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Going green

Chris Pearson
The debate in another thread has shifted to the climate debate, so perhaps we should keep it separate.


Publication bias may be detected by what I think is called a funnel plot. Imagine a funnel lying on its side.


On the X-axis, you have the power of the study - high powered studies are nearer to the truth so they lie in the stem of the funnel.


On the Y-axis you have the finding of each study - whether the activity is beneficial or not. The middle of the neck of the funnel is the best estimate of the true value.


At the left of the plot, the wide bit of the funnel, lie low powered studies. Some will show that the activity is beneficial, some the reverse. So if you look at the risk of smoking, some low powered studies should have shown that it was beneficial. IIRC, studies showing that smoking was beneficial were not published. That may be because the authors chose not to submit, or editors chose not to accept.


I have no idea whether this sort of plot has been done for the climate debate, but it ought to have been.


I accept David Z's argument that the climate has warmed and cooled long before industry appeared (even on a Roman scale), but what bugs me is the doctrine that we cannot afford to get it wrong.


Does anybody here know how man-made energy compares with the amount which arrives from the sun?
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    I have spent the last few years on fairly solid study of the whole climate thing, to the dismay of my partner who says "It is a complete waste of time, you will never change anything!". Perhaps not but unless someone does (preferably a large group, such as Engineers) things are going to get mighty difficult in the future.  I am dismayed by the IET who keep publishing articles in E&T which are wildly misleading about many aspects of the subject (being fairly kind), and seem to stem from journos repeating "stuff" from other websites, particularly the BBC. It is editorial policy at the BBC that the science is settled, the climate is changing due to anthroprogenic actions and we are all doomed, and that is official and available in print. They seem not to realise that the whole Greta thing is very serious child abuse, when questioned slightly she cannot answer simple questions and knows nothing of the science,and has a hissy fit.It is simple indoctrination.This week in Madrid she let the cat out of the bag and repeated the whole Marxist line in public, but this was not reported by the MSM, although delegates saw it and probably agreed too.


    The site Wattsupwiththat.com has several real climate scientists who post often, and posts views in all directions, do not bother with the forum comments under each article, they are generally a waste of time.


    Anyone who thinks I don't care about the climate should realise I used to own an Organic farm and retail outlets, and on that farm planted 60,000 willow trees (no grants!) for energy supply which was renewable. The value of the timber turned out to be virtually zero although would heat at least 20 houses continuously, saving in that area probably £40,000 in oil per year. The boilers etc sold to do so using wood chips turned out to be unable to feed "real" chipped wood reliably on a domestic scale and needed imported wood pellets (which are very expensive)! I hope that Drax fares better.


    Does anyone know where to buy a gas powered computer? Oh no, perhaps I should patent that at once! We have the technology..........



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    I have spent the last few years on fairly solid study of the whole climate thing, to the dismay of my partner who says "It is a complete waste of time, you will never change anything!". Perhaps not but unless someone does (preferably a large group, such as Engineers) things are going to get mighty difficult in the future.  I am dismayed by the IET who keep publishing articles in E&T which are wildly misleading about many aspects of the subject (being fairly kind), and seem to stem from journos repeating "stuff" from other websites, particularly the BBC. It is editorial policy at the BBC that the science is settled, the climate is changing due to anthroprogenic actions and we are all doomed, and that is official and available in print. They seem not to realise that the whole Greta thing is very serious child abuse, when questioned slightly she cannot answer simple questions and knows nothing of the science,and has a hissy fit.It is simple indoctrination.This week in Madrid she let the cat out of the bag and repeated the whole Marxist line in public, but this was not reported by the MSM, although delegates saw it and probably agreed too.


    The site Wattsupwiththat.com has several real climate scientists who post often, and posts views in all directions, do not bother with the forum comments under each article, they are generally a waste of time.


    Anyone who thinks I don't care about the climate should realise I used to own an Organic farm and retail outlets, and on that farm planted 60,000 willow trees (no grants!) for energy supply which was renewable. The value of the timber turned out to be virtually zero although would heat at least 20 houses continuously, saving in that area probably £40,000 in oil per year. The boilers etc sold to do so using wood chips turned out to be unable to feed "real" chipped wood reliably on a domestic scale and needed imported wood pellets (which are very expensive)! I hope that Drax fares better.


    Does anyone know where to buy a gas powered computer? Oh no, perhaps I should patent that at once! We have the technology..........



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