I realise that George Monbiot is discussing climate change, but..

I find a lot of the topics I discuss here can have comments made along the lines of

There is one question that no one who denies manmade climate change wants to answer: what would it take to persuade you? In most cases the answer seems to be nothing. No level of evidence can shake the growing belief that climate science is a giant conspiracy codded up by boffins and governments to tax and control us. The new study by the Met Office, which paints an even grimmer picture than the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, will do nothing to change this view...

Perhaps we have to accept that there is no simple solution to public disbelief in science. The battle over climate change suggests that the more clearly you spell the problem out, the more you turn people away. If they don’t want to know, nothing and no one will reach them. There goes my life’s work.

George Monbiot, The Unpersuadables

It is amazing how people will see what they want to see and remain fixed in their beliefs.

Or as George also says:

Tell people something they know already and they will thank you for it.
Tell them something new and they will hate you for it. 

Why I don't trust polls

From The New Internationalist site:

 

Nohopenhagen

I knew that I was being far too optimistic that anything would come of this. How could anyone hope that the world's population could agree on anything no matter how much of a threat it is.

At least we cannot blame the US for screwing things up.

It seems the third world was far more of a problem. China engaged in fence post sitting to say it wasn't really developed and didn't have to reduce its emmissions.

Chinese Communism is a very weird thing. It's more like state capitalism. And it's gone insane.

I expect a "Yes, Minister" moment where they come up for a reason for the Secretary of the meeting quitting to be replaced by the Danish PM.

The only good point, Obama is limited to a three minute speech (as are the rest of the world's leaders). It would have been more fun to limit Bill Clinton to three minutes.

Climate Change

The latest Private Eye Cover. No further comment necessary.

Just in case you feel inclined to trust Monckton

George Monbiot, had a post published on the Guardian’s website, 10th December 2009 about Lord Monckton, the Climate Change Skeptic. This is a dude who believes that action on climate change is a conspiracy to create a communist world government!

Needless to say, Monckton has joined the UK Independence Party (UKIP). Monbiot says this become the last refuge of a marvellous collection of cranks and fabulists. OK, I'll forgo the Ambrose Bierce thing here since you probably get my point.

Monckton delivered a speech in October to something called the Minnesota Free Market Institute where he said that:

• He has read the treaty that will be signed at Copenhagen next week. That's quite a feat of clairvoyance.
• The treaty says that "a world government is going to be created".
• Greenpeace is "about to impose a communist world government on the world" and President Obama, who sympathises with that aim, will sign up to it.

These are not the first of Viscount Monckton's interesting statements. He has claimed, in a letter to two US senators, that he is a member of the House of Lords.

Monckton says that he won the Falklands war for Britain by persuading the British government to use biological warfare. Gee, that's news to me since I was there (the Falklands).

Monckton said something in a Scotsman interview that indicates his casual attitude towards the truth:

"I was selling the house anyway and they asked me if I would be willing to tell people I was selling the house because I was afraid somebody might solve the puzzle too fast. I said 'yes'. They said, 'Don't you mind being made to look an absolute prat', and I said, 'No - I'm quite used to that'. History is full of stories that aren't actually true. We sold shed-loads of extra puzzles and I made an handsome profit - and I sold the house as well."

this quote was reprinted at http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2007/09/just_in_case_you_feel_inclined.php

Somebody say something about people being duped by climate skeptics?

Just in time for Copenhagen

>

George Monbiot has a super piece called The Real Climate Scandal:

Even if you were to exclude every line of evidence which could possibly be disputed - the proxy records, the computer models, the complex science of clouds and ocean currents - the evidence for manmade global warming would still be unequivocal. You can see it in the measured temperature record, which goes back to 1850; in the shrinkage of glaciers and the thinning of sea ice; in the responses of wild animals and plants and the rapidly changing crop zones.

No other explanation for these shifts makes sense. Solar cycles have been out of synch with the temperature record for 40 years. The Milankovic cycle, which describes variations in the earth’s orbit, doesn’t explain it either. But the warming trend is closely correlated with the accumulation of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere. The impact of these gases can be demonstrated in the laboratory. To assert that they do not have the same effect in the atmosphere, a novel and radical theory would be required. No such theory exists. The science is not fixed - no science ever is - but it is as firm as science can be. The evidence for manmade global warming remains as strong as the evidence linking smoking to lung cancer or HIV to AIDS.

I'm not sure who introduced me to George, but thank you. His columns are super. I may have picked him up from the Guardian or Andrew could have turned me on to him.

I'm glad George's still alive!