Denniss: my tactics for debating Monckton
The House of Lords says that Christopher Monckton is not entitled to claim he is a member of that House, but he disputes this. The internet is full of scientists carefully debunking the claims about climate change made by him, but he is similarly impervious to correction.
Put simply, Lord Monckton is a case study of the emphasis placed by the media on confidence over content. A harder question for the media, however, is why they have given so much prominence to climate sceptics with no qualifications in science when they pay virtually no attention to immunisation sceptics without qualification in epidemiology or fluoride sceptics with no qualifications in chemistry or biology?
So, how do you debate someone who is impervious to evidence? It’s not easy, but here are a few suggestions.
Step one is to agree with them. If Lord Monckton really believes that climate change is a conspiracy of self-interested “warmists”, then talk to the audience about the real consequences of such a conspiracy.
Does Lord Monckton really believe that NASA under George Bush and the CSIRO under John Howard were part of this conspiracy? Does he believe that Andrew Peacock, John Howard, Brendan Nelson, Malcolm Turnbull and Tony Abbott (at least half of the time), not to mention Arnold, Margaret Thatcher and Angela Merkel are in on it as well?
Of course it is not just conservative politicians who accept the science of climate change. Ralph Hillman, the head of the Australian Coal Association, Mitch Hooke, the head of the Minerals Council, do and even Marius Kloppers, the head of BHP, not only accepts the science but supports the introduction of a carbon tax.
Does Lord Monckton really believe that these politicians and business people are all part of some warmist conspiracy?
The next step is to embrace genuine scepticism. One of the reasons that so many hard-working and sincere scientists are genuinely flummoxed by entertainers such as Lord Monckton is that they see themselves as sceptics. That is, the whole basis of scientific inquiry is one of scepticism and questioning, and the whole point of peer-reviewed publications is that science is critically evaluated before it is published.
In claiming scepticism Lord Monckton, who is not a scientist, is actually claiming science for himself. But as a sceptic, Lord Monckton should have no problem accepting the possibility that he himself is wrong. To do otherwise would be an admission that he is simply a zealot.
So in debating Lord Monckton it is important to ask him, and the audience, to think about the consequences if he is wrong.
What if NASA, CSIRO and the world academies of science are right when they tell us that the world is warming, that this warming is caused by our pollution and that the only way to stop it warming further is to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions? We insure our homes against the unlikely event of fire and we plan to spend more than $50 billion on 12 new submarines in case we are one day attacked but, by Lord Monckton’s logic, we shouldn’t pay a price for pollution as an insurance premium against catastrophic climate change.
The third point to make in such a debate flows on from the second. Sceptics increasingly argue that while climate change might be happening the costs of tackling it will be far greater than the costs of ignoring it. In order to maintain such an argument, however, they have to make their conspiracy theory far bigger than the one linking NASA, Greenpeace, John Howard and Marius Kloppers. Indeed, to maintain the argument against a carbon price Lord Monckton has to include the entire economics profession as well.
A good question to ask climate sceptics in general, and one I put to Lord Monckton, was why he was so opposed to a carbon price and so quiet about Tony Abbott’s far more expensive direct action scheme. Tony Abbott has not found a single economist to publicly back his scheme, and an analysis by the Australia Institute estimates that bureaucrats will likely have to process more than 150,000 grant applications to achieve the Coalition’s target of 713 million tonnes of abatement by 2020.
The administration costs will likely be enormous.
So if you ever wind up in a debate with a sceptic try not to take the bait. They want to be attacked; because their conspiracy theory requires them to be seen as possessing dangerous knowledge, which makes powerful people want to silence them. And they want to sound conservative when, of course, their views about climate science, and if you scratch the surface a range of other things, are actually quite extreme.
We live in a democracy, and I hope we always respect free speech. Climate sceptics aren’t the only people in the country who knowingly or otherwise mislead the public, but there is no doubt that their co-ordinated efforts to mislead people have slowed down our efforts to prevent the catastrophic climate change our scientific bodies warn us of.
Only the media can explain why they have given so much attention to extreme and ill-informed views about climate change and choose not to give a similar platform to a range of other conspiracy theorists. But when these debates do go ahead, my advice is that it is best to focus on the risks and consequences and unlikeness of the sceptics being right rather than try and prove that they are wrong.
Not even the House of Lords can convince Lord Monckton that he is wrong.
*Dr Richard Denniss is executive director of The Australia Institute, a Canberra-based think tank.
Seeing Monckton waving his passport and claiming to be a member of a club that won’t have him put me in mind of that character in Little Britain, who keeps claiming “I’m a lady” despite all evidence to the contrary.
As for the media and why they continually turn to unqualified people like the Good Lord (and Angry Anderson for pity’s sake) is that they can’t find anyone suitably qualified to take the position of the deniers, but “in the interests of balance” feel they have to present their arguments. A bit like having two weather reports, one with a qualified meteorologist telling us it’s going to rain, and the other with an accountant and part-time golfer strenuously denying that it will.
Some of us will continue to make up and occasionally change our minds based on evidence and the testimony of those qualified to interpret that evidence. Others will continue to make up their minds and refuse to change them based on what they would prefer to believe. I sincerely hope the former outnumber and out-debate the latter.
Well said Richard.
