ABC Biased. Scientist Matthew England, outrageous error or dishonest? Nick Minchin owed an apology

Bottom line: On Q&A Nick Minchin said the IPCC predictions were wrong. Matthew England said “Not true” their 1990 prediction was “very accurate”. But the IPCC predicted 0.3C per decade, and we got at most 0.18C per decade. (Forster and Rahmsdorf 2011 ) How is is “very accurate” when the result is below their lowest estimate?

[See our one-page version of this whole issue.]

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Oceanographer Matthew England owes Nick Minchin an apology. Will Tony Jones correct the record on Monday?

How strange is this debate where politicians know the science better than the “scientists”?

The ABC Q&A program shows they have no interest in pursing the truth on climate change. The panel was, as always designed to push an agenda. Five believers, with a sixth in the audience, faced two skeptics. No skeptical scientists were invited to attend, let alone sit in the front row with a mike, like England who was called in so the warmists could get the last word on the science without fear that a skeptic might disputing their version of events. We can’t allow people to damage the faith of those duped ABC viewers.

Nick Minchin claimed there is a major problem with the warmists theory, that the predictions of the IPCC were wrong, because we have had rising CO2 in the last decade or more but “we haven’t had the commensurate rise in temperatures.”

Matthew England claims Minchin is wrong

“What Nick just said is actually not true. The IPCC projections from 1990 have borne out very accurately.”  Source Q & A  (36:30 mins)

Hmmm. Could “very accurately” be an exaggeration? Or is it possible England was getting his IPCC predictions mixed up? No. He really does mean the 1990 report, and he repeats the claim that the decadal trend fits.

“The projections are now 22 years old and the temperature record that we have does bounce around for year to year but that decade to decade progression that of warming that Megan just mentioned have occurred …”

The predictions from the IPCC First Assessment Report show England is wrong

Policy Makers Summary, Working Group I, page xxii.

Their prediction was that if we continue to emit CO2 at present rates the world will warm at about 0.3°C per decade, so by 2025 the world will have warmed by 1°C. That was looking 35 years ahead and we are now 22 years into that prediction. The world should be about 0.6°C warmer now than in 1990.

The lowest possible prediction is for a 0.2°C rise per decade.

See the whole scanned IPCC page in context  here

Were CO2 emissions “business as usual”? No they were higher

The CO2 emissions (black dashed line) are equivalent to the highest projected by the IPCC. So the temperature should have risen faster than their lowest estimate.

Atmospheric CO₂ concentrations recorded at Mauna Loa (black dashed line) and as projected under six IPCC emission scenarios (coloured lines) (IPCC Data Distribution Centre)

Was warming since 1990 even close to the predicted 0.3°C per decade? No.

Foster and Rahmstorf 2011 looked at five temperature series and calculated trends from 0.14°C to 0.18°C per decade, lower than the 0.2°C per decade trend which marks the absolute bottom of the IPCC prediction. They are sympathetic to the IPCC aims. These values are as good as it gets for England. He fails.

Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) confirmed in 2010 that the decadal trends for the last 150 years peak at 0.16°C per decade.

According to the satellite data (the best and only source of unbiased data) the temperature trends in the last two decades was not even close to those predicted by the IPCC. For most of the last 20 years the temperature was well below the lowest predicted warming of 0.2°C per decade predicted for the “business as usual” plan. Look for yourself: the climate models and Matthew England are wrong, and Nick Minchin is right.

Figure 4: Predictions of the IPCC’s First Assessment Report in 1990, compared to the subsequent temperatures as measured by NASA satellites (UAH Data). Graph by Dr David Evans

 

 

England was given a free kick at Minchin, who had no scientific support at the event at all

Minchin, undeservedly had to wear the false “correction” on national television. To put things right, to show the ABC is interested in the truth rather than just being an advertising agency for the government they need to correct the record.

Why will alarmists never admit they were wrong? Why are they surprised when the public loses faith in them, and stops trusting them?

Why does the ABC broadcast this nonsense so uncritically? Anyone with eyes can see the predictions then were wrong. As copies of this post spread throughout Australia, the trust the once great institution of the ABC used to have, erodes further.

When will the warmists learn that the Internet makes it easy to check? They assume that they can get away with propaganda for their favourite ideas and policies, because they have the media on their side, but there is a new-media now, and the skeptics, free thinkers and honest citizens are all over it.  The longer the ABC continues to deny that there is another side of the debate the worse the fall from grace will be. The longer honest scientists sit silently by, passively allowing the Matthew England’s of the world to use the brand-name Science in such a deceitful or at best incompetent careless way, the less the public will trust all scientists.

PS: Don’t forget to vote again in that ABC survey about your opinion after the I can change your mind doco. They want to find out how many people changed their mind, what direction they moved in, and who they vote for.

REFERENCES

Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) Global temperature evolution 1979–2010, Environ. Res. Lett. 6 044022 [Abstract]

UPDATE: Edited emissions from “worse” to the more accurate “higher”.

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UPDATE: Prof Matthew England replied at #85.

Prof Matthew England

“I stand by my statements on Q&A. Jo Nova’s error is that she pulls out IPCC projections to 2100, quoted in degs C per decade, not acknowledging that the projected warming at the start of the century will be slower than the more rapid climb at the end of the Century. I also noticed that Jo plots a satellite record of tropospheric temperature, not the surface layer temperature. So she shows an apples vs. oranges comparison.

To read more IPCC projections and observations, see http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/02/2011-updates-to-model-data-comparisons/

In regards to the 40% increase in atmospheric CO2 since pre-industrial levels, this is widely accepted even by those against the IPCC science. The natural fluxes of CO2 between the ocean-atmosphere-land has been perturbed by human activity so that CO2 is now around 390ppm in the atmosphere. The cause of this +40% rise is burning of fossil fuels with a smaller contribution from land clearing. We have in fact done more than enough to account for the +40% increase – three times more. Currently the oceans absorb about a third of our emissions, and the land surface another third. Without these buffers atmospheric CO2 would be much much higher than it is today.

I hope this helps.

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UPDATE: My reply to England : The 1990 IPCC Predictions were wrong

I quote the IPCC verbatim, this is black and white, it’s not about 2100, it’s about 2010.

UPDATE #3: Again, months later Matthew England and the ABC still mislead Australians.

I quote them verbatim.

9.3 out of 10 based on 134 ratings

281 comments to ABC Biased. Scientist Matthew England, outrageous error or dishonest? Nick Minchin owed an apology

  • #
    Mark D.

    Why will alarmists never admit they were wrong? Why are they surprised when the public loses faith in them, and stops trusting them?

    Because the mission of saving the world is too important.

    (well you did ask…….)

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    • #
      jon

      The real mission is to save socialism by destroying Capitalism with Environmentalism.

      Envisist or Envyzitts?

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  • #
    Juliar

    Jo, what did you and Dave think about Robert Mueller’s comments in regards to the Weather stations?

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  • #
    Ross

    When will the warmists learn that the Internet makes it easy to check? They assume that they can get away with propaganda for their favourite ideas and policies, because they have the media on their side, but there is a new-media now, and the skeptics, free thinkers and honest citizens are all over it.

    Jo –you and others have said this ( or words like it) many times. Obviously you are correct but equally obviously it is going to have to be repeating it over and over and over again before it sinks in.
    I hope you’ll be able to get an article covering the topic of this thread in the MSM.

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  • #
    Paul79

    This “correction’ by Matthew England was the usual distortion. At first I thought he may have meant the recent CSIRO model output using aerosols to show a lesser rise, but, no, he said 1990. Another who appears to believe the model output over the data.

    In the first part of the program England’s swiggles on a board appeared to repeat Al Gore’s warming blanket argument.

    Is the Spanish solar furnace power generator actually working? This was given a lot of time on Q&A.

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  • #
    Deniersareliars

    Why do DENIERS always use out of date temp charts are they scared of the real and current results .. NASA now has updates monthly to the main statistics of climate change live on their website for anyone to see…

    http://climate.nasa.gov/

    Are they liars Joanne , are they wrong on this …

    So we have NOAA , NASA , BEST , BOM , CSIRO just to name a few all in agreement on climate change but we have to believe what you say based on a out of date chart .. please

    ————————————-

    Mr Denier, you appear unable to link to a single piece of evidence to support you. You are aware aren’t you, that NASA launch the satellites, but ignore the results from them as much as they can?

    Jo
    PS: Since your email is fake, you realize we will let you post your turgid namecalling only as long as we find you entertaining, informative, or useful as an example of a boorish believer… 🙂
    )

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    • #
      KeithH

      Thanks for the link Denier (and liar?) of natural variability caused climate change!

      Excerpts from The NASA Uncertainties:-

      “Unresolved questions about Earth’s climate”

      “There’s a great deal that we don’t know about the future of Earth’s climate and how climate change will affect humans. State changes have triggers, or “tipping points,” that are related to feedback processes. In what’s probably the single largest uncertainty in climate science, scientists don’t have much confidence that they know what those triggers are.

      Below is an explanation of just a few other important uncertainties about climate change. This list isn’t exhaustive. It is intended to illustrate the kinds of questions that scientists still ask about climate.

      Forcings

      1. Solar Irradiance. Currently no evidence of a trend in solar output over the past half century, because there are no direct observations of solar output prior to the 1970s, climate scientists do not have much confidence that they understand longer-term solar changes.

      2. Aerosols, dust, smoke, and soot. The global distribution of aerosols has only been tracked for about a decade from the ground and from satellites, but those measurements cannot yet reliably distinguish between types of particulates. So aerosol forcing is another substantial uncertainty in predictions of future climate.

      Feedbacks

      3. Clouds. Because clouds are such powerful climate actors, even small changes in average cloud amounts, locations, and type could speed warming, slow it, or even reverse it. Current climate models do not represent cloud physics well.

      4. Carbon cycle. Natural processes remove about half of each year’s human carbon dioxide emissions from the atmosphere…. It isn’t well understood where this carbon dioxide goes……some evidence that the oceans are the major repository and other evidence that land biota absorbs the majority…… some evidence that the ability of the Earth system to continue absorbing it may decline as the world warms…… but this possibility isn’t well understood either.

      5. Ocean circulation. One very popular hypothesis…. as Earth warms, ocean circulation in the Atlantic will change to produce cooling in Western Europe. This hypothesis has advancing European ice sheets triggering a new ice age……the idea highlights the importance of ocean circulation in maintaining regional climates. Global ocean data sets only extend back to the early 1990s, so there are large uncertainties in predictions of future ocean changes.

      6. Precipitation. Global climate models show precipitation will generally increase, but not in all regions. Some will dry instead. Scientists and policymakers would like to use climate models to assess regional changes, but the models currently show wide variation…..some forecast less precipitation in the American southwest while others foresee more precipitation. This lack of agreement on even the direction of change makes planning very difficult. There’s much research to be done on this question.

      7. Sea level rise. The panel concluded that it could not “provide a best estimate or an upper bound for sea level rise” over the next century due to their lack of knowledge about Earth’s ice so our inability to predict what sea level rise is likely over the next century has substantial human and economic ramifications.

      http://climate.nasa.gov/uncertainties/

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    • #
      Catamon

      You are aware aren’t you, that NASA launch the satellites, but ignore the results from them as much as they can?

      Really? They seem to have quite a bit on their site?

      And isn’t GISS part of NASA?

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      • #
        papertiger

        Not for long I hope. Well at least GISS as we know it, with employees forced to genuflect to Hansen and the concoction of teeth and feathers he holds up for worship.

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      • #
        Laurie Williams

        http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/10/hansen-and-schmidt-of-nasa-giss-under-fire-engineers-scientists-astronauts-ask-nasa-administration-to-look-at-emprical-evidence-rather-than-climate-models/

        “HOUSTON, TX – April 10, 2012.

        49 former NASA scientists and astronauts sent a letter to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden last week admonishing the agency for it’s role in advocating a high degree of certainty that man-made CO2 is a major cause of climate change while neglecting empirical evidence that calls the theory into question.

        The group, which includes seven Apollo astronauts and two former directors of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, are dismayed over the failure of NASA, and specifically the Goddard Institute For Space Studies (GISS), to make an objective assessment of all available scientific data on climate change.”

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      • #
        Sean McHugh

        Catamon said:

        You are aware aren’t you, that NASA launch the satellites, but ignore the results from them as much as they can?

        Really? They seem to have quite a bit on their site?

        And isn’t GISS part of NASA?

        NASA GISS uses surface thermometers. GISS is the department of NASA where rocket scientists need not apply.

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      • #
        David, UK

        @ Catamon: So we had satellites back in 1880 did we? Or did you link to one of those ground thermometer graphs? You know, the ones where the past is adjusted cooler and the present has readings from thermometers sited near air conditioners? Whatever suits your cause, I guess.

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  • #
    pat

    someone posted Minchin’s Fairfax piece on the previous thread, and here is Anna’s response, tho anything that calls CAGW “climate change” is a shyster of the highest order and therefore unfit to even discuss science:

    27 April: SMH: Anna Rose: Climate change isn’t a plot, it’s science
    http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/climate-change-isnt-a-plot-its-science-20120427-1xpjp.html

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  • #
    Kevin Moore

    If CO2 is not perfectly mixed in the atmosphere what then is its scientific measuring method?

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  • #
    Afizzyfist

    I would not worry too much its now 53% not believing in AGW Dismissive plus doubtful Round 2. It is a watershed for Australia and for the ABC. I think you will find that from now on there will be less and less believers by the day. The program actually favored the skeptic side quite strongly by putting on the young pretty clueless girl on the AGW side. Lets face it AGW is dying rapidly by all accounts although there are still some idiotic uneducated young people in Australia still around trying to keep in going. One point everyone is missing is that the weather is NOT changing anywhere beyond normal, temperatures are NOT rising etc… and people are noticing.. this is the main reason ordinary folks are losing interest

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  • #
    spangled drongo

    Take any long term temperature record and compare it with Co2 emissions:

    http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/tbrown_figure3.png

    [I posted this at Anna’s site in the hope of changing her mind]

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  • #
    Dave

    .
    Tim Flannery discusses the Climate Models,Predictions & Ravings in his new VIDEO!

    I love his new outfit – suits him! 🙂 Reminds me of a TROLL!

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  • #
    pat

    in the US, faux outrage has made it to the MSM via the highly political “Forecast the Facts” (check them out yourself) over a doom-laden Discovery Channel program on “climate change” because it didn’t show the science. NatGeo and Discovery are two channels i never watch – give thanx for HDMI cables which allow us to watch and listen to all kinds of wonderful documentaries, lectures, discussions, etc from online sources.

    LA Times manages to once again attack Heartland – not a smart idea given the Gleick scandal – and you have the repeat of the NYT lie about Discovery deliberately leaving out the science because they anticipated criticism from the “small minority of viewers who do not accept scientific opinion about human causes of global warming”. folks, this is the US where CAGW is at the bottom of people’s environmental concerns!

    25 April: LA Times: Dean Kuipers: Activists urge Discovery to acknowledge climate change science
    Forecast the Facts, the activist group that first confronted GM about its support of climate change doubters the Heartland Institute, now plans to muster a public campaign targeting the Discovery Channel. The purpose: to get Discovery to acknowledge the scientific consensus on man-made climate change in its programming.
    The flap follows the recent airing of the final episode of Discovery’s lush exploration of the polar regions, “Frozen Planet.” The last of the seven-hour series, “On Thin Ice,” was devoted specifically to presenting evidence of climate change – including discussion of the challenges facing polar bears, collapsing ice shelves, diminishing habitat, and naturalist David Attenborough (Alec Baldwin is the narrator and host of the series) saying, “The days of the Arctic Ocean being covered by a continuous sheet of ice seem to be past. Whether or not that’s a good or bad thing, of course, depends on your point of view.”
    Strangely missing from the narration, however, is any mention of the causes of climate change, even presented as theory. An April 20 story in the New York Times revealed that the producers made a deliberate choice not to present this material, anticipating criticism from the small minority of viewers who do not accept scientific opinion about human causes of global warming.
    Series producer Vanessa Berlowitz told the New York Times that including the scientific theories “would have undermined the strength of an objective documentary, and would then have become utilized by people with political agendas.”
    Daniel Souweine, campaign director at Forecast the Facts, contends that Discovery played into a political agenda, in fact, by not presenting this information.
    “The omission of the content is bad. But in some ways, the decision to omit the content is worse,” said Souweine. “Because it’s saying that they’re going to change how they’re going to report on things to avoid criticism from conspiracy theorists.”
    http://www.latimes.com/news/local/environment/la-me-gs-activist-pressure-discovery-to-acknowledge-climate-change-science-20120425,0,5096515.story?track=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+latimes%2Fnews%2Fscience%2Fenvironment+(L.A.+Times+-+Environment)

    an issue so big it requires comments from Revkin!

    24 April: NYT Dot Earth: Andrew C. Revkin: Discovery’s Soggy Logic on ‘Frozen Planet’
    I’ve been in overload mode, so I just caught up with Brian Stelter’s remarkable piece in which the series producer, Vanessa Berlowitz, offers a contorted explanation for the lack of focus on this issue. Read the relevant excerpt excerpt below, again considering some other Discovery offerings as you do so:…
    Including the scientific theories “would have undermined the strength of an objective documentary, and would then have become utilized by people with political agendas,” Vanessa Berlowitz, the series producer, said in an interview.
    She added, “I feel that we’re trying to educate mass audiences and get children involved, and we didn’t want people saying ‘Don’t watch this show because it has a slant on climate change.’ ”…
    http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/24/discoverys-soggy-logic-on-frozen-planet/

    so Discovery Channel was trying to further propagandize children, and the CAGW fanatics still aren’t happy.

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  • #
    Joe V.

    What’s needed for balance, is the reverse of the Anna Rose Niick Minchin format. Where the pretty one getting all the airtime is a sceptic. How about it Jo ? Just to show that being pretty doesn’t necessarily mean being the naive & gullible one.

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    • #
      Joe V.

      You can see how the format is just using Nick as a flunkey. The kindly old guy who needs his views changed. Well done ABC, the illusion of balance again.

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  • #
    pattoh

    I was taken aback by that ambush.

    The other possible untruth which struck me was during the doco at Mauna Loa. There, repeated later, it was said that the increase in the CO2 was specifically due to anthropogenic sources.

    My understanding was that the majority of the rise was considered to result from outgassing & biological decay( possibly since the LIA or with the quoted ~600 yr lag from the warmth of the MWP)

    An estimate from the production figures of fossil fuels compared to the total carbon in the rise of atmospheric content would be a good place to start but I guess if no measurements can be made of natural sources none can be made of natural sinks. However the mean atmospheric residence time is pretty well nailed.

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  • #
    Mick Buckley

    How did you determine the y-origin (presumably baseline 1990 temperature) for the graph labelled Figure 4, above?

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    • #
      Andrew McRae

      In David’s graph above (testing the IPCC 1990 predictions) I was also a bit uncomfortable seeing the test slope starting on what seemed to be a single month or single year average data point. If 1990 was above or below the longer term trend then a short window start point could shift the end of the test line up or down too far from the actuals.

      I also did not like the way the prediction is given as a line instead of a range. Of course it should be a range, but I do not know what the width of it should be. Certainly it should get wider over time.

      So I contrived my own technique of setting a starting point for the prediction range by taking the 5-year centred moving average of UAH temperature and using the value at 1990 as more representative of that period than 1990 by itself. Somewhat arbitrarily I used the difference between the 5y CMA at 1990 and the 20 year trend at 1990 as an indicator of variance, and put the bottom end of the prediction range as far below the long term trend line as the CMA was above it at 1990. I then projected these start points from 1990 forward at both the BAU and Arrested Development warming rates, obtaining two prediction zones.

      I was reassured to find it doesn’t matter how you graph the temperature trend since 1990, the actuals are still lower than these predicted ranges.

      I am so glad the third world stopped electrification and China, India, and the rich West all dismantled their industry and stopped the growth in CO2 emissions back in 1990 so that the IPCC’s prediction of 0.2°C/decade would come true as it has done. 😉

      But in hindsight, to worry about which Y-intercept to use is irrelevant. The test is made by comparing the actual 20-year rate with the predicted 20-year rate. It is only the slope of the two lines that is important. The major problem with David’s Fig 4 is that the actual 20-year trend line is not shown. It may be difficult to judge the size of the discrepancy between the actual and predicted trends on a graph, it is easier to see that the numbers are quite different. Jo has dug up the numbers and shown how different they are, so whatever the graph lacks, the text makes up for.

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      • #
        memoryvault

        .
        I’m getting a little bit tired of this John Crook Cook Septic Science inspired crap, especially when it allegedly comes out of the mouths of so-called skeptics.

        The graph starts from 1990 because that’s when the IPCC prediction guess tarot card reading projection was made from.

        To start from any other date would be disingenuous. David Evans didn’t choose the date, the IPCC did.

        .
        Go whine to them.

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        • #
          Andrew McRae

          Nobody disputed that the start date for the prediction is 1990.

          Did you mean to reply to me or to Mick?

