JoNova

Australian climate poll: 60% passionate (but half in the dark)

The poll of Australians commission by the Australian Climate Science Coalition is more sophisticated than the BBC poll, and shows a similar trend against the theory of man-made global catastrophe. But, perhaps not surprisingly, as with the nature of fraud and misinformation, the results also contain contradictions. It’s quicksand out there in voter-world. Half the population is no longer sold on the emissions trading scheme, but the other half is unaware of what is unfolding. A bare majority of Australians still want to do “something” to combat climate change (I wonder if the same number of people want to do “something” to combat the weather), but even those who want action don’t want to spend very much.

The full report PDF.

IMAGE: Graph of ACSC Poll of Australians Jan 2010 on Climate Action

Table 20: ACSC Poll of Australians Jan 2010

The things we know for sure:

Skepticism is growing in Australia since Climategate (and all the other gates) and the failure of Copenhagen.
There is a great deal of ignorance out there on both sides of the fence. (The science communication on this topic has been poor, worse, and awful.)
The population is politically split: The half that doesn’t believe in the scare campaign is also the half more likely to vote conservative or independent.
People are polarized. It’s not a bell shaped curve, where most people are in the middle, and the fringes thin out. It’s a U-shape, where the middle is deserted. From the graph above, 28% strongly support action, while 33% strongly oppose it. On this matter, around 60% of Australians are passionate, and half of them are wrong. More »

Monckton Tour: a sellout with extra dates in Perth, Sydney

Christopher Monckton’s tour here has been so successful that extra dates have been booked for Perth (now Monday night and Tuesday night this week) and also a huge final show in Sydney on Friday with none-other than Alan Jones as MC. (For people not in Australia, Alan Jones is one of the most popular talk-back radio celebrities here). All up, Monckton will has spoken to around 6000 people live, and countless thousands through a packed schedule of radio interviews around the country.

UPDATE: Sydney is now a Debate with Tim Lambert ( see below)

Monckton has played to packed houses everywhere, this one was in Newcastle. Photo: Thanks to Stefan.

Videos from one of the Melbourne speeches are linked below in two parts–they are excellent quality footage. Thanks to Case Smit and John Smeed for bringing the man and his wife Juliette this far around the world. Kudos to Ian Plimer for accompanying him.

In Noosa, his talk was so popular that 350 people were left in the car-park unfortunately. When he found out, Monckton came outside to apologize personally, and gave them a 15 minute synopsis right there in the car-park. More »

Seismic shifts in opinions

A new BBC poll shows a major shift in public opinion in the UK since just last November. Look at the swing. Of the 41% of people who then said the cause of climate change was “well established,” more than 1 in 4 have switched sides. These people made up the major base of the active support, yet they are now questioning the assumption that man-made gases are driving the change.

BBC Poll

Only 26% of people think “climate change is happening, and is now established as largely man-made”; on the other hand, 25% are so skeptical, they don’t believe climate change is happening at all. More »

Pitman: paid $190,000 a year to throw baseless insults

Cartoon: Professor of Ad Hominem Attacks
Last week a paid public servant spoke untruths, but instead of being exposed by the media, he was aided by our taxpayer-funded public broadcast network. Andy Pitman spoke about the socio-economic position of a group he avoids, and let down UNSW, abused the title “Professor”, and misled the public.

The journalists allowed the baseless smears to be broadcast without question, not just once, but twice.

Professor Andy Pitman on ABC Radio: Eleanor Hall interviews Andy Pitman on glaciers.

Robin Williams thought it was so “useful” he rebroadcast the same factually incorrect, irrelevant material on his “science” show. Oops.

