Be Excellent To Each Other

Last night 3 London neighbourbhoods were targetted by the Climate Rush Driving Authority (or CRDA). Over 12 teams fanned out across London – from St John’s Wood, to Islington via Clapham Common...Stuck on (but removable with a little effort and some warm soapy water) its back license plate is a message from road-users (though not road-hoggers) – and people who care about climate change – ‘CO2 K1LL5′ and then printed beneath: ‘SUVs emit 3x the CO2 of less selfish vehicles’.

That would be awesome for avoiding the congestion charge.
Also, I note they don't do it to disabled people. Go discrimination!

You get a discount (a rather massive one) if you live inside the congestion zone, but yeah, of course you do.

What makes you think you wouldn't?

I drive a Range Rover and a Porsche Cayenne Turbo, I’ll be parked on Cadogan Place all day tomorrow, if you could make sure you put your silly badges on both my front and rear numberplates please as they are extremely useful for avoiding the congestion charge and also speed cameras.

Thanks v much, keep up the good work.

mwah xx

I'm far from convinced by the whole CO2/global warming thing anyway; it wouldn't surprise me if it wasn't just a bunch of herd mentality scientists all following the Zeitgeist.

The Romans grew vines in the UK around 2000 years ago

So we should be guided by science unless it starts saying something we don't like. In which case they're obviously just a big bunch of idiots. OK.

There are three threads in particular in the leaked documents which have sent a shock wave through informed observers across the world. Perhaps the most obvious, as lucidly put together by Willis Eschenbach (see McIntyre's blog Climate Audit and Anthony Watt's blog Watts Up With That ), is the highly disturbing series of emails which show how Dr Jones and his colleagues have for years been discussing the devious tactics whereby they could avoid releasing their data to outsiders under freedom of information laws.

They have come up with every possible excuse for concealing the background data on which their findings and temperature records were based.
This in itself has become a major scandal, not least Dr Jones's refusal to release the basic data from which the CRU derives its hugely influential temperature record, which culminated last summer in his startling claim that much of the data from all over the world had simply got "lost". Most incriminating of all are the emails in which scientists are advised to delete large chunks of data, which, when this is done after receipt of a freedom of information request, is a criminal offence.

But the question which inevitably arises from this systematic refusal to release their data is – what is it that these scientists seem so anxious to hide? The second and most shocking revelation of the leaked documents is how they show the scientists trying to manipulate data through their tortuous computer programmes, always to point in only the one desired direction – to lower past temperatures and to "adjust" recent temperatures upwards, in order to convey the impression of an accelerated warming. This comes up so often (not least in the documents relating to computer data in the Harry Read Me file) that it becomes the most disturbing single element of the entire story. This is what Mr McIntyre caught Dr Hansen doing with his GISS temperature record last year (after which Hansen was forced to revise his record), and two further shocking examples have now come to light from Australia and New Zealand.

In each of these countries it has been possible for local scientists to compare the official temperature record with the original data on which it was supposedly based. In each case it is clear that the same trick has been played – to turn an essentially flat temperature chart into a graph which shows temperatures steadily rising. And in each case this manipulation was carried out under the influence of the CRU.

What is tragically evident from the Harry Read Me file is the picture it gives of the CRU scientists hopelessly at sea with the complex computer programmes they had devised to contort their data in the approved direction, more than once expressing their own desperation at how difficult it was to get the desired results.

The third shocking revelation of these documents is the ruthless way in which these academics have been determined to silence any expert questioning of the findings they have arrived at by such dubious methods – not just by refusing to disclose their basic data but by discrediting and freezing out any scientific journal which dares to publish their critics' work. It seems they are prepared to stop at nothing to stifle scientific debate in this way, not least by ensuring that no dissenting research should find its way into the pages of IPCC reports.

Back in 2006, when the eminent US statistician Professor Edward Wegman produced an expert report for the US Congress vindicating Steve McIntyre's demolition of the "hockey stick", he excoriated the way in which this same "tightly knit group" of academics seemed only too keen to collaborate with each other and to "peer review" each other's papers in order to dominate the findings of those IPCC reports on which much of the future of the US and world economy may hang. In light of the latest revelations, it now seems even more evident that these men have been failing to uphold those principles which lie at the heart of genuine scientific enquiry and debate.

Already one respected US climate scientist, Dr Eduardo Zorita, has called for Dr Mann and Dr Jones to be barred from any further participation in the IPCC. Even our own George Monbiot, horrified at finding how he has been betrayed by the supposed experts he has been revering and citing for so long, has called for Dr Jones to step down as head of the CRU.

I'm in no position to judge the sceintific merits of the various propositions so I need to rely on others to do that for me. And pretty much every respectable voice, from the President of the Royal Society and so forth, I hear tells me that the case that we are having a fairly profound effect on the climate is increasingly unequivocal. I see no basis to reject this consensus. Which is a shame because I love cars and that too but just not enough to alter my beliefs to make them fit.

