God, I enjoyed my book launch party last week. (Though not as much as some people, eh, Toby?) So much so that I’m not sure I can ever forgive myself. I keep thinking not of the fun I had but of all those friends I wish could have been there but weren’t. My fault, totally, in most cases: I’m horrendously disorganised when it comes to party invitations — and it’s entirely possible that you’re one of the people I love most in the world but forgot to invite because, hey, I’m just a bit useless that way.
Anyway, this party. As you’ll probably be aware — and if not let me spell it out — the launch was for — the launch was for this incredibly readable, well-researched, funny but also ‘serious and significant’ (says Matt Ridley in The Spectator — and who I am to disagree with so distinguished an expert in so important a publication?) book I recently published. It’s called Watermelons: How Environmentalists are Killing the Planet, Destroying the Economy and Stealing Your Children’s Future.
I think the main reason the party went so well was that, invitations apart, I had nothing to do with the organisation.
(to read more, click here)
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17 thoughts on “In praise of patrons – particularly mine”
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“At my launch a friendly City type and his charming wife told me how interesting they thought my life was. I in turn told them how much I’d like their money.”
This pandering to Mammon will infuriate the miserable self-deluded commies who frequent your website.
Remember, James, that proper lefty Marxist liberalism insists that money is dirty, greasy stuff you’re far better off without. True happiness is abject poverty. If you were a billionaire you’d waste the rest of your life cruising the Caribbean, watching sunsets while sipping Martinis and complaining about boredom.
http://350orbust.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/inhofe-vs-climate-scientists.jpg?w=600&h=600
http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/climateinfographic.jpg
I know you will cite the Met Office as being part of some anti-libertarian plot to install worldwide Socialist governance but, will you please do us all a favour and suspend your belief in conspiracy theories just long enough to take on board some new information:
“A project running almost 10,000 climate simulations on volunteers’ home computers has found that a global warming of 3 degrees Celsius by 2050 is ‘equally plausible’ as a rise of 1.4 degrees. The study addresses some of the uncertainties that previous forecasts, using simpler models or only a few dozen simulations, may have over-looked. Importantly, the forecast range is derived from using a complex Met Office model that accurately reproduces observed temperature changes over the last 50 years. The results suggest that the world is very likely to cross the ’2 degrees barrier’ at some point this century if emissions continue unabated. It also suggests that those planning for the impacts of climate change need to consider the possibility of warming of up to 3 degrees (above the 1961-1990 average) by 2050, even on a mid-range emission scenario. This is a faster rate of warming than most other models predict.”
Citizen science looks at future warming uncertainty.
N.B. The ability of these computer models to recreate historical trends over the last 50 years is not evidence of fudge factors having been applied: It is evidence of model validation, which – along with calibration and sensitivity analysis – is an integral part of establishing the accuracy of such modelling techniques. You can – or should – trust me on this because, unlike you, this is what I have been doing for the last 20 years or so (i.e. using probabilistic computer modelling in environmental risk assessments).
Your beloved marketplace of ideas is a dangerous fallacy; of which your success in getting your ill-informed unscientific opinions plastered all over the media and infecting people’s minds is profound evidence. And for what purpose? You may think you are acting in the public interest but, unfortunately, like everything else in Watermelons 2.0, this is an inversion of reality: As Peter Jacques (University of Florida) has pointed out, it is precisely because environmental scepticism is not in the public interest, the tobacco industry invented the sound science versus junk science debate (now being used to great effect by the fossil fuel and energy industry) to confuse people and prevent sensible regulation of their product.
Predictive skill is the test of the validity of a theory. And so far, the predictive skill of climate models has been a flat bust. The most likely explanation for this lack of skill, despite decades of research, is that they have selected the wrong forcing (CO2) as the dominant driver of climate.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/blackberry/p.html?id=1391217
I am sure James will have a tantrum over this.
As for why I am a “denialist”, the reason is simple – I believe, from reading the Climategate emails, and my own research, that Warmist climate science is corrupt, and that the CO2 theory is persisting for political rather than scientific reasons.
I also think that if you guys truly get the upper hand, more than you have already, a lot of people will die. There are already casualties thanks to biofuel policies – even the UN admits that biofuel subsidies are exacerbating the risk of famine. http://www.stwr.org/food-security-agriculture/biofuel-boom-brings-famine-risks-says-un-report.html . Making energy more expensive, through expensive renewables programmes, would kill even more people – all for a cause which is based upon scientific fraud.
A lot of people died in the 20th century because of scientific fraud. I’d like to avoid repeating that mistake, if possible. http://www.michaelcrichton.net/essay-stateoffear-whypoliticizedscienceisdangerous.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17611404
As for scientists getting it wrong or behaving fraudulently, it unfortunately happens all the time. The scientific method, with it’s standards of openness and reproduceability, was developed to try to prevent episodes of mass delusion. When the method is abused, by scientists concealing data and trying to suppress critics, then science becomes dysfunctional, and theory is no longer verified by facts.
Such abuse is institutional in the dysfunctional climate science community.
Note I am not saying the Climategate scientists dont believe in global warming – their problem is they believe too much. Since they already know
Climategate Email 1233326033.txt
http://www.ecowho.com/foia.php?file=1233326033.txt
> The American Physical Society on line statement reads (in part):
>
> “The success and credibility of science are anchored in the willingness
> of scientists to:
>
> 1. Expose their ideas and results to independent testing and
> replication by others. This requires the open exchange of data,
> procedures and materials.
> 2. Abandon or modify previously accepted conclusions when confronted
> with more complete or reliable experimental or observational
Climategate Email 1229468467.txt
http://www.ecowho.com/foia.php?file=1229468467.txt
> I just wanted to alert you to the fact that Steven McIntyre has now made
> a request to U.S. DOE Headquarters under the Freedom of Information Act
> (FOIA). McIntyre asked for “Monthly average T2LT values for the 47
> climate models (sic) as used to test the H1 hypothesis in Santer et al.,
> Consistency of modelled and observed temperature trends in the tropical
> troposphere”. I was made aware of the FOIA request earlier this morning.
>
> McIntyre’s request eventually reached the U.S. DOE National Nuclear
> Security Administration (NNSA), Livermore Site Office. The requested
> records are to be provided to the “FOIA Point of Contact” (presumably at
> NNSA) by Dec. 22, 2008.
…
> Over the past several weeks, I’ve had a number of discussions about the
> “FOIA issue” with PCMDI’s Director (Dave Bader), with other LLNL
> colleagues, and with colleagues outside of the Lab. Based on these
> discussions, I have decided to “publish” all of the climate model
> surface temperature time series and synthetic MSU time series (for the
> tropical lower troposphere [T2LT] and the tropical mid- to
> upper-troposphere [T2]) that we used in our International Journal of
> Climatology (IJoC) paper.
…
> After publication of the model data, we will inform the “FOIA Point of
> Contact” that the information requested by McIntyre is publicly
> available for bona fide scientific research.
>
> Unfortunately, we cannot guard against intentional or unintentional
> misuse of these datasets by McIntyre or others.
…
>This will make it difficult for McIntyre
> to continue making the bogus claim that he is being denied access to the
> climate model data necessary to evaluate the validity of our findings.
Climategate Email 1231257056.txt
http://www.ecowho.com/foia.php?file=1231257056.txt
Can any competitor
simply request such datasets via the U.S. FOIA, before we have completed
full scientific analysis of these datasets?