The intellectual vacuum – alarmists are afraid of debate, they namecall and break laws of reason

In response to the ABC doco I Can Change Your Mind, the believers of man-made global warming are out attacking with logical fallacies, cherry picking deceit, and the usual barking mad irrelevant lines about tobacco and AIDS.  Desperate eh?

Never before in one day on one post have I enjoyed responding to Mr Unskeptical himself (John Cook), as well as Stefan Lewandowsky (aka Lysenko-strikes-again) and Clive-break-democracy-Hamilton.

John Cook on the ABC website.

Cook is from the University of Queensland, and he runs the ambush site “Skeptical Science” (where even the name of the site is misleading, and where he dutifully parrots the government scientists).

John Cook

His litany of logical errors continues:

  1. He’s still resorting to namecalling with a term he can’t define scientifically. Which paper do we deny John? You’ve had two years to find it, and you still can’t come up with anything better than papers which cheat by changing color schemes, or which use wind-shear instead of thermometers to measure temperature?
  2. He’s clinging to that consensus, when evidence is what matters. The fallacy is known as argument from authority — but in science, authority is trumped by data. In contrast, I keep referring to 3,000 ocean bouys, 6,000 boreholes, and 28 million weather balloons that support the skeptics. The heat is not in the upper troposphere (the hot spot is missing), which wipes out the amplification and most of the warming in the climate models. Then there are the 900 or so peer reviewed papers that support the skeptical case.
  3. His reasoning is so weak he thinks writing about tobacco funding and HIV will help us understand the climate. This is not just reasoning by analogy, but reasoning by unrelated events.
  4. Cook still hauls out the discredited ad homs about funding, despite the fact it takes cherry picking extraordinaire to ignore that the funds to believer scientists outnumbers the funds to skeptics by 3,500:1, and the profits from climate trading vastly outweigh the losses the fossil fuel companies might take if the world took the alarmists seriously. Ever noticed how numerous and slick all those warmist pieces are on tv, newspapers, magazines, websites etc — and how sparse and homemade the media presence of skeptics in comparison? Who’s got the big budget, John?
  5. Is Cook innumerate? He tries to reduce the argument to “Yes-No” answers, rather than looking at the actual numbers that matter. He claims the planet is “absorbing heat at a rate of two Hiroshima bombs per second”, which may be true, but is numerically a failure. This missing heat ought to be hiding in the oceans, but the numbers show that while ocean heat has been rising for decades, it isn’t rising fast enough. The odd 7,000 Quadrillion joules of energy is missing. The innumeracy point pops up again when he accuses me of ignoring “satellite observations that directly measure an increased greenhouse effect when she claims the warming effect from carbon dioxide (CO2) is immeasurable.” I don’t ignore Harries et al, and have said many times (though it was probably edited out of the doco) that those measurements of CO2 only ever suggest 1.2C of warming at most (i.e. the direct effect, before any amplifying feedbacks which don’t exist). They don’t tell us about the feedbacks.
  6. More baseless names “tin-foil-hattery”. Cook claims that a throwaway line from David Evans that scientists are ‘concealing the evidence’ is tin-foil hattery and a conspiracy theory. But of course, he knows all too well that David repeatedly (and for the doco) refers to the exact evidence that scientists like Flannery are paid to present to the public, but will not discuss. Like the missing hotspot, or the Argo ocean temperatures, or the ERBE outgoing radiation data, or the satellite air temperatures, or the corrupted thermometers — all of which the public and politicians are blithely unaware of, because the government climate scientists don’t mention them to the media and public –i.e. they are concealed. (Here’s an easy paper with links.) Basically Cook is namecalling “conspiracy theorist”.

In summary, Cook is a namecalling, illogical failure at the scientific method who masquerades as a science commentator even though he breaks tenets of science every time he hails a “consensus”. He doesn’t just make logical errors one by one, he stacks them and repeats them.

Obviously the University of Queensland didn’t teach Cook any Aristotelian logic or the vital difference between science and, say, postmodern theory. If you care about that university’s reputation, perhaps you could write to the Dean of Science and suggest they should rush Cook through a catch up course in logical reasoning, lest he embarrass the university further?

I’ve savaged Cook’s ability to reason before:  The Unskeptical Guide to the Skeptics Handbook  | How John Cook unskeptically believes in a hotspot (that thermometers can’t find)(Un)Skeptical Science uses unmeasureable fudge factors| The Worst Cookbook Interview Ever? | Sherwood 2008: Where you can find a hot spot at zero degrees

Clive Hamilton is supposed to be a prof of Ethics. Really?

He writes on Crikey with a  similar formula to Cook — namecalling, clinging unscientifically to an oxymoron called “consensus science” — but also pushes the line that climate skeptics ought be silenced for the common good. What kind of “ethics” does that represent? Isn’t that from the totalitarian dictator’s playbook on repression?

Clive’s tally of fallacies: Ad hominem, argument from authority, nil cause and effect, irrelevant points, and ethical failure.

Get over it Hamilton. If skeptics were deniers, it would be easy for the “experts” to debate them live on TV and win over most of the population. The fact that you have to rely on silencing skeptics shows how weak the the alarmist case is. If you just had the evidence and the arguments you would simply present them and that would be the end of the debate. You don’t, and you can’t.

As for Naomi Oresekes, far from exposing merchants of doubt, she is hypocrisy personified and the Queen Merchant of Doubt herself — seeding doubts with baseless smears about upstanding scientists.  Just because she writes about tactics that other cheats use in other debates tells us nothing about Earth’s climate.

Poor old Charles Sturt University, looking to raise its reputation. Unfortunately they let Hamilton put out “ethical” ideas so bad that untrained bloggers can shoot holes in them with a mere two seconds of thought and no research. Hint to science faculty – time to reconsider?

There has never been a public debate about the science, and the show I Can Change Your Mind is hardly any different. Indeed, if there was or ever had been a debate, the show would not be required.

Any observant person would have to wonder why the “debate” ended up being held in our kitchen, and why the paid guys like Flannery, Pitman, or Steffen apparently knocked back the chance to explain their case. Is the debate so dangerous to the regulating class (bureaucrats, greenies, academics, banks, other gravy trainers) that they cannot hold it in a public forum with proper rules of engagement? Are they so afraid of our data and questions that they only show it in an easily discredited forum? (Seriously, two reviewers at The Age think that our kitchen has the strange power to neutralize graphs of NASA data — who knew?) Is our only viable option to get the data on Australian tv that we have wait three years for an invite to host the debate in our kitchen with a politician and an activist? This is ludicrous Australia. And they say the debate is over…

If the ABC were pursing the truth — instead of acting as a PR agency for big-statist policies — they would long ago have asked all the leading skeptics for interviews, they’d phone up people like Ivar Giaever to ask why he’s a skeptic. Instead they go out of their way to ignore and discredit skeptics, and when they do finally ask them, they make sure it’s not a format where they can actually show graphs and make it clear what the point is. The ABC will show obscure economic graphs every night on the news, but a graph of world temperatures taken by satellite or the Argo buoys? Nooooo…

I’ve blogged on Hamilton before:  Clive Hamilton’s War on Science |  The global gullibles shift to high gear smear

 Lewandowsky is supposed to be a professorial fellow of psychology

It gets repetitive, with our favorite anti-scientist Stefan Lewandowsky repeating all of the above essentially in The Age. It’s the same argument from authority, and ad hom package of fallacies. Why are David and Jo wrong about Climate Change? Because “they have no relevant training”. Its obvious he resorts to the ad hom because he has no evidence in his favor. Let’s briefly go through David’s qualifications — not that it changes those graphs from NASA, NOAA or Hadley — but how’s this for 10 years at university?

David Evans: PhD (E.E.), M.S. (E.E.), M.S. (Stats) [Stanford University], B.Eng (hons, medal), M.A. (Applied Maths), B.Sc. [University of Sydney]

With six years of experience as a world leading carbon modeller consulting with the Australian Greenhouse Office and Department of Climate Change, David has a good grip on the limitations of models, a far better grip than cognitive-scientist-and-logically-challenged-Lewandowsky. And electrical engineering just happens to be the field of human endeavor that knows the most about feedbacks and complex systems — exactly the aspects under debate in climate change. (Nearly every analogue circuit for decades has a lot of feedback built in, and have you every thought about how complicated the electrical systems are that control and compute most aspects of modern technology?) No peer-reviewed papers in climate science, true, but scientific papers are for new contributions to knowledge, not for pointing out to the public that the theory and data are now very incompatible — and anyway Climategate confirmed years ago that in climate science  the role of the peer-review process is to keep criticism and alternative ideas out.

In other words, it wouldn’t matter who brings it up or what evidence they show, because the debate is not allowed to be about the evidence, it’s only about the biographies of commentators and speculation about their funding. After all, we all know that the clouds are controlled by the qualifications of the observers, right?

Lewandowsky is a source of much fun on this blog:  Peer review denial and the abuse of science |   The death of reason at UWA | Lewandowsky: the ABC parades a witchdoctor again | Learn how not to reason at the University of Western Australia | The hypocrisy of the annointedName-calling fairy dust: “Conspiracy Theorist” | Picasso Brain Syndrome |

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PS. Have seen the show now. Despite assurances that they would show the data, they didn’t — just one oblique graph of the Argo ocean temperatures without the axes. I think it’s fair to say that the record of the mainstream media stays intact — they have never shown the data that contradicts the climate models anywhere in the world, any time, AFAIK. Good job of censorship, regulating class!

Curious to see the data they omitted?  Here is David presenting the same data as in the doco interview (Barry shot this a couple of weeks ago). And some understanding of why, though obviously this last would have been too much for such a documentary.

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8.5 out of 10 based on 124 ratings

278 comments to The intellectual vacuum – alarmists are afraid of debate, they namecall and break laws of reason

  • #
    The Black Adder

    It is now 7:50pm.

    Approx. 40 minutes to ambush from the green left of the ABC.

    The ABC, Greens, Maurice Strong, UN, The ALP Government all have their sticky fingers in this….

    I will be back in just over an hour to tell you if I have been converted!!!

    I am getting nervous, shirley, doh.. surely I cannot become KR or Catamon, just by watching the ABC…

    ..shirley not…..

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    • #
      The Black Adder

      ..I cant wait 1 hour.

      I have just seen a pimply skinned non-intellectual say that Jo and David, after being invited into their home, are basically not trustworthy!!!

      ..Do we believe them or the climate scientists?.. says Ms Rose.

      Dr David Evan is a Climate Scientist for christsakes!!!!

      Jo was very controlled, I could tell she wanted to do something other than ask her for another coffee…

      What a joke is Ms. Rose…

      She had no answer for the sea temperature question…

      Bring on Q & A….

      10

  • #
    William S

    Hi Jo,

    I was waiting for your response to J. Cook’s recent comments on SS, they came quicker than I expected. As always, accurate and incisive and a bloomin good read. Best wishes WS

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    MadJak

    From previous thread (sorry for the crosspost),

    I predict:
    1) The age card will be played at least once
    2) The consensus card at least once,
    3) The precautionary principle fallacy at least once
    4) The “97% of climate scientists agree…” at least once
    5) The Big Oil fallacy at least once
    6) The poor poley bears at least once
    7) The Melting arctic ice caps resulting in sea level rise argument at least once
    8 ) The Denier smear at least once
    9) The Carbon is an evil substance that must be eradicated line
    10) The runaway positive feedback line at least once

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    • #
      MadJak

      According to my reckoning:

      Check 1) The age card will be played at least once
      Check 2) The consensus card at least once,
      Check 3) The precautionary principle fallacy at least once
      Check 4) The “97% of climate scientists agree…” at least once
      Check 7) The Melting arctic ice caps resulting in sea level rise argument at least once
      Check 8 ) The Denier smear at least once

      5) The Big Oil fallacy at least once
      6) The poor poley bears at least once
      9) The Carbon is an evil substance that must be eradicated line

      10) The runaway positive feedback line at least once

      So 60%

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  • #

    So the little jerk has got himself a paid position on the gravy train now? FFS

    I did a guest lecture to a bunch of 3rd year aero students there in 2010. They pay OK although the parking nazis try to get some of it back.

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  • #
    Juliar

    Anna Rose said that David Evans was just a blogger on Triple J. What an idiot!

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    • #
      Bob Malloy

      David Evans was just a blogger

      The same claim was made about David and Jo at the end of the doco!!!! Grrrrrr!!!!!

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  • #
    Byron

    This looks suspicious with the ABC test/poll on cimate change , the number of people who`ve taken it shows 179 votes with 50% as alarmed , I`m sure there were more votes cast a couple of days ago . Has anyone got a screen grab ?

    —————–

    YES! Can anyone find a screen grab. Byron is right. They’ve completely deleted all the inconvenient votes of skeptics that have accrued over the last few weeks. Too embarrassing. Jo

    UPDATE: No. They are doing two rounds of votes. One before hte event and one after. It all made more sense after I saw Q &A. So vote in round II. – Jo

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    • #
      cohenite

      When I saved the poll site, “dismissives” were at 60% and there were about 2000 votes; now “dsimissives” are at 21% and the votes tally 620 votes.

      You know what you are dealing with, fanatics who think any means is justified because they are morally superior like anna rose.

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      • #
        Sonny

        They must be Gleiking!

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      • #
        cohenite

        Actually the program is unwatcheable; Q&A is stacked with ‘authoratative’ AGW scientists and green energy advocates like Matthew England and Matthew Wright from BZE; these guys are outrageous; complete and utter liars.

        The only advice I can give Jo in the future is to ignore the abc; they are incorrigible.

        As for the conservatives, as much as I like Minchin, he has been tied and dusted; if he is the most sceptical of the conservatives we are completely stuffed.

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      • #
        Dave

        .
        The poll is Part 2 – after the program “Can I change Your mind”

        So you go back in and answer the same 16 questions – one or two changes will result in a change to your status from dissmissive to not sure etc! ABC Mind Changing Modelling! A real con job!

        “I have changed your Mind” – it was bought up by Madjack or Tony a few threads ago! Yhey were right!

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    • #
      Sonny

      Byron are we really surprised?

      Totalitarians delete history all the time to suit their agenda.
      If they can delete the MWP from the temperature record, they can also delete some inconvenient poll results. But don’t worry, it’s all for our collective good. They have our best interests at heart!

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  • #

    Well well. I just watched the online streaming version. We did 4 hours of footage at our house, and they showed not one single point I made, not one answer to Anna Roses questions. I repeated my favourite lines about 28 million weather balloons, 3000 ocean buoys off by heart at least 4 times. Obviously everything I said was too “dangerous”. But we have the full tape of the whole event, so sooner or later the world will see the parts that the ABC deemed to be not “interesting” to the Australian public. So all in all, pretty much as we expected. They trimmed it down to the point where it’s tame, they gave the alarmists the last word (they always do), and while they were happy to grill us about where our money came from just like Wendy Carlisle, when the question backfires (because we are not shills for anyone) they won’t show it. We can’t let the public know that Jo Nova and David are volunteers.

    PS Byron, we ABC poll was 55% Dismissive and has been for weeks. Interesting,.

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    • #
      MadJak

      Add to that Ben Goldacre assuming the australian media is somehow the same as the UK.

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      • #
        Laurie Williams

        And he was at least partly wrong about the UK junk infotainment media too – much of that great mass is still committed to pushing the hoax, as in Australia. In the USA the New York Times, is the same. As Piers Corbyn rightly says, his long range weather forecasts that his organisation Weather Action has sent to that newspaper would have saved lives and more if they had been taken seriously and published, but the arrogant NYT is more interested in maintaining its position than in people’s well being and therefore completely ignores Corbyn and others who know what they’re talking about and instead gives credibility and space to the fraudsters.

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        • #
          Laurie Williams

          Whoops – ignore the comma immediately after “Times”. Even I’m not sufficiently irrational to think that it should be there.

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    • #
      Brendan

      I smell a rat too on the survey. There were thousands of votes cast when I took it a week ago.

      And it was overwhelmingly dismissive. At 10.17pm, the vote count was only 863.

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      • #
        DougS

        It’s in two stages Brendan – pre and post the documentary airing.

        Don’t forget to vote in stage 2.

        I came out as a “dismissive” in stage 2 – well, would you Adam ‘n Eve it?

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      Bob Malloy

      But we have the full tape of the whole event, so sooner or later the world will see the parts that the ABC deemed to be not “interesting” to the Australian public.

      please say we will see it sooner rather than later.

