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Ah, the "it's snowing hard so there's no such thing as global warming" argument. Almost as good as the "if we evolved from apes, why are there still apes around?" argument.
"He has been called the "most erudite of columnists" and the ``Dean of British science writers.''"
By whom, exactly?
"He has been called the "most erudite of columnists" and the ``Dean of British science writers.''"
By whom, exactly?
THey are assuming there are still humans around in a hundred thousand years or so when the next ice age might arrive.
I'm British and never heard of Adrian Berry, but then since I was at uni I've not found general science writery people to be as much use as blogs and actual science papers and books.
Wait....
His second book was "Crossing the universe with black holes"!!! I have a copy of that. Let me check my librarything.
Publoished in 1977. Which leads to wikipedia. To complete the trifecta, he's apaprently the 4th Viscount Camrose!
Born in 1937, so basically he's gone emeritus, since he'll be 78 or so by now. That's me being charitable, it could be he's an anti-science fuckwit driven by narrow minded political ideals though.
I'm British and never heard of Adrian Berry, but then since I was at uni I've not found general science writery people to be as much use as blogs and actual science papers and books.
Wait....
His second book was "Crossing the universe with black holes"!!! I have a copy of that. Let me check my librarything.
Publoished in 1977. Which leads to wikipedia. To complete the trifecta, he's apaprently the 4th Viscount Camrose!
Born in 1937, so basically he's gone emeritus, since he'll be 78 or so by now. That's me being charitable, it could be he's an anti-science fuckwit driven by narrow minded political ideals though.
Oh wait, he's on the GWPF advisory board. Definitely politically drive fuckwit then. (If you can get a Dr's note about his mental health I'll withdraw that allegation)
I think there has to be some kind of severe disconnect in this fellow's thinking to say, first, that global warming is a farce, and then go on to note that the next ice age is overdue, and not wonder anywhere along the line if perhaps the two are related somehow.
(Not being a climate scientist, I have no idea if they actually are, or if the foretold doom-y ice age is just taking its sweet time for other reasons, but it seems like the sort of thing that should be considered.)
(Not being a climate scientist, I have no idea if they actually are, or if the foretold doom-y ice age is just taking its sweet time for other reasons, but it seems like the sort of thing that should be considered.)
The actual climate scientists, unlike those in the GWPF, reckoned that we should have been sliding into one that would be fully blown in 10k years. However with the amount of CO2 and other gases now in and expected to be in the atmosphere, that is now put off for many tens of thousands of years more, I can't recall exactly, but in the 50 to 100k years range.
The belief that the next ice age is overdue was being taught in the '60s and early '70s, before the full extent of anthropogenic climate change was generally apparent.
Here's a Telegraph article by him that resurrects the dead theories of Svensmark:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/space/nightsky/11356838/The-Night-Sky-February-2015-is-climate-change-caused-by-astronomical-events-beyond-our-control.html
The actual reality is that the theories were tested and found to be lacking, but Berry doesn't think so.
This bit indicates that he truly doesn't know anything, or else is trying to write propaganda:
"As for the fashionable theory of climate change caused by carbon dioxide, it is contradicted by all the geological evidence. Searches going back 500 million years have failed to find any connection. Svensmark and Calder consider the case for man-made climate change “well and truly squelched.” "
Note the ignorance of the last 150 years of physics and climatology...
Sorry for posting so much, but I haven't run across such a lunatic for a while. Hearteningly, his torygraph article has no comments at the bottom of it.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/space/nightsky/11356838/The-Night-Sky-February-2015-is-climate-change-caused-by-astronomical-events-beyond-our-control.html
The actual reality is that the theories were tested and found to be lacking, but Berry doesn't think so.
This bit indicates that he truly doesn't know anything, or else is trying to write propaganda:
"As for the fashionable theory of climate change caused by carbon dioxide, it is contradicted by all the geological evidence. Searches going back 500 million years have failed to find any connection. Svensmark and Calder consider the case for man-made climate change “well and truly squelched.” "
Note the ignorance of the last 150 years of physics and climatology...
Sorry for posting so much, but I haven't run across such a lunatic for a while. Hearteningly, his torygraph article has no comments at the bottom of it.
A lot of the discourse on this today is along the lines of "Scientists told us the Sun went around the Earth, now it's the Earth going around the Sun! MAKE UP YOUR MIND!!!! You can't trust anything they say!"
Nice analogy.
Why, it's almost as if scientists weren't supposed to change what they said according to the evidence.
Every subject suffers to some extent from people learning something about it at school or uni then never reading more about it, so when you make a statement about something that is based on the last 40 years of professional research into the topic, they immediately contradict you, as if nothing has changed in those 40 years. Some people even thing that the best SF ever was written by some bloke called Heinlein.
Why, it's almost as if scientists weren't supposed to change what they said according to the evidence.
