Welcome To Zelo Street!

This is a blog of liberal stance and independent mind

Wednesday 20 September 2017

Delingpole Climate Lies EXPOSED

While global temperatures continue inexorably upwards, there are still a few pockets of climate change denialism keeping faith with the idea that it isn’t really happening, and everything will be fine if we just abandon renewable energy and indulge in Polar oil exploration, along with lots of fracking somewhere up north away from where all the obscenely overpaid hacks and pundits happen to live.
"Gay marriage" ... "Global warming" ... "Bird-slicing, bat-chomping eco crucifixes" ... "Red meat Conservatism" ... "Dishonest selective quotation" ... "Easily provable dishonesty" ... "Credibility oblivion"

And the Murdoch Sun is still willing to indulge these dinosaurs, notably James “Saviour of Western Civilisation” Delingpole, who has been given a platform today to tell readers “How scientists got their global warming sums wrong - and created a £1TRILLION-a-year green industry that bullied experts who dared to question the figures”.

Poor Del Boy has been bullied? He claims so: “whenever we spoke out, the response was the same - we were bullied, vilified, derided and dismissed as scientifically illiterate loons by a powerful climate alarmist establishment which brooked no dissent”. Two things here. One, as Paul Nurse demonstrated, Delingpole IS a “scientifically illiterate loon”. And two, if he’s been “derided and dismissed”, what’s he doing in today’s Sun?

Anyhow - what’s the story? Well, as is usual, Del Boy takes a while to get to the point, but by the ninth paragraph of his rant he deigns to tell us: “In a new paper in the prestigious journal Nature Geoscience, the scientists who produce those doomsday reports for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have finally come clean”.

And how do they “come clean”? “The computer models they’ve been using to predict runaway global warming are wrong … The report’s authors say it is now much more likely that the world will meet its CO2 reduction targets agreed at the UN’s Paris summit in 2015 … it is now clear the impact of CO2 has been overstated”. Has it now?
There is only one problem with Del Boy’s screed - we can check the paper he quotes. And its conclusions are by no means as cut and dried as suggested. “it could be easier than previously thought to limit global warming to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels”, we are told - note “could” - before the warning “But even if the team is right - and some researchers are already questioning the conclusions - heroic efforts to curb greenhouse-gas emissions will still be necessary to limit warming”. So Del Boy is over-inflating his soufflĂ© here.

And he isn’t telling his readers about this observation: “Humanity is poised to blow through the IPCC’s carbon budget for a 1.5 °C rise within a few years, leading many scientists to declare the goal impossible. But the new analysis suggests that it could be met with a modest strengthening of the current Paris pledges up to 2030, followed by sharp cuts in carbon emissions thereafter”. Strengthening of pledges. Sharp emissions cuts.

Also, note that “The work is receiving mixed reviews. Some argue that the analysis is fundamentally flawed, because it centres on a period of slower warming that began around the turn of the millennium. This period, often referred to as the climate hiatus, continued until 2014. Scientists think that natural variability in the climate system temporarily suppressed temperatures during this period”. Del Boy didn’t mention that, either.

So Delingpole trousered another fat paycheque - for at best being creative, and at worst peddling another pack of lies. So no change there, then.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

"... if he’s been “derided and dismissed”, what’s he doing in today’s Sun?"

Well, I would have thought the latter location thoroughly justified the former description - wouldn't you?

Ferdy Fox said...

“You are a slow learner, Winston."
"How can I help it? How can I help but see what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four."
"Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane.”
― George Orwell, 1984

Yup!

opit said...

But we can trust that you are more reliable than Dekingpole. Got a cost-benefit analysis on cutting fossil fuel use yet ? That's hard to do when usefulness of the IPCC analysis is not to be questioned without rancour. It leads to shooting oneself in the foot when the likes of Roger A. Pielke lose their academic positions over daring to question orthodoxy. That is because it becomes ever more obvious "the fix is in" - and I don't need Delingpole to tell me prognostication is not science.

Anonymous said...

And I don't need Delingpole's self pity and Sun-type lies to know the truth.*

But plainly Delingpole doesn't know the difference.



*Now, where, just WHERE, have the Sun and "the truth" figured together previously?

Stephen said...

Opit - No he didn't. Though if he's not taken seriously that's his own bloody fault.

opit said...

The silliness involves stupendous cast of characters. Scientific associations testifying as to the trustworthiness of a UN body created to generate fluff seeming to validate invention made without rigor or impartiality - necessary when they are the province of speculative fiction. Individuals lambasting a colossus of derision which claims to be "impeccable authority". Must have taken lessons from Lucifer. And the ever present claim that it all the fault of the fossil fuel industry, which is as likely to take a heavy dose of don't give a shit ( costs will be passed on to the consumer regardless ) amidst political infighting and chameleon environmental activism designed to take control of land from those who occupy it. All in all, a shameful end to the gift of Prometheus.

Anonymous said...

Opit @ 23:58, Do us a favour.

Please translate that into recognisable English.

opit said...

Just look at the header here. It claims to be liberal and independent. Sounds like an oxymoron to me. Similarly, the gift Prometheus brought from the gods was fire. Taxing air or energy use steals that freedom no matter the squalling of immorality that poor brown people do not deserve the same use we take for granted - though we can be sinfully wasteful. Nor is a plethora of cow farts evil - though the interruption of the Nitrogen Cycle by CAFOs and petroleum based agriculture poisons waters and kills life through overstimulation of algal growth.
Really, claiming the fossil fuel industry is evil - and they are assholes - is just too easy a cop out. The customer will pay - same as always. As long as their bottom line is not affected, saying they have an axe to grind ignores the person distracting others by making that claim. Many have an axe to grind. That's life. But figuring out who is telling the truth becomes easier when all the biggest liars can to is wail how everyone is lying. Situation normal. If that is your main argument - you don't have one.