Brian Micklethwait's Blog
In which I continue to seek part time employment as the ruler of the world.
Homewww.google.co.uk
Recent Comments
-
Brian Micklethwait on Jamie Hannah's new video
-
6000 on Jamie Hannah's new video
-
Michael Jennings on Four Channel Islands and a fifth Channel Island
-
Brian Micklethwait on Tulip approved
-
Michael Jennings on Tulip approved
-
Brian Micklethwait on A new (remote) control tower for City Airport
-
Michael Jennings on A new (remote) control tower for City Airport
-
jack whiteley on Food photo
-
Cynthia Coleman on Spring in the air
-
Brian Micklethwait on New Big Thin Things in New York
Monthly Archives
-
May 2019
April 2019
March 2019
February 2019
January 2019
December 2018
November 2018
October 2018
September 2018
August 2018
July 2018
June 2018
May 2018
April 2018
March 2018
February 2018
January 2018
December 2017
November 2017
October 2017
September 2017
August 2017
July 2017
June 2017
May 2017
April 2017
March 2017
February 2017
January 2017
December 2016
November 2016
October 2016
September 2016
August 2016
July 2016
June 2016
May 2016
April 2016
March 2016
February 2016
January 2016
December 2015
November 2015
October 2015
September 2015
August 2015
July 2015
June 2015
May 2015
April 2015
March 2015
February 2015
January 2015
December 2014
November 2014
October 2014
September 2014
August 2014
July 2014
June 2014
May 2014
April 2014
March 2014
February 2014
January 2014
December 2013
November 2013
October 2013
September 2013
August 2013
July 2013
June 2013
May 2013
April 2013
March 2013
February 2013
January 2013
December 2012
November 2012
October 2012
September 2012
August 2012
July 2012
June 2012
May 2012
April 2012
March 2012
February 2012
January 2012
December 2011
November 2011
October 2011
September 2011
August 2011
July 2011
June 2011
May 2011
April 2011
March 2011
February 2011
January 2011
December 2010
November 2010
October 2010
September 2010
August 2010
July 2010
June 2010
May 2010
April 2010
March 2010
February 2010
January 2010
December 2009
November 2009
October 2009
September 2009
August 2009
June 2009
May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
December 2005
November 2005
October 2005
September 2005
August 2005
July 2005
June 2005
Most recent entries
- Brian Micklethwait’s New Blog starts now
- Now you see it now you don’t – then you do again
- Quimper Cathedral photos from a year ago
- Another symptom of getting old
- Quota photo of a signpost
- Three professional Japanese footballers play against one hundred children
- Sculptures and scaffolding
- There is no day that can’t be improved by seeing pictures of how they weigh an owl
- Meeting Oscar again
- A musical metaphor is developed
- Mobile phone photoing in 2004
- France is big
- Pink windscreen
- Just kidding
- Capitalism and socialism in tweets
Other Blogs I write for
Brian Micklethwait's Education Blog
CNE Competition
CNE Intellectual Property
Samizdata
Transport Blog
Blogroll
2 Blowhards
6000 Miles from Civilisation
A Decent Muesli
Adloyada
Adventures in Capitalism
Alan Little
Albion's Seedling
Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise
Alex Singleton
AngloAustria
Another Food Blog
Antoine Clarke
Antoine Clarke's Election Watch
Armed and Dangerous
Art Of The State Blog
Biased BBC
Bishop Hill
BLDG BLOG
Bloggers Blog
Blognor Regis
Blowing Smoke
Boatang & Demetriou
Boing Boing
Boris Johnson
Brazen Careerist
Bryan Appleyard
Burning Our Money
Cafe Hayek
Cato@Liberty
Charlie's Diary
Chase me ladies, I'm in the cavalry
Chicago Boyz
China Law Blog
Cicero's Songs
City Comforts
Civilian Gun Self-Defense Blog
Clay Shirky
Climate Resistance
Climate Skeptic
Coffee & Complexity
Coffee House
Communities Dominate Brands
Confused of Calcutta
Conservative Party Reptile
Contra Niche
Contrary Brin
Counting Cats in Zanzibar
Скрипучая беседка
CrozierVision
Dave Barry
Davids Medienkritik
David Thompson
Deleted by tomorrow
deputydog
diamond geezer
Dilbert.Blog
Dizzy Thinks
Dodgeblogium
Don't Hold Your Breath
Douglas Carswell Blog
dropsafe
Dr Robert Lefever
Dr. Weevil
ecomyths
engadget
Englands Freedome, Souldiers Rights
English Cut
English Russia
EU Referendum
Ezra Levant
Everything I Say is Right
Fat Man on a Keyboard
Ferraris for all
Flickr blog
Freeborn John
Freedom and Whisky
From The Barrel of a Gun
ft.com/maverecon
Fugitive Ink
Future Perfect
FuturePundit
Gaping Void
Garnerblog
Gates of Vienna
Gizmodo
Global Warming Politics
Greg Mankiw's Blog
Guido Fawkes' blog
HE&OS
Here Comes Everybody
Hit & Run
House of Dumb
Iain Dale's Diary
Ideas
Idiot Toys
IMAO
Indexed
India Uncut
Instapundit
Intermezzo
Jackie Danicki
James Delingpole
James Fallows
Jeffrey Archer's Official Blog
Jessica Duchen's classical music blog
Jihad Watch
Joanne Jacobs
Johan Norberg
John Redwood
Jonathan's Photoblog
Kristine Lowe
Laissez Faire Books
Languagehat
Last of the Few
Lessig Blog
Libertarian Alliance: Blog
Liberty Alone
Liberty Dad - a World Without Dictators
Lib on the United Kingdom
Little Man, What Now?
