Bishop Hill Myles, Roger, and Chris hit Rotterdam
Dec 17, 2014 BBC Climate: WG2 Greens Readers may be interesting in this report of the proceedings of a climate change conference in Rotterdam back in September. One of the sessions was chaired by a familiar face
BBC correspondent and conference moderator Roger Harrabin took a moment between speeches to remind all those gathered that “politics is creeping along, whereas scientists say, we need to be racing forward in order to adapt to and mitigate climate change.”
And there was a fairly vacuous contribution from Chris Rapley:
Chris Rapley of University College of London spoke about bridging the gap between organising on the one hand and, on the other, communicating climate resilience. “We are facing the challenge of explaining as complex a system as climate change in the simplest possible way, but no simpler than is necessary! And we are failing to bring the message across, to the public and politicians alike.” The only way to tell the story of climate change is through dialogue, he insisted: “There has to be a genuine effort to communicate climate science in ways similar to how people communicate in their daily lives, in order to get the story across.”
But the fun bit was where Myles Allen picked up on Harrabin's concern with the lack of pace on the policy front:
Harrabin’s point was underscored by Myles Allen, Head of the Climate Dynamics Group at the University of Oxford’s Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics Department: “We are seeing impacts on all continents in natural and social systems, in ecosystems, and in human health. Coastal systems and low-lying areas will increasingly experience adverse impacts. Bad weather will get worse. Or, as a Californian firefighter once said: Climate change makes a bad day worse.”
Allen made impassioned pleas for investment in carbon storage, and for the inclusion of developing countries. “It is plain and simple: the more carbon you emit into the atmosphere, the warmer it gets. Now we need to get to zero by the end of the century – but we cannot ask people in India or China to simply stop using their coal. So the only option is to offset these effects by investing heavily in carbon storage. The Netherlands could take a major lead on this score, since it is already doing this in the Rotterdam harbour area, for instance."
Look out also for a picture of Roger Harrabin speaking with a snorkel and mask in hand.
Reader Comments (22)
Yet again Mr Allen lives in a fact free parallel universe. With regards to fire data, here is the actual data: http://www.nifc.gov/fireInfo/nfn.htm
What is the relevant equivalent of "its weather not climate" for anecdote trumping information?
An employee of the BBC trying to influence political policy on a public stage. My how times have changed!
OMG! He's still banging on that same drum?!
[See: Of climatologists and cartoons: Compare and contrast ]
What is it that makes some "climate scientists" such slowwwww learners, eh?!
Amazing. Simply amazing!
“We are seeing impacts on all continents in natural and social systems, in ecosystems, and in human health..."
It seems to me that apocalyptic movements are of 2 kinds, or at least posess 2 distinct dimension. One where the catastrophe is forecast and the other where it is actually seen in the ordinary present. The former is more common, while the latter is surely the most dillusional -- and I do think that it will be this aspect that will appear in hindsight the most remarkable to have overcome the academies.
Having read Peter Lee's paper on "Ethics and Climate Change Policy" yesterday, it is interesting to note that one part of the conference report [Climate Projections and Extremes - Prof. Bart van den Hurk, KNMI, the Netherlands - Dr. Andreas Sterl, KNMI, the Netherlands] uses the Professor Stephen Schneider approach of offering up scary scenarios to capture the public imagination and get loads of media attention.
As illustrated by the following extract ...................
"Although weather is not captured in the scenarios, some ‘future weather’ analogues are included. These
analogues use current day weather and put these in the context of the future climate. Future weather
examples make climate change more lively and are easy to engage the public."
Thanks to Peter Lee my antenna are now better tuned to look for ethical conflicts. (Perhaps Harrabin intends to use his mask and snorkel to dive away from being ethically conflicted?)
Roger can relax from his political duties at the BBC. His colleagues at the AGU junket in San Francisco have discovered that we can start blaming Arctic ground-squirrels for global warming.