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      • #
        Ian Hill

        The mean temperature zero anomaly used now is that calculated for the 30 years from 1961-90. So the year 1990 is the final one contributing to that. When showing projections you can start them from any date and of course they start at zero. It is irrelevant what the black temperature line is at January 1990 because that contributes to only part of the anomaly calculation and then only contributes to 1/360 of it.

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      • #
        Mick Buckley

        Thanks for your reply Andrew. I agree with much of what you wrote. I’ve now looked into this a bit more and I’d like to share what I found and ask for your thoughts. I took the trouble to download the FAR report (30MB!) and looked at the page from which Jo quotes (Policymakers Summary chapter, page XXII). It’s clear that the discussion is about climate model estimates using a baseline temperature from the year 1765. The estimates are summarised in the graph at the bottom of FAR page XXII.

        To my eye comparing the graph by David Evans in this post and the IPCC’s graph in my link raises new questions about the intercepts on the y-axis. David Evans shows the three climate model estimates intersecting in the year 1990 at (presumably) the 1990 baseline temperature. The IPCC graph does not do this. Eyeballing the graph gives the 1990 temperatures for the three estimates at about 0.75, 1.1 and 1.5 degrees above the 1765 baseline for the low, medium and high scenarios.

        Take a look at this marked up version of the IPCC graph. I hope it explains what I mean.
        I have no idea where the UAH temperature series lies in relation to the 1765 baseline, so I can’t add it to the graph. Perhaps you or someone else can help me with this?

        Is it legitimate to do what David has done and shift the temperature estimates so that they all intersect at 1990?

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          Andrew McRae

          The IPCC graph you link to is useless, it is too wide and too vague.
          Seriously, how did the IPCC contrive to get a global average temperature of sufficient accuracy from the year 1765? Not from the infamous tree rings I hope. And how can there be a +/- 0.5 degree error on the temperature in the year it was published? It’s a joke. It’s also too low-res for judging the last 20 years.

          As I said before, if you want to check whether the IPCC’s trend prediction was correct, the Y-intercept at 1990 is completely IRRELEVANT. Only the slope counts, so there is almost no point in even drawing the graph.

          My fussing about where exactly on the vertical axis to start the trend line is only relevant if one is trying to predict the temperature of a future year (or a short range of years) using a trend and a starting reference point – which is NOT what either the IPCC or Dr Evans were trying to do. To the extent any IPCC graphs show that, they are making the same mistake. My initial fussing was irrelevant (as is yours), though after this futile detour I believe my earlier comment got around to the right conclusion eventually.

          If you want to predict a future year, you need to fuss about the right representative value for the 1990 starting point. If you want to test if the trend was correct, you only need the slope of the Least Squares Linear Regression for the 1990-2010 period. Different methods for different purposes.

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        • #
          Mick Buckley

          Hi Andrew. You say: “The IPCC graph you link to is useless, it is too wide and too vague.”

          The subject we are discussing here is the temperature predictions made *by the IPCC* for the 1990 to 2010 period. Their graph might be wide, it could be vague, perhaps it’s a lot of other things but one thing is for sure: it is most definitely their prediction. In the IPCC report the graph appears on page XXII of the Policymakers Summary. The label for the graph says this:

          Simulation of the increase in global mean temperature from 1850-1990 due to observed increases in greenhouse gases, and
          predictions of the rise between 1990 and 2100 resulting from the Business-as-Usual emissions

          This makes it clear that the prediction results from model simulations beginning in 1850 (not 1990) and indicates that the graph shows their predictions of the temperature rise between 1990 and 2100. This includes the period under discussion here.

          I don’t have the expertise to answer your questions with authority, but here are some responses. First I don’t know how the IPCC gets the temperature in the year 1765, but hey I’ve got the report on my computer now – I’ll take a look and see what I can find.
          You ask how can there be a +/-0.5 degree error on the temperature in the year the IPPC FAR report was published. I think this gets to the heart of the matter. The IPCC predictions come from computer simulations of the earth’s response to increases in GHGs for pretty much the entire industrial period. The model runs start at 1850 and the predictions continue until 2100. Nobody told the models what the temperature was in 1990. Instead the models were told the known and predicted concentrations of greenhouse gases and were left to figure out all the temperatures (as increases over the baseline temperature from the year 1765). So *everything* in the IPCC’s Figure 8 on page XXII is a temperature prediction. This includes all the values before 1990 as well as all the values after 1990.
          The three lines in the IPCC’s graph (Low, Medium and High Estimate) come from repeating the model temperature predictions with different values for the sensitivity of the earth system to changes in GHG forcing.

          The more I look into this the more I feel that David Evans has misrepresented the IPCC’s temperature predictions in his graph in this blog post. I have found a graph in the IPCC report, showing temperatures and labelled “predictions of the rise between 1990 and 2100”. I think the ball is now in David’s court to explain how the IPCC’s temperature prediction graph does not represent the IPCC’s temperature predictions.

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        • #
          Mick Buckley

          A slight correction. In my comment above I said everything in the IPCC’s Figure 8 on page XXII is a temperature prediction. There’s a subtlety to IPCC terminology that I missed. While it remains true that all the temperatures shown come from climate models, those before 1990 are called ‘simulations’ and those after 1990 are called ‘predictions’.

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        • #

          At 14.1.3 Mick Buckley reasonably asks..(my bolding)

          To my eye comparing the graph by David Evans in this post and the IPCC’s graph in my link raises new questions about the intercepts on the y-axis. David Evans shows the three climate model estimates intersecting in the year 1990 at (presumably) the 1990 baseline temperature. The IPCC graph does not do this. Eyeballing the graph gives the 1990 temperatures for the three estimates at about 0.75, 1.1 and 1.5 degrees above the 1765 baseline for the low, medium and high scenarios……Is it legitimate to do what David has done and shift the temperature estimates so that they all intersect at 1990?

          In fact the IPCC DOES DO THE VERY SAME THING in their supplementary report pdf link here

          Go to page 18 to find the graph with all 3 lines beginning in 1990.

          I don’t speak for Dr Evans, but it seems to me that Dr Evans created his graph from the text of the FAR. (It is afterall labelled graph by Dr David Evans)

          Now that we have a similar graph in the FAR Supplementary report, the only question that remains is whether Dr Evans graph is accurate or not.

          Eyeballing the graphs, I believe Dr Evans graph is accurate enough to support the claim that the IPCC 1990 predictions/projections of temperature rise were too high.

          If Mick Buckley believes Dr Evans graph is inaccurate, I’d be interested in reading his argument and seeing evidence that Dr Evans is wrong.

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          • #
            Mick Buckley

            Baa Humbug, thanks for your reply. The point I’m making is that the part of the IPCC report excerpted for this blog post is using climate models to simulate temperatures from 1850 to 1990 and then predict them from 1990 out to 2100. The starting point is 1850, not 1990.

            I don’t think you can go past the graph the IPCC provides on the very same page as the text quoted in the blog post.

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            Mick Buckley

            Baa Humbug. I just took a peek downthread and saw this comment by you:

            “Matthew England is not a scientist. The man is an active environmental advocate working in the field of science, but a scientist he ain’t.”

            He might be an active environmental advocate (I have no idea, I had never heard of him before reading this blog post) but I don’t think you can say he’s not a scientist. Have you seen his publication record?

            Hundreds of scientific papers! If you can look at that list and come back here without retracting your statement I think you have gone *way* beyond confirmation bias.

            [Mick, it works much better if you comment downthread if that is where Baa said that. By posting here it is confusing.] ED

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            Baa Humbug. I just took a peek downthread and saw this comment by you:…
            …Have you seen his publication record?

            Do keep up. My further comment at 23.2.2 stated…

            obviously Matt Bennett thinks a greenie with plenty of pal reviewed alarmist papers and hundreds of thousands of dollars in research grants from alarmist government organizations proves one to be a true dispassionate scientist. Booyaa

            See that? I acknowledged his papers as well as his recognition by way of the many grants.

            What you need to consider, especially in light of your comments about confirmation bias, is that irregardless of how many papers one publishes, once the line to advocacy is crossed, one stops being a TRUE SCIENTIST. Perhaps one could be called an activist researcher in the field of science?
            This happens to be my opinion, like it or lump it.

            Now about your apology to Dr Evans?

            You made a big deal about projection lines intersecting 1990. I provided evidence that this is the very thing the IPCC had done themselves. Strike one for you.

            Now the only thing left for you to hang your hat on is to somehow show that Dr Evans graph is too divergent with the IPCC graph. So far you have avoided that.
            Still waiting for your evidence or apology, now what’s it going to be?

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            Ed adds to Micks comment thus…

            [Mick, it works much better if you comment downthread if that is where Baa said that. By posting here it is confusing.] ED

            Hey Ed, you know why Mick posted that comment there. He is trying to divert from the discussion by pointing out one of my (from time to time) unpleasant rants.

            [It crossed my mind. He is new to this right?] ED

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            Mick Buckley

            Baa Humbug. I think we are going to have to agree to differ on it. I’ve put my point of view, you’ve put yours. I understand what you’re saying but I don’t agree.

            I did find another place in the IPPC FAR where it does discuss temperature projections starting at 1990. It gives a prediction out to 2030 and by my calculations (assuming a linear trend which may not of course be appropriate) the low estimate is 0.175 C per decade and the high estimate 0.375 C per decade.

            This contradicts Jo Nova’s statement above where she says the “0.2°C per decade trend which marks the absolute bottom of the IPCC prediction”.

            Sorry about mentioning the scientist thing here. I didn’t realise that was the wrong thing to do. FWIW I think we’ll have to agree to differ on that too, although my mind is still boggling at your statement.

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        Mick Buckley

        My first link didn’t work. It should be the graph at the bottom of FAR page XXII.

        [fixed. mod oggi]

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  • #

    “Why will alarmists never admit they were wrong?”

    The really frightening thing about this aspect of alarmism, is that they won’t rethink any green policy, even if it demonstratably harms the environment. CFLs are a blatant example of this. Harmful to people as well as an eco disaster.

    http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2012/04/21/theres-a-killer-in-your-house-2/

    P{ointman

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    Geoff Sherrington

    Jo, David, it was almost like meeting you in person for the first time.
    Overall, a good result in a perverse way. Only a fool would fail to see the deliberate bias to the Converted and Aussies are known for feeling for the underdog.
    In the travel part, Nick was far ahead of Anna, who seems not to have read “Animal Farm” yet, lacking comprehension of the syndrome of “Four legs good, two legs better!”
    The same Anna in the panel session is almost actionable when she tries to tie all and sundry to Heartland. She seems not to comprehend the danger of Boxer’s maxim “Napoleon is always right”. Of course, none of her Team was affected by Al (Napoleon) Gore.
    CSIRO shall have a hard letter shortly. Promotion of the 2-yearly State of the Climate report is inexcusible; as a record, it is full of errors, lacks logic, is internally inconsistent … Not the makings of a top scientist there, Megan Clark.
    You have started to cover the main other scientifically objectionable part on the CO2 and temperature relationship since 1990. That one would have gone “CLANG” to any person who had read a decent blog.
    Palmer threw in a rather underpublicised thought by saying our (mandated) desire to reduce coal production would harm poor countries lacking adequate energy.

    Mark down May 9 as a possible date when a new Speaker will sit in the House of Reps and the balance will tip again. It’s becoming more evident that a change of leadership before 1st July is needed to stop the wheels of the carbon tax. Heck, we need to have that independent audit of the temperature record done, to show the weak underpinning.

    If there was enough money for silks, there should be an endeavour to get a legal deferment of the start of the tax pending stronger proof of its basis.

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      Catamon

      Mark down May 9 as a possible date when a new Speaker will sit in the House of Reps

      Most likely Anna Burke as deputy Speaker if Slipper’s cab-charge stuff isn’t sorted or maybe another Liberal who is getting screwed over pre-selection. The latter would be juicy!!

      and the balance will tip again

      Nope.

      1: Slipper will still be Speaker and sitting, no change. OR,

      2: Slipper will still be Speaker and NOT sitting AND not able to vote in the house, ALP able to muster same majority they had for most of their term even considering Wilke may not support them and have some kind of hissy fit.

      3: Slipper will NOT be Speaker and will be annoyed Indie on the cross benches able to express his detestation of the Coalition in his voting, missing divisions behavior.

      Remember, even if the ALP has to provide the speaker, the Fibs don’t get Slippers vote back on their side, and they haven’t exactly been building any bridges with the man of late have they?

      Also, the speaker will vote against any no confidence motions that are tied (by convention, even a Coalition speaker would do that) and Burke has already indicated she would cast a vote FOR the Govt on budget bills if in the chair.

      there should be an endeavour to get a legal deferment of the start of the tax

      Hmmmm….. funny that. There was much harrumphing, wailing and gnashing of teeth on the inter-tubes about challenges to the Carbon Price and MRRT but all that seems to have died off of late. Anyone actually serious that you know of on this one??

      Whats funny is that Abbott was actually put in there as LOTO to oppose a price on CO2 and was joking that he would as PM, host drinks for the press pack at the lodge by Xmas 2011.

      Think we can call that a FAIL then wot??

      And anyway, he doesn’t care about a Carbon Price. Don’t you know his first priority is BOATS!!!

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    janama

    Alarmism is based on guilt! I refuse to feel guilty for living.

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    Deniersareliars

    Back in Post #5 i asked

    Are they liars Joanne , are they wrong on this …

    So we have NOAA , NASA , BEST , BOM , CSIRO just to name a few all in agreement on climate change but we have to believe what you say based on a out of date chart .. pleas

    e

    But i still never got a answer on that question ….yet you want evidence which i also linked from NASA their whole climate site has tonnes of evidence that supports global warming / climate change is real , is human induced …

    So again i ask are all these organisations eg.. NOAA , NASA , BEST , BOM , CSIRO all wrong with all their data showing warming .. versus your single 1990 chart

    —-
    Mr Denier, your question is not specific enough to answer. Who lied? Institutions don’t lie, people do. Lies about what? And no, linking to the whole of NASA is like me saying, “Yes” (to what?) and linking to the whole of WattsUp. Do try to form complete sentences with specific points, and back up your arguments with real links. — Jo

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    • #
      Laurie Williams

      Re NASA, see my earlier comment with WUWT link re NASA staff having had enough of the institutional deception.

      Links to whole websites? Here’s a link to a whole website for you – Steve McIntyre’s Climate Audit.

      http://climateaudit.org/

      I’m sure you will be able to find all the information you need about NASA there.

      We look forward to your return to Miss Nova’s classroom bright and fresh next Monday morning. Don’t forget to do your homework.

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    Another Ian

    Anyone tried this? Sounds like the “Vote early and vote often” might be an option?Andrew says:
    April 26, 2012 at 9:50 pm
    As far as I can tell this survey allows an individual to submit multiple entries!!

    I have NOW completed it 3 times! Each time the system appeared to have accepted my survey results using the same email address adn post code etc. No duplication notice was received…

    I am very suspcious about this!! Can anyone assure me that multiple entries are filtered-out? How is that done – according to unique email address? And if I had multiple email addresses?

    Has anyone else tried to see if they can submit multiple surveys…?”

    From comments at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/26/getting-your-mind-right-in-australia-round-2/

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      grumpy

      I voted have already voted twice in this round to achieve some balance after I voted at least three times in the first. I am proud to say that despite differing answers I am still dismissive. Just waiting for the GetUp flood on the ‘afters’ poll to show that the ABC made an adjustment to the data in the ‘right’ direction.

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    Another Ian

    Oops – mangled that! First ” should be in front of Andrew says

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    JAC

    Jo,

    Is it possibe to add a trend line for the temperature record in the second figure? It may make easier to see where the “reality” trend sits in relation to the low and medium model projections.

    Thanks.

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  • #
    Greg O'Donnell

    Jo,

    I would have preferred if where you had said that ‘Were CO2 emissions “business as usual”? No they were worse’ that you had said they were greater/higher/more rather than “worse’. By saying worse, you are agreeing that CO2 is bad, that it is a pollutant. That is a victory for the warmists, because now they can quote you as agreeing that CO2 is bad. You have implicitly been suckered in to their goal of demonizing CO2. Saying CO2 is “worse” is not a lot different to the Cate Blanchett ads with “Carbon” equated with clouds of black smoke. We are close to winning the argument, but best not to give them any ammunition at all.

    Regards.

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    • #

      Good point Greg. I shall edit. You are right.
      Thanks,
      Jo

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        MattB

        oh he’s not right – he’s being a crackpot loony extreme interpreting nit-picker.

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        Matt Bennett

        Jo et al,

        If CO2 does not have the strong positive feedback that proper working scientists emperically know that it does, how do you explain the Vostok/EPICA graphs? We can only move in and out of glacials at the pace we do BECAUSE of this feedback, along with albedo changes. Insolation changes alone can’t do it and I’m sure you don’t dispute there were prior glacials, do you?

        M

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          Kinkykeith

          Never heard of precession?

          26,000 year cycle?

          Axial Tilt

          Galactic radiation?

          The Sun?

          It’s not CO2 dude.

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            Matt Bennett

            Kinky Keith, did you even understand what I said? Christ you [SNIP] need to read more..

            INcident SOLar radiATION (ie insolation) changes, CANNOT account, mathematically for the pattern or the amount of warming we see. I just said that. To spell it out clearly for you – changes in the amount of sunlight (ie precession, axial tilt, solar cycles etc) alone cannot, without albedo, biological and CO2 feedbacks, move us in and out of interglacials. The ice core records are NOT models, they are real time machinations of historical data with EVERY SINGLE feedback inherently included. The items you smugly pointed out have been known about and their values repeatedly refined by scientists for decades. Do you understand this?

            How little most people criticizing ‘the science’ even understand it.

            [shame on you for using the ‘D’ word! Strike one towards earning your moderation badge] ED

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            Winston

            Ice cores clearly show that CO2 rise follows temperature rise by approx 800 yrs not vice versa, as one would expect from outgassing from warming oceans. Melting ice at the poles due to increased global temperatures alter the ratio of CO2 outgassing at the tropics versus CO2 absorption at the poles-not too difficult to understand really? The evidence that CO2 has any effect on temperature in the sense of Effect driving the Cause seems somewhat lacking by contrast.

            Given that we take Vostok Ice Cores as gospel for a second, how do you explain what happens at the peak of CO2 rising that temperature repeatedly does an abrupt U-turn and plummets in spite of these supposed positive feedbacks that should see them attain a tipping point to catastrophe. What causes the downturn if CO2 has amplified the upturn so strongly to the exclusion of other “lesser factors” unless CO2 is an extremely weak (or non-existent) driver of temperature compared with solar, orbital or galactic factors, the latter of which we have little knowledge of magnitude or effect? Since CO2 and temperature rise in parallel, how does that equate with CO2 rise effects being logarithmic on temperature rather than linear? The answer is- it doesn’t equate with cause but it does seem to with effect. Does that “spell it out clearly for you”.

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        • #

          Matt Bennett,

          If CO2 does not have the strong positive feedback that proper working scientists emperically know that it does, how do you explain the Vostok/EPICA graphs?
          INcident SOLar radiATION (ie insolation) changes, CANNOT account, mathematically for the pattern or the amount of warming we see. I just said that. To spell it out clearly for you – changes in the amount of sunlight (ie precession, axial tilt, solar cycles etc) alone cannot, without albedo, biological and CO2 feedbacks, move us in and out of interglacials. The ice core records are NOT models, they are real time machinations of historical data with EVERY SINGLE feedback inherently included. The items you smugly pointed out have been known about and their values repeatedly refined by scientists for decades. Do you understand this?

          Matt there is no evidence in the ice cores that CO2 was causal. No paper published calculated climate sensitivity from ice cores directly without the use of models with their assumptions and estimate built in. The problem with models is that while they do include most known climate forcings, they don’t include them all (eg no solar-magnetic effect) and even if they did include all the forcings, they don’t weight them properly, the models don’t work.

          The argument that “it can’t be explained other than by CO2” is based on the assumption that the models are useful (theyre not) and that there is no other possible forcing or factor that could have done the amplification. It’s argument from ignorance, another fallacy to pile on the bonfire of illogic streaming from climate-acitivist-scientists.

          Here’s some odd things, in the ice cores not only does CO2 rise after temps, but theres no measurable change in the slope as CO2 levels rise. No one has recalculated climate sensitivity from better ice core data after 1999, or possibly they did, but they didn’t publish because it doesn’t give them the right answer.

          Temps got to 2 -4 C hotter in the eemian 130,000 y.a. Not only did corals survive, but water vapor didn’t push us over the limit sending us into cataclysmic meltdown and “irreversible” changes. And then weirdly CO2 stayed high for 15,000 years while temps, oops er fell. Not so hot for your theory.

          No I can’t explain all the temperature changes of the Eemian, but I’m not asking you for thousands of your dollars and telling you I know the world will end. Given that all teh past interglacials seem to have been hotter than temps now, and reached a similar peak every time, it seems that there is some kind of buffer, some upper limit and the planet reached it. That suggests negative feedbacks operate at the highest temps. Positive feedbacks may run strongly while the world is -10C below our temps, but at current temps there is no evidence of strong positive feedbacks in the long run.