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    • #
      The Black Adder

      Personally Jo, I thought you were sexy and authoritive!

      And Dave kicked arse!!!

      You made her look like an imbecile (which she is!)

      Well done and what a joke is this ABC?

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    • #
      Peter Pond

      The lady on the panel (Rebekah, I think) who quoted the survey mentioned 12,000 responses. A questioner in the room noted that over 50% or respondents were Doubtful/Dismissive. But it seems that the Survey has been restarted (now just 1004 responses). Is this a measure to see how the program has affected views? Or an attempt to rewrite history?

      Sorry we didn’t get to hear more of you Jo.

      I noticed that nearly all the video questions were pro-CAGW.

      And is there a subtle piece of media massaging going on when the pro-CAGW panels members are all female, and the two anti-CAGW panel members are male?

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    • #
      MW@Cairns

      They might be doing before and after surveys (change your mind thing). If this is the case there could be a few traps. It was up for weeks before, how long after. Getup types stacking the after survey. etc

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    • #
      MattB

      so I flicked on and happened to catch the exact moment they walked in your front door Jo… and to be frank I don;t think you could have hoped for a more positive segment. Argo buoy graph, no ocean warming graph, and all she had was saying but if we don’t act the planet will be destroyed… your snigger could be interpreted a few ways I guess. David was a tad snappy but if there is ever a movie of you guys Steve Martin would do a good job there I think. But given they travel the planet to speak to experts all over the place I think 2 minutes over your kitchen table is a good effort! You let David speak too much though:) you’re the coms guru, he’s the numbers man!

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      • #
        The Black Adder

        Dear MattB,

        You are an idiot!

        I think 2 minutes over your kitchen table is a good effort! You let David speak too much though:) you’re the coms guru, he’s the numbers man
        .. MattB.

        ….you are a nasty individual MattB.

        When you cannot blame the data blame the individual!!

        Lovelock has forgiven you, I have not!!

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        • #
          MattB

          wow and some people sometimes ask here if I’m off MY meds! WTF was nasty about my post?

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        • #
          Catamon

          Come on BA. Seems it was balanced in what was shot but not shown.

          Over at Skeptical Science they have a really insightful vid link of something else that didn’t get included, that probably should have been.

          Worth a look mate.

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      • #

        Mattb, you are only saying that because you didn’t see how we caned every point, and how poorly researched and weak her questions were. One day you’ll see a proper doco… actually, I’m perversely flattered that they chopped nearly everything I said. 1. It was all too hot and too convincing for them to handle. 2. It meant I made no gaffes, which they would have included. The involuntary laugh at Annas threat to destroy the planet was as close as they could get.

        In answer to her weak ad homs about the money we were paid, I turned it around to show they had all the funds, we were volunteers, the scientists on our side outnumbered them, and outranked them. And yet, despite all that, we’d never brag we were right because we out number and outrank them and have no vested interest, we’re right because we have the evidence.
        Jo

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        • #
          MattB

          Hey I thought you guys came across well that’s all. Even I groaned at what she was saying (seriously this was the only bit I watched though). I have no doubt you;d have slaughtered her as she appeared to have no clue. I mean what a waste of a show travel the world giving experts of both sides a fraction of the time needed to say anything, in a roaming debate between two people with total political commitment to their positions.

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        • #
          MattB

          “The involuntary laugh at Annas threat to destroy the planet”

          That’s the bit that got me groaning for sure.

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        • #
          Laurie Williams

          Well said Jo. Regarding the fact that only brief bits were included in the documentary, of course people can and do use the internet to check for themselves, making these junk lefty infotainment “media” organisations increasingly irrelevant.

          Let’s hope that the Australian Federal Government is changed in a big way before the National Blocking Network can be used by the incumbent Fabian socialists for that purpose, which as I have said to you before (FB message a few weeks ago) I have suspected all along was a major point of the government getting involved in implementing the thing.

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    • #
      Chris Venter

      I for one would love to see the *complete* footage you shot at your house (good call that, getting your own footage). Any chance of uploading that on youtube or vimeo?

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    • #
      DougS

      I liked the bit where Anna objected to Jo and David filming their filming – ‘you’re not going to edit that are you’ – well, certainly not Anna dear, at least not to the degree (NPI) that you will edit yours!

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    • #
      Streetcred

      Marc Morano so PWNED Anna Rose that it was embarrassing!

      I mean, who is Anna Rose to cast false dispersions and refuse to ‘debate’ ? Is she read in ‘climate science’ ? No, I thought not, not in any form of science. Just a mouth.

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    • #
      Dennis

      Jo the Coalition must arrange for an independent audit of TheirABC-SBS to determine if the public broadcasters are delivering value for taxpayer’s money. Surely Australia with 22-million people does not need both of them or maybe even one. Consideration should be given to selling them. The partisan employees and programming is unacceptable, effectively another laundering of taxpayer’s monies for left side of politics propaganda purposes.

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    • #
      Patrick

      Let’s have that video ASAP please Jo.
      Let the world see tangible evidence of the ABC’s bias in climate issues.

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    • #
      Laurie Williams

      Some observations on the ABC’s current Climate Challenge survey and the Australian Youth Climate Coalition.

      The introduction to the survey states “The Climate Challenge survey is based on long-established work done by the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication and descriptions are general and may not in all circumstances represent the respondent’s full views or answers with complete accuracy. However, considerable effort has gone into ensuring that in most cases, the categories are meaningful and accurate.”

      I have just done this survey at http://www.abc.net.au/tv/changeyourmind/survey/

      The questions are poorly structured, as usual for surveys. Insufficient options are provided for getting the opinions across. The structure guarantees an inherent bias toward making those opposed to the global warming hoax and having at least some understanding of the relevant facts appear irrational.

      Results showed “3530 votes counted”, with bar graphs for proportions of votes in each category “Dismissive”, “Alarmed” etc. Numbers of votes in each category are not shown.

      “Dismissive” outnumbers “Alarmed” by well over 2 to 1.

      “Dismissive” exceeds “Alarmed”, “Concerned” and “Cautious” combined.

      “Dismissive”, “Doubtful” and the very small proportion “Disengaged” combined exceed “Alarmed”, “Concerned” and “Cautious” by even more.

      So the result so far is that well over half of those who have completed the survey do not accept the global warming hoax.

      The summary at the end said that I am in the “50%” of respondents who are in the “Dismissive” category. That may be correct, but a fairer summary would state that I was in a greater proportion which would include “Doubtful” and “Disengaged”, making a proportion of far more than 50%.

      The number of members or at least active supporters that the AYCC claims to have is nearly 80000. Its website http://aycc.org.au/ currently (28/4/2012) says “Join a movement of 79367 young people”.

      In various places on its website, on Facebook and I assume also by Twitter and email the AYCC draws its members’ attention to the recently broadcast ABC documentary “I Can Change Your Mind About Climate” and Q and A discussion. Just one instance is this: “How great was our co-founder, Anna Rose, on “I Can Change Your Mind About Climate” last night? Get the inside story of her journey around the world changing the mind of a climate sceptic”. (Interesting claim there.)

      You would think that a large proportion of such an overtly activist organisation would jump into such surveys, but so far, nearly 2 days later, the total number of survey respondents is less than 5% of the number of active supporters that the AYCC claims to have, and the number of responses in the “Alarmed” and “Concerned” categories, which you would expect would describe most or even all people involved with the AYCC, is much less than half of that 5%.

      So the survey that the ABC has chosen to use is poorly structured and biased, and the AYCC’s claim of nearly 80000 active supporters seems to be an exaggeration.

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  • #
    Joe's World

    Jo,

    Science took a bad turn when our scientists turned into statisticians and computer programmers.
    Curiosity and exploration of answers took a back seat for staying with the program for funding.

    Our planet is a very fascinating contradiction to our current knowledge base. We have water vapor that has weight yet it is defying gravity. Very complex problem when you factor in salt of oceans and velocity differences of our planet. The common denominator to it all is atmospheric pressure. You change the pressure and changes of the system occur. We measure the density of atmospheric pressure incorrectly by using water(which has a different density to our atmosphere) and this does not measure the layering that is found when you go underwater to deeper and deeper depths. Your ears “pop” traveling down or up a hill which suggest your body just moved through a layer of pressure.
    Clouds are at a different layer of pressure to what is measured on the ground.

    But hey, that is just “my own” research and NOT the consensus.

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  • #
    Sonny

    Wait, aren’t the ABC journos and the climate scientists at the BOM and CSIRO subservient to government because that’s who pays them?

    He who pays the piper calls the tune. And the piper is calling for climate change catastrophe.

    So that’s the tune that the journalists and scientists play.

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    • #
      Sonny

      Therefore it’s not “consensus science” bit rather it’s “consensus politics”, “consensus self servitude”, “consensus corruption”, “consensus groupthink”, “consensus delusion” etc etc etc

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  • #
    Malcolm

    I think the ABC poll is ‘part 2’. Public opinions were sought before the programme, and now they are running it again after the programme. I guess they intend to show that they HAVE changed your minds.

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    • #
      Sonny

      Well If I needed convincing of the effectiveness of political propaganda disseminated by a subservient media I’d just teleport myself to Berlin 1939.

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      • #
        Joe's World

        Sonny,

        I guarantee that you use that time machine, and you ain’t coming back. Scientists neglected the fact that you would also need the exact location of where the planet was at the time you want. This is still impossible with all objects moving in space to get a fixed stopped location.

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  • #
    Shevva

    After 4 hours I surpose they gave up as you did not say the killer line they where desperate for, they had already decide on the programs content they just needed you to say the correct lines so they could edit them down to what they wanted. I’m guessing after 4 hours you still had not said what they wanted so left.

    (at one conference, I watched them argue for an hour over where to go for beer). – After 10 seconds I would of walked out and gone to the bottle-o on my own just shows their more intested in arguing than beer.

    And I never realised I though it was because I understand the scientific mehtod (Which has no mention of consensus) but I am wrong – ‘Why does this small minority deny the evidence and the overwhelming opinion of experts? The major driving force behind climate denial is conservative ideology and the fear of government regulation.’

    He really is a sad little man.

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  • #
    Andrew McRae

    In the previous thread I tried summarising the mockumentary as it went to air.

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  • #
    Amused

    In a debate/conversation so important to so many (yet one I find myself undecided upon) the derision and contempt most of your supporters here express for anyone who disagrees with them does nothing to earn my respect for your cause.

    While I am not convinced by the ‘science’ of either side in this debate, I find myself more inclined to listen to arguments put forward by those who do not believe themselves above me. Your arrogance surprised me as I came here to seek clarification of your thoughts, knowing there would be far more to your interview than the ABC would report.

    Instead of philosophy and science, you people hurl your contempt and arrogance among yourselves like schoolyard hounds, seeking a weakened victim.

    Perhaps the ABC portrayed you accurately, I certainly found your childish inability to listen quite grating.

    I will not return here seeking actual answers to this debate, perhaps you may reconsider your attitude to your fellow Australians. We live here too. . .

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      In a debate/conversation so important to so many (yet one I find myself undecided upon) the derision and contempt most of your supporters here express for anyone who disagrees with them does nothing to earn my respect for your cause.

      While I am not convinced by the ‘science’ of either side in this debate, I find myself more inclined to listen to arguments put forward by those who do not believe themselves above me……

      You may think this is about which side is “nice” and which side is not.
      If you truly are unconvinced, then you should be able to read past the emotive aspects of the debate and TAKE IN THE SUBSTANCE OF WHAT’S BEING SAID.
      But you can’t do that if you’re “more inclined” to listen to one side than the other can you?

      You want the truth in this debate? Get over your huggy kissy feelings and look at the data, look at the evidence AND INFORM YOURSELF.

      p.s. If you are concerned about people claiming to be “above you”, then you would know very very well which side appeals to authority (97% of scientists agree etc) and wishes to shut down debate (The science is settled).

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      cohenite

      (yet one I find myself undecided upon)

      Liar.

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      Sonny

      Have you commented here before? Or is this just a hit and run?

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      MadJak

      Amused,

      If that’s your view of this site, you really should check out the stuff the other team have been throwing over the years:

      Here’s one example (of many):

      10:10 threat to sceptics

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      Mark D.

      Ouch! (the truth sometimes hurts)

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      Amused, fair point, no seriously. I’d be happy to set up a thread where we do things differently. I value those kinds of discussions and you are right, this conversation is not aimed at including beginners. You’ve walked into a room where we’ve had 700 conversations before you. There’s a lot of water under the bridge, and thousands of examples of our view being derided, ignored, and where people being paid our money call us “deniers” but deny the evidence we put forward.

      If you ask a genuine question, the mods will make sure you are treated well. And if there is demand for it, I’m very happy to set up a “new here” no-mean-comments thread. The problem is that very few people ask genuine questions.

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      Kinkykeith

      One day when the full extent of the subterfuge and mind control is exposed you may see us here in a different light.

      Until then all we can do is uggest that you look and learn before comming here to expound on something you don’t have clue about.

      This is a blogg that sometime uses humour and sometimes science but the aim is to find the truth. It works.

      If you want a Religious site please go to Skeptical Science or look up John Cook’s site and roll out your prayer mat.

      🙂

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      Robert

      Apparently you’ve never spent any time on an alarmist site and witnessed the vitriol with which their supporters respond to anyone who questions their views or even worse proves them wrong. That is if their comments are even allowed to remain public rather than being subjected to their usual censoring.

      The narcissism present on many, many alarmist sites should be sufficient to convince you of who considers themselves above the rest of us. But perhaps you’re more interested in groups that consider censorship of opposing views and outright fraud as their methodology. If so and you do not view them as “considering themselves above you” does that mean your own ethics are just as poor?

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    Bryan

    Just wasted more than 1 hour watching this bias programme from ABC, “NOT SURPRISED”. I was hoping of more debate in climate science but instead just another big propaganda about AGW. All the taped questions are from the warmist point of views. Anyone in ABC care to discuss how solar magnetic influence in earth climate or they buried their head so deeply into man made CO2 climate warming theory that they ignored other possible causes of the complex climate system.

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    Speedy

    Ladies and Gentlemen.

    I humbly nominate John Cook, editor and proponent of the blog “Sceptical Science” for the Duranty Award of 2012.

    Whilst I recognise the intense competition he faces for this prestigious prize, I am confident that Mr. Cook will ultimately triumph due to his persistent and unrelenting efforts in suppressing, defaming and decrying logical truth, and, in it’s place, supplanting it with the lower forms of juvenile, hysterical and illogical propaganda.

    Unburdened by humility or morality, John has been unrelenting in his efforts to convince the unwitting public that his blog contains both science and scepticism. Thanks to these efforts, his blog has become a by-word associated with only the purest forms of irony.

    Even in the face of looming defeat, our courageous John Cook has never been abashed. When faced with irrefutable logic or a confronting truth, he simply deleted it from his site. Perhaps his greatest triumph has been his ability to argue retrospectively by altering his more error-bound utterings after they were exposed on other blogs. Rightfully so, Anthony Watts has labelled his site as “Unreliable”. Which only goes to demonstrate that Mr. Watts is a true master of the understatement.

    Ladies and Gentleman. You know your duty. The Duranty Award belongs to John Cook.

    Best Wishes,

    Speedy.

    PS – Nominations now open [email protected]

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      Kinkykeith

      Speedy

      That’s brilliant.

      🙂

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        Kinkykeith

        Have just watched a few minutes of the taped presentation “I Can Change Your Mind” and my immediate reaction is to want to send a big thank you to Nick Minchin for his part in the program and congratulate him on his patience.

        As for the other party, the beautiful, privileged and legally talented Anna Rose, the less said the better and what I want to say I can’t.

        I can however quote what MaryFJohnston said and while it is not pretty here it is: Quote: “I wanted to punch her in the head and enroll her in a three year science degree”.

        Obviously MaryF was not impressed by Anna’s supercilious attitude which considering her qualifications (law but no science) and hobbies (helping get Obama elected) showed that her public pronouncements on Global Warming were part of a Left Wing political involvement and not in any way based on science.

        The world truly is a strange place when the beautiful Anna can lecture on the “Science” and hold in thrall a lecture theater full of earnest young students all eager to hear what they can do to save the world; at least until they break to head for the pub before the next lecture.

        Student life is tough in 2012.

        Real science is even tougher.

        Thank you Nick Minchin.

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          Mark

          Yes indeed, Kk.

