I was invited to be on the Murnaghan programme on Sky News this morning – which I always find a great deal more intelligent than the Andrew Marr alternative on the BBC. I declined because I did not want to get up and get a 7.30am train from Ramsgate on a Sunday morning. I had a meeting until 11.30pm last night planning a conference on human rights in Balochistan [I still tend to say Baluchistan], and I have a newly crowned tooth that seems not to want to settle down. But I am still worried by my own lack of energy, which is uncharacteristic. Is this old age?
I also have some serious work to do on my Burnes book, and next week I shall be staying in London to be in the British Library reading room for every second of its opening hours. So there may be a bit of a posting hiatus. I have in mind a short post on an important subject on which I suspect that 99% of my readership – including the regular dissident commenters – will strongly disagree with me.
This is a peculiarly introspective post, perhaps because my tooth is hurting, but I seem to have this curmudgeonly spirit which wishes to react to the huge popularity of this blog by posting something genuinely held but unpopular; a genuine view but one I don’t normally trumpet. The base thought seems to be “You wouldn’t like me if you really knew me”.
Similarly when I wrote Murder in Samarkand I was being hailed as a hero by quite a lot of people for my refusal to go along with the whole neo-con disaster of illegal wars, extraordinary rendition and severe attacks on civil liberties, sacrificing my fast track diplomatic career as a result. My reaction to putative hero worship was to publish in Murder in Samarkand not just the political facts, but an exposure of my own worst and most unpleasant behaviour in my private life.
I am in a very poor position to judge, but I believe the result rather by accident turned out artistically compelling, if you don’t want to read the book you can get a good idea of that by clicking on David Tennant in the top right of this blog and listening to him playing me in David Hare’s radio adaptation.
Anyway, that’s enough musing. You won’t like my next post, whenever it comes. Promise.
@Anon 7.46pm
Your giving out mixed messages – you say you couldn’t care less about the hockey stick graph but still strongly defend all the studies behind it? Do you ever read any other site except skepticalscience.com!? Its all very well being sceptical about climate sceptics as that site is but,like LeonerdYoung suggests, isnt it the point that all scientists need to be sceptics about everything until proven otherwise? The site you allude to also tries to deal with the ‘hide the data’ email (unconvincingly in my opinion) but does not address why the 1996 IPCC graph was utterly different in 2001.
I don’t quite get who these ‘anti global warming people’ are supposed to be either – its an oxymoronic thing to say.Its not like sceptics are exactly for global warming..
The truth is that nobody knows exactly what the situation is but there is plenty of evidence to show that global warming, now called climate change,has been used,exaggerated,manipulated and commandeered by institutions and international kabals for their own purposes.
And polar bears can swim
“We will never double oil consumption from what it is now.”
That maybe true, and I did mention that use was “levelling off about now”. My point stands though, in that from the years 2000 to 2010, as much oil was used globally, as all the worlds oil use from before the year 2000. Even if not exact by the odd year or two, the point stands that if oil use is the cause of global warming, then the last decade should have set us ablaze; but it didn’t.
If Craig’s feeling a loss of energy : I hope he hasn’t seen Andrei Lugovoi lurking around…..
The global warming evangelists tend to rewrite history too ..
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/04/10/ice-free-north-pole-at-peak-ice-on-march-17-1959/
The Earth has been warming since the last ice age. So have Mars and Venus.
The Sun causes this warming, not man.
CO2 is a plant food.
Dr David Bellamy was dumped by the BBC because he wouldn’t push the propaganda. He was right. Saint David Attenbourgh did – and lately he’s been banging on about population explosions. But he’s not a scientist.
Did you know, the BBC pension fund is heavily invested in the carbon markets.
Oh me oh my. Greenhouses don’t work (my last tomatoes were imaginary) and aliens are already among us. And (golly!) one of the mods has a ‘shit list’ of posters. This blog is becoming a real white-knuckle ride.
Technicolour, love your posts, if agreement occasional. Please lean off Clark, because I don’t think he can lean off you. Somebody on one side of that child/child relationship must become adult. As certainly as shit sticks to a blanket it ain’t going to be Clark, ergo…
There, I’m now one of the socialist Death Squad. Must be a tie we can wear.