You might have added that unless one accepts that it is possible to model future climate impacts (which would entail finding both reliable climate modelling, and reliable economic hazard cost modelling) then it’s impossible to say with confidence whether adaptation would be cheaper or equally effective, or more ethically robust than early mitigation. Monckton says: just do nothing but this based purely on his claim that the existing modelling is unreliable rather than that reliable modelling which he stands behind recommends that course as preferable. Once one declares that science and economic theory is inherently the plaything of nefarious agencies that can simply make any claim to suit shadowy interests, one casts aside all possibility of making any firm claims at all. The logic is nihilistic — and far more radical than anything the IPCC could dream up.
Monckton propose the equivalent of driving a car with the fut at a random place on the throttle, the steering wheel randomly set, the driver with a blindfold on, based on the fact that nothing is certain and that one course is no more reasonable than any other.
You know it makes sense.
its all about getting the electorate angry and frustrated “dont listen to those fools in govt,listen to us, we know whats really happening here” is the skeptics line. it is working in the USA so the conservatives are pushing it here,to the detriment of the community
Monckton seems to get a kick out of seeing how far he can push his assertions.It all adds up to a contempt for his fellow journalists and for quality of discussion. It’s extraordinarily disappointing that the NPC should see fit to give him a spot.
It’s harder to find the truths in Monckton’s Press Club appearance than the lies, which came at a steady clip. Well done Richard for not stopping to pick up every golden ball of bullshit he threw behind him.
One shocking bare-faced lie that should have roused the dosy audience was his claim that the Garnaut=fascist reference was “inadvertent”. How “inadvertent” is it to prepare a slide presentation with Garnaut’s remarks snugly alongside a very prominent Nazi swastika with Garnaut’s name above?
Don’t let this dishonest man use you again,NPC.
For sheer eye-popping lunacy you cannot go past the vaudeville act known as “Lord” Chris Monckton; Mr Turnbull nailed his shtick perfectly.
I listened to the NPC ‘debate’ and thought Dr Denniss did an admirable job of disarming this fraud while carefully exposing his ludicrous claims.
Kudos.
That same evening Radio National’s Background Briefing exposed the really ugly underbelly of the Alan Jones, Monckton, Gina Rinehart brigade’s assault on the facts and bellicose rabble rousing of the pitchfork brigade. These are truly odious methods of attracting the intellectually challenged and beating them up into a mob. But that’s what they think they can get away with in the name of ‘free speech’ and hiding behind ‘democracy’.
‘Vile’ is the word that comes to mind.
Ever watch “Candid Camera” - “the subject” knows something’s wrong, but getting “the plant” to change what they’re doing is met with stoic, blithe indifference.
Laugh - the man’s a stooge, planted to get a rise.
I guess everyone went into the “debate” with firm views on the subject and were unlikely to be swayed one way or the other. Dr.Denniss’ main point was that even if you dismissed the global warming scenario as being caused by mankind, it was sensible to take the precautionary attitude of insurance in case you were in fact wrong, to my mind a sensible attitude. Lord Monckton said yes, but only if the cost of the insurance premium was less than the insured risk, again a sensible point.
Overall from the point of view of a debate I felt that Lord Monckton was the clear winner; not surprising as no doubt he has more experience in debating, considering that he seems to make a career of it.
I watched the “debate” and came away with a few impressions.
1. Monckton is a good performer. He reeled of figures and statistics which, in that forum, would be impossible to refute. He relies on bamboozling the audience with a broadside that seems credible on the surface and can’t be easily countered.
2. Denniss was perfectly reasonable and sensible and presented his side well during the debate but didn’t have the showbiz acumen of the “Lord”.
3. It seemed most of the audience could not be swayed either way- i.e. their minds were made up and they latched on anything that supported their views.
4. The forum left little room to counter assertions. - e.g. when Monckton was asked why he does not present his “work” for peer review he countered by asking why aren’t people like Flanagan asked the same question. He then also said that his work has been peer reviewed in some obscure journal by one obscure physicist (I think from memory). The questioner was not allowed to follow up on this and Dennis did not home into it aggressively (in my opinion).
5. The “Lord” question was an unwelcome opportunity for Monckton to display his skill at media manipulation and sound-bite grabbing. Even though he is not a member of the “House Of Lords” he is permitted to use the term Lord as a form of address because he is a hereditary viscount. This is a bit disingenuous as the title was given to his grandfather in 1957 as a political reward, and for him to use it now is what we’d call in the antipodes “wankery”.
It sounds like he pulled a Gish Gallop.
I was in the UK in June and asked a number of my friends, all of whom are pretty well informed, about Lord Monckton. None of them had even heard of him. Why are we giving him so much oxygen.
@ MikeB Regarding Lord Monckton and your remark that he is “permitted” to use his title as an hereditary peer, actually permitted is the wrong verb, he is entitled would be correct.
All peers were entitled to sit in the House of Lords until fairly recently when the undemocratic nature of the upper house was finally ( partially) rectified by excluding many of the peers from the House.
And as far as his peerage being as a reward for a bit of “wankery” on his father’s part. So what- take a look at many others, ex- trade unionists and other time servers, or for matter the ancestry of just about all of the rest, thieves, murderers, you name it.
I heard on local radio this morning an interview with Abbott on ABC Gippsland. Usual type thing then presenter asked for calls etc after the interview was finished. I didn,t know he was visiting but then again I assume the ABC didn,t know either till contacted by the liberal machine. I listen daily and heard nothing yesterday.