I've never quite got why eco-protesters are so fixated on 4x4's. Surely a hefty sportscar or a oil burning, non-catalytic converter, smoke belching wreck is going to make just as much CO2 ( plus CO and all the other nasties ).

I've never quite got why eco-protesters are so fixated on 4x4's.

I've never quite got why eco-protesters are so fixated on 4x4's. Surely a hefty sportscar or a oil burning, non-catalytic converter, smoke belching wreck is going to make just as much CO2 ( plus CO and all the other nasties ).

I really don't have the time to go through all this cavey. Suffice to say that I remain convinced by the evidence put forth by the scientific community to the extent that the ranting article of a fucking Intelligent Design proponent isn't really going to change my mind. I've also heard what the CRU have said about all this themselves and it all sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

There are one or two formerly respected scientists and a lot in the pay of large multinationals who are skeptical as to the cause of climate change.

Me, i'd be willing to bet the real cause is halfway between the two extreme ends of the viewpoint. Yes what we have done has had an effect, but not as much people think.

Under the circumstances, I say scepticism as regards the whole thing is more than justified and does not constitute some head-in-sand 'I'm not listening to science if it does not accord with my own love of cars' attitude that you were accusing me of. I'm not inclined to just accept things at their face value, without question, regardless of where the information comes from and/or howsoever 'eminent' the source.

Most polluting Cayenne is 310g/km, 911 Turbo Cabriolet Tiptronic S is 328g/km

FTFY.

They target 4x4s because it's fashionable to do so, and people don't understand the facts of the situation.

Which are, as I understand it:
Stop eating meat
Stop reproducing

You do realise that climate change is a massive business in and of itself, so that argument that skeptics are in the pay of multinationals can be equally levied at the pro climate change lobby.
Either way, arguing against skeptics because you "think" there might be something nefarious as to the reason, seems to be logically based on the exact same argument the skeptics against the pro climate change lobby have that you are poo-pooing?

You do realise that climate change is a massive business in and of itself, so that argument that skeptics are in the pay of multinationals can be equally levied at the pro climate change lobby.
Either way, arguing against skeptics because you "think" there might be something nefarious as to the reason, seems to be logically based on the exact same argument the skeptics against the pro climate change lobby have that you are poo-pooing?

The status quo is worth at least a billion times more than the climate change lobby (citation needed).

My biggest worry over this is that I daresay a lot of drivers won't have noticed that they have a sticker covering their rear number plate before setting off, and if there were an incident this stunt could well prevent proper identification of the vehicle.

...fighting the battle against those all-powerful scientists and their insistence on truth.

Except judging by that link I posted, 'the truth' was the last thing on those all-powerful scientists' minds? That's part of the problem, I'd say.

Except judging by that link I posted, 'the truth' was the last thing on those all-powerful scientists' minds? That's part of the problem, I'd say.

There's no mistaking that the actions taken by the scientists in question were 'wrong' and contrary to the accepted approach for analysing and presenting scientific data.

However, what they did to those results doesn't invalidate any part of the currently accepted understanding of our climate, including the hockey stick model. They took a set of results, and they massaged the statistical interpretation (start and end dates, rules for accepting outliers, etc) to put a face on it that best fit their preconceptions. If you look at the raw information, without their interpretation, it still supports the same theory, just with a smaller degree of emphasis.

Avoiding the truth is therefore not really an appropriate accusation. Being deliberately disingenuous is probably closer.

Since 2003, however, when the statistical methods used to create the "hockey stick" were first exposed as fundamentally flawed by an expert Canadian statistician Steve McIntyre , an increasingly heated battle has been raging between Mann's supporters, calling themselves "the Hockey Team", and McIntyre and his own allies, as they have ever more devastatingly called into question the entire statistical basis on which the IPCC and CRU construct their case.

Our hopelessly compromised scientific establishment cannot be allowed to get away with a whitewash of what has become the greatest scientific scandal of our age.

P.S. Cavey, apologies if my wording is a little condescending/argumentative. I was just trying to wind you up fo a laugh, as I'm having a thoroughly annoying day and misery loves company. That is my stance on the matter, though.

Under the circumstances therefore, given that 'we' the public are clearly getting the Mushroom Treatment from the scientific community here (namely, kept in the dark and shit on) and taking due account of the other various drivers I discuss earlier, I feel perfectly comfortable in questioning the whole fucking shebang.

…but I'm not going to sit there and be made to feel guilty by some smug chattering class twat in Islington who owns two homes, goes on holiday eight times a year or worse, has a partner who flies 200,000 miles a year for work and thinks owning a fucking Prius makes that all alright. Yes, in case you're wondering I have had conversations of that ilk on numerous occasions at dinner parties.