Global Warming Challenge, pt II

Last night Devil's Kitchen and I had a lengthy discussion on Twitter over global warming.

DK linked to an article on the "skeptic" website Watt'sUpWithThat regarding ice core data. While the data on the WUWT article may be accurate, the fact that it is an article on their website makes me to be suspicious as to whether they're correctly interpreting the data.

I asked if by analogy whether he thought that AGW was a house of cards, i.e. if you take out one thing then the whole thing comes crashing down, or if it was more of a jigsaw, i.e. like any other area of science in that while one piece of data may not fit it doesn't really affect the rest of it. DK said that he considers that AGW is more like an inverted pyramid.

DK linked to one article stating that CFCs cause AGW - and I linked to an article against CFCs and AGW. I linked to a similar article on RealClimate.org regarding a similar study which the CFC-AGW article author had written a year before. DK said that due to the CRU hack RealClimate cannot be trusted.

He also ripped into the New Scientist's 50 reasons why global warming isn't natural article. Apparently it's wrong - and he gave examples as to why he thinks this. He also stated that their leader article on the recent CRU-data hack was dishonest. However, when I asked him if he'd submitted his disputes with the NS to them, he admitted he'd refused to. When asked if this means he'd rather he'd rather whinge on the Internet instead of putting his money where his mouth is, he said yeah because he claims to be busy and not a scientist. However, apparently, not too busy to spend a lot of the night on Twitter...

Given that it's DK it is unlikely that his reluctance is due to modesty... With respect I think it's more likely that he isn't too confident that his position is backed by evidence.  He is unwilling, or, frankly, unable to put his money where his mouth is.

In the end we got back to AGW is a conspiracy.

Is anyone else wiling to help out with my challenge? Tweet

Global Warming Challenge

If you follow me on Twitter - and if not, why not? - you my have noticed I've been having an argument over global warming with Devil's Kitchen amongst others.

My view is that the scientific evidence shows that global warming (AGW) is happening - and linked to this article - after previously linking to other articles - while DK and TJERubbaal (see numerous links) seem to say that it's a conspiracy and that any evidence supporting AGW is wrong.

I've asked for evidence against AGW and DK kindly provided a link. However, John Band linked to something shortly after which discredited DK's link.

As a result, I've decided to throw open my challenge to my non-Twitter people: I'm after credible, peer-reviewed scientific articles which have been published in credible, peer-reviewed scientific journals (and any blog posts, news articles, etc linking to those) showing that AGW is wrong. Tweet

Help fund my campaign, update

You may remember that back in May I set up a pledge to obtain funds for my political career.

I just received an email confirming that I have reached the minimum number of pledges to active it, so giving me access to £500.00 to pay for the deposit.

As you may be aware if you follow me on Twitter, I am now a member of the Pirate Party UK and so the money and my political career is now entwined with them.

PPUK are currently in the process of considering which seats to stand in and who should be their candidate in each one.

I've been working with the Twickenham branch and will be helping them out in the election either as a candidate or otherwise. Tweet

D-Notice: #Trafigura II

I've previously mentioned the battle between the Guardian and the oil-trading company Trafigura. The BBC also had a report on them, but this has recently disappeared.

Richard from Don't Get Fooled Again, asked how we should respond, to which I suggested a mass blog-posting of the Wikileaks stuff. Richard also linked to the video he'd already embedded, which is also on YouTube and has also saved a PDF of the BBC article.




People should spread the videos and posts to stop Trafigura and their lawyers Carter Ruck's blatant attempts at censorship.

PS. As a piece of background reading, you should see the BBC's other Newsnight article on Trafigura (via @TenPercent). Tweet

Photographer =/= Terrorist

Via Spyblog comes word of this:

This might be a good time to try and re-start Daily Police Photo. Tweet

Planet Sound R. I. P.

You may or may not be aware but Monday has the last ever "issue" (if that's the correct description) of Teletext's Planet Sound music section.

I've read PS since 1997 - the year it started - and have tried to read it every day since then. It was my first stop for music news and reviews and most importantly was updated every day.

It was one of the few places whose reviews I trusted fully - they were generally correct in their opinions and did not care whether or not a particular artist was fashionable or popular.

Favourite bits:

• The viewers' discussions when OK Computer came out. My all-time favourite quote was when someone criticised it for amongst other things having a cover of a Bob Dylan track. A few days later - not many people had email back then! - there was a response which stated that the Radiohead track was a completely different track, in its music, lyrics and title!
• In the end-of-2001 review for apologising for not previously advising us about the White Stripes, but also saying that picking out the Strokes from a load of New York guitar bands would have been like picking out the new Michael Owen from a bunch of 11 year olds.

If you never read it, I would describe it as NME without the pretension and Q without the bland. It will be missed but its spirit lives on through BBC 6 Music. Tweet

Stating the Obvious

... and the award for the "Least Surprising Admission of the Decade" goes to Tony Blair:

Tony Blair has said he would have invaded Iraq even without evidence of weapons of mass destruction and would have found a way to justify the war to parliament and the public.

The former prime minister made the confession during an interview with Fern Britton, to be broadcast on Sunday on BBC1, in which he said he would still have thought it right to remove Saddam Hussein from power.

"If you had known then that there were no WMDs, would you still have gone on?" Blair was asked. He replied: "I would still have thought it right to remove him [Saddam Hussein]".

On the plus side, at least he's finally admitted it wasn't due to Iraq having big weapons and admits he did what he wanted, irrespective of evidence. Tweet

10:23

Just to mention: #ten23 and the 10:23 Campaign.

That is all. Tweet

45 min from Doom

I have a new post over on the Sun Lies.

This one's about the "45-min-from-doom" claim which was used to justify us invading Iraq. Tweet