our smarter MPs will push to dump any directives requiring reductions in carbon dioxide emissions or support for the UNFCCC.
Reader Comments (404)
Hmm … hardly any who've actually published in the field, quick word count:
Retired: 48
Emeritus: 44
Engineer: 86
And Lindzen has seen fit to include:
Christopher Monckton, a serial misrepresenter of the IPCC amongst others.
Oliver Manuel, who believes the sun has an iron core.
Tim Ball, who lies about his credentials and when challenged declined to defend himself against the charge that "The Plantiff is viewed as a paid promoter of the agenda of the oil and gas industry rather than as a practicing scientist."
Don Easterbrook, who lies about the Greenland ice core.
Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen, Reader in Geography at Hull University.
Nils Axel-Morner, water diviner. When Nils encounters a chart showing rising sea levels he simply rotates it until the trend is flat.
S Fred Singer, needs no introduction.
Padding the petition with charlatans like these means it carries about as much weight as a feather on the Moon.
Trump will love it.
Hurray for this petition from well qualified scientists.
However one point about your comments on diesel - while it may contribute to some deaths in urban areas, some of the figures being hurled around look no more substantiated than the scare stories on climate change and it should be remembered that diesel is a much less explosive fuel than petrol and must reduce the risk of dying in car fires - a singularly unpleasant way to die. Substituting petrol for diesel would surely increase such deaths. Remember the tragic loss of 13 young people in the petrol-fuelled Hagley minibus crash. The fact that the two survivors were hardly injured points to the unpalatable probability that it was the explosion which killed.
In the early days of jet airliners some airlines insisted on using JP4, a petrol type fuel, while most opted for safer kerosene, fairly comparable to diesel on this count. It took a campaign by pioneer aviator Lord Brabazon and sadly a couple of tragedies involving unnecessary deaths in JP4 powered airliners before that fuel vanished from the airways.
Personally I would like to see petrol likewise disappear from the roads.
Seems like @PhilC sits in his GreenBlob office (Friends of The Earth ?) waiting to jump on a new post and spoil it with his sneering.
What's wrong with Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen ?
List of publications on Google ScholarShe a long term published researcher
less than a third of signers are retired ..What's wrong with that ?
- @Phil doesn't seem to realise that Emeritus is a position held by people above retirement age.
Correction: it was unfair to lump Sonja in with the charlatans. She is merely unqualified.
And Nils Morner is a failed diviner.
BUUUUUUUUUT she posts about the wrong things Stew!!!!
Anyway, the fact that 10% of the population still believes Mann Made Global Warming (tm) is a serious problem is a serious problem in itself that (the fact we still have that many self deluded fools in general circulation!!!)!!!
Regards
Mailman
PhilC,
Then Nils should be right at home given the calibre of types of people who call themselves climate scientists.
Mailman
Hmm to @Phil Having a doctorate in Limits to the international control of marine pollution and having taught environmental policy since the mid-1990s means you don't have any expertise on environmental policy.
But what @Phil demonstrates is that the list might well be much longer if it wasn't due to the kind of sneering and intimidation dogmatic ecolobbyists spout thus forcing people of sincere and rational views into the closet.
Phil,
At least we can agree on one thing - Trump will love it.
Ian,
I agree that diesel is less explosive (it can still cause fires) but NOX and particulates are a serious risk to health and the dash to diesel like VF replacement of incandescent lamps shows the folly of governments thinking that they can drive technology.
Sonja of course served (serves?) as Editor of the journal of last resort, Energy and Environment.
She is on record as conceding she is unqualified to comment on climate science, in this letter to Michael Mann:
Keep waving the hand Phil. Im sure no one will notice you trying to distract people from the inevitable win that Trump is about to deliver to us deniers :)
Regards
Mailman
LOL Facts from Twitter, Foreign Policy from Fox, and now Science from Monckton.
I detect a pattern ;-)
Feb 27, 2017 at 3:41 PM | Unregistered CommenterIan Wilson
Ian - do you have any data on casualties due to petrol fires in cars? It's a subject that interests me from a practical point of view.
Watching car crash porn on Youtube, eg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-ONAo64ksc, I think I have only once seen a car go up in flames. But I would still not want to drive an MG TD on the French motorway with the possibility of being rear-ended.
Martin,
Some stats here on page 50.
From 2001/02 to 2011/12 car fire deaths halved to just 37. Until 1966, I used to have an MG TA but could never afford enough petrol to cause a good fire.