listen missy
Loic Le Meur Blog
L'Ombre de l'Olivier
London Daily Photo
Londonist
Mad Housewife
Mangan's Miscellany
Marginal Revolution
Mark Wadsworth
Media Influencer
Melanie Phillips
Metamagician and the Hellfire Club
Michael Jennings
Michael J. Totten's Middle East Journal
Mick Hartley
More Than Mind Games
mr eugenides
Mutualist Blog: Free Market Anti-Capitalism
My Boyfriend Is A Twat
My Other Stuff
Natalie Solent
Nation of Shopkeepers
Neatorama
neo-neocon
Never Trust a Hippy
NO2ID NewsBlog
Non Diet Weight Loss
Normblog
Nurses for Reform blog
Obnoxio The Clown
Oddity Central
Oliver Kamm
On an Overgrown Path
One Man & His Blog
Owlthoughts of a peripatetic pedant
Oxford Libertarian Society /blog
Patri's Peripatetic Peregrinations
phosita
Picking Losers
Pigeon Blog
Police Inspector Blog
PooterGeek
Power Line
Private Sector Development blog
Public Interest.co.uk
Publius Pundit
Quotulatiousness
Rachel Lucas
RealClimate
Remember I'm the Bloody Architect
Rob's Blog
Sandow
Scrappleface
Setting The World To Rights
Shane Greer
Shanghaiist
SimonHewittJones.com The Violin Blog
Sinclair's Musings
Slipped Disc
Sky Watching My World
Social Affairs Unit
Squander Two Blog
Stephen Fry
Stuff White People Like
Stumbling and Mumbling
Style Bubble
Sunset Gun
Survival Arts
Susan Hill
Teblog
Techdirt
Technology Liberation Front
The Adam Smith Institute Blog
The Agitator
The AntRant
The Becker-Posner Blog
The Belgravia Dispatch
The Belmont Club
The Big Blog Company
The Big Picture
the blog of dave cole
The Corridor of Uncertainty (a Cricket blog)
The Croydonian
The Daily Ablution
The Devil's Advocate
The Devil's Kitchen
The Dissident Frogman
The Distributed Republic
The Early Days of a Better Nation
The Examined Life
The Filter^
The Fly Bottle
The Freeway to Serfdom
The Future of Music
The Futurist
The Happiness Project
The Jarndyce Blog
The London Fog
The Long Tail
The Lumber Room
The Online Photographer
The Only Winning Move
The Policeman's Blog
The Road to Surfdom
The Sharpener
The Speculist
The Surfer
The Wedding Photography Blog
The Welfare State We're In
things magazine
TigerHawk
Tim Blair
Tim Harford
Tim Worstall
tomgpalmer.com
tompeters!
Transterrestrial Musings
UK Commentators - Laban Tall's Blog
UK Libertarian Party
Unqualified Offerings
Violins and Starships
Virginia Postrel
Vodkapundit
WebUrbanist
we make money not art
What Do I Know?
What's Up With That?