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    • #

      Matthew England is not a scientist.
      The man is an active environmental advocate working in the field of science, but a scientist he ain’t.

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        Matt Bennett

        Oh yes, BumBug, and you’re in such a position to know, no doubt?

        Jo why are people from the [SNIP] side here allowed to slander hard working, open minded, well published scientists like Matthew when they patently don’t even BEGIN to understand the context of his work?… Some balance.

        [STEEErike two towards earning the permanent moderation merit badge] ED

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        • #
          Winston

          We can only judge Matthew England on the merits of his statements on Q & A, when he participated in an obvious preplanned attempt to ambush Nick Minchin. He made unsupported statements regarding anthropogenic CO2, and also statements regarding IPCC projections being remarkably accurate when they are clearly below scenario C levels. Now either he is incompetent, needs an eye check, or was deliberately attempting to divert the debate in the warmist favor with a cheap distortion, hoping that the uninformed in the audience would not be bothered to check the validity of his statements. I believe the latter is by far the most likely. This behavior suggests he lacks intellectual rigor and integrity, since the tactics were neither subtle nor morally appropriate for a representative of the scientific community.

          Matt, you are judged by your actions, if they are sloppy and disreputable then this will be apparent to observers, and it is a bit rich to complain that some of these observers judge him on that basis. If he were to apologize or at least qualify his statements with appropriate levels of uncertainty, then we may renew some measure of
          respect for him. I fear however that the dye is cast at this point.

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      • #

        I’m certainly in a position to have an opinion on this unabashed advocate and alarmist called Matthew England.

        Others can judge for themselves, but here is a tidbit.

        Matthew England was the coordinating lead author and the initiator of a 2009 report called “The Copenhagen Diagnosis.”
        Designed to INFLUENCE POLITICAL LEADERS at the Copenhagen COP, the report, among many other bold assertions states…

        KEY climate change measures are tracking near or beyond worse-case scenarios predicted just two years ago, according to a science update drawing on more than 200 recently published studies.

        Co-authored by 26 climate scientists, The Copenhagen Diagnosis reports that melting of summer Arctic sea ice, loss of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, and projections of the rise in sea levels have accelerated dramatically since 2007.

        A list of this unashamed alarmists advocacy is also listed HERE
        Among them are…

        * Surging Greenhouse gas emissions
        * Acceleration of melting ice caps
        * Rapid Arctic sea-ice decline
        * Damage due to inaction
        * Turning point must come soon

        Surging? Rapid? Inaction? Turning point? these are not descriptors of a detached, unbiassed scientist searching for the truth, these are the words of an activist advocate.

        Readers can make up their own mind, obviously Matt Bennett thinks a greenie with plenty of pal reviewed alarmist papers and hundreds of thousands of dollars in research grants from alarmist government organizations proves one to be a true dispassionate scientist. Booyaa

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        • #
          Matt Bennett

          Bumbug, it’s not about being an advocate for anything – it’s about seeing where the science leads and being ready to update the knowledge as evidence comes in. Have you even read the Copenhagen Diagnosis? We are indeed tracking worst case on several parameters and things have not improved since it was published….

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          • #

            We are indeed tracking worst case on several parameters and things have not improved since it was published….

            The Copenhagen Diagnosis is a compilation of typical alarmist nonsense lacking in empirical evidence.

            Lets have the evidence about worst case scenarios. Then lets have the evidence that CO2 is the culprit. I’m waiting.

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          • #
            Kinkykeith

            Matt B

            It’s obvious that you “believe” in the AGW scam.

            To ease your mind, and begin to “know”, maybe you could educate yourself with a science – engineering double degree to get up to speed with the rest of us?

            All the best.

            🙂

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            MattB

            Kinky – I can;t tell if you are talking to me or Matt Bennett. I’ll assume the latter as I already have a science engineering double degree in Physics and Environmental Engineering.

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          • #

            as I already have a science engineering double degree in Physics and Environmental Engineering.

            And I have 2 Double Cheese Burgers and a Small Fries from Maccas Small Change Menu.
            I’d say we’re about similarly qualified.

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            Kinkykeith

            Yes MattB it was for Matt Bennett

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  • #
    glenn h

    One of the “scientists” on the ABC propaganda show last night proclaimed emphatically
    the CO2 level at the moment is the highest the earth has experienced for a million years.
    I thought it was proven to be much higher only afew hundred or perhaps thousands of years ago .
    Is he correct ??

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    • #
      Shyguy

      Here is a CO2 record going back to 1820.
      http://www.biomind.de/realCO2/

      And here is one going back 600 million years.
      http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/PageMill_Images/image277.gif

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    • #
      Matt Bennett

      Yes, Glenn, the simple answer is that he is correct. The longer Antarctic ice cores go back just over 800K years and the ones that are in the planning pipeline for this decade hope to take the graph back over 1-1.2 million years. Using other proxies, I’ve seen it suggested that the CO2 levels have not been this high for a period far further back than this even, but scientists, being ever cautious will only state what they know from current firm evidence. (despite what blogs may have told you)… The worry with the current rapid carbon release though is that even these dramatic swings in carbon/temp recorded in ice cores happen at a pace that’s an order of magnitude or two slower than what’s happening right now and even under those natural forcing, the deglaciations have caused sea levels rises as fast as 20m in 400 years! This is cause for serious concern.

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      • #

        And Glenn, for the history of most of life on Earth CO2 levels have been higher than they are today. See Berner and Scotese. (The geocraft image mentioned by Shyguy). How does todays rise compare with the rate 50 million years ago? Who the heck would know. No one has records that accurate, not with a high enough resolution to show us the rate of decadal changes that long ago. Everytime you hear someone tell you it is absolutely unprecedented you know they are not being scientific.

        Yes, we were right to be concerned about CO2. We did need to study it. But two decades of study have not demonstrated that we should spend billions to reduce CO2 levels.

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    Julian

    Hi Jo, just want to say thank you for all you do and can fully understand why you would have your own camera’s there to post your version of that meeting with Nick and Anna. There are many people behind you and appreciate all your efforts. THANK YOU SO MUCH!

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    Ned

    “According to the satellite data (the best and only source of unbiased data” – why coz you say so? It has as many processing steps, height confounding issues and doesn’t properly cover the poles..

    And all the earlier work modelling work was done against thermometer records. The only reason you picked the satellite data was that it was lower to suit your point. You’re just as bad as the lot you’re criticising.

    ——————————-
    Satellite data works 24 /7, and covers the oceans, the surface data has many documented egregious flaws, ocean surfaces weren’t measured accurately til 2003. Land data is still not measured accurately/. Some data points are used to smooth records by 1200 km. There are hardly any stations on the poles in any case. 89% of surface stations in the US have documented siting problems. UHI is real and documented too. There is no competition. When the fans of surface data try to pretend it is not corrupted, they say “it matches the satellite record” — except that more and more, it doesn’t. – Jo

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  • #
    John Brookes

    Aww shucks, they were unfair to you 🙁

    But maybe you think that because you are so used to Monckton et al using their slate of hand and getting away with it…

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    • #
      Neville

      No John they were wrong, so why shouldn’t Jo point out their inaccuracies?
      Don’t forget Phil Jones and now Lovelock agree the predicted temp trends were wrong.

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      memoryvault

      “slate of hand….”

      So now now Monckton has hands of stone. Tough opponent.

      Or maybe you meant “sleight of hand”?

      If so, get back to me when you’ve mastered basic English, John.
      Maybe then we can have a meaningful conversation about the far simpler matter of “climate change”.

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  • #
    MattB

    why doesn’t your (David’s) graph fit a trend to the 20 year data rather than choose a spurious end point?

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    • #
      memoryvault

      .
      Using data up to the most current date available rather than tailor it to fit the CAGW meme!!

      .
      SACRILEGE!!

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      • #
        MattB

        A trend is not a straight line between data point 1 and the last data point MV. it is basic maths. Jo could check with her statistician hubbie.

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    • #
      Bruce of Newcastle

      Hey Matt, I could’ve sworn I read you say this just two threads ago:

      “I have no problem with sine like cycles”

      After all it works so well for HadCRUT, it’d be just amazing if UAH was any different. Mate, why didn’t you suggest Dr Evans include a sine fit on the UAH series?

      Could you be chosing your words for political reasons. Gasp!

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      • #
        Kinkykeith

        Hi Bruce

        Don’t believe all you read in the NMH.

        Directeur Sportif was right in that I was being sarcastic.

        GeorgeJ

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          Bruce of Newcastle

          Sorry mate, NH is Fairfax and usually a haven for CAGW fans. I can’t help myself, especially since Cr Piper magically turned into a raving greenie since last election. And I voted for him! Grump. I also forgot your tag there.

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          • #
            Kinkykeith

            I got fed up with the whole business after the ABC non debate.

            Decided to wind up the NMH bloggers!

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  • #

    […] was the Q&A spectacle with the slanted panel, where Minchin was wrongly contradicted by Matthew […]

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  • #

    UPDATE: Graphs need interpretation. I’ve found decadal trends showing Nick Minchin was right, and the IPCC and England are wrong.

    Foster and Rahmstorf 2011 looked at five temperature series and calculated trends from 0.14°C to 0.18°C per decade, lower than the 0.2°C per decade trend which marks the absolute bottom of the IPCC prediction. They are sympathetic to the IPCC aims. These values are as good as it gets for England. He fails.

    Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) confirmed in 2010 that the decadal trends for the last 150 years peak at 0.16°C per decade.
    Note that SkS has a nice trend calculator and all the trends on offer are below 0.2C from every dataset if you look for the trends from 1990-2012.

    http://www.skepticalscience.com/trend.php and
    http://www.skepticalscience.com/trend-fr.php

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  • #
    Deniersareliars

    So again i ask are all these organisations eg.. NOAA , NASA , BEST , BOM , CSIRO all wrong with all their data showing warming .. versus your single 1990 chart

    It was a very clear question given twice now and you fail to answer it … WHY ?

    How can so many leading scientific organizations views on Global Warming / Climate change be wrong?

    All those listed organizations data is up to date versus a single 1990 graph of yours why should we believe that over the current data ?

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      Andreas

      Huh? Jo is using up-to-date NASA satellite data, and comparing it to predictions from the IPCC’s 1st Assessment Report in 1990. The data isn’t from 1990, the predictions are. As you can see the predictions do not match the subsequent reality, which is Jo’s point. Nick Minchin was right, Matthew England was wrong.

      As to why so many leading scientific organisations can be wrong, it’s what happens when science and politics collide.

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      • #
        Patrick

        Maybe those organisations have government-dependent funding which just might comprise a conflict of interest?

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    • #
      KeithH

      Yes Deniersal. The world has warmed since the LIA just as it cooled following the MWP – just as it has alternately warmed and cooled due to natural variability since Time began and will continue to do so until the end of Time.

      Similarly, the climate is always changing due to both known and many little-understood combinations of multiple factors vastly more powerful than a few extra human-induced parts per million by volume of essential-for-all-life trace gas CO2.

      Though I’m personally unaware of any time the Earth has ever maintained a steady unchanging temperature, you obviously have some ideal in mind so please share it with us. NOAA, NASA, BEST, BoM, CSIRO may be able to help you, but there again I’m unaware of anyone from any of those organisations in whom you place such faith, having laid out any such figure.

      Or would you rather see global cooling? If so, beware of what you wish for because there are many observable signs that temperatures are headed that way!

      Also see my reply to you @ 5. It seems your idols may not be as certain as you assume.

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        Deniersareliars

        Uncertainties exist for sure but they are not the sole area of study or even the DRIVING force behind climate change we see now… Hence why co2 and other GHG are.. They just didn’t pick a few names at random to target

        Uncertainties exist in all science but the consensus is overwhelming that humans are causing it , this would mean the majority of that influence is human based eg burning of fossil fuels easily seen on any charts from industrial era onwards..

        And how can ice core samples showing over 400,000 years show levels on co2 higher then recorded in human civilization and inline with the rising temps

        watch from 1.55 onwards temps / co2 relation yet you say co2 isn’t a major driver

        http://youtu.be/O4BJDwI8zSk

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          memoryvault

          Hence why co2 and other GHG are.. They just didn’t pick a few names at random to target

          No, they picked the ones they can blame on humans and subsequently tax – nothing random about it.

          Uncertainties exist in all science but the consensus is overwhelming that humans are causing it ,

          No, the consensus amongst “climate scientists” is ‘humans are causing it’.
          In all the mainstream areas of science (physics, mathematics, geology etc) the theory is considered a load of crock.

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            MattB

            “In all the mainstream areas of science (physics, mathematics, geology etc) the theory is considered a load of crock.”

            lol MV that is SUCH an unbackable statement! I mean seriously can you keep a straight face when you type that? Seriously if the field of physics generally thought that AGW was a load of crock then you’d think someone would speak up? Do you have tertiary qualifications in Physics btw? Know many PhD holding physicists to discuss this with? or just the blogs?

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            memoryvault

            .
            MattB

            lol MV that is SUCH an unbackable statement! I mean seriously can you keep a straight face when you type that?

            31,487 mainstream scientists, including 9,029 PhD’s versus 75 cherry-picked respondents out of 77 cherry-picked participants in a vaguely worded email poll.

            No contest really.

            http://www.petitionproject.org/

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            Deniersareliars

            (Mr Denier, since you have a fake email and a fake name, and insist on using words you can’t scientifically define (denier) your comments are merely approved through our sheer goodwill for their entertainment value. You could of course, provide a real name, a real email, and speak rationally and politely, and we’d have no excuse to throw you off.) Jo

            You seriously claim that any science degree has the relevant qualifications to refute climate scientist yet they have zero knowledge , zero published articles on this field..

            You say all these scientific organizations who have current data and publish all the time in this field run a FEAR campaign that is the biggest load of crock going made up by [snip] why would they publish it so that data can be read and shoot down.. Does not make sense

            Nova herself has no qualifications in climate science what so ever and is only a microbiologist who runs a blog and then their are those others who are funded by Fossil Fuel vested interests yet we have to believe that over highly credible scientific organizations that argument is not plausible same as the list of scientist [snip].

            That petition you claim as proof was fake merely a open letter to ANYONE holding a BA of science not current , not employed , not even in the field of climate … it was made to look impressive by the numbers but they had NFI what they were talking about same as the retired NASA scientist which actually had 23 admin staff , 10 engineers and so on.. Same technique as they did with smoking now we know how that causes cancer now but ooh the 32000 scientist said smoking was healthy for you..

            @Andrew McRae

            Consensus = An opinion or position reached by a group as a whole / general or widespread agreement of a particular field …

            So if you have the top Scientific Organizations and Scientist in the climate science field agree then it is a consensus ..

            Dr’s operate at say 20% maybe less when cancer etc.. is involved amongst their field yet climate science is at 97%

            @KeithH

            Basic Physics dictate CO2 and other GHG’s trap heat so is the driver for warming this was known back in 40’s 50’s when making heat tracking missiles ..

            The problem with yours and other / skeptics view is that you don’t believe therefore we don’t need to act .. But if wrong like the proof (REAL SCIENCE) clearly shows their is also no way of reversing that situation so tough luck to all .. So you clearly show you have no concerns for kids , grand kids or any human life by not acting … It is not about us it is about future generations which have no say..

            The FACT is temps / co2 have not been like this in human existence as shown in that video i linked for 400,000 yrs that is Scientific FACT not some random opinion

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            Sonny

            Deniersareliars.

            You are offering absolutely nothing new to this debate. You think we havn’t heard all this guff before? There is no point responding to your arguments which you have adopted via a process of osmosis from your peers. I can understand how terribly frustrating it is for you that your religion is in the process of dieing. James Lovecock is the first high priest to fall. There will be others. You are simply a useful idiot for a cause that you do not understand. Do me a favor please. Record your opinions on “deniers” put them in a time vault and open them up in 10 years.

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            This is why I just love sites like this one Joanne has, and, umm, tell ya what deniarsareliars, this is Joanne’s site, and if you don’t like what is said, no one is forcing you to come here, so perhaps you should just keep your opinions for your own site that you have set up and operate, er which one was that now?

            Also, another reason why it’s so good here is that over time, you get to see these ‘hit and run’ merchants just come and go. Without even bothering to check back through the earlier Posts, they get all infuriated and immediately come in and leave a comment of their own.

            Now, something that those of us have been here a while note particularly, is that you all think you are the first to refute the thing you see here that you disagree with. You all have (exactly) the same argument, and when we reply, you don’t change your opinion one bit.

            The only thing that you do persist with is the epithet you throw at us, that of deltaechonovemberinidaechoromeosierra.

            What you fail so utterly to understand is that none of us here at this site deny that the Climate changes. It’s changed forever, and will continue to change forever, so you’re wrong on even that point. You just think it’s a cute thing to say, because it sounds great, and you think it makes you feel somehow superior.

            THAT of itself is all you have. You fire off your weak popgun, thinking you are the first to say what you do.

            Man, trust me, we’ve heard it all before.

            Off you go now, like the near hundreds before you, thinking you have saved the World by leaving a refuting comment at the JoNova site.

            We are totally bored with hit and run blow ins like you, and we’re getting to the stage where most of us don’t even bother to reply any more. We’ve seen anything you have to offer, and not only have we seen it, we’ve seen it off.

            We reply to these same comments with the same responses every time. You have nothing new that we haven’t seen, and answered many times before.

            So, deniarsareliars, keep looking down your nose at us and abusing us.

            You KNOW that you are better than us. You KNOW that you are right. You KNOW that you don’t need to believe anything we have to say in response. You KNOW that there’s no reason to go to any of the places we link to. You KNOW that you will never change.

            So off you go, back to that site of your own.

            In the immortal words of Dennis Keith.

            “Yer out, get off!”

            Tony.

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            Laurie Williams

            Yes, nothing random about it. Maurice Strong and his buddies knew what they were doing.

            “if the field of physics generally thought that AGW was a load of crock then you’d think someone would speak up”

            As you imply, no such person in any relevant field of physics has done so. We’ll just ignore Lindzen (atmospheric physics), Corbyn (astrophysics) etc.

            As Monckton correctly says to idiot journalists, “Do your homework.”.

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            Laurie Williams

            “Basic Physics dictate CO2 and other GHG’s trap heat so is the driver for warming”

            Firstly – you meant “are the driver”, since you were talking about two things. Do try to understand the difference between singular and plural.

            Secondly (we’re into plural territory here) – your statement re “the driver” implies that having found one influence you can be certain that no other influence exists. Well, that’s proved The Science, for sure. Thank you. Now we can all go home.

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            Laurie Williams

            “Record your opinions on “deniers” put them in a time vault and open them up in 10 years.”

            Well said. Fortunately those opinions are recorded in a time vault, Jo’s website, and if it is still functioning and publicly available in 10 years then reading them again then will be easy.

            Unless Australia’s new National Blocking Network has done its job.

            Jo I hope you keep multiple distributed backups of all these little gems.

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            Mr Denier, you ask the wrong question. I don’t claim that mainstream science grads have the “qualifications” to see when a scientist in another field is talking nonsense. It’s not about the “quals” — it’s about the ability to think. Those pieces of paper don’t mean a lot since they stopped teaching undergrads to reason.

            Actually I claim that James Delingpole is far more a scientist than Michael Mann. James understand the scientific method. Mann doesn’t. James knows that scientists don’t resort to logical fallacies, don’t hide their data, or chop graphs at any old point that suits them.

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          Andrew McRae

          I like the part where the consensus implies the reality.

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          Sonny

          CO2 IS NOT A MAJOR DRIVER OF TEMPERATURE.

          why? Read over the hundreds of articles on this and other websites and you will see why. It’s all been said before an we don’t need to repeat ourselves for your amusement.

          You can name as many scientific organizations and institutions that support CAGW as you want but that doesn’t amount to actual proof. You will be amazed at what scientists will do to keep their job, retain their funding and further their career. They’re like everyone else!
          The governments of western countries pay their salaries. These governments want ways of taxing people without causing civil unrest. Do you see how the scam works ? It’s about money not science !

          Conspiracy theory you say?

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            lmwd

            Conspiracy theory you say?

            More a confluence of vested financial and career interests.

            Even Lovelock acknowledged that being independent afforded him the luxury of admitting to a stuff up and which was something that all those Govt funded scientists could not do.

            But Lovelock says nobody has a clue:

            THE problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books, mine included, because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn’t happened … The climate is doing its usual tricks … We were supposed to be halfway toward a frying world now.

            But isn’t carbon heating everything? Lovelock says not:

            THE world has not warmed up very much since the millennium. Twelve years is a reasonable time; it (the temperature) has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising – carbon dioxide is rising, no question about that … We will have global warming, but it’s been deferred a bit.

            So what caused all the panic?

            AS an independent and a loner, he said he did not mind saying: “All right, I made a mistake.” He claimed a university or government scientist might fear an admission of a mistake would lead to the loss of funding.

            http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/gaia-gaia-gone-james-lovelock-explains-why-the-world-is-not-doomed-just-yet/story-fn72xczz-1226338268863

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          KeithH

          Deniersal. Correlation is not causation! CO2 and other so-called GHG’s are not sources of heat/energy, whatever. They may slightly extend the length of a natural warming period and thus perhaps slightly delay the onset of the effects of a natural cooling period, but if you tried to make a living out of growing produce in an actual greenhouse relying on alleged GHG’s as either the building cladding or heat source, you’d soon go broke!