Heh, my brother once owned an MG TF in Australia that caught on fire. Apparently he had a surplus of petrol leaking from the carburetor.
Would Phil please deign to attack the substance of the letter rather than the hominems who signed it?
=====================
Phil Clarke still howling at the moon, I see.
Kim,
Engine fires from SU carbs were not infrequent with old MGs. I managed to set my TA on fire by repairing the flexible exhaust section with fibreglass. The pedals came up through the floorboard and it was the flames licking round my feet that alerted me to my error!
Keep waving the hook, Mailman, the crocodile is gaining on you.
@Mailman Feb 27, 2017 at 4:31 PM
Yes I could tell right from the start that @PC aim is to distract and doesn't care what he writes.
He comes from he world of PR trickery, fake-narrative building and intimidation.
..So normally I wouldn't bother to indulge him, but there were a number of open goals in what he said.
His latest "conceding she is unqualified to comment " is a non sequitur from the evidence he gave.
So yes it's just "hand waving"
i.e. Lifetime achievers who are now free to speak their minds without fear of losing their jobs or suffering other victimization.
i.e. People who have a professional duty to be truthful, competent and accurate. People who may lose their jobs if they are seriously negligent, incompetent, or dishonest. (Something no climate scientist has ever had to worry about, and seemingly never will.)
Once-respected scientist submits petition signed by fruitcakes and fraudsters. Sad.
There is not much 'substance', just assertions at odds with actual expert opinion, he certainly does not reference any literature (how could he?).
But Kim, if you'd care to provide some evidence to support the assertions, I'd be happy to review. But that's not really your thing, is it?
@Bishop draws our attention to the law of unintended consequences, quoting the EU pushing us into diesel.
@ Ian Wilson Feb 27, 2017 at 3:41 PM points out the danger of rushing from diesel cars to much MORE FLAMMABLE petrol
Furthermore on Diesel panic ..we have a false narrative being pushed
"The science is settled diesel is killing people today and we have to do something right now."
#1 take care with the provenance of the evidence cos studies are based on extrapolation of "CORRELATION not causation studies"
#2 Where are the bodies ?
Neither diesel nor air pollution appear on any UK death certificates as a primary cause (nor secondary AFAIK)
Quoted death stats are an artificial construct by adding up theoretical shorter lifespans of some people.
#3 Those theoretical death stats come from CORRELATION not causation studies.
#4 MattRidley in the Times last week pointed out that people believe another false-narrative
more in the Drs against Diesel Thread last pageRØMCKE, Nils Håkon: (Swedish emailer who wished to sign the petition);
WT actual F? Comedy?
This is beginning to make the Oregan Petition look legit.
I see PCs getting his info from Reddit or the new Guardian article
Link to WUWT story
Cue Michael Hart's breakdown of the honors & achievements of the 100 contrarians who signed Stark's Anti-Relativity petition
Here is a provisional list of the signatories who are modest about their relevant expertise.
BEE, Roger: ();
BEETHAM, Barry: ();
BILLARD, Geoffrey: ();
BOOTHBY, David: ();
BRASSEUR, Claude: ();
BREEZE, Simon: ();
CULLEN, Ray: ();
GORNER, Joan: ();
GRANBERG, Kurt: ();
KLEVELAND, Gunnvald: ();
MCDONELL, Ian: ();
MCDONELL, Narelle: ();
MOCKTON (sic), Christopher: ();
NELSON, Brand: ();
NELSON, Darren: ();
RØMCKE, Nils Håkon: (Swedish emailer who wished to sign the petition);
SUNDIN, Claes: ();
TAYLOR, Lyndon E.: (PhD);
ZELLER, Karl: (Ph.D. ); adjunct professor, Colorado State University
Of those who do disclose, lots of Engineers, Physicists, Chemists, a couple of politicians, an Australian GP, a forestry manager - but only a handful who have actually published in climate science. In fact the number of climate scientists who have not signed is a lot higher than 97%. The Law of Unintended Consequences strikes again.
I will now dedicate my efforts into discovering who is Nils Romcke? The future of the planet may be at stake ;-)
Stew, No I hadn't read Reddit or the Guardian piece, thanks.
Heh, Phil, write Trump a letter. Nevermind that he'll pay more attention to one from Richard Lindzen than from you. The future of the world may be at stake.
===============
If only we had Gore, Mann or Gleike on our team. We might be taken seriously then. Oh yes
Nil Desperandum, EO, you have the mighty Nils Romcke!
I'll wake up tomorrow and hiLIARy will still NOT be President.