Where the grass is greener
White Sun of the Desert
Why Evolution Is True
Your Freedom and Ours
Websites
-
Answers.com
Arts & Letters Daily
archive.org
Arts Journal
b3ta
Bjørn Stærk's homepage
Brussels Journal
Butterflies and Wheels
Cato Institute
City Journal
Civitas
Clivejames.com
Comment Central
Commentary
Cricinfo
Daniel Barenboim
Dark Roasted Blend
Democratiya
Digital Photography Review
ECB
FaithFreedom.org
Flickr
Frikoo
FrontPageMag.com
galinsky
Ghana Centre for Democratic Reform
Global Warming and the Climate
History According to Bob
Howstat
Imani
InstaPatrick
Institut économique Molinari
Institute of Economic Affairs
Lebrecht Weekly
Libertarian Alliance
LiveScience
Ludwig von Mises Institute
Mark Steyn
Oxford Libertarian Society
Pajamas Media
Paul Graham
Sean Gabb
Signal100
Soundstage Communications
Stockholm Network
Syed Kamall
Technology Review
TED
The Christopher Hitchens Web
The Inquirer
The Register
The Space Review
The TaxPayers' Alliance
This is Local London
Toccata Classics
UK Libertarian Party
Victor Davis Hanson
WSJ.com Opinion Journal
YaleGlobal Online
YouTube
Mainstream Media
BBC
Guardian
Economist
Independent
MSNBC
Telegraph
The Sun
This is London
Times
Syndicate
RSS 1.0
RSS 2.0
Atom
Feedburner
Podcasts
Categories
Advertising
Africa
Anglosphere
Architecture
Art
Asia
Atheism
Australasia
Billion Monkeys
Bits from books
Bloggers and blogging
Books
Brian Micklethwait podcasts
Brians
Bridges
Business
Career counselling
Cartoons
Cats and kittens
China
Civil liberties
Classical music
Comedy
Comments
Computer graphics
Cranes
Crime
Current events
Democracy
Design
Digital photographers
Drones
Economics
Education
Emmanuel Todd
Environment
Europe
Expression Engine
Family
Food and drink
France
Friends
Getting old
Globalisation
Healthcare
History
How the mind works
India
Intellectual property
Japan
Kevin Dowd
Language
Latin America
Law
Libertarianism
Links
Literature
London
Media and journalism
Middle East and Islam
Movies
Music
My blog ruins
My photographs
Open Source
Opera
Other creatures
Painting
Photography
Podcasting
Poetry
Politics
Pop music
Propaganda
Quote unquote
Radio
Religion
Roof clutter
Russia
Scaffolding
Science
Science fiction
Sculpture
Signs and notices
Social Media
Society
Software
South America
Space
Sport
Technology
Television
The internet
The Micklethwait Clock
Theatre
This and that
This blog
Transport
Travel
USA
Video
War
I am an atheist about God, but an agnostic about “climate change”, that is to say about potentially catastrophic climate change which is being caused by Man and must be stopped by Man. (The climate always changes. I know of nobody who doubts this.) I genuinely don’t know, and would genuinely like to. All the stuff I hear is hearsay. The only stuff that convinces me is when each side says of the other: They would say that wouldn’t they? People like Perry de Havilland object to “We Must Act Now” not because of the science, or not only because of the science, but because they don’t like what would then have to be done about it. As don’t I.
But the truth has nothing to do with whether it is likable. Sexually transmitted diseases are horrible. They are also a reality.
Change of tack to another hobby horse of mine here, by way of further illustration: I think that Islam itself is a huge problem for the rest of the world, rather than merely “Islamic extremism”. To put it another way, I think that Islam itself is “extreme”. If this is true, it is a horrible truth, because it makes the “war on terror” about a thousand times more difficult than it would be otherwise, because what it says is that separating the “Islamic extremists” from the regular believers in Islam, in the usual counter-insurgency way, is going to be extremely difficult. Islam itself will continue to crank out terrorists, indefinitely, until Islam itself is somehow changed in a big way. Tough. The truth doesn’t care what you think of it. And if We really Must Act Now about “climate change”, then the fact that this will place the entire world under the thumb of disgusting environmentalist scum World Governors is just one of those things. If that is the truth, then we will either ruled by Green Scum (as the late Chris R. Tame used to call them), or we will fry and die. The truth doesn’t care what you think of it.
Interestingly, I heard a grizzled old greeny on the telly actually make this point about the ideological nature of the anti-We-Must-Act-Now-ers, a few nights ago. I can’t recall his name, but in connection with this latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, he said that the objections to the We Must Act Now case were “ideologically driven” rather than “science driven”. This was an interesting switch of tack. Until recently, the WMAN-ers have dismissed anti-WMAN-ers, in my hearing anyway, as either corrupt or intimidated: either bought or bullied into submission by the big oil companies. Now the WMAN-ers are, it would appear, realising that they are fighting at the very least an ideological battle rather than a mere PR (i.e. doomed) campaign. Very wise of them. They are. But, their purpose in conceding that the anti-WMAN-ers mean what they say, is to argue that they mean what they say because they want to, rather than because the science justifies it. The anti-WMAN-ers are “ideological” as in wrong. And the WMAN-ers are also, a lot of them, very “ideological” indeed, in my opinion.