          BTW, you didn’t let us know that “ideal” temperature your world is supposed to be. Perhaps you could also tell us the location of the thermometer which allegedly accurately measures rises in “global” temperature in tenths or even it seems, where “hottest decades” are up for grabs, hundredths of a degree, and gave us the apparently massive(?) 0.08C rise over 130-150 years coming out of the LIA, as claimed by NASA’s Hansen and many others.

          The temperature control knob that presumably Man is going to use to “limit future rises to 2.0C” with the aid of carbon dioxide taxes, ETS’s etc., should also be nearby!/sarc.

          Pardon me if after nearly eighty years on this naturally ever-changing planet and even in that relatively short time having lived through and seen off many varied scare campaigns similar to CAGW, I’m underwhelmed with your “overwhelming consensus”!

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          Snotrocket

          ‘Consensus’? ROFLAMFAO!!! Denier-etc….you do realise that back in 1912, the consensus was that Titanic was unsinkable? Perhaps they’ll cover that when you get to your 4th year history lessons…

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          Bruce of Newcastle

          DAL – As it happens not only did I work for Dr Clark for many years (she even gave me an award once), I also do work with CSIRO quite a lot. They usually mean well and have great kit, but you would not like how they are regarded by industry. Ivory tower syndrome has infected them quite badly.

          I had, and still residually do have, regard for Dr Clark. But that was much diminished when I found her family company is a carbon farming operation. My approach is to carefully NOT invest in any operation I am working on. It is not conducive to credibility. In this case Dr Clark is wrong.

          My recommendation for Dr Clark is to divest as fast as she can before she loses the lot, much like Prof Flannery’s investment in geothermal.

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          memoryvault

          .
          Okay deniersareliars, let’s take it from the top:

          You seriously claim that any science degree has the relevant qualifications to refute climate scientist yet they have zero knowledge , zero published articles on this field

          No.

          No qualification in anything much is required to refute the outrageous claims made by “climate scientists” and dolts like yourself. I have qualifications in engineering but rarely use more than my basic high school physics to refute the kind of bullcrap that passes for “climate science”.

          For instance, last month Professor Braganza of the BoM stated that the “heat” in the atmosphere was “transmitted” to the oceans. I emailed and asked him “how”?. No reply.

          Perhaps you’d like to speak on his behalf and explain it for us?

          Besides, just what exactly IS a “climate scientist”? Universities have only recently started offering courses by that name, so at the moment pretty much everybody identifying themselves as a “climate scientist” is actually qualified in some other field.

          I know two young men who identify themselves as “climates scientists”. One of them is actually qualified as an “Environmental Engineer”, a course of study which involved NO physics, NO chemistry, NO maths, and certainly NO engineering. The other fellow has a Bachelor of Science with a major in Eco-Feminism. Yes, you read right.

          So we have one guy who got his degree going on field trips to study the habitat of the endangered whatsathingy and chaining himself to trees, and the other who got his degree by attending rallies in support of lesbian empowerment and you think this makes them more qualified than me with a mere engineering degree and 40 years of experience, to comment on the weather?

          I was going to write more but the truth is the rest of your rant is so straight out of the Cult of Climastrology Believer’s Bible, it’s not worth wasting electrons on. Sonny above is right:

          You are offering absolutely nothing new to this debate. You think we havn’t heard all this guff before?

          Please feel free to reply when you’re ready to explain how the “heat from the atmosphere is transmitted to the oceans”.

          We haven’t heard that before, despite the fact that it is necessary to your CAGW cult’s beliefs.

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          Rereke Whakaaro

          deniersareliars

          I am with Memoryvault on this. Relying on calling somebody a “climate scientist” as if it were a qualification is a total fabrication. It is one of the lies that we, the thinking people, are supposed to accept at face value. The term didn’t really exist at the time the current batch of climate scientists were doing their doctoral studies, so they must perforce be qualified in some other field, so why should their opinion be worth more that some sceptical opinions expressed on this site by other people with higher degrees – and sometimes more than one?

          I am sure you are passionate about what you believe to be the truth. But until you can argue with facts, supported by evidence, and without appeals to authority or personal attacks, then you will continue to be considered and treated as an immature troll.

          Don’t get me wrong, we enjoy having the odd troll visit this site. We gain a lot of entertainment value in shooting them down. So feel free to continue.

          Oh, and one last thing. the “D” word is actually banned from this site (I guess your postname excepted) but you have used it a couple of times. I am surprised the moderators didn’t pick it up – you were lucky that time. You might not be so lucky the next.

          [He/she is doing it to be provocative – Jo is on the case, but I have removed a couple of the more obvious ones where it does not interfere with the flow of the comment. /Fly]

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            Deniersareliars

            [you need to change your screen name to something that does not include the ‘D’ word] ED
            [Mr denier – you also need a real email, how can we be sure you get a message from moderators? Plus, the whole argument from authority has been done to death here. It’s a logical fallacy known for 2000 years. We might let you keep posting if you can be original or amusing while you fail the logic bar] Jo

            Relying on calling somebody a “climate scientist” as if it were a qualification is a total fabrication. It is one of the lies that we, the thinking people, are supposed to accept at face value. The term didn’t really exist at the time the current batch of climate scientists were doing their doctoral studies,

            Besides, just what exactly IS a “climate scientist”? Universities have only recently started offering courses by that name

            Hate to say you are both are extremely wrong on that .. Earth Sciences is the actual full degree from the BA to the Honors , Masters , PHD etc.. it is the study of the atmosphere, hydrosphere, oceans and biosphere, as well as the solid earth. Typically Earth scientists will use tools from physics, chemistry, biology, chronology and mathematics to build a quantitative understanding of how the Earth system works…

            This degree has been on offer at many major Australian Universities since the late 70’s Also on offer at UK , US and EU educational institutions ..

            UNE , RMIT , UQ , UNSW , Monash , School of Earth Science Melb

            @ TonyfromOz

            Sorry you couldn’t answer the questions i asked but you replied with a essay saying you have heard it all before …

            ———————

            This appears to be the last of it from the namecalling troll, who hides behind anonymity and a logical fallacy. – Jo

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            Sonny

            And I suppose “earth sciences” degrees also cover computational fluid dynamics and thermodynamics, data aquisition and advanced statistics – all of which are pertinent to the case for global warming.

            We covered these topics in my 5 year mechanical engineering degree. I now design heating ventilation and air conditioning systems (aka climate control) – so I will now be calling myself a “climate scientist”.

            Deniersareliars, I want to learn a bit more about your educational background. Please enlighten us.

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            memoryvault

            Hate to say you are both are extremely wrong on that .. Earth Sciences is the actual full degree from the BA to the Honors , Masters , PHD etc.

            “Earth Sciences” is NOT “the full degree from BA to the Honors, Masters etc etc for “climate science” or any other particular subject. “Earth Sciences” is an entire FIELD of study, such as art, language, medicine, and can cover a huge range of degrees.

            The geophysicists I work with in the exploration side of the mining and oil industries, for instance, would have Bachelor of SCIENCE degrees (not a BA), possibly followed by a Masters in some branch of Geodynamics with specialist studies in ore deposits, or oil basin structures and so on. All graduates of “Earth Sciences”.

            Yet somehow I doubt you would consider these guys “climate scientists”.

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            memoryvault

            Deniersareliars, I want to learn a bit more about your educational background. Please enlighten us.

            Whoa Sonny – I was first with my request for an explanation of how the heat gets “transmitted” to the oceans.

            THEN he can enlighten you with his qualifications in tree-hugging or whatever.

            .
            Seriously but, I wouldn’t suggest either of us hold our breath.

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      Ippy

      Surely, no argument over ‘warming’, it is happening; the argument is all about the cause(s). The former is fact, the latter interpretation with all its limitations.

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    Shevva

    Trolls are out in force today.

    Jo you must answer my question or I’ll ask it again, does god exsist? Rome, Church of England, islam say yes.

    So again i ask are all these organisations eg.. Rome, Chucch of England, Islam wrong with all their data showing god.

    http://www.vatican.va/

    I call Troll.

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      memoryvault

      Does God exist?

      You want Jo Nova, publisher of a blog on the various aspects of the scientific and political repercussions of the CAGW theory, to give a definitive answer to your question?

      Tell me, for I am keen to know, would you go to a fundamentalist Christian website and ask why fishermen on trawlers piss downwind?

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        Andrew McRae

        I interpreted Shevva’s comment as a sarcastic impersonation of Deniersareliars’ comment immediately before it.
        Shevva can only be convicted of not clicking reply on the right comment. I do not think (s)he actually wanted a serious answer.

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          memoryvault

          .
          In retrospect you’re probably right Andrew. If so, apologies to Shevva.

          Deniersareliars post brought out the Berserker in me.
          I blame my Scots – Viking heritage.

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      John Brookes

      Of course God does not exist. He/she is a human construct. It may be a very useful human construct, or a very dangerous one.

      If you wan to prove that God exists, you’d need to conduct an experiment. But given that the characteristics attributed to God include being all-powerful, he/she could easily make your experiment show no evidence for God’s existence. So you can’t prove the non-existence of God. If your experiment did detect God, how would you know it was God?

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        memoryvault

        If you wan to prove that God exists, you’d need to conduct an experiment.

        Sounds a lot like “climate science” to me.

        If you want to prove CO2 causes a positive feedback, you’d need to conduct an experiment.
        But we haven’t.

        I could go on, but I’m sure get my drift.

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        Sonny

        Of course CAGW does not exist. He/she/it is a human construct. It may be a very useful human construct, more probably it is a very dangerous one.
        If you want to prove that CAGW exists, you’d need to conduct an experiment. But given that the characteristics attributed to CAGW include being all-powerful (I.e being able to overpower natural climate drivers such as the Sun and the cosmos), he/she/it could easily make your experiment show no evidence for CAGW existence. So you can’t prove the non-existence of CAGW. If your experiment did detect CAGW, how would you know it was CAGW?

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    pat

    27 April: Uk Telegraph: James Delingpole: ABC: even worse than the BBC
    Those of you who don’t live in Australia will be lucky enough to have missed last night’s travesty of a documentary I Can Change Your Mind About Climate Change by the Aussies’ gag-inducingly PC state broadcaster ABC. Better still, they will have been lucky enough also to have missed the even more ludicrously biased panel discussion afterwards in which an outrageously parti-pris greenie moderator, a greenie “social researcher” (whatever that is), a greenie youth activist, the head of the ultra-greenie, even-worse-than-the-Royal-Society CSIR and two more greenie plants in the audience bravely took on an evil mining magnate (my new hero Clive Palmer) and an evil climate change denier (Nick Minchin) in order irrefutably to demonstrate that anyone who does not deny the reality of Anthropogenic Global Warming must perforce be the spawn of Satan. It reminded me so much of the BBC’s nuanced approach to the climate change issue it was almost as if I’d flown home 15 days early…
    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100153921/abc-even-worse-than-the-bbc/

    if only ABC would go extinct:

    27 April: ABC: Humans urged to find new planets to live on
    By Darren Osborne for Science Online
    Australian astronomers say finding planets outside the solar system that can sustain life should be made a top priority.
    Dr Charley Lineweaver and PhD student Aditya Chopra from ANU have reviewed current research into environments where life is found on earth and the environments thought to exist on other planets.
    They say understanding habitability and using that knowledge to locate the nearest habitable planet may be crucial for our survival as a species…
    Dr Lineweaver: “It’s probably one of the biggest, most confusing, and important issues that planetary scientists are going to have to deal with in the next 10 to 20 years.”…
    If we find an Earth-like planet, Dr Lineweaver says the next step is to send an interstellar probe to explore it.
    “[And] if we don’t find one, maybe we’ll go extinct.”
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-04-27/astronomers-say-finding-new-planets-must-be-top-priority/3977094?section=act

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    pat

    meant to excerpt this from Delingpole:

    “Jo Nova and David Evans, meanwhile, give the doco such a thorough fisking I doubt it will ever walk again. Jo rightly notes that one of the very worst bits was the invention from some baldy pillock of an oceanographer called Matthew England, who was given carte blanche to claim, unchallenged, that one of the only two sceptics on the panel – Nick Minchin – had got his facts wrong when, in fact Minchin hadn’t.”

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    pat

    btw how was this for the day of the ABC “climate change” fiasco?

    26 April: Courier Mail: Record-breaking cold snap saw far northwest Queensland town Camooweal record lowest daytime temperature in 29 years
    A RECORD-breaking cold snap hit northwest Queensland yesterday, as the beef town of Camooweal in the far northwest recorded its lowest daytime temperature in 29 years…
    Overnight, the mercury plummeted to 1.6 in Oakey, which was officially the coldest spot in the state. Warwick was 2.8.
    It dropped into single figures in Brisbane, with the airport recording a low of 9.8C. Amberley was 4.6…
    Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Michael Knepp said cloud-free skies contributed to this morning’s snap…
    “But these temperatures are pretty typical of this time of year – there’s really nothing out of the ordinary.”…
    http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/record-breaking-cold-snap-saw-far-northwest-queensland-town-camooweal-record-lowest-daytime-temperature-in-29-years/story-e6freoof-1226338286757?from=public_rss

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    Murray

    I was in the audience and spoke to the shows director as we were leaving the studio. I said to him I was disappointed that they didn’t have a second scientist in the crowd who could comment on Mathews input.
    The producer told me that they had tried to get a scientist from the University of Newcastle, who Nick Minchin recommended, but the scientist refused to come on the show. The producer could not remember his name.
    I told him they obviously chose the wrong scientist as there are plenty who would happily have been in the audience.
    Whether the producer was telling me the truth of not, but that was his defence.
    I must say I am disappointed at their effort 🙁

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      Bob Malloy

      Stewart Franks is from the University of Newcastle and fills the bill as a skeptic and has on more than one occasion taken the consensus team to task.
      If he was approached I can’t understand his refusal, although as they had Megan Clark I would have prefered “William Kininmonth who headed Australia’s National Climate Centre at the Bureau of Meteorology from 1986 to 1998,[2] He was Australia’s delegate to the WMO Commission for Climatology, was a member of Australia’s delegations to the Second World Climate Conference (1990) and the subsequent intergovernmental negotiations for the Framework Convention on Climate Change (1991–1992)”(Wikipedia)

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    Murray

    Sorry, should have said “producer”

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    Iva Tarbell

    Not only did that Matthew England tell a blatant untruth,he had been planted in the front row of the audience and then called upon exactly when it suited the warmist’s failing argument. Q & A is a biased disgrace. It was simply a set up. James Lovelock spilt the beans when he confirmed that the IPCC’s predictions have failed. Its an undisputable fact that the IPCC’s computer model predictions are flawed and the predicted warming is not happening. The only “deniers” are the likes of England whom refused to admitt the IPCC have got it wrong.

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      Rereke Whakaaro

      Its an undisputable fact that the IPCC’s computer model predictions are flawed.

      Absolutely, and the sad thing is that the ‘climate scientists’ who rely so heavily on said computer models for their “evidence” have never really understood the limitations of computer modelling.

      Predictive computer models work well when the physical processes being modelled is well understood, and can be defined mathematically. Electrical circuit resonance, for example.

      To use computer models to generate predictions – second guess the future – based purely on past empirical evidence is living in a state of sin. You can never be sure that you have identified all of the significant variables.

      The valid modelling technique is called “back-casting” where the model is used to mimic the observed past. If it doesn’t work, then you insert additional variables and constant values to make it a better fit to what previously occurred. You keep on doing that process until you run out of ideas. At that point you have a whole bunch of unknown variables and constants that indicate all of the things that you don’t know about, and so need further research. (This is useful for generating grant applications, among other things).

      What you should not do, is to take this “back-casting” model, and use it for “fore-casting, since you still do not know if you have missed some of the significant variables and constants that will come into play going forward. Remember, the climate is a chaotic system.

      The fact that people (including the scientists involved) point to the model as being their “proof”, coupled with the fact that they have always refused to release the model code for critical review, is at the heart of the climate fraud.

      The fact that the models are now being demonstrably proven to be incorrect, highlights that fact. Every other argument is simply a smoke screen designed to distract attention away from what the models actually do (or rather don’t do).

      Hence the sudden outbreak of trolls on this thread. They are running scared.

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    Popeye

    Hi Jo,

    Just wanted to let everyone know that I attended Q & A last night for the “I Can Change Your Mind About Climate” debate.

    Sorry for the long post (but I deemed it very necessary so all those who weren’t there have an idea of what ACTUALLY happened.

    Please note the following points.

    1 – There was NO debate

    2 – The audience was stacked with young, impressionable lovers of Anna Rose & catastrophic global warming. We, (my good wife & myself) were directly behind a group of at least 7-8 “Coalition for Climate Action Now” groupies (wearing the obligatory T shirts). There were MANY such groups (Getup, those above & several others (mostly young). How do I know this? Very simply, they were ALL congregating together at the start of proceedings, they were all clapping profusely whenever/whatever Anna Rose had to say and many of them tried to have a “love in” at the end of the evening until Simon Sheik hustled Anna Rose away from them before anybody (including me) who wanted to ask some simple questions of her had the opportunity to do so.

    3 – The audience was advised PRIOR to the event that questions would be accepted from the floor – THEN the producer/floor manager proceeded to advise whose questions had been selected from a list of pre-selected ones that suited their agenda (very simply – note the bias in the “allowed” questions). I had previously submitted my question via email (as others had on the deniers side) but mine was rejected – WHY? Note the number of warmists questions allowed versus the “sceptics/deniers” quota – NOT balanced at all!!

    4 – The audience were also advised at this stage that ANYBODY who wanted to ask a question during the course of the proceedings simply had to raise their hand “like they were still in school” and Tony would eventually get to them. There was not ONE unsolicited question taken from the floor by Tony!

    5 – Anna Rose had the AUDACITY to say that she agreed the “warmists” had exaggerated the scaremongering, A VERY short time later she was heard to say – “It makes economic sense to act on climate change. In fact, to not act on climate change, to delay, is the worst thing that we could do to our economy. We had Sir Nicholas Stern in the UK doing a report about the global economic impact and he said that the impact of climate change would be the same as both world wars and the depression at the same time. Do we want to be doing that to our economy? I don’t think so and then you bring in the health impacts. You’ve got the Australian Medical Association saying that climate change is a real and imminent threat to the health of Australians. The impact on our agriculture – I come from a farming family. You look at what’s happening to the Murray-Darling Basin, the projections of agricultural decline between 92 and 97% by the end of the century, all of these things will be extremely harmful to our economy and our way of life” WHO IS SHE TRYING TO KID??. She “comes from as farming family” – BS!!!!

    Then this – “That’s ridiculous. The people who are suffering the most right now from the impacts of climate change are people in less developed countries who are feeling the impacts of sea level rise, of extreme weather events and they don’t have the resources that we have in Australia to cope with those kinds of impacts. So to pretend that you care about people in India yet totally ignore the suffering…” – does ANYONE question this young girl – NO – Tony let’s her get away with this ad hominem BS!!

    6 – And this is the CLAPTRAP that we hear from Australia’s Chief Scientist Megan Clark. “Well, we’re telling the Australian people, Tony, because we have certainly had feedback that they want to hear. We’re still, seeing since every decade since 1950, each decade warmer than the decade before, even with the two wettest years we had in 2010 and 2011, which were the two wettest years we’ve ever had on record.” She certainly looks old enough to remember this CLASSIC scare! I Don’t know what anyone else thinks BUT is Dr Clark forgetting about the 1970’s “Slipping into an Ice Age Scare” These people think us “commoners” are stupid – boy – have they got a LOT to learn!!

    Remember, this was SUPPOSED to be a debate about changing “someone’s” mind about climate change.

    How would they know? They didn’t ask me (before or after) what my view was AND/IF the program had managed to change it.

    So, MY summary – the whole charade was rigged, didn’t invite contrary views by inviting ONE sceptic scientist along & was about as scientific as any poll that the warmists run. (viz. – “Do you believe in climate change”) – WHAT A FARCICAL question!!

    On a closing note – would I EVER bother attending a Q & A program EVER again? – NOT BLOODY LIKELY!!

    Cheers,

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      Ian Hill

      Thank you for that report Popeye. I couldn’t bring myself to watch it at the time but had a look at some of it tonight after reading many comments. I just had to see who this Anna Rose person was. One thing, all things being equal she will live well past 2050 to see how badly the IPCC’s climate forecasts turned out and she will look back to this time and cringe at her performances.

      Actually I was less impressed with the woman in charge of CSIRO who didn’t have a clue about CO2. Also that guy from BZE who dismissed the 3% human caused CO2 saying it was 40%. Talking about different things – he knew that but twisted it to make his point.

