The Hadley Agenda

The scientists at the Met Office's Hadley Centre, have discovered an error in the way they calculate the global temperature. Up until now, the smoothed data for a given year has been based upon those months' data which is available - so the 2007 trend, as reported in February 2007, was based on data for January and February of that year. At the time, this gave an sharply rising temperature trend, which was rather convenient for the IPCC Working Group I which was meeting at the time, enabling all and sundry to conclude that we were all doomed.

Roll forward to 2008 and the data for January and February 2008 show temperatures falling at an equally startling rate.

And guess what? Suddenly the disinterested scientists at Hadley have discovered that their methodology is all wrong! They're going to change things to eliminate the bias. Well, bully for them!

Isn't it amazing that this indavertent error has gone unnoticed for all these years? Isn't it more amazing still how it only got noticed when temperatures were falling? Someone with a more suspicious mind than me might think these guys had an agenda!

It's amusing also to note that Professor Phil Jones, the head of the Hadley Centre (update: CRU) is a man with an extraordinary reluctance to release his data and code to outsiders, even refusing to acquiesce to requests under the Freedom of Information Act. We can reach our own conclusions as to why he might do this, but for the moment it's salutory to note that, had he adopted a position of openness, this embarrassing error, which surely calls into question his competence to occupy the position of trust he does, might never have happened.

(Updated to fix Jones' affiliation)

Property law

Much fun at the Volokh Conspiracy this morning, where you can find out more than normal people should want to know about property law as manifested in the Lord of the Rings. Apparently all that fighting and questing and general nastiness could have been avoided if all parties to the dispute had properly followed the law of acquisition.

Apparently Pride and Prejudice is actually a treatise on property law too. 

Muslim weather

The Archbishop of Canterbury has partially got his way. British weather has been declared Muslim.

It's either Sunni or Shiite.

(Pinched wholesale from Vindico Vindico )

More scientists speak out against global warming hysteria

Professor Mike Hulme is a climatologist who heads the Tyndall Centre at the University of East Anglia. He seems to have been starting to speak out against climate change hysteria, and he's put a personal statement up on his website outlining his views.

In recent months I have been chastised for some of my pronouncements on climate change. I have spoken out against the use of exaggerated language in the description of climate change risks; I have spoken about the limits and fragility of scientific knowledge; I have suggested that we should focus on nearer-term policy goals to improve human welfare rather than be so pre-occupied with one large longer-term goal of global climate management. As a consequence I have been accused of burying my head ostrich like in the sand; of undermining the power of science; of lacking passion about ‘solving’ the ‘problem’ of climate change.

This treatment, as anyone who has ever questioned the "consensus" knows, is actually rather reasonable compared to what some have had to put up with.

The rest of the statement sets out his views in more detail - the subheadings give a flavour of where he stands:

• Climate change is a relative risk, not an absolute one
• Climate risks are serious, and we should seek to minimise them
• Our world has huge unmet development needs
• Our current energy portfolio is not sustainable
• Massive and deliberate geo-engineering of the planet is a dubious practice

OK, so there's things to disagree with here, but it's a much more reasonable starting position than the standard "We're aaaall doooomed!!!" which most other commentators adopt. It's also amazing to note how similar this position is to that of Bjorn Lomborg who has been regularly smeared because of his views.

Hulme and some other scientists also have a paper published in Natural Hazards Review (subscription only, so no link) advocating adaptation rather than the economic lunacy that governments around the world have opted for. Predictably this is getting little or no coverage from the mainstream media - the only UK outfit to pick up on it so far is the Telegraph.

The world would be better off adapting to the consequences of climate change rather than trying to fight the causes, according to scientists.[...]

Their controversial view, which they accept will lead to them being branded as "the new pariahs of global warming", is that the world would be better off fighting the consequences of climate change - hunger, storm damage and disease - rather than spending billions of pounds trying to stabilise CO2 emissions across the planet.

Is the tide turning, I wonder?

The end of the enlightenment

Our European colleagues have been demonstrating the meaning of the European Convention on Human Rights, and in particular Article 9, which is on the subject of freedom of speech.