Is that the best value ten hour flight the BBC licence fee has ever paid for?
Roger (green parrot) Harrabin behaving as badly as ever. A classic case of BBC bias.
Myles Allen
“We are seeing impacts on all continents in natural and social systems, in ecosystems, and in human health. Coastal systems and low-lying areas will increasingly experience adverse impacts. Bad weather will get worse. Or, as a Californian firefighter once said: Climate change makes a bad day worse.”
I fail to see these fantasy impacts! But there again I am not on the gravy train!
With such comments, it is surprising people still question that 97% climate "scientists" are corrupt!
Following up on the link from ChrisM I put the data an Excel file. Extrapolating shows that the area of fires will be zero in 2029 and the number of fires will be zero in 2024.
I'm sure it's not news here but when one realises how well involved Myles Allen is with the Global CCS Institute (here) (with his mate Stern) and the work they are doing in Rotterdam, it seems only natural that he would push them in his pitch. I wonder just how much he makes from lecturing around the world for this crowd.
Then of course, to further feather his nest - or to enrich his benefactors - he calls for the mandatory use of CCS in this article.
About 3 decades of warming within the bounds of natural variability followed by nearly 2 decades of no warming and we "are seeing impacts on all continents."
These people are in a fantasy world.
Watch the sea level rise when this thing sets sail.
The largest vessel the world has ever seen 600,000 tonnes when fully loaded.
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-30394137
But then as there seems to be already over 60,000 vessels floating around it must be just another drop in the ocean adding to the 1.5mm per year sea level rise.
https://www.marinetraffic.com/
A small part of the $16m they spend each year on travel
Myles Allen: "So the only option is to offset these effects by investing heavily in carbon storage".
Insofar as mitigating CO2 emissions goes, investing heavily in nuclear power or shale gas are clearly other options, regardless of where one stands on the pros and cons. How is it that Oxford University allows itself to be associated with the risible standard of logical thought demonstrated by its climate academics?
Religious extremists see God in just about anything- screen doors, tortillas, and for the climate obsessed, in any weather event at all.
It is time to challenge and properly belittle the term, "climate change", by the way. It is a meaningless phrase, like windy wind, or wetter wet.
In the hands of the climate obsessed and climate kooks, the phrase becomes a sort of an all use dog whistle... to call imaginary dogs of imaginary doom.
One actually has to be easily fooled to think that someone asserting the "climate changing" in a non-qualified manner is asserting something to worry about.
It is way past time to stop tolerating the cliamte hypesters abuse of this.
As millions of households and business' have observed "climate change alarmism, makes a bank account worse, without any benefit to anyone, apart from the profiteering alarmists"
If you stored carbon in Rotterdam Harbour, how would the oil tankers get in and out?
Golf Charlie:
They store lots of
carboncoal in Rotterdam Harbour. You'll find some of it here:http://goo.gl/maps/KoLqn
I do grow a little tired of the (possibly wilful) confusion between carbon and its compound, CO2. One appears as soot, graphite, diamond and 'Buckyballs' (and is the basis of organic chemistry) while the other is thought by some to have an effect on atmospheric temperature.
Calling CO2 carbon is the same as calling water hydrogen, which would be daft, wouldn't it?
Roger seems adamant that the Norwegian Blue is still alive. It has to be said that the IPCC tried very hard to nail it to its perch.
I have watched Myles Allen on an old clip. Why, um, do they, um, not put these, um, people on, um, courses on how to, um, speak? His, um, speech is, um, very, um, annoying, um, I’m sure you, um, will, um, agree. (What he was speaking about, I have no idea – his constant “umms” just drove me to distraction!)
we need to be racing forward ...
Of course we do. Even lemmings, on seeing a cliff, will run towards the edge faster than our politicians are doing. What is holding them back?
Did Roger chair this session in his own time, or during attributed BBC working hours. If the latter then he is misappropriating the licence fee paid for by you and me. And in the interests of transparency should he not declare his fee.