To answer your question, I had nobody specific in mind. It’s just that I have seen very little evidence that many established experts in your field are publically advocating for nuclear power… and even less from the rank and file. That’s not to say there aren’t any… and the number is growing thank goodness, though not fast enough for my liking. Given the circles you run in, perhaps you have a different perspective? Is there a larger “private” acceptance… nay, eager endorsement… among your peers for nuclear power that wouldn’t be obvious to the public? If so, I guess that’s progress of a sort, but until they get off their rear ends and “come out” publically as you have, they are tacitly endorsing the renewable, non-solution, status quo… and complicit in making matters worse.
You mentioned these fellows in one of your posts… Santer, Mann and Jones… do they have an official position on the matter? That would be interesting to know…

Anyway, my point behind the comment was, left to random chance, and assuming that the climate science community eventually deigns to even make a formal response, odds are that the spokesman will not be of your caliber… ie: on record as to the necessity of a nuclear base-load solution. Acknowledging in advance that this may be the fevered opinion of a self-absorbed curmudgeon suffering from a tremendous case of tranference, I think that this would dilute the message.

‘Nuff said… leaving that behind – thank you for the “statement” on the CRU issue… the article you linked to notwithstanding, I much preferred the text in the body of the post. I am intimately familiar with the frustration you expressed, though my nemesis were always anti-nukes rather than Deniers. Over the decades, I too have built up a backlog of exhaustion at the seeming futility of battling the never-ending, circular, thousand-headed hydra that is the anti-nuke argument. I have to admit, for sanity’s sake, I’ve had to resort to the old, “Piss off, I’m NOT going over this again!” defense too many times not to recognize its validity… accepted, moving on…

Maybe sub-consciously I cling to my AGW agnosticism because I simply don’t have the energy to fight a war on two fronts… plus, I’d like to keep a little bit of my hair! Of course, you don’t seem to have that problem so better you than me, I reckon. ;o)~ Have at it amigo, and best of luck.

I think I’ll take a tip from DV82XL and limit my contributions to those topics where I have a settled position and can be of support… you’ve got enough critics no doubt… I don’t want to be one of them.

“You need evidence to support this theory and there is none.” NONE? Easy response for you – just deny it. Like everything else.

“As for your foot stamping little “anti intellectual and dishonest” tanty, well it’s what we’ve come to expect from ‘climate scientists’.”

What you really mean here is simply ‘scientists’, as you clearly aren’t interested in science, nor appear to have the capacity to effectively evaluate scientific research or data. The fact that Professor Brook has had to explain to you the issue of sea level rise over three posts now is a clear indicator of this. Either that, or you just don’t want to understand. (ie. anti intellectual and/or dishonest).

A total lack of quantitative nous, and a hodge-podge of anecdotal waffle, is what I’ve come to expect from ‘climate deniers’. Anyway, as I suggested in my earlier comment, I’m sick of wasting my time ‘debating’ idiots, so I won’t be responding to your ravings again. Oh, and if you decide to get personal and snidely on me, I’ll whack a ban on you, because frankly my tolerance level for this tosh has just about hit negative territory.

Well I’ll pull this out of my arse if you like Barry:

“A reconstruction of global sea level since 1700 has been made. Results from the analysis of a 300 year long global sea level using two different methods provide evidence that global sea level acceleration up to the present has been about 0.01 mm/yr2 and appears to have started at the end of the 18th century. The time variable trend in 300 years of global sea level suggests that there are periods of slow and fast sea level rise associated with decadal variability, which has been previously reported by several authors [Douglas, 1992; Woodworth, 1990; Church and White,
2006]. However, we provide evidence that the main contribution to the evolution of the sea level acceleration is associated with multi-decadal variability, which is superimposed on a background sea level acceleration. We show that sea level rose by 28 cm during 1700–2000; simple extrapolation leads to a 34 cm rise between 1990 and 2090. [Jevrejeva, S., J. C. Moore, A. Grinsted, and P. L. Woodworth (2008), Recent global sea level acceleration started over 200 years ago].”

They add:

“The fastest sea level rise during the 20th century was between 1920–50 and appears to be a combination of peaking of the 60–65 years cycle with a period of low volcanic activity [Jevrejeva et al., 2006; Church and White, 2006].”