Article 9 – Freedom of thought, conscience and religion

1. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance.
2. Freedom to manifest one's religion or beliefs shall be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of public safety, for the protection of public order, health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

Note particularly the second point above. What we have is freedom of speech subject to whether the state thinks what you are saying is acceptable. Don't believe me? Take a look at this:

So it has happened: thoughtcrime is now officially a crime in Finland. Stating your opinion, moreover stating your opinions based of government statistics, is illegal. Finns may now only express a politically sanctioned range of opinions subject to supervision by official Gauleiters like Mikko Puumalainen. The fine is small but so what? The message is clear. Dissent will not be tolerated by the Finnish state. It should not matter a damn if you agree with what Mikko Ellilä says, it is outrageous that he is not being allowed to say what he thinks.

Can we leave yet? 

Something interesting from Belgium

No, really!

Inadvertently, the Region of Flanders in Belgium is positioning itself as a retirement haven for retired entrepreneurs from all over Europe.  In reaction to a decision of the European Court of Justice, Flanders has changed its inheritance tax legislation so that these businessmen can come and live in Flanders and save on inheritance tax on their estate.

This looks like it's going to be a scheme which is open to all but the smallest business owners, and once you're in, the rate of inheritance tax applied is Nil.

Toyota Prius

The Sunday Times assessed the economy of the greens favourite motor, the Toyota Prius, with an oil-burning BMW 5-Series.

And the BMW turned out to be more efficient than the gas guzzling Prius.

David Cameron, who found the Prius too small for his requirements, will be mightily relieved. 

(Via Lubos Motls) 

Government in miniature

Rumour reaches me of another government IT fiasco. Apparently the grandly-named Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care (SCRC) has created a shambles with its system for carers to report on how they're getting on.

Back in the good old days, childminders had a simple business relationship with their customers. If you had to go out to work, you probably found a friend or relative who had children of their own to look after and came to a mutually acceptable arrangement to have them look after your kids too. Money changed hands, and the child went to the childminder for as long as both parties were happy with the arrangement.

In Labour's brave new world, this is not allowed. If someone is going to accept money for childminding, they have to register with the bureaucracy and do as they are told. They have to fill in lots (that's LOTS) of forms, which need to be processed by a whole new bureaucracy set up for the purpose. Another lot of parasites bureaucrats will demand access to the childminder's home to inspect whether it meets the bureaucracy's definition of "suitable" and "safe" or not. They can demand any changes they want. If the cost is too high, that's tough. You can't be a childminder. If the parent has a different opinion on what is suitable and safe, that's irrelevant too. The bureaucracy has spoken. You may not hold opinions different to those of the state.

Now remember that childminding is not a well-paid job. So the result of the government's actions is almost certainly that there will be fewer childminders - who is going to want to go through all that pain, paperwork and cost just to earn a few extra quid a week? This effect is made worse by the fact that the government limits the numbers of children that a childminder can care for at any one time. Again, you have to wonder why they think that parents and childminder aren't felt to be sufficiently grown-up to make these decisions between them.

But that's not all. Every year, SCRC requires childminders to make an annual return. This seems to involve having childminders complete a whole lot more paperwork (it would do, wouldn't it?). There's a self-assessment form to be filled in by the childminder, there's surveys of parents so that they can waste their time too, and there's a new website to negociate. Quite why I, as a parent, have to tell somebody else whether I'm happy with the childminding service is beyond me. If I wasn't happy, why the hell would I send my child there? This isn't being done for my benefit is it?

So cui bono? It goes without saying that there is a whole new bureaucracy to look after the annual returns too. So the chief beneficiaries would appear to be the SCRC themselves. What a bunch of parasites.

Anyway, because they're bang up to date with all the latest interwebby stuff, the SCRC has decided that annual returns can be completed via a whizzy new website. Except that (and we might have expected this) it isn't whizzy at all. It has apparently fallen over big time, with childminders having spent literally days preparing data which has disappeared, apparently without trace, into the bowels of the computer. Apparently some carers have been reduced to dictating their returns to SCRC staff over the phone. These are the lucky ones, because apparently the phones are being diverted to answering machines now.