One text sent said the interviewer was hostile to Abbott. Asking him to explain various points of his emission policy is hostile ? Surely thats the purpose of an interview for both the presenter and the person being interviewed. The tone was polite and respectful and the questions pertinent. I,ve seen posts regarding Jones and various other radio types and their antics sound appalling. I.ve never quite understood the appeal or why anyone would bother to have their dial on a station while these jocks are on. I have had occasion to hear Laws some time back and it was a barrage of ads mixed with comment and dead boring. I find the real or implied influence of Jones and his ilk baffling.
@stephen martin
Yes - “entitled” is a better verb.
As for “wankery” - I was referring to the current viscount as, to my knowledge, he has done nothing to warrant this grand title apart from being the grandson of the first viscount (who may or may not have deserved it).
Agreed re “many others, ex- trade unionists and other time servers, or for matter the ancestry of just about all of the rest, thieves, murderers”.
Lord Monckton certainly uses his title to bedazzle but his outrageous claim that he is entitled to sit in the House of Lords is just too much. It’s no different than claiming he has a right to sit in the Senate here or the USA.
Great piece Dr Richard that really does arm a person to debate with a denialist.
I watched the lawyer Erin Brokovich say similar 4 years ago in Sydney that basically if we accept climate change and do something -what is the worst that can happen?..we have a cleaner planet. The alternative is to horrific to contemplate.
Excellent piece, Dr.Denniss, and you’ll find no disagreement but for one small thing:
This implies that these people actually care about the consequences. I firmly believe they don’t. I believe they are only interested in opposing their avowed enemies. They will do this to the point of violence. Polite appeals to reason don’t cut it with these zombies.
I thought Dr Richard was remarkably restrained and, wisely, rose to none of Monckton’s show-biz tricks. And equally well argued in print so, well done.
my shoe salesman says I can keep smoking, it suits me so I think I will
Australia is one of the few idiot countries that engages monkey man
He reminds me of someone I knew who had absolutely no honesty, no argument or truth no matter how compelling everything is deniable.
Its a waste of time even engaging him that said when was it on ?
I’d still watch it for entertainment if there is a repeat on
The guy is a master debater and will generally win debates on this subject. I am fascinated at how a person of that intellect can be so comfortable in his opinions when they fly in the face of mainstream science.
One thing that really bugged me was that he kept referring to science by consensus, which is a not what climate change science is at all. The scientists have don’t do “science by consensus” they have reached a consensus. I was a little disappointed that this was not pointed out to him during the debate.
It seems that Monckton’s biggest fear is that things don’t stay the way they are. I have rarely seen a person cling on to the “glorious” past like this guy. I suspect this is why he keeps going on about the house of lords.
“He reminds me of someone I knew who had absolutely no honesty, no argument or truth no matter how compelling everything is deniable.”
Is that Alan Jones?
@sharkie
Yeah alan is a good fit there and have you heard the intellectual ferals who call his program?
Media watch quoted a few the other nite someone called up complaining of julia gillard’s tax payer funded toilet paper, tampons etc
Alan should feel proud of the morons who listen to his show - real high brow stuff
I watched the debate. Denniss was pedestrian, though he improved somewhat in question time.
Monckton is a practiced and skilled debater, if tiresomely old-fashioned in his mannerisms. He’s also a political fool. Sporting a DLP tie (deaccessioned from some grubby museum?) he praised the creepy new Sen. Madigan as a “great man”. I talked to Madigan a few months ago and wrote on Crikey that he was an archaic ideologue who’d make Fielding look like a gay rights activist.
Madigan is, for instance, anti-coffee.
Yet Monckton thrashed Dull Denniss. Doesn’t matter which side you’re on. The audience of (mainly) journos looked wooden through Denniss’ address. They warmed up under Monckton, often amused. Not funny peculiar- funny ha ha.
And here we have Denniss handing out advice on debating the old Thatcher relic…
I rarely comment - but Richard, bloody well said. Thank you - immediately useful in many quarters of life!
He’s right you know, Lord Monkton is right. Not only are the warmists a huge conspiracy, but they also deny that the world was created 6000 years ago, that the moon landings were faked in Hollywood, and they deny that the Holocoust was a Jewish invention to gain sympathy.
Dr Richard Denniss’s immediate predecessor at the left wing think tank (as described in Wikipedia), The Australia Institute, was Dr Clive Hamilton. The very same person who suggested a suspension of democracy: Courier Mail 2007 “we look to any possible scenario to head it off, including the canvassing of “emergency” responses such as the suspension of democratic processes.” And in his Raquiem for the Species “we have moral obligations other than obedience to the law.” I point this out to simply demonstrate the typical position of office holders from The Australia Institute.
I note Denniss does not attack any of the scientific facts raised by Monckton, many have tried and are continually embarrassed. See http://www.nocarbontax.com.au/2011/07/abc-mistakes-lord-moncktons-science/ by way of example.
What Denniss does instead is raise some false arguments or propositions (straw-men) and implies that is Monckton’s position.