Every subject suffers to some extent from people learning something about it at school or uni then never reading more about it, so when you make a statement about something that is based on the last 40 years of professional research into the topic, they immediately contradict you, as if nothing has changed in those 40 years. Some people even thing that the best SF ever was written by some bloke called Heinlein.
I like "some 4,000 generations of humans knew of nothing but harsh winds and eternal snows," because it implies that my ancestors were so stupid and so sedentary they just sat there in the katabatic gale and bitched about the weather, instead of going someplace a bit warmer like all the other animals.
I had a geology prof (actually a paleontologist specializing in trace fossils) who was a living example of that: he still had some doubts about this new-fangled plate tectonics thing. This was in the 1990s.
He also had issues with impact geology. His office was, mind you, right down the hall from one of the world's leading experts on the subject and he was in the department hosting the Earth Impact Database.
He also had issues with impact geology. His office was, mind you, right down the hall from one of the world's leading experts on the subject and he was in the department hosting the Earth Impact Database.
Edited 2016-03-01 00:51 (UTC)
Yet another person who is conveniently ignoring the existence of Africa, then?
His argument also assumes that the conditions that obtained for 90% of the past 2 million years will destroy humanity if they come back, because what was survivable with Paleolithic tech will be fatal today.
His argument also assumes that the conditions that obtained for 90% of the past 2 million years will destroy humanity if they come back, because what was survivable with Paleolithic tech will be fatal today.
...some 4,000 generations of humans knew of nothing but harsh winds and eternal snows.
One wonders what he thinks those hardy souls ate. Snow, perhaps?
One wonders what he thinks those hardy souls ate. Snow, perhaps?
It’s a quote from by a profile in “The National Review”. So make of that what you will. The profile was written by a chap called George Gilder, of whom I was previously ignorant. But his cv is quite proud of his associations with Kissinger, Nixon, Romney Snr, and Reagan. So make of that what you will. His Wikipedia entry indicates he has some quirky ideas about women, non-whites and the poor too.
- matthew davis
- matthew davis
Yeah, I was bemused by how he basically ignored how all but a handful of our ancestors were wisely living well south of the "harsh winds and eternal snows." We hear a lot about the ice-enduring mammoth hunters because they lived in Europe, and European anthropologists can be kind of self-centered. But for every ice age mammoth hunter, there were probably 10 or 20 ice age people living in nice balmy places like Africa, India, South Asia, and so on.
ah, good, that's TWO high-profile climate denialists who are viscounts.
It's actually kind of amazing how late plate tectonics became the consensus position in geology, given how foundational it seems now.
Admittedly, I know people like that.
"It's cold! It's cold and windy and cold and snowing and cold! It's always been cold!"
"Hm. Maybe we should go to that warm valley over--"
"It! Is! COLD!!!"
"It's cold! It's cold and windy and cold and snowing and cold! It's always been cold!"
"Hm. Maybe we should go to that warm valley over--"
"It! Is! COLD!!!"
Recent descriptions of the science back then also often overstate how generally accepted global cooling and imminent ice ages were. Most of what you hear is ultimately references to an absurdly sensationalist 1975 Newsweek article.
Global warming from carbon dioxide emissions was definitely a widely discussed hypothesis; I recall a review pointing out that there were more 1970s papers on that than on anthropogenic global cooling, but what I know is that the notion of anthropogenic global warming was clearly in the air in popular culture, because the movie Soylent Green (1973) explicitly uses it as background.
What I remember being taught in school was that it was possible that human activity could either warm the earth (with greenhouse gases) or cool it (with smog), but that nobody knew for sure how climate was going to evolve. And later the science became stronger.
Global warming from carbon dioxide emissions was definitely a widely discussed hypothesis; I recall a review pointing out that there were more 1970s papers on that than on anthropogenic global cooling, but what I know is that the notion of anthropogenic global warming was clearly in the air in popular culture, because the movie Soylent Green (1973) explicitly uses it as background.
What I remember being taught in school was that it was possible that human activity could either warm the earth (with greenhouse gases) or cool it (with smog), but that nobody knew for sure how climate was going to evolve. And later the science became stronger.
Edited 2016-03-01 03:20 (UTC)
http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/1445233.html
But everything was better in the mythical past!
I was just going to post the same thing. How is something that our hardy ancestors apparently lived with for millennia going to wipe us all out? Because we're all effete and civilised, and spend too much time in our studies instead of out on the barren steppes hunting wild snowmen or something?
Organically grown, 100% snow-fed mammoths!
... because it implies that my ancestors were so stupid and so sedentary they just sat there in the katabatic gale and bitched about the weather, instead of going someplace a bit warmer like all the other animals.
Er, what about the Inuit, the Lapps, etc? Tongue only somewhat in cheek, are you calling them all "stupid" and, even, "sedentary"?
Er, what about the Inuit, the Lapps, etc? Tongue only somewhat in cheek, are you calling them all "stupid" and, even, "sedentary"?
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