It’s hard to cram more anti-truths into one declaration:

“My personal view is that climate scientists are losing the fight with climate sceptics. That the sceptics are so well funded, so well organized, have nothing else to do, they kind of don’t have day jobs, they can put all of their efforts into misinforming and miscommunicating climate science to the public, whereas the climate scientists have day jobs and this isn’t one of them. All of the efforts you do in an IPCC report is done out of hours, voluntarily, for no funding and no pay, whereas the sceptics are being funded to put out full scale misinformation campaigns…”

Let’s correct the six seven-delusion paragraph

1. Skeptics are well funded? More »

Liberal policy removes rewards for bankers

Abbot still panders to the fake carbon scare, but takes the bankers and futures traders right out of the equation by ditching emissions trading:

“A coalition government would create a $1 billion fund that would be used to purchase initiatives aimed at reducing Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has announced.”

The Coalition will have to find $3.2 b, compared to Rudd’s $40-$114 billion money-go-round.

Mr Abbott said the criteria by which the coalition would judge the bids for spending would fall into four categories. It must involve a reduction in emissions and it must improve the environment.
‘Third, there must be no increase in cost to consumers”, … (fourth, no lost jobs).

So the Libs take the policy that gives them the back door escape route — they can say that nothing about their scheme is bad, even if the science of climate change turns out to be “absolute crap”.

It’s a lot better than the Turnbull-led effort in Nov 2009 of dancing with the trading scheme on offer, except that I wish the Liberals would be brave — stand up to the science bullies, and just say Who needs any policy at all on a topic so filled with fake claims, bogus references, and vested interests? Lets get the science right.

Still, it’s a no-brainer that for all the vague offerings, and potential waste in the Coalition plan, it’s a thousand times less damaging than the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme offered by the Government.

Carbon is not pollution. ( What kind of suicidal masochistic misnomer is the term “pollution”? We are carbon life forms.)

Falling public opinion falls faster

The Cliff Of Public Opinion

Newspoll results are out in Australia tonight. Surprise. The opposition that opposes the Great Big (baseless) Tax is having its best results since it got wiped out two years ago, slashing a 26 point lead to just 4 points.

On primary vote support, the Abbott-led Coalition has secured 41 per cent support, with the Liberals securing 37 per cent and the Nationals 4 per cent, compared to Labor’s 40 per cent, with the distribution of preferences – including a significant 12 per cent Greens vote.

The result represents a significant turnaround from the high-water mark support for the Rudd government during its first year. Two years ago Newspoll recorded a 26 point lead for Labor, at 63 per cent to 37 per cent for the Coalition, in February 2008. The gap narrowed to 61 per cent for Labor and 39 per cent for the Coalition in April 2008, and again to 59 per cent and 41 per cent in October 2009.

This is being directly connected by commentators to climate policies. More »

Parody in custard

“Speedy” in comments on this site has done a better than excellent job of satirizing the satirists, so I’m reposting one of his comments here for those who missed it.

Bryan Dawe, ABC

The background is that here in the land of OZ, on our ABC (public funded TV, ie arm of big-government) there is a duo called John Clark and Bryan Dawe who do a weekly prime-time spot. Their pattern is to pretend to be a politician or two and bat questions back and forward. At the bottom of this post is a Youtube video of them on “Climate Change” from two years ago. You can see an archive of them here. Deadpan is the usual delivery.

But because the ABC is about 20 years behind in the real news on Global Warming, Clark and Dawe work with the disadvantage of being ABC viewers, and so when the Liberal Party disintegrated over the Emissions Trading Scheme most everyone on the ABC had no idea why it was happening. This is a real handicap for comedians, since to be funny, you have to be one step ahead of the audience.

Thanks to Speedy for sharing his talent. He’s captured the pair’s “voices” and genre to a tee (even though I’d actually be shocked speechless if I heard them say this on the ABC).
More »

Finally! The newly revised and edited ClimateGate Timeline (1.1)

Remember the spectacular two and a half meter wide ClimateGate Timeline from 4 weeks ago? We got hundreds of emails from all around the world in response. Some people made giant printed versions and sent us photos, while others requested printed copies. Mohib Ebrahim originally created this project for his own edification, but then decided to release it. When a first draft was published last December, many readers had excellent suggestions for improving it. So behind the scenes, Mohib and four more volunteers went to work. Thanks especially to Curt for revising and editing the entire timeline (as he’d done with the introduction), and to Tom, Stuart and Gene for help proofreading. It’s really been a monumental task and now, finally, for all those waiting for the chance to print and learn, here is the official edition. All pictures and links have been updated.