          I believe it was Nick Minchin who started the ball rolling to replace the odious Malcolm Turnbull. Remember the howls of disdain from all the political flibbertygibberts when Abbott came out the leader. Abbott may have won by only one vote then but his hold on the party leadership now is unchallengable.

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            Kinkykeith

            Yes Mark

            Malcolm certainly has problem in reading the voters.

            He was soundly thumped on the Republic issue, another bad call. Whether the Republic is right or wrong can be put aside: I think what most people wanted was for pollies to stop stuffing around and Govern.

            🙂

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    Juliar

    That Qanda program was a disgrace.

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      Catamon

      Wot, climate spetics lost then?

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        Winston

        Not at all, Catamon. Nick Minchin handled himself quite well when he was allowed to talk, and Anna Rose appeared to be a smiling numbskull who didn’t really seem to have even the slightest understanding of science other than to be tewwibbly alarmed and we needed to take action and believe the “scientists”. After all 97% of all agriculture will cease by the turn of the century if we don’t take action etc etc. Not one shred of evidentiary support provided- just unmitigated belief-like a drugged out Moonie- if you were persuaded by that Catamon, you are easily pleased.

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          Catamon

          Watching QANDA now Winston and can see why your having a grump. People are actually discussing without abusing each other. Amazing.

          Ah, now Minchin with the “warming stopped in 98” fallacy. Sadness.

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            The Black Adder

            Clive never got the chance to answer a question!!

            Catamon, you are amazing

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            Winston

            Nothing to be “grumpy” about. Does make one very concerned when people like Anna are the vanguard of the future, who believe that the concept overrides the practicality of achieving, and who believes that hand holding Cumbaya statements amount to rigorous scientific inquiry. She would, I’m sure, be an avid member of the “Junior Anti-sex League”, partake vigorously in her “2 minutes of hate”, and then happily sit down in front of her screen of a night to catch up on all the news on the terrible war with Eastasia, reaching for the tissues at the plight of the little children caught up in this terrible conflict. At night, as she tucks herself into bed of a night, she would no doubt pray that Goldstein would meet a sticky end that he thoroughly deserves. I think one can safely say that Orwell had her number.
            As to the fallacy of no warming since 1998, well just how are those predictions going- well below scenario C levels and no sign of amplification at all as predicted, in spite of the feverish adjustments of those vanguards of truth at GISS.

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            MadJak

            An you are just so completely civil aren’t you catamon?

            What was it you described Tony Abbott and Julie Bishop as again?

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          elsie

          This reminds me. The lovely girl’s father, the farmer, announced he measured the soil temperature at 9 AM. Over time, he said, the temperature had risen so that he was now able to sow his crop 1 month earlier. Well, if so, isn’t that a plus in his favour? It may be that he could get 2 crops in a year rather than one. Certainly it is better than becoming colder and shortening the growing season. Such a case caused famines by reducing food and raising prices.

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        Catamon

        What was it you described Tony Abbott and Julie Bishop as again?

        So many descriptors apply to those two Maddy. Idiot Economic Illiteratii covers both, Mr Shuddering Brainlock really only applies to Abbott, and Ms Plagarist for Bishop.

        Which do you prefer dear??

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          Winston

          “Idiot Economic Illiteratii” – I have 200 billion reasons to consider you completely deluded. Black is white, up is down- pot meet kettle.

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    March

    Some basic factual errors by Megan Clarke and Matthew England On QA following the show. Will write more when the transcript comes up.

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    Numberwang

    Jo, I must disagree with David’s summary on his YouTube video in your last link. I’m nit-picking, but it is an important distinction.

    “According to the best data we have, from our latest instruments and from impeccable sources, all the main predictions of the climate models are now decisively wrong. The climate models are wrong because of a bad guess“.

    The climate models are wrong because they are based on a false premise, not a bad guess. They are not intended to determine whether or not increasing CO2 in the atmosphere will cause rising temperatures, they presume it will. Assigning a positive feedback effect to water vapour is not a guess, it is a necessary condition for their models to provide the results they expect intend to produce. The models are not intended to accurately model the atmosphere and climate, they are intended to provide “scientific” support for a political aganda, and there is no room for guesswork in propaganda.

    Best wishes,

    Patrick

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      Howie

      Hear! Hear! I think you hit the nail on the head. That’s what I’ve said all along. If it is assumed (and it is by the warmistas) that CO2 is causing the warming then there is no need to look anywhere else for a cause.

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    Juliar

    Nice to see Jo Nova on tv, as Borat would say “VERY NICE”!

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    MadJak

    Well I counted 4 references to the tobacco smear including the QandA afterwards.

    They really did snip Jo and David heavily. I think they spent about as much time with the warmist whining about cloak and daggers than actual content from David and Jo. It was blatantly obvious and really disgusting. Good on you for taping the meeting. Ironically that may be why they snipped heavily. Maybe a hatchet job was originally in the offing?

    The sceptic questions in the QandA session were pretty well grounded and came across well.

    TBH, I found it to be much less biased than I thought it would be -from a political and opinion perspective.

    I agree with the comments that much of the editing did favour the warmist views, however, I think Nick did a pretty good job of portraying the moderately sceptic position. Of course, he kinda has to be because he’s a politician.

    Of course, the ABC poll before the show showed the vast majority of respondents were dismissive. As far as reaching out to the warmists I think Nick was probably a good choice.

    I was relieved to not see the same old Melting arctic drowning polar bears and 3000 scientists believe blah twaddle that has dominated this topic over the past 5 years. Pity it was so light on the science.

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      MadJak

      For the record, I think Minchin walked the LNP tightrope to perfection. He had to make sure he didn’t alienate the warmists.

      I would gladly see billions spent planting trees rather than billions subsidising solar panels or pink batts. The trees can be harvested in the future.

      I thought Clive Palmer came across well too.

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    March

    Good move to video tape your part they may have left you out otherwise.

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    warcroft

    Im happy. I missed the show. I was at the movies watching The Avengers. Wow! talk about spectacular! Go see it!

    Anyway, I made it home in time for Q and A.
    People kept talking about “When renewable becomes cheaper, more affordable.” But theyre so naive! Renewable will never get cheaper. The price of current sustainable power will keep increasing (thanks governments) so the cost of renewable will ‘seem’ comparative.
    Its a con!

    But hey, my tweet got posted on screen, so Im happy:
    “renewable energy will never get cheaper, coal will just get more expensive so green will seem affordable “

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    pattoh

    Megan Clarke was un-impressive.

    The whole show was a meal which would put the knackery dog off his tucker.

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    Steve R W.

    First post here.

    It’s nice to see you on TV Jo. I’m thinking of asking Paul Murray from 6PR ( If i can get through for him to take my call ) to get you on for an interview in relation to this ABC documentary. Though i wont hold my breath, but he did get Bob Carter on before.

    I love the bit about Anna asking why you are filming the film crew that are filming you. Knowing now about what has been left out of the doco makes me angry.

    Anna Rose gives me the creeps. She should lose the smile when trying to be serious. And bringing up “passive smoking”?

    WTF to that.

    Keep up the good work.

    —-

    Thanks! We’ll be releasing the whole footage sometime. There was a reason we took it. But they were wrong about us hiring Barry Corke, like all things skeptical, he came unpaid to help. Jo

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    Wayne, s. Job

    No surprises, it is not possible to change the minds of people that are so indoctrinated.
    They are born susceptible and are easily led into believing, and then hold up the leaders as demi gods. They have no faith in themselves and morality only extends to others of the faith. They are so convinced that their gods are infallible they would spin a 10C drop in global temperate as a precursor of imminent global warming catastrophy.

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    Neville

    Well I’ve just sat through 2 hours of fraudulent silly nonsense on the ABC. Simple maths tells us that the entire 2 hours was just a gigantic con.

    We are telling the world that we’re so concerned about OZ increases in co2 emissions that we’re prepared to reduce said emissions by 5% by 2020 and yet in tandem we’re trying to increase coal exports as much as possible year on year. DUH!!!!!!

    Of course China and India are completing new CF power stations at the rate of one per week. What is it that these silly people don’t understand about simple logic and reason? Combined the non OECD countries are emitting a billion tonnes more tonnes of co2 every year and that rate will only increase every few years.

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    MrV

    Good on you Jo for taking this on.

    I found that show very hard to take given the narration itself was hardly impartial.
    “Look these cliffs are eroding”, must be climate change.
    Where was the evidence for this? – the sea has eroded cliffs since the dawn of time!

    There were many other such moments where the narrator stated things as ‘facts’ which are certainly not indisputable ‘facts’.

    To say nothing of Annas slander of Prof. R Lindzen and refusal to even so much as ask a question of the US policy guy (can’t remember name). That really revealed a lack of ability to formulate questions and therefore partake in scientific reasoning itself.

    ——————————-
    REPLY: Yes, we’d call it a “soft screw” … pretend to be “impartial”, say all the right things “science is about evidence” then cover exactly no skeptical science. – Jo

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      Bob Fernley-Jones

      MrV,
      Yes indeed, and for instance in the British Doco series “Coast” they featured some areas that were formerly coastal but nowadays way inland, such as a landing jetty previously supplying an old fort now far from the sea.

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    Dave

    John Cook has been permitted to air footage not in the doco,

    http://www.skepticalscience.com/ABC-documentary-demonstrates-how-why-climate-denial.html

    “Thanks to the magic of the interweb, here it is in all its YouTube glory (many thanks to the producers for granting permission for me to upload the video):”

    Have others been granted that privilege?

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    So much for being permitted to ask real questions… I submitted a question concerning the fact now that china is refocusing its money on building coal power stations and nuclear power stations, given they are more effective than solar and wind (their words), therefore what impact does this have on what we are doing? No acknowledgement, didn’t make it through the filter. Also a friend of mine was in the audience, with similar questions, didn’t get picked also.

    I get the distinct impression you are only permitted to ask questions that either support the cause or give them an opportunity to cheaply make you look stupid…

    Roll on the election; I’ve had my fill of this.

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    Catamon

    Interesting doco to see more from Minchin on this issue. I really dont think that the science of whether AGW is happening and the possible range of consequences actually means anything to Minchin. Its the politics / economics of the issue for him. Not particularly surprising given his past position in the Libs.

    English media guy on at the moment. Classic LOL!

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      Catamon, having met the man — you are quite wrong.

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      John Brookes

      Given that Minchin is a bit of a tobacco skeptic, I think you are right Catamon.

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        John, have you ever noticed how lax you are with terms? What is a tobacco sceptic? sloppy writing = sloppy thinking. No wonder you struggle to figure out what is going on.

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        Juliar

        Sceptical of the effect tobacco has on people who smoke it or the effect of passive smoking on people? Let’s not create unfair generalisations.

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        Bob Fernley-Jones

        John Brookes, let me see if I can help you, even though tobacco is irrelevant to the topic. Smokers who fully inhale tobacco smoke suffer a very much higher concentration of it in their bodies than do other innocents who may breath-in very diluted “second hand” smoke. In addition, the real smokers tend to congregate in environments where second hand smoke is more prevalent, so that they arguably tend to breath-in more of the diluted smoke than the innocents.
        Prof Singer and others have argued that second hand smoke is logically much less harmful than serious smoking, (that also involves second hand smoke), and that there is no unemotional evidence to show otherwise.
        It is also made complicated that levels of smoking vary between strong addiction to occasional social or “with a drink” smokers, and there are also those that do not lung inhale such as some young females.

        Whatever, you appear to hold a very naïve view on the matter.

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          John Brookes

          Second hand smoke is dangerous. See this.

          Jo, its entirely obvious that a “tobacco skeptic” is someone who chooses to doubt the evidence that tobacco is bad for you. What else could I have meant? Did I mean that he was skeptical of the existence of tobacco? Perhaps I meant that he became skeptical while under the influence of tobacco?

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    Steve R W.

    I’m 3/4 of the way into the Documentary. Why is Anna Rose so clueless about renewable energy?
    My golly gosh. Has she even done some basic research? Does she believe in magic too?

    Q/A next. ( I live in Perth )

    Quote: “Anna Rose, do you think i made a mistake making this show”

    Yes you did.

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    Mark Hladik

    I hesitate to ask, but I likely missed the existance of a link, so that “out-worlders” such as myself (United States, the wrong side of the Big Pond) might have a chance to view this program.

    I understand that there was some severe editing, and almost all of the decent anti-CAGW points were removed by the producers, but it still might be worthwhile to see.

    Also, could Jo possibly post the “full” interview somewhere, so the myriad visitors to this blessed site could learn what realy happened?

    Sorry if this has been covered, and I missed it. My visit time is usually fairly limited, so I have to skim a lot.

    Best regards to all,

    Mark H.

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      Mike

      I started to watch it but only just got to Jo and David’s part(which was way too brief) and frankly couldn’t bare it beyond that. You’re not missing much.

      http://www.abc.net.au/tv/changeyourmind/

      I feel sorry for the girl. She like too many, clearly hasn’t been taught critical thinking skills and is easily manipulated.

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        Kinkykeith

        Hi Mike

        I was trying to put my finger on it but your “I feel sorry for the girl” hit the mark.

        Finally figured out it’s was like watching a picture of her on a cellophane sheet and being able to see through it; nothing there but a little PC Eco-Fairy. Vapid.

        Don’t know how Nick stood 4 weeks of that.

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        Juliar

        The opposite of being a sceptic or a denier is being gullible. That sums her up. In saying that, I think Nick Minchin could have presented his case a little stronger in some aspects or maybe we didn’t see some things because of editing.

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    Mike

    It’s quite amazing really how simple it is.

    If the data doesn’t match the theory’s predictions, then the theory is wrong. How hard is that?

    I guess it’s just the fact that so much infrastructure has built up around the scare campaign, not least of which Anna’s little organisation, that it’s going to take time for the truth to be revealed. After all, data doesn’t make great TV. Nor does “things are OK”. The media love a good fear campaign. Gets people watching.

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      DougS

      Spot on Mike, an excellent summary.

      But don’t forget that in Climastrolgy, if the data don’t agree with the theory, the data are wrong – simples!

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    Jambo

    Oh FFS, if that’s all the ABC has then it will only be a matter of time before the whole card-house comes a tumbling.

    Perth here so only seen the ‘Change Your Mind’ prog, not the Q&A yet but honestly it was a beat-up from the start. The whole tone of the program was ‘I can Change Your Mind if you don’t buy the carbon-credit, global warming, rich get richer, poor can live on dirt and die as long as they don’t try to get cheap electric power’.
    I honestly am almost at the stage of giving up. Please Mr Hawaii scientist, or any of them, pick a minimum global satellite-based temperature that the earth will have risen to in the next 10 yrs and agree to resign from any publicly-funded office if it does not occur.
    If a stockbroker (hands up, yes I’m the devil) made as many bad calls as these guys they would be out of a job in 6 months. You have the models, back them or forkcough.

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      CO2 levels not been this high in recorded history? Highly disputable.

      Also, I must have missed the bit where they showed CO2 rising “steadily” over the past 15 years with temperatures not rising.

      Maybe they didn’t because it could have confused Anna. Anna, who BTW: blurted out that the sceptics were “funded by Heartland”, “Exxon”, etc. on Q&A.

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    Ross James

    Strike One.

    http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/global_change_analysis.html

    The alternative universe cooler Argos must have come from the alternative science Watts Up.

    Strike Two.

    Why did the Best data find no urban heat island influence on air temps changing temp. trends? Those photos proved nothing of corruption as claimed.

    Strike Three.

    Hotspot – it’s not a CO2 signature. It is a warming tropic zone signature of a Water Vapor lapse rate. And it’s a very transitory and temporal phenomena.

    Strike Four.

    Clouds are always negative feedback. No. This depends on altitude

    Seriously,

    Ross J

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      The Black Adder

      Ross,

      If you are so confident, why are you not on the Q and A Panel?

      Is it because you are not qualified to tell lies?

      Go home to your hockey stick and climategate..

      Strike Five…

      Hotspot – it’s not a CO2 signature. It is a warming tropic zone signature of a Water Vapor lapse rate. And it’s a very transitory and temporal phenomena

      Blahblahblah, I am not listening….

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      Jaymez

      Hi Ross, (I meant this as a reply, but must have missed the ‘reply’ button and it went in at Comment #43 so in case you miss it – here it is).

