Mini re-shuffle

[biffvernon]

We developed early and, in direct opposition to the quote from Fleming earlier, that is now hindering us as we have so much invested in old technology.

I thought the British Empire did rather well out of the first mover advantage that came with inventing the steam engine and other bits and bobs that added up to the industrial revolution.

[kenneal - lagger]

We developed early and, in direct opposition to the quote from Fleming earlier, that is now hindering us as we have so much invested in old technology.

I thought the British Empire did rather well out of the first mover advantage that came with inventing the steam engine and other bits and bobs that added up to the industrial revolution.

The trouble is that we have failed to develop any further. Many of us are stuck mentally in the nineteen fifties.

We have people clinging onto tungsten light bulbs when their replacement technology, the CFL, is about to be replaced itself by LEDs.

We have badly insulated houses and are still building badly insulated houses with the danger that such "bureaucratic interference" may be done away with and we might start building worse insulated houses when it is possible to build PassivHauses.

We are closing down badly polluting coal fired power stations and are now talking about building more coal fired power stations because the new technology, wind turbines, spoil the landscape or are not as efficient.

Cars, airports, faster trains, increasing electricity use and a load of other things can be added in a similar mode.

[marknorthfield]

The Charles Onians piece was, of course, a famously silly article by a journalist and should in no way detract from the reputation of a Nobel-laureate climate scientist.

Things are not 'silly' because you do not like them Biff. Onian's article was packed with facts are warnings about changing climate. Viner DID make those comments and we can do little but suppose he meant them at the time.

If he were to have given that advice to the then current transport minster who subsequently instructed all local councils to cut their gritting budgets no doubt you would have celebrated a victory for climate science.

With hindsight on that point Viner was wrong - or perhaps you'd rather 'not yet right'?

Things are rarely right or wrong Biff and climate science is no exception.

It's worth remembering that the exponential collapse in summer Arctic Sea Ice was not forseen either, and this has been (theoretically) linked to our recent bad weather, as has been mentioned. The 2007 IPCC report thought that the disappearance of summer Arctic Sea Ice would take until sometime late this century.

Essentially, some of the effects of climate change are progressing faster than we thought they would in 2000. We were being much too cautious then, and that's hardly a cause for celebration. It also doesn't change the basic premise of AGW one bit, hence the rush of recent predictions signalling a probable 4-6 degrees Celsius rise in the next 50-75 years.

Maybe these predictions are being too cautious also. Let's truly hope not.

[biffvernon]

Things are rarely right or wrong Biff and climate science is no exception.

I suppose you think pregnancy is not a binary condition.

[kenneal - lagger]

The IPCC reports are constrained politically and always underestimate and are behind the cutting edge of the science. It has been shown that report after report is out of date the moment it is published.

[clv101]

IPPC WG1 (the actual physical science bit) is only able to consider papers submitted for peer review by 31st July 2012. These most recent paper will be based on work/observations largely carried out in 2011. The actual report isn't published until September 2013. There's a two year lag just there. Then of course politics injects a large about of caution.

[emordnilap]