Image: ClimateGate Timeline small version

Click to see a larger version (but download the full version below to read it all).

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Click here to download the poster as PDF (892k)

Click here if you prefer a GIF version of the poster (1.8Mb)

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Below, see Brenton’s dedicated effort to put together the poster at home. More »

A moment of truth in the State of the Union?

Mark From the Hooterville gazette has spotted a very telling moment in Obama’s speech when the crowd laughs. Watch it closely.Without being in the room it’s hard to know who was laughing, and why. A year ago we could have assumed that laughter after a line about “overwhelming evidence” was really the crowd mocking those who don’t believe. But this is different.

“I know there are those who disagree with the overwhelming scientific evidence on climate change…. but…. but… but here’s the thing, even if you doubt the evidence, providing incentives for clean energy and efficiency is the right thing to do.”

I watched it a few times to be sure I wasn’t misreading it. But the clues are clear. Watch Obama, he is not expecting to say a funny line. His response to the rising laugh tells us the laugh was not part of the plan. A good speaker (and he’s polished) knows intuitively that the way to kill a laugh is to speak over the top of it and interrupt the “moment”. (Professional speakers are coached to pause after delivering a scripted line that’s intended for comic effect). But tellingly, Obama tries twice to interject as the laughter slowly gathers pace, but he can’t stop it, so he concedes and briefly joins in. More »

Deltoid creates some Sci-Comm Pollution

IMAGE: Tim Lambert (Deltoid) creates science communication pollution

Deltoid (aka Tim Lambert) tries to attack Monckton (again). The bottom line? Deltoid agrees that Monckton’s calculations are correct, and accuses him of getting a figure wrong (which Monckton got right). As per form, there is plenty of bluster, and minimal substance. Deltoid repeats over and over that there are lots of mistakes and they’re all “important”, but cannot demonstrate any beyond a squabble over the exact phrasing of whether the IPCC included a formula or not. (It’s debateable, but it’s not important.)

Monckton’s letter to Rudd was big-picture stuff, yet Lambert avoids the heavy-weight items–the falling credibility of the IPCC, the starving poor, the cost-benefit analysis. Deltoid attacks phraseology, job titles, funding, but not the crux of Monckton’s points.

To put some perspective on it: the IPCC has grossly exaggerated climate sensitivity, ignored valid criticisms, and repeatedly used non-peer reviewed references (when it has repeatedly claimed to do otherwise). IPCC lead-authors are under investigation, have withheld data, conspired to delete data, and selectively ignored 75% of the global temperature record because it didn’t give them the “right” answer. (See the four Gates of the IPCC, and Horrifying examples of data manipulation.)

To put a pointier perspective on it: Monckton pointed out in his letter to Rudd the real cost of misguided policies…

‘Millions are already dying of starvation in the world’s poorest nations because world food prices have doubled in two years. That was caused by a sharp drop in world food production, caused by suddenly taking millions of acres of land out of growing food for people who need it, to grow biofuels for clunkers that don’t. The policies that you advocate are killing people by the million. At a time when so many of the world’s people are already short of food, the UN’s right-to-food rapporteur, Herr Ziegler, has rightly condemned the biofuel scam as “a crime against humanity”.

What’s Deltoid’s view of the deaths of the poor? He reckons it’s a “war on science” even for a newspaper to print these comments. Thus Deltoid confirms that he will launch attacks on anyone and anything that threatens his own blogger-reputation (who cares if it means poor people die?). This grand selfishness would merely be petty and sad except that Deltoid’s misleading bluster has been repeated in at least one major newspaper. (And BTW I’ve debunked Ben Cubby before too.)

My comments are in green below on right hand side. Deltoid’s comments are on the left, gray background (with quotes from Monckton there too).