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        Albert

        I agree, what is the relevance of the CSIRO? The TV weather does an adequate job.
        The guy from BZE was very unclear for a scientist, I’m sure many people who watched Q&A believe the whole atmosphere is 40% co2

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      Peter O'Brien

      Popeye,

      thanks for this report. As a viewer, the other thing I noticed was that the Twitter feed favoured warmists about 9 to 1, and most of their comments were fatuous.

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    MattB

    Good old skeptical science does a good piece on this btw: http://www.skepticalscience.com/lessons-from-past-climate-predictions-ipcc-far.html

    It is a shame he does maybe stray in to some non-science, as if he just left it to the science John Cook has you on toast.

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      Steve R W.

      I almost spat some good SSB into my computer screen.

      Almost.

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      rukidding

      Interesting Matt figure 5 seems to show a temperature rise between 2000-2011 of about 0.3c is that right.

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        John Brookes

        It seems to show 0.3 – 0.4c rise for 2000 – 2011, but then 2000 is a low starting point, so ~0.3c is a more reasonable estimate.

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        • #
          Sonny

          Wow the BOM/CSIRO shows no increase over that period.
          Who should we trust ?

          http://www.bom.gov.au/tmp/cc/global_t.global.0112.20592.png

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            Sonny

            Challenge for John, Matt B or Catamon.

            Download the raw data series from the BOM which is available to the public and then calculate the five year running average or (any other averaging method you like) and demonstrate how you or anyone else can arrive at a 0.3 – 0.4deg increase between 2000 and now.

            If you do not do it I will do it for you and publish the results. (as I’ve done in a previous thread). This is the most authoritative data set available in Australia.

            You claim global warming is still happening? PROVE IT

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          Sonny

          Right, I will do it myself. This is the Data from the BOM which you can download here.

          http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/global/timeseries.cgi

          You will need to have some basic excel skills to perform this analysis. Sorry Phil Jones insider joke – read climategate emails)

          Let me explain how the “5yr AVG (end point)” is calculated through an example:

          1994(AVG) = (1990(Temp) + 1991(Temp) + 1992(Temp) + 1993(Temp) + 1994(Temp) / 5

          0.16 = (0.25 + 0.21 + 0.07 + 0.1 + 0.17) / 5

          Pretty simple and uncontroversial? This is “end point averaging”.

          ANYWAY, lets have a look at some data shall we from 1990 to 2011.

          Year Temp 5yr AVG (end point)
          1990 0.25 —-
          1991 0.21 —-
          1992 0.07 —-
          1993 0.1 —-
          1994 0.17 0.16
          1995 0.28 0.17
          1996 0.14 0.15
          1997 0.35 0.21
          1998 0.53 0.29
          1999 0.31 0.32
          2000 0.28 0.32
          2001 0.41 0.38
          2002 0.46 0.40
          2003 0.47 0.39
          2004 0.45 0.41
          2005 0.48 0.45
          2006 0.43 0.46
          2007 0.4 0.45
          2008 0.33 0.42
          2009 0.44 0.42
          2010 0.47 0.41
          2011 0.34 0.40

          Lets focus on the years 2000 to 2011.

          2000 0.28 0.32
          2001 0.41 0.38
          2002 0.46 0.40
          2003 0.47 0.39
          2004 0.45 0.41
          2005 0.48 0.45
          2006 0.43 0.46
          2007 0.4 0.45
          2008 0.33 0.42
          2009 0.44 0.42
          2010 0.47 0.41
          2011 0.34 0.40

          The lowest value is 2000 = 0.32, the highest is 2006 = 0.46, and 2011 = 0.40

          Therefore based on the Australian BOM for global average temperature anomoly data, the world experienced a 0.14 degree increase in the 5 year average between 2000 and 2006.
          nb: This is “cherry picking” the most alarming rate of increase since 2000.If we consider the period 2000 to 2011, the value is 0.08!

          Compare this with the 0.3 to 0.4 degrees claimed implied in the skeptical science link in figure 5.

          But wait!!! It gets more interesting. Lets have a closer look at the data from 2006 to 2011. This uses data from the last full decade…

          2002 0.46 —
          2003 0.47 —
          2004 0.45 —
          2005 0.48 —
          2006 0.43 0.46
          2007 0.4 0.45
          2008 0.33 0.42
          2009 0.44 0.42
          2010 0.47 0.41
          2011 0.34 0.40

          Would you look at that??? Far from increasing temperatures of 0.3 to 0.4 degrees, what we see is a steady decrease in the 5 yr running average for the period 2006 to 2011 by 0.06 degrees.

          What does this mean?

          It means that according to our very own, loved and trusted BOM there has been
          NO GLOBAL WARMING FOR THE PAST DECADE.

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            memoryvault

            .
            How dare you introduce science and maths into a religious discussion.

            Accept that when the witch burnings start you will be the first to be thrown onto the pyre.

            sarc/off

            .
            Seriously, excellent post Sonny. I’ll fire up Excel in the morning and play a while.

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    klem

    “The longer honest scientists sit silently by, passively allowing the Matthew England’s of the world to use the brand-name Science in such a deceitful or at best incompetent careless way, the less the public will trust all scientists.”

    This is true but I know a working scientist who is a vocal climate skeptic, but he admits that in order to get his annual funding he always finds a way to link his research to climate change. Its how he keeps his research going and puts food on the table. He says sometimes the link to climate change can be very weak, but he says its easy to make a link and he does it because it works. He says that climate change is the flavour of the month, and when the flavour changes he will change with it. I’ve known the guy for many years and I don’t blame him one bit, if I were in his shoes I’d probably do the same thing.

    Pure science can only go so far when politics is heavily involved and you’ve got kids and a mortgage. Reality sets in, you do what you have to. Its better than sleeping in a cardboard box by the highway.

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    That wasn’t the only howler by Matthew England. The second time that Jones wheeled him out to attack Clive Palmer was over Palmer’s comment that approximately 97% of CO2 is derived from natural sources and only 3% is from human sources.

    England after throwing a bunch of figures around to muddy the waters says “I don’t know where he got that information from?”

    Is England really that blatantly dishonest that he denies a commonly accepted fact (by all sides) so that his politics can trump scientific reality? Just so he gets it:
    The IPCC’s AR4, itself, tells us that of all the Co2 entering the atmosphere each year, 97% of it comes from natural sources, and only 3% comes from human activity.

    How science determines the difference of what’s man made CO2 and what’s natural:

    They measure the C13/C12 isotope ratios in atmospheric CO2. The difference of naturally occurring C13/12 isotope ratios and man made C13/12 isotope ratios is 2.6% (man made being 2.6% less C13). So based on those ratio differences, climatologists estimate that roughly 3% of the CO2 in our atmosphere is man made and the remaining 97% is naturally occurring.

    Shame England shame! You owe Palmer an apology too.

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      John Brookes

      Come on, you can interpret the question two ways, and England took the perfectly sensible interpretation of, “What fraction of the CO2 in the atmosphere is put there by humans?”. In which case the answer is obviously not 3%. Its 0% because Murray Salby has shown that all the extra CO2 in the atmosphere is entirely natural. Oh wait, we don’t really believe that do we?

      I suppose England could have said that man made emissions account for around 3% of the total annual flux of CO2 into and out of the atmosphere, and that about half of that 3% remained in the atmosphere while the rest was abosorbed by the oceans and the biosphere, and that as a result of this accumulation in the atmosphere we now have 40% more CO2 in the atmosphere than we did 200 years ago.

      Would that have made you happy?

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        John Brookes,
        Nice strawman that you built there and then tore down to support your argument. Why is it that believers like yourself are so quick to use that tactic when faced with such an obvious howler created by your own side?

        England was deliberately trying (at Jones’ request) to imply that what Palmer had said was just made up. Which it isn’t. For England to actually state “I don’t know where he got that information from?” It was a deliberate attempt to use misinformation to get the ignorant public onside because he his the climate scientist and Palmer is simply the mining magnate so by implied authority …what would he know? Palmer is therefore seen to be just making stuff up, when in fact it was England doing so to make a cheap political gotcha at Jones’ beck and call.

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          Matt Bennett

          No, what England was demonstrating was that what Palmer was implying was disingenuous and you know it. Palmer was using ‘true’ figures to imply there was nothing to worry about in a context that was completely misleading. Even you’re not that stupid CO, are you?

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            Winston

            “I don’t know where he got that information from?”
            Matt England knew exactly where that figure came from- he just CHOSE not to acknowledge it or elaborate upon it. I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions, Matt, as to why he might have pretended ignorance of that, when he knew full well what Palmer was referring to. It goes to motivation, doesn’t it? – very intriguing behaviour, IMO.

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            Matt Bennett

            Winston, it’s not about pretending anything. It’s about Palmer either misinterpreting the context of those figures or deliberately misleading the public with them. No need for England to stoop down and play on his level is there? Of course he’s going to say “I don’t know where you got that from” because Palmer was insinuating that CO2 is nothing to worry about BECAUSE it was only 3% of natural emissions. You yourself know this is “true” but totally irrelevant because there are huge fluxes of CO2 and other gases moving backwards and forwards each year between oceans, forests, life and geology.

            What’s crucial is that, although nearly half our emissions are buffered by natural sinks etc, it’s the SURPLUS CO2 that accumulates above and beyond the natural fluxes that is important and that is almost totally due to humans. So, in short, England handled Clive’s bluffing, blustering mistaken assertions wonderfully and, of course, owes no-one an apology, least of all the ostrich Minchin.

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            Winston

            Palmer was a lay person sitting on the panel, in a vulnerable position to be challenged on his comment. Matt England was in the audience, microphone at the ready, and Tony Jones waited for the cue, and threw to him, without fear of cross examination, and then England pretended that he knew nothing about the figure that was stated (has he not read AR4? Doubtful), in order to make Palmer appear foolish and to get some cheap brownie points from the uninformed audience.

            Now perhaps time doesn’t permit a better explanation on England’s part (in which case he should say so), but his statement as presented was disingenuous at the very least, and to pretend otherwise is to be guilty of the same “bias” of which you claim we are guilty. A tactic such as this is neither in the spirit of the debate, nor is it especially fair to the audience, whom one assumes may have actually been interested in batting around the issues instead of barracking for a particular side, Get Up advocates excepted.

            And you wonder why this climate debate is so polarised, and why the trust in science in general is no longer there?

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        Popeye

        JB

        We’ve been here before but you don’t seem to ever learn anything – see here for proof.

        Excess CO2 does NOT accumulate. What ACTUALLY happens with increased CO2 concentration is that TREES, PLANTS, GRASS ETC increase their growth rate and suck up all that lovely CO2 and grow FASTER, BIGGER, QUICKER on LESS water than they previously did.

        Just like what happens in a REAL greenhouse!

        But, of course, if you want to REALLY scare people just tell them that CO2 will eventually accumulate and will get to 500 or 600 or EVEN maybe 700ppm and we’ll all FRY in our own juices.

        BTW – As of 2010, the federal government considers any concentration of carbon dioxide below 5,000 parts per million as safe, according to the DuPage County, Illinois, Health Department.

        Read more: What Are Safe CO2 Levels? | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/facts_5863170_safe-co2-levels_.html#ixzz1tNc9V1te

        You JB are a gullible fool – but what REALLY peeves me off in a BIG way with you and your ilk is your audacity in SCARING our impressionable young children with LIES.

        And here’s the RUB – people like you hide behind anonymity on sites like this and spew your scares without fear or favour because you can – I would BET you would be too GUTLESS to do the same out in the open away from your safe cocoon. Hypocrite – you BET!!

        Cheers,

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          Matt Bennett

          Well how about me, I’m not anonymous, Popeye and I call bullshit. Are you saying that CO2 levels are not increasing above normal interglacial levels and that the Keeling curve does not represent reality? I’m intrigued as to just how gullible you are…..

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          Mick Buckley

          Do any of the skeptics on this site want to give an opinion about Popeye’s statement above. We’re discussing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and he’s implying that 5000 ppm is safe. Anyone prepared to defend that?

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            Truthseeker

            Mick,

            Let me put it to you this way. We are now at about 390ppm of CO2 concentration. At 150ppm plants do not have enough to survive. That is game over for everyone and everything living on this planet. I would feel much happier if the CO2 concentration was at the 500 to 600 ppm mark like it has been for much of the Earth’s history when you look at geological time frames. I think we are too close to the “game over” lower limit at the moment. How is that for an inconvenient truth?

            Popeye has given links and data to support his statements. They stand on their own. You have offered nothing in response. Typical alarmist lack of content.

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            Mick Buckley

            Thanks Truthseeker. My response to Popeye is that 5000 ppm would not be safe. I think it would be extremely dangerous for human civilization and for many plant and animal species.

            I’m tring to find out if other skeptical readers of this blog are prepared to defend Popeye. So, in your opinion would 5000 ppm carbon dioxide be safe?

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            Truthseeker

            Mick,

            Popeye’s 5000 ppm reference is a health and safety one that is specifically relevant to humans in an enclosed space. It is not a general comment about how the environment would react to such levels. The likely outcome of 5000 ppm would be that there would be a change in the mix of species and some would become extinct and others would evolve. It all depends on the time frames you are going to use to do the analysis.

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          John Brookes

          Popeye (I’m assuming that is your real name, because you wouldn’t be gutless and hide behind an alias), maybe you didn’t notice that I post under my real name?

          Still, I appreciate that you are playing for a team, and someone has to hurl the abuse – so carry on.

          But please, don’t try logical argument, its not your style.

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            Winston

            Matt,
            Would you say that a world with energy restriction, energy poverty, or energy rationing be more, or less likely to be able to cope with adapting to changing climate or environment?
            Do you think a world where scientific processes are corrupted by governmental, or commercial interests to a lesser extent (since the latter agendas are more transparent), be a good idea or a bad one?
            Do you think peer review assists in innovation and shifting erroneous entrenched paradigms in scientific endeavour, or is an agent for the exact opposite?
            Do you think taking scientific short cuts, and bypassing scientific method and long established principles of scientific behaviour is a good or a bad thing?
            Do you think shutting down debate by suggesting that a subject is “settled”, plus marginalising anyone who disagreed with the paradigm, is a good idea, or perhaps may alienate those skeptical of the assumptions and conclusions drawn by said scientists?
            Interested in your thoughts.

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          Matt Bennett

          Hey Truthseeker, it’s all about context. I’m betting you and me and Winston above are actually all pretty decent guys and would sit down and enjoy a few beers after work at any old downtown pub. We’d probably relish it. What I’m trying to point out is that a lot of people aren’t coming at this from the correct angle – that is, finding out the detailed, reasons why all these statements being flung around the place may or may not be inherently true and that they can be misleading outside their context.

          For example (besides my attempt above? to point out why Clive Palmer’s throwaway line from the bench was meant to mislead) let’s take this 500-600ppm argument: it’s absolutely true that CO2 has been way higher in the past, in the thousands of ppm and life was thriving. But you see, this has been known about by climate science for many decades, they’re not trying to hide anything. Let’s take just the last 100 million years or so, from when dinosaurs reigned supreme, through the asteroid impact and on to the modern day. During this time, the max CO2 recorded was during the PETM about 55 million years ago. (Google the graph under the Wiki article on PETM for longterm CO2 trend) Since then, when CO2 was in thousands of ppm and there were reptiles much closer to the poles, there has been a slow decrease in atmospheric CO2 (with lots of fluctuations in between), leading to a more permanent southern icecap in Antarctica around 34 million years ago. This is due to the very slow process of locking carbon away in geologic processes. We only really got down into a true ice age during the mid-Miocene and levels have continued to drop through til the modern day. In the last million years (and prob much longer) Earth has fallen into a pattern of glacial/interglacials on either 40K or 100K year cycles depending on which orbital parameter dominates as the trigger at that particular time. The point is, since we’ve fallen into that pattern, every time it occurs, the sea level moves up and down by up to 130m and temps, averaged globally, move up and down by 6-10 degrees C. Note two things though: it takes thousands of years for the feedbacks to make these giant moves happen and also, during all that past time, we’ve been hunter gatherers.

          Now after we came out of the depths of the most recent glacial, which peaked 21K years ago, things warmed until about 8-10K years ago (with a temporary cooling during the Younger -Dryas at 12-11K) and then, unusually both temps AND sea levels have been remarkably stable since then. There is some suggestion in the literature that this unusual stability may have been due to a neat canceling out of the orbital forces starting to send us back into the next glacial and the new force of additional methane and CO2 from land clearing and rice cropping as mankind began the sedentary lifestyle. (ie agriculture and domestication.) The point is, ever since then, we’ve built our civilization around stable rainfall patterns, stable sea levels/coastlines and known latitudinal temp gradients. So it’s not that it’s inherently dangerous to have a CO2 level of 600ppm per se. It’s worrying for two main reasons: (i) we’re no longer mobile hunter/gatherers that can walk our homes away from rising sea levels and take our crops elsewhere, and (ii) the speed and scale upon which our changes are being imposed are 1-2 orders of magnitude faster than when under natural climate forcings and so there is a big chance that many other species won’t be able to adapted or migrate as they normally would. ie, are we facing the sixth great extinction event? The evidence suggests we are…..

          Of course, none of this is news to climate scientists, despite what you may read on blogs like this. They’ve been well abreast of the issues for many decades and trying to get a clearer picture all the time.

          Best of luck.

          M

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            Winston

            See above Matt @ 42.1.2.3.1
            Nested in the wrong post.

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            Winston

            I decided belatedly to repost

            Matt,
            Would you say that a world with energy restriction, energy poverty, or energy rationing be more, or less likely to be able to cope with adapting to changing climate or environment?
            Do you think a world where scientific processes are corrupted by governmental, or commercial interests to a lesser extent (since the latter agendas are more transparent), be a good idea or a bad one?
            Do you think peer review assists in innovation and shifting erroneous entrenched paradigms in scientific endeavour, or is an agent for the exact opposite?
            Do you think taking scientific short cuts, and bypassing scientific method and long established principles of scientific behaviour is a good or a bad thing?
            Do you think shutting down debate by suggesting that a subject is “settled”, plus marginalising anyone who disagreed with the paradigm, is a good idea, or perhaps may alienate those skeptical of the assumptions and conclusions drawn by said scientists?
            Interested in your thoughts.

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            Matt Bennett

            Aaaaah Winston, sounds like you’ve bought the catastrophist’s line 😉

            If you’ve got evidence that phasing out oil & coal, using some interim natural gas and giving the fossil fuel’s subsidies instead to renewable energy firms while they bring their technologies to fruition over the next couple of decades will bring economies to their knees, I’d love to see it…. Quite the contrary, many studies have found we could make the transition for a very small fraction of global GDP and it has already been done before with other technologies. We’ve also managed to find much larger fractions of an economy to wage futile wars on each other without raising the hackles of the Right. See Richard Alley’s comparison with the phasing in of our sewage and waste disposal systems instead of dumping shit in the street. You’ve bought the line.

            At any rate, even if it was a difficult task, it has been proven that it only gets MORE costly and MORE disruptive the longer we wait. That is fact. (and we risk a runaway situation whereby nothing we do will make any difference if it’s left too long) Think about the thought process behind buying insurance.

            Relax, Winston, despite what you may have read, science and peer-review are not corrupted and are working just fine. They just might not be producing answers that you’re comfortable with. Take the much hyped ‘climate gate’ theft. With access to tens of thousands of emails over ten years or more, the most they could pin against scientists was poor PR and some ill-chosen, heated words (which were well-earned, I might add) some of which was used completely out of context. Don’t you think, if the system was corrupted, those emails would have been laden with nefarious intent and it would be utterly conclusive and beyond debate? Peer-review is working just fine, its just that they don’t publish incorrect or poorly thought out theses.

            Who exactly has ‘taken scientific shortcuts and bypassed the scientific method’ (serious charges indeed) and how has that made global warming not real?

            Finally, not a single working climate scientist has ever said the science is settled – nothing in science is ever settled. However, the bulk of the evidence by far points to our fingerprints being all over this potentially massive problem and the sooner we stop wasting time debating well evidenced science and started debating the best way of tackling it, the better.

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            Winston

            Supplementary question:
            Does a response governed by haste as engendered by excessive alarmism, lead to a response that is more cogent, comprehensively assessed, or risk averse, or even timely, compared with a more measured and analytical approach in something as comprehensive as total global economic transformation?

            And for the bonus point, admittedly cryptic question
            How big would an iPad have been, if it was conceived and developed in 1969?

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            Matt Bennett

            Hi Winston,

            To answer your questions: how can you possibly assert that we are acting in haste? Maybe if we started the energy transformation in 1978 when all this was starting to become clear, you might have made that argument. But we are acting with EXTREME lethargy (if at all, in some countries) and given what is at stake, the acting in haste question is a total furphy. Even if we manage to transform the economies and get everything back on an even keel without great loss of biodiversity etc, what have we lost? We’ll have a clean world full of renewable energy systems, intact ecosystems, energy security which should result in less conflict AND we’ve still got all those oil/coal reserves which could be put to far better and more sparing use in materials design or for further, undiscovered uses that make them far more precious than just something that’s combustible. Win-win, eh?

