Pachauri: we need deniers

Rajendra Pachauri

Rajendra Pachauri and that Bible-thingy

How do you deal with ignominious defeat on a global scale?

If I were a sit-com writer, I’d scoff at the idea of a fictional character as preposterous as Rajendra Pachauri, Chairman of the IPCC. This is the man who refers to skeptics as “flat-earth-deniers who use voo-doo science“. He graciously hopes we skeptics will rub asbestos on our faces (and daily), and in his spare time he writes soft-porn novels.

Six months after the credibility of his favorite lauded scientists was shredded with climategate, and after his own agency was slogged with more scandals than anyone can number (we’ve run out of -gate prefixes), he’s finally realized the pain won’t go away.

Feb 3 this year, he said: Skeptics “are people who deny the link between smoking and cancer; they are people who say that asbestos is as good as talcum powder – I hope that they apply it to their faces every day…I’m totally in the clear. I have absolutely nothing but indifference to what these people are doing.”

So this was it, a few days ago, the big BBC moment when he does some damage control, but as far as big moments go, it’s pretty weak, positively half-hearted. The skeptics that embarrassed him? He’s “not deaf” to them, but “there will always be skeptics”, and what must have been a dog-of-a-year for him is referred to as “momentous”. (This is “spin” spun burlesque.)

This is the damage control you do when you are not serious. Kind of baseline support for his followers rather than a message to the world. A soothing chant with ritual familarity.

And of course, he’s trying to rewrite history (or at least confuse us):

Another myth is that the IPCC was founded as a climates science organisation alone, publishing up-to-date science on the subject and nothing more.

Another myth…? (The strawman cometh.) The myth is that the IPCC might be doing anything rigorously scientific. The oxymoron is that a political organization (an intergovernmental panel) could be apolitical…  Pachauri points to the IPCC mission “to provide an assessment of ‘realistic response strategies’, as well as addressing socio-economic concerns”. Which if you follow it through, only goes to prove how conflicted and confused the whole organization is — see  “Response Strategies”? Which begs: Responding to… what? Man-made climate change. Of course, that’s the assumption underlying the whole kit and caboodle.

So his point about the mission statement inevitably leads to phrases that suggest that the IPCC was set up with a predetermined outcome… to find a crisis, mark it out, create support, and craft a response.

Notice I use “deniers” in the title, but Pachauri didn’t use the term in the BBC piece?  (Maybe even he can see the incongruity?) Of course, I couldn’t have done that if Pachauri had apologized for his past baseless namecalling…

This is part 1b in a long chain of unwinding positions as the news of their collapsing credibility spreads like a slow motion shockwave through the populace and related institutions.

How are the politically-correct science-corrupting spinners with spent ambitions for world-government going to back flip or segue out of this, and will they ever be held responsible for a scam that wasted billions?

Thanks to Climate Depot for informing us and amassing so many links on Pachauri.

10 out of 10 based on 2 ratings

81 comments to Pachauri: we need deniers

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    Henry chance

    ChooChoo Pachauri is desparate. He is reduced to saying anything while seeking validation. He has the gift of spinning.

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    Mark D.

    Like when a minister has run afoul of the moral rules of a church. The congregation either goes away or the congregation gets a new minister. In the case of the IPCC (church) the congregation is going away. They have seen the light and feel the minister preaches falsehoods. I don’t think the church will survive as long as the congregation keeps hearing the truth.

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    Joe Veragio

    This is the man who refers to skeptics as “flat-earth-deniers who use voo-doo science“.

    Not wanting to be picky, ‘though to be fair, wasn’t it rather the Government of India (rather than any ol’ flat earther deniers’) that were sponsoring such alleged practises ?

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    pattoh

    Hey, does anybody see any uncanny parallels to Bhagwan Rajneesh?

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  • #

    I wouldn’t trust Pachauri to run a small convenience store. The guy is a walking contradiction. He knew that the Himalaya glaciergate was not “voodoo science” and yet the guy kept right on lying until he was finally forced to admit the truth. The IPCC was a scam from its inception. It was nothing but an alliance between a small group of climate scientists hungry for public grant money, politicians who could exploit the scam for political gain and far left misanthropic green wingnuts who wanted to foist their agenda upon us.

    As usual, it gets down to the money. Now that taxpayers are catching on the scam is quickly running out of steam. Sadly, this fraud is harder to kill than a cockroach!

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    Bruce of Newcastle

    Well we best get used to it, he has 3 more years to go on his contract. Pretty clear he won’t resign until India freezes over.

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    Dave N

    Note that a response strategy of doing nothing is still a possible response, so the mission directive (at least the part about response strategies) is still valid. The problem is that since the IPCC is totally fixated on the idea of CAGW and won’t even entertain the notion that they might be wrong, the “do nothing” option doesn’t even come under consideration.

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    Baa Humbug

    This article is all well and fine Jo, but it hasn’t been peer reviewed. Belongs in the dustbin.

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    Baa Humbug

    The cartoon is absolutely priceless. I love the banknotes stuck between the “bible” and his heart. And that windmill for a staff, just love it.

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    Baa Humbug

    Here is a flavour of Aussie culture.

    If Rajendra Pachauri was to ever immigrate to Australia, he would be nick-named TERI PACHA

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    Speedy

    Jo

    I was reading a piece by Chris Monckton yesterday where he described Margaret Thatcher’s requirement for “Evidence-based policy making” – as opposed to “Policy-based evidence making.” Which is precisely what Pachauri et al have been doing the last few years.

    It speaks volumes for the corruption in the IPCC and the UN and the climate camp generally that he has not been sacked.

    Cheers,

    Speedy

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    Speedy

    An oldie but goodie from Pachauri’s foray into soft porn…

    If the ABC was Relevant, Part 10[It might sometimes sound like this…]

    KERRY: He’s won the Nobel Peace Prize, and now he’s aiming for Literature. Bryan and John are joined by IPCC Director Rajendra Pachauri to discuss his latest literary epic, “Lust in Translation”.

