Margaret Thatcher passed away today. She was one of the great leaders of the 20th century. Along with John Paul II and Ronald Reagan, she was instrumental in the fall of European communism. She was a brilliant leader of impeccable integrity.
She will always have a place in the hearts of people who love freedom.
May God Bless her.
And she was firmly convinced that climate change is real. Because she actually looked at the scientific data and found it to be solidly supported.
ReplyDeleteThat's because Margaret Thatcher was science literate. Egnor isn't. Surgeons aren't scientists. They use science and technology, but that's about it. They can mimic science by going through the rote process of science, without actually understanding it.
DeleteIt's illustrated by the fact that Egnor actually thinks that Thomistic evolution (whatever that is) is a good 'explanation' for the species we see. Ditto for hylemorphic dualism.
Love her or hate her, you cannot deny she influenced global politics at a critical juncture.
ReplyDeleteRIP Baroness Thatcher.
CrusadeRex,
DeleteUnfortunately, she didn't influence the world's politicians sufficiently to take AGW seriously enough. Perfectly understandable. Most people are conservative in that they don't like change. They don't like the idea that they might pay a little more for something they currently enjoy, for example driving their SUVs to the local or even distant store. Or that actually it's not necessary for a happy life and can be omitted without personal loss.
Politicians are even worse. Always thinking of short term problems of being re-elected. Pandering to the lowest common denominator.
No, Bachfiend, we just don't like it when scientists lie and destroy data, when they bunker down with a seige mentality, or when they attempt to shield their fragile theories from thorough analysis. We don't like that.
DeletePay a little more? Germany just ended a $110 billion dollar solar subsidy program because it was only going to delay global warming by 37 hours, if you believe that.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/claim-germany-spends-110-billion-delay-global-warming-37-hours_712223.html
Bachfiend, why do you assume that Margeret Thatcher really looked at the science, while others who disagree with her did not? Is it possible that she only went with the flow, said what was fashionable? Is it possible that someone like Lord Mockton really examined the issue closely and came to a different conclusion? I think you decide who really looked at the scientist by how closely their conclusions match your own. Anyone who disagrees obviously didn't look.
Joey
Joey,
DeleteLord Monckton? He's an idiot.
I don't judge scientists based on whether they agree with me. I judge scientists on whether they make a convincing case. Ten years ago, I didn't accept global warming. Since then, I've had the chance and time to look at the evidence, and I now accept AGW.
The CRU didn't destroy data. They collate data from various sources, which are still available for examination, and process it statistically. Which everyone is free to do for themselves. As Richard Muller et al of BEST did.
Joey,
DeleteAnd anyway, the comment came from Bjorn Lomborg, whom I don't trust. He's had so many opinions on global warming, it's difficult to know what he thinks. He's gone from; global warming isn't happening, to it's happening but not due to humans, to it's happening due to humans but won't be a problem, to it's happening due to humans and is serious but there are other more pressing problems, ...
Everything to avoid doing anything.
Germany seems to have ended their feed in tariff for electricity generated by solar panels. So has my home state Western Australia, which is now paying just 7 cents a unit for electricity generated by solar panels for which they turn around and charge 22 cents a unit for consumers. No subsidy. They make a profit from it.
Germany appears to be offering subsidies (actually a low interest loan) for consumers to acquire batteries to store electricity from solar panels to use at night. So what Germany has done for solar panels (creating a demand and making them cheap due to economies of scale), they're promising to do for batteries, perhaps.
Is it possible that someone like Lord Mockton really examined the issue closely and came to a different conclusion?
DeleteMonckton isn't a scientist, never served as a science adviser to Thatcher (as he has falsely claimed), and has been shown to be a serial liar on the science of climate change. Citing Monckton as an example of a "scientist" on your side is tantamount to admitting that you have no real argument.
Almost as bad as using an anonymous post.
DeleteCrusadeRex,
DeleteLord Monckton still isn't a credible authority. He's been taken down by more than enough named scientists who have destroyed the lies he has preferred as argument.
I am not defending him, Bach.
DeleteNo worries there. All I know about the guy is his parachuting into and crashing 'earth summits'.
I do like his position on globalism and the anti-human movements (ie population control etc), but I have no idea about his credentials.
Ditto with anyone posting as anonymous.
But, seeing as I know you're on this post...
Where you aware the the Baroness was staunchly anti-globalist too? She, on more than one occasion, lambasted groups such as the Bilderbergs. She apparently attended one of their meetings and was extremely critical of their aims and tactics.
She even went so far as to say, in one interview, that she had been 'removed' from the election ticket by the influences of that cabal.
She was also a devout Christian. Brought up a Methodist, she eventually came over to the CofE.
A real mixed bag. A truly independent woman.
I suppose that's why I admire her in many ways.
Bachfiend,
DeleteI'm finally getting around to your comment.
