Two more replies to some Green/Left boilerplate



I myself commented on the boilerplate concerned on 2nd but I have received via email from an Australian source the following addition to the discussion:

On 1 February a group of climate scientists published an article in The Australian (it had already been published in the Wall St Journal) explaining why they believe there is no compelling argument for drastic action to reduce emissions. This produced a response by a group of climate scientists (under the name of one, Kevin Trenberth) who believe there is a need for such action and a claim that the first group does not have the required expertise. A copy of the latter article is set out below.

The fact that the self-appointed experts have felt the need to respond is a further indication of concern by the experts that their analyses are increasingly being exposed as (to say the least) highly questionable. The response, however, is largely devoid of substance and is based on the pathetic claim of superior expertise.

This has produced several letters challenging the respondents, the most important of which is the one below by Bill Kininmonth who is of course one of our expert climate scientists but whose views have to date been ignored by the government.

Climategate email reveals doubts on data (Letter published in The Australian, 4-5 Feb 2012)

Kevin Trenberth, responding to an Opinion (to which I was a co-signatory) published in the Wall Street Journal (27/1/12) and The Australian (“Climate change ‘heretics’ refute carbondangers”,1/2), claims to have been quoted out of context and misrepresented (“Expertise a prerequisite to comment on climate”, 3/2).

The quote in our Opinion is from an email sent by Trenberth to a group of colleagues that became public with the release of emails from the UK University of East Anglia (or climategate). Trenberth wrote: “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t...... there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observation system is inadequate.”

The context is an exchange of emails initiated on 11 October 2009 in response to a BBC item that there has been no warming since 1998 and that Pacific oscillations will force cooling for the next 20-30 years.

Trenberth was certainly lamenting the inadequacy of the observing systems (with which I agree) but at face value he is also acknowledging that the available data do not support warming since 1998. The latter is an inconvenience to the human-caused global warming hypothesis that he and his colleagues are wedded to.

William Kininmonth, Kew, Vic

Expertise A Prerequisite To Comment? (Square bracketed section deleted by Ed)

[Kevin Trenberth writes with other climate scientists in defence of their view that the world faces dangerous warming (Commentary, 3/2). But he fails to explain why some qualified scientists present a vastly different perspective.

Take just one example from the attitude of Climate Research Unit head at East Anglia University, a principal source of advice to the IPCC. He told the BBC in 2010 that surface temperature data cannot be verified or replicated, that the mediaeval warming period may have been as warm as today, that no statistically measured global warming has occurred for the previous 15 years and that the science is not settled. There are many other examples of expert climate scientists with different views.]

Although not an economist, Trenberth claims a low-carbon economy will “drive decades of economic growth”. But analysis by Australia’s expert economist, Ross Garnaut, says action to mitigate the effect of emissions would lift growth by 2100 to only a minor extent, and then after cutting it initially.

There are experts and experts. Some are right and some are wrong. The uncertainties of climate science, acknowledged in the IPCC’s 2007 report, suggest emission reducing action by governments is not justified.

Des Moore, South Yarra Vic

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