    BRYAN: An honour to have you on the programme Professor.

    JOHN: Yes, Bryan, it is.

    BRYAN: You certainly are a man of many talents, Dr Pachauri – scientist, engineer, saviour of the planet and now, in your latest incarnation, a published author.

    JOHN: Being wonderful just comes with the job Bryan.

    BRYAN: Do you think you could give us a brief précis of your book Professor?

    JOHN: Like all great literature Bryan, my book considers the nature of the Human Condition, in this case as seen through the eyes of a brilliant young 70-year old UN Climate Scientist.

    BRYAN: Care to give us a sample Professor?

    JOHN: As a treat for the viewers, Bryan. [Opens book, clears throat and licks lips].

    JOHN: “He could feel her hot, steamy breath mingle with his, and his heart sank as he instinctively calculated their combined greenhouse outputs. For, even though the IPCC did not consider water vapour as a greenhouse gas (despite it being responsible of over 90% of the infra-red absorption in the earth’s atmosphere), he still knew, in his heart, that even now their combined CO2 emissions were insinuating themselves into the atmosphere and would very likely result in the death of a Himalayan glacier before the year 2035. (“Very Likely” being the term associated with a probability factor of 90 percent or higher.)

    “What a fool I’ve been,” he thought bitterly – “To compromise our global future for the sake of a sly nookie.” Slowly, he peeled the banana…”

    BRYAN: [Interrupting] Rajendra Pachauri, thank you!

    JOHN: You like?

    BRYAN: [Flustered] Fine!

    JOHN: You want toy? Dirty picture? Home movie? Big willy pill? Ten dollar – ten dollar!

    BRYAN: [Falsetto] I’m fine!

    JOHN: Want to see me pole dance, Big Boy?

    BRYAN: [Considering career alternatives] Rajendra Pachauri, good night…

    JOHN: Available on-line and at all ABC shops…

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    Speedy

    Morning All

    More on how the IPCC failed as an organisation with any semblance of scientific integrity..

    http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100616/full/news.2010.302.html

    Cheers,

    Speedy

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    MattB

    “I was reading a piece by Chris Monckton yesterday where he described Margaret Thatcher’s requirement for “Evidence-based policy making” – as opposed to “Policy-based evidence making.””

    Probably why she considered AGW to be a genuine issue.

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    Bulldust

    Speedy @ 14:

    I am sure William Connolley would love there to be an official climate Wiki as suggested in the Nature article. He would be all over it like Soros and Gore on a CO2 trading market.

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    Speedy

    MattB

    You’re right – she did. When she became aware of the potential problem she told her advisors (including one Chris Monckton) to keep an eye on it and report as necessary. Once she realised the effect was real but that the size of the effect was negligible, she dropped the idea and focussed on the real issues of government. Here is the link:

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/16/margaret-thatcher-the-world%e2%80%99s-first-climate-realist/

    As a matter of interest, I used to be a mild warmist – until I had a good look at the evidence. I then came to the conclusion that there is far too much information that refutes the AGW hypothesis for it to be sustained in its current form. There is a lot of difference between being a conservationist and being an alarmist.

    Shouldn’t you be on your way to Coral Bay by now? Perth is pretty cold and miserable at the moment, you lucky bugger.

    Cheers,

    Speedy

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    Speedy

    Bulldust @ 16

    William Connelly is already using the existing Wiki for that purpose! But I suppose he could really go to town if he could evade even the thinnest pretence of balanced reporting..

    The idea of Soros and Gore in a carbon trading market conjures images of seagulls fighting over a chip. Or vultures, gorging themselves on some unfortunate tax-paying beast.

    Cheers,

    Speedy

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    Bulldust

    Speedy – hence my comment. I am well aware of Connolley’s manipulations on Wiki. I occasionally go to his blog to have a laugh at his expense… the guy is so incredibly self-righteous it is hilarious. I feel in need of a good laugh… maybe I will go there now 🙂

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    wes george

    What I find a continuing source of fascination is the fact that the collectivist, anti-individual liberty agenda, even while supported by the government, the academies and most of the media, including our tax payer funded ABC could not control the “climate change” narrative.

    They spun, they obfuscated, they lied, they cheated and the hid the truth every day for years now (Has the ABC yet reported on Climategate?) but all they have managed to do was destroy their own credibility.

    Every one knows how the con game works now: The governing oligarchy, academic and media elites find a “crisis” they can “fit” with THE solution. The solution is always same: More taxes, more intrusive regulation, ever-expanding bureaucracies, while our natural civil liberties are bit by bit dismantled in the guise of “social justice.”

    The “climate change crisis” narrative has been shown to be a dud. It’s already moved off the front burner of the national conversation. The “little people” aren’t as stupid as the government/academic/media elites hoped…No worries, there will always be the next crisis that can only be contained by requiring citizens to surrender their autonomy to ever-greater government authority. The oceans are dying? Peak oil? Asteroid collision imminent? Global Cooling? The sun is fading? The sun is hotting up? The end is always nigh. And big government is always here to lend a helping hand at your expense.

    Remember: Never let a good crisis go to waste!

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    Speedy

    Wes George

    Exactly! They have the policy first then they fabricate the evidence to justify it – “Policy-based Evidence making”.

    Trouble is that the whole theory gets shot down so easily (missing hot spot, paleo climate, fundamental thermodynamics, coincidence does not equal causation, Ice core data etc etc)

    If that’s not bad enough, then key AGW advocates like Pachauri and Gore are what is termed euphemistically in legal circles as “unreliable witnesses”.

    Cheers,

    Speedy

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    Brian G Valentine

    Is everyone aware that Choo Choo had his own (failed) solar energy business in Europe, and he couldn’t find a way to make the economics work – unless it was forced somehow by the Government?

