Graham Stringer
Posted on 03/02/2010 8:22:20 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Parliament isn’t the place where climate sceptics go to make friends. Just over a year ago, just three MPs voted against the Climate Act, with 463 supporting it. But events took a surprising turn at Parliament’s first Climategate hearing yesterday.
MPs who began by roasting sceptics in a bath of warm sarcasm for half an hour were, a mere two hours later, asking why the University of East Anglia’s enquiry into the climate scandal wasn’t broader, and wasn’t questioning “the science” of climate change. That’s further than any sceptic witness had gone.
In between, they’d wrought an admission from CRU director Phil Jones that he’d written some awful emails, and that during peer review nobody had ever asked to see his raw data or methods.
Perhaps the Honourable Members had noticed an incongruity. The Vice Chancellor of East Anglia, with Jones seated next to him, had said CRU had made a significant contribution to the human scientific understanding of climate change. Yet the practices of CRU looked more tatty and indefensible as the hearing went on. How could CRU be crucial to the science, but the science could not be discussed? Something was not quite right.
The final report, expected before the election, may not reflect the events of the day. But it’s worth recording. The shift was down to Graham Stringer BSc, an analytical chemist and the only scientist on the MPs' committee.
Lugubrious might be a word invented especially for Stringer, who had run Manchester for 12 years before becoming an MP in 1997. He’d shunned the glamour of high office, and become a local hero back home by campaigning against the Manchester congestion charge.
Graham Stringer
But Stringer had done his homework, and through patience and dogged persistence, he began to swing the chairman behind him. Mirroring the collapse in public sympathy for climate science since the scandal broke, the stalwarts so vocal at 3pm were silent by the close.
The last half hour, in which three of the biggest global warming advocates assured the Committee to keep calm, don’t panic, and carry on - had a slightly surreal air to it.
Science Select Committee chair Phil Willis, who’s stepping down at the election, acknowledged the phenomenal global interest in the hearing. Sceptics had feared that with the two critics on first it would be a whitewash. It didn’t go according to script.
Phil Jones appeared drawn and nervous, with the University Vice Chancellor Edward Acton at his side. A succession of sympathetic questions from MP Ian Stewart (Lab, Wigan) allowed Jones to state his prepared defence.
If temperature code and data wasn’t available from CRU, Jones said, it was available from NASA and NOAA in the United States. The “hide the decline” statement, where the team had replaced wayward proxy temperature data with instrumented data, was immaterial: all temperature series showed similar increases since the 19th Century. And the softest of softballs from Stewart – are the last three decades the highest since modern instrumentation? – gave Jones the chance to agree. Yes, the last three decades are the highest since the Thames ice fairs of the Regency era. (“Since records began” sounds so much better.)
Graham Stringer (Lab) opened up with a “it's nice to meet you having read all your emails over the past few days”.
Next page: 'It's not rocket science'
Good stuff here!
 ClimateGate
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The three were slightly too chummy and jovial, and seemed unaware of the connection MPs had made: that rotten scientists perhaps mean rotten science.
Let me include a background link for someone looking for some basic science detail...FR Thread:
Editorial: The Great Global Warming Hoax? ( Some good technical facts )
The voices of climate change sceptics
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The Guardian, Tuesday 24 November 2009
Former Conservative chancellor Lord Lawson says he is not a climate change denier but is 'sceptical' about global warming policy. Photograph: Martin Argles
The furore over the climate scientists' emails has given an unexpected boost to global warming sceptics on both sides of the Atlantic, but none outside that small circle believe the affair will divert governments, businesses or communities from seeking a low-carbon future.
The affair lifted the launch, announced in The Times, of a new "high-powered" think tank on climate change by Lord Nigel Lawson, the former Conservative Chancellor and current global warming critic. He denies he is a climate change sceptic, but is "sceptical" about the policy response. He found the perfect platform to promote his Global Warming Policy Foundation while also calling for an independent inquiry into the content of the emails.
The director of the GWPF, headquartered in a room rented from the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, is Benny Peiser, a social anthropologist at Liverpool's John Moores University, who has argued concern about climate change has reached "near hysteria".
Its board of trustees includes Lord Barnett, a former vice-chairman of the BBC who voted against the Climate Change Bill, and the Bishop of Chester, who has argued there was no consensus among climate change scientists that "carbon dioxide levels are the key determinant".
Its academic advisory council includes Prof Ian Plimer, an Australian who argues volcanoes produce more CO2 than humans. "Some of those names are straight from the Who's Who of current climate change sceptics", said Ward. "To me, this is pretty much indistinguishable from the websites that are run by rightwing, free-market think tanks in the US. It's just going to be a way of pumping material into the debate that hasn't been through scrutiny".
In the US, the trove of hacked emails seemed heaven-sent for America's most devoted climate contrarians.
Among the last citadels of climate change deniers – the radio host Rush Limbaugh and the Republican Senator James Inhofe – the emails were touted as evidence of a worldwide scientific conspiracy. Inhoffe said. "They cooked the science to make this thing look as if the science was settled, when all the time of course we knew it was not."
Limbaugh said: "I've instinctively known this from the get-go, from 20 years ago! The whole thing is made up, and the reason I know it is because liberals are behind it! When they're pushing something, folks, it's always bogus. "
But such outrage is likely to remain confined to the margins of American political debate. In Congress, even the most determined opponents of climate change legislation now frame their arguments in economic terms rather than on the science – including Inhofe.
Great write-up! Thanks for posting.
The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) is an all-party and non-party think tank and a registered educational charity
Our main purpose is to bring reason, integrity and balance to a debate that has become seriously unbalanced, irrationally alarmist, and all too often depressingly intolerant.
The GWPF's primary purpose is to help restore balance and trust in the climate debate that is frequently distorted by prejudice and exaggeration
Our main focus is to analyse global warming policies and its economic and other implications. Our aim is to provide the most robust and reliable economic analysis and advice.
We intend to develop alternative policy options and to foster a proper debate (which at present scarcely exists) on the likely cost and consequences of current policies.
We are funded entirely by voluntary donations from a number of private individuals and charitable trusts. In order to make clear its complete independence, we do not accept gifts from either energy companies or anyone with a significant interest in an energy company.
All Congressmen who voted for Cap & Trade MUST be removed. They are either Traitors or simply too stupid to hold public office. NO EXCEPTIONS!
Here is the list>
Updated Congressional Score Card> http://bit.ly/8w9ckV
The future of the nation depends on We The People dealing with this attempt to destroy US.
"Tatty"? What the hell is that??
“tawdry” is probably close in meaning.
They make ultimate pawns. The people I want to see prosecuted are Watson, Beddington, and Slingo. When they start to sing, things will get really interesting.
Probably more like “tattered”.
Of course then they would fall over each other to produce video/sound bytes...
We need lots more hearings for all of these crooks...and we need to go higher than the scientists...
They won't sing until they get fitted with orange jump suits and are handed a tube of KY Jelly. If it's the equivalent of "Club Fed" with the promise of a cushy retirement, we may not get anything. I was serious when I mentioned waterboarding them. It might wreck a case against them, but when it comes to going after the big fish it might be worth it.
BTTT
bump to the top
It was good to read that one of the three MP’s actually had his roots in science and could asked rather blunt but honest questions.
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