      Strike 1: As far as I could tell the link you gave does not show the latest Argo data which was shown by Jo and David. At best it states under ocean temperature: “This is consistent with the comparison by Roemmich and Gilson (2009) of Argo data with the global temperature time-series of Levitus et al (2005), finding a warming of the 0 – 2000 m ocean by 0.06°C since the (pre-XBT) early 1960′s.”

      I’m not sure a 0.06C warming in half a century is what the alarmists were looking for. Of course this does not provide any proof of causality with human CO2 emissions, but it certainly doesn’t support the climate models which do blame CO2.

      The graph at the site only appears to show up to about 2008 and there doesn’t appear to be any statistical warming since 2004 so I would say Jo and David were spot on.

      Strike 2: I was surprised that Muller and the BEST project were even referenced in the ‘show’ because it proved nothing other than the plotting of the three surface temperature data sets (as adjusted by the data set providers), produce a graph which ‘averages’ the three data sets. It proved nothing one way or the other about UHI effect, or any causality between global warming and human CO2 emissions. It didn’t show how much of the recorded temperature rise (as adjusted), was attributable to human influences or natural variation. That segment only supported the ‘alarmist’ case simply because the narrator said it did, and the narrator claimed that Muller was a previous sceptic who was now convinced.

      You may find this an interesting read: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/24/unadjusted-data-of-long-period-stations-in-giss-show-a-virtually-flat-century-scale-trend/

      Strike 3. Here is an excellent resource on the warming ‘signature’ which was well and truly predicted by the alarmists: http://joannenova.com.au/2012/04/so-is-the-hotspot-a-fingerprint-or-signature-is-it-unique/ Jo put it well when she wrote: “Either the hot spot is missing because the models exaggerate wildly, or the hot spot is there but we can’t see it because the world hasn’t warmed as much as those thermometers-near-carparks are claiming it has.”

      Strike 4. I agree with you Ross!

      So I’d mark you 1 out of 4.

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      CHIP

      Hey Ross, I’m still waiting for a reply from you from a few days ago when you said that the idea of a fast carbon-cycle has been comprehensively refuted. In response I cited the IPCC’s own figures showing how atmospheric CO2 can accumulate for only 3.8 years before sequestration, and I heard nothing back. It went suspiciously quiet. What happend? Did your computer go down, or did our conversation slip your mind?

      Hotspot – it’s not a CO2 signature. It is a warming tropic zone signature of a Water Vapor lapse rate. And it’s a very transitory and temporal phenomena.

      What makes you think the hotspot is only ‘transitory’? Did you get that from the IPCC or did you decide that yourself? I agree, sort of. The tropical tropospheric hotspot is not a unique signature of atmospheric CO2, but we are told by the IPCC that the warming we are currently experiencing is caused by anthropogenic emissions of CO2. This increase in CO2 should apparently cause warming and increase evaporation rates thereby increasing the amount of atmospheric water vapour. But no such ‘hot spot’ can be found, which indicates that there is no significant warming from atmospheric CO2 at the present time (or the feedbacks have been exaggerated). It’s rather simple, Ross. I’m sure you can (eventually) understand it if you concentrate really, really hard.

      Clouds are always negative feedback.

      Who said clouds were always negative?

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        Ross James

        Chip,

        The Carbon Cycle does not overwhelm the increasing CO2 in the atmosphere from man made emissions.

        IPCC’s own figures showing how atmospheric CO2 can accumulate for only 3.8 years before sequestration

        If sequestration of CO2 over this period was neutral without increase then we would have no problem. The carbon cycle is well known and correctly documented in the IPCC. The main sequestration of CO2 are the oceans. We are still increasing CO2 after a completed carbon cycle. The graphed data gives testimony to that fact of the cycle. Off topic: Acidification of the oceans is a process where there is PH shift or drift from a higher alkalinity state to a lower one – not a actual state of actual acid reading as in a simple litmus test for alkalinity state.

        The Hot Spot has not been proven to be non-existent. There is data evidence. It is a tropical phenomena regardless of CO2 levels. The fast transitory heat drift from the equator region to sub tropics makes tracking of it over a time period in instrumentation extremely difficult. Weather balloons are a fast one way ticket up and subject to massive wind shear and drift. Perhaps we need to learn how to send up one and position it fixed by GPS positioning to a specific co-ordinate. Presently they are highly unpredictable locations and paths in what they are reading. Consider the development of a large hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico and how quickly they can change in strength and magnitude.

        Ross J.

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          CHIP

          Thanks for the reply, Ross.

          If sequestration of CO2 over this period was neutral without increase then we would have no problem. The carbon cycle is well known and correctly documented in the IPCC. The main sequestration of CO2 are the oceans.

          According to the IPCC’s figures (as presented in AR4) the oceans are only absorbing 10% of anthropogenic CO2 at this present time (of course Henry’s law ordains that they should be absorbing 98%). If you look at the IPCC’s figures you’ll see that when anthropogenic CO2 is absorbed by the oceans it is exchanged by natural CO2 from the oceans. In other words, to put it simply, the IPCC claim that human CO2 is swapping places with CO2 in the oceans on a nearly 1-1 molecule basis. But how does one measure this? How do the IPCC know that the CO2 being emitted by the oceans is simply anthropogenic CO2 “swapped” with natural CO2 instead of simply a result of the warming oceans? After all, it is a well-understood fact that as the oceans warm they release CO2. Luckily for us, Wikipedia provides a mathematical equation for calculating CO2’s solubility coefficient at varying temperatures and if you do the calculation you’ll see that the observed increase in atmospheric CO2 can be readily explained by the warming oceans. This is perhaps unsurprising when one considers that there exists 50 times as much CO2 in the oceans than the atmosphere. The relationship between oceanic temperature and the observed atmospheric CO2 increase has been graphed by Prof Lance Endersbee. It shows an almost perfect relationship between oceanic temperature and atmospheric CO2. The correlation is 0.9959. It’s such a strong correlation it’s hard to put the increase in atmospheric CO2 down to anything else than the warming oceans.

          Acidification of the oceans is a process where there is PH shift or drift from a higher alkalinity state to a lower one

          To be honest Ross, I don’t think many people who have researched this stuff properly would buy the ocean acidification argument as promoted by the IPCC. CaCO3 acts a neutraliser and keeps the oceans pH stable at around 8 and given that exists in chemical equilibrium with DIC I would expect that increasing PCO2 would not decrease pH. In other words, put simply, if you increase DIC you increase CaCO3 by a corresponding amount (i.e. Le Chatelier’s principle) and there is already an overabundance of calcium in the world’s oceans. So, I see no real cause for alarm here. However, even if we accept the ocean acidification argument it still seems wildy exaggerated to me. The total amount of CO2 produced by human society since the industrial revolution is estimated to be around 1,200 gigatonnes (Gt). If we assume that all of this was dissolved in the oceans (it wasn’t, but let’s assume for argument’s sake it was to give us the theoretically possible worst-cause scenario), then the maximum possible addition of anthropogenic CO2 to the oceans would be 0.9%. It is extremely hard to see how the addition of such a minuscule amount of CO2 could possibly produce ocean acidification to the extent of 29% as is being claimed by the eco-alarmists. But of course, we must remember the IPCC tell us that the oceans are only absorbing 10% of human CO2. Therefore, the increase would be smaller at 0.09%.

          The Hot Spot has not been proven to be non-existent. There is data evidence. It is a tropical phenomena regardless of CO2 levels. The fast transitory heat drift from the equator region to sub tropics makes tracking of it over a time period in instrumentation extremely difficult.

          But Ross, the IPCC’s equations tell us that anthropogenic CO2 (with feedbacks included) should have added an extra 7.6W/sq.m to the climate-system already and such a massive amount of radiative forcing (RF) would have undoubtedly produced a hotspot (which is only 0.6C), not only in the tropics, but everywhere. It would be very hard to miss.

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          CHIP

          The carbon cycle is well known and correctly documented in the IPCC.

          Actually, the natural fluxes in the IPCC’s carbon-cycle diagram in AR4 end at 1994. That was almost 20 years ago. You would think they would have updated it by now.

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      Andrew McRae

      > “Strike One”

      An alternative universe? Ha! Try:
      Loehle C., “COOLING OF THE GLOBAL OCEAN SINCE 2003”, Energy & Environment Vol. 20, No. 1&2, 2009. ARGO data provided by a certain “J. Willis”.

      The Leuliette version tries to claim there was still a warming trend because of some warm bias in the distribution of the buoys before they were all deployed. Leuliette wants to have his cake and eat it too. Scrub the first year where the two graphs disagree and you are still left with 3 years of no warming.

      The graph shown in Dr Evans video contains data up until the present, showing he has obtained the latest data… and still no warming.

      > “Strike Two”

      BEST’s argument was that urban stations showed no greater warming trend than rural stations trend and therefore UHI was not being mistaken for CO2GHE.
      Quite aside from the site classification data being dodgy (GIGO) there is a fundamental problem with this line of reasoning, as McIntyre explained.
      Extra UHI warming (W) is proportional to the log of the population, so W = log P.
      The population is growing at a compounding rate, thus it is P = k^t.
      To get the derivative (warming rate) we must apply the chain rule of differentiation. With any luck you will get this answer:
      dW/dt = (dW/dP) * (dP/dt)
      = (d/dP . log P) * (d/dt . k^t)
      = (1/P) * (k^t * log k)
      = (1/k^t) * (k^t * log k)
      = log k
      Thus the warming rate is the same wherever the population growth rate is the same, regardless of their difference in population. On top of that, due to the logarithm, even if their population growth rates are significantly different (eg 1.07 versus 1.03) you still end up with very similar constant ratio between town and city in the trends.
      Intuitively this should be the case, because the warming rate of a city is a linear extension of the warming rate it had when it was just a small town. Therefore any small town and city near each other contemporaneously will have basically the same warming rate if they have nearly equal growth rates, DESPITE having hugely different populations and having measurably different night time temperatures due to a very real and significant UHI. A comparison between places that never grew and places that grew quickly should show a difference in temperature trend regardless of current population.
      And the fact is that UHI is easily measured in any city. It leads to a DTR reduction which is locally indistinguishable from an enhanced greenhouse effect.
      Since UHI is measurable, it is pointless to try to find a way to prove it doesn’t exist. Because it exists it must have influenced temperature records in high growth areas. The only mystery is why you would believe a statistic instead of photos.

      > “Strike Three”

      A “very transitory and temporal phenomena”?? That’s the lamest retreat ever, and Jo has previously blocked this path of retreat by highlighting the consensus science statements from years ago that the hotspot was a fingerprint of global warming.

      > “Strike Four.”

      Well at least you got one out of four right.
      Cirrus deflects, cumulus traps, and the first place I ever heard that was in an explanation by Bob Carter. I don’t know if that is solid or still conjecture, but (to continue the baseball analogy) I’ll let it slide.

      Extra Time
      After that last point I cannot let you walk away with a grin, so here is something else to think about. According to reflected Earthshine data by the Big Bear Solar Observatory, the Earth’s albedo decreased by 2% between 1984 and 1998. That is not a feedback to warming, Ross, that is a primary forcing on warming. They say:

      Albedo change is 6 W/m2; GHG up to now is 2.4 W/m2
      Equivalent to 2% increase in solar irradiance, a factor 20!!the typical maxima to minima variations (0.3 W/m2)
      Reversibility suggests natural variations.
      GCM do not show such variations

      Steeeee-rike!

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      Ross,

      I clicked on your link. It substantiates Jo’s comments about sea levels.

      I know you have difficulty, because of your dialed, communicating and I would not want to misunderstand you. Could you please clarify what you found so interesting about the information on Argo data that you linked to?

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        Ross James

        Eddie,

        The graph clearly contradicts the trends as presented on the TV doco .

        http://www-argo.ucsd.edu/levitus_2009_figure.jpg

        I know there are a few conflicting papers out there. At the moment it may be down to cooling bias in the ARGO network at certain depths on which some of those papers based there “cooler” data.

        Longer term graphs of oceanic heat suggest a very different picture.

        Therefore it was wrong of Jo to present claims of a “done neat deal” on oceanic cooling. It did not show the whole picture or expose the audience to other research and findings that contradict that finding (graph).

        If I were Rose, I would have better prepared myself with opposing research finding matches on large laminated paper in colour that show the argument is not cut and dry as was claimed.

        Ross J.

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          Patrick

          As for ignoring contrary evidence, the IPCC and its supporters are unmitigated champions. There is a wealth of peer-reviewed evidence in conflict with the IPCC;s version of climate science.
          Couple that with IPCC’s resort to reference material which has not been critically reviewed (as noted by the report of the IAC review of IPCC’s processes and procedures) as well as the inclusion of alarmist activists in IPCC’s Working Groups 2 (impacts) and 3 (mitigation) and you get some idea of their desperation to deceive us. Trust IPCC? Never!

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          Crikey James, we used the latest data we could get about argo at the time the event was shot. You seem to think we ought to show the old 2009 graph? FYI that data is included in between 2003-2011.

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      cohenite

      Andrew has looked at BEST and their remarkable conclusion that there is no UHI effect.

      But when James says this he really demonstrates his ignorance:

      Hotspot – it’s not a CO2 signature. It is a warming tropic zone signature of a Water Vapor lapse rate. And it’s a very transitory and temporal phenomena.

      For a start Figure 9.1, AR4 clearly shows a CO2 generated THS. In respect of the lapse rate THS is really a function of water vapor feedback, not a first order forcing. You don’t see it in MODTRAN as implemented on line because a surface temperature offset entered in MODTRAN only affects the temperature up through 10 km and its constant. You get the THS only if the lapse rate decreases as temperature goes up because the moist lapse rate gets lower as specific humidity goes up (higher energy content/kg). A decreasing lapse rate is actually a negative feedback, but the increased radiation from increased water vapour [SH] is supposed to more than make up for that.

      For instance, say the lapse rate is 6.5 K/km and the surface temperature is 300 K. Then the temperature at 10 km would be 235 K (300-6.5*10). Now let’s raise the surface temperature by 10 K and lower the lapse rate to 6 K/km. In this case the surface temperature is 310 K and the temperature at 10 km is 250 K (310-6*10). So the surface has warmed by 10 K and the 10 km temperature has gone up by 15 K. That’s the source and the signature, but with smaller numbers, of the THS. That is, the lapse rate change is a product of the THS not the other way round.

      The problem for James and those who advocate the presence of a THS is therefore 2-fold; firstly, a THS does depend on a temperature signature; as I note, Figure 9.1 of AR4 makes this plain; and this temperature signature is distinct to ghg’s; that is unequivocal; and that temperature signature is NOT THERE.

      The second problem is more convoluted and depends on there being more SH at particular levels and for that increased SH to have a +ve feedback to temperature. Initially, despite all the Santer and Soden modeling, it is problematic that SH is increasing at all or where it should be [see Soloman and Paltridge]; secondly, does increased SH have a positive feedback; increased SH should increase the latent heat of the atmosphere but this paper says otherwise:

      http://xa.yimg.com/kq/groups/16193427/157753127/name/miskolczi.PDF

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      Dave

      Ross, on the program Matthew England posited that the case for net significant (+2-3) positive feedbacks on top of base CO2 warming was all but a given; in fact he didn’t even mention the assumption until queried about it by Nick — who was perhaps better informed than Matthew expected. Do you agree that the science supports this assumption with a high level of certainty? If not, would you be so inclined to raise this point of contention, say with the other side, as you have commented on Jo’s points.

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        Winston

        That statement was a flat out porker- no wonder Matt England sat in the audience, so he could fire one off without risk of being cross examined. He appealed to me as the worst snake in the grass in the whole sham debate.

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    DougS

    Is Jo getting greedy?

    Giving a kicking to 3 uber-nutters and 1 sub-nutter – all-in one post!

    Come on Jo, leave somebody for Monckton et al to debunk!

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    Speedy

    Just watching Q&A, but really really disappointed that Tim Flannery isn’t on the panel?

    Why not? Bring on the Flim Flannery!

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      Andrew McRae

      Bom bom bom bom♫ <— Open now in a separate tab!

      Flim! Flam!
      I was helping a scam!
      …bombombombom…
      about a global warming fright.

      Rub a dub
      Just alarming with the guv
      Thinking my pay cheque was alright.

      Well I put my feet in my mouth.
      Predicted a big drought.
      I put a blindfold around me,
      told the dams to close their spout.
      and then
      Splish Splash!
      I jumped back to my cash,
      well how was I to know there’s
      a natural cycle goin’ on!