    In 1988 the IPCC came to the conclusion – no evidence that “humans” were doing anything to the climate. Pacauri picked up on this as an avenue to make the solar panel business viable – if the conclusion was wrong.

    Choo Choo was hired on a thuggery to get “underdeveloped” nations in line with the global warming program – put there, by the dubious claims of one, Ben Santer, trying to make a name for himself after graduating from East Anglia.

    I don’t know what Thatcher’s ideas about global warming really were, but the idea was certainly convenient for her to help break the stranglehold the coal labour unions had on GB (which were equated by her with socialism I think),

    and to promote atomic capabilities of Harwell in the “peacetime” electric power sector – once it became pretty clear that the “cold war” was going the way of the train whistle. Monckton advised the Prime Ministry that all policy must be evidence based, no matter how convenient the vagaries of speculation might seem at the time.

    The earlier investigations (or casuistry, really) of Callender and Plass were considered imaginative but crank by most of the Royal Society at the time. The really interesting open question to me is, who or what had enough clout to move a good percent of it to accept the “global warming” swindle?

    Any insight on that would be appreciated – B

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    Bulldust

    I assume this is the document that came out of the recent love-in between BoM, CSIRO and other pro-AGW agencies?

    http://www.csiro.au/files/files/pvfo.pdf

    I love how rainfall isn’t considered a significant part of the Aussie climate… it only warrants one paragraph anymore. Might that be because the trend has been for more total rainfall over the last 110 years? Perish the thought! Surely not…

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    Brian G Valentine

    Isn’t it convenient for Australian socialists that part of the continent is a desert – for then, what is there for ETS to “fix” if deserts weren’t there?

    An oil spill in the American gulf was the most convenient gift that US socialists have had in a long while.

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    Ross

    Brian @ 22. I did not realise that Santer went to East Anglia as well. It seems the whole lot got indoctrinated there. ( Jim Sallinger who ran the “doctored” data base here in NZ for many years went there as well) Did any of the main Aussie AGW protagonists study there ??

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    Brian G Valentine

    Yump, Santer did his doctoral thesis on climate “fingerprinting” – lo and behold, came the opportunity to put his doctoral thesis into action – and provide a method to browbeat the IPCC into coming to the “correct” (Maurice Strong) conclusion.

    Interesting aside: I had been considered in 1988 to represent the DOE in the IPCC. Santer was chosen instead. I had long earlier concluded that AGW was unmitigated hogwash.

    My presence would have no ultimate effect on the IPCC anyway, and my personality isn’t strong.

    Santer’s personality is (and so is his ego)

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    pat

    good luck with the documentary jo – hope u keep an unthreaded link going in your absence for links and suggestions …

    BBC never gives up:
    17 June: BBC: Victoria Gill: Ancient climate change ‘link’ to CO2
    The team “found a fingerprint in the sequence of temperature changes” – a pattern that began 2.7 million years ago, Professor Herbert explained…
    “It seems the tropical warming caused by high CO2 levels set off a chain of events resulting in additional greenhouse gases, including water vapour, being released to the atmosphere, thus causing further warming.”
    Dr Lear said that such studies of past climate change were “invaluable in understanding the current climate system, and hence predicting future change”.
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_and_environment/10342318.stm

    17 June: UK Register: Sunny Spain suspends solar subsidy scam
    18bn Euros flushed down the bano
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/17/spain_sustainability_scam/

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    Brian G Valentine

    “Smart people learn from their mistakes, wise people learn from the mistakes of others.”

    Gordon Brown didn’t learn a danged thing from the Spaniards.

    Obama doesn’t have the capacity to do so

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    pat

    this was truly a shocker, maurice newman!

    17 June: ABC Bush Telegraph: Greg Muller: Mining moving overseas good for the economy
    The easy money can’t last forever and economist James Goodman believes it’s made us lazy in our other pursuits such as agriculture and manufacturing.
    He says the size of the mining boom could actually be hampering our economy.
    In this report: James Goodman, Associate Professor, Social and Political Change Group at University of Technology Sydney…
    http://www.abc.net.au/rural/telegraph/content/2010/s2929561.htm

    this is the same James Goodman above:

    6 June 2010: Greenleft: Dick Nichols: Search conference: can the left increase unity?
    (Dick Nichols is the national trade union coordinator of the Socialist Alliance)
    When James Goodman from AidWatch spelled out the enormity of the global warming threat and Friends of the Earth leader Cam Walker outlined the strategic and tactical challenges involved for the grassroots climate action movement, the question loomed: how can that growing movement not only strengthen itself, but find the political voice it needs to impose change?
    There were hopeful signs. Jim Stanford, economist with the Canadian Auto Workers, spoke of “going on the offensive amidst the crisis”. He put his finger on some key elements of the fightback — “more daily fightback and resistance, motivated by our gut-level refusal to pay for a crisis we didn’t create” and building class-struggle, anti-capitalist leaderships in the labour and social movements.
    Dave Kerin, organiser of Eureka’s Future, the workers’ cooperative enterprise that will manufacture solar hot water systems in the Latrobe Valley, inspired the conference with this example of how the union movement can start building socially and environmentally necessary production — green jobs — now…
    http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/44372

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    pat

    this entire hour on ABC came before the above Bush Tele hour! surely antony needs to stop tweeting and broadcasting if he wants to reduce his carbon footprint. there was an horrific couple of mins in this prog with a farmer talking about using an axe to chop the head of some animal to get to the brain which could be sold for big $$$ or something, none of which is in the transcript. don’t think i imagined it, as i was reading while vaguely listening to this “tripe”.