Before dealing with them I will address his complaint about Monckton’s claim to be a member of the House of Lords. According to The House of Lords Act 1999 hereditary peers which Lord Monckton, Viscount of Brenchley was one, are entitled to hold 92 seats in the House of Lords. An election was held among the hereditary Lords to select the 92. From then on, if one of those positions becomes vacant, through death or retirement, a replacement is voted in. Only hereditary Lords like Monckton can run for one of those seats and only they can vote for a Lord. So while Monckton does not and is not currently entitled to sit in the House of Lords, he is a Member of the hereditary Lords who are entitled to vote for and take one of those hereditary 92 seats in the House of Lords.
On the other matters raised by Dr Denniss. He asked why so called Climate Sceptics get more coverage in the Media than immunisation or fluoride sceptics - the answer is simple, the climate alarmists rely on predicting catastrophic climate change using computer models which have failed to accurately predict climate and which do not take into account many key climate variables including CO2 negative feedback mechanisms. The science on immunisations and fluoride is actually solid, not largely ideologically driven.
Climate scientists and the IPCC have been caught out falsifying data, using ‘grey’ reference materials, and trying to avoid scientific scrutiny. Many of the key contents of Al Gore’s ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ was found to be inaccurate, yet the IPCC and the mass media soundly endorsed that film.
Denniss states Monckton believes the climate alarmism is some part of a wide ‘conspiracy’. Well there is certainly evidence that some key players have acted as if it is a conspiracy. Check the ‘Climategate’ emails. There is also no doubt that claims of man made climate catastrophe suites the ideologies of many environmental activists. Placing CO2 emission control and finances into the hands of the UN certainly plays into the hands of the proponents of a ‘one world government’ as signatories of the Cancun accord including Australia have agreed to pay 10% of any carbon taxes or emission credits to a UN controlled fund. A large portion of this fund will go to developing nations who will not be hamstrung by emission controls. So of course major developing nations such as China and India will support this as well as all the developing nations who will benefit from the fund. Finally, if we do go to a global emissions trading scheme, CO2 will become the most valuable commodity traded in the world, yet it will be virtually impossible to audit because it is not a tangible product like copper, gold, beef, corn etc. Imagine the money to be made by traders and fraudsters. So there are a lot of people who do stand to make a lot of money from pricing carbon dioxide emissions.
Denniss should also be aware that NASA’s land based temperature records do not correlate well with satellite based temperature records so their answer is to adjust the records. NASA have also dropped thousands of temperature stations which do not show the warming they keenly wish to show. The CSIRO rely on the Bureau of Meteorology for their data. The BoM have homogenised and ‘adjusted’ their temperature records to enhance ‘warming’ yet have refused to supply the supporting records justifying those adjustments. This is the subject of a paper requesting the Auditor General’s office audit the work of BoM. This is currently under consideration. It is remarkable that the BoM data is not independently audited.
The Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia has also been found out claiming they no longer have the original temperature records which have since been ‘adjusted’ to supply the IPCC with the data on which they base their warming estimates. The UK Bureau of Meteorology has now committed to try to reconstruct the original data from the last 150 years, but this is likely to take 3 years.
So yes, there is reason to think there have been some ‘warmist’ conspiracies.
Denniss asks whether Howard, Turnbull, and even Abbott were part of such a conspiracy if they had at one time agreed to an emissions trading scheme. That is a deliberately naive question. We all know politicians do things simply because they want votes. There is no doubt that until the last three or four years, before the discovery of fraud and incompetence within the Climate Science community, the IPCC and the CRU, there was a stronger belief in the possibility of catastrophic global warming. This belief has changed because of those discoveries and because the climate has not followed the dire predictions of the climate alarmists over the last 10 - 15 years.
The science has also advanced and there are now hundreds of peer reviewed papers which do not agree with the predictions of catastrophic climate change. In fact many of the claims we were lead to believe a few years ago have been disproved. Therefore politicians and ordinary people are entitled to change their minds.
Dennis complains that Monckton has no climate science credentials, but you never hear him or his ilk complain that Government hacks and climate alarmists such as Tim Flannery and Ross Garnaut have no such qualifications. Nor does Al Gore of course and many others who insist humans are causing catastrophic climate change.
Dr Dennis tries to equate fire insurance on your house, or submarines to defend Australia against a potential threat with taking action to reduce CO2 emissions. For a Professor at the ANU this is an embarrassingly stupid analogy. We have certainty that houses do burn, and we can even give a percentage probability. We know that wars happen and we have a history of Australia being involved in conflicts. That is not the same as predictions of catastrophic global warming based on theories which have not been proven, using computer models which inadequately cover major climatic variables and negative feedback mechanisms. For instance each one of the IPCC climate prediction models uses a different value for aerosols. It’s used like a statistical fudge factor!
A better analogy would be to ask me why I don’t insure my house against the possibility of a herd of elephants destroying it!
In any event, what Climate science has not done is determine what an ideal global average temperature would be. Even if we could control climate, what temperature should we target? There is evidence such as during the Medieval Warm Period, when the earth was much armer than the current time, that human, animal and plant life thrived.
Denniss asks why Monckton does not criticise Tony Abbott’s policies. Well he has, but not as vigorously because Abbott is not in Government and is not proposing any legislation.
By writing his article with his complete lack of any scientific argument, Denniss simply shows his ideologically driven position which I expect will be found as wanting as those of a similar ilk who were predicting man made ice ages in the 1970’s.