      There was a-skimmin’ and a-scammin’…
       

      Go on Speedy, join in if you invent know the words… 😀

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        Speedy

        It was all good until I got the mental video of Tim Flannery in the bath. Self medication is progressing…

        Cheers,

        Speedy

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    Afizzyfist

    WUWT has got an image of the last poll results
    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/26/getting-your-mind-right-in-australia-round-2/#more-62100. In round 2 you will find a super concerted effort by the diehards to influence the results. Howver as the poll numbers increase the dismissives are beginning to get close again to the alarmists. If they don manipulate the poll i predict the dismissives will return to same 55% by the time it reaches 20000

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      Catamon

      Good, the world needs more kitty litter liners like a self selecting poll.

      Remember, as they say in the Young Fiberals, vote early and vote often!

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        Winston

        You are such a hypocrite, Cat
        You would be the first to crow if the “alarmed” outnumbered the “dismissives”. Even with a concerted attempt to slant the poll their way, the alarmists are only kidding themselves.

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          catamon

          [You would be the first to crow if the “alarmed” outnumbered the “dismissives”.]

          Of course, but only in a very tongue in cheek fashion and to poke fun at some of the more reactionary denizens here who would miss the joke. Also, fully expecting the smarter ones to come back with comment on the worthlessness of self selecting online polls where individuals can vote multiple times, with which i would agree.

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            Winston

            Of course self selected polls mean nothing- that’s exactly how the 97% of climate scientists poll was done – in order to give authority and consensus where none existed.The point is that warmists continually trot that self selected poll out as proof of the universality of their belief, and then try to manipulate public opinion tweaking the same type of polling to reinforce their agenda.

            I would prefer a secret ballot of climate scientists run independently without fear of recriminations or job losses, or a Royal Commission to investigate what people involved in the science really actually believe and to what degree of certainty. Unfortunately, warmists will resist this tooth and nail because they are not interested in the truth- it’s irrelevant. It’s not skeptics that manipulate these cognitive devices for propaganda purposes, it is those whom you are defending.

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      Round 2 …

      All part of the proven process of Gleichschaltung.

      Look it up on the WWW to see what became of that.

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    Stephen Harper

    Related and topical:

    I just watched the “I Can Change Your Mind About Climate” programme and the Q & A which followed on ‘their’ ABC. I have come away with one overwhelming impression from the shows: Anna Rose is one very, very scary individual. She has all the hallmarks of the evangelist who is 100% certain of her religious quest and could no more countenance an alternative viewpoint than fly to the moon (the look in her eyes is chilling). She is scary because she displayed that she will say anything (employing false analogy after false analogy) in the quest to have her perspective prevail; and she was deceitful and ungracious in the way she approached those whom Nick Minchin wished her to listen to.

    Before she walked into Jo and David’s house she called them kooks and conspiracy theorists. She accused Richard Lindzen (who has more knowledge in his fingernail about climate science than Anna Rose has in her whole head) of being a “denier” of the effects of smoking (irrelevant ad hominem designed to obfuscate and delegitimise) and was outright rude to Marc Morano (slagging him off to his face then refusing to even speak to him).(Notice how ‘their ABC’ aired Rose’s smearing attacks.)

    Anna Rose showed herself up tonight. She showed that she is an ungracious and rude individual. I would not believe one word that came out of her mouth. If that’s the best the alarmist side have got then they certainly are doomed.

    Only the weak-minded would yield to the emotional, moralistic, over-the-top doomsaying that Rose preaches. And that is the correct word: preaches. Rose is preaching a gospel. And it’s a foul, false gospel at that. Pity all those impressionable university students she was preaching to. They have been betrayed in that they have not been taught how to think, but rather taught only what to think: left-wing claptrap.

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    Frankly Skeptic

    The program much as expected. Quite frankly Miss Rose sent a shiver down my spine during Part 1. Her childish naivety and delivery was a deceptive cover and at any moment I thought her head was going to rotate several times through 360 degrees. Imagine abusing Richard Lindzen with a tobacco smear. My wife wondered why Nick hadn’t throttled her by the end of the tour. At the end of the “debate” we wondered why we had watched it.

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      Hey Frankly, you and I must have the same wife! My wife (who I’ve found has excellent intuition) thought “That girl’s a nasty piece of work…. Butter wouldn’t melt!” I didn’t expect too much and wasn’t disappointed. QandA and anything associated with it like the doco is very light weight. It was simply a television event, and several parts I thought were media set ups e.g. Michin’s anger, Anna’s response to Morano… And why did no one rubbish the “Sea is eating into southern England” bit- not heard of ice age rebound where Scotland is rising and SE England is sinking.
      Don’t give up, folks, the truth will out in the end. I look forward to the full interview with Jo and David.
      PS I thought Clive Palmer did a good job- obviously a very smart man.
      Ken

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    John from CA

    Popular Technology.Net on Skeptical Science

    Skeptical Science is a climate alarmist website founded and run by a self-employed cartoonist, John Cook. It is moderated by zealots who ruthlessly censor any and all form of dissent from their alarmist position. This way they can pretend to win arguments, when in reality they have all been refuted. The abuse and censorship does not pertain to simply any dissenting commentator there but to highly credentialed and respected climate scientists as well; Dr. Pielke Sr. has unsuccessfully attempted to engage in discussions there only to be childishly taunted and censored while Dr. Michaels has been dishonestly quoted and smeared. The irony of the site’s oxymoronic name “Skeptical Science” is that the site is not skeptical of even the most extreme alarmist positions.

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    John from CA

    Google Scholar Illiteracy at Skeptical Science

    In a desperate attempt to diminish the value of the list of peer-reviewed papers supporting skeptic’s arguments, Rob Honeycutt from Skeptical Science not only lies but puts on a surprising display of his Google Scholar Illiteracy. It is clear that not only does he not understand how to properly use Google Scholar, he has no idea of the relevance of any of the results he gets.

    Update: Rob was forced to concede I was correct (though never owns up to blatantly lying) and has desperately made a flawed updated “analysis”. His original inaccurate number of 954,000 results went down to 189,553 results (which he fails to mention in his update) of which 160,130 (84%) CANNOT BE VERIFIED due to the 1000 result limit imposed by Google Scholar. The remaining results are irrefutably filled with erroneous nonsense that has to be individually removed before any sort of accurate count can be taken (see the updates for more information). None of which was done leaving his post to be worthless and those who cite it computer illiterate.

    Update 2: Skeptical Science has censored (deleted) ALL of my hundreds of comments at their site.

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    bubbagyro

    [snip]

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    Jaymez

    Hi Ross,

    Strike 1: As far as I could tell the link you gave does not show the latest Argo data which was shown by Jo and David. At best it states under ocean temperature: “This is consistent with the comparison by Roemmich and Gilson (2009) of Argo data with the global temperature time-series of Levitus et al (2005), finding a warming of the 0 – 2000 m ocean by 0.06°C since the (pre-XBT) early 1960’s.”

    I’m not sure a 0.06C warming in half a century is what the alarmists were looking for. Of course this does not provide any proof of causality with human CO2 emissions, but it certainly doesn’t support the climate models which do blame CO2.

    The graph at the site only appears to show up to about 2008 and there doesn’t appear to be any statistical warming since 2004 so I would say Jo and David were spot on.

    Strike 2: I was surprised that Muller and the BEST project were even referenced in the ‘show’ because it proved nothing other than the plotting of the three surface temperature data sets (as adjusted by the data set providers), produce a graph which ‘averages’ the three data sets. It proved nothing one way or the other about UHI effect, or any causality between global warming and human CO2 emissions. It didn’t show how much of the recorded temperature rise (as adjusted), was attributable to human influences or natural variation. That segment only supported the ‘alarmist’ case simply because the narrator said it did, and the narrator claimed that Muller was a previous sceptic who was now convinced.

    You may find this an interesting read: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/24/unadjusted-data-of-long-period-stations-in-giss-show-a-virtually-flat-century-scale-trend/

    Strike 3. Here is an excellent resource on the warming ‘signature’ which was well and truly predicted by the alarmists: http://joannenova.com.au/2012/04/so-is-the-hotspot-a-fingerprint-or-signature-is-it-unique/ Jo put it well when she wrote: “Either the hot spot is missing because the models exaggerate wildly, or the hot spot is there but we can’t see it because the world hasn’t warmed as much as those thermometers-near-carparks are claiming it has.”

    Strike 4. I agree with you Ross!

    So I’d mark you 1 out of 4.

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    Jaymez

    It isn’t just agreeable Climate Scientists and Australians of the Year who can climb aboard the Australian Governments Climate gravy train. I bet Jo and David would like just a small piece of the action Psychologist Professor Stephan Lewandowsky is able to milk from tax payers. This from his latest funding brag sheet:

    Australian Research Council (Linkage Grant, with Federal Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency). Creating a climate for change: From cognition to consensus. (Ben Newell, Brett Hayes, Marilyn Brewer, Stephan Lewandowsky, Andy Pitman, Matthew England, Chris Mitchell), A$216,000 (plus matching contribution from DCCEE for total funding of $432,000), 2012-2014.

    National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility. What about me? Factors affecting individual adaptive coping capacity across different population groups. (Kerrie Unsworth, Stephan Lewandowsky, David Morrison, Carmen Lawrence, Sally Russell, Kelly Fielding, Chris Clegg), A$330,000, 2011-2013.

    There’s a cool $732,000 on top of the Professorship salary, the $6M funds raised to set up ‘The Conversation’ and who knows what else. Here’s a guy who loves to tell us that we need to reduce our carbon footprint. Where does he think all this money that’s funding him and his non-productive mates is coming from?

    Yet alarmist like Lewandowsky continue to claim sceptics such as David and Jo are in the pay of the fossil fuel lobby or some such nonsense! The trouble with guys like Lewandowsky, by the time the Climate Alarm has died down, he will have moved on to his next pet project without having made any positive contribution to the society he lives off.

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      Patrick

      You mean to say he has a vested interest? Perhaps even a conflict of interest? No there’s no conflict between his AGW religion and the money it leverages for him!

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    Afizzyfist

    Well now that you’ve 4 hours of film re the ABC story are you allowed to make a film of the film.. would be great to see the real interview.

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    KeithH

    Anna Rose – formerly with Getup, is a perfect example of the new generation of programmed brainwashed single-minded environmental fanatics being turned out by an education system which appears to no longer teach people to think for themselves and question everything.

    This is part of my comment 39 on the early April thread – The New World Order, which seems to me to be worth a re-post.

    From the ABC “I can change your mind” site.
    “Anna is co-founder and Chair of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC) and is a former Environment Minister’s joint Young Environmentalist of the Year. Her passion for social and environmental justice was sparked at the age of 14, when she set up recycling, composting and a school sport called “environmental campaigning” at her school in Newcastle. She became a climate change campaigner after her grandparent’s farm in North Western NSW was affected by the Drought, and Anna connected the dots to climate change.”

    While it’s pleasing to see bright young souls like Anna making a good environmental contribution round the edges, it is sad to see her climate change beliefs are based on such dodgy “connect the dots” science!

    As for funding, whilst Hospitals and other essential services deteriorate through suffering from funding cuts, AYCC is one of the many untouchable sacred cows of taxpayer-funded “Climate Change” propaganda units.

    Program title: Climate Change Foundation Campaign
    Recipient: Australian Youth Climate Coalition AYCC
    Value: $271,560
    Purpose: Power Shift events for youth in Perth and Brisbane to raise awareness on climate change.
    Approval date: 30 June 2011

    For details of all grants:-

    http://www.climatechange.gov.au/about/grants.aspx

    I do not suggest in any way that it would have been her original motivation, but it would appear that with the above and the ABC exposure which will no doubt be ongoing, Anna has found herself a nice little seat on the Gillard CAGW gravy train. You should be so lucky Jo!

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    Ross

    I’m in NZ so obviously did not see the prgrams. But a couple of points –why do these guys continually harp on about where those who disagree get their funds from ? If their position is so solid ( according to them) what does it matter who is funding who , unless you are not really sure of your position,of course.
    Have they given out audience figures for the shows ? ( have ever they calculate those !! )
    It seems this lady, Anna Rose, may have been out of her depth. This reminds me of the Press Club debate with Chris Monckton last year –the alarmists put up someone to represent them who was “not up to speed”. So it looks like Jo’s title for this thread is very apt.

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    KeithH

    Further to my comment on education at 47.

    Also featured on the link below is the “Marc Morano stands up to Australian youth” video where Anna Rose did herself no favours by showing how effective the brainwashing has been in closing her mind. How much of this did they show in the ABC program?

    Apr 26, 2012
    Indoctrination of American Youth via the National Park Foundation
    By Dennis Ambler, SPPI Blog

    http://www.icecap.us/

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    warcroft

    Anna Rose comments throughout QandA were just the same old headline scare comments “The sea levels are rising, the earth is heating, the sky is falling. Solar, solar solar, wind wind wind.”
    And the audience ate up every one of her comments, madly clapping like shes some prophet, when in truth she sounded like an uneducated teenage girl reading a Greenpeace pamphlet.

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    8.05 am. I’ve redone the survey, still dismissive (37% dismissive- still more than alarmed), only 1859 votes. What gives?
    Ken

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      Bruce of Newcastle

      Its the after-show poll. I just did it, now 38% dismissive out of 2123 (including me, who said global warming was certainly happening in Q1).

      Nick Minchin has a column in the SMH today. Even mentions Prof Kirkby and CERN.

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    As well as having a narrow and polarizing view on numbers, John Cook also have a similar take on definitions.

    Consider the following definitions. Genuine skeptics consider all the evidence in their search for the truth. Deniers, on the other hand, refuse to accept any evidence that conflicts with their pre-determined views.

    My “Shorter Oxford English Dictionary” allows for much broader and richer definitions of “sceptics”, including that who unconvinced by any amount of evidence. No mention what proportion of the evidence that one must consider to qualify as a “genuine skeptic”. But then who should you believe – a consensus of the worlds leading etymologists, or someone with no expertise in the subject?

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      Winston

      Deniers, on the other hand, refuse to accept any evidence that conflicts with their pre-determined views

      You can see what John Cook is doing there- cunningly I might add. He is placing the onus of proof discrediting each and every line of “evidence” on the warmist side to make the skeptics’ case, rather than merely one or two main “signature” pieces of central planks of evidence being inconsistent which should normally be sufficient- but then if you do debunk each and every one of their supportive lines of evidence then you are a “denier” and so have a hidden agenda or are immune to reason- circular logic strikes again!

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      Patrick

      That definition aptly applies to the IPCC !

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    Robert

    Jo, keep up the excellent work and no surprise that the ABC very skillfully tried to make this a social and political issue instead of a science debate.

    Just the facts ma’am….

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    crakar24

    O’oh

    There goes the “we are only getting record NH snow falls because the Arctic is warming/melting” what is your next excuse?

    I thought i would show a different graph today.

    http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/observation_images/ssmi1_ice_ext.png

    http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/n_timeseries1.png

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    Tom

    James Delingpole on Melbourne radio at 9.45am AEST on Friday.

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      mobilly1

      Thanks Tom I Enjoyed that.
      Not a backwards step taken by James .
      Im sorry I missed his show .
      Cheers

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    gnome

    One observation and one ray of hope –

    1) Poor Nick Minchin, having to put up with the well fed, well heeled, well opinionated Anna for four weeks. Until my conversion from Labor a few years ago I thought he (and Eric Abetz) were devils incarnate, scars that take a while to heal, but he came across well.

    2) Time is on the side of the realists. Nothing is going to be done to reduce CO2 worldwide, it will just keep rising, and eventually even the Annas of the world won’t be able to keep up the lies.

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    Bob Malloy

    Below is a summery of part of the show.

    Anna’s uncle has first hand experience of a changing climate!
    Clive Vickers: I’ve been here about 26 years, we measure the temperature of the soil before planting, we’ve noticed the grounds warming and we can now plant 3 weeks to a month earlier.

    Now lets examine that:
    1)He’s been farming 26 years, 2012 – 26 = 1986
    2)We accept that it’s warmed since the 70″s
    3)Had he farmed from 1940 to 1966 he would have noticed the temperature cooled over those years. Not being from the land I can only guess, but I’m willing to speculate farmers during those years needed to delay their seeding.
    4) DUH!!!!!

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      MadJak

      That is exactly what I was thinking. 26 years -hah!, cobblers….