    17 June: ABC Future Tense: Antony Funnell: The Meatless Monday movement
    NOTE: The talkback conversation on Life Matters on Friday 18th June will be about vegetarianism
    Antony Funnell: And when we’re not broadcasting we’re to be found tweeting our lives away on Twitter, where our name is RNFuturetense, and that’s all one word…
    Robert Lawrence (Director of the Centre for a Livable Future at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland): The late Norman Borlaug who won the Nobel Peace Prize for developing the high-yield wheat strain in Mexico that led to the first green revolution, he was asked by the Union of Concerned Scientists in the late 1990s to look at the carrying capacity of Europe. And he took data from 1990. There was sufficient food produced globally in 1990 to feed 6-billion people, had it been equitably distributed and mostly consumed as grains, fruits and vegetables. The population of the globe at that time was just 5-billion, so we had a billion safety margin.
    He also said about the 1990 food situation, had the entire world tried to eat the way we were eating in North America, there’s only enough food for 3-1/2-billion….
    When he then projected forward to the point where we’re going to have 9-billion people by 2045 to 2050, even allowing for continued increase in agricultural productivity, Norman Borlaug projected that if everybody had an equitably distributed diet of about 2200 calories a day, again made up mostly of grains, fruits and vegetables, we would be able to feed 9-billion people. But if the continued increasing consumption of meat occurred, and that is happening around the world, urban elites in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere, are demanding meat in their diet, then we’d probably only would be able to feed 4-1/2 to 5-billion of that 9-billion.
    So I don’t know how to describe that in terms anything other than fairness and equity and yes, that does have a certain moral tone to it…
    http://www.abc.net.au/rn/futuretense/stories/2010/2923661.htm#transcript

    what a load of bull…

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    Brian G Valentine

    Joanne, can you do a feature on (speculation as to why) Mr Gore didn’t remain the everlasting dream Mrs Gore thought she exchanged wedding vows with?

    – Was it infidelity with the likes of the unpalatable greenist Laurie David?

    – Was it perhaps the company Mr Gore kept, such as the seedy and very questionable Choo Choo?

    – Was it that Mrs Gore felt that her husband had become an opportunist of the poor – based on his determination to become ever wealthier at the cost of making the lot of the least well off worse than before?

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    Steve Meikle

    Nothing valid comes from “messing with the Big Guy” or, as I prefer to put it, gratuitously mocking the Name of the Holy and Terrible, who some people, even of high intellect and education, still believe in

    Let us stick to the science and stop wasting time with even our own ad hominem attacks.

    After all the science is on our side we do not need cheap tricks, lest we sink to their level

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    Steve Meikle

    Pachauri writes soft porn? unless you are fundamentalist moralists i say “SO WHAT??”

    this is ad hominem and irrelevant.

    science and evidence anyone?

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    Brian G Valentine

    All I can say to that, Steve, is if I penned some “titillating” novels, I would for ever be ridiculed in warmist literature as “the denialist who thinks he has a career in soft porn.”

    I wouldn’t have a speck of credibility amongst any group (including the Jacqueline Suzanne writer’s guild)

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    Bulldust

    Steve – you do make a fair point. Interesting to speculate that if Einstein had dabbled in writing the pr0n, would he have been remembered for E=mc2 or writing about bumping uglies? Safe to say that Einstein had better judgement and never dabbled in the (Paris) pink literature. It doth make one wonder where Pachauri’s head is at… Ahh Friday afternoon’s do make one wax lyrical.

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    Pete Hayes

    MattB:
    June 18th, 2010 at 11:59 am
    “I was reading a piece by Chris Monckton yesterday where he described Margaret Thatcher’s requirement for “Evidence-based policy making” – as opposed to “Policy-based evidence making.””

    “Probably why she considered AGW to be a genuine issue.”

    Oh how you try MattB………

    From a Telegraph article on the subject last week.

    “In 2003, towards the end of her last book, Statecraft, in a passage headed “Hot Air and Global Warming”, she issued what amounts to an almost complete recantation of her earlier views.

    She voiced precisely the fundamental doubts about the warming scare that have since become familiar to us. Pouring scorn on the “doomsters”, she questioned the main scientific assumptions used to drive the scare, from the conviction that the chief force shaping world climate is CO2, rather than natural factors such as solar activity, to exaggerated claims about rising sea levels. She mocked Al Gore and the futility of “costly and economically damaging” schemes to reduce CO2 emissions. She cited the 2.5C rise in temperatures during the Medieval Warm Period as having had almost entirely beneficial effects. She pointed out that the dangers of a world getting colder are far worse than those of a CO2-enriched world growing warmer. She recognised how distortions of the science had been used to mask an anti-capitalist, Left-wing political agenda which posed a serious threat to the progress and prosperity of mankind.

    In other words, long before it became fashionable, Lady Thatcher was converted to the view of those who, on both scientific and political grounds, are profoundly sceptical of the climate change ideology. Alas, what she set in train earlier continues to exercise its baleful influence to this day. But the fact that she became one of the first and most prominent of “climate sceptics” has been almost entirely buried from view.”

    So, like many of us, she may have been conned into it initially but, as a Scientist herself, she appears to think you are wrong and as usual, bending the truth

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    J.Hansford

    “How are the politically-correct science-corrupting spinners with spent ambitions for world-government going to back flip or segue out of this, and will they ever be held responsible for a scam that wasted billions?”

    By going on the offensive now that a crisis has presented itself.

    As Rohm Emmanual has said, “Never let a crisis go to waste when a Government needs to get things done”… or changed, I’d add. So they are going to try and hide behind Obama’s WAR on Oil Spills.

    That’s right, Obama has declared WAR on an oil spill! If one listened to his Oval Office speech.

    As any normal thinking person knows, you can’t have a war on an oil spill…. You can clean it up, but not attack it. So what is Obama talking about?

    Well he can’t be talking about the spill, so he must be talking about OIL. So he is going to have a WAR on “OIL”. But not just Oil… The fossil fuel industry as a whole…. Ah, against an industry and a society. You can have a war.

    Obama and Co, have decided that they don’ need no steenking science no more… They are just going to stop the drilling, take the money, control the industry and force the use of “clean energy”. No discussion. After all. This is WAR.

    The arrogance of the Socialists….. and their ruthlessness.