Looks like the recent rate of sea level rise is dropping off too http://sealevel.colorado.edu/current/sl_noib_global_sm.jpg.

“Sea level was approximately flat from 6000 BP through to the 19th century…”

Really, that’ll be news to the Romans – they can’t have eaten a lot of fish 2000 years ago given the tidal sluices in their fish traps in the Atlantic and Mediterranean are up to two metres below current sea levels.

Might have been hard for them to harvest salt from two metres below the surface too, or cut peat come to think of it.

And I know the Minoans are supposed to have been belted by Santorini, but many Bronze Age coastal settlements around the Med are well below modern sea levels, certainly more than the rise measured from 1700.

“…and the GRACE satellite data from Greenland and Antarctica indicate that the contribution of land-based ice has increased by 50% from the year 2000, up from 0.8 to 1.2 mm/yr…”

The GRACE models are being re-evaluated as ice loss guesses based on this short term set of observations have been over estimated.

I note the Google response for “ClimateGate” has topped 11 million pages with ‘Bing’ reporting over 50 million pages.

Doesn’t look like it’s going away regardless of how deeply you bury your head in the ‘science’.

I did read the response you wished you’d written to the non-problem as suggested by your link, I thought it might provide an insight into your outrage at the appalling and dishonourable actions of the CRU crowd, but this phrase rather jumped out at me:

“I haven’t read all 62MB. I’ve read hardly any of it, in fact.”

Says it all really.

As for your foot stamping little “anti intellectual and dishonest” tanty, well it’s what we’ve come to expect from ‘climate scientists’.

Or worse, will we have to endure the spectacle of the pro-AGW analysis coming from a climate scientist who is on record as claiming Techno-solar will be our salvation, and deadly nuclear waste is an unsolvable problem?

John, out of curiosity, who are you referring to here?

http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/2009/nov/homepagenews/CRUupdate

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/6678469/Climategate-University-of-East-Anglia-U-turn-in-climate-change-row.html

Scientists are bitchy, competitive and often narrow minded, but they have their reputation for honesty to maintain. and, in general (though not always), hold evidence and logic to be higher authorities than partisanship and money. They also tend not to suffer fools gladly in any situation, and so when people like Santer, Mann and Jones have been forced to suffer the inane ravings and grossly unreasonable demands of denialist idiots for years, it’s no wonder they get stroppy.

I don’t call them “Deniers” because there’s no quotes required. That’s what they are, small-minded, anti-scientific, pathetic, and self-interested DENIERS. The ones who aren’t, are just ill-informed. I hope you, as a self confessed sceptic but strong nuclear advocate, are a sceptic and not a denier, and will make the effort to teach yourself the basic science on which you can make an informed judgement rather than an ideological deference to myth and spin.

If I sound frustrated with the whole anti-science denialist writhing mass of parasitic worms, well, I am. If I sound like I’m sympathising with the researchers involved in the disdainful CRU hack, you can damned well take it from me that I am. If I seem like I’m being silently indignant, I’m not. I’m just sick to my back teeth of the whole denialist game. As I said in an earlier post, to me it’s akin to bobbing for rotten apples in a communal cesspit. Hence my decision not to write any further ‘spot the recycled denial’ posts, or other anti-denialist analysis. It’s just not worth the effort, as and you note, we all get further by talking about real solutions, like nuclear power, instead of wasting time pandering to the idiotic whim of ideologues.

The average rate of rise over the 20th century was 1.8 mm/yr. In the last 15 years it has been nearly double that (3.4 mm/yr). The latest SEAFRAME data now suggest the rate has risen to 5 mm/yr across the Pacific basin, and the GRACE satellite data from Greenland and Antarctica indicate that the contribution of land-based ice has increased by 50% from the year 2000, up from 0.8 to 1.2 mm/yr.

If you’d bothered to look into the science behind sea level rise, you’d know this. But you didn’t, you just pulled a bunch of just-so stories out of your rear orifice. I can only conclude that you’re either dishonest or anti-intellectual. Or both.

Mmmmm, yes and that rate has changed by how much since the record began?

Nothing.

And the amount of the devil’s breath CO2 in the atmosphere has changed by how much during the same period?

Lots.

And the correlation between the two?

None.

