Bolitics The New Condem Government

[peterms]

The Met Office is a 'trading fund' which in Government speak is a business which receives more than 50% of its income from selling its services.

 

Selling those services will rely on their potential customers' view that the service is essential for planning their strategy (Slingo's job) for dealing with any perceived threat.

 

Just like a quango will expend a considerable amount of its energies on lobbying for funds, so the Met Office will do the same.

 

So Lawson and Slingo both have an identifiable vested interest in promoting a particular side of the same argument.

Polluters have a financial interest in denying that their actions cause harm, and are therefore actively engaged in funding climate change denial.  Lots of this funding is secret, passing from one trust to another before ending up in right-wing think-tanks which write the stuff that people like Lawson parrot.  Some info on that kind of thing here.

 

It's rather like the way tobacco companies used to lie about the devastating impact of their product, funding spurious and misleading research, less so now they have been found out.

 

The Met Office sells all sorts of services based on its understanding of the weather, to organisations which want to be able to predict it better and adjust what they do accordingly.  The idea that they buy these services because they're in a tizzy about dire threats of climate change, rather than for simple business reasons, is misplaced.  They will want to buy these services because of the quite obvious sight of severe weather events happening more often, not because a scientist says climate change is causing weather disruption.

 

And Lawson has a personal financial interest in that he is paid by firms who lobby against restrictions on polluters.  Slingo is employed to manage scientific research according to scientific principles.  Do you imagine a chain of events where she might falsify or misrepresent scientific evidence (undetected) in order that her organisation might grow and at some point she might get a pay rise?  That's fanciful in the extreme.  She's explaining what the science is telling us, she's in line with the vast majority of scientists who study this stuff, her job will continue much the same whether she says "all the evidence supports climate change" or "the jury's still out, more research is needed".

 

I'm quite bemused as to why you want to bracket together a paid shill and an eminent scientist as though they are both equally untrustworthy, and your explanation leaves me no wiser.

[MakemineVanilla]

I am just pointing out that there is a double-standard at play when one witness is dismissed because they represent one side of the argument and another is afforded unimpeachable virtuous qualities because they represent the other.

 

In short, if vested interest disqualifies one witness, it should disqualify another.

 

But I certainly think that people have a highly exaggerated view of the virtues of scientists, and as you point out they are bought and sold just like everyone else.

 

The tobacco lobby employed thousands of scientists to 'prove' that smoking wasn't dangerous. 

 

Scientific experts will appear every day in courts up and down the country, offering paid opinion, to support either side of the case.

 

Any scientist employed in a government department to provide support for a government policy, just has to be seen as a political appointment.

 

Whether it was Slingo at the Met Office or Mark Carney at the B of E, it seems highly likely that they got the job because of their known political views and how they aligned with government policy, rather than the purity of their scientific integrity.

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

Blair, like.

[peterms]

I am just pointing out that there is a double-standard at play when one witness is dismissed because they represent one side of the argument and another is afforded unimpeachable virtuous qualities because they represent the other.

 

In short, if vested interest disqualifies one witness, it should disqualify another.

Again, Lawson has a personal financial interest in denying climate change, because he is paid by an industry which doesn't want to be prevented from polluting. He has no specialist knowledge of this subject whatever; he repeats what he is paid to say.

Slingo does not have a personal financial interest in promoting the idea of climate change, as far as I am aware. Her job is in part to seek to identify whether climate change is happening, whether it is man-made and so on. To say that if her career studying climate has led her to believe that the evidence is strong in support of the theory that climate change is happening and is partly man-made, then she must have a vested interest and we must discount her views and give them no more weight than those of a paid lobbyist, is frankly mindbendingly daft.

 

Any scientist employed in a government department to provide support for a government policy, just has to be seen as a political appointment.

 

Whether it was Slingo at the Met Office or Mark Carney at the B of E, it seems highly likely that they got the job because of their known political views and how they aligned with government policy, rather than the purity of their scientific integrity.

Are you aware of Slingo's background?

"She completed her PhD while based at the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in the USA. Before taking on her current role at the Met Office, she was the Director of Climate Research in NERC's National Centre for Atmospheric Science, at the University of Reading, where she is still a Professor of Meteorology. In 2006 she founded the Walker Institute for Climate System Research at Reading, aimed at addressing the cross disciplinary challenges of climate change and its impacts." (Wiki).