Once again, like the last two times I “translated” him (Goldilocks Graphs, and Reply to Deltoid), Deltoid fails to come up with anything significant, and still can’t find any empirical evidence to support his favored theory. More »

Horrifying examples of deliberate tampering

Just when you thought it couldn’t get worse for the cult of the carbon scare.

Now we need to ask if the world has even warmed? I’ve always said, “global warming is real”, but the recent exposés of shocking corruption in science have made me start to wonder whether even that is true.

Today a study by Joe D’Aleo and Anthony Watts, was announced by the Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI).

From their media release:

An extensive survey of the literature and data regarding ground and sea surface temperature records uncovers deception through data manipulation, reports the Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI).

Authors veteran meteorologists Joe d’Aleo and Anthony Watts analyzed temperature records from all around the world for a major SPPI paper, Surface Temperature Records – Policy-driven Deception? The startling conclusion that we cannot tell whether there was any significant “global warming” at all in the 20th century is based on numerous astonishing examples of manipulation and exaggeration of the true level and rate of “global warming”.

That is to say, leading meteorological institutions in the USA and around the world have so systematically tampered with instrumental temperature data that it cannot be safely said that there has been any significant net “global warming” in the 20th century. More »

The four “gates” of the IPCC

First there was Climate Gate, showing that the peer review process has descended into a criminal farce of scientific malpractice where adjusting and hiding data was de-rigueur. Hello Fraud. ClimateGate also spread to the US, where 75% of worldwide data is systematically ignored or “adjusted” until it tells the right story.

Then there was PachauriGate, showing that the man in charge of the IPCC was chairman of boards of companies that profit handsomely as the scare-factor is ramped up.

Along comes GlacierGate: about the IPCC “accidentally” using a WWF report instead of peer reviewed science papers. After calling a 60 page Indian Govt report on glaciers “voodoo science” they were forced to apologize for that “one paragraph that was wrong”. Then Donna LeFramboise in just one day of hunting, found 16 other references in the IPCC 4th report to the “scientific journal” called “WWF”. Proving that really, the big safety-mechanism of the IPCC reputation was not in its exhaustive reviews but was in the way it made its documents so big, so dull and so unreadable, that hardly anyone actually … reads them. Call it the thousand-page-cloak-of-invisibility.

Camouflage for poor science, poor standards, bad logic, and too many vested interests to name.

Now there is AmazonGate. The IPCC fabricates disastrous claims about the Amazon forest, and references a document written by activists that doesn’t even support the claim. More »

Monckton replies to Prof Andy Pitman

Prof Andy Pitman

Prof Andy Pitman, lead author for the IPCC and Co-Director of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, claims skeptics are winning because they are so well funded and tell lies. (And don’t we Australian taxpayers feel good about funding his career so he can throw baseless insults at polite volunteers?*) The ABC Interview is here. Case Smit took issue and wrote to Pitman in reply:

” I am one of the two retirees organising the Australian Tour of Lord Monckton. We receive not one dollar of funding from corporations or government! Nor have any other sceptics (true scientists) that I know.

We have underwritten the tour with our own money and are in the process of recouping the costs with donations which, so far have come from individuals who, like us, look into the science of global warming nd have come to the conclusion that humankind’s carbon dioxide contribution has nothing to do with it. Donations are coming in from as little as $10 from supporters of the Tour.

I could write a lot more, but I’m busy organising Monckton functions which are selling out fast all over Australia.”

Pitman wrote back that he was sympathetic, and sorry to hear Case had been hoodwinked by the liars, and that global warming was real. Though the only evidence Pitman even attempted to give was a long list of all the subjects of science that would be “wrong” if global warming was not real AND dangerous. Somehow all of biology will be debunked if man-made global warming turns out to be only minor and inconsequential. Really. I didn’t realize the theory of evolution now depends on carbon emissions. Crickey.

Christopher Monckton

Monckton shot back some thoughts tonight:

Dear Professor Pitman,

It would help me to understand your position if you were able to assist me in understanding this issue by answering some specific scientific questions. More »

Media ownership and the Rupert Murdoch tipping point?

