"An Australian climate scientist who is now retired from the Greenhouse tells a few home truths in an easily digestible format."

Actually he's not a climate scientist - he's an electrical engineer. But hey, it's all the same, isn't it?

And as he says in his article:

"The area of human endeavor with the most experience and sophistication in dealing with feedbacks and analysing complex systems is electrical engineering,"

Well that's them climate science specialists put in their place.

And I can think of a few other scientific disciplines that might disagree with his claims for electrical engineering - and I'm willing to bet that he wouldn't get past the first paragraph of a synthetic CDO. In point of fact I KNOW that he wouldn't because the rocket scientist "quants" the merchant banks hired prior to the GFC couldn't understand some of those products - but the cap markets lawyers who drafted them did.

Rog

Actually I had heard of this guy, he came up a while ago:

- he isn't a climate scientist
- has never published a peer-reviewed paper on climate science
- has only ever published one science paper (23 years ago)
- has stated that he is not a climate modeller
- is tied up with the Lavosier group: which is, surprise, surprise, a mining lobby group

Update: his article is available for download on the Lavosier website.

- was all over the tabloid/right-wing press here a couple of years ago

Edited by Arapiles on 11/10/2010 06:35:56 MST.

Rog

I've come to the dark side and am hanging out at watsuputhat. They have a thread on David Evans new article and one of the responses struck a chord:

"Unfortunately this SPPI paper is a “rant”, not a reasoned response. Written simply without the ideological righteous indignation, it would have been worthy of recommending to a warmist. It is not worthy of that. Preaching to the choir is what Gore et al do. It is a shame that the SPPI has done this with a simple summary of the problems with the science behind CAGW."

Listening to the radio debate yesterday reminded my of the Not A True Scotsman fallacy in logic.

Dessler kept eluding to the fact that all true climate science agree with global warming caused by human behavior. Also pushed his point that yes there is uncertainty, but not doing anything is "like getting a gun and playing Russian roulette".

Taylor argued that there is more correlation with warming and the sun's activity and also warming and cloud/ocean effects than with human causation.

- he isn't a climate scientist
- has never published a peer-reviewed paper on climate science
- has only ever published one science paper (23 years ago)
- has stated that he is not a climate modeller
- is tied up with the Lavosier group: which is, surprise, surprise, a mining lobby group


DW, sounds like he's eminently qualified to participate in this thread!

"DW, sounds like he's eminently qualified to participate in this thread!"

LOL, that really sums this thread up!

"DW, sounds like he's eminently qualified to participate in this thread!"

LOL - yes, I'm looking forward to him sending us some graphs.

DW, sounds like he's eminently qualified to participate in this thread!

And of course anyone who is not a scientist is not qualified to participate! We don't know anything!

From the basic gist of this whole thread the only two people who are supposedly qualified to comment on the entire gristle are scientists and businessmen. ;-P

Arapiles says:
Actually he's not a climate scientist - he's an electrical engineer.

Yeah, looks like the Australian Greenhouse Office will employ any old engineer doesn't it?

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/western_climate_establishment_corrupt.pdf
from P42
Dr David Evans worked for the Australian Greenhouse Office (now the Department of Climate Change) from 1999 to 2005, modelling Australia’s carbon in plants, debris, mulch, soils, and forestry and agricultural products. Evans is a mathematician and engineer, with six university degrees including a PhD from Stanford University in electrical engineering. The area of human endeavor with the most experience and sophistication in dealing with feedbacks and analysing complex systems is electrical engineering, and the most crucial and disputed aspects of understanding the climate system are the feedbacks. The evidence supporting the idea that CO2 emissions were the main cause of global warming reversed itself from 1998 to 2006, causing Evans to move from being a warmist to a skeptic.

Six degrees. But as he points out, you don't need to be a scientist to spot cheating anyway.

- is tied up with the Lavosier group: which is, surprise, surprise, a mining lobby group

Isn't Rajendra Pachauri, head of the IPCC also tied up with mining companies? (surprise surprise)

I've started hanging out at WUWT

Did you check this article out?
“Gross” Data Errors in GHCN V2. for Australia

Unlike realclimate.org, at WUWT, we don't censor, so all shades of opinion are represented. Anthony Watts expressed his own reservations about the Evans article, but posted it anyway, because he believes, as I do, that people have a right to make up their own minds.

I linked it here, because it's written in everday language and alhough I don't agree with every detail either, it conveys some of the things people may not have heard through the media.

Edited by tallbloke on 11/12/2010 02:36:02 MST.

Dick Lindzen (a well qualified climate scientist) comments:

Consider a letter of April 9 to the Financial Times by the presidents of the U.S. National Academy of Science and the Royal Society (Ralph Cicerone and Martin Rees, respectively). It acknowledges that climategate has contributed to a reduced concern among the public, as has unusually cold weather. But Messrs. Cicerone and Rees insist that nothing has happened to alter the rather extreme statement that climate is changing and it is due to human action. They then throw in a very peculiar statement (referring to warming), almost in passing: “Uncertainties in the future rate of this rise, stemming largely from the ‘feedback’ effects on water vapour and clouds, are topics of current research.”

Who would guess, from this statement, that the feedback effects are the crucial question? Without these positive feedbacks assumed by computer modelers, there would be no significant problem, and the various catastrophes that depend on numerous factors would no longer be related to anthropogenic global warming.
=======================================================

Typically understated. The fact is, water vapour hasn't increased as the models predicted, it turns out that clouds (surprise surprise) are a negative feedback on the climate system, and cloud cover was lower 1980-1998, causing more sunlight to reach into and warm the oceans, according to the ISCCP data.