Do you have any idea what her political views are? Any basis at all for suggesting that she was a political appointment? Anything at all to suggest you're not simply mud-slinging with no evidence or justification?

[bickster]

There is no way anyone can link the higher than average rainfall the Tory voting part of the country has endured these last few weeks to global warming. At best it is one very small piece of evidence and a rather inconclusive one at that. Global Warming will never be proved by single events so for anyone to claim otherwise as she did last week is nothing short of stupidity as it leads to... well quite frankly... discussions like this, which succeed in muddying the waters yet further.

She can have as many qualifications as she likes, it doesn't make her statement last week on Radio 4 any less idiotic. TBH I heard it at the time and was a bit shocked she was a genuine scientist working for the Met Office.

[MakemineVanilla]

 

I am just pointing out that there is a double-standard at play when one witness is dismissed because they represent one side of the argument and another is afforded unimpeachable virtuous qualities because they represent the other.

 

In short, if vested interest disqualifies one witness, it should disqualify another.

Again, Lawson has a personal financial interest in denying climate change, because he is paid by an industry which doesn't want to be prevented from polluting. He has no specialist knowledge of this subject whatever; he repeats what he is paid to say.

Slingo does not have a personal financial interest in promoting the idea of climate change, as far as I am aware. Her job is in part to seek to identify whether climate change is happening, whether it is man-made and so on. To say that if her career studying climate has led her to believe that the evidence is strong in support of the theory that climate change is happening and is partly man-made, then she must have a vested interest and we must discount her views and give them no more weight than those of a paid lobbyist, is frankly mindbendingly daft.

 

Any scientist employed in a government department to provide support for a government policy, just has to be seen as a political appointment.

 

Whether it was Slingo at the Met Office or Mark Carney at the B of E, it seems highly likely that they got the job because of their known political views and how they aligned with government policy, rather than the purity of their scientific integrity.

Are you aware of Slingo's background?

"She completed her PhD while based at the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in the USA. Before taking on her current role at the Met Office, she was the Director of Climate Research in NERC's National Centre for Atmospheric Science, at the University of Reading, where she is still a Professor of Meteorology. In 2006 she founded the Walker Institute for Climate System Research at Reading, aimed at addressing the cross disciplinary challenges of climate change and its impacts." (Wiki).

Do you have any idea what her political views are? Any basis at all for suggesting that she was a political appointment? Anything at all to suggest you're not simply mud-slinging with no evidence or justification?

 

 

That is my point exactly.

 

She started a department which declared in its very description that Climate Change was a fact.

 

This declared her view and qualified her as the perfect appointee to back up the government's promotion of the theory and to seek political solutions to it.

 

So it is not too far-fetched to suggest that she got the job because she believed that man-made change is a fact and that her role is to offer support to the government's on-going campaign to get us to pay green taxes.

 

Seems clear she was a political appointment.

 

The fact that she was made Dame after her appointment and for services to the government, seems to confirm it.

 

She may be a well qualified scientist but every time she offers a quote to the press, it is a political act.

Edited February 19, 2014 by MakemineVanilla

[Kingfisher]

Climate change is a fact.

[chrisp65]

Climate change is a fact.

 

nobody is disputing that

 

now 'prove' it's caused by us burning fossil fuels and this directly caused the flooding of Datchet last weekend

Edited February 19, 2014 by chrisp65

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

The debate about the cause has been had. The vast majority of scientists agree that man had some part to play.

 

Did it directly cause the recent floods? No. What it does cause is more water in the atmosphere, which causes heavier and more persistent rain, which means land/rivers need to store more water, but due to various **** ups by the guvmint, water runs off land as a result of farming practices which should have been regulated better, and rivers can only hold so much.

 

That is the simple version.

[Kingfisher]

Climate change is a fact.

nobody is disputing that

now 'prove' it's caused by us burning fossil fuels and this directly caused the flooding of Datchet last weekend

The overwhelming evidence has convinced the vast majority of the scientific community that on balance of probability, we shouldn't be taking a gamble by backing the other horse. But maybe they're all just patsy's in the pocket of government.

As for this lady's comments re: the floods, I didn't hear the interview so cannot comment. Is it available online?

