The CPUK page has now been updated (although it still seems to be broken, with images and style sheets not working)
[bunk]
Update (4th November 2011) [sic]
This article has been subjected to a
‘debunking’ attempt by metabunk – with one or more of their members also posting in our comments section, below.
As you will see, what metabunk have conveniently done is trim down Dr Pritchard’s concerns of “an uncontrolled experiment in geoengineering” to just “an uncontrolled experiment,” thereby opening it up to misinterpretation. They have deliberately done that to try and convince their readers that the two academics weren’t really talking about “an uncontrolled experiment
in geoengineering.”
Of course they would now deny it, but if there’s any doubt about what the academics meant by
geoengineering, they are using the usual definition that is widely used in climate circles and as ubiquitously defined (i.e.,
the deliberate large-scale manipulation of an environmental process that affects the earth’s climate, in an attempt to counteract the effects of global warming.). We know this because this is the same definition that was clearly implied in Olga Raffa’s initial question, which was then continued by Lenton, then Pritchard, before being handed back to Lenton.
That the definition of
geoengineering could have somehow changed (from the ubiquitos definition to some broader definition) during these exchanges is inexplicable and also implausible. We know this because Olga Raffa introduced her concerns about “weather modification and ongoing geoengineering programmes” and “aerosols being dumped into the atmosphere blocking our sun” so it was quite clear she was talking about actual geoengineering. And it was this (usual) definition of stratospheric aerosol geoengineering that we then witness propagate throughout Lenton’s and Pritchard’s subsequent statements on the matter.
It is also clear that the “uncontrolled experiment” that Lenton refers to is the same “uncontrolled experiment
in geoengineering” concern raised by Pritchard. We know this because the former is
immediately addressing the latter.
So what we are left with is a straightforward 3-way discussion about geoengineering as we all know it, as is ubiquitously defined. In case metabunk come back with an even more obscure argument, please bear in mind Ockham’s razor:
Among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected.
Read through the comments, below, and you will see that my claim stands up to logical scrutiny and that, unlike metabunk, I haven’t attempted to twist anything and I haven’t blocked
any comments from appearing – postive or negative.
NB – I have now disabled comments on this article, but if anyone has anything new and relevant to add regarding my central claim that Dr Pritchard and Professor Lenton were indeed both talking about the current “uncontrolled experiment
in geoengineering” (with
geoengineering having its usual definition as
the deliberate large-scale manipulation of an environmental process that affects the earth’s climate, in an attempt to counteract the effects of global warming) then please contact us via our Contact page and we will review accordingly. (But just give us time, because we clearly don’t have the resources that metabunk have…)[/bunk]
Hodgskiss still appears to believe that
he has a better idea of what these two climate scientists were talking about than the scientists themselves, which seems pretty presumptuous!
As for "
we clearly don't have the resources that Metabunk have", if he has an email account and an hour of free time, then yes, he does. He could have clarified exactly what Lenton and Pritchard were talking about and saved himself a lot of time and backpedalling.