Edited by tallbloke on 11/11/2010 18:41:15 MST.

"And of course anyone who is not a scientist is not qualified to participate! We don't know anything!"

No, no it gives us hope: we just have to assert boldly and publically that we are scientists ... or rocket scientists ... or something like that.

"Dr David Evans worked for the Australian Greenhouse Office (now the Department of Climate Change) from 1999 to 2005, modelling Australia’s carbon in plants, debris, mulch, soils, and forestry and agricultural products. Evans is a mathematician and engineer, with six university degrees including a PhD from Stanford University in electrical engineering .... causing Evans to move from being a warmist to a skeptic."

You realise that it appears that he wrote that?

Re the Greenhouse Office, in some articles it simply says that he was a consultant to them. Whatever that means.

Arapiles says:
we just have to assert boldly and publically that we are scientists ... or rocket scientists ... or something like that.

Presumably then, you are equally scornful of Al gore's shameless and unqualified climate alarmism?

Does Gore have a science degree at all? (Let alone 6)
And I'm not taking honorary doctorates as valid here.

UPDATE

Gore's qualifications:
five F-grades from Vanderbilt Divinity School and a Harvard thesis on the impact of television on the American presidency.

I can see how the latter might have aided his propaganda campaign. And how the former might have given him an air of smug preechiness and an ability to totally overlook his own hubris and hypocrisy.

Edited by tallbloke on 11/12/2010 03:00:16 MST.

Presumably then, you are equally scornful of Al gore's shameless and unqualified climate alarmism?

Chill, man, Rog! We're just kidding around. This thread has gone WAY beyond the scope of the original question and it's nice to just poke fun at the sometimes overly-serious content. I think it should be more than obvious by now that no one is going to have their minds changed by anything written so far. It just gets a bit much when people start flinging Poop at one another over who is more intelligent or better able to "prove" something. Laughter is a good leveler and reminds us that no one is beyond reproach or a bit of humility.

I wasn't being serious when I made my last comment. And neither was Arapiles. Please accept my apology if I came across as callous.

I know you are kidding Miguel, I'm not so sure DW is though.

He seems to think the only people qualified to judge the coterie of climate scientists work are members of the coterie of climate scientists who pal reviewed each others shoddy work in the first place. The climategate emails show where that got us.

Maybe everyone needs to take a break from the discussion for a while and talk about some other things? I don't know. Doesn't it seem to everyone here that when people who I'm sure would be great to sit around a campfire with start throwing dirt at each other something is a little skewed? And talk of backpacking is so much more rewarding!

I've met Arapiles in person and we've corresponded privately for many years... he's really a great guy with a great sense of humor and willingness to open his mind. And I've corresponded privately with you, too, Rog, and you're also a great guy. I think you both mean well. Too bad it's hard to see one another through the public face of a forum, though. Just think, both of you do have a topic in common that you generally agree on: UL backpacking!

Fair enough Miguel, I regret having had cross words here, especially with Tony, but there it is. I think like an engineer:
"How do we make climate science fit for purpose."
Other people have other agendas:
"How do we use this to push our own environmental agenda"
"How do we get the accused off the hook"
"How do we discredit the whistleblowers"

The thing that most concerns me is the damage being done to science itself. The public now percieve that scientific opinion is moulded by the end justifying the means, the funding stream and the personal prestige of the players. Maybe it was ever thus in some quarters, but the brightness of the spotlight shone by the media on the climate issue has illuminated the murky background of science policy politics, and that can't be ignored or handwaved away.

Meanwhile the cost of staying warm skyrockets, and pensioners die of cold related health issues in ever greater numbers, while these 'climate scientists' and their hangers-on fly to conferences in tropical locations on the public dime.

That makes me angry.

I think you raise a larger question (at least in my mind) here Rog:
Can we reasonably expect science to remain separate from the influence of political and corporate/financial agendas, regardless of which way the wind is currently blowing?

I'm not sure I believe this is possible: geopolitics, development, finance, global business, production (etc.)...and ultimately the science that is supposed to help us create sound policy are all too interconnected to expect them to not meddle in each others affairs for personal gain.

That makes me angry.

I commend you on your drive to do the right thing.

But try to see it from others' perspective, too. Not everyone has the agendas you're pooh-poohing. There are many who genuinely (and I'm one of them. I'd say most environmentalists that I know are, too) concerned about the health and well-being of the planet and human populations who just happen to see things from a different perspective from you. They look at the problems with different criteria and connect the dots with different facts and experiences. Some, whether they are correct or not, see you as one of those people who distort the information. You don't see it that way, but that doesn't mean that they are not intelligent or honest. Part of the problem with choosing an argument to follow is that you narrow down what you look at and can see. That in turn further limits the information you allow yourself to learn from and thereby further narrow your openness to the truth. It makes it hard for you to listen to others and actually hear what they are saying. The same goes for those who oppose you. For something as big, complex, and impossible to gain a truly objective perspective on (since you live inside the whole equation) as global climate that is especially true. The truth is that no one really knows what the answer is. All anyone can do is guess and extrapolate from bits of information.

What makes me angry is our planet's environment going to Hell. Species disappearing, wild land disappearing, oceans polluted, the air poisoned, people living in abject poverty while fat cats dine in the towers above. Whether or not you or anyone agrees with me will not change my perspective or anger; only meaningful and respectful discourse can. I am more likely to listen to someone if they listen and acknowledge the merit in what I have to say.

This whole mess is beyond our control. Just live your life!