The Septic Sceptic

Earth our Crowded Spaceship[?]

The Septic Sceptic — Wed, 29 May 2013 15:10:57 +0000

The title of the this post, without the ?, was the title of a book written in 1974 by the science fiction writer Isaac Asimov. I have mentioned Isaac and this book in previous posts but it seems worth a reprise in view of the publication of Dan Brown’s latest novel ‘Inferno’. Dan is clearly a Malthusian thinker and like Malthus the passage of time, I believe, will prove his thoughts to be equally in error.

Page 56 of Asimov’s tome shows a fearsome graph predicting world population at 7.5 billion by the millennium. Not a bad estimate for 25 years into the future as it turned out. But he then loses the run of himself and starts speculating about 20 billion souls by 2060, while the UN and most other organisations involved in this field are predicting the world population to peak at around 9 billion in 2050, just 2 billion more than the current figure. Where Asimov’s book was supposed to be fact, he lapsed into old habits of writing science fiction, quote “Know natural gas reserves will last only 13 years…Experts see rationing by 1976″. These were his predictions for key mineral depletions – Zinc gone by 1990, Lead gone by 1995, Tin and Oil gone by 2000, Copper and Uranium by 2005 and Iron ore by 2320 – well the jury is still out on that one.

The only difference between these two books is that Asimov wrote a factual book, which as it turned out was based on fiction while Brown has written a fictional book based on, well, fiction. So that’s OK then. I am sure that ‘Inferno’ will, like Brown’s other novels, be a jolly good read, but my problem with this sort of writing is that it pretends to be fact based and the vast majority of those reading it will be taken in by its alarmist nonsense. The film ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ had people similarly believing that Global Warming would cause global freezing – another load of alarmist rubbish.

I’m all in favour of a good exciting novel, but please, let’s leave Inferno and its ilk firmly in the fiction section where it belongs.

‘Thin Ice’ – Same old same old

The Septic Sceptic — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 22:25:59 +0000

Last night I attended the Irish launch of the new global warming propaganda film ‘Thin Ice’ . What interested me was the opportunity to question a panel of experts after the screening. All but one appeared well qualified and knowledgeable in specific areas of science, but the party was somewhat spoiled by the presence on the panel of one ‘Paul Price’. Paul came armed with a white board displaying what I can only describe as a rendition of Michael Mann’s hockey stick graph that had been fed on steroids. Judge for yourselves. He committed the cardinal sin of invoking the precautionary principle with regard to global warming. When I challenged him on this point he appeared not to know what I was talking about. Questions were asked behind the scenes by a senior academic as to why he had been included. I concur.

So, what did I think of “Thin Ice”? Well it’s begging for it isn’t it. Yes I thought the producer, Dr. Simon Lamb, was skating on thin ice with his approach to learning “the Truth” about global warming. Alarm bells go off in my head when I hear a scientist looking for the truth. That’s not what science is about – science is the search for error. The search for truth is theology – but let’s not go there.

At the end of the film Dr. Lamb exclaims that he was “impressed by… how carefully the scientists went about collecting their data excluding all possible sources of error”. Now come on, what scientist worth their salt would claim that they have ‘excluded all possible sources of error’ – none that I have ever come across. And so often it is not what data you produce it is how you present it that persuades people. For example, at the beginning of the film a Dr. Katie Dugger states that “the Antarctic Peninsula is a perfect example of where sea ice has disappeared and so have Adalie penguin populations – they really need the sea ice to do well”. What was the viewer to take from that Dr. Dugger ? Global Warming reduces sea ice, numbers of Adalie penguins decline, ipso facto global warming causes a fall in the numbers of Adalie penguins. Well no, not entirely, not according to NOAA (National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration) and the Scripps Institute of Oceanography who last year completed a 30 year longitudinal study which concludes that “the sea ice hypothesis” promulgated by Dr. Dugger fails.