[peterms]

There is no way anyone can link the higher than average rainfall the Tory voting part of the country has endured these last few weeks to global warming. At best it is one very small piece of evidence and a rather inconclusive one at that. Global Warming will never be proved by single events so for anyone to claim otherwise as she did last week is nothing short of stupidity as it leads to... well quite frankly... discussions like this, which succeed in muddying the waters yet further.

She can have as many qualifications as she likes, it doesn't make her statement last week on Radio 4 any less idiotic. TBH I heard it at the time and was a bit shocked she was a genuine scientist working for the Met Office.

She specifically does not claim that a single event, or this recent set of floods, proved global warming.  Where are you getting this from?

This is the BBC's report of what she said:

Climate change is likely to be a factor in the extreme weather that has hit much of the UK in recent months, the Met Office's chief scientist has said.

Dame Julia Slingo said the variable UK climate meant there was "no definitive answer" to what caused the storms.

"But all the evidence suggests there is a link to climate change," she added.

"There is no evidence to counter the basic premise that a warmer world will lead to more intense daily and hourly rain events."  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-26084625

 

The Telegraph's report of her comments is exactly consistent with the BBC report.

 

It's very clear that she is saying the recent events are consistent with what climate change is expected to entail, but on the other hand evidence which would disprove this prediction of climate change is not available.  That's clearly consistent with the scientific method (assess data, form a hypothesis, seek to find evidence which would disprove it, and the longer you fail to find disproving evidence, the more you accept that the hypothesis is likely to be a good explanation).

[mockingbird_franklin]

 

"There is no evidence to counter the basic premise that a warmer world will lead to more intense daily and hourly rain events."  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-26084625

 

 

Very true, however seeing as their has been global cooling for over a decade I don't see how it is relevent

[peterms]

As for this lady's comments re: the floods, I didn't hear the interview so cannot comment. Is it available online?

Not that I can see, but she's quoted more fully in this article.

 

Climate change almost certainly lies behind the storms that have been lashing Britain this winter, according to the Met Office’s chief scientist.

Dame Julia Slingo said while there was not yet “definitive proof”, “all the evidence” pointed to a role for the phenomenon.

She also delivered a grim warning that the country should prepare itself for more similar events in future.

The comments came at a briefing for journalists as the latest wave of storms crashed into southern England. It is the strongest link yet made by the Met Office between the intense weather and climate change, and backs David Cameron’s remark last month that he “very much suspects” a connection.

Persistent rain

New analysis published by the Met Office blames persistent rainfall over Indonesia and the tropical West Pacific for triggering the weather system.

“The severe weather in the UK coincided with exceptionally cold weather in Canada and the USA,” the document said. “These extreme weather events on both sides of the Atlantic were linked to a persistent pattern of perturbations to the jet stream over the Pacific Ocean and North America.

“There is a strong association with the stormy weather experienced in the UK during December and January and the up-stream perturbations to the jet stream over North America and the North Pacific.

“The North Atlantic jet stream has also been unusually strong; this can be linked to an unusually strong westerly phase of the stratospheric Quasi-biennial oscillation deep polar vortex and strong polar night jet.”

Dame Julia said none of the individual storms had been exceptional but the “clustering and persistence” were extremely unusual.

“We have seen exceptional weather. We cannot say it’s unprecedented, but it is certainly exceptional,” she said.

“Is it consistent with what we might expect from climate change? Of course, as yet there can be no definitive answer on the particular events that we have seen this winter, but if we look at the broader base of evidence then we see things that support the premise that climate change has been making a contribution.”

Recent studies have suggested storms are developing a more southerly track, and that has been “typical” of the weather patterns here over the winter.

“One of the most unusual aspects of the winter’s weather has been the southerly track of the storms. We expect them to go well north of Scotland,” Dame Julia said.

“They have been slamming into the southern part of Britain. We also know that the subtropical, tropical Atlantic is now quite a lot warmer than it was 50 years ago.

‘Basic physics’

“The air that enters this storm system comes from that part of the Atlantic where it is obviously going to be warmer and carrying more moisture.

“This is just basic physics.

“We also now have strong evidence that extreme daily rainfall rates are becoming more intense. That is emerging in the UK records, and it is seen very definitely around the world in other countries like India and China.

“There is indeed as far as I can see no evidence to counter the premise that a warmer world will lead to more intense daily and hourly heavy rain events.”