Rupert Murdoch, 2009

Three years ago Rupert Murdoch was promising to make News Corporation carbon neutral. He implored his staff to personally reduce their footprint, and to be more creative in convincing the world to act too. He created websites specifically to help spread the message about the need to reduce carbon emissions. And he even bought a hybrid car for himself.

Today Quadrant magazine reports what many of us have been speculating behind the scenes: Murdoch has realized the IPCC and the “consensus” are fake.

The Australian has performed best in giving space to sceptics and dissenters but has stuck to the save the planet line in its editorials, some say because Murdoch said so publicly. Yet in a personal communication with Murdoch he indicated his scepticism to me. Last Friday’s editorial moved in the right direction when it called on politicians to question the science used by the IPCC but it has yet to endorse the call for an independent inquiry by a number of Australian scientists.

http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2010/01/des-moore

Rupert Murdoch is unarguably one of the most powerful men on the planet. This is an edited extract of what he said in May 2007 in the first ever global webcast to News Corp’s employees. It’s strong stuff. The whole speech is here, and it’s got detail after detail about how News Corp was acting to reduce its carbon footprint. They were being aggressive, efficient, and effective. If carbon was a problem, Murdoch’s actions would seem unimpeachable. But that’s just it — the job of the free press is not to “convince the world of a policy”, but to inform the world of what’s happening, to report “the news, the whole news, and nothing but the news”. More »

Hansen barracking for lawless destruction and the end of civilization

Hansen suggests eco-terrorism

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Civilization is the problem. Hansen recommends a book that incites violent sabotage, and promotes illegal activities to bring about an end to industrial civilization. Is this kind of book legal in the US?

James Hansen has called for industrial sabotage and defended lawbreakers before, but did he really read all of Keith Farnish’s words before he endorsed the book “Times Up”?

Farnish has put together a frightening compilation. He tried non-violent protest with Greenpeace for five years, but then he changed tactics. He got angry, and recommends you do too:

“Constructive Anger, on the other hand, does achieve something useful – even if it may not be exactly what was originally intended. For instance, if all the evidence you have to hand suggests that removing a sea wall or a dam will have a net beneficial effect on the natural environment then, however you go about it – explosives, technical sabotage or manual destruction – the removal would be a constructive action. If this action was fuelled by anger then your use of explosives involved Constructive Anger.”

The four key rules of sabotage

1. Carefully weigh up all the pros and cons, and then ask yourself, “Is it worth it?”
2. Plan ahead, and plan well, accounting for every possible eventuality.
3. Even if you understand the worth of your action, don’t get caught.
4. Make the Tools of Disconnection your priority; anything else is a waste of time and effort.

What Keith suggests is vigilante terrorism, to paraphrase:

1. Stepping outside the law is essential. (But don’t get caught).

2. Blowing up Dams is ok, if you feel the action is a net benefit to the environment.

Thus any 17 year old zealot might be “inspired” to dynamite say, Hoover dam, and that would be “OK” according to Farnish, and by inference, to Hansen. After all, the kid did a net-benefit analysis on the action. He just forgot it might kill some people. More »

How to create a crisis graph in 6 simple steps

One of the main arguments from the IPCC is that essentially, we can’t explain temperature changes any other way than with carbon forcings. This is matched with impressive pink and blue graphs that pose as evidence that carbon is responsible for all the recent warming.

This is argumentum ad ignorantiam — essentially they say: we don’t know what else could have caused that warming, so it must be carbon. It’s a flawed assumption.

It’s easy to create impressive graphs, especially if you actively ignore other possible causes, like for example, changes in cloud cover and solar magnetic effects.

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3. More »

The new threat of a weak-Green carbon deal

The shifting ground in the climate debate means that now some of the Greens may realize they need to set their sights lower and accept a weaker ETS deal or get none at all.

Where before they would not accept Rudds proposals because they were too ineffective, they are now suggesting it’s possible. (I’d call them the “pragmatic Greens” except that the need for an ETS is based on out-dated science, stone age logic and fraudulent malpractice. )

The government needs 7 votes in the Senate. If they get the 5 Green votes, they need 2 others. There are rumours the last two votes could come from the two Liberals who crossed the floor to vote for the ETS in December (and against their new leader wishes and against the majority of their party).

