Paul, I hope youré still watching this thread. Other things has distracted me for a while but I would like to come back to your answer to my posting #66.

You say;

” Like the controversy over MBH98, whether you believe that Lomborg has succesfully refuted his critics or not depends on which side of the fence you are sitting”

Now, first, I do not hold that all of what BjàƒÆ’à‚ⷲn Lomborg is telling us in the Skeptical Environmentalist is the divine thruth, as also must be understood from my posting, where I specifically and intentionally use the phrasing ” to a great part succesfully rejected”. I do not expect a book that expound primarily on results and statistics from others research and fields to be without certain caveats. But I also have to say that the uproar the book caused in both scientific circles all over the world, as well as in the lay population ( at least in Denmark where I live), made the book become very very thoroughly scrutinized , and as it is still very much debated I think at least it has proven its value in engaging people in “combat”.

Well from the above you might come to the conclusion that I agree with you on the ” side of the fence ” philosophy you present. I dont , because it ain´t that simple!. First, truth ( scientific facts ) is not a question of whether you like or admire a person or not , which your posting seems to imply (maybe that´s the reason why you seem to defend Michael Mann in trying to persuade Steve Mcintyre to stop raising questions in that regard ?!)., or whether you like or not some fancy scientific theory . Your remark make you actually trying to push me to the one side of an imaginary fence which obviously exist in your world but certainly not in mine. To me there are so to speak only one side, – the skeptics side. I´m a so to speak learned skeptic to all that I see and hear because things in my way of life has taught me so, and scientifically speaking I can´t imagine not being a skeptic at all times and in all cases. With being skeptic I mean both being curious because you hear or see things which just dosen´t seem to fit into your personal view and experiences and also being curious because issues or things just happen to catch your attention in a ” raising your curiosity ” way . How else could mankind have been progressing if they had not reached the states of curiosity that made them start asking questions which then lead them to answers as they gained the necessary tools to solve the questions whatever they were.
Now , I consider myself a lay person in climatological science even though I held a Masters Degree at Sea from Svendborg Navigation School in 1978. Also, later I was very close to obtain a traffic pilots license ( which I had to drop in the end thanks to Saddam Hussein who made the prospects for pilots rather pitty at the time). But in both of these two studies meteorology is essential and has at least made it easier for me to capture and understand some of the threads encountered both on this site ( ClimatAudit ) as well as the threads on Realclimate, where I find especially Gavin Schmidt rather impressing. I also now am running my own small dry cleaning business rather succesfully, so my way has proved me to be a what I call a “common sense man” who have been able to make the right decisions at the right times and also have learned to accept things for being what they were without knowing what they contained or concisted of.
But I have to admit to myself that I don´t have the academic tools ( and I don´t want to spend the time to obtain them) necessary to get into detailed scientific argumentation, but that dosen´t make me being unable to see or sense if something dosen´t fit. Not to say that things then actually might be wrong.
But then to my great relief, and certainly to a lot of others I´m sure , I can say that I´m lucky to have both a Steve Mcintyre , Ross Mckitrick and a BjàƒÆ’à‚ⷲn Lomborg who all posesses some of the academic tools I myself is in great need of. They do just what curious people do, they ask questions. The most natural thing to do for skilled intelligent people if things makes them wonder. And aren´t they obliged to?- I think so!
To all of these guy´s credits I have to say that they certainly have caused a justified stir in the climate science community with a lot of unanswered relevant questions that in itself indicates that something is not quite as it should be in the field of climate science and in environmental issues as well. AND I really don´t see that not everybody at this point should´nt be interessested in f.ex. having the MBH98-99 laid bare for all to see so that every single tiny little bit of detail in it can be dissected and thereafter be accepted or refuted. After all, thats the way science ought to work, and I really think it´s sad to see the way people on your side of your imaginary “fence” is trying to desperately and by all means ( even by a proffessors slimy spitballs and a danish mudsuckers outright lies ( BjàƒÆ’à‚ⷲn Lomborg is not a politician and has never been, but he has been a member of Greenpeace) is trying to block and discredit honest and deliberate questioning with a lot of opposing questions and insults which mainly consists of emptyheaded blaa. blaa. blaa… YOU DON´T TEASE MY HERO,- DO YOU HEAR ME?!.

So , to clarify my position I just have to support the questioning part, then I´m sure that in due time the right answers will emerge and getting accepted ( also by me of course ) never mind the name of the “man” of origin. I therefore have to dismiss your philosophy as a pure mental artifact, that in this very case has no meaning.

Hans Kelp

A quick scan of any undergrad ecology text will show you that the amount of C stored in different forest types varies by a large amount. As a result it is possible to have falling total forest area and increasing carbon storage and vice versa.

It’s true that forest area vs carbon storage isn’t the same, but I bet it’s a better proxy than bristle-cone pines are temperature proxies.

Re 64.

You seem to be confusing forest area with carbon storage. The two are not the same

Like the controversy over MBH98, whether you believe that Lomborg has succesfully refuted his critics or not depends on which side of the fence you are sitting.

Just a short remark to all these nice people who are so busy claiming Bjàƒⷲn Lomborg a non scientist and that a danish biologist ( Kàƒ⤲e Fog ) has proved him wrong on several points.
Regarding being a non scientist I will leave to others to judge, but… Theres a book written by Bjàƒⷲn Lomborg and Ulrik Larsen especially to take care of all of the so- called complaints regarding the Skeptical Environmentalist . The book can be downloaded from here http://www.lomborg.com/GodhedensPris.pdf . The book is in danish and I´m not sure if it has been translated yet. I also just wanted to point to the fact that people seem to forget that
the claims to a great part succesfully has been rejected by Bjàƒⷲn Lomborg, which makes the Skeptical Environmentalist thrustworthy!

Hans Kelp

RE 57 – Well if as you say, there is no way of knowing that plantations reduce pressure on natural forests, Lomborg should not have used this as an example of how natural forests are being protected. If plantations are being established to substitute for imported wood which itself comes from plantations then the plantations make no difference. Similarly if plantations are there to supply an increased internal demand for wood while clearance of natural forests continues at the same rate, then they are only protecting the natural forest from extra exploitation, the natural forests will still be cut down. Lomborg implies that plantations protect natural forest while giving no evidence, spectulation at best, I would call it misrepresentation.

The references I gave were in response to a specific point you made in 53, that I was just speculating about the effect of plantations in the UK. I answered it by providing, unlike Lomborg, facts to back up my point, it had nothing to do with Lomborgs book, so the dates of the references are irrelevant.