Sorry for the length and any spelling or grammatical errors, but I couldn’t let Denniss’s simplistic and illogical attack on Monckton, but more importantly on any sceptic that humans are causing catastrophic climate change go unanswered. But I don’t have the luxury of a tax payer funded University position to pursue an ideological position like he does!
Of course, the other truth is that good science is not done by debate, despite the fact that they might be interesting and entertaining. Submission of a theory for peer review takes an enormous amount of time as each “fact” needs to be checked. Lord Monckton is an entertainer who travels the world preaching to the converted. He knows he cannot submit anything on this subject into the scientific sphere without it being carefully scrutinised. This is why, despite his belief that he holds some secret knowledge or some insight that the majority of scientists seem to have carelessly missed, he is unpublished in the field. All his arguments have been easily refuted.
Unfortunately debating this guy is a complete waste of time. You will rarely win
And one more thing, for those of who who blanched at the mart where Monckton stated he had published in a peer-reviesed journal, this will make for interesting reading
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/07/once-more-unto-the-bray/
Yeah, fairies wear boots you gotta believe me ~ Black Sabbath
This imbecile actually believes it’s the sceptics who are misleading people?
If you believe anything this wacker has to say then i am convinced you all believe in fairies! Conspiracy theories? Extreme beliefs? What a lot of bullshit. I believe in climate change, i just don’t believe we humans have anything to do with it. The climate always changes, it has done for millions of years, it will again, and it will probably be the reason we will become extinct just like the other 95% of all species that have ever lived. The planet is 4.5 billion years old and we have only been here 200,000 give or take a decade, the last ice -age only finished approximately 10,000 years ago and we all know how much humans love the cold! That almost wiped us all out! Don’t worry about what Monckton has to say, have a little more respect for what mother nature will eventually do to us, she will flick us off her shoulder like a piece of dandruff when she is good and ready. Dennis is just another in a long line of arrogant humans who think they control the planet! Have you ever noticed how many humans like to live where it is warm and not freaking freezing cold? Nobody’s jumping fences wanting to live in Siberia anytime soon! Just answer this question “what difference will it make to the world’s temperature if we impose this carbon dioxide tax on Australian people”?
All this joker is interested in is his next Government grant or will his local council approve another bicycle path in his area! Where is this nonsense of catastrophic climate change coming from?
Environmentalists are just stupid hippies in disguise wanting to fulfill their 60’s dream of crippling economies and restricting freedom. If that claghead Bob Brown gets his way with the media then all you will be able to watch is the ABC and all you will be able to read is the AGE! “We live in a democracy, and i hope we always respect free speech” Yeah right, tell that to Bob and Julia.
“What do i know of man? from the evidence, i believe his wisdom must walk hand in hand with his idiocy” ~ Dr Zaius
In that movie man destroyed his own world with bombs and another species took over. Just like the millions of other species that have gone before us, we will be replaced and the planet will continue on leaving no trace of our exisitence what so ever. Humans are stupid enough as it is without them thinking they can control the climate and live forever! Mother nature will be having a nice old laugh as she says to herself “did they really think they were that important”?
She will wonder why we just didn’t enjoy ourselves more.
@Jaymez
I quote
Perhaps you might care to explain what ideology that might be. It is neither conservative not socialist obviously. The science on immunisations is not ideologically driven, but the anti-immunisation movement is. I suspect the same applies to the anti-climate science movements.
Ross Garnaut is an economist and was consulted to provide economic advice. He never claims that he has anything to contribute to the science. For that matter, neither does Tim Flannery, who is simply representing the mainstream scientific position on AGW. Monckton, on the other hand, claims that the conclusions reached by the majority of climate scientists is incorrect. He knows full well what is required to maintain that position, but his attempts to publish has been nothing short of a complete disaster. He makes very big mistakes @Jaymez
Here’s another complete furfy
Actually, the scientific consensus is very clear on this. 2C above pre-industrial levels.
Deniers are consistent - NASA is in on the conspiracy, climate scientists/IPCC are in on the conspiracy, CSIRO/BOM are in on the conspiracy - only the good “lord” and his ilk can see through them. Presumably there would be a reason why these groups would be participants in the biggest lie since NASA announced the moon landing? (Oh wait - we’ve found a conspiratorial link with the NASA connection!!)
That the deniers have a pompous ass pseudo “lord” in Monckton as their pre-emminent proponent says a lot in itself. A title handed down from daddy does not give you credibility anwhere apart from your equally inbred circle of hereditary peers and their sychophants.
Whoops. Made a mistake there
What I meant to say was
The global temperature must remain below 2C above pre-industrial levels.
Sorry about that
One way to determine whether someone is rational or blindly one-sided is to find out how well they can present the opposite view point to their own.
Whilst the climate change deniers often claim that those who accept climate change are uninformed, my experience is that many who accept climate change have in fact looked at the claims of the deniers.
And even though the deniers claim that those who accept climate change are the ones with closed minds, it is easy to find on the internet detailed rebuttals of almost all of the claims of deniers. What I cannot recall ever reading is a detailed rebuttal of these well thought our responses. Instead the climate change deniers just repeat their orignianl claim as if it had never been rebutted. (Exhibit A - thousands of posts on Crikey.)
If JAYMEZ is fully informed, he would be able to write a detailed rebuttal of his post from the point of view of someone who accepts climate change. (This does not mean that he need agree with what he writes, but it would prove that he was informed of and understood the views of the other side.)