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      Bob Malloy

      Quote number two from Anna’s Uncle: too much CO2 and we have no plants, WTF, is that gas they pump into greenhouses.

      Double DUH!!!

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      Tom

      Bob, I AM from the land and I can tell you the climate of south-eastern Australia is now markedly different now than what in was in the 1960s, when there were white frosts in winter and stinking-hot summers (now there are mild winters and mild summers). Unlike zombies like Anna Rose, I was given an education that taught me not to accept what I was told without thinking it out for myself and simple mathematical/scientific concepts like: correlation is not causation. As Dr Roy Spencer says, “What else could it be?” is not a sufficient standard of proof for CAGW theory. But people like Anna, who apparently has very low intelligence and poor education, have swallowed the hook whole.

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      mobilly1

      Good observation Bob ,Having worked on the land we always waited for the first rains before seeding , Dry seeding uses more Horsepower (Hence more Fuel)and the tynes wear out faster in the dry soil.

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      Laurie Williams

      Yes, as soon as he mentioned “26 years” his credibility in the matter was blown. Where’s Piers Corbyn when we need him?

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        Bob Malloy

        If there are any multi-generational farmers out there that have records/diaries, I’d be interested in temperatures from the 30’s & 40’s and how they compare to present days.

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    […] Nova has a reaction here entitled "The intellectual vacuum – alarmists are afraid of debate, they namecall and break laws […]

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    Apoxonbothyourhouses

    I’ve been out of touch so tell me that the extract below (sent by a friend in Sicily!) is not true. Has this man never read your blog nor that of “What’s Up”? As mother said there’s no so blind as those who will not see.

    Clive Hamilton writes:

    “If there were a real debate among scientists, then the climate deniers would be publishing their counter-evidence in the professional scientific journals. But they are not, because they do not have evidence that will stand up to scrutiny.

    So they set out to do something else, to create the impression in the public mind that there is a serious debate among scientists about global warming. To do so they must shift the terrain away from the scientific journals and into the popular media, where they do not have to face the scrutiny of experts.”

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    Graeme. P.

    JO, any chance of publishing the full video from your kitchen in the near future? Maybe you could start up an online video segment called Jo’s Kitchen where you and David have a cuppa and chat with various climate scientist and other involved persons where the science is debated. At least then we could say there has been some debate.
    Keep up the good work.

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    Richard A

    Well from last evening’s two kindergarten class there were two matters that stood out…

    First I shuddered at an arrogant brat who has no intention of listening to any one but herself. God help us if she stands as a green senate candidate and introduces her clap trap style into our parliamentary system .

    Second in QA.

    The head CSIRO scientist conceded we only produce 1.3 % of world’s emissions and stated that any solution can only be from a world cooperative.

    Why then did she not relay that fact to Gillard/Brown, as this means that the introduced carbon tax will have absolutely zero impact on climate change (which many of us have said all along). At least we now have the proof that the carbon tax is both a caustic budget initiative designed to plug labor’s bad spending and strip the wealth from all Australians and nothing to do with halting any climate change.

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      gnome

      What difference would it make if she was in the Senate? She could pass for Sarah hyphen-Young, even in good light. After the next election they will be irrelevant.

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    Matt

    Hi Jo,

    If its any consolation, Ms Rose came across as an absolute dithering moron. She just repeated the lines – “Its so scary”

    For me, here eyes and the stupid smile just give it all away. She knows absolutely nothing about climate change.

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    John V K

    Circling the Wagons.

    I saw a bit of it but though Auntie is about an eighth of my media diet, I just can’t stomach Q&A. It’s pap, people who know nothing about a topic opine on topics, it’s not only Q&A though that do this, the Drum is guilty as well. That this is running now in view of political turmoil unseen since Federation, just means that like every crooked Snake oil salesman proudly declaring their product was to blame it was the consumer, and a fraud will never admit to fraud, same as most consumers defrauded never admit to it, these frauds they know a storm of rage exists and continue to ride the tiger, they have no choice.

    The thing that struck me was that the young lass playing at Joan of Arc savior of the doomed planet came across as a complete nong and true believer type. Her body language and general attitude in vacuous vague argument about non defined papers was cringe worthy from a viewers point of view.

    Me I am all for a media review, a review not on ownership but on media accuracy and media professionalism and media ethics.

    The role of witness is to provide fair witness and state qualification or non qualification.

    Argument by analogy is a good tool only as long as the premises argued are relative to each other.

    I think the young lass was denuded for all to see, as for Nick Minchin as a political, Joyce and Him deserve science laurels and both without science credentials.

    Senators have to analyse. Seems to me Minchin was a real dog in this fight, from an analysts point of view.

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    ghrelin

    Firstly, let me start by saying I have been a relatively silent observer over the past few years, becoming aware of climate change as an issue when the previous Howard government proposed introducing an ETS. As it would directly relate to me (and every other Australian citizen), I thought I had best be better informed.

    I consider myself one of the silent majority of Aussies, who happily sit around BBQ’s bemoaning the state of the political planet with friends, but wait until an election to do something about it.
    Sadly the first stop I found was misnomer skeptical science. However there were some nuggets in there, sparkling gems actually. References to this site and Anthony Watts.

    The arguments presented by that site started alarm bells ringing. Appeals to authority, the “ad hom” attacks, claims of “big oil” funding (when I had previously found “big oil” sponsoring pro AGW research) and so on. (By the way, if no-one has put it together yet, “big oil” has the most to gain from a pro-AGW standpoint, as coal miners don’t do much with gas or the dreaded Uranium, and oil companies have a lot to gain as they’re generally the gas miners, and I am sure would love to gain a big slice of the energy and coking markets… But that could be conspiracy theorem)

    So, from a couple of shorts I had seen of the “docco” last night, I thought it would be interesting, having avoided the ABC like the plague since discovering their blatant pro-AGW bias a few years ago (apart from ABC3, which also from time-to-time chucks some spurious brain-washing at young kids in the form of cartoons). Being unsure of what time the programme started, I forced my loving wife to watch ABC1 from 8:00pm AEST. Lo and behold, the bias was set accordingly with the final article shown on Catalyst about linkiung tree deaths in WA/SA and globally to droughts and global warming. Um, last time I checked, this was localized to WA/SA, as the east coast has had some pretty big flooding going on over the last few years. And hasn’t burning off been banned, thus allowing increases in populations of insect larvae and fungus? Thus it seemed to me to be a big leap… More obfuscating… So, we have set up the innocent viewer with the last tag line of the show, blaming global warming, and then blending into the so-called documentary.

    Then we move to the documentary. I smoked a lot of cigarettes outside over the course of the next 2 hours as my levels of frustration increased.

    My wife pointed out a couple of short-comings in Ms Rose, especially when conversing with Bjorn Lomborg. She was more open to him cause he was a “hot greenie”. She reckons her body language was more in tune to doe-eyed infatuation. [snip]

    I’ll wrap up this long post with a huge thank you to Dr Evans, Ms Nova, Mr Watts and all others with the intestinal fortitude to stand and push against the political mountain of consensus science and politics, and to all of the commenters on this and other blogs, you all should take a bow. It’s easy for me hiding behind complete anonymity, but you put yourselves in the direct firing line of nasty, personal attacks against your moral fibres.

    You all have helped change my mind.

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    Ross James

    If Global warming has stopped then why is Greenland showing signs of melting?

    http://youtu.be/BbJ0b8J5CGE

    The seas are warming! in the first 700 meters and driving down deeper!

    http://www.decisionsonevidence.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Global-Ocrean-Heat-Content.png

    Why is this graph incorrect and yours the only correct one?

    http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/index.html

    IF David Evans is serious about his ideas, appealing the hot spot non-existence to those who would not know the science does not prove a thing. I hold to scrutiny and proper venting of peer review – it’s there so crazy ideas do not corrupt good science.

    I certainly weight the evidence pro and against. I cannot see justification for David Evans continued claims if he never allows the hypothesis of his to be challenged. The same goes for many of the Watts Up assertions with appeals to the under educated for support.

    http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/12/tropical-troposphere-trends/

    http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2009/08/the_missing_hotspot_misses_the.php

    As for air temperatures – challenging the Best results – when even a sceptic found a non-issue. I saw the TV doco. Falling back to the original statement with no movement or recognisable statement of the new results is not science. This is a form of exclusion to new information to maintain original confirmation bias.

    The Berkeley Earth group concluded that the warming trend is real, that over the past 50 years the land surface warmed by 0.911 °C, and their results mirrors those obtained from earlier studies carried out by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Hadley Centre, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) Surface Temperature Analysis, and the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia. The study also found that The urban heat island effect and poor station quality did not bias the results obtained from these earlier studies.

    Wikipedia

    __________

    Why on earth would someone pick on a paper pre-release about the mistakes in calculation on Oceanic warming when clearly the peer review process was still going through correcting a scientist’s mistake.

    Scientist’s are being called idiots. It’s time to show some restraint.

    Matt:

    I think you should realise what gets cut on the floor on TV media. Rest assured the “foolish” look was all over both sides. Cutting stuff upset BOTH sides! Okay she (Rose) is a strong CAGW advocate – but this girl has got more following then Liberal or Labor in politics. Social justice which she is very strong on under scores that following. Jo Nova fits yet another spectrum on the continuum of conservative politics with a conspiratorial bent appealing mainly to unhappy conservative retires. Denigrating such is where I draw the line. The majority of young people who just got there clutch of babies are not happy at all with our generation beyond 40 plus and literally hate Abbot’s politics to scorn. These will determine the real policies on climate change over the next 15 years. Whether we like it or not.

    _________

    Ross J.

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      Sonny

      No Ross, peer review among the climate team is a filtering device to ensure that the science remains subservient to the political agenda.

      Dah!

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        Ross James

        Sonny,

        You do not understand peer review.

        One: It is process whereby the technical aspects of calculations are checked.
        Two: Statistical results are checked and re-checked.
        Three. The sources are verified – not just just cut and pasted graphs
        Four. Deficient argument is uncovered

        It is a pity that even peer review has been corrupted to mean “political” as an empire (not perfect) makes a decision. This should two or three.

        As I stated David Evans is welcome to present his argument to other scientists who would examine his claims in greater detail and scrutiny. Those in your camp will just not make any headway until they can pass their claims through of fires of of some sort of scrutiny and criticism.

        It is not enough to flash claims on a TV show. Exposing an argument on Video tape in this context does not in anyway give anyone enough depth. It just self serves a confirmation bias. Until you remove your political colour from your bias you cannot make any headway to good independent scientific enquiry.

        Ross J.

        ————————–
        Ross – you have found the perfect human institution – peer review – infallible, uncorruptible, and only run by angels, unfortunately it only exists in your head. Peer review is just an anonymous and unpaid check. It fails all the time, and we have quotes from the b-grade science team where they admit manipulating it and cheating. Just keep on denying… – Jo

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          Mark D.

          Ross says:

          It is not enough to flash claims on a TV show. Exposing an argument on Video tape in this context does not in anyway give anyone enough depth. It just self serves a confirmation bias. Until you remove your political colour from your bias you cannot make any headway to good independent scientific enquiry.

          Nice call out of Anna Rose! Thanks.

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          Sonny

          “the process whereby technical aspects of a calculation are checked”.

          I stopped reading your comment there Ross, you clearly have no idea that peer review could not possibly achieve this. In nearly all scientific articles the raw data series are omitted for brevity. The calculations performed are often complex statistical algorithms run with computer code. This code is not subject to review and remains the property of the author even though the code (and any errors therein) will define the results.

          For any new reader to this blog … I suggest you read “The hockey Stick Illusion” to find out just how corrupt and fallible the peer review process can be.
          Do not fall victim to Ross and other alarmists propoganda regarding “peer review”.
          Peer review is argument by authority not argument by scientific veracity. It is one of the core tools in the alarmists toolbelt enabling “the team” to filter the science that supports “the cause” while supressing the science that doesn’t.

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      Laurie Williams

      Ross, you are mistaking the well named “pal review” for the fantasy of “peer review” that you favour.

      Providing links to websites run by people who have been well exposed (by McIntyre, Monckton and others) for their support of the global warming hoax/scam is fine for purposes of constructive criticism but if you provide such links as support for your case then you demonstrate that you have little or even no credibility.

      Work on your spelling and grammar. Words and sentences that do not mean as you intend damage any credibility that you may have left.

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    Not surprisingly this was simply another stitch up by the ABC and their Global Warming High Priest in Jones.

    In the doco the “voice over” person was constantly running commentry in favour of Anna Rose particularly when the had Richard Muller on. To introduce that man as a sceptic is like saying Pol Pot was a advocate for preserving intellectuals in Cambodia. Anna (Mrs GetUp – Simon Sheik’s other half) Rose was always prattling on about how “those people”(a term I thought the left found offensive)just need to follow or understand “the science”(meaning her science), yet when she was presented with an opporunity to view emperical evidence ( as with Jo and David) or to challenge the science presented by Marc Marano, her reaction was simply to dismiss it, to not engage in any debate or to try to slime the presenter as she did with Richard Lindzen and then all of you later on QandA. This was when Jones let her have a little rant about the Heartland Institute with no right of reply from Minchin.

    Then there was the setups on QandA. The group of GetUp/Green activists in a tight group all at the front that would clap loudly to Anna Rose comments to make it sound like the whole audience was behind her (the visuals proved otherwise). Then there was the ambush of Minchin and Palmer by a pre positioned, pre microphoned alarmist and vested interest Matthew England to cross examine statements made by those two. Strange that England was unaware that 97% of CO2 is from natural sources and doesn’t know where Palmer got that figure from? Also how typically ABC to not have say William Kinninmonth also in the audience to present the other side of the argument from a scientific point of view.

    Then there were the scientific howlers dropped by Dr. Megan Clark about CFC’s and their role in Ozone. Is she unaware of the studies now linking Cosmic Ray activity to the size of the Ozone hole and how man’s emissions may have had very little direct impact on the hole size. There were other howlers too.

    Rebecca Huntly was a complete waste of time, only there to call sceptics “deniers” and to slime Palmer with “did the CIA approve that?”

    Then there was High Priest Jones. Ensuring that if Minchin was making a valid point, that he’d interupt and try to spin the conversation towads “solar panels” because Minchin had made mention of them at the conclusion of the doco. As I said earlier, how he let Anna Roe get her rant about Heartland in and wouldn’t allow a right of reply, when Rose, Clark or England made a howler.

    Minchin was right to be surprised about the ABC allowing his views to be aired. He (and you Jo) should not be surprised about the hatchet job they did with the footage and the Q and A afterwards.

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    Watching the Murdoch show on Sky news was more fun, I would have thrown stuff at the ABC if I had watched them by the looks of comments. I never could stand Q & A. I will watch your videos when they are up. At least they will be as sensible as this post about the Three Stooges…Thanks Jo.

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    val majkus

    thanks to Tom FOR his comment yesterday I found the letter to which he refers:

    John Reid

    Mark Latham seems unable to comprehend why so many successful, well-educated people should ignore the “hard evidence” of human-induced climate change (“Mass denial”, Review, April 20).

    It is quite simple. There is no hard evidence. Just because a scientist makes a statement, it does not follow that such a statement is true or even scientific. Science is a process, not a dogma. It is a process that uses the scientific method whereby hypotheses are tested by attempting to falsify them. The scientific method is circumvented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which said: “Our evaluation process is not as clear cut as a simple search for ‘falsification’ (TAR Section 8.2.2 page 474).”

    Consequently the so-called “climate science” as put forward by the IPCC is no more a science than is homeopathy or astrology.

    The general sloppiness in the outpourings of the climate change establishment are most evident in the glib, model-based predictions of global climate a century into the future. As a physicist and former numerical modeller, I know that such predictions are ludicrous.
    The flaw in Latham’s world view is his naive faith that science always “gets it right”. That is no more true of science than it is of any other human institution, and the folks out there in the ’burbs are well aware of this.

    All institutions go off the rails from time to time and the way in which environmental scientists are now peddling Green propaganda in return for grant money resembles the Christian church under the Borgia popes. Because of this, the cult of climate change has come to have a stranglehold on the environmental sciences. Maybe its time for a new Martin Luther to come along and fix things up.

    (published in the AFR)

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    Dennis

    I was recently shown an information board near the Crowdy Head Lighthouse mid north coast New South Wales and reference to ocean rise and fall. Between 10 thousand years and 1.6 million years ago there have been four changes in the range 200 metres, Crowdy Head has been an island at the highest point and at the lowest the continental shelf, now 30 kilometres out to sea, has been the coastline. Tim Flannery’s two Hawkesbury River frontage properties are safe, but he knows that.