Eight long years PC...8 cold, dark and lonely years my friend hahahahahahaa:)
Regarding my comments on the superior fire safety of diesel compared with petrol, a few contributors have asked if I have statistics. I don't, my background being aviation. I recall Lord Brabazon, who felt passionately about the need to use the safest possible fuel, offering to stand in a pool of kerosene and throw a match (which he subsequently did), challenging any JP4 (petrol) exponent to do likewise with their fuel. There were no takers.
Sadly it took another tragedy before petrol vanished from the airways. A JP4 fuelled B707 took off from a wrong runway, hit machinery and exploded, resulting in a heavy and lamentably unnecessary death toll. Passengers started shunning the JP4 users.
I suspect car fires may be more of a problem than sometimes realised. About a year ago a family only just escaped from their burning house after their parked VW Golf caught fire. More recently, my sister-in-law was sitting in her (also VW) car when a knock on the window alerted her that it was on fire. It became a total loss. I think Volkswagen tried to save money at one time by using poor quality wiring so it may be a problem confined to that company but it does make one wonder.
If diesel is replaced by petrol on the road I do fear it may result in many more deaths in fires. Greenpeace and others campaigning for the demise of diesel would bear a heavy responsibility.
Phil Clarke and Russell are both now deniers. They deny that we are headed for an irreversible imminent (next 100 years) climate catastrophe directly caused by increases in CO2, at current rates, as a result of human burning of natural fuels like coal and gas (definition often shortened to CAGW). Welcome on board fellas.
Since we are now officially not headed for such a climate catastrophe, all past evidence shows that our civilisation has the capability to deal with the (relatively) minor problems that may arise on a case by case basis. In fact we have had predominantly good effects so far - more vegetation, and slightly more warmth.
Clearly any deleterious effects on our societies, and any possible amelioration, are not within the area of expertise of climate scientists. It is especially welcome that so many well qualified people - who have the sort of knowledge which may be needed if any climate change problems do arise - have signed Dr Richard Lindzen's letter.
Very few climate "psientists" on that list, Phil.
And do you know why?
Either their snouts are deep in the trough of green grants, or they are as thick as the animals who usually use troughs.
What a pity their vaunted models are useless at predicting the future with the Trump effect operating.
David - thanks for the road vehicle fire stats. Interesting.
I had an Austin Maxi and smelt petrol while driving along. I opened the bonnet and was greated by a visible cloud of petrol vapour. A rubber pipe supplying the carb had broken and petrol was pouring over the hot engine and exhaust.
But in my years of motoring, I have only witnessed two actual car fires.
Cars like the MG TD have the petrol tank at the rear to act as impact absorber from any shunt arriving from behind.
http://www.britbits.com/html/Service_Restoration_work/1952_Barker_TD/rear_view.JPG
I imagine that any carburettor without an air filter might be prone to catching fire from the engine backfiring through the carb.
Governments not very foolish - from a monopoly capitalism perspective the climate change thingy has been a near total success. Prices are higher then income over vast areas and in the old traditional capitalist plantations the gap is extreme. Industrial sabotage(real scarcity ) is the natural choice when artifical scarcity breaks down . glo
It is worth noting the number of accredited Climate Scientists and other experts involved with the various IPCC Reports. How come they all got so much wrong?
Clearly 97% of Climate Scientists are incompetent, as The Guardian confirms on a daily basis. Trump needs to divest US Taxpayers from Climate Science ASAP.
Martin A, thank you for confirming that hot exhaust pipes DON'T ignite petrol. Another regular mistake made by Hollywood types.
This could interest Trump a bit too.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/02/27/foia-lawsuit-filed-over-state-department-role-in-forging-paris-climate-agreement/
Obviously Phil Clarke remains confident that Climate Scientists have done nothing wrong, but he relied on them for his confidence in Gergis.
97% of Climate Science is as Unreliable as the power they support, but they may have lied about that aswell.
The Golden Goose of Climate Science funding has been Cooked. Phil Clarke should be grateful that none of the Petition Signatories are Law Enforcement Officers. But Law Enforcement Officers can read, and ask more questions.
Keep waving the hook, Mailman, the crocodile is gaining on you.
Feb 27, 2017 at 6:05 PM | Unregistered CommenterRussell
So, what you're saying Russel, is...
Yesterday, slightly O/T
"Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett on Monday said he has not yet seen sufficient evidence that climate change is affecting weather events to a degree that would make him change the way his conglomerate's insurance businesses write policies.