Meandering back in the direction of the the topic:
Request: Would people who I guess would style themselves ‘rationalists’ please stop linking to ‘skeptical’ (with that nasty ‘k’) sites? They’re usually just propagandising establishment orthodoxies. To summarise their prospectus: “If you don’t believe us, you’re silly”. How familiar, how everyday, how useful. How terribly BBC, in fact. Please feel free to fuck with your head and read the few random typescripts that emerged from the sceptical of scepticism sceptics.
http://www.tricksterbook.com/truzzi/ZeteticScholars.html
Drawing dangerously closer to topic: Fair’s fair and I’ve got to join the betting. My guess: Craig is going to go for more privatisation and ‘small Government’. There have been clues in the past.
But we all need to get some skin in the game. So: If I’m wrong, I’ll tell you the queerest place I ever had sex. Nope, that’s not much, can tell you now, it was Dumbarton. Better: if I’m wrong, I’ll tell you the queerest sex I ever had (terrrrrriffick!!! Great story!!!).
So as we offer our guesses, we should offer our forfeits. Ante up, folks. Think what we might deliciously learn from Mary if she loses! And what in the fuck does CE get up, apart from himself? Must be a story there.
Jimmy and Chris.
Short – lack of time. Disagree – you don’t convince me. I read the same arguments and come to a different conclusion.
If it isn’t clear – whoever/whatever though the hockey stick was a good idea is an idiot. Just as I think those who don’t even want to mention the Maunder Minimum possibility are idiots right now. However I believe they are doing it out of passion for the planet. Not out of passion for money.
When it comes to issues with enormous consequences then the scientific “precautionary principle” should apply. Or Be careful with f*cking with what you don’t understand.
And Jimmy, the last decade should not have set us ablaze any more than the previous periods that saw us use more oil then in all of history. Everything that has happened up to now is perfectly consistent with the physics of global warming as I see it.
Zoologist,
David Bellamy simply had no idea what he was talking about and spouted nonsense from certain websites.
If “they” couldn’t catch normally rational people in their net, they wouldn’t have done it in the first place.
I sometimes wonder why I don’t just join the dark side. Could have my own little cult I’m sure judging by the gullibility I see here. In fact maybe I’ll come back into this thread arguing the denialist points under another handle and get myself started.
Good night.
Here is something to read: ”Watermelons: How Environmentalists are Killing the Planet, Destroying the Economy and Stealing your Children’s Future” by James Delingpole, find it on Amazon UK.
”If global warming isn t real then how come the ice caps are melting? Why would all the worlds top scientists lie to us? What exactly is so wrong with biofuels, wind farms, carbon taxes, sustainability and preserving scarce resources for future generations? And what about Bangladesh, the drowning Maldives and all those endangered polar bears?
James Delingpole has all the answers and they’re not the ones Al Gore would like you to hear. In Watermelons, Delingpole tells the shocking true story of how a handful of political activists, green campaigners and voodoo scientists engineered the world s biggest, most expensive and destructive outbreak of mass hysteria one that threatens the very fabric of Western Civilisation.
As the world stands on the brink of a new Great Depression, Delingpole’s message could not be more timely or urgent. In order to save our planet must we really surrender to the green movement s misanthropic tyranny? Or might there be a better way?”
FFS We’re quoting right wing nut-cases (James Delingpole) from the Daily Telegraph now as proof that Global Warming is a conspiracy by “environmentalists” . I really give up on some of you…
Vronsky, that’s really hard to take, as you are one of my favourite contributors here. Did I become the enemy when I was sent a moderator’s login without being asked? I haven’t deleted anything but spam and double-posts since you said that moderators shouldn’t express their opinions.
Delingpole, ahem. He’s further off the right of the scale than Mel Philips or David Aaronovitch – and his only natural home is Spectator magazine, who (as I like reminding people) rather fancied John McCain for president. Yikes.
Vronsky – naughty step for that post, I think!
Anon – Bellamy is a real paradox. Check Monbiot’s website for email conversations between the two of them, in which Bellamy replies to Monbiot’s considered research with off-the-cuff all-caps rants. Not a fair contest, certainly, but a surprise to the casual observer, who’d have thought that Bellamy would be a staunch environmentalist.
I stated “Here is something to read”. If you are getting into the censorship way of dealing with reality, I’d say you are either suffering from cognitive dissonance or part of the mess.
The sad reality of all our oil consumption to date boys and girls is what have we got
left to show for it.
Hinesite ‘gets ya every time`.
No. I became the enemy when I wasn’t radically atheist enough, didn’t I?