            As for your iPad, the question makes no real sense…. Without the intermediary technologies between 1969 and now, if would not have been possible to conceive of such a device in that era. If you recall, all screen-based equipment required rounded projection tubes (ala TVs of that era) and flat screens lay way in the future. Your question could also have meant “what would a device, constructed in 1969’s technology, look like if it have the same computing power as a modern iPad?” If that’s the case? then all you’re scaling up is the computing power (ie transistors/memory) and a back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests it would be large than an entire office block. But, what’s your point? Technology travels a path dictated by Moore’s law? Production costs drop with improved tech and result in more efficient economies of scale? Big deal…..

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            Winston

            Technology can only evolve at a set pace.It can be constrained artificially by malfeasance, but it cannot be accelerated beyond the limitations of the technology at hand by throwing money at it- which Solyndra and various multiple and ever burgeoning numbers of failed speculators have, and will, amply demonstrate. Computer technology demonstrates the power of commercial impetus in development, but even in the gold rush of money to be made, with the best IT minds feverishly working for the next breakthrough it has taken 40 years to reach this point from Intels first milestone.

            Without considering Thorium Nuclear technology which is being actively avoided by governments, without hydroelectricity investment, and instead diverting huge sums of money with impunity to impractical exercises in Wind (a Quixotic sham if ever there was one), Solar and Geothermal without a demonstrable feasibility, at a time when the global economy is teetering on the precipice, well that does suggest that you are blinded by your ideology if you truly believe that there is a comprehensive plan for securing the world’s energy needs into the future. It will all end in tears, unfortunately. And it is not like people such as myself, or my children or their children have anything at stake, now is there. Not to mention the hundreds of millions on the verge of starvation just waiting for a minor ripple in the world economy to topple off the edge- I think you underestimate just how fragile this world really is, and how dangerous the game is that is being played.

            As to the rest of your responses, I’ll leave it to individual readers to analyse whether they feel your answers betray a balanced and thorough understanding of all of the factors at play.

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            Truthseeker

            Matt,

            This is very typical of the meme that humans are bad or incompetent or are all going to die because something changes. The fact that we are no longer hunter-gatherers means that we have actually many more options and solutions available to us. Regardless of the problems we are going to face, having cheap energy, free market based (and therefore highly adaptive) economies, individual freedoms (and therefore a highly adaptive populace) are the best things we can do to get ourselves in a position to solve future problems. Any solution that has been proposed by the “climate scientists” that are being listened to by current governments involve making energy more expensive, reducing economic activity and controlling the general population. These are the real dangers that are going to cause massive problems in the future if we do not stop them soon. Forget CO2 as an issue, it is something that is only making life better for everything.

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    Julian

    Why weren’t you invited to attend Jo, or did you get asked to be apart of the Q&A “Debate”? What is interesting, is that there was only one “scientist” Dr Megan Clarke on the panel who just happens to be on the Australia advisory board for Bank of America Merrill Lynch..Aren’t these one of the many banks ready to make millions off the ETS by trading the invisible commodity which is CO2? I so wish someone had the chance in the audience to ask why she was affiliated with a bank who will directly benefit from the ETS…It seems she is employed by them to help push the agenda and shape public opinion. I have no proof of this, but where there is smoke there is fire I say! Here’s a link of some of the banks which funnily enough includes bank of america: http://www.wakeup2thelies.com/2011/10/21/banking-on-climate-change-a-list-of-bankers-advocating-for-the-australian-carbon-tax/

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      Kevin Moore

      http://www.2.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=90090

      “Rothschild Australia and E3 International to take the lead in the global carbon trading market

      Sydney, Australia – Rothschild Australia and E3 International are set to become key players in the international carbon credit trading market, an emerging commodity market that analysts estimate could be worth up to US$150 billion by 2012.

      In a move that will re-shape the fledgling emissions trading market, Rothschild Australia and E3 International today announced their intention to launch the Carbon Ring Consortium — an investment vehicle that will provide companies in the Asia Pacific Region with an innovative way of learning about and understanding their risks in the new carbon market.

      The Carbon Ring Consortium is the first of its kind in the Asia-Pacific Region, and is the first in a series of private investment vehicles that Carbon Ring Pty Ltd will launch in coming years.

      Richard Martin, the chief executive officer of Rothschild Australia said, “With recent developments in international climate change policy, the question is no longer if, but when the global carbon trading market will emerge. Rothschild Australia, through Carbon Ring, intends to be at the forefront of this market, providing private investment vehicles to companies seeking to offset their greenhouse gas emissions liabilities.”……

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    will gray

    OOTTTT>
    If you loss heart- Mr Chaplan will restore.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcvjoWOwnn4
    Its JUST WHAT U NEED.
    Cheers n thanks in advance.
    Will.

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    will gray

    Chaplin, and a C for Charlie.
    Will.

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    will gray

    Thats:
    Chaplin, and a C for Charlie.
    Will.

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    christophe

    Hi people.
    When I saw the adverts for the ABC programme I thought I may watch this. Nick Minchin was one of the voices of common sense regarding AGW when in office. When I then saw that they were having a panel , I immediately went “oh no….the great global warming swindle all over again ie a biased panel of fundamentalists”. I new what was to come and so I turned it off almost immediately. Sounds like I wasnt wrong then. I just listened to the Delingpole-Faine interview, and as usual the ABC is just doing what it stated it would do last year, ie not give any chance for any varying opinion to its funamentalist beliefs in AGW. I remember when they had there staff meeting with their governor, so to speak, and the staff refused to give any air to “deniers”….so this show was what they stated. Faine kept saying he was “only a interviewer” or somit. It was obvious what his view is.
    Also took that questionaire. Once again, the questions really paint you in a corner and unless your answers fall right into big greenie’s lap, they call yopu a denier.
    You can only deny something that has occured. You cant deny something that hasnt occured. Pisses me off.
    ….and sorry Jo I missed you when you and Antony Watts (and I think Bob Carter) came and spoke down at Narrogin about 18 nmonths ago now. I rang Janet Thompson to cancel at the time because I had almost been hospitalised with the flu and was spewing I could not make it (literally!).

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    FDink

    The real problem isn’t England. There will always be scientists who will subordinate science and truth to advancing their personal interests.

    The real problem is the ABC, which chronically violates its charter obligations for balance and to inform the public.

    Our next government needs to have the ABC ‘FIXED’.

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    Just brainstorming here for a second, let’s agree, for the sake of the argument, that the ocean does not show the predicted heat gain and neither do the land temperatures. Looking now at the proximal data on temperature change over tens of thousands of years, it appears that temperature change is often rather sudden. The proximal data (ice and sediment cores) suggests rather severe changes occur in as short as a decade. These records are likely to be blurred over time. For instance, there is still gas exchange in the top 70 or so meters of an ice sheet. Below that, the gas vesicles are sealed closed. So the temperature changes observed could likely occur over less than a decade. It seems unlikely that some sudden phenomenon has caused this sudden change. There are, for instance, few mechanisms for a sudden 50ppm increase in Carbon dioxide. It is more likely that this is a light-switch phenomenon. The climate is pushed and pushed, Giya fights back (negative feedbacks keep the temperature stable) but after enough push, the climate switches to a new state (like pushing on a spring loaded light switch). If there is any merit in this argument, the recent apparent lack of the predicted temperature change is a tad worrying. A gradual temperature rise in sinc with the predictions would get us doing something. The lack of correlation leaves us undecided and doing nothing. In the long run, perhaps a sudden change is what we need. It would be far more dramatic and hence more mobilizing that “the frog in the pot” Whatever the case, I think we are focusing on the wrong aspect of the problem of fossil fuel use. I say Forget climate change
    http://mtkass.blogspot.co.nz/2010/10/forget-climate-change.html

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    John from CA

    Sorry for the partially off topic post.

    I typically ignore conspiracy theories, ghost, and alien stories. They’re usually a complete waste of time but occasionally amusing. Amusing: read some of the comments to alien posts on youtube if you need a belly laugh.

    Any way, I ran across a comment on WUWT related to the US EPAs intrusion on farm practices and UN Agenda 21. So I did some additional reading on the not so “Smart Plans” in the US and discovered a site that follows the money all the way back to the UN. Apparently, US tax dollars are being diverted to support the UN Agenda 21 nonsense without the knowledge of the taxpayer and at a local community by community level in various States. The States are entrapped via funding incentives by our own Federal government.

    This is nuts in the US because it violates so many rights related to Property ownership etc. but it struck me that its very similar to what Australia is struggling with.

    Are your taxes being diverted to support UN programs without your knowledge? Are many of your Outcome based educational programs designed to undermine your rights?

    This is beyond tyrannical. Occupy the UN may be the next movement is this turns out to be true. Am I jumping the shark?

    Details:
    US DEMOCRATS AGAINST U.N. AGENDA  21
    http://www.democratsagainstunagenda21.com/

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      Rod Stuart

      Of course you are correct. Just note the quantity of ICLEI offices all over Australia. These use your tax dollars to convince local governments to prepare for Agenda 21.

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        John from CA

        This is crazy!

        ICLEI Australia
        Adelaide City Council
        Alice Springs Town Council
        Ashfield Municipal Council
        Australian Capital Territory Government
        Australian Local Government Association
        Ballarat City Council
        Bass Coast Shire Council
        Bega Valley Shire Council
        Benalla Rural City Council
        Berri Barmera Council
        Brisbane City Council
        Burwood Council
        Cairns Regional Council
        Cardinia Shire Council
        City of Boroondara
        City of Brimbank
        City of Bunbury
        City of Burnside
        City of Geraldton-Greenough
        City of Greater Geelong
        City of Greater Geralton
        City of Joondalup
        City of Kingston
        City of Lake Macquarie
        City of Mandurah
        City of Marion
        City of Melbourne
        City of Melville
        City of Norwood Payneham & St Peters
        City of Onkaparinga
        City of Perth
        City of Port Phillip
        City of South Perth
        City of Stirling
        City of Subiaco
        City of Sydney
        City of Vincent
        City of West Torrens
        City of Whitehorse
        City of Whittlesea
        City of Wodonga
        City of Yarra
        Clarence City Council
        Clarence Valley Council
        Coffs Harbour City Council
        Colac Otway Shire Council
        Devonport City Council
        District Council of Mount Barker
        District Council of the Copper Coast
        East Gippsland Shire Council
        Frankston City Council
        Fraser Coast Regional Council
        Gold Coast City Council
        Gosford City Council
        Hobart City Council
        Hobsons Bay City Shire Council
        Holroyd City Council
        Hunter’s Hill Council
        Kogarah Council
        Leichhardt Municipal Council
        Liverpool City Council
        Manningham City Council
        Maroondah City Council
        Mike Galea (EnvironArc Pty Ltd)
        Mildura Rural City Council
        Moira Shire Council
        Moorabool Shire Council
        Mornington Peninsula Shire
        Mosman Municipal Council
        Murrindindi Shire Council
        North Sydney Council
        Palerang Council
        Parramatta City Council
        Penrith City Council
        Richmond Valley Council
        Rural City of Wangaratta
        Shire of Augusta-Margaret River
        Shire of Dardanup
        Snowy River Shire Council
        Strathfield Municipal Council
        Sunshine Coast Regional Council
        Swan Hill Rural City Council
        The Barossa Council
        The City of Unley
        The Shire of Peppermint Grove
        Toowoomba City Council
        Town of Kwinana
        Townsville City Council
        Warrnambool City Council
        Wyndham City Council

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          MattB

          ICLEI programs that those LGs are involved in are totally innocuous FYI.

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            Dave

            .
            MattyB

            You say about ICLEI:

            they are totally innocuous FYI

            Doubtful!!

            China has one LG (if you could call it that)
            Shenyang, China

            Australia has:
            Adelaide City Council
            Alice Springs Town Council
            Ashfield Municipal Council
            Australian Capital Territory Government
            Australian Local Government Association
            Ballarat City Council
            Bass Coast Shire Council
            Bega Valley Shire Council
            Benalla Rural City Council
            Berri Barmera Council
            Brisbane City Council
            Burwood Council
            Cairns Regional Council
            Cardinia Shire Council
            City of Boroondara
            City of Brimbank
            City of Bunbury
            City of Burnside
            City of Geraldton-Greenough
            City of Greater Geelong
            City of Greater Geralton
            City of Joondalup
            City of Kingston
            City of Lake Macquarie
            City of Mandurah
            City of Marion
            City of Melbourne
            City of Melville
            City of Norwood Payneham & St Peters
            City of Onkaparinga
            City of Perth
            City of Port Phillip
            City of South Perth
            City of Stirling
            City of Subiaco
            City of Sydney
            City of Vincent
            City of West Torrens
            City of Whitehorse
            City of Whittlesea
            City of Wodonga
            City of Yarra
            Clarence City Council
            Clarence Valley Council
            Coffs Harbour City Council
            Colac Otway Shire Council
            Devonport City Council
            District Council of Mount Barker
            District Council of the Copper Coast
            East Gippsland Shire Council
            Frankston City Council
            Fraser Coast Regional Council
            Gold Coast City Council
            Gosford City Council
            Hobart City Council
            Hobsons Bay City Shire Council
            Holroyd City Council
            Hunter’s Hill Council
            Kogarah Council
            Leichhardt Municipal Council
            Liverpool City Council
            Manningham City Council
            Maroondah City Council
            Mike Galea (EnvironArc Pty Ltd)
            Mildura Rural City Council
            Moira Shire Council
            Moorabool Shire Council
            Mornington Peninsula Shire
            Mosman Municipal Council
            Murrindindi Shire Council
            North Sydney Council
            Palerang Council
            Parramatta City Council
            Penrith City Council
            Richmond Valley Council
            Rural City of Wangaratta
            Shire of Augusta-Margaret River
            Shire of Dardanup
            Snowy River Shire Council
            Strathfield Municipal Council
            Sunshine Coast Regional Council
            Swan Hill Rural City Council
            The Barossa Council
            The City of Unley
            The Shire of Peppermint Grove
            Toowoomba City Council
            Town of Kwinana
            Townsville City Council
            Warrnambool City Council
            Wyndham City Council

            How’s that for proportional representation by the voters?

            Spin me more facts MattyB – yours is there in BOLD

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            John from CA

            totally innocuous

            You have a point if it turns out to be true. The fact that USA taxpayers are unaware of UN related representatives in their community, are unaware of tax dollars used for dues to ICLEI, are unaware of Redevelopment Agencies that are abusing the use of eminent domain, are unaware of property taxes that are diverted away from government budgets, are unaware and never authorized the floating of Redevelopment bonds is, at best, a huge concern and, at worst, outright fraud.

            The thing I can’t figure out is why governments would be dumb enough to enact legislation from the UN. Aren’t our governments capable of better?

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          Peter Lang

          By the way, for those who criticise Lord Monkton, we do owe him an enormous debt of gratitude for exposing the World Government Agenda that was deeply buried in attachments to the Copenhagen agreement that luckily, did not get signed by world leaders. Monkton exposed that about a week before the Copenhagen meeting – just in time!!.

          Thank you Lord Monkton.

          And who believes the Greens are honest, good citizens?? Give me a break. It is them (and Labor) that are right behind this world government push; anti-democratic; EU bureaucracy, regulation and taxation on steroids.

          Thank you again Lord Monkton!

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    Hi Jo
    Great that the comments are moderated. You might be amused by this one.
    http://mtkass.blogspot.co.nz/2011/09/by-by-coral-atolls.html
    That was a great effort by Nick and Anna. We need more such debate. I was a tad disapointed by Anna arguing mainly, What if you are wrong and Nick Why should we disrupt our economy. Both are perfectly valid arguments but the exercise was supposed to be about convincing us that we are or are not causing climate change. I think it failed there.
    Glad I have found your blog
    William

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    Expect a visit from the Climate Cops!

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    Rod Stuart

    Jo Nova says “When will the warmists learn that the Internet makes it easy to check?”

    Did you ever wonder why the Red Queen is so intent on the broadband monopoly otherwise known as the NBN?

    Once she and the governor general’s son in law run the Internet in Australia, how readily available will alternate information be?

    Conroy already tried to stifle public opinion as they do in North Korea. He didn’t make it. But he is going to charge us suckers $50 billion to allow him the means.

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      Laurie Williams

      “Did you ever wonder why the Red Queen is so intent on the broadband monopoly otherwise known as the NBN?”

      As I figured out last year, and have said several times on this and other blogs, clearly the NBN is intended by Gillard and co to be abused as the National Blocking Network.

      IT people I have asked about this have said that if government wishes to censor the internet in Australia the new NBN will make it easier.

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      John Brookes

      Given a period of 6 weeks without home internet because of Telstra’s ownership of the copper wire network, all I can say is bring on the NBN.

      Censorship I don’t like, and hope that this has nothing to do with the NBN.

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        Ah John,

        roll on the NBN eh!

        Currently, I am on BigPond Elite Liberty (25GB) ADSL 2+.

        It has a speed of 100Mbps.

        It is more than adequate for what I require.

        I have been a Telstra Customer now since our phone was first put on in 1981.

        When I connected to the Internet in 1998, it was a dial up with Telstra.

        When ADSL came in, I stayed with Telstra.

        When BigPond came in, I moved across to that, and have upgraded twice.

        The above is what I have now, and oddly, there has actually been a benefit for me by staying with Telstra all that time.

        The cost of the platform I have is $69.95, but because of three benefits, including a loyalty benefit, the current cost is now $39.95, and has been for almost a year now.

        Oddly, when the NBN comes in, for me to have a similar platform, it will cost me around $79.95.

        I actually hope I can stay with what I have now, because that is $40 a month better in my pocket than the Government Monopoly that we may be forced onto.

        I’m not happy with what I have now, I’m overbloodyjoyed.

        If I have to pay double for what I am already getting now, I most certainly won’t be happy.

        People complain loudly that Telstra is a money grubbing Monopoly. Odd that they’re seeking to replace it with a …. money grubbing monopoly, only difference being that this one will have the government’s hands in the till.

        Tony.

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          Catamon

          Sad Tones!

          When NBN gets to me, based on current plans i’ll get 4 times my current speed and 25% more data and my home phone included for 5c less a month than i am paying now. 🙂

          Or i can get same but @ 8 times current speed for an extra $10/mth.

          NBN looks pretty good to me.

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            memoryvault

            .
            Where are you going to locate the UPS?
            The units supplied by the NBN are large, a cumbersome squat box shape, and come in every available shade of black.

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          Hmm!

          Apologies required here.

          Seniors moment I guess.

          I didn’t connect to the Internet until 2002.

          Tony.

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          Joe V.

          Is There any greater money grubbing monopoly than the Guvmint , Tony?

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          Simon Redfield

          Currently, I am on BigPond Elite Liberty (25GB) ADSL 2+.

          It has a speed of 100Mbps.

          ADSL2+ max speed is 24Mbps technically cant go any faster and that is fully dependent on length from exchange .. What you have is HFC Cable (Hybrid Fibre Coax) max speed 100Mbps … and upload is about 1.5 – 2Mbps

          NBN Max is 1Gbps or faster as Fibre Optic not HFC but we will see 100Mbps at present but the upload is 30Mbps that is where streaming etc.. will help

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    Ned

    “Satellite data works 24 /7, and covers the oceans, the surface data has many documented egregious flaws, ocean surfaces weren’t measured accurately til 2003. Land data is still not measured accurately/. Some data points are used to smooth records by 1200 km. There are hardly any stations on the poles in any case. 89% of surface stations in the US have documented siting problems. UHI is real and documented too. There is no competition. When the fans of surface data try to pretend it is not corrupted, they say “it matches the satellite record” — except that more and more, it doesn’t. – Jo”

    Weak as water Jo. And we all know what the upshot of the siting story was with our time wasting Watts once the (lets’ not mention it) analysis was done. The BEST outcome etc.

    The satellite data have many issues too. And isn’t it strange that all the ups and downs in that so-poor non-satellite data seems to be there in the land data too. Well correlated temporally in fact.

    The modelled warming is scaled against data that’s not satellite based. THE POINT ! Davey boy is simply doing sleight of hand. If you’re going to take the moral high ground be thorough.

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      Ned, to demonstrate just how different the satellite and heavily adjusted ground measurements are here are some direct comparisons for you to view:

      UAH vs RSS (both satellite): http://junksciencearchive.com/MSU_Temps/MSUvsRSS-m.html

      UAH vs NCDC: http://junksciencearchive.com/MSU_Temps/MSUvsNCDC.html

      UAH vs HadCRUT 3:http://junksciencearchive.com/MSU_Temps/MSUvsHadley.html

      UAH vs GISTEMP: http://junksciencearchive.com/MSU_Temps/MSUvsGISTEMP.html

      How interesting that the two satellite based systems are so close in results , but that all the “adjusted” ground based systems by comparison are showing various degrees of divergence as well as a continuous warming caused by those adjustments.

      So much for your statement:

      The satellite data have many issues too. And isn’t it strange that all the ups and downs in that so-poor non-satellite data seems to be there in the land data too. Well correlated temporally in fact.

      Point being that David Evans is not doing sleight of hand, but you are presenting misinformation.