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    Bulldust

    I find this quite remarkable – and apologies in advance for being O/T but it related somewhat to previous threads on communication:

    http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/obama-internet-kill-switch-proposed-20100618-yln6.html?autostart=1

    You really wonder how paranoid these boys are that dream up these insane bills. Then again Lieberman is an independent.

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    Baa Humbug

    Lets not get so precious about the literary exploits of R J K ha. If the man had written a crime thriller, and this article had pointed it out, would anybody take exception to it? Doubtful.

    R J K wrote a soft porn (correct description) so it leaves one no option but to state that in his spare time, he writes soft porn.

    Regards sticking to science, give me a break. The gutter drivvel thats been coming out of the mouth of the man who supposedly oversaw the publication of the “gold standard” in climate science??????

    I think the apt term is “He is Fair Game”

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    Speedy

    Steve Mielke @ 33

    Apparently it’s not even very good porn, apparently.

    However, it does help to put his other works of fiction (e.g. IPCC 2007) in context.

    Cheers,

    Speedy

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    J.Hansford

    Bulldust:
    June 18th, 2010 at 5:52 pm

    ….. It’s not about “shutting” the Internet down, it’s about controlling the Internet, Bulldust.

    Obama’s Dems have declared that the Internet is a Utility and therefor falls under Federal jurisdiction(?), I think.

    But the agenda is about control… It’s doubtful they’d ever “shut it down”… But you can guarantee they will monitor and control it… How that manifests itself? I have no idea, but can well imagine.

    Lieberman was a Dem, but now he is an Ind…. I’d say he is currying favor. Playing both sides of the fence.

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    Mark

    As might be expected, an incisive address by John Christy at the IAC.

    http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2010/06/testimony-of-john-christy-at-iac.html

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    So, right from its foundation the strength of the IPCC lay in the fact that it is not only able to mobilise the best available expertise from across the globe – in climate science, yes, but also in economics, business, engineering and so on – but, through its voting structure, it also ensures that all the assessment reports are “owned” by the 194 sponsoring governments around the world.

    Damage control. Looks to me like some participating governments want to pull resources out of the IPCC. Could the end be nigh?

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    Rereke Whaakaro

    “This is the man who was a tradesman’s son,
    The back-stairs brat who was born in Cheapside,
    This is the man who crawled upon the king,
    Swollen with blood and swollen with pride.

    Crawling out of the London dirt,
    Crawling up like a rat on your shirt,
    A man who cheated, swindled, lied,
    Broke he oath and betrayed his king.”

    T.S. Eliot, “Murder in the Cathedral”

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    Richard S Courtney

    MatB:

    At #15 you assert:

    “I was reading a piece by Chris Monckton yesterday where he described Margaret Thatcher’s requirement for “Evidence-based policy making” – as opposed to “Policy-based evidence making.””

    Probably why she considered AGW to be a genuine issue.

    No! She did not!

    Please see my comment on Chris Monckton’s article that is timed at
    June 17, 2010 at 11:14 am
    below his article at
    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/16/margaret-thatcher-the-world%e2%80%99s-first-climate-realist/#more-20670

    I do wish you would check fact before posting nonsense.

    Richard

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    “Some of my BEST FRIENDS are skeptics!”
    Look out Jo, the old creep will be begging you for a photo op any day now.

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    Tel

    She recognised how distortions of the science had been used to mask an anti-capitalist, Left-wing political agenda which posed a serious threat to the progress and prosperity of mankind.

    The distortions of science were only intended to pose a serious threat to the coal mining unions. What a bugger when someone takes your agenda and turns it into their agenda. Oh well, as soon as the scam no longer served a useful purpose to her, she was only too happy to drop it into the garbage like a plastic shopping bag.

    As Shakespeare said, the good you do dies with you, but the evil lives long after. Karma for pessimists.

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    Rereke Whaakaro

    Brian G Valentine: #24

    An oil spill in the American gulf was the most convenient gift that US socialists have had in a long while.

    Which is why there is a conspiracy theory going the rounds that the safety equipment on the rig (which was supposed to prevent gas explosions) had been tampered with by person or persons unknown.

    Whether or not you subscribe to that theory, it is an established fact that having safety devices actually makes people more careless in dangerous situations. For example, having “all-wheel-drive, anti-skid” mechanisms in cars, actually encourages people to corner faster in wet conditions.

    So, even if the safety equipment on the rig had not been tampered with, just having it there would have affected operational decision making, perhaps to the point where corners were cut.

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    Thomas

    Now we all know why Pachauri is feeling hot, and it has NOTHING to do with the GLOBAL WARMING FRAUD!!!

    No, it’s just Pachauri who was feeling too hot:-

    http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/no_its_just_pachauri_who_was_feeling_overheated/

    The bloke has about as much credibility as a USED CAR SALESMAN!

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    Olaf Koenders

    Good old Rajendra Pachauri determined to be Pinocchio:

    We had no choice but to come up with the range of outcomes that has been projected for the end of the century and the pathways along which we would be moving. So what’s happening currently is that with high levels of emissions, the world is moving to the upper end of the range that the IPCC had projected

    Hmm.. Except for what’s happening in the real world. Everything is way below all of the IPCC’s predictions.

    But may I say in conclusion, whenever new knowledge has emerged throughout history, there’s always been a group of people who’ve questioned it. And the number of sceptics is going down really rapidly all over the world

    Once again, the real world bunks that lie too. Taken from The 7.30 Report 29/09/2009:

    http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2009/s2700047.htm

    It’s obvious that Pachauri and the alarmist camp would like impressionable viewers to believe what they say without checking. This is why courts don’t allow hearsay.

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    Richard S Courtney

    Tel:

    At #45 you assert of Mrs Thatcher’s initiation of the global wrming scare:

    The distortions of science were only intended to pose a serious threat to the coal mining unions.