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    Graham Richards

    The closer the date for the introduction of the carbon tax fraud the greater the flow of propaganda from the Socialists.

    Notice that the price of petrol keeps rising even though the crude prices for WTC and the ABC’s favourite, TAPIS, reduce. Is there a deal with oil companies to raise prices before the introduction of the carbon tax?? Maybe so that when the tax is introduced Gillard already has here carbon tax and prices will not rise further allowing the claim that “that wasn’t so bad was it? ”

    It may seem crazy but I would not put anything past this devious, immoral, pack of liars.

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    Ian Middleton

    Jo, I have run out of hats to take off to you my dear. Excellent post.
    Hit ’em high, hit ’em low, make them eat their own Doco.

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    John Brookes

    So I missed the doco and just got Q & A. I saw a few standard “skeptic” memes. Minchin (I sincerely hope the incredibly talented Tim is no relation) mentioned the Phil Jones “no statistically significant warming in the past 15 years” quote. But I’m not sure he dutifully kept the “statistically significant” bit in there, and he certainly didn’t bother to add that since Phil gave that quote, it has ceased to be true, with the last 15 years now showing statistically significant warming.

    Then there was Clive Palmer with his crocodile tears for the worlds poor who we will condemn to eternal poverty by denying them the right to buy Clive’s coal. If only the wests concern for the worlds poor was actually genuine. Clive made the valid point that we should use the energy source that is cheapest. But nobody told him that the whole point of climate change is that when all the costs are factored in, coal is not the cheapest.

    Of course, given that this is a “skeptic” website, you will disagree with this.

    However, the most interesting bit for me was that somewhere around half of all people say that their mind can’t be changed on climate change! I’m hoping no one here was in that group, as this is far from a skeptical position. Surely if more and more evidence suggested that CO2 was causing the atmosphere to warm, some of you would change your mind. I know that significant cooling were to occur without any known trigger, I’d be thinking that there was a serious error in climate science.

    Does anyone here have any idea why people are saying that they would stick to an opinion? It seems rather strangely irrational…

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      Ian Middleton

      strangely irrational? John I don’t think so. Solid hard evidence to prove increases in CO2 will make any significant detrimental impact on this planet is needed. In 30 years and trillions in funding has not produced any tangible evidence. What has surfaced however, to the horror of the warmistist, is that an increase in CO2 and a rise of 1 to 2 deg C is of massive benefit to the world and it’s inhabitants. That’s the bit that has been proven. So on that alone, no John, I will not be changing my mind anytime soon.

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        John Brookes

        Yeah Ian, but what if over the next 20 years it looks more and more like the warming is bad, and its caused by us? If that is the case, will you change your mind, or will you cling to your existing beliefs?

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      Ah, John Brookes,

      I just love your callous attitude towards the near one billion people in both China AND the same number in India, AND the same number in the remainder of the developing Third World who have no access to the constant and reliable source of electricity that YOU take for granted as a necessity of life now, something they don’t have, which would give them a fraction of the quality of life we already have.

      To you, it’s just a scoffing sniggering throwaway line from you about a detested money grubbing land vandal you subliminally refer to him as.

      John, your wish is not only that these people remain in abject subsistence life, but that we then get rid of what we have and go back and join them.

      Ah John, I’ll bet you’re thinking to yourself right now … “Hey, I didn’t mean THAT.”

      Tony.

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        John Brookes

        So its a non-existent carbon tax that is keeping them without electricity. If only they knew.

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      Bruce of Newcastle

      “with the last 15 years now showing statistically significant warming.”

      Er, no John. HadCRUT 3v and RSS (satellite) show falls over 15 years. UAH shows a rise. HadCRUT 4 and GISS I trust less that Envisat of magical overnight 5cm sea level rise fame.

      And even GISS and BEST show falls over the last decade. Those guys need to talk to Mr Slipper about massaging um, data better.

      Keep believing John, I’m sure you will be lionised for your persistence. Or something.

      PS, I just about fell off my chair laughing when I read a moment ago that Anna Rose and Simon Sheik were together. Just shows scientists like moi are last to find out a small datum like that.

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      Andrew

      John Brookes: “Of course, given that this is a “skeptic” website, you will disagree with this.”

      I can only speak for myslef: no, I disagree with it because what you wrote above is untruthful, factually inocrrect or otherwise just nonsense:

      1) Even according to the corrupted land-based (GISS/ HadCRUT) record, there has been no statistically significant warming during the period 1998-2012. This is also tru of the far more reliable satellite record

      2) when what “costs are factored in”? Your use of costs is mistaken. You ought to have said when the benefits of adding CO2 plant food to the atmosphere are factored in – coal looks even cheaper than it already is by increasing primary production for the benefit of people and natural ecosystems.

      But that doesn’t quite have the same anti-humanist ring to it that sociiopathic CAGW cultists and cheerleaders like you get off on John, does it?

      3) When I said no – you can’t change my mind on climate change – in teh survey, I was saying something quite specific about the biased and unbalanced ABC which seemingly has no need for evidence-based science in determining such matters.

      What I think your diatribe above says is that you’re desperately grasping at straws. I think you really know the game is up but you’re a mendaceous old man Brookes and can’t bear to admit the game is up and you got taken for an old fool. How did you get to be so brain-washed? Or have you some money in the game?

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    pat

    Agenda 21 on steroids from the Royal Society no less. lots of links in here:

    26 April: Guardian: Leo Hickman: Does consumption need tackling before population?
    The Royal Society says global growth in consumption and population is causing ‘pressing’ environmental problems, but that reducing consumption in the short-term is of ‘utmost urgency’. Leo Hickman, with your help, investigates
    5) Governments should realise the potential of urbanisation to reduce material consumption and environmental impact through efficiency measures. The well planned provision of water supply, waste disposal, power and other services will avoid slum conditions and increase the welfare of inhabitants…
    12.01pm: Paul Ehrlich, the Stanford professor who authored the Population Bomb in the late 1960s and who gave evidence to the Royal Society for its report, has been interviewed today by the Guardian’s John Vidal. It’s not an uplifting read:
    How many you support depends on lifestyles. We came up with 1.5 to 2 billion because you can have big active cities and wilderness. If you want a battery chicken world where everyone has minimum space and food and everyone is kept just about alive you might be able to support in the long term about 4 or 5 billion people. But you already have 7 billion. So we have to humanely and as rapidly as possible move to population shrinkage…
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2012/apr/26/royal-society-report-consumption-population

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      Winston

      So we have to humanely and as rapidly as possible move to population shrinkage

      In other words, euphemism for a human cull- with all the “humane” methods at our disposal.No doubt Ehrlich, in true altruisitic fashion, will be the first to volunteer.

      Interesting the incredible cognitive dissonance of these superior beings of society such as this narcissistic man, who could not possibly countenance murder directly, but through their actions would happily see large swathes of the population driven to starvation, disease and death. All the while congratulating themselves on their selfless service to society and the “greater good”. Sickening.

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    pat

    ignored ABC last nite, but woke up this morning to this dire warming warning on the radio!!!

    27 April: Science Mag: Ocean Salinities Reveal Strong Global Water Cycle Intensification During 1950 to 2000
    Paul J. Durack1,2,3,4,*, Susan E. Wijffels1,3, Richard J. Matear1,3
    Fundamental thermodynamics and climate models suggest that dry regions will become drier and wet regions will become wetter in response to warming…
    http://www.sciencemag.org/content/336/6080/455.abstract

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    Alice Thermopolis

    Once ABC/TJ/directors decided on their Rose/Minchin globetrotting format/storyline, impossible (i) for average viewer to separate facts from feelings, assertions, etc; (ii) for speakers to communicate much detail about their arguments (iii) to explore noble cause corruption, Climategate 1 & 2, government/agency funding, history of UN/IPCC role in driving national policies, seductiveness of saving-the-planet sentiment (especially in under-30 demographic), silliness of carbon (dioxide)tax, greening of religion and vice versa, and emergence/nature of “post-normal” (climate)science and so on.

    Q&A format doesn’t work well for this kind of stuff.. Too many speakers. Too much static. Too contrived. [Note lame gotcha! moment when Matthew England suddenly pops up out of the audience, like a rabbit out of TJ’s hat, to give the ABC resident climate scientist’s reply to Minchin’s comments on temperature trends. No Bob Carter, David Evans, etc, invited to respond to him.]

    For a hot public policy issue, found it rather flat, like a month-old bottle of lemonade that has lost its (carbon dioxide) zing.

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    pat

    just what the world needs…

    23 April: Scientific American: World Governments Establish Biodiversity Panel
    Scientists from more than 90 countries will unite to create an IPCC-like body to assess Earth’s fragile ecosystems
    By Natasha Gilbert of Nature magazine
    The annual IPBES budget has not yet been confirmed, but proposals range from US$5 million to $13 million. A trust fund will be set up to receive voluntary contributions committed by governments, United Nations organizations, the private sector and foundations.
    Germany won the vote to host the IPBES secretariat, which will be headquartered in Bonn…
    Governments will make the final decisions as to which scientists will sit on the panel, but scientific bodies such as DIVERSITAS will be invited to make nominations…
    http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=world-governments-establish-biodiversity-panel

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    When I saw the way Anna Rose behaved, it sparked a vague memory of something relevant that Eleanor Roosevelt wrote. So I looked it up on the WWW this morning:

    A mature person is one who does not think only in absolutes, who is able to be objective even when deeply stirred emotionally, who has learned that there is both good and bad in all people and all things, and who walks humbly and deals charitably with the circumstances of life, knowing that in this world no one is all-knowing and therefore all of us need both love and charity.

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    pat

    only a carbon dioxide lawyer could write or understand the rest of Elisa’s piece:

    27 April: Climate Spectator: Elisa de Wit: Where are the ACCUs?
    Elisa de Wit is an environment and planning, and climate change lawyer based in Melbourne
    The Carbon Farming Initiative formally commenced on December 8 2011, yet we are still some way off seeing any Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) being generated for sale. In particular, this is because a draft of regulations to dictate the approach towards reporting on abatement or sequestration, and any associated audit requirements (the precursor to ACCU issuance), has only recently been released for consultation by the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency.
    Projects cannot receive approval under the CFI until there is a methodology determination in place for the relevant project type. Although four methodologies have been approved to date, none of them have yet been promulgated as a determination…
    Government support for methodology development has recently been announced with an amount of $19.6 million being allocated to the Methodology Development Program as part of the Carbon Farming Futures package…
    http://www.climatespectator.com.au/commentary/where-are-accus

    26 April: Canada.com: Players bail on showcase carbon capture project in Alberta
    By Dina O’Meara and Karen Kleiss, Postmedia News
    The poster child of federal and provincially funded incentives to cut industrial carbon emissions and curry favour in the international community was orphaned by its corporate proponents Thursday.
    TransAlta Corp., lead partner in the $1.4-billion Pioneer carbon capture and storage project, said initial studies indicated there is not enough of a market for carbon dioxide to justify the expense…
    “Two things were instrumental in our decision,” said Don Wharton, vice-president for policy and sustainability at TransAlta. “One was the lack . . . of a suitable price for the pure CO2 created by the project. The second was the uncertainty around the value of emission reductions that would be created by Project Pioneer under regulatory frameworks that are still being developed.”
    Industry observers estimate carbon emissions need to cost emitters between $30 U.S. and $70 U.S. per tonne to make carbon capture and storage economical.
    The company received $779 million in federal and provincial funding toward Pioneer, to have been spread over 15 years, as part of strategies by Ottawa and Alberta to reduce carbon emissions. Prime Minister Stephen Harper was on hand in October 2009 when the funding was announced, saying then such projects “will define the future of this industry.”…
    http://www.canada.com/technology/Players+bail+showcase+carbon+capture+project+Alberta/6526185/story.html

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    Dave

    2010-11-15 13:50:54 Advice on engaging the public
    John Cook

    Okay, basically, I’m using this forum now similar to Dumbledore’s pensieve – I can’t keep track of all the thoughts and ideas floating past me every day so I like to throw them in here for future reference. Here is an excellent email from Greg Craven which I’m just copying and pasting into here and adding some of my own highlights to pick out key points:

    ——————————————————————————–
    Here’s my two cents on engaging the public:

    The biggest obstacles you need to understand are that the public doesn’t understand the nature of science, they are unwitting victims of serious confirmation bias, they aren’t rational decision-makers, and there is a great deal of anti-intellectual feeling out there. (DO NOT tell them any of this. They’ll label you as an arrogant, patronizing intellectual who thinks you’re better than them, and stop listening.)

    Avoid citing more than one statistic. Statistics almost never change opinions, especially when the other side is skilled in coming up with countering statistics, with the result that the lay person concludes “Well, obviously they don’t know yet what’s going to happen.” Instead use stories, analogies, short and clear chains of reasoning. Evidence does not convince. Recent research (sorry, lost the reference-it’s in a recent Science News) actually indicates what I describe in my book as a result of confirmation bias: once an opinion is formed, examination of the evidence simply serves to reinforce the original belief!

    Be aware that the press is very defensive about being called “liberal” by the heartland. So they will always give a denier equal weight under the guise of “We just report and let the reader make their own decision.” The hell they do. Ask “When the press does a story on the Holocaust, do they give equal time to the revisionists? When they do a story on spacecraft or astronomy, do they give equal time to the flat-earthers? When they do a story on the extinction of the dinosaurs, do they give equal time to the Nessie fans?” Call them on it. In your interviews–trying to avoid making your interviewer defensive and thus not publish your point–point out that it’s their job to evaluate what is credible and what’s not, and only give a small acknowledgement to the less credible stuff.

    Be willing to sacrifice precision in the interest of brevity.
    The assumption that the press is looking for the truth is completely incorrect. What the press is looking for is a story they can tell, with a hook–and, if they can get it–something provocative (like a manufactured controversy). I know it grates, but give sound bites:
    “This level of agreement in science is unprecedented.” As you can see from the effectiveness of the denial machine, a striking statement– even a wrong one–becomes truth to the public, even if carefully taken apart later. The unengaged majority only hears sound bites and headlines. They NEVER read the careful and thorough rebuttal. They’re simply too busy with life to do any research. Especially since they’ve heard environmental doomsday stories their whole life, and we’re still here, right? So start taking a page from the opposition–not in their dishonesty, but in their mode of communicating.

    Some specific talking points:

    Re: Climategate. Acknowledge that cries of “It was quoted out of context!” always strike the listener as weak excuses of guilty parties because it’s always in the context of politicians, and the public distrust politicians. Therefore the public distrusts anyone who sounds like one. Instead, highlight how the unprecedented agreement in science about human-caused climate change (avoid fancy-schmancy words like “anthropogenic” because of the anti-intellectual sentiment out there) cannot be undone by a few emails, papers, signatures, or papers.

    Re: “It’s a natural cycle.” (Now the most common denier position. If you have any doubt about how serious the public debate issue is, remind yourself that Bjorn Lomborg’s “Cool It” is now in theatres.) GHG nature of CO2 is well-established physics for the last 100 years. If you want to demonstrate it’s wrong, it will take a revolution in the laws of physics, with thousands of peer-reviewed studies. Stolen emails, thousands of signatures from non-specialists, or a dissenting scientist or two can’t do that.

    Re: “How can we predict the climate when we can’t even predict the weather a few days in advance?” At the beach, no one can predict exactly where the wave five minutes from now will break. But we can predict with great confidence the moment of the high tide 3 months from now. It’s about noise vs. trend, chaotic systems vs. the basic laws of physics.

    Ask the rhetorical question “What would it take to convince you? What would you need to see?” If the answer is “No single statement from a scientist dismiss AGW,” then even if it’s true, you’ll never get such statement, because science always has some dissenters, even about the most established conclusions! That’s just the nature of science. So waiting around for unanimity is a lost hope. Pragmatically, got to go with “This is good enough to go on.”