Not only have Adalie penguin number fallen but so too have Chinstrap penguin numbers and Chinstraps don’t much like sea ice. And just to confuse things even more Gentoo penguin numbers in the same area are doing very nicely thank you. So what’s the real reason? It is the fall in the abundance of Krill (shrimp like crustacean) which just happens to be the favourite food of Adalies and Chinstraps. Gentoos prefer fish and squid. Why is Krill on the decline? The increase in the numbers of Baleen (filter feeder) whales and seals as a result of hunting bans. But NOAA could not leave it at that, they also had to blame global warming for helping to kill off the Krill. Now it is true that the winter temperatures around the West Antarctic Peninsula have increased by 5 degrees C in the last few years. But I’m sure that the active volcano discovered under the West Antarctic ice sheet in 2008 by the British Antarctic Survey had nothing to do with this. And one final thing about the Antarctic – the sea ice is at its greatest extent since the satellite record began in 1979. Today it is 14% about the average (1979 to 2008). Now Dr. Lamb, where is your exclusion of all possible sources of error?

Cognitive Dissonance & Global Warming

The Septic Sceptic — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 11:39:02 +0000

Whoa there tiger – heavy!

Perhaps Mark Twain had a lighter, more understandable explanation of what is going on at the moment in Global Warming circles.
“It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.”

As the prophecies begin to fail, the global warming glitterati are reacting to the ‘disconfirmation’ of their predictions with classic behaviour.

They renew their efforts to prosthelytise the world as the day of reckoning disappears, once again, into the middle distance. Being surrounded by lots of people who believe what you do – however bizarre - is very comforting.

They make ever more extreme claims. David Attenborough is a case in point, telling the world that Africa’s temperature had risen 3.5 deg C in the last 20 years. With the number of Polar Bears increasing, minimal sea level rise and the antarctic ice pack at an all time high. What else could he do?

To hear scienticians claim that their computer models had always predicted, that with Global Warming we would get more snow and the planet would get colder, is a sure sign they are in trouble. Queue scenes from ‘The Day After Tomorrow’.

As with any failing belief system, there will be some apostates. Perhaps the most well-known is James Lovelock, but he is a rare, though delightful, example.

In the end the only way we are going to stop the alarmists from further damaging the world’s economy, is to take away their grant money and tax payer funded subsidies. The chances of convincing them that they have been fooled are slim to none, and look, who’s that going past the window? Yes, you guessed it, Slim just left town.

Ref. ‘When Prophecy Fails’ published in 1956 – yes that’s right 1956

We burn corn not Witches!

The Septic Sceptic — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 14:00:10 +0000

During the Middle Ages climate change had a devastating impact on the world’s population. The Little Ice Age caused famine across the globe, and severely weakened citizens succumbed in their millions to the Black Death and other diseases. In an attempt to understand the problem the great and the good of the scientific and religious communities got together to come up with a solution. Sort of the Medieval equivalent of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). The best idea it seemed was to burn witches. This practice continued for several hundred years and in light of the ending of the Little Ice Age around 1850 it could be claimed to have been something of a success.

Our own IPCC believes that if we could only reduce carbon dioxide emissions then we could end a 150 year rise in world temperatures. To those naysayers who would question the collective wisdom, the head of the IPPC (Ragendra Pachauri) has declared their methods “voodoo science” A campaign of burning 4% of the world’s corn production each year (in the form of ethanol), has been initiated, to mitigate a perceived 3% fall in world corn production due to excess carbon dioxide. Perhaps in a few hundred years we will see whether this has worked. Who know such methods have appeared to be effective in the past.

Source article

IPCC 5AR – Unfalsifiable

The Septic Sceptic — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 23:12:41 +0000

One of the fundamentals of scientific research and the scientific method is the need for the falsifiability of a particular hypothesis. For example I might claim that for every 500 feet rise above sea level, the temperature falls by 1 degree C. This is easily tested. If the temperature instead increased by half a degree for every 500 foot rise above sea level then my hypothesis would fail.
Now, the latest report from the IPPC (5AR) claims that humankind is causing both global warming and global cooling ipso facto their hypothesis is unfalsifiable. This strikes at the very heart of the nature of the IPCC. It does not act in the manner of a scientific institution therefor its pronouncements on things scientific have no validity.
This smacks of desperation. In the face of 17 years of world temperature stasis, these charlatans have nowhere else to go.

Source article

David Attenborough’s Legacy?