    Sorry, but that is not correct. Her true motivation was her seeking to establish a ‘scientific’ issue as a major international issue because her science degree would then provide her with credibility as a leader on the international political stage. However, the fact that it would harm the coal industry was not a problem to her and was sufficient reason for her political party to go along with her on the matter.

    Incidentally, I was the Vice President of one of those coal mining unions; viz. the British Association of Colliery Management (BACM).

    My account of the matter can be read at
    http://www.john-daly.com/history.htm

    The origin of my account is as follows.

    In 1980 BACM commissioned me to investigate if there were potential environmental scares that would be as damaging to the coal industry as the ‘acid rain’ scare that was then raging. I interviewed as wide a range of interested parties as I could to determine
    (a) potential ‘environmental’ scares
    and
    (b) factors likely to influence development of the potential scares.
    I collated my findings as influence diagrams that would indicate if there were sufficient reason for any of the identified potential scares to develop into a problem.

    I presented my report of my findings to BACM in 1981. That report identified several potential scares and it concluded that two of them could become significant problems; these two were ‘micro dust’ and ‘global warming’. Importantly, it concluded that ‘global warming’ was likely to grow to displace all other environmental issues whether or not ‘global warming’ obtained any supporting scientific evidence.

    BACM had not heard of ‘global warming’ before receipt of my report, and they rejected my report because they considered its conclusion about ‘global warming’ to be “extreme” and “fanciful”. Since then global warming has displaced all other environmental issues but has failed to obtain any supporting scientific evidence.

    In the late 1990s the late John Daly asked me to update the part of my 1981 report for BACM that concerned ‘global warming’, and he posted that as the article on his website at
    http://www.john-daly.com/history.htm

    Consideration of the influence diagrams in that article shows my reasons for the surprising conclusions presented in my 1981 paper. As the article says;

    “Many positive feedback loops exist in the system and the major ones are shown in Figure 2. The system amplifier is the politicians’ support of global warming. The issue is assisted by gaining political approval each time it passes around a loop shown in Figure 2.”

    So, from its start the global warming issue was political and not scientific. Indeed, remove all mention of science from Figure 2 and the feedback loops that generated the scare would remain.

    And the political initiation was from Mrs Thatcher. As the article explains:

    “Mrs Thatcher is now often considered to have been a great UK politician: she gave her political party (the Conservative Party) victory in three General Elections, resided over the UK’s conduct of the Falklands War, replaced much of the UK’s Welfare State with monetarist economics, and privatised most of the UK’s nationalised industries. But she had yet to gain that reputation when she came to power in 1979. Then, she was the first female leader of a major western state, and she desired to be taken seriously by political leaders of other major countries. This desire seemed difficult to achieve because her only experience in government had been as Education Secretary (i.e. a Junior Minister) in the Heath administration that collapsed in 1974. She had achieved nothing notable as Education Secretary but was remembered by the UK public for having removed the distribution of milk to schoolchildren (she was popularly known as ‘Milk Snatcher Thatcher’.)

    Sir Crispin Tickell, UK Ambassador to the UN, suggested a solution to the problem. He pointed out that almost all international statesmen are scientifically illiterate, so a scientifically literate politician could win any summit debate on a matter which seemed to depend on scientific understandings. And Mrs Thatcher had a BSc degree in chemistry. (This is probably the most important fact in the entire global warming issue; i.e. Mrs Thatcher had a BSc degree in chemistry). Sir Crispin pointed out that if a ‘scientific’ issue were to gain international significance, then the UK’s Prime Minister could easily take a prominent role, and this could provide credibility for her views on other world affairs. He suggested that Mrs Thatcher should campaign about global warming at each summit meeting. She did, and the tactic worked. Mrs Thatcher rapidly gained the desired international respect and the UK became the prime promoter of the global warming issue. The influences that enabled this are described in Figure 1 and the following paragraphs.”

    And an update from my 1981 report in the article says;

    “Mrs Thatcher had to be seen to spend money at home if her international campaign was to be credible.

    So, early in her global warming campaign – and at her personal instigation – the UK’s Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research was established, and the science and engineering research councils were encouraged to place priority in funding climate-related research. This cost nothing because the UK’s total research budget was not increased; indeed, it fell because of cuts elsewhere. But the Hadley Centre sustained its importance and is now the operating agency for the IPCC’s scientific working group (Working Group 1).”

    I think you may want to read my account at the URL I provide in this post, and I hope you find it interesting.

    Richard

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    Joe Lalonde

    If you “PEER-REVIEW” my garbage science, I’ll “PEER-REVIEW” yours!
    Since mine is worse science, I’ll add a few “Carbon Credits” as the only place they can go now in price is up.

    Controlling the outcome of science rather than following it or just picking what you want as an outcome is plain wrong. How can anyone with no knowledge of new areas of science “PEER-REVIEW” it?
    IPCC locks out any science that is not in their best interest.

    Models and predictions will never be correct until scientists learn that the current science is incorrect. Our planet and solar system is in constant change with rotation and movement that is NEVER repeated. Put the same scientific perameters we have today back 2 billion years ago and the mathematics and science totally fall apart. We currently use snap-shot science and individualized areas of science. Recreated in labs with NO interaction.
    This planet and solar system uses many areas of interacting science to create the fantasically complex life we enjoy today.

    Let’s just keep passing on this type of knowledge to the next and next generation will only create more “educated idiots”.

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    Bernd Felsche

    Thanks for the picture Joanne.

    Just the sort of image I had in mind when I first understood that “IPCC” really stands for “Imperious Priesthood of the Church of Climatology”.

    (Readers: look up “imperious” in a dictionary if you don’t understand, yet.)

    Now; where are Cardinals Gore, Hanson, Mann, etc.?
    And church founder, Pope Maurice Strong?

    P.S. I’m not a denier. I’m a non-believer. An infidel.