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      Ned, yes, right of course, someone clustered those stations into special groups, did some tricky stats and showed that hot air doesn’t rise off concrete, that the airconditioners in 1920 were just like ones in 1990, that 2 square kilometers of asphalt at airports doesn’t absorb heat, and that when populations increase you really need to adjust the raw data …er… up.

      Oh, yes, and you try to pretend (just as I said you would) that because the ground stations are like the satellites they must be accurate, but then you don’t want me to use those satellites. Why? Could it be they aren’t the same, and you like the highly irregular, unaudited, very adjusted nature of the surface stations?

      C.mon Ned, is that the best you can do?

      “The modelled warming is scaled against data that’s not satellite based. ”

      Que? Isn’t the modeled warming scaled against the global temperatures?
      The satellite ones BTW ought to be higher than the surface remember. That’s what the models say.

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    Albert

    How do the warmists keep such straight faces when they lie?

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    memoryvault

    .
    Hi Will Gray.

    MV is alive and well but away on a contract (first time in nearly two years since the stroke), and so I can’t check some personal email accounts.

    Also opportunities for blogging are seriously curtailed when working 10 hours days.

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    James

    Mark D yes well why tell the truth when a lie will do. And as for saving the world, from who? And why do you need to be loose with the truth to do so.

    Or is it something else driving this agenda, it certainly is not Science.

    The basis of pure science is honesty and integrity, something that has been sadly lacking with the extremists.

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    Both in the field of Politics and in the field of Science the ABC is no longer a National Broadcaster, it has become a National Disgrace and a National Embarrassment.

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    Frankly Skeptic

    One of the problems with temperature records is that depending on the period you can get various results about the rate of change (the slope of a trend line) and even conclusions about the actual average temperature for a particular year.

    Going back even to 1900 does not avoid this problem. The longer the record the better chance you have of getting the long-term average rate.

    Most warmers (and many “climate scientists” and the IPCC) concentrate on the period from about 1970’s to the end of the 20th Century compare that with the CO2 record and conclude that the “accelerated rate” is obviously due to the increasing CO2 concentration and say it has warmed at least 0.9 degree C. Well yes and no.

    To see why you really need to go back much further in the temperature record to see the average temperature trend line.

    Is this possible? Yes it is for the Central England temperature record. It is the longest record available. Using this record we can go back more than 350 years from 1659 to the present.

    What does the record show?

    1. The long-term trend in temperature over 350 years using a linear (straight line fit) is a rate of warming of only 0.25 degree C per 100 years with temperature rise of 0.9 degree C over 350 years not just at the end of the 20th century.

    2. Why? Because there are periods of more rapid warming and cooling cycles during the 350 year period. For example from 1695 to 1736 (well before one could claim there was any human induced CO2 warming) the temperature rose at an average rate of 0.48 degree C per decade with an overall temperature increase of 2 deg C over this 42 year period. This is much greater than either the average rate or total temperature increase often quoted for the more recent period at the end of the 20th Century.

    3. These shorter periods of higher rates of increase are because one is observing the rising limbs of the temperature record together with also falling limbs of the record during cooling periods over the 350 years.

    4. And yes if we look at this temperature record from 1995 to 2010 the temperature has flat lined to a slight decrease over this period – It appears that the temperature is at the “top” of the warming/cooling cycle.

    5. The conclusion from this record is that the rate of warming is neither great nor catastrophic and given the rise has occurred well before industrial activity and from a more than the 400-year “Little Ice Age” there is nothing in the record that validates a CO2 cause. Prof Lindzen has stated he has been looking for a CO2 fingerprint for more than 40 years and has not found it. This temperature record certainly does not disagree with that conclusion.

    So do I agree there has been some warming due to CO2. Well maybe, but in the overwhelming volumes of the natural CO2 cycle (compared to human emissions) the evidence for this is not apparent. But what about the increasing CO2 record from Hawaii? Is that not evidence of human caused CO2 increase? Well not necessarily. The conclusion is based on the C13 isotope that is decreasing in the atmosphere that the “climate scientists” say is due to fossil fuel burning emissions. Well Prof Salby dismisses this and has indicated that C13 (that occurs naturally in plants) can decrease simply because the temperature is slowly increasing. So no it’s not certain at all. Temperature increase can for example cause out-gassing of CO2 from the surrounding ocean – not surprising given the sampling location in the middle of the tropical Pacific Ocean.

    The science is definitely not settled!

    My qualifications. B.Sc. M.App.Sc. PhD.

    (PS I tried to insert the temp graph but it did not work!)

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    chestdocmd

    Sorry to post this here but I am finding it real hard to find out anything about Keith Briffa’s academic creditials. Where did he go to college and what is his PHD in?

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      Graeme No.3

      Good question.

      “Another puzzler is Keith Briffa of Univ. of East Anglia, whose online bios skirt the question of what his academic background is..”

      “Keith Briffa is a Professor at the Climatic Research Unit, University of … He was educated in Holland, Indonesia, Namibia and Australia.” Unfortunately this wasn’t confirmed on that site, so no idea if accurate.

      Interests: Geophysics, Climate Research, Geology (interests suggest may have done geology first).

      He is referred to variously as Doctor and Professor over the years. Since he was born 1952 and started at CRU in 1977, he either did a PhD elsewhere or undertook one at UEA. It may be that his reticence is not the lack of qualifications, but that they are not “recognised” by UEA.

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      Mark D.

      Chestdoc, that’s a great avatar you’ve got!

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      Graeme No.3

      chestdocmd

      Briffa, K.R. got his PhD at the CRU in 1984.
      Thesis Tree-climate relationships and dendroclimatological reconstruction in the British Isles

      Supervisor was Prof. T.M.L. Wigley, the Director at that time.

      http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/pubs/thesis/

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    Bob Malloy

    For what it’s worth, just took the ABC survey, 50% Dismissive, 9% Doubtful.

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    Barry

    As you would expect, the ABC asks a lot of deceptive questions in their survey, the most obvious being that they do not consistently distinguish between human-induced warming and natural variation. But the ones that got me were the questions about whether ‘warming’ was causing harm. I had to answer ‘yes’ to those as I am paying an unnecessary penalty for the renewable energy targets and will pay a greater penalty from 1 July when the Gillard/Brown carbon dioxide tax hits us.

    Incidentally, I recall a couple of years ago the ABC fawning all over one of the kiddies from the AYCC who was ‘crying at the bus stop’ about all the ‘things we would lose’ because of global warming. Considering all of the recent reports debunking alarmists’ claims about Armageddon, does the AYCC resile from its alarmism about the loss of Kakadu, the Reef and so on?

    Perhaps, Jo Nova, it would be interesting to profile alarmists, just as the Left like to profile sceptics. You could start by looking at attention seeking behaviour.

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      Laurie Williams

      It is deceptive. It’s set up to make anyone who has not fallen for the global warming hoax seem inconsistent and therefore irrational.

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    manalive

    Jo and Matthew England may be at cross purposes here.
    To Matthew facts are irrelevant, graphs a distraction from the narrative.
    There was an episode of the BBC series In Our Time a couple of months ago on the Scientific Method in which one of the participants, a tenured academic, one Simon Schaffer (Cambridge & much beloved by the BBC luvvies) in his summing-up made the extraordinary statements (paraphrasing):
    ‘.. that there are different scientific methods exercised in different branches of science, that the “ever pressing” presence of science in questions of public policy and “progress” make questions of what the appropriate methods are and where trust and authority shall be vested most important now…..and how we make stories about the world that compel seem the most crucial for us…’.
    Thankfully the final word was left to John Worrall (LSE surprisingly)) who thought that there was only one scientific method and the search for truth, or “approximate truths”, was still at the root of all sciences — forming hypotheses based on observation and testing them.

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    brc

    One thing that bothers me is the IPCC language around the original forecast. Basically it says ‘from pre-industrial levels’.

    We know from the earliest temperature records that ‘pre industrial times’ (let’s assume < 1850) were a time of brutal cold winters and cool summers.

    THe implication is that industrialisation has caused the temperature to warm. Nobody seems to stop and think – maybe industrialisation is a result of warmer temperatures? Industrialisation was only possible when there was excess savings to invest into speculative and productive industry. Excess savings are only possible when a society runs a surplus, which is only possible in a favourable climate.

    If you take out the arbitary starting date (no doubt chosen not by coincedence but by deliberate choice) then much of the temperature rise is gone.

    All I'm saying is that, right from the start, the debate was framed in language that painted man as the villian. The IPCC could have simply said '1850' instead of 'pre-industrial'.

    As for Anna Rose – yet another squawking self-important undergraduate who will never mentally graduate from school thinking. I hope she does a lot more TV – she does the warming case no justice at all.

    The good thing about all this idiocy by foolish young advocates like Rose and Sheikh is that they create a rich recruitment ground for conservative politics. A lot of the current crop of recently retired conservative politicians (think senior ministers from the Howard era) were all inspired to join politics because of the struggle against socialism and the soviets. A lot of the Labor senior people came to politics because of their love of socialism.

    Conservative politics needs a bunch of noisy idiots trying to implement socialism by stealth or force in order to recruit young people into its ranks. I'm sure the past 3/4 years of idiocy at Federal levels has bolstered not only the coffers, but more importantly the ranks of conservative parties everywhere.

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      Juliar

      You’ve mentioned one of the big reasons why I would like to go into Politics in the future.

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      brc,

      You’re wrong. Anna Rose is a graduate. With degrees in Law and Arts but certainly doesn’t appear to be well-read in the latter. e.g. totally missed out on understanding Dorothea Mackellar’s poem “My Country” before “connecting the dots” to associate a drought on her grandfather’s farm with “climate change”.

      IMHO, she also doesn’t appreciate the Law, especially the Laws relating to defamation. I’d love to see here presentation of evidence before a court were she to insist that the judge Google for the proof. (vis her “proof” in the documentary that Marc Morano lies. She asked the viewer to judge by finding evidence to support Anna’s accusations; Anna didn’t offer a single example.) Being an activist doesn’t excuse one from the rule of law.

      Education doesn’t lead to wisdom.

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      John Brookes

      THe implication is that industrialisation has caused the temperature to warm. Nobody seems to stop and think – maybe industrialisation is a result of warmer temperatures? Industrialisation was only possible when there was excess savings to invest into speculative and productive industry. Excess savings are only possible when a society runs a surplus, which is only possible in a favourable climate.

      So why did industrialisation take hold in cold grey England and not sunny Spain, Italy or Greece?

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        Graeme No.3

        The quote answers that.
        In the late seventeenth century England, Holland and France were the richest countries, particularly the last.
        The French adopted a centralised (state directed) economy, which decided what would be invested and where. Combined with a series of wars (most of which they “won”) this led to stagnation in the eighteenth century. The Mississippi bubble in 1717-20 left an aversion (and ban) of paper money, and exorbitant taxation (of the producing class) slowed credit and economic growth. The law was arbitrary (Letter of Cachet etc.) and unfairly applied.

        The Dutch were affected by various wars, with higher taxation to pay for them, so increasingly surplus capital was invested in England.

        The Bank of England issued a strong paper currency, and credit was fairly easy. The trade balance was positive (see the results of the East India Co.). Taxation was low, despite squeals and above all, the rule of law was increasingly applied fairly. Also the climate was improving, which helped agriculture (Townsend’s turnips led to a big change there too). You could invest and reap a reward.

        Contrast this with the politically correct approach today which claims we “need” a centralised State (or even International) direction and higher taxes to support state directed investment.

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        Ippy

        Its simple. England had at surface, coal, iron ore, water and a labour force in close proximity – those other countries did not. Simple economics.

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    Rod Stuart

    Jo Nova says “When will the warmists learn that the Internet makes it easy to check?”

    And on Monday you will start hearing about legislation derived from the newspeak report of Mr. Ray Finklestein.

    Finkydinky says that the media are too heavily biased AGAINST THE ALARMISTS, and that justifies the end of free speech in Australia. He proposes a panel of idiots to monitor everything that is published, including that which is blogged, and kill free speech with massive fines.

    We really need to stand up and be counted before it is too late, if it isn’t already.

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    […] who happened conveniently to have already been given a lapel microphone.  Jo Nova gives a brilliant account of the ABC perfidy. To compound it all, Tony Jones’ collusion is amusing when he pretends to wait for a […]

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    Catamon

    Correlation is not causation!

    A statement obviously true within limits, much over used, and seemingly adopted by the more simple minded in the skeptic community as a mantra.

    To paraphrase a line iv’e seen elsewhere:

    It can however be a be a big flashing sign with pointer and lit up bits saying ” You may want to look over here dipsh#t and have a think about what this might mean!!!”

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      KeithH

      A wonderful scientific contribution Cat but you shouldn’t be so hard on yourself in the name-calling department. However, you being a self-titled dipsh#t (and I’m reluctantly using your own words) to whom the correlation has been “a big flashing sign with pointer and lit up bits saying ” You may want to look over here dipsh#t and have a think about what this might mean!!! – tell us what a gentle slow rise in temperature (interspersed with a few “falls” despite relatively constant rising CO2) after a Little ice Age followed by a lagged rise in levels of CO2 mean to you, always assuming of course, that you really have had a good “think about it”.

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    KeithH

    Frankly Skeptic @ 57 prompted me to look through my “favourites” list and this one shows the raw data charts from some of the oldest sites; Copenhagen, Washington DC, New York City, Minneapolis, Geneva, St.Petersburg, Berlin and the oldest – Central England Composite. As Sunset Tommy comments(tongue in cheek I’m sure): “Overwhelming evidence supports AGW but the oldest thermometer records do not? Hmmm…

    http://www.globalwarmingskeptics.info/thread-188-page-2.html

    More Historical Temperatures – Graphs and Charts

    http://www.c3headline.com/temperature-charts-historical-proxies.html

    It’s a shame our new troll Deniersareliars seems to have disappeared as I’m sure he/she would be interested in more charts other than 1990 – still denying of course but interested never-the-less! He/she is obviously not paid to work on Saturdays.

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    Say,

    as (some of) you may be aware, I have a deep and abiding love of, and interest in, music. Having come up through the 60’s and 70’s especially, I am from that era when music really started to spread, and be aware, as I am, that every generation thinks it was they who invented music. Coming through that era especially, I have a wonderful collection of around 450 or so Vinyls, LP’s, and when the LP passed into (almost) obscurity, I have added to that collection with more than 100 CD’s.

    Andrew Bolt has a Post today that is titled ‘Crisis, what Global Warming crisis?’

    The first thing I thought of was where the clever title originated, and that was from an album by that legendary British super group, Supertramp, titled Crisis? What Crisis?

    It’s one of four of their albums I have, the best of which is Breakfast In America.

    So, obscurely some of you may think, what has this Crisis album even the slightest to do with the debate on Climate Change.

    I pulled the album out when reminded by the Bolt Post, something I haven’t done for years.

    The cover immediately came to stark relief.

    Keep in mind that this album was produced in 1975, and trust me, the title was the best thing about the album.

    Just look at the following image of the album cover, and this was in 1975.

    Crisis? What Crisis?

    Tony.

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    Skitz

    I too have just completed the survey – it’s not looking too flash for the warmists with 51% dismissive. Not a bad result considering how utterly biased the ABC program was. ABC (Always Biased Crap)

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    Bob Malloy

    When you run out of people to blame, blame Columbus for the little ice age.

    MINNEAPOLIS — By sailing to the New World, Christopher Columbus and other explorers who followed him may have set off a chain of events that cooled Europe’s climate.

    The European conquest of the Americas decimated the people living there, leaving large areas of cleared land untended. Trees that filled in this territory pulled billions of tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, Stanford University geochemist Richard Nevle reported October 11 at the Geological Society of America annual meeting. Such carbon dioxide removal could have diminished the heat-trapping capacity of the atmosphere and cooled the climate, Nevil and his colleagues have previously reported.

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      Graeme No.3

      Sounds like Nevle/Nevil doesn’t know any history. The Little Ice Age started around 1280 (famines in Iceland and one in Britain claiming 5-10% of the population), although the real rough stuff didn’t start until 1312-1318.

      What evidence is there of re-afforestation after European conquest? He must be claiming an 80 year lag because the late sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries were the coldest times. But cold seas would dissolve more CO2, so you don’t need a “trees growing more in colder times” type explanation.

      I am not sure of his surname, but Richard is definitely part of what he should be called.

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    Rod Stuart

    I have always fiercely objected when people label me a “skeptic”. Skepticism infers doubt. I have never for a moment doubted that the leftist warmist claptrap is baloney.

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    Rod Stuart

    Hang on a cotton picking minute here folks. This is all wonderful logic, but it is in fact much simpler. The hypothesis advanced by the warmists is that anthropgenic global warming is caused by carbon dioxide whose origin is fossil fuel combustion. Any scientist knows that an hypothesis can only advance to become a theory if it not possible to debunk the hypotheis. One perfect example is when Hitler produced an article claiming “101 scientists disagree with Einstein”. Albert just shrugged and said “Why 101? IF I were wrong, one would be plenty”. Since even the high priests like Phil Jones and Michael Mann admit that there is no warming, so therefore the hypothesis is garbage.
    All of this is only smoke and mirrors to hide the real threat to civilisation, which is enslavement of the sheeple through the New World Order. Expending precious energy to discuss a thousand an one reasons that CO2 has nothing to do with it is playing right into the hands of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Club of Rome, the Trilateral Commission, and the Bilderberg society.

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    Jo asks:

    When will the warmists learn that the Internet makes it easy to check?

    Because the sceptics will check, by which time the warmists will have run away – often with some of the money.

    A side-effect is that the sceptic looks “incompetent” to the layman because “sceptics have to look things up”. The layman doesn’t understand that science advances only through doubt in the status quo and that real scientists always have doubts.

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    Terry R

    A few Obsevations in regards to the ABC “If I could change your Mind Doco.
    The intervied scientist in Hawaii is asked “were heading towards CO2 being 400ppm, has the enviroment ever faced these percentages?
    He sternly states – Not in the last ONE million years! Wow !
    Then what about the previous THREE THOUSAND million years?
    I believe it was either Bob Carter or Ian Pilmer who stated that if you were to look back in time the earth’s atmosphere now is “Carbon Starved”.
    Nobody picked up that correlation doesn’t mean causation. Temperature rise for whatever reason may be causing CO2 levels to rise as it’s historically always done, not the other way round.
    And whats with the homes in the sea angle- I beleive you would call that natural erosion- sad – but so what?

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    Anastasios Manolakis

    Joanna Nova as you are always right and never wrong.

    Can you explain how Minchin and Abbott misplaced $51 billion Dollars from the Future Fund.

    And where the $60 Million dollars is held; Defrauded from the SA Public Hospitals by John Howard, Alexander Downer and Dean Brown.

    Australia really wants to know why they have been ripped off by Abbott,Minchin, Howard, Downer and the Liberal Party.

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      memoryvault

      .
      Right on, alphabet!
      And this is relevant to the current thread exactly how?

      If you’re trying to tell us that the LIBS-NATS are as big a bunch of opportunistic, snout-in-the-trough liars and cheats as the LABOR – Greens mongrels, then trust me, here you are largely preaching to the converted.

      So your point is . . . .

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      Kevin Moore

      http://barnabyisright.com/

      One of the themes we have long followed here at barnabyisright.com is this blogger’s conviction that Australians will inevitably be caught up in the wave of government theft of citizens’ superannuation that has been slowly but surely sweeping the Western world since the GFC.

      Indeed, as we have documented many times, the tide has already gone out in preparation for the big wave’s arrival on our shores, with Labor having quietly implemented a sneaky Liberal party policy aiming to direct your employer to send your future super payments to a special new department at the ATO, not directly to your super fund.

      We have previously seen that PM-in-waiting Bill Shorten, Minister for Superannuation, has described Australians’ $1.3 Trillion in individual superannuation savings as “our sovereign wealth fund”, a “significant national asset”.

      In today’s Australian newspaper, we learn that Shorten is off to Israel to meet and greet, and investigate the Israeli superannuation fund industry.

      Your humble blogger’s sceptical eyebrow was raised sharply on noting that, while the emphasis of the story is that, purportedly, Bill is visiting Israel “to examine ways for the retirement savings system to help kick-start the Australian venture capital business” – a disturbing development in its own right – Bill’s spokeswoman let a very different kind of cat out of the bag:

      SOME of the leading figures in the multi-trillion-dollar superannuation sector will join federal Financial Services Minister Bill Shorten on a visit to Israel later this week as the government examines ways for the retirement savings system to help kick-start the Australian venture capital business.

      Joining Mr Shorten on the visit will be Australian Prudential Regulation Authority deputy chairman Ross Jones, MLC chief executive Steve Tucker and Challenger Group retirement income chairman Jeremy Cooper, author of the contentious Cooper Report on the superannuation sector.

      During the visit, co-ordinated by the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce and the Israeli embassy, the group will meet executives of leading Israeli financial services companies, including its largest insurance group, Migdal, and fellow insurer Clal Insurance Enterprise Holdings.

      It will also meet officials of the Capital Market, Insurance, and Savings Department, which supervises insurance and the long-term savings market.