The email campaign was a major success in November and December. I’m still hearing about it from members of Parliament. It burned an impression on Senators and their staffers that thousands of emails arrived, each one crafted individually, not “cut n paste automated emailling”. They had not seen anything like it before. They are still going through them.

These two Senators need to know how you (and your contacts in QLD and Victoria) feel about the introduction of a new tax system based on corrupt science. This is legislation that’s guaranteed to help large financial houses increase their profits, but not make any difference to lakes, wetlands, trees, birds or coral reefs:

Senator Boyce’s (Queensland) email address: senator.sue.boyce@aph.gov.au
Judith Troeth (Victorian): senator.troeth@aph.gov.au

We can focus on Green politicians soon too. I’ll write more about that because it needs a different kind of email. There are good people in the greens too. I don’t think they have any idea how damaging these rules-based-on-fraud would be.

Please write politely.

Thanks to to Dennis for the info, and Gregory R for the update.

Gatecrashed by the Lord (Monckton)

What more could a skeptic ask? We’d organized our first ever skeptics social event, to celebrate that last month Australia missed an emissionary bullet. Forty people met, honored to be able to talk to the only man in Australian parliament with a PhD in science–Dennis Jensen. There were toasts all round for his insight and courage in speaking out years ago, when hardly anyone else did.

Then in one of those few moments in life when the truly unlikely happens, Christopher Monckton appeared. Having just flown from the UK to Sydney, arriving only this morning on the other side of the country, he and his wife Juliet had flown to Perth for a meeting tomorrow (an extra 4000 km each way). There was no other night this could have happened. The crowd were delighted.

Both Monckton and Jensen were in fine form.

I highly recommend connecting skeptics together. One of the rewards of working hard to expose the way science has been exploited is that I meet great people: independent thinkers, conscientious people, passionate and dedicated souls.

That’s one thing I’ll miss when every man and his pet fish knows how exaggerated the claims are for AGW–it won’t work as a filter to find the gems. More »

Droughts might not be due to carbon-dioxide, says CSIRO

Still in the theme of Shock!-The-Media-IS-Reporting-The-News: The Canberra Times announced on it’s front page that CSIRO is not so sure that droughts are due to increased carbon dioxide. Only a few months ago, they announced the exact opposite.

September 2009: A three-year collaboration between the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO has confirmed what many scientists long suspected: that the 13-year drought is not just a natural dry stretch but a shift related to climate change.

Jan 2010: One of the report’s co-authors, hydrologist David Post, told The Canberra Times there was ”no evidence” linking drought to climate change in eastern Australia, including the Murray-Darling Basin.

Back in September, this long study was based on the old trick of using climate models and “subtracting” the natural causes to see what’s left. It’s also known as “Argument from Ignorance”. Since we can’t predict the climate five years in advance, obviously there are factors or weightings in those climate models that aren’t right. Ruling out “what we know” doesn’t prove anything at all, except that there is a lot we don’t know.

When David Stockwell analysed climate models and Australian droughts, he found that random numbers were more likely to predict droughts successfully. The models failed validation tests. In the end, instead of using climate models, we’re better off with last week’s Lotto numbers. It’s cheaper too.
More »

Is the media awakening?

The Sunday Times and The Australian both picked up the scandal of the IPCC claims that the Himalayan glaciers might melt by 2035. The claim turned out to be based only on a WWF report, which in turn was based on a New Scientist article from 1999. The Australian story today was headline front page news: UN’s Blunder on Glaciers Exposed.

The rigorous IPCC methodology amounts to this:

Here’s the IPCC Quote from Chapter 10 of the Fourth Assessment Report:

Glaciers in the Himalaya are receding faster than in any other part of the world (see Table 10.9) and, if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high if the Earth keeps warming at the current rate. Its total area will likely shrink from the present 500,000 to 100,000 km² by the year 2035 (WWF, 2005). More »