It's true ! Nigel Lawson has gone public and agreed to shut about about Global Warming, as long as everyone else who is not a scientist agrees to shut up too. I read it in the Yorkshire Post, so it must be true :- =x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x= http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/opinion/Nigel-Lawson-A-very-inconvenient.... Published Date: 12 April 2008 GLOBAL warming is among the most difficult and complex issues with which we are faced at the present time. ...although not a scientist myself, I have not felt inhibited from speaking out on this issue. But let me, here and now, give a solemn undertaking. If everyone else who is not a scientist, from Al Gore to Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, from Nicholas Stern to David Cameron, agrees to shut up about the issue, then I will take a vow of silence, too. Until then, I will feel free to speak out. Not that it is all that easy to get a hearing... =x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x= Right. I own a certificate somewhere that shows I have an Honours Degree in Physics from the University of Warwick (1981 - 1984). So if all the rest of you without science qualifications would just stop campaigning for a while, Nigel Lawson has practically vowed to be silent, but he will permit me to carry on speaking ! The point is, Nigel, I'm a scientist, and I understand about Energy, Electronics, Quantum Mechanics and other such things, but I'm not actually a Climatologist. So should I be speaking about Climate Change ? Am I qualified to make public pronouncements on Radiative Forcing, and Global Warming ? If I'm quoting genuine Climatologists, then yes, I am. And so should you be, if you are properly quoting Climate Science. But you are not. The risks are as follows : there is a non-negligible risk that the world could warm by something like 10 degrees Celsius on average within the next 200 years. The poles would be most affected, and sea level rises from a combination of eustatic (warming expansion) change, and melting land-based ice would overwhelm much of the land that humans now live on. There is medium risk that the world will warm by something like 6 degrees Celsius. See James Hansen. There is a very high risk that Global Warming within a century could be at least 3 degrees above pre-industrial levels, and that this combined with deforestation could produce catastrophic further changes from self-reinforcing effects. It is still possible, according to statistics, that as from now, there could be very little extra Global Warming, but that outcome is vanishingly small. There is every reason to be alarmed. Remember Y2K ? The alarm was raised that if all the computer systems were not re-written or fixed, that on the stroke of midnight 31st December 1999, all the computer systems would fail as they were not programmed for four digit years, and 00 does not follow 99. A lot of Global Warming skeptics say, but Y2K didn't happen. We didn't see any impact. What they don't acknowledge was that millions of Euros and millions of hours were taken by thousands of computer programmers to go through millions of lines of computer programming code to fix them, to prevent the problem happening. Y2K would have happened without me. I did some of that programming. There were bad errors in the code. So, don't tell me that alarm was nothing. It was a real risk, and we worked to stop it causing damage. We need to do the same with Global Warming. Stop it before it produces the catastrophe we know is highly probable. The probability of dangerous Climate Change is P < 1, in other words, it is not 100% certainty. But any rational person can see that prudence is vital here. We're gambling with our lives, and the life of everything on Earth, and the odds are way past even. Utter chaos in the Biosphere is almost a dead cert if we continue to burn Fossil Fuels, burn down the trees and leave our lights burning. BLACKOUT |
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Count me in as well then
Great news. That means that I can join you Jo, in this new Eutopia of knowledgable debate.
Even though I'm a climate sceptic, I too have a degree (Geograpghical Sciences / Climatology) which means I can continue to challenge the 'science' that is swamping the press.
I think you've taken the 'degree in..' to mean 'Scientist' way to far Jo. Does that mean that someone with a degree in Social Sciences can take part in the discussion? They are, after all, a scientist if their skills and expertise are employed in an empirical fashion !!
So many people have degrees now that you still end up with the entire planet arguing !
Lawson Slated in FT letter
Sir, Nigel Lawson's perspective that the UK and Europe are over-reacting
to the threat of human-induced climate change is substantively wrong and
ignores a significant body of scientific, technological and economic
evidence , from the FT.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/939a0076-0a86-11dd-b5b1-0000779fd2ac.html
Richard Lambert, CBI Director, Slams Lawson
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http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2274734,00.html?gusrc=rss&fe...
...when it comes to the big picture, he is very likely to be wrong. Lawson's view is that what he calls the new religion of global warming contains a grain of truth and a mountain of very damaging nonsense.
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Never one to suffer from an excess of humility, he is happy to attack the scientific might of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a "global quasi-monopoly" whose judgment and integrity he finds open to question. But he reserves his special contempt for the Stern review, which at various points in the book he describes as alarmist, cockeyed, scare- mongering, politically inspired and lamentable.
This abuse has a purpose. Lord Stern's central message is that provided the world acts quickly enough to curb greenhouse gas emissions, we won't have to make the painful choice between averting climate change on the one hand, and economic development on the other. The longer we delay, the more costly the necessary actions.
Lawson has to shoot this down in order to sustain his own argument, which is that given all the uncertainties and the difficulties in securing a sharp cut in emissions, it makes much more sense to go with the flow and adapt to climate conditions if and when they change.
His message is based on two dangerous assumptions. One is that the risks of rapidly accelerating greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere are not as great as the consensus would suggest. The other is that the costs and difficulties of curbing these emissions are too great to contemplate.
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Lawson states that if global warming results in water shortages, the obvious remedy is sensible conservation measures, including in particular the pricing of water. Tell this to the almost one billion people in Africa and Asia who, according to the IMF, face water shortages by 2080 as a result of climate change.
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When it comes to the potential costs of mitigation, Lawson resorts to the kind of hyperbole that would make the most fanatical environmentalist blush.
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...it is ridiculous to suggest, as Lawson does, that the Stern review has played the same role as Tony Blair's notorious "dodgy dossier".
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Most people don't expect their house to burn down. But they take out fire insurance, provided it is available at a sensible price, to protect themselves against the possibility. In the light of our current knowledge about global warming, that amounts to a compelling case for action.
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