I find it extremely worrying that one effect of the climate change ‘debate’ is that many people proudly proclaim their ignorance as a reason for not believing. For example, in a pub last week a lady said to me “But how would they know how much carbon is in the atmosphere anyway?” If she thought that this was a real question it would be very easy for her to look up the answer. But now we have got to ignorance being a reason to ignore things we don’t like. This way of thinking and debating is going to have serious consequences in many areas beyond climate change.
Mark M,
I think you will find that the 2 degree figure is more a political and perhaps economic figure.
What the science has done is made its best estimates of the future consequences of a 1 degree, 1.5 degrees, 2 degrees, etc warming.
Many argue that the consequences of a 2 degree warming are so severe that this figure is far too high a target. That we should take urgent and severe actions to limit warming to UNDER 2 degrees.
Unfortunately it is looking pretty certain that an increase of over 2 degrees will occur, so perhaps my point is now only of academic interest.
MWH: “One way to determine whether someone is rational or blindly one-sided is to find out how well they can present the opposite view point to their own.”
true enough…and the other use of devil’s advocacy is to test the skills of debaters.
Not one of you here even mention the debate as politics. You’re either too partisan or you didn’t watch it. Or both.
As I said above, Denniss was dull and Planckton was not. The audience (presumably mostly journos) looked alive, cheerful and amused listening to the fruitcake Lord. They looked blank and/or grim listening to the tedious academic.
Minds don’t change in one lecture, least of all when most are governed by fear of heresy. But there comes a tipping point…since climate millenarianism is (for now) the key article of faith of all progressives, their growing scepticism has been displaced- to the carbon tax. Suppressed frustration and anger is growing on the Left- criticising Gillard, the carbon tax, the rorts infesting unready renewables etc. is a safe way to relieve the tension.
I suspect many progressives will silently welcome Gillard’s likely thrashing at the polls. The rest of politics has been invisible because of the carbon fetish. Normality will resume. Abbott will pretend to “tackle climate change” but it will slide down the agenda like a monkey down a pole. Everyone will then wait for empirical science (not computer modelling) to signal which way global temps are heading. If they drop or the current plateau continues, most people will silently abandon climate millenarianism.
In the short term though, the govt. will continue to hold daily prayer meetings requesting Kevin Rudd’s survival in heart surgery. If Gillard had a majority of three, the prayers would be worded differently…
Monckton is a terrific speaker and debater. I don’t know if I’ve seen better. He is witty, charming and can adapt to suit whatever audience he is presenting to.
He is also a flagrant liar who told so many porkies it was difficult to keep up with them. I have a great grasp of science so I know when he’s lying, however it’s easy to see how the confused can be swayed. This is why he is dangerous. Things hit rock bottom when Monckton claimed, under tenacious questioning from a journalist who’d clearly done her research, that his opinion article was peer reviewed, despite being headed by a note saying it was emphatically not peer reviewed.
Denniss was completely out of his depth, but smart enough to stick the consensus and talk about the economics where he is strongest.
@Mark M
Thanks for your input. Some quick responses to points raised follow:
realclimate.org are not an unbiased source of information as I am sure you know. The Team has included a person suspended by Wikepedia for fraudulently ‘administering’ entries, they supported the totally debunked ‘hockey stick’ graph and they voraciously edit and ban any responses which disagree or disprove their content.
Tim Flannery is becoming more famous for his stupid ‘scientific’ predictions and wild assertions which blame events such as the Queensland floods on anthropogenic climate change, than he is for anything he’s done in his actual area of qualification. There are many examples available on the net. Here’s on recent article: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/it-pays-to-check-out-flannerys-predictions-about-climate-change-says-andrew-bolt/story-e6frfhqf-1226004644818
Ross Garnaut does not make his own wild predictions of climate disaster, but repeats the more extreme modelled predictions as if they were empirical evidence to justify his economic recommendations. He also often repeats “the science is settled” line. Garnaut includes unsupported material in his reports which are best left to the scientists. For example in his recent update he wrote: “Climate change is a major additional significant stressor on biodiversity in Australia. With unmitigated climate change, it would be likely to become an overwhelmingly important stressor in the course of this century. It affects ecosystems and biodiversity by shifting, reducing and eliminating natural habitats. Many Australian species of flora and fauna are at risk from climate change because of their restricted geographic and climatic range. Where ecosystems and species have low tolerance for change, altered climatic conditions can trigger irreversible outcomes such as species extinction.
Australia is subject to risks of greater damage from climate change than any other developed country. It therefore should have a greater interest in strong mitigation than other developed countries. As I pointed out in the Garnaut Climate Change Review (the Review), Australia is already hot and dry, so variations in climate are especially damaging to us.” No scientific paper was cited.
On the economic side, Garnaut curry’s his abatement proposals by selecting long term discount rates which are not empirically supported, but even so, if used to calculate the true cost of abatement as proposed in his report, still demonstrate a far greater abatement cost than the cost of doing nothing. See from your favourite author http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/monckton/co2-mitigation-cost-effectiveness.pdf I have searched and haven’t found a refutation of this paper. If you are aware of one, I’ll happily read it.
