UPDATE: See debate video in German: http://www.swissecs.ch/de/live-blog/3. All Stocker had for arguments was: 1) insisting Mann’s phony hockey stick was still valid 2) claiming there’s scientific consensus, and 3) we can trust the models! Their science is that bad, folks. I never would have believed it. The IPCC is really looking like a comedy act.
One of the main features at this year’s Swiss Climate and Energy Summit (Bern Switzerland, 12-14 September) was a debate between IPCC leading climate scientist Prof. Thomas Stocker and renewable energy expert and chemist Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt.
Needless to say the atmosphere was electrified, with an audience of almost 400. Unfortunately there still is no video of this debate, but the online Berner Zeitung daily (BZ) of Bern wrote up a report, and yes, they too had to concede that skeptic Vahrenholt won the debate.
The BZ called Vahrenholt “rhetorically tough” and wrote he needed “only 10 seconds to warm up his argumentation machinery”.
In the article, the BZ comes across as being no fan of Vahrenholt, calling his arguments “luring” and claiming he bases his skepticism on a “mind construction which laymen have difficulty detaching themselves from”. Vahrenholt’s findings shows that the sun is at least as responsible as, if not more, than CO2 for the global warming of the last decades and that solar activity will provide us with extra decades for revamping our energy supply.
The BZ writes that Vahrenholt believes “leading scientists of the UN IPCC colossally exaggerated the dimensions of the warming in their prognoses. And with them, they have legitimised a political hysteria, which has led to a grotesque wave of subsidies.” The BZ quotes Vahrenholt:
‘We need more sense of proportion,’ and not the madness we find in countries like Germany, which ‘gets as much sunshine as Alaska’ and hyper-subsidizes photovoltaic plantations.”
The BZ writes that Vahrenholt got loud applause.
Meanwhile, warmist Thomas Stocker found it difficult to maintain his cool, calling Vahrenholt’s science “audacious” and that the stagnant global temperatures over the last (15) years “is normal for climatic warming phases.”
Clearly Vahrenholt had Stocker on the defensive. The BZ writes:
Stocker also made it clear that progress in climate science always raises new questions.”
Indeed this is true. So how can the science be settled and why do the warmist scientists go to such extremes to avoid having to face them?
The applause for Stocker, the BZ writes, was quiet.
The outcome aside, we at least have to give Stocker credit for showing up to debate in public.
“In the article, the BZ comes across as being no fan of Vahrenholt, calling his arguments “luring” and claiming he bases his skepticism on a “mind construction which laymen have difficulty detaching themselves from”.”
Isn’t it funny how a new hypothesis (Svensmark) that explains events better than an older one (CO2AGW) sticks with “laymen”.
We gotta find better ways to re-educate them it seems. Maybe send a free copy of Michael Mann’s book to everyone.
Sigh, yet another warmist that can’t face facts. DickH, The science, logic and facts overwhelming show that CO2, particularly man made CO2 has very little effect on climate. From the satellite data showing much more OLR than the IPCC predicted indicating negative feedbacks, to the lack of a mid-tropospheric hotspot outright proving the IPCC’s CO2 forcing predictions wrong, to the lack of sea level rise increase, to the lack of sea temperature increase, to the mediaeval Warm period being hotter than today, to the fact that it has been warming for 300 hundred years since the Maunder minimum, well before human heavy industry, to the fact that the 70s to 2000 incline has been repeated before, even before the turn of the century and was accentuated by a starting La Nina and an ending El Nino, to the fact that the ice core data shows that CO2 lags behind temperature increase by 800 years showing that climate drives CO2 and not the other way round, there just seems to be no doubt.
The warmists are full of hot air.
I would say that you need re-education, try researching facts, Michael Mann’s book would be good if you need a fairytale to read to children full of fantasy and an AGW boogeyman that doesn’t exist.
I attended the event in Bern and was very impressed by the performance and passion of Fritz Vahrenholt to argue his cause. His strongest point was of course the inability of the alarmists to explain the stop in global temperature increase since 14 years and also the fraudulent hockey stick used by the IPPC in its Third Assessment Report in 2001.
To my surprise Thomas Stocker rejected that last statement strongly, arguing that at that time no better proxies than bristlecones were available, hence the graph was correct and Michal Man did in fact a great job!
