
I’ve kept a little quiet on this month’s
Muppet Show Copenhagen Conference. I never really expected it to come to much, such is the nature of these things. But this piece in the Guardian is worth a read.
It’s all China’s fault. Or is it? Do you actually look at where the stuff you buy is made? Mostly China, that’s where. Except for English Ale of course which is about the only thing we do still make ourselves, apart from a mess at which our politicians excel. Perhaps we should export it? The Ale that is!
Anyway, there has been a
spat exchange of views in the local Wanstead & Woodford Guardian on the subject between Mark Dawes, local Green chappie and Nick Jones, local UKIP chappie. The thing is they are both wrong on Climate Change, or at least not quite right. Or it may just be a dysfunction of language or perhaps they just don’t understand how science works?
Mark’s first letter is about the role of Animal farming in the production of greenhouse gases and promotes a
meat free Monday campaign. Fair enough, that is a legitimate point of view, and one you would expect a vegetarian to make, possibly even from a local
BNP vegetarian councillor.
Nick, though is having none of it. He charges the greens as having an anti-capitalist agenda “seeking to undermine Western economies” and “wishing to impose a vegetarian diet on us all by demonising cows and meat production”. Over reaction or what? But this is the phrase that Mark objects to in the context of the compensation agreed by western nations “for unproven man made global warming”.
Mark responds: “He is wrong. There is now a consensus of thousands of scientists with overwhelming proof that climate change is human made.”. I won’t bother with Nick’s reply to that.
My turn. The only place round here where you will find “proof” is in mathematics. Science does not do proof. Period. The best you can get in science is “not yet disproven”. That’s the way it is. We can never be sure we have all the evidence so we can never be sure our theory or hypothesis is correct. It is always subject to the challenge of new evidence. Of course some hypothesis stand the test of time better than others, they become established but they are not, any of them, beyond being demolished by an observation or evidence newly acquired. Sorry to disappoint but that’s the way it is.
So, Nick, making a claim that a theory or hypothesis is "unproven" when it cannot be proven in the first place is a non sequitur.
"Unproven" is a whole bunch different from “not yet disproven”. The fact is we have a man made global warming or AGW hypothesis and nobody, but nobody has managed so far to put a dent in it. Not you Nick, not UKIP nor any self respecting scientist. Of course we could degenerate here into conspiracy theory where research is being
“directed” and that is a possibility, but we need evidence and not conjecture.
To Mark, right now there may well be overwhelming "evidence" that climate change is human made, but there is no "proof" and we don’t know what evidence will emerge tomorrow or the day after that.
Here is a link to
an hour long lecture by a physicist, Jasper Kirkby, sent in by a respected sceptic, Judith. It is mis-titled “Climategate: Revolt of the Physicists”. It is nothing of the sort. I have sat through the whole hour and perhaps remarkably I followed it and understood it. But then I do have a physics background.
What you have to listen out for is not what you want to hear but what he says. Repeatedly he says this does not disprove AGW, it merely raises more questions that need to be addressed. That is the difference between science and politics.
All new scientific theories or hypotheses go through this burn-in stage. Where the contemporary vested interests of those who stand to gain or lose lock horns. It takes time to settle down. But this one has an extra dimension – do we have time?
Nineteen years ago:
“The threat to our world comes not only from tyrants and their tanks. It can be more insidious though less visible. The danger of global warming is as yet unseen, but real enough for us to make changes and sacrifices, so that we do not live at the expense of future generations.
Our ability to come together to stop or limit damage to the world’s environment will be perhaps the greatest test of how far we can act as a world community. No-one should under-estimate the imagination that will be required, nor the scientific effort, nor the unprecedented co-operation we shall have to show. We shall need statesmanship of a rare order. It’s because we know that, that we are here today.“
Now. Who said that? Someone with a science backgound I shouldn’t wonder!
..you've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk? ...