So we have a set of procedures that are not needed and a bureaucracy that nobody wants, all supported by a computer system that doesn't work.

Government in miniature. 

Today's must read article

An alarming article at Spy Blog.

Danger ! Draft Constitutional Renewal Bill Part 6 tries to remove even the limited constitutional safeguards of the "destroy Parliament" Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006

Read the whole thing, and then weep.

New in the blogroll

This is the first addition to my blogroll for a while - Head of Legal, the blog of a barrister turned writer.

What are schools for?

Robert X Cringely writes a provocative piece on what schools are for in the age of Google. Or rather, he wonders whether there is actually a need for them at all. Well worth a look.

More recognition for Climate Audit

The environmental activists at Nature may refuse to link to Climate Audit but this sort of silliness is not universal. As a reader points out to me via email, the University College London Environmental Change Institute not only links to CA from its blogroll, but also carries the full blog as a feed direct to its own pages. Following Steve McIntyre's invitation to address faculty and students at Georgia Tech, this looks like further evidence that the right for sceptical views to be heard is being won.

This recognition is well-deserved, of course, and makes the Climate Audit denialist position of Nature look even sillier than it did before. This will not change their position, of course.

("Climate Audit denialism". I like that.)

H/T to Frederick Colbourne via email. 

Liberal Youth

According to this, the LibDem youth wing is to be relaunched as Liberal Youth. They were previously called Lib Dem Youth and Students.

Is there any significance in the party dropping the "Dem" bit from the party name. Are they to be liberals, pure and simple, and not just another more-than-usually-woolly social democrat party?  If you look at their policy documents they still seem to be the old orgy of tax and spend that have characterised the party's platform of recent years. There is, however a suggestion that the whole range of policies will be revamped following the relauch. Let's hope so, but let's not hold our breath either, shall we?

Women's studies

Via Croziervision, this story at Laban Tall's:

Women's Studies as a distinct undergraduate discipline will disappear this October, when the last institution offering first degrees, London Metropolitan University (formerly Hoxton Working Men's Club) stops taking undergrads. According to this Today report (RealAudio, 15 mins in) it's down to lack of demand.

There are very few things that the government have got right in the last ten years. Independence for the Bank of England was one. The other (and I can only think of the two) was the imposition of fees for university education. Suddenly, doing the student bit is no longer a matter of "an amusingly tipsy way of spending three years" or "a lifestyle choice", but a matter of finding a way to do something that is useful to society - which is to say, something that people are willing to pay for. It's small wonder that people are now avoiding mickey mouse degrees in favour of something which might actually give them a living at the end of it.

The counter-argument to my hypothesis is that a university education is not vocational - it's about interacting with clever people, broadening ones mind, having the time to think, blah, blah, rhubarb. To which I would respond that we've got the internet now.  You want mind broadening? Find a decent chatroom.

Another global warming sceptic

Professor Laurence I Gould, a physicist from the University of Hartford writes an opinion piece of the newsletter of the New England section of the American Physical Society:

The world has been inundated with claims about dangerous anthropogenic global warming (AGW). Such claims continue to be advocated by a number of scientists, believed by frightened citizens, prominently featured in the mass media, urged to be acted on by many politicians, held to be true by a variety of business people, and spread through educational institutions. As a result, there has emerged a predominant AGWA [my acronym for AGW Alarmist (or Alarmism)] point of view. That point of view probably stems from a confluence of interactions explained through sociology, psychology, philosophy, politics, economics, the media, and science. Only a few of those issues can be treated here — and then, only briefly.

I think it urgent that members of the scientific community should know about some of the issues being propagated. It is urgent because of the dangers to physics in particular, and to science and, consequently, to civilization (depending so heavily as it does on science) in general.

The global warming enthusiasts have been known to call, from time to time, for sceptics ("denialists") to be tried for crimes against humanity. Those of us on the other side of the debate might wonder what steps the scientific community will take against those who have promoted the scam with such vehemence, once the whole house of cards comes tumbling down.

Via Greenie Watch.