"I don't judge scientists based on whether they agree with me. I judge scientists on whether they make a convincing case."
Fun with words! A convincing case is one, by definition, that convinces you. It convinces you if you agree with it. If you don't agree with it, then you remain unconvinced, then it's not a convincing case. Ergo, scientists that make convincing cases (to Bachfiend) are scientists Bachfiend agrees with.
I suppose that's fine. It's a simple matter of you agreeing with yourself. I agree with myself too. If you think a scientist is pushing a theory that's all wet than you probably don't think highly of the scientist. But let's be honest here--you do judge scientists on whether or not you agree with them.
What I'm saying about Thatcher is that I don't believe you know that she really studied the issue. You just think that she did because she came to the right conclusions. There are plenty of Hollywood celebrities that don't know the first thing about the theory but nonetheless take your side of the controversy because it's fashionable.
If Thatcher took the other side of the controversy, while doing a similar amount of research (however much that is), I don't think you'd believe that she really examined the issue. I believe that you would argue that she's just a right-wing fool and her opinion doesn't matter anyway because she's a politician, not a scientist.
In short, you believe that she really examined the issue, and really understood the issue, because she came to the "right" conclusion, ie yours. That's proof enough in your mind that she did her homework.
Joey
"The CRU didn't destroy data."
DeleteYes, as a matter of fact they did. They claimed they "lost" it, but their emails prove otherwise. Here's the official pronouncement.
"Since the 1980s, we have merged the data we have received into existing series or begun new ones, so it is impossible to say if all stations within a particular country or if all of an individual record should be freely available. Data storage availability in the 1980s meant that we were not able to keep the multiple sources for some sites, only the station series after adjustment for homogeneity issues. We, therefore, do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (i.e. quality controlled and homogenized) data."
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2009/08/we-lost-original-data.html
So they destroyed data, which is the same data that they have struggled for years to hide, using one pretext after another, including "We don't release our data to non-academics."
"Which everyone is free to do for themselves."
No, they can't. They've fought tooth and nail to withhold the data, and they have destroyed the original data, just like I said and documented.
Here's Phil Jones admitting that he "lost" data which he admits is not acceptable.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/15/phil-jones-lost-weather-data
And here's Jones to Michael Mann, admitting in one email that he is in fact withholding data from the two MM's--that MacIntyre and Mcitrick--and that he would rather destroy it than hand it over:
"The two MMs have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I'll delete the file rather than send to anyone. Does your similar act in the US force you to respond to enquiries within 20 days? - our does ! The UK works on precedents, so the first request will test it. We also have a data protection act, which I will hide behind."
So please stop lying, Bachfiend. They have destroyed data, they have withheld data, and their data is not freely available to anyone.
That Bachfiend, is what bothers us about this entire scandal. It's not that I like driving my SUV to a distant store. I don't have an SUV, by the way, and I shop close to home. I just don't like scientists who are lying SOBs. I also don't like you or anyone else telling me what's necessary for a happy life and taking away the rest. But most of all I just don't like policy based on junk science, which is what this is.
Joey
Phil Jones to Australian climate scientist: "Even if WMO agrees, I will still not pass on the data. We have twenty-five years or so invested in the work. Why should I pass the data on to you when your aim is to try to find something wrong with it?"
DeleteBy the way, raw data--the kind they say doesn't exist because of storage issues--was found on the FTP server by McIntyre.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/13/cru_missing/
"McIntyre says he doesn't expect any significant surprises after analysing the raw data, but believes that reproducibility is a cornerstone of the scientific principle, and so raw data and methods should be disclosed."
Don't you?
Joey
Joey,
DeleteI said that 10 years ago, I didn't accept global warming, and that in the meantime I have hade the time and opportunity to examine the evidence, and I now accept that AGW is happening.
I changed my opinion. It's not that I've always 'believed' in AGW, and I've picked my scientists to agree with myself. It's the reverse.
I don't know how thoroughly Margaret Thatcher examined the science of AGW. I went along with the first comment to pull on Egnor's chain, since he's such a far of her politics. I was curious to see if he would bite with regard to her stance on AGW. He didn't.
I suppose I could have gone with her courageous decision to take back the Falkland Islands in 1982, which directly lead to the fall of the ruling Argentinian junta, another group of Egnor's heroes for massacring evil socialists and unionists.
Might have worked better...
My acceptance of global warming is based on the well known and well understood physical properties of greenhouse gasses. Not on clever statistical analyses of enormous amounts of weather records. Which, despite your claims, take up enormous computer storage space, rivalling the data produced by the Large Hadron Collider, which has to throw away about 99% of the data collected, as not being interesting, to make the remaining data manageable.
Anyway, Richard Muller et al of BEST has independently analysed the data and provided global temperature curves highly similar to the ones generated already.