Speaking of searching, I am certainly aware that a bunch of politicians sat around a table and decided that action should be taken to limit global warming to 2C above pre-industrialised levels. Most alarmists believe we are already beyond achieving this anyway. But what there isn’t, is any scientifically supported research for determining that this temperature is the most ideal. There is plenty of literature which indicates the world has thrived at temperatures similar to and higher than this, as too there is literature which supports having much higher atmospheric CO2 levels. Average global temperatures in the Early Carboniferous Period were hot- approximately 20° C (68° F). However, cooling during the Middle Carboniferous reduced average global temperatures to about 12° C (54° F). This is comparable to the average global temperature on Earth today!
Similarly, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the Early Carboniferous Period were approximately 1500 ppm (parts per million), but by the Middle Carboniferous had declined to about 350 ppm — comparable to average CO2 concentrations today!
Earth’s atmosphere today contains about 380 ppm CO2 (0.038%). Compared to former geologic times, our present atmosphere, like the Late Carboniferous atmosphere, is CO2- impoverished! In the last 600 million years of Earth’s history only the Carboniferous Period and our present age, the Quaternary Period, have witnessed CO2 levels less than 400 ppm.
There is much peer reviewed research available if you want to find it which tells us that higher levels of CO2 and indeed higher temperatures (which are not proven to be causal or in the longer term even correlated), are not disastrous for the Earth and in fact were times when life thrived. See graph “Global Temperature and Atmospheric CO2 over Geologic Time” at http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html
When all the research expenditure is directed to finding human causes of climate change and negative outcomes of climate change, then that’s what the scientists will find. Other causes of climate change get ignored or poorly researched, and any positive impact of human contribution, such as increasing atmospheric CO2 or warming are not accounted for. We are not yet getting the full climate change story.
Dr Richard. The first mistake you make is considering it is possible to reason with a zealot. For deniers it is a religion and the precautionary principle does not apply.
Continued reference to discredited “facts” such as Medieval warm period continues to muddy the waters for many: “the Medieval Warm Period occurred during a time which had higher than average solar radiation and less volcanic activity (both resulting in warming). New evidence is also suggesting that changes in ocean circulation patterns played a very important role in bringing warmer seawater into the North Atlantic”. Globally the climate was average for the period. “Since that early century warming, temperatures have risen well-beyond those achieved during the Medieval Warm Period across most of the Globe”.
Did have to laugh at Jaymez reference to high paid university salaries (!) comedy gold.
That they will risk the future for all of us with their obstruction is pathetic.
Microseris: “For deniers it is a religion”
You still don’t get it: Deniers and Believers are two sides of the same cult. The very words D and B tell us that.
Frank,
Like I said, I take the precautionary principle. Deniers are betting the planet on being right.
What if they are not?
micro: fair enough, but the “precautionary principle” only displaces the problem- what appears to be an inclusive compromise is subverted by both sides of the cult:
for Believers, it justifies all the dramatic, disruptive changes they want anyway.
for Deniers, it justifies empty, hypocritical gestures.
There is a middle way, as I’ve been saying here for two and half years, but such is the Manichean division no one is taking it seriously yet.
Frank,
The deniers just don’t grasp that the true skeptics are the scientists and economists.
Every bit of scientific research on climate change is skeptical - What does the evidence say? How does that evidence match up to the theory? And the economists (like Stern and Garnaut) have extensively informed themselves about the true status of the science - ie which bits have strong consensus, and which bits are less sure.
I don’t BELIEVE in climate change. I ACCEPT that the current view of mainstream science is very probably correct. And if it is not correct, I know that is will sensible, mainstream scientific research that will show this. And if such research stands up to scrutiny, then I’ll accept this new development (though of course I will be very surprised if this turns out to be the case).
Of course one major problem with much of this is that many treat it as a DEBATE. It should not matter who is the most articulate or entertaining speaker. What matters is what should or should we not do.
MWH:
“Sceptic”: Australian English.
“It should not matter who is the most articulate or entertaining speaker”
-true, but it does matter.
Lose the politics and you lose the game. Savonarola Hamilton knows this, which is why he called (2007) for a suspension of democracy.
“What does the evidence say?” We have to distinguish between empirical evidence and computer modelling. The jury is still out. This is why Trenberth (who bemoaned the “lack of warming” after 2000), Mann et al are now busy constructing defensive hypotheses to explain the temp. plateau. No hockey stick at all at all. Just a stick at the moment. Latest notion is that Chinese sulphur emissions are “masking” global warming.
AGW is an immature hypothesis. It will probably be weakly confirmed. But there are many excellent reasons for killing coal and oil, so let’s do it- but do it humanely, not in the moronic Hanson-Young manner (” let Whyalla build wind turbines”). And certainly not with the absurd carbon tax.
Jaymez,
Do you really believe what you write? Do you really believe that because dinosaurs thrived in a hothouse environment humans are capable of doing the same? Here’s a hint - we are not dinosaurs (and I should point out that they were killed off due to sudden climate change).
Your evidence also pretend that Co2 is supposed to be the only forcing. This is wrong.
I suggest you look at the primary scientific sources instead of relying on denial websites to tell you what to think (although I did chuckle at your unsophisticated inclusion of “The Team).
As I’ve said many times, the Earth is going to be fine, just fine. However civilisation has flourished in these conditions which are temperate for our species. 2.7 billion people live on less than $2 a day. Can you imagine the effect that a warm climate will have on them?