The Septic Sceptic — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 16:08:54 +0000

My interest in the environmental movement dates back to my childhood. Basically as far as I can remember. David Attenborough, Hans and Lotte Hass and Jacques Cousteau were the highlight of the single black and white BBC channel that was all that was available in our remote corner of Derbyshire. So it is with great sadness that I perceive that one of these pioneers of wildlife filming, namely David Attenborough, is beginning to tarnish his once sparkling reputation for factual reporting.
The rot started to set in some years ago when he buckled under the pressure of the BBC to tow the warmist line and drop in references in many of his transmissions to the ‘evidence’ of Global Warming. Just a few weeks ago he blotted his copy book (in my eyes) when he described humanity as a plague upon the Earth. Then to my utter amazement in the last episode of his wonderful series on Africa (transmitted in glorious HD and Dolby 7.1) he made the astonishing claim that Africa had warmed by 3.5℃ in the last 20 years. Oh David what has happened to you?
They say you should never meet your heroes. I think I have just got to close to one of mine. Where is the David of the stunning fact, the carefully researched data? I suspect he is just a little tired these days and is relying on some sloppy researcher, who as Leo Hickman of the Guardian opined (yes you heard it right – the Guardian) “You get the sense that they simply Googled “African temperature rise” and went for the first thing they found.”
Please David come back. Is there any chance of a Damascene road conversion as we witnessed with James Lovelock? I do hope so, there is still time.
Source article

Wind Turbines Spin

The Septic Sceptic — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 16:07:44 +0000

You might think that this is a rather obvious statement, but that is not what I mean. Whenever statistics about wind turbine output or unit energy costs are given out by government or the renewable energy industry – there is always a large element of spin. Generation capacity is always given on the basis that the turbine is generating electricity 100% of the time. They have simply adopted the norm for the energy generation industry. The same would hold true for a gas, coal or nuclear plant, so what is wrong with that? I’m sure you’re way ahead of me here. Yes of course, coal, gas, nuclear and hydro power plants average 85% output in one year. Germany estimates that it will get just 30% of its wind turbine capacity in actual power generated. Very naughty – just over a third of the power generated by conventional means. But it gets worse. That is what Germany estimated they would get. In actuality, over a ten year period all they got was 16%. That is why they are building 23 new coal fired power plants, that and of course the fact that wind generated electricity is 50% more expensive than the cost of conventionally produced energy. But here again that is not the whole story. When conventional backup power (remember wind power is only available 16% of the time) is included in the cost and when extra power transmission costs from disparate remote areas and power loss over long distances are taken into account the real cost is almost three times that of the most efficient new gas plants.

Just like any other information you get from politicians or vested interests, wind energy figures have been spun to death.

Source articles

US government over reacting to … AGW say ex NASA employees

The Septic Sceptic — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 14:16:13 +0000

The following article reminds me of a question I asked at last year’s climate conference hosted by the Heartland institute. It was addressed to the ex NASA employees (including an astronaut) on the panel and I asked them why only old ex NASA employees put their heads above the parapet when it came to being sceptical about global warming. This elicited laughter from the panel and the explanation (which I already guessed) that careers would suffer if any existing employees dared to voice dissent.
This article shows once again it is only old and retired scientists whose career’s cannot be affected who can afford to take a contrary view on Global Warming.
It appals me to think that politics in manipulating science in this way. Oh for a white knight to lead a charge against the darkness of politically imposed ignorance.

Original article

Victim & Darling of Global Warming

The Septic Sceptic — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 13:15:15 +0000

A couple of my heroes of the environment movement are the two Davids, Bellamy and Attenborough. Bellamy came late to the party and left early or should I say, was asked to leave for voicing his opinions and then sticking to them. I love them both but of late Attenborough has disappointed me. Unlike Belllamy he succumbed to the pressure of the BBC to tow the line and get with the global warming program. Can I blame him. I’d like to think in the same circumstances I would have stood up to them and said “hang the career” but who knows. Bellamy has paid the price for his obstinacy. Calling global warming “poppycock” pretty much ended his career at the Beeb and signed his own death warrant with the mainstream environmental organisations.

Read the following two articles (coincidentally published in two different papers on the same day) and muse on how differently their careers might have been had they chosen to speak out or shut up.

Bellamy article Attenborough article

PS Attenborough has gone seriously Malthusian. Another false prophet.

The Money Tree

The Septic Sceptic — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 13:31:51 +0000

The following article gives a very good over view of the workings of carbon trading. It also highlights the pitfalls for anyone tempted to get into this get rich quick scheme. Me thinks the smart money is already on the way out and looking for the next main chance. Snake oil anyone?

Source article