So if sea levels have been rising for the 150 years of the CSIRO record at much the same rate, and probably a bit longer according to historical and archaeological evidence, what caused it to rise during the late 1790s?

Was the Earth shrinking?

Why was it warmer during the MWP, Roman Optimum and so on, why was it cooler during the Dark Ages and Little Ice Age?

What caused the Mediterranean ecotone to shift so dramatically between 1200 & 800 BC heralding the rise of the Roman Empire and later shift again hastening its demise around 500AD?

Mann tried to answer these questions by getting rid of the MWP and failed; amusingly he’s just published again and continues to misuse sediment records as the Tiljander sediment series remains inverted, although at first glance the MWP makes a welcome reappearance on stage.

My brain is intact and increasingly sceptical of the CO2 catastrophe mantra – there are many deleterious effects on our environment as a result of human activities, but the effects of increasing levels of CO2 are a minor one.

Deforestation, rampant profligate dewatering of aquifers, pollution of the air with heavy metals, sulphur dioxide, hydrogen fluoride and all the other effluvia of industry combined with barely treated sewage and other wastes pouring into the oceans and destruction of fish stocks by over fishing are a few of my least favourite things.

Time to get off the warmy trace gas excuse for environmental prevarication and spend the billions being wasted trying to support this baseless theory fixing the obvious and very visible damage we can fix in the here and now.

We could start by selectively replacing marginal and unproductive agricultural land with natural land cover, repairing catchment water courses by removing weeds and willows, replacing all irrigation channels with pipes and sub surface watering systems and treating the waste water of all our large and medium sized cities and reusing it in their reticulated water supply systems.

We could engage in a nation building exercise by replacing our sooty, gritty dirty coal power generators with nuclear plants and upgrading the grid with a new technology transmission system.

Our rickety public transport systems could also make use of new technology so we could see truly fast and efficient electrified rail criss-crossing the country.

These are just a few of my favourite things, but none of this is occurring. It’s all too hard for governments to contemplate as it requires real decisions to be made followed by effective planning and action – it’s much easier to ‘deny’ the problems and tax CO2 ‘cos that’ll fix it all and we can all feel happy and safe.

Kevin will make a speech and the commentariat will preen and bluster in support.

But we will still struggle to supply water to Adelaide, the Murray Darling basin will continue to degrade, tuna fisher men will return with ever diminishing catches until they join the North Atlantic cod industry as footnotes in a lengthening catalogue of environmental disasters and blackouts will follow brown outs as our burgeoning population outstrips our ability to generate base load electricity, let alone cover peak demand.

” Typical of a climate change denier…”

The typical comment of a thermogeddonist true believer denying the reality that ‘climate’ is a synonym for change.

Now TeeKay, argue that “dangerous, tipping point, catastrophic, moral challenge of our age, civilisation threatening, polar cities our only refuge” climate change is occurring and it’s all the fault of CO2.

You need evidence to support this theory and there is none.

“hide the decline”.

Dr. Brook, this is the first website at which I have ventured a comment. This is a testament to how compelling I find both the honest conviction with which you pursue your topics, and the quality of the conversation that follows in the comment section (especially your contributions, DV82XL… I’ll get to your particular apology in a moment). As I feared, I have bungled the task and offered insult where none was intended. Nor, given the outright rancor (or sometimes not-so-subtley veiled animus) that so often animates many of the comments, do I blame you for being cautious… even prickly. In retrospect, I think my mistake was in trying to make it a personal communication rather than just stating my concerns in a more general way. And so, in keeping with the Franklin piece I included, I accept your criticism of my offering, “not only patiently, but thankfully”, and will try to reform. Please accept my sincere apologies… I did not mean to impugne your integrity, and the fault lies with my clumsy communication style.