Anon – I thought you were going to bed..as your dozzing off, maybe you can have a think about that drastic change in the hockey stick graph between 1996 and 2001….sweet dreams
“David Bellamy simply had no idea what he was talking about and spouted nonsense from certain websites.”
Dr Bellamy is a proper scientist.
There is no consensus, that much is obvious. Only the vested interests try to pretend that there is.
“Climate change” is about politics, not science. Don’t believe the hype.
Of course there is a consensus – 5% who are perhaps vaguely qualified say one thing (no warming) but the other 95% have consensus.
Chris how many times do I have to tell you I don’t defend the hockey stick shite, Ask me once more and I will start to assume malice.
Probably about this time of night someone should call “quorum count” and us stragglers could all head to bed pretending we want to carry on all night. 🙂
“When it comes to issues with enormous consequences then the scientific “precautionary principle” should apply. Or Be careful with f*cking with what you don’t understand.”
That ain’t science, that’s the theological argument style of the Jesuits.
Oh, I was privately making a vow only to post again under my real name (which is an even sillier one) but I lied. James Delingpole is certainly extremely strange in his enthusiasm for some things, but he was fairly recently animadverting about the ‘vampire squid’ of corporate capitalism, which makes him, Spectator writer or not (and let us not forget that our host is a Daily Mail writer and they, let us not forget, supported Hitler) also sometimes interesting. On the whole, though, poor research on the climate change front – and btw folks, it was called ‘global warming’ to make it sound nicer. Then it was called ‘climate change’ to make it sound anodyne. And now, for reasons that everyone wearing fur boots and a swimming costume, while brandishing an umbrella, will be aware, it is becoming known as ‘climate chaos’.
Vronsky, it’s truly worrying, I don’t think we’ve ever agreed on anything. I do, though agree about greenhouses, and lack of doom generally, ouch.
Jimmy,
I didn’t think it was controversial:
Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle
What forums are you reading with this Jesuit nonsense?
“What forums are you reading with this Jesuit nonsense?”
The Guardian.
“Of course there is a consensus – 5% who are perhaps vaguely qualified say one thing (no warming) but the other 95% have consensus.”
You can’t back that up because it’s not true.
In the real world, real scientists that I know, 95% are sceptical or totally dismissive.
They don’t get funded by the climate lobby either.
Jimmy, if it was “The Manchester Guardian”, I might have been impressed. Care to defend “The Guardian” current viewpoint on Craig Murray or Julian Assange?
Zoologist. I believe you are a liar. I doubt you are any kind of zoologist but that could be true I guess. I can prove I’m anon. Can you prove you’re a zoologist?
Hey Jimmy,
Feynman is one of my heroes.
Well him Mr Spock, Arthur C Clarke and Professor Timothy Leary.
ps Vronsky – laphroaig?
This is really difficult Clark, but I’m glad you’ve responded. I feel very sorry for Technicolour because in my mind what he/she posts is always interesting and well expressed, even when it is occasionally a little dissonant with my own world view. I know very little of you, but something I well remember is the calmness and careful neutrality of your interlocutions in the 9/11 thread (a bee in my bonnet, and everyone’s bonnet who posted there, and therefore a very awkward conversation for you to manage). In the passing I learned that you seemed to share my discomfort with what I’d call fundamentalist rationalism (the JREFers were out in force). I hope you will read the Zetetic Scholar material linked in my last post as I’d guess it is somewhat supportive of your world view and also quite close to mine.
I am having trouble at work right now in trying to arrange the survival of a manufacturing company which is very old fashioned in its ways. Management does not trust the shop floor, and the shop floor does not trust management. I’m afraid both have good historical foundation for their doubts – old sins cast long shadows, as the Russian proverb has it. Building new trust on the ruins of an old relationship is difficult. It has to be done, though, or none of us will have a job this time next year.
Let’s save this company. I love this blog and I’m quite happy to share the ride with all sorts of funny people. I’m one of the funny people, as is Technicolour, as are you. We have a wonderfully colourful cast of characters. Please tear up your shit list. If you’d like to email me personally, Suhayl has my address.
Anon, you brush aside the lie of the hockey stick – proof of dishonesty at the heart of climate science.
You tell everyone you are going to bed hours ago but are still around dishing out your opinion and ad homs. at anyone you disagree with.
To cap it all you than accuse a fellow contributor, zoologist of being a liar.
Do you see how this might look to readers of this blog?
Just asking 😉