Meanwhile, I have been googling about the Medieval Warm Period, or “Anomaly” as the WMAN-ers call it, referred to in Perry de Havilland’s Samizdata piece. (He also links to this press release.) The WMAN-ers apparently explain this as a local, north Atlantic phenomenon. Which would suggest that this bit towards the end is quite important:
Adhikari and Kumon (2001) in investigating sediments in Lake Nakatsuna in central Japan have verified there the existence of both the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age.
Because it would suggest that the Medieval Warm Period/Anomaly was not quite so local after all.
But what do I know? I merely mention this in order to poke the nest with a stick, as it were. I hope for comments, that is to say.
Talking of which, thanks for all the recent comments here. Much appreciated. But, I realise that comments on new subjects here take their time to accumulate. You have to prove that you are genuinely interested in a subject before people bother to correct you on the subject, or for that matter for interested parties even to learn that you are interested.
One thing though. Comments merely repeating that the WMAN-ers are indeed ideologically driven, wrong, and scum, will be superfluous to requirements here, i.e. to my requirements. I already know that a lot of WMAN-ers are ideologically driven, and that a lot of the anti-WMAN-ers think that they are all ideologically driven, and accordingly also all wrong, and all scum. No need to tell me this again. By all means agree about such insults along these lines amongst yourselves, but count me out. Unless you can back them up with some science, cogent thoughts about the science, links to science etc. Then you will have my attention.
I read this in the early 90’s:
http://www.amazon.com/Trashing-Planet-Science-Depletion-Nuclear/dp/0060974907
I don’t think the environmentalists have answered a single issue found in this book.
The green movement simply keeps repeating the same things, even when their predictions are wildly wrong.
Shouldn’t any true environmentalist be for less government? The Soviets and the Chinese are two great examples of massive government polluting like crazy. I am sure there are more.
So, why do all the “green” solutions involve more government?
The “green” solutions don’t all involve more government.
To a large extent, the greens’ statism results from their mistakenly taking at face value the neoliberal misappropriation of the term “free market.” They look at the statist system of corporate power that neoliberals defend in terms of “free market” principles, and react, quite rightly, by saying: “If that’s a free market, then I’m against it.”
The solution is to show them how much present-day evils result from subsidized waste and resource consumption, and how far this corporate-government collusion differs from genuine free market principles.
There’s potentially a great deal of overlap between libertarians and greens on the subject of externalities presently created by state intervention. And some geolibertarian proposals, like auctioning off carbon emission permits and then letting the market price system take care of the problem, are at the very least less statist than the present regulatory environmentalist regime.
Knowledge about the “mediaeval Warm Period” and also of the “Little Ice Age” predates this climate-change debate by decades.
Everyone should read Professor John Gribbin’s book “The Strangest Star”, published about 1978, and regarding The Sun. this book is currently regarded as very “Politically incorrect”, as it contains facts and models of the Sun’s internal physics. It goes into quite considerable detail about how inconstant the output of the Sun actually is, and on what timescales it varies its activity.
A difference for example, of 0.1E26 watts ( = 10 trillion-trillion watts or 10-billion-trillion Kw) in its output (whiah has been averaging around 4E26 watts for the last 100,000 years but perhaps is slowly rising on a longer timescale) would cause large global temperature differences, within which the earth’s entire ice-caps are just a small and ephemeral detail.
If you go to
http://www.john-daly.com/hockey/hockey.htm
then you will see how the UN-IGPCC used particularly chosen strands of data, in such a way as to NOT QUITE exactly produce an evilly-false conclusion with clear malice-aforethought, but to be able (statistically-and-mathematically-massaging) to “disappear” the warm-period and also the little-ice-age.
Furthermore, all those of us who create computer-models of anything whatsoever, know that you can make the model tell other people (who have no time at all, and so that is why they are “other people” and why YOU make the models!) anything you want it to say. The classic line in in “Superman 2”, where the baddie (I forget which one) asks the geek what the computer will do about half-cents on invoices, and the geek replies - “whatever you tell me to tell it to do....”
10-billlion-trillion Kw (the half-cent bits on this equation) over a year, is one trillion times the capacity of the entire UK electricity industry’s genertaion power in 1980 - never mind what it does today! And they say that “we” here are “responsible” for 2% (yes, 2%) of “global carnob emissions? (I have decided I like “carnob” and will refer to that element thus forthwith.) A denominator-factor into 1E22 still gives 2E20, or 200 million trillion - THAT therefore is the factor-multiplier-numerator by which THE SUN OUTDOES MAN, just in its FLUCTUATIONS.
I don’t even think the entire earth’s crust contains as much Carnob as will be radiated as ions, in an average prominence, in an average solar atmospheric disturbance, tomorrow.
Brian, you have to read these series by a genuine scientist (by genuine I mean he has a mind of a true scientist: curiosity and fact-checking, not only necessary credentials).
There is a bit of finger-pointing there, for sure, but only after thorough analysis.