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    Brian G Valentine

    Bitte kennen Herr Felshe, englische Sprecher bereits die Bedeutung des Wort “imperious”

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    Klem

    I hope Pachauri does not step down. As long as he’s the man at the top, the UN IPCC will continue to struggle, bounce from scandal to scandal and have no credibility. It may have to be disbanded. Right now it is an embarrassment to the alarmists. But if he steps down and is replaced, the IPCC could begin to rebuild the brand.

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    Mark D.

    Mr. Courtney
    Mr. Whaakaro
    Mr. Valentine
    Mr. Hissink
    Etal.

    As long as we have come close to conspiracy theory already, I’d appreciate your thoughts with regard the potential for BP to be deeply connected in the Fabian world?

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    Brian G Valentine

    No, I don’t believe it – BP is a multi-faced “political player” but that’s about all.

    I don’t believe there was anything more deeply involved than pure accident; they took measures to minimize the risk but this is not a perfect world.

    When I was in Iraq, gas/oil handling equipment blew up regularly, both from poor maintenance and outright sabotage.

    BP would do all it could to eliminate the possibility of such an accident, but to be fair, liberals pushed them about as far offshore as they could get them and never allowed BP to stake steps to minimize the damage from this:

    – dispersant
    – pour fuel on it and burn it off
    – Set up to drill immediately so as to relieve the reservoir with additional oil removal capacity; the breakage at the ocean floor now would serve as hydrostatic pressure to push oil through additional wells in the reservoir.

    If I could do what I wanted, I would throw everything under the Sun I could (and ask other companies to help) drill immediately and quickly to relieve the pressure in the reservoir.

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    Mark

    Brian @ 57

    I don’t think many people realise what you said there. Indeed, because of “environmental” factors, BP was forced to put the well far offshore.

    Of course, when you factor in Murphy’s Law, the present situation was almost inevitable.

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    Can I ask a non-scientist’s question about the oil spill? I read years ago that biological agents had been created that could handle oil spills. Bacteria, essentially, that ate oil and left behind plain water. Has there been any attempt to use them in the Gulf?

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    Brian G Valentine

    No need, Gregory (which is what the G stands for in my name in fact)

    The bacteria are already there! They multiply like mad when they have a carbon source to eat – which they are already doing.

    The waters are warm so this process is decidedly faster than what occurred in the Valdez oil spill.

    The limiting factor in this process is now, the oxygen content of the water – which is depleted by the bacteria.

    So it will take some more time, but as far as bacteria are concerned, all we need to do is sit back and watch

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    Mark D.

    For the “casual” world reader here, the spill is bad, but don’t conclude that the Gulf is now a large oil pit. It sucks that this leak is happening but it is IMHO not “catastrophic”.

    I am more concerned about the political manipulation of the event being catastrophic to sane policy.

    Gregory, yes there are biological solutions that man can introduce to help, they work well and are being used already in some areas. Brian has made a correct point that much of the oil will be naturally biodegraded and never wash ashore. The warmer gulf temps. will greatly speed the process. Many outside the US may not know that the gulf area is a natural “seep” area for a fair amount of oil that percolates from the deep (without a driller at all).

    Ironically, the news is aflutter with concern for what a hurricane would do to make the problem worse. I think a good hurricane would help by whipping up the surface and causing additional aeration. To be sure, creatures that find their way into a slick will have a problem. Hopefully, nature has provided many of them with some adaptation skills.

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    Brian, Mark, thanks for the info. I didn’t realise those bacteria occurred naturally. I thought they were lab creations.

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    Bulldust

    Bernd Felsche @ 53:
    How you resiste digressing into a Monty Python sketch is beyond me.

    “No von expectz the Climate Inqvisition! Our weapons are fear, surpize and a fanatical devotion to the IPCC!”

    Gore = has to be Cardinal Biggles, surely.

    PS> Apologies to all, I was brought up on Python and David Bowie… it explains a lot 🙂 Oh and Floyd of course.

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    Brian G Valentine

    Oil spill

    Obama in disbelief

    Public Fear

    Obama anger

    Public anger at Obama

    Obama anger at BP

    Public inundated with pictures of oil soaked pelicans

    Obama anger at BP

    Public anger at Obama

    Obama outrage at BP

    Public told of “irreversible” catastrophe

    Obama outrage at BP

    Public anger at Obama

    Obama blames public for wanting gasoline in the first place

    Public anger at Obama

    Obama demands to “spolve” problem by “doing the Spanish” solar escapade

    Public outrage at Obama

    etc

    (Next year at this time, the public will have some other catastrophe to anguish over, and the oil spill will be a hazy memory. Promise!)

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    Richard S Courtney

    MarkD:

    At #56 you ask me and others:

    As long as we have come close to conspiracy theory already, I’d appreciate your thoughts with regard the potential for BP to be deeply connected in the Fabian world?

    I don’t believe in conspiracies. They sometimes occur but are always too fragile to last: only one conspirator needs to break ranks and any conspiracy fails.

    But I do recognise that
    (a) ‘cock ups’
    and
    (b) coincidences of interests
    often occur.

    When there is a coincidence of interests a ‘bandwagon’ starts to roll. No conspiracy is needed to get people on the bandwagon or to keep them on it because it is going in the general direction they all want to go.

    The man-made global warming scare is a classic example of such a ‘bandwagon’. Please see my article at
    http://www.john-daly.com/history.htm
    for an explanation of this.

    Richard

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    Ross

    Brian and others. I’m not an engineer but why can’t BP or others load some giant centrifuges onto a tanker or barge and “collect” some of the oil from this spill. Even if there was not total separation of the oil and water I’d have thought it could be “cleaned up” on shore some how once collected.
    In fact I’m surprised some entrepreneurs are not doing this on a even a small scale to make a buck or two.

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    Brian G Valentine

    Don’t even need the centrifuges; the oil could be “vacuumed” of the surface into empty supertankers, allowed to separate, the oily water pumped out the bottom, the oil processed in gas-oil separators and actually sold. The water layer could be deep pumped way out in the sea.