Events such as Hurricane Sandy have raised concerns that global warming is increasing the intensity and frequency of so-called superstorms.
"I have not seen anything yet that would cause me to change the way we look at evaluating quakes, tornadoes, hurricanes by atmosphere. Now, that may happen some day," he told CNBC's "Squawk Box."
He added that the frequency of Florida hurricanes has been "quite low" for roughly the last decade compared to historical trends, and storms in the Sunshine State, Texas and the U.S. Southeast have been "remarkably benign."
Buffett delivered a similar assessment in last year's annual letter to shareholders. In that letter, he said climate change had not up until then "produced more frequent nor more costly hurricanes nor other weather-related events covered by insurance."
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/27/warren-buffett-global-warming-not-impacting-berkshires-insurance-biz.html
Nothing but ad hominems from you, right from the very start
RR A petiiton like this is basically an appeal to authority, so it is apposite to point out that some the authorities are, in fact, discredited. Do you dispute that Morner, for example, rotates inconvenient graphs, or that Ball dropped a libel suit when faced with a robust counterdefence?
Some interesting omissions, Spencer but no Christie or Curry ….
But a curious world holds its breath. Who is Nils Romke?
Then there's this
Phil. It has been some time since I reviewed the work of Morner but my recollection is that he complained that sea-level data from satellites, which showed no change, had been rotated, to illustrate a rise, by being adjusted - using questionable tide gauge data. Morner merely removed the adjustment by rotating the plotted data back to its original position. Hardly a heinous scientific crime that you are suggesting.
I have great respect for his work on the Maldives and have seen some of the evidence he found that indicates a local sea-level fall.
I have great respect for his work on the Maldives and have seen some of the evidence he found that indicates a local sea-level fall.
Morner's work on the Maldives made it into the literature in New perspectives for the future of the Maldives'.
However this paper was roundly debunked in the same journal by Paul Kench, who found that Morner's work contained 'a number of unqualified and unreferenced assertions that necessitate comment' and
A followup study by Philip Woodword also found Morner's work to be 'implausible' and concluded that
Elsewhere Morner misrepresented himself as president of INQUA
See also here for details of Morner's 'colourful' post-academic career in divining and amateur archeology. Highlights include him spectacularly failing to demonstrate any skill on a Swedish TV show, and claiming to have discovered the 'Hong Kong of the Ancient Greeks' in Sweden. He and a homeopath friend were reprimanded by the Scania County archaeologist for damaging an Iron Age cemetery during their quest to demonstrate 'Bronze Age calendar alignments'. Archaeologist and chair of the Swedish Skeptics Society, Martin Rundkvist, comments that if Nils-Axel Mörner is associated with a project, it’s “a solid guarantee for high-grade woo.”
Such is the calibre of Lindzen's experts.
Selective belief in experts Phil? The evidence for a slightly higher sealevel is still there* and as I have said I have seen it and IMO it is credible.
* unlike the mangrove tree on a Maldives reef flat that indicated no sea level rise since it germinated and was ripped out by Australian climate activists who preferred fake news.
'I've seen it' is slightly less persuasive than 'here it is'.
Morner's evidence was presented in his paper and found to be lacking. You are of course free to prefer conspiratorial anecdotes to the published literature if that's how you roll.
Lindzen was taught incorrect radiative physics. He then did real experiments and found that CO2 CS was ~0.5 K.
That 0.5 K is itself dubious because it was a transient.
Phil Clarke, when you say a paper has been "debunked", previous experience indicates that your claims are based on the work of another lying Climate Scientist.
You should be aware that sea level has been rising steadily for 100s of years, and that land level goes up and down, irrespective of the level of the sea changing.
What is different about your claims this time? You just seem to be adding names to the list of those that have discredited Climate Science, without ever adding to the cumulative pool of knowledge.
PS Morner made the 'marker tree' claim in this pamphlet.
If you look closely at his photo on Page 35, there's a clear photoshop graft line about a third of the way up, and another far left. This 'scientist' is faking evidence. I wonder why?
Morner's evidence was presented in his paper and found to be lacking. You are of course free to prefer conspiratorial anecdotes to the published literature if that's how you roll.
Feb 28, 2017 at 10:38 AM | Phil Clarke
I think you have just confirmed that Morner was correct, and that Global Warming is 97% Conspiracy Theory, Smear and Innuendo. When are the Hockey Teamsters going to produce some science?
If you began by renouncing the Hockey Stick, you could try to start again, but political confidence in Climate Science seems to have nose-dived due to lack of evidence.