Stupidity from Melanie Phillips this time…

Posted by William M. Connolley on April 25, 2006
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An astute (?) reader points me towards Even greener than he thinks by Melanie Phillips. Apart from starting off with a few good points (why is it “green” to fly by private jet to the Arctic for a photo-op) we are down to the usual tedium (the Hockey stick *isn’t* fatally flawed; GW isn’t based on it anyway (and in a feat of self-contradiction she declares in the next sentence that its also all based on computer modelling, which isn’t true either); the world wasn’t 2 oC warmer in the MWP; feedbacks are as likely +ve as -ve… and so on.

Errr, which is why I didn;t bother to write a post about it :-)))

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  1. #1 Rufus
    2006/04/25

    William, instead of telling us what is *not* the smoking gun of anthropogenic global warming, would you please go into what *is* a sign of it?

  2. #2 stephan harrison
    2006/04/25

    Surely Rufus it goes like this: The Greenhouse effect exists; carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas; carbon dioxide levels have increased; this increase is due to burning of fossil fuel; from this we would expect the climate to warm; all the evidence (glaciers, instrumental data, models etc) shows warming. I think we can invoke Occam’s Razor here.

    The sceptics have to show why increased carbon dioxide DOESN’T warm the climate, and THEN explain what is causing the warming we see.

    I look forward to seeing their arguments in the peer-reviewed literature.

    [Also http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/just-what-is-this-consensus-anyway/ refers, and many other places besides - W]

  3. #3 Adam
    2006/04/25

    From someone who’s publicly lambasted Melanie Philips in the past, I’m a little worried by George Monbiot’s latest article. Apparently he’s been doing a lot of research into cutting CO2 emissions recently (I think he’s got a book coming out). I’m not sure that putting so much extra infrastructure and reliance onto natural gas is a great idea (finite resource, loaction of supplies, only mitigation against short term cut-offs etc.):

    http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2006/04/25/my-new-fondness-for-fossil-fuels/

  4. #4 Adam
    2006/04/25

    Actually I realise that was a tad OT and I apologise for the convoluted way I brought it into the thread. :)

  5. #5 Patrick Caldon
    2006/04/25

    The woman is a complete fool; see her views on evolution:

    http://www.melaniephillips.com/articles/archives/001664.html

    For many, the claim that evolution enabled life to cross the species barrier so that humans are merely the last link in the evolutionary chain remains a step too far — not least because, by the standards science itself sets, it fails the test of evidence. It is merely a theory.

    getPC :: (WAMData a) -> ST a WAMRef
    getPC wd = readSTRef $ pc wd

  6. #6 Patrick Caldon
    2006/04/25

    Bah – sorry about my code escaping in there! I proofread that twice as well!

  7. #7 Steve
    2006/04/29

    Everyone should go to vote to

    http://motls.blogspot.com/

    Find a poll about the best way to spend 6 billion dollars. Choose the fight against the climate change! Right now, the war in Iraq is ahead of the Kyoto protocol.

    We need all good people to fight against the imperialists and against global warming!!! If the septics beat us in this poll, we will be completely screwed.

  8. #8 Paul
    2007/01/08

    Try looking at the big picture and this time include Astro-Physics. Check and cross link the following – solar flare activity, Australian bushfires and Australia’s ten worst climactic events, you might want to throw in Australia’s temperatures and rainfall, when you compare the peaks and troughs on the graphs your cozy little world will move. We live on a dry continent and 2006 was the seventh year of a devestating drought, however the average temperature for the year was in line with our average long term temperature and our average rainfall was slightly higher than our long term average rainfall. We have lived through what you describe as as the comming Armageddon since white settlement so stop moaning like a pack of wankers and get your clobber together so you can fight this bitch called mother nature ’cause she only wants the strongest to survive and if you’re not the strongest you’re Buggered.