As for your comments on Co2 and causation - wrong. We have multiple lines of strong evidence that show climate feedbacks from Co2. It’s this evidence that Monckton doesn’t (or won’t) understand and has repeatedly butchered.
The arguments in Monckton’s paper you linked to have been rebutted multiple times, and his economic argument is that we should do nothing because everything will be fine, which is of course the cheaper option for now. In reality, however, where the warming is occurring (according to Monckton’s own calculations there should be no ice ages) it will be much cheaper in the long run to deal with the problem now than later.
Must be open day at the Loony farm , and they are all here . The govt. must bring in a law that stops people with a low iQ from breeding more dumb Fu@ks . But its hard to argue with stupid people , they just bring you down to their level of stupid and they win because they are very good at being stupid . This is what evolution is all about .
@Jaymez
I can only assume that the verbosity of your replies implies that you are either unemployed, or employed to write comments on this topic.
Ironically, you’re looking so hard for a conspiracy (perhaps you are paid to do this as well) that you may miss the possibility that the situation is worse than we expect. For example, 150M Pakistanis are dependant on water from rivers that flow through India. These rivers are fed from glaciers that are fast disappearing. India is entitled to a certain amount of this water. Drinking and eating are non-negotiable. I can smell conflict here.
You have still not answered my question regarding the ideology of the climate “alarmists”. It is certainly obvious that you believe that the mainstream science is flawed which implies a fairly huge conspiracy considering the consensus on where the evidence points us. What I want to know is what people might hope to gain from being an alarmist.
I repeat, please define ideology are you referring too.
” We insure our homes against the unlikely event of fire…but, by Lord Monckton’s logic, we shouldn’t pay a price for pollution as an insurance premium against catastrophic climate change.”
Pretty feeble. Fires have happened, and you insure against the chances.
The call for sacrifices to prevent an imagined catastrophe isn’t the pitch of an insurance salesman but a Mayan Priest.
(Understandable. Mayan priests were well-fed.)
Is Gerderts really this confused?
Of course it is all about RISK.
What is the chance that the IPCC latest forecasts will happen?
What is the chance that the IPCC has got it wrong - over or under estimated what will happen?
Of course if you believe that it is all just a huge conspiracy (as the original article says - this lead you to la-la land) and there is no risk from climate change, it makes sense to do nothing.
But I’ve yet to see any sensible reason for thinking that the IPCC forecasts are over estimates. And there are good reasons why the IPCC forecasts may under estimate the problem (the IPCCC reports don’t take into account possible big flipping events because there is poor data on how likely they are to happen).
Even if there was only a 70% chance of the IPCC forecasts being correct it would make economic sense to take urgent and large action to prevent the possibility of climate change. Insurance is about risk management. Acting on climate change is also about managing risk and uncertainty.
And it is ‘amusing’ that Gederts non-scientific opinion is presented as sensible whilst the huge scientific effort is equated with religion.
MarkM - small point, Pakistan’s main river, the Indus originates in the region of the Himalayas left to Pakistan by the disputed Cease-Fire line (not a recognised border) and, although the Chenab-Jhelum begin in the Zaskar glacier, that is only Indian by force, not linguistically, geographically, culturally or ethnically - left over Raj types couldn’t bear the thought of losing Kashmir, the jewel in crown of hill stations.
This a quibble, your point is spot on - even the devastating floods last year was a result of the winter snow melting too quickly and of course it is now back to searing drought.
Even pious Hindus are getting the message and no amount of Viagra will restore Shiva’s ice lingam in Amarnath which has been frighteningly shrivelled in recent years..
To Michael Wilbur-Ham from Gederts Sker-Stens:
“Of course if you believe that it is all just a huge conspiracy…”
Conspiracy? Not quite.
Religion isn’t a “conspiracy”. It’s lying for a good cause. The idea of a future Christian Hell makes you behave better. The Communist Workers’ Paradise promise produced the Stakhanovites that proudly worked themselves to death helping keep the Party in power. Our current Clean, Green Future requires worthy communal bahaviour immediately.
Is there any organised thinking behind getting this Good Behaviour?
Google up Post Normal Science.
Isn’t strange how one of the greatest achievements of the human mind - the rational scientific method - gets accused of being a religion!
Surely science is the one philosophy that has a proven record of changing its views based on new evidence.
If climate change is just a ‘religion’, how did this ‘religion’ take hold in Australia under Howard, the USA uder Bush, and in fact EVERY other country independent of their politics?
And what is the “good cause” that has made all these scientist lie? What is the good cause that has made many politicians of the left, centre, and right, lie? And the economists?
Religion is belief even if there is no evidence. Science is always remaining skeptical and moving as the evidence changes.
I’m a fan of Dawkins because I believe that accepting the irrationality of religion leads people to become irrational elsewhere.
The irrationality and ignorance of the climate change deniers, and the amazingly good coverage they get in the media, show that all hope is lost.
MWH:
You’re quite right to question whether Science is taking part in this Bright Green Circus. It’s central to the validity of the movement.
Any citizen can research predictions. See who predicted what from twenty years ago. See whether it applies. You can ditch the guys that said we’d be ankle-deep in seawater by now. Continue checking, for yourselves. No matter how Peery the reviews were.
Let me suggest that the closest to a catastrophe this junk comes to is in debasing for decades the standing of every institution, publication, news source, political party and commentator that promoted it.