    Why don’t they do it?

    Probably, the EPA won’t let anybody “discharge” the water layer anywhere.

    Plus, oil soaked pelicans are very convincing advertising for “energy legislation” that will only help “global warming” too!

    Clean up oil = no oily pelicans, can’t let that opportunity go to waste.

    (If these were oil soaked polar bears –

    the screaming from the watermelons would be deafening, probably resulting a Marxist seizure of industry in the USA. This is what the watermelons are after, but can’t quite muster the force at this moment)

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    Ross

    Brian @ 67 –you are “getting cynical in your old age “! If the EPA don’t want to let them discahrge the water layer them maybe a few countries down south would appreciate a bit of cheap oil.

    I think it is quite amazing how quiet the Greenpeaces of this world have been over this spill – but it is probably because they are financially beholden to BP

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    Bernd Felsche

    Brian G Valentine:

    Bitte kennen Herr Felshe, englische Sprecher bereits die Bedeutung des Wort “imperious”

    I doubt that a large proportion do.

    Go on … pick a random sample of English-speaking people and ask them what they think “imperious” means. You only have to find one that doesn’t know the correct meaning to disprove your hypothesis.

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    Brian G Valentine

    Maybe Greenpiece noted – they demanded BP get that far offshore in the first place.

    [No! Wait! Stop! That would require some rational reflection on their part. Such a thing is IMPOSSIBLE. Greenpiece is INCAPABLE of rational assessment of what they do – their actions are guided by their capricious emotions ALONE.

    My guess is, they are currently market testing the most outrageous capitalist connection their piece of paper deep imaginations can concoct, e.g., “This was sabotage by Dick Cheney to drive up the price of oil and to make Obama look incompetent in his inability to deal with the crisis so that Tea Party candidates could have one more thing to criticize Obama and Boxer for …]

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    Brian G Valentine

    [Ich tun, da Sie zu sagen, Herr Felsche, aber ich Angst haben, dass meine Frage von vielen Personen als Herablassung gedeutet!]

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    Brian G Valentine

    I guess you’re not a big fan of wind power, Thomas?

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    Bernd Felsche

    Stick to English, Brian. The German words that you write aren’t working for you.

    My English is a shirtload better than the “German” that you’re writing.

    My English-language skills are well above average for an Australian and about average for a University graduate. I know from experience over the past 4 decades that the some of the words that I use go way above the heads of a lot of other folk. Some people don’t care that they speak above the level of the listener. They may actually enjoy it as a prestige vehicle.

    You may have considered my initial comment denigrating to some.

    Yet there is no shame in looking up words in a dictionary; especially when they are words that one sees or hears very infrequently. I often check the dictionary when writing to try to minimise possible misinterpretation. I check the dictionary when reading one of those “blue moon words” to make sure that I’ve understood what I’m reading.

    Perhaps that’s a habit I got from having learnt to speak a language, instead of being “infected” by it. When I listen to people speaking, they often use words that they’ve obviously heard, assigned them a meaning and then continue to use the words with their personally-assigned meaning. Most of the time, that’s OK. Other times, it’s a reflection of niggardly listening.

    In communication, the effort is largely on the listener’s side. The speaker has already decided what to say.

    Always remember that it is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood: there will always be some who misunderstand you. — Karl Popper

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    Brian G Valoentine

    My mother was Hungarian, who spoke German also, as many Hungarian do

    when I was 25 I liked longer words, now I don’t like them much any more

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    Richard S Courtney

    Brian and Bernd:

    Please remember that one always has control over what one chooses to say, but one never has any control over what others hear as having been said.

    Richard

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    Brian G Valentine

    one always has control over what one chooses to say

    Usually so, Richard, but sometimes I get tired or impatient and no longer control what I say.

    I did learn, however, to sit for a day on any letter before sending it – so I haven’t made that mistake in 30 years

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    Baa Humbug:
    June 18th, 2010 at 10:15 am

    “This article is all well and fine Jo, but it hasn’t been peer reviewed. Belongs in the dustbin.”

    No, no, no, my friend! That was RKP’s view in Nov 2009. But in May, 2010 he had an epiphany and now “gray is good”. According to Pachauri:

    “the media and other sections of society had misunderstood the role of such information, labelling it grey literature, “as if it was some form of grey muddied water flowing down the drains”.

    http://hro001.wordpress.com/2010/05/20/pachauri-defends-shoddy-shades-of-gray/

    Pretty soon RPK might even catch up with Mike “the idea of climate science is so plastic” Hulme, who has recently declared that what Pachauri calls the “scientific consensus on man-made climate change” is really nothing more than a few dozen here … a few dozen there!

    http://hro001.wordpress.com/2010/06/18/honey-i-shrunk-the-consensus/

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    Baa Humbug

    hro001: #79
    June 21st, 2010 at 9:52 am

    Hi H, I of course, defer to your better judgement, though I’m not sure if Pachy is capable of an epiphany.

    That was a terrific piece in your second link by the way. “Honey I Shrunk the Consensus”
    I hadn’t realised Hulme tried to “qualify” his seminal statement. Must a got a call from up on high ha?

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    Hi BH,

    You’re probably quite correct about the “epiphany” … very poor choice of words on my part 😉

    So let’s just say that between Nov. 2009 and May 2010, in Pachauri’s “mind”, the qualities of non-peer-reviewed literature somehow transmogrified from belonging in his “dustbin” to a level of respectability that others “misunderstood” thereby [if Pachauri is to be taken at his new, improved word, a prospect which requires a willing suspension of disbelief, I agree!] consigning it to their “drains”!

    Glad you liked the “Honey, I shrunk the consensus” piece … As for Hulme’s twisting ‘n turning, I must say that it was most unusual to see a “post-normal scientist” actually calling a spade a spade!

    Then again, the rate at which minds change, these days – in the upper echelons of that camp – appears to be happening almost as fast as, well, chimate changes 😉

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