      Mr Shorten is also planning one-on-one meetings with Bank of Israel governor Professor Stanley Fischer, chief scientist Avi Hasson and Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

      “The chamber is very excited about the Shorten-led trade mission,” said AICC chairman Paul Israel, who is based in Tel Aviv. “For the first time Australian pension funds will be exposed to the vibrant and innovative Israeli venture capital and hi-tech scene.”

      Mr Israel said the week-long trade mission would investigate how Israel — with 7.2 million people, a third of the size of Tasmania, 60 per cent desert, only 63 years old with limited natural resources — had produced more start-ups than large, peaceful and stable nations such as Japan, India, Korea, Canada, Britain and Australia.

      It would look at Israel’s superannuation, tax reform, venture capital and seed fund models, as well as its innovation and entrepreneurship culture, he said.

      A spokeswoman for Mr Shorten said it was important that super funds looked beyond traditional assets classes and the government was keen to remove investment barriers to them.

      She said the trip was designed to improve Australian super funds’ understanding of Israel as an investment destination, particularly in light of the strong venture capital sector there.

      Hold on. Wasn’t the purpose of the trip to examine “ways for the retirement savings system to help kick-start the Australian venture capital business”?

      Mr Shorten also hopes Australian super funds can get an understanding of how Israel’s pension funds go about investing in innovative and early stage companies.

      “Innovative” and “early stage”.

      That is bankster and speculator code for “high risk”.

      Given the volatility on global share markets, and the parlous state of the global economy, one wonders why any responsible politician would be interested in finding ways to direct their citizens’ retirement savings into high risk start-up ventures.

      In Australia … or Israel.

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      Llew Jones

      “Australia really wants to know why they have been ripped off by Abbott,Minchin, Howard, Downer and the Liberal Party.’

      Australia? Which Australians? Surely not the majority who want to kick this gaggle of incredibly dumb ex union thugs out and install a Howard protege, called Abbot?

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    Todd

    I was there too and Simon Sheik was talking to that expert who spoke near the end (the bald one). This wasn’t an expert of scientific reasoning, it was a token expert with political affiliation.

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    Afizzyfist

    61% Australians do not believe in AGW so Politicians take note! This will probably increase with time only 3600 votes so far. So ther you go the program actually made more people dismissive of it
    http://www.abc.net.au/tv/changeyourmind/inc/vote_central_results.htm

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      Ross James

      Afizzyfist

      Watts Up got this thing going with spamming the ABC result. Just take a look at what he did not say but still incited action on this USA web site. The results are stacked and not representative of Australians at all.

      “We’ll show them…….”…and they turned up vote distortions in their hundreds, if not thousands.

      Don’t play the innocent card here and think it did not happen – it did. Watts Up web site had no right to stick their noise in that vote intended as a poll for fellow Australians. It is unethical tactics and highlights the lengths a certain sector that plays the underdog. Poor me. We do not get funded. For crying out get with the program people. Talk to to the real scientist’s who are trying to tell you it’s really happening.

      That is all AGW supporters ask of you. I don’t accept this wild claim that everyone in Government employ is corrupted who produces stuff opposed to you. It is plain nonsensical generalisation and belongs to dictatorship resultant style opinion pieces. This simply is tarring thousands of scientists as liars. Has it ever occurred to you people that Jo and David may have painted themselves into a corner by cutting off from too much of the mainstream science?

      I challenge David Evans to obtain emails of the ten top climate climatologists whom he thinks are corrupt and submit his findings to scrutiny and publish those responses.

      Ross J.

      —————————
      Ross, I am so incredibly sorry that our team has played games with a government funded poll that was unscientific, asked loaded questions, was never going to be used to inform policy, and basically, wow, might have mucked up their chances to use it to screw extra funding out of the government for a part II junket. The shame.
      Still haven’t found that evidence eh? – Jo

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        Matt Bennett

        Ross, what evidence is Jo challenging you to produce here?

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        Peter Lang

        Ross James,

        The ABC Q&A poles like the one referred to here – called “I can change your mind about Climate” http://www.abc.net.au/tv/changeyourmind/survey/ – are used by ABC to select an audience for the Q&A session. ABC want participants who are gullible and can be persuaded by the government propoganda (The ABC in Australia is a government owned web site and dominated by far left ideology. It is Australia’s version of Pravda).

        Almost all their shows, their “news” reporting, and their web sites (e.g ABC the Drum) are dominated by Left ideologues. Most of their polls like this one are swamped by input from Left ideologues, supporters of the Greens and Labor, supporters of climate catastrophe, CO2 taxes and renewwable energy no matter what the cost.

        By the latest figures on the poll (which probably is representative because the contributors from USA would not balance the ABC supporters’ contributions) are:
        http://www.abc.net.au//tv/changeyourmind/inc/vote_central_results.htm
        Dismissive 51%
        Alarmed 22%
        Concerned 13%
        Doubtful 9%
        Cautious 4%
        Disengaged 1%
        4725 votes counted

        So, still 60% Dissmisive and Doubtful, versus 35% Alarmed and Concerned.

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        Peter Lang

        Ross James,

        You challenged David Evans with this:

        I challenge David Evans to obtain emails of the ten top climate climatologists whom he thinks are corrupt and submit his findings to scrutiny and publish those responses.

        May I assist?

        Tome22.info http://tome22.info/ has a wealth of information that can help you to answer questions like this. To answer this question go to the “Research” tab then click on Persons “Summary”:

        You will see that the top climatologists ordered by number of emails involved in Climategate, HockeyTeam, CRU, UKMO, IPCC, etc are:
        Jones
        Briffa
        Osborne
        Mann
        Hulme
        Overpeck
        Wigley
        Jansen
        Trenberth
        Santer

        The Tome22.info site cuts and dices the masses of information from the IPCC documents, IAC report, AAS Q&A, persons, countries, organisations, journals, etc in just about any way you will want to answer whatever question you come up with.

        Spend some time learning how to get the info you want from the site.

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    Ned

    Climate Observor – what rubbish. Of course the “two” satellite systems are similar – they’re using the same data. As for other differences why don’t you do the most minimal of research as to the differences. You’d have to be desperate to think the satellite represent some sort of absolute truth

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    Joe V.

    Seeing the clip with self styled Naomi Oreske, this series does come across as, lets be nice to those deniers, offering them therapy, before getting the electrodes out.

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      Joe V.

      I watched One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest for the first time last weekend, Milos Forman’s 70’s film with Jack Nicholson.
      A brilliant depiction of what’s to come, for those ‘deniers’ who don’t “get it”, or so they’d like you to think.

      It should be compulsory viewing for all persistent ‘deniers’. 😉

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    Asperamanka

    I’d like to find the black line temperature graph in David Evans’ figure 4 on the NASA web site. I found plenty of temperature graphs there, and at the B.E.S.T. study, but none of them look quite like figure 4. There’s lot of stuff on those web sites and I clicked on a lot of links, but I must have missed it. Then I realised that David probably has it at his finger tips.

    Jo, would you please post a link.

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      See The Skeptics Case by David Evans. (Look under his name in the index of my site).
      The temps came from UAH – using NASA satellites. You won’t find the temps on the NASA site. If you googled UAH data you’d probably get it TLT – temp lower troposphere.

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    David T

    I’m hoping we might see you or David Evans on the Bolt Report one day. I’m confident that Andrew would give you a very fair hearing as he also is a critic of the green crap being served up by Flannery and others.

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    David T

    Snow arrives in Mt Buller, Mt Hotham and Fall Creek 2 months early despite the CSIRO predicting in 2003 that these venues could loose a quarter of their snow in 15 years and half of their snow by 2050.

    This would have been the perfect venue to host Q and A last Thursday.

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      Matt Bennett

      WHEN will you get it?! Weather, with all its little oddities, is NOT climate. It can snow at Mt Buller at Christmas – it would would have NOTHING to do with the validity of AGW theories.

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    pete50

    The Warmistanis are about as likely to admit they are wrong as the average proponent of ‘Creationist science’.

    There is one plus that follows from their lies and warped concept of reality. The mindless media promotion of the warmist position enables the rational members of the citizenry to see for themselves the kind of arguments that the Government use to support their carbon tax.

    The more the ABC supports the warmist rubbish, the wider the word is spreading.

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    Peter Lang

    ABC Survey – “I can change your mind about climate

    People are still voting on the ABC Q&A. I’ve been watching the total number of votes and it has increased by about 1000 in the past day or so. Also, it seems like the proportions are being changes as if the ABC and Greens may have rounded up supporters to vote on it. Perhaps, it needs ongoing atention from climate realists 🙂

    Latest results are here:
    Dismissive 51%
    Alarmed 22%
    Concerned 13%
    Doubtful 9%
    Cautious 4%
    Disengaged 1%
    4496 votes counted
    http://www.abc.net.au//tv/changeyourmind/inc/vote_central_results.htm

    Vote here: http://www.abc.net.au/tv/changeyourmind/survey/

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    “I stand by my statements on Q&A. Jo Nova’s error is that she pulls out IPCC projections to 2100, quoted in degs C per decade, not acknowledging that the projected warming at the start of the century will be slower than the more rapid climb at the end of the Century. I also noticed that Jo plots a satellite record of tropospheric temperature, not the surface layer temperature. So she shows an apples vs. oranges comparison.

    To read more IPCC projections and observations, see http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/02/2011-updates-to-model-data-comparisons/

    In regards to the 40% increase in atmospheric CO2 since pre-industrial levels, this is widely accepted even by those against the IPCC science. The natural fluxes of CO2 between the ocean-atmosphere-land has been perturbed by human activity so that CO2 is now around 390ppm in the atmosphere. The cause of this +40% rise is burning of fossil fuels with a smaller contribution from land clearing. We have in fact done more than enough to account for the +40% increase – three times more. Currently the oceans absorb about a third of our emissions, and the land surface another third. Without these buffers atmospheric CO2 would be much much higher than it is today.

    I hope this helps.

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      John Brookes

      Thanks Matthew.

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      Rod Stuart

      In other words, you think that the concentration of CO2 has increased, and absolutely nothing has happened, so therefore the whole fairy tale about the dangers of CO2 are as real as Santa Claus or the tooth fairy. I think you’re on our team!

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      Mick Buckley

      Prof England’s point is illustrated by the graph in the IPCC report just below the words excerpted by Jo Nova.

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      First of all, full kudos to the activist professor for taking the time to defend his stance by commenting here.

      The discussion is about the IPCC projections from 22 years ago, as you acknowledged during Q&A thus…

      “The projections are now 22 years old….”

      Therefore your link to the RealClimate article about more recent projections (plus the 1988 James Hansen projections which they acknowledge were too high) is irrelevant and diverts from the topic at hand.

      Secondly, defending the claim you made on Q&A with a statement that you stand by it is no defence, it’s just standing your ground.
      One would have expected some evidence backing up your claim, you have no time constraints on this blog as you may have had on Q&A.

      For example, do you dispute the IPCC claim that the rate of increase of global mean temperature would be 0.3DegC and that by 2025 the globe should warm by 1DegC above present (1990) value?

      You claim the projected warming at the start of the century will be slower than the rapid climb at the end of the century. How does that change the IPCC claim that the planet should have warmed by 0.3DegC per decade and that by 2025 it should be 1DegC warmer than 1990?
      Are you insinuating that the IPCC wasn’t aware of the more rapid warming by the end of the century hypothesis? Surely they took that into account when making their projections of 0.3DegC per decade and 1degC by 2025?

      Your apples and oranges statement doesn’t stand. We are talking about RATES OF WARMING. The tropospheric temperatures should be warming at least at the same or higher rate than the surface warming. Do you dispute this? If so, what evidence have you?

      In regards to the 40% increase in atmospheric CO2 since pre-industrial levels, this is widely accepted even by those against the IPCC science.

      So what? Where is your empirical evidence that this 40% increase is the source of most of the warming? Do you have any evidence or are you repeating the claims of computer modellers? You work in the field of science (I claim you are not a real scientist), therefore you would/should know that computer outputs are NOT empirical evidence. useful tools they are, EVIDENCE THEY ARE NOT. Do you dispute this? Do you regard computer outputs as empirical evidence?

      I hope this helps.

      I’m sorry but it hasn’t helped at all. You haven’t provided any evidence whatsoever to back-up the claims you made on Q&A. I acknowledge that on a TV show, one doesn’t have limitless time to present everything one would like to present. But here you are on a blog, here you have limitless time and column inches to present all the evidence you need to, to back-up your television show claims, so lets have it…please.

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        Ippy

        Baa Humbug, I agree and also welcome the comments by Matthew England (ME). To elaborate on the James Hansen’s temperature predictions of 1988, as ME also said during Q&A that these predictions were coming true, look at the graph given on the website address supplied by ME. They corroborate well with CO2 having no discernible effect on global temperatures.

        Hansen assumed three scenarios of man-made CO2 emissions for his computer models:

        A had an increasing rate of CO2 emissions (actual)- with 2012 temperatures around 0.6C higher than today
        B had constant rate of CO2 emissions – with 2012 temperatures around 0.5C higher than today
        C had reduced CO2 emissions rate from 1988 levels into the future – with 2012 temperatures about the same as today.

        Only scenario C temperature predictions came close to the real world- and I do not believe CO2 emissions declined below 1988 levels.

        The conclusion from James Hansen’s temperature/CO2 predictions and reality has to be that man-made CO2 has had no discernible effect on global temperatures up to today.

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      Joe V.

      Thankyou to the good Professor for responding and attempting to clarify his position.
      A plug to RealClimate ‘though, from a Real Scientist ( would that be a Real Climate Scientist I wonder ) ? Matthew seems like a regular bloke. It’s just a pity he got sucked up in this Climate stuff.

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      Jo Nova’s error is that she pulls out IPCC projections to 2100, quoted in degs C per decade, not acknowledging that the projected warming at the start of the century will be slower than the more rapid climb at the end of the Century.

      I quoted the IPCC word for word. They said 0.3 per decade, and 1C by 2025.

      I also noticed that Jo plots a satellite record of tropospheric temperature, not the surface layer temperature. So she shows an apples vs. oranges comparison.

      Since satellites record air above the surface, and models predict that that air ought to be warming faster than the surface, shouldn’t the UAH record be a slight overestimate of what is really going on at the surface?

      In any case, the satellites are clearly more accurate, more comprehensive, and more reliable. When fans of surface stations want to convince us they are a reasonable record, they always remind us how similar the surface and satellite records are. But when they want to point out the world is warming quickly, they always “prefer” the highly adjusted surface record to the satellites.

      In any case, I have written more on this topic here http://joannenova.com.au/2012/05/the-ipcc-1990-far-predictions-were-wrong/#comment-1056875

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    Popeye

    @ John Brookes, Mick Buckly, Matt Bennet,

    Firstly – John Brookes – we ALL hide behind pseudonyms here but none SPEW scares like warmists do (I hope none of you are teachers). There is absolutely NO WAY that you can prove to me that John Brookes is your REAL name or anybody else’s is.

    Secondly – NOT ONE OF YOU have been able to refute my point in relation to increased plant growth taking up the extra CO2 (manmade) in the atmosphere. The earth is a balanced system – figure it out – it’s why we are still here and can have this “discussion”!!

    Thirdly – I NEVER said that the levels of CO2 in earth’s atmosphere would reach 5,000ppm. I provided a link to what is considered safe for human habitation (in an enclosed room etc) – there is NOT ENOUGH fossil fuels on earth to raise CO2 levels to 5,000ppm – see here from a “green” site – to quote ” The back-of-the-envelope calculations above fall in the middle of IPCC projections for future CO2 concentrations, some of which are as high as 1,000 ppm.”

    Come on – I’ll give you all a second chance in the same post:

    “Excess CO2 does NOT accumulate. What ACTUALLY happens with increased CO2 concentration is that TREES, PLANTS, GRASS ETC increase their growth rate and suck up all that lovely CO2 and grow FASTER, BIGGER, QUICKER on LESS water than they previously did.

    Just like what happens in a REAL greenhouse!” I WONDER WHY????”

    I’ll be waiting patiently.

    I also note Truthseekers comments in relation to lower levels of CO2 – none of you have given a reasonable response to that either.

    What EXACTLY should we be aiming at as a correct and PERFECT level of CO2 (and temperature)? You should be all intelligent enough to answer such a SIMPLE question!!

    Cheers,

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      Mick Buckley

      Popeye. I’ll answer a few points if I can and make some comments.

      On the pseudonyms thing. Just where is you headspace if you think it’s impossible for someone to prove what their name is? I have a birth certificate with my name on it (actually Michael Buckley). If I came to your house and showed it to you would you believe me? Please think carefully before replying.

      You say that plant growth will take up the extra CO2 (manmade) in the atmosphere. My first point is, great you have acknowledged that there is excess CO2 in the atmosphere and it is manmade. My second point is, yes plant growth and the oceans does take up some of the excess, manmade CO2, but not all of it. The answer is actually given in this thread at comment #85 above, by a climate scientist with humdreds of scientific papers to his name.

      We [human activity] have in fact done more than enough to account for the +40% increase [in CO2 since pre-industrial times] – three times more. Currently the oceans absorb about a third of our emissions, and the land surface another third. Without these buffers atmospheric CO2 would be much much higher than it is today.

      .

      I think that’s enough for now.

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        Popeye

        Mick,

        Last post I waste my time on you.

        1 – “Just where is you headspace if you think it’s impossible for someone to prove what their name is? I have a birth certificate with my name on it (actually Michael Buckley). If I came to your house and showed it to you would you believe me? Please think carefully before replying.”

        My reply – post a picture of your birth certificate here (on this thread) and I may then agree that you are who you say you are – until then we are at a stalemate!!

        I’ll let Baa Humbug’s response at 85.4 to the good professor (REALLY – HOW WOULD WE KNOW????) who quotes Real Science – yeah right on!! Baa Humbug says it all really – very succinct but I guess he wont be getting any answers either – just like me – still waiting Mick!

        Cheers,

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          Mick Buckley

          Popeye, I was responding to your seemingly outrageous statement, “There is absolutely NO WAY that you can prove to me that John Brookes is your REAL name or anybody else’s is.” I took that to be a claim that the real-life John Brooks and others could absolutely no way prove their names. It seemed a wild thing to say, hence my response.
          Having read Jo’s response to you below I now understand that you were talking only about the on-line ‘blog identity’ John Brookes.

          By the way, is Popeye your real name or just your blog identity?

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      Popeye, we don’t need birth certificates here. I don’t know Mick, but I know both Mattb and Brookes are who they say they are (there are ways to check their stories add up, they do respond to emails). They do not hide behind pseudonyms.

      The email of Matthew England appears to be legit. I see no reason to think it is someone impersonating him. I’m grateful he came to defend himself, if unconvinced by the defence.

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    MattB

    Late on this one.

    Prof England… look I’m one of this site’s resident warmists but I must say that I think your reply above avoids the error in what you said on TV. Let’s face facts… even Skeptical Science doesn’t think the 1988 projections are accurate. “Hansen’s 1988 projections were too high mainly because the climate sensitivity in his climate model was high.”

    So in saying “The IPCC projections from 1990 have borne out very accurately” well I don’t think even most mainstream climate scientists agree with you.

    what I assume you meant is something along the lines of adding “when general improvements in our understanding of climate science are taken in to account it is easy to see that Hansen was generally right on the money. THe projections were a tad high, but dismissing global warming based on the 1988 projections is like judging a modern computer on the performance of an Atari 2600. Great for it’s time but we’ve come a long way.”

    I agree with what you say in your reply here, but lets call a spade a spade Hansen’s 1988 projections were useful, and clearly the approach has stood the test of time when refined for improved knowledge of climate sensitivity, but they were not “very accurate.”

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      MattB

      ANd what has happened is that this blog gets to rant about how you were wrong and the ABC is evil for allowing you to speak unanswered, when the reality is that everyone knows the 1988 projections were a bit high. Minchin IS wrong of course:) He’s wrong because the long term warming trend is clear.

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        MattB

        Or am I wrong and they were accurate but not precise? no no I think I’m right.

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        Rod Stuart

        The long term warming trend is nearly as clear the clandestine meetings of Santa Claus and Sasquatch (in high heeled shoes).

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    Peter F Kemmis

    Your hard and very good work is much appreciated, Joanne.

    There is an essential but missing question from the outset of the Rose/Minchin quest for the holy grail, that each should have asked the other:

    “What credible information would you need, in order for you to change your mind about CAGW?” It didn’t appear to be asked, and certainly any answers to the question were not articulated either in the film, or the succeeding Q & A session. Also, again there was no clear delineation of the different issues; for example:

    * Is global warming occurring? If so, at what rate/s, over what period/s, measured by what tools?
    * If there is warming at present, what are the implications and causes, and what is the significance of each cause?
    * Are there measures that humans should take to mitigate any causes, and importantly, effects?
    * In considering energy and its availability to all people, what are the technical options for non-fossil fuel and minimal polluting sources?
    * What are the equitable, economic and political considerations of these options?

    Too much to hope for, and too big a mouthful for one ABC program. But at least there was a public airing of some sort of a discussion.

    —-
    REPLY: Well said. Good point about the first question, the whole premise… that would have been illuminating. Jo

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