Articles Tagged "Richard Courtney"

I write to report on a debate that defeated the motion “This House Believes Global Warming is a Global Crisis” during a meeting of the St Andrews University Debating Society. It is difficult to arrange a debate of anthropogenic (that is, man-made) global warming (AGW) because few proponents of AGW are willing to face such debate. They know from past experience that they always lose such debates because there is no evidence that AGW exists and much evidence that it does not.

However, on Wednesday 4 March 2009, the St Andrews University Debating Society held their debate of the motion, “This House Believes Global Warming is a Global Crisis” in the Old Parliament Building, St Andrews. The debate was organized and presided over with exemplary efficiency and professionalism by the Speaker of the Society, Ms Jessica Siegel. It was conducted with all the pomp and ceremony that could be expected of an ancient society of so ancient and prestigious a university.

Updated below by Richard Courtney

The Washinton Times article by Kelly Hearn US dealing with security concerns from change in climate stated the following...

Coastal military facilities are threatened by rising sea levels and more frequent major, damaging weather events such as hurricanes and Tornadoes....although Mr. Fingar declined to give details apart from the number of installations in peril, a Pentagon official told The Washington Times that the Pentagon has commissioned a network of scientists to create a model for predicting the impact of storm surges and sea-level rises on military facilities on the Gulf Coast, in the Mid-Atlantic region and in Southern California.

Dr. Richard Courtney, a UN IPCC expert reviewer and a UK-based climate and atmospheric science consultant made the following News Blog concerning this issue...

Coastal military facilities are threatened by rising sea levels, Really?

Dear Mr. Morano,

On the official US senate minority web site you cite a blog that accuses me of scientific fraud.

(http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=fc7db6ad-802a-23ad-43d1-2651eb2297d6)

You write:

"A critical analysis of the paper from December 21, 2008, accused the authors of the Antarctic study of making questionable data adjustments.

Updated below by Richard Courtney

Dear All:

Luigi Mariani has written an excellent criticism of Al Gore’s film titled “An Inconvenient Truth” (AIT). Maurizio Morabito provides his translation into English of the article at

Al Gore vs. The Aristotelian Method - or The Moral Irrationality Of Climate Scaremongering

I write to commend this enjoyable read to everybody.

Prof Luigi Mariani is oart of the Agrometeorological Research Group, Dept. of Crop Science, University of Milan, and he wrote the superb article after a public screening of Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth”, on 23 January in Comano, Italy.

All the best

Richard

ONE of the Europe's leading agricultural scientists and a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has rejected farmer scepticism and criticism that climate change is not real or not a result of human activity.

Danish-based Jorgen Olesen, from the Faculty of Rural Sciences at the University of Aarhus, says farmers who question the existence of climate change have often not bothered to read the IPCC report on climate change, and rarely took part in the review process.

Speaking to Rural Press from the Copenhagen climate change negotiations, Professor Olesen said the IPCC had the "most open review process" of literature that he'd been involved in.

Updated by Richard S. Courtney

Gabriel:

Thank you for posting this article. I needed a good laugh in the hustle of preparing for Christmas, and Olesen’s statement gave me several belly laughs. I mention a few.

The article says:

The following is from Marc Morano EPW.Senate.Gov

Link Scientists React : 'Global Warming Will Stop,'

Excerpt: “The warmers are getting more and more like those traditional predictors of the end of the world who, when the event fails to happen on the due date, announce an error in their calculations and a new date.” - Dr. John Brignell, a UK Emeritus Engineering Professor at the University of Southampton wrote on his Numbers Watch website on May 1, 2008

“How many years of declining world temperature would it take now-in the wake of the ten-year non-warming since 1998-to break up Al Gore's "climate change consensus?” -- Environmental Economist and global warming co-author Dennis Avery's 2006 book, Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years, wrote on May 1, 2008.

1) Dr. Roger A. Pielke, Jr. Professor in the Environmental Studies Program at the University of Colorado reacted to this study in the journal Nature by declaring: “Climate models are of no practical use.” Pielke, who is not a climate skeptic, said on April 30, “There is in fact nothing that can be observed in the climate system that would be inconsistent with climate model predictions. If global cooling over the next few decades is consistent with model predictions, then so too is pretty much anything and everything under the sun. This means that from a practical standpoint climate models are of no practical use beyond providing some intellectual authority in the promotional battle over global climate policy.”

If these guys can do it so can we....join the FaceBook group Fire James Hansen and network with people who may be able to protest in your area against Al Gore and James Hansen.....

ANYONE who denies global warming is in the pay of big oil. Remember that is what the big man, Al Gore, said in his movie ‘An Inconvenient Truth’. But like so much that Mr Gore says, it just isn’t true.

Updated below from Richard Courtney

In a recent article by Charles Greene from SpaceDaily.Com Current warming sharpest climate change in 5,000 years: study. We exclaimed "How much do they pay these guys and what are they on?"

This was the reply from Dr. Richard Courtney, a UN IPCC expert reviewer and a UK-based climate and atmospheric science consultant...

I do not know the answer to those questions, but it is simple to refute the assertion of "Current warming sharpest climate change in 5,000 years" as it applies to global temperature. And in the AR4 the IPCC blatantly misrepresented data in an attempt to disguise the fact that there is nothing unusual about the rate of recent global warming.

You will find another critique from Richard Courtney at the foot of this article (PDF dowload). Great reading Richard and thank you, first the legal stuff in legal wording.......

ENDORSING THE U.S. MAYORS CLIMATE PROTECTION AGREEMENT

WHEREAS, the U.S. Conference of Mayors has previously adopted strong policy resolutions calling for cities, communities and the federal government to take actions to reduce global warming pollution; and

From Jim Peden

The cold hard reality of the alarmists vs deniers battle is, one side or the other is dead wrong. I "came out of retirement" to study the issue at the request of others, and confess at the beginning of my personal investigation, I was inclined to believe the popular notion that mankind had indeed mucked up his environment ( again ). I come from an era when science was a noble profession where we all strived to diligently uncover the truth, shared our findings with others, and would quickly change our minds on a particular theory if material evidence proved otherwise. The mantra at the time I began my personal investigation was that the science was settled, the debate was over, and the time for rapid and radical overhaul of our entire civilization was long overdue. It didn't immediately appear illogical to me at the time, because I still trusted science, and scientists in general.

Updated Below from Vincent Gray