The main counter-argument made by Thomas Stocker then was one of the graphs from Figure SPM.4 on Page 11 of the Summary for Policymakers in AR4-2007 (http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-spm.pdf) supposed to prove that natural causes (Sun, ENSO, PDO, etc.) cannot explain the temperature increase in the last century and that therefore the increase must be causally determined by CO2.
More than mentioned in the BZ article, Fritz Vahrenholt won the debate very clearly – let’s hope that this kind of event will become more frequent in the near future.
Whenever you see this type of argument “supposed to prove that natural causes (Sun, ENSO, PDO, etc.) cannot explain the temperature increase in the last century and that therefore the increase must be causally determined by CO2.”, be very wary! It’s the old ‘guity by inference’ trick, but has no validity whatsoever. Saying because A didn’t cause C therefore it must be B is not demonstrating a causal effect of B on C, so isn’t acceptable as demonstrable, empirical science.
This is the core of the IPCC’s hypothesis, that because they ‘believe’ natural influences can’t account for the temperature, it *must* be CO2, but they have no evidence for that at all. In fact, you only have to look at the interaction between the sun and Earth to understand that the input radiation ‘during the day’ (i.e. NOT averaged out over day and night, which is an idiotic assumption) is more than capable of creating the temperatures we experience.
Also, Stockers claim that the bristlecones were best proxy available at the time confuses relative and absolute. They may have been ‘the best available’, but they didn’t have the capability to say anything about the climate. It’s like saying “I’m accelerating”, which says nothing about the car, the road, the time of day, the type of fuel being used, my ability to drive, or even who’s driving, or even that it’s a Model T Ford in a Formula 1 race 🙂 Using bristlecones as a measurement is like using a sundial to time a 100m sprint race.
Jean M.Thanks for the first-hand report. Stocker is more detached than I thought. Bristle cones are good proxies? LOL!
When the BZ wrote Vahrenholt won the debate by a few points, I thought that in reality it must have been actually a lopsided victory. Thanks for the confirmation.
Congratulations for Dr Stocker for participating, which is rare for members of the IPCC collegiate.
However I would ask Dr Stocker to explain this graph and this one too. Together they account for 5/6ths of temperature rise in the 20thC, and the residual fits rather well for Lindzen’s estimate of sensitivity.
I should add as a scientist that I have independently replicated the relationships shown in both of these graphs.
References are:
1. Scafetta, N., JAS-TP, 72 (2010), 951–970. (See fig 10)
2. Butler, C.J., & Johnston, D.J., JATP, 58 (1996), 1657-1672. (See fig 7)
Professor Stocker showed far more balls than many of his fellow thinkers, however I think the learned Professor needs to continue to learn and if he did, he’d realise nothing in science is set in stone, and all supposition is very hard to defend.
Vahrenholt is emerging as a star of the climate sceptic movement. He’s spoken several times in Brussels — the EU’s Heart of Darkness. It’s a delicious irony that he has a long track record as a German green activist and a leading player in renewable energy.
Meantime here in the UK, the United Kingdom Independence Party (currently running third in the opinion polls) is preparing to launch (Sept 21st) a new Energy Policy Statement, becoming the first significant UK party explicitly to reject climate alarmism, to oppose renewables, and to propose a rational energy policy based on nuclear, gas and coal.
apologies for slight off topic !
Roger suprised and delighted to find you in this scribe of enlightenment !
That is not sarcasm.
looking forward to your release of UKIPs policy shortly.You are correct about Varenholt.
What I also should have noted, was this – Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt. is a formidable debater and not someone I’d fancy opposing in a public debate [even though it’s not going to happen – we’d agree too much – being from the same standpoint;-)].
I wish we could see more of him – here in Britain.
Edward, he spoke at the GWPF Annual Lecture (of all places, at the RS!) recently. He was very good, straight forward and matter-of-fact. You may be able to get a transcript of his speech from the GWPF. Personally, I’m looking forward to the English translation of his recent book.
If the alarmists hadn’t positioned themselves as having the science settled, and the outcome, certain, observational disagreements wouldn’t be a problem. But it is only with certainty that the alarm and extreme counter-measures are justified.
You live by an absolute, you die by an absolute.
[…] morning I was pleased to find that East Midlands MEP Roger Helmer took the time to leave a reader comment, which I now gladly present here as a post. Here’s what Roger wrote concerning Vahrenholt and UK […]
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