DV82XL… wow… I feel even worse at having botched the job in your case. Of all the commentators in these thread discussions, I look forward to your pieces most of all… the consistency of your position, your command of the topics you choose to engage in, and the seemingly encyclopedic access to relevant reference sources… it’s a powerful combination, and pulled off with a succinct eloquence I both admire and lack. Not to mention that I owe you a debt of gratitude… earlier in this thread you very thoroughly hoisted a particularly ugly commentator by his own petard as he was in the process of abusing me. Thank you. I invoked your quote to highlight to Dr. Brook the fact that others on this thread had noticed and were actively acknowledging that the CRU event had occurred, and that it was troublesome… in your words, a setback. It was by no means meant to “typify” your position as “indifferent” or anything else… indeed, it was meant to be understood as an example of precisely the opposite. Funny the trouble words can cause. I assure you my pilfered quote was not intended to go any deeper than demonstrating that this CRU mess was NOT a non-event that could be, or was being, ignored. Nothing more. In both your’s and Dr. Brook’s case, more was read into my comments than was intended. You are both more experienced in this forum than I… no doubt by necessity you filter these comments through a cynical lens… I’ve seen some of the dreck you’ve had to wade through. Hence, naturally, my comment was understood in its worst possible light. Please forgive me for my lack of clarity… I’m new at this.

Dr. Brook, just a couple more comments and I’ll stop pestering you. Once more into the breach…

I appreciate very much the generous offer to address any particular points as to the science in the e-mail exchanges, but like others here, I lack the expertise to interpret the data adequately to even form a good question. Not my area. Nor is “data” necessarily the concerning element of the exchanges, at least not from those I’ve read and from the interpretations that I’ve heard. The heart of the matter, as I understand it, has to do with a culture of secrecy and an unwillingness to allow (IPCC level) AGW analysis to be verified and independently vetted. There also appears to be some pretty straightforward attempts to by-pass legitmate public information access requests, among other things.

Given the magnitude of influence climate science and the IPCC Reports exert on public policy and resources, IMHO such potential improprieties are correctly and unavoidably “troubling” to the impartial mind… ill-gotten or otherwise.

My use of the words “blinded by passion” was a poor choice in your case. It’s true I don’t know you from Adam, but I don’t need to to know the following:

-It takes courage for a man in your position to publically take the stance you have… no doubt you are an apostate among some of your colleagues.
- It takes an open and honest mind to make the jump from renewables to nuclear… this is less about pure intellect than it is about strength of character. (How many very smart people do you know who simply won’t change their views regardless of how convincing the math?)

I hope you will abandon any lingering insult you may feel on my account. I was a little dismayed at your silence on the issue, and was trying to galvanize you into rethinking your (non)actions. In the bigger picture, the appearance is of a coordinated strategy to just keep silent and hope it blows over. Not that I’m accusing you of such, but in the absence of… well, anything… in the face of such a big development right in your wheelhouse??? It’s perplexing to say the least… you don’t strike me as a follower.

For better or worse, you have differentiated yourself from the pack. That you have outgrown many in the pro-AGW debate by offering real solutions legitimizes you to a much broader audience… the last three entries here make that clear. This website has expanded beyond its original Climate Change boundaries, which is exactly the trend necessary to effect substantive energy policy that works. Like it or not, you’ve attracted a bunch of Nukes, and we’re the persnickety type.

So here’s the dilemma. Reprehensible though it may be, these CRU e-mails are now part of the public domain. They will be parsed, intepreted and explained ad nauseum… certainly from commited anti-AGW circles. Are we to be treated to silence from your end? Or worse, will we have to endure the spectacle of the pro-AGW analysis coming from a climate scientist who is on record as claiming Techno-solar will be our salvation, and deadly nuclear waste is an unsolvable problem? To the nuclear literate, this would undermine the force of that argument, and to the less informed it would serve to further attach non-solutions to the AGW camp. Basically, nothing positive is advanced.

IMHO, silent indignation is not a good policy. What if there is legitimately damning information in those e-mails? At first blush, that appears to be the case. Again, in a nuclear context, it would be the operators themselves howling for blood… first and loudest. What if its all a tempest in a teapot? Who better to demonstrate that than a scientist with a demonstrated record of an open mind and impartial demeanor? The silence from the AGW scientific community is ringing… and not just to the ears of committed “Deniers”, as you call them. Do you really want to be a part of that?

Sorry for the length of this… too much time on my hands.

Having said that I agree with our host that this event is shameful. It was a transparent attempt to undermine the credibility of a group of people by airing their private communications and mendaciously displaying them out of context. It is nothing more than character assassination. If anything demonstrates to me, and remember I am not invested in AGW on ether side, that the deniers are morally, ethically and intellectually bankrupt, and this tends to lend credence to the accusations that they are nothing but the mouthpieces of Big Carbon.

I doubt if I an alone in this opinion.