Dame Julia said sea levels were expected to rise by a foot over time, causing more problems for those trying to deal with flooding. “That might not sound a lot, but when you are looking at storm surges, when you are looking at moving water from the Somerset Levels out to sea, it does matter,” she added.

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

Very true, however seeing as their has been global cooling for over a decade

 

That is not entirely true either. On surface level there has been short-term cooling, but overall the earth (oceans included) is continuing to heat.

[Kingfisher]

So we've had a page or two of people having a go at a scientist for saying something she didn't actually say? That's the level of debate is it?

[bickster]

There is no way anyone can link the higher than average rainfall the Tory voting part of the country has endured these last few weeks to global warming. At best it is one very small piece of evidence and a rather inconclusive one at that. Global Warming will never be proved by single events so for anyone to claim otherwise as she did last week is nothing short of stupidity as it leads to... well quite frankly... discussions like this, which succeed in muddying the waters yet further.

She can have as many qualifications as she likes, it doesn't make her statement last week on Radio 4 any less idiotic. TBH I heard it at the time and was a bit shocked she was a genuine scientist working for the Met Office.

She specifically does not claim that a single event, or this recent set of floods, proved global warming.  Where are you getting this from?

This is the BBC's report of what she said:

Climate change is likely to be a factor in the extreme weather that has hit much of the UK in recent months, the Met Office's chief scientist has said.

Dame Julia Slingo said the variable UK climate meant there was "no definitive answer" to what caused the storms.

"But all the evidence suggests there is a link to climate change," she added.

"There is no evidence to counter the basic premise that a warmer world will lead to more intense daily and hourly rain events."  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-26084625

 

The Telegraph's report of her comments is exactly consistent with the BBC report.

 

It's very clear that she is saying the recent events are consistent with what climate change is expected to entail, but on the other hand evidence which would disprove this prediction of climate change is not available.  That's clearly consistent with the scientific method (assess data, form a hypothesis, seek to find evidence which would disprove it, and the longer you fail to find disproving evidence, the more you accept that the hypothesis is likely to be a good explanation).

Read those two emboldened lines again

She is clearly linking the floods to global warming when it is impossible to do such a thing and that is why talking as she did last week is stupid.

This whole idea that the south of the country has suffered some exceptional catastrophic event never seen on such a scale before is also utter nonsense, these places are built on flood plains ergo they must have flooded many times previously. Part of the problem has been deforestation (as I believe you yourself have previously correctly posted) which is man made but not global warming (Yes its related in another way...yadda yadda).

Global warming exists, it is clearly partially man made but to take that and link it to the floods as she did is utterly wrong as GW is a phenomena that can only be viewed on a global scale over a much longer time scale than a few weeks.

That is why what she said was stupid. Its possible she's right, its also possible that she is utterly wrong. The link is impossible to make on such a small localised scale.

Because she said what she said the whole slew of climate change deniers have been able yet again to muddy the waters (scuse the pun)

[bickster]

So we've had a page or two of people having a go at a scientist for saying something she didn't actually say? That's the level of debate is it?

No she's been criticised for saying something utterly non scientific

[Kingfisher]

So we've had a page or two of people having a go at a scientist for saying something she didn't actually say? That's the level of debate is it?

No she's been criticised for saying something utterly non scientific

I'm in the Peterms camp on this one I'm afraid. When looking at all of what she has to say in context I don't think her comments are in conflict with the balance of evidence.

Edit - to add, I don't think she said this single event proves climate change, as you originally stated she said.

Edited February 19, 2014 by Kingfisher

[bickster]

So we've had a page or two of people having a go at a scientist for saying something she didn't actually say? That's the level of debate is it?

No she's been criticised for saying something utterly non scientific

I'm in the Peterms camp on this one I'm afraid. When looking at all of what she has to say in context I don't think her comments are in conflict with the balance of evidence.

Edit - to add, I don't think she said this single event proves climate change, as you originally stated she said.

If I said that (without checking) its not what I meant, what I meant to say was she said the single event was caused by climate change (in her words "in all likelihood"), she utterly cannot and should not say that, it is unscientific as it is impossible to prove either way.

[bickster]

Edit - to add, I don't think she said this single event proves climate change, as you originally stated she said.

She as good as said it was caused by global warming therefore it must by definition be some sort of proof of global warming. It isn't and shouldn't be viewed as such.