    All the major national academies of science in the world, as well as most all significant scientific professional organizations, have issued official statements saying essentially the same thing:
    1) Climate change is real.
    2) It’s largely caused by us now.
    3) It’s going to be bad, not good.
    4) We’d better do something about it fast.
    In the couple instances when the executive committee issued a skeptical statement, the membership rebelled, until the executive committee changed it to be non-committal. There are really only three options for explaining that.
    1) All those scientists, whose entire careers have been devoted to understanding the physical world, have got it so horribly wrong that they’re not even in the ballpark. [Question for you scientists–is there any example in modern science where there’s been this much evidence along so many lines, and turned out to be wrong? Highlight the rarity of that. -GC].
    2) All those scientists are perpetrating a giant hoax to gain control and wealth, a hoax a hundred times larger in scale and complexity than any other in the history of the world.
    3) The general conclusions of all those scientists (the weather is going to get more wacky, the seas will rise, and all sorts of systems– from growing seasons to insect cycles–will be disrupted) are about as certain as we can get about how anything will behave, including predicting the tides. #1 is unprecedented, and#2 is so unprecedented that it can’t be dismissed because of a few emails or scientists behaving poorly. Which leaves the third.

    ALL science is inherently tentative and uncertain. Nothing can ever be proven for certain. We haven’t even proven the Law of Gravity yet– we’re still running experiments to test it (Gravity Probe B)! The best we can do is amass large amounts of consistent evidence from multiple directions and calculations, and say “This is good enough to go on.”

    This isn’t a talking point, but perhaps it will serve as motivation to get more scientists out into the fray. I’ve long said that the American public will only be convinced of the urgency of the climate change threat when they see large amounts of climate researchers quit their jobs and move to New Zealand to homestead, preparing for the worst. The CCRT and the AGU 700 aren’t quite that, but they are a tremendous (and long overdue) development. But we need more.

    What we really really need is a mirror of the denial machine that Prof. Oreskes so capably details: an established network of blogs, organizations, spokespeople, press-releasers, and media contacts so that when an issue pops up, the rapid-response team pounds out the most effective talking points, and then gets them out into the network, exploiting the exponential nature of address book pointing to address book, to spread a consistent message. The CCRT can be the source of the talking points, but the distribution network needs to be established beforehand. This is largely why the deniers are so much more influential than the scientists. It’s time to take a page from their playbook and come out fighting.

    Public opinion has nothing to do with rationality or reality. Like it or not, it’s determined by emotion and perception. We need to stop thrashing against the tide, and instead start riding it. We are losing the great unengaged majority more and more each day. That is where the war will be one or lost.

    You will have a greater impact if you spend your time convincing scientists to enter the fray, rather than trying to influence individuals of the public.

    So let’s muster an army.

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      MrV

      Spoken like a true propagandist.

      “You will have a greater impact if you spend your time convincing scientists to enter the fray, rather than trying to influence individuals of the public.”

      That is the point, scientists are entering the fray, and increasingly the message is no cause for alarm, certainly the level of alarm and crazy predictions of catastrophe made by a number of AGW proponents.

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        Dave

        Just to make sure it’s clear, John Cook’s words are only those of the first paragraph, henceforth he quotes an “excellent” email sent to him.

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    I woke up this morning still feeling disheartened about both programmes last night, and oddly, my Comment at 1.1.1.2 was still how I felt.

    What really is the point now?

    So many people are so incredibly uninformed, especially when it comes to that first part of the Q and A about Energy.

    However, I was oddly curious as to how many people actually may have tuned in.

    Luckily, there is a site with that data.

    Free To Air Ratings Thursday 26APR2012

    The doco came in at 16th on the most watched shows last night, and the Q and A came in at 19th.

    I know it’s unfair to compare a doco at 8.30 with the News bulletins at 6 etc, so compare it with something on at the same time, say The Footy Show which came in at 10th, and Greys Anatomy which came in at 14th, and Celebrity Apprentice which came in at 9th.

    So, er, extrapolating from that then, let’s say 12 million people were watching TV last night.

    With the Climate doco drawing 620,000 viewers, I guess that gives us an actual figure on just how many people really do care about Climate Change, and that comes in at 5%.

    So, you can believe all you like about how rigged or not the ABC survey is.

    It looks pretty obvious to me that 95% of people are dismissive.

    Tony.

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      I feel somehow so much better now.

      Back to work!

      Tony.

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        Tom

        Tony, that ABC “survey” is a classic case of “push polling” in which survey subjects are asked deliberately loaded questions. It would be laughed out of town by a professional pollster like Roy Morgan or Newspoll. I’d guess it was formulated by a “social researcher” like Rebecca Huntley, featured on last night’s Q&A, who let her bias out of the bag early on when she referred to sceptics using the “denier” insult. The survey was designed to achieve a pre-ordained outcome. Despite that, sceptics are still leading the poll responses.

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      Look at the bright side Tony. Another channel had a rerun of Startrek TNG where the Jean-Luc Picard character closes one episode saying:

      Villains who twirl their mustaches are easy to spot. Those who cloak themselves in good deeds are well camouflaged […] waiting for the right climate in which to flourish, spreading fear in the name of righteousness.

      Unforgettable. Coincidence?

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      Ross

      That’s it Tony. It is easy for us reading blogs on a topic to think everyone is interested but the reality is quite different – hence my question @ 48. Thanks for an indicative answer.

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    Bob Fernley-Jones

    Apparently there was a lot missing from the four weeks of globe-trotting. The following extract from the SMH by Nick Minchin is rather telling:
    http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/all-can-agree-on-green-energy-but-the-rest-is-alarmist-20120426-1xnv3.html

    …One other significant appointment I sought – the footage of which lies on the cutting room floor – was with Professor Jasper Kirkby in Geneva. Kirkby is leading a team at the world-famous CERN research facility investigating the relationship between solar activity, cosmic rays and cloud formation, and the consequences for our climate. This is fascinating work which amply demonstrates how much we don’t yet know about what drives our climate – and that to claim ”the science is settled” is simply a lie. I felt that if any of the visits I proposed had shaken Anna in her convictions, this was it…

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      MattB

      That’s interesting as Kirkby doesn;t seem to draw any conclusions from the CERN CLOUD research to date that would suggest cosmic rays cause global warming.

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        Ian Middleton

        He has been told by his boss to keep tight lipped on the results for the time being. WUWT ran a story on it. The evidence is there, they are not allowed to comment.

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        Bob Fernley-Jones

        MattB,
        You are correct that no conclusions have been published, because it is a huge work in progress. Furthermore, whilst the source does not come to mind at the moment, I recall that higher management at CERN instructed that no conclusions should be published concerning climate change, and that only experimental results should be reported. These have shown that simulated cosmic ray particles do indeed generate fine aerosols under strictly defined complex conditions found variously throughout the atmosphere. (cloud seeders)
        You may benefit from this CERN release of 25/Aug/2011

        http://press.web.cern.ch/press/pressreleases/releases2011/PR15.11E.html

        Notice, if you read through and understand it, that it is a large world-wide cooperation from various fields in physics. (not “climate scientists”)
        There are other sources of information, but I don’t want to overload you with stuff.

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        Wayne, s. Job

        The cern results have recently been released and if my reading is correct the little creative rays do make cloud forming nuclei that have a ten fold multiplying effect. That would alarm any alarmist.

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      Dennis

      TheirABC never allows the facts to stand in the way of a propaganda exercise.

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    Innocent looking little ones like Anna Rose are probably the most dangerous people to our way of life, specifically our freedoms to choose and our freedoms of expression.

    The girl comes across as so caring, so loving and so concerned about hers and future generations, how could one dissmiss such genuine loving concern?
    But her blissfull ignorance, naivete and blind ideology are palpable.

    Some naive, easily led, immature, inexperienced ideological minds who are convinced that they should reduce their food cycle end up with anorexia and bulimia.
    Naive, easily led, immature, inexperienced ideological minds, who are, and in some cases will become, influential leaders of their communities demand that we reduce our Carbon Dioxide cycle, not realising that that will lead to economic anorexia and bulimia.

    Does anybody know how much has been flushed down the AGW toilet globally so far, and the inevitable knock-on effects?
    And what was achieved, how many tonnes of CO2, how many degrees?
    The answers are too much and zilch respectively.

    Innocent young things like Anna Rose, who seem easily frightened of future doom and gloom, should step back from the political fray and continue to inform and educate themselves. They could for instance study the perpetual fearmongering among mankind since time immemorial.

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      Dennis

      An injection of common sense might help her, maybe, possibly.

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      Brendan

      I’m with you Baa Humbug. For me, the telling moment was when Minchin told her about Lomborg. Her response was a 12 year old girls cry of “yayyyyy”, that she had someone who agreed with her.

      And thats what actually scares me most about her and people like her. She’s ‘cheering’ that we really do face a catastrophe! Its like when Mann, Hansen, Flannery etc are shown data that dispuites their apocalyptic predictions. Do they respond with “thank god we were wrong”? No, they actually want to be proved right, no matter what that costs in human terms.

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        Laurie Williams

        “Do they respond with “thank god we were wrong”? No, they actually want to be proved right, no matter what that costs in human terms.” – unfortunately yes.

        Piers Corbyn says a similar thing about junk media including particularly the New York Times which ignores every one of the long range weather and climate forecasts that Piers’s organisation Weather Action sends – no interest in using his reliable forecasts to warn of big weather events and save lives.

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      Mike

      What gives me hope is when she asked if she had made a mistake by talking to skeptics, by doing the show. That shows she, at least to some degree, has an open mind. And it may be that one of those seeds will start growing in her mind and get her to question. She thinks she is converting but that it is often those eager to convert who themselves end up being converted to the truth.

      It’s the blind idealogues who don’t even want to talk, who just put their hands over their ears who are the dangerous ones.

      She seems overall nice and reasonable, just misled by the level of extreme propaganda.

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        Ian Middleton

        Don’t be holding your breath now.

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        Laurie Williams

        Although I think that your implication that she knows that she has been fed and is feeding lies is clearly true, I suspect that her depth of dedication to her cause, with its financial and other rewards, and her poor stubborn arrogant character, are such that her main or even only reason for any regret at that moment was the feeling that by participating in the documentary she may be giving others the impression that she could be converted, not that she felt that she may admit anything any time soon.

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      Jake

      Other than being innocent and all that, what are Anna Rose’s credentials in regards to AGW or whatever they call it these days?
      According to her LinkedIn page she is: Senior Campaigning Specialist at Make Believe
      Enough said.

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    Steve

    I heard Anna say on TripleJ’s hack program last night that its important people know that its the warmest the Earth has ever been.

    I phoned in & told the shows programmer that I wanted to make a comment in relation to Anna’s statement. She said “yes, what would you like to say?” I told her that Anna’s statement was incorrect! I said the Earth for the last million years has had glacial cycles with a duration of 100,000 years & that past interglacials have been at least as warm as the present interglacial & some were up to 6C hotter than the present interglacial.

    To this the programmer said “where did you get that information?” I said scientific papers using ice core & ocean sediment core data.

    “I believe there’s a consensus among scientists that reject that” said the programmer.

    I said “what?”
    I said “it is scientists that give this info in scientific papers & its not even controversial, & its well know.”

    “A consensus is what a committee decides on – an opinion. Science is not a committee; science is not about opinion, its about what the data tells us” I calmly told the programmer.

    Anna also said what’s important is people understand that co2 is a greenhouse gas & it trap heat. They need to know that.

    I said to the programmer that this statement by Anna was misleading because it is well understood & agreed that a doubling of co2 on its own would theoretically lead to a warming of only 1C, & the IPCC’s 3C for a doubling of co2 includes the hypothesis of strongly positive feedback, & that hypothesis is yet to be proven, & the data shows otherwise.

    “Oh, that’s getting too in-depth for this program” said the programmer.

    “What, can’t Anna respond to that ?” I asked.

    “Doesn’t Anna know about the basics of the subject she’s being interviewed about?” I added.

    “Don’t want the truth spoken on the show in case people might hear it?” I told the programmer.

    She didn’t let me speak my opinion on the radio.

    Pathetic!

    http://www.abcforums.com/vbt.php?f=4

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      Yes, so the ABC phone handlers are now climate analysts too. They can reject any “incorrect” science to be presented to the public.

      Those vostok cores are used all the time to show CO2 levels are at record highs, but never use the same graphs to show the temperatures are not as high as every past interglacial, or even as high as 8000 years ago in our current warm period.

      …Yet the corals survived.

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      John Brookes

      It is annoying when people are expected to understand a complex issue, but fail to do so. Climate change is one such issue, and clearly the world has been a lot warmer and a lot colder than it is now. That some people don’t know that is a pain.

      Time and again, I find that even relatively simple issues are misunderstood. When the AFL “three strikes” drug rule was in the media, most of the public believed that a player could get caught with performance enhancing drugs in their system twice without being in trouble. In fact the 3 strikes referred to recreational drugs in the off-season.

      So when it comes to something a bit more complex, like climate change, its hardly surprising that most people don’t get the basics.

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    […] The intellectual vacuum – alarmists are afraid of debate, they namecall and break laws of reason […]

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    chrism

    there are many aims of a skeptical process : to uncover more of the truth, to point out prejudice in the opposing camps eyes – and in our own, to refine our understanding of the thought process, the experimental process and the debate process, all of which have been difficult for a multitude of reasons – all useful though-

    the central thread that runs through the AGW/climate disaster canon is that they have a crystal ball/”models”, that they say tells us of a bleak future, that by certain measures, we can avoid

    in order for them to see that they are mistaken, probably nothing we say can alter their perception, they must see their error themselves – we can however help them fashion this mirror of self perception –

    the question needs to be repeatedly asked : what predictions does your theory make, and at what point would you say the theory that makes these predictions is wrong

    it may be that they refuse to engage, it may be they posit a very wide variability in outcome, it may be that they only make predictions in the far distant future,
    nevertheless we must ask them to make predictions for 1,3, 5 , 10 , 20 and 30 years for as many accurately observable phenomena as can be followed
    until they agree to do this we have little hope of rational reflection about their claims, by either side in this multifaceted debate

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    MangoChutney

    SkS were having a go at Monckton’s response to Cook, so I suggested Cook challenge Monckton to a live debate. Cook didn’t respond, but his minions rallied to the rescue giving all usual excuses, so I suggested a neutral blog where each party could present and debate the evidence subject by subject.

    Lots more excuses, until someone simply stated “why should John waste his time debating with Monckton?”

    http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?n=906#73291

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      John Brookes

      Debating Monckton is stupid. The guy is a superb debater, and winning a debate is not about finding the truth. You could argue with Monckton that the earth was round, and he’d have the audience believing that you were a dill.

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    Paul R

    I can’t bring myself to revisit that ABC poll thingy, I can’t bring myself to listen or watch any ABC flavoured radio or television station like I used to. I think It’s pretty sad that they took this position on this issue, this was supposed to be the watermelons war on terror, their wasn’t meant to be a debate and the “consensus” was never intended to be involved in the Hegelian Dialectic as It was always going to get It’s butt kicked if one side was using facts.
    The ABC is in disgrace for allowing Itself to become this Ministry of Truth we see It as now.

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      John Brookes

      Yes, its annoying. Just like you, I can’t read The Australian any more. Why have things become so polarised?

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        Bruce of Newcastle

        John, you can’t read the Australian anymore? I thought you were cluier than that.

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        Wayne, s. Job

        Maybe because one side keeps telling lies, hiding data and method, perverting the review process and vilifying real scientists. Maybe we are just thin skinned or maybe we dislike spin and propaganda,or maybe we like truth, especially in science.

        Of late we have had a cabal of carpetbaggers pretending to be scientists and a plethora of liars pretending to be politicians. Polarised is the wrong word, we are just a tad pissed off with the entire false agenda that will end for most in poverty. You really need a tin foil hat.

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    Gowest

    Once again the ABC turns more people to the liberal way of thinking – the smarties still have not learned, even Murdoch knows when to say sorry I made a mistake!

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    Steve R W.

    Jo and David.

    I can’t wait for the footage you have on camera filming the ABC crew filming you for the documentary with Anna and Nick.

    You have a lot of power in your hands.

    What a masterstroke!

    (:

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    Ash Casey

    Just posted on the ABC;s Q%A wall:
    Ash Casey:
    ‘at the end of the show.. the ABC termed David Evans ‘a blogger’.. they forgot to mention IN FACT, that : Dr David Evans: PhD (E.E.), M.S. (E.E.), M.S. (Stats) [Stanford University], B.Eng (hons, medal), M.A. (Applied Maths), B.Sc. [University of Sydney]
    With six years of experience as a world leading carbon modeller consulting with the Australian Greenhouse Office and Department of Climate Change, David has a good grip on the limitations of models. His work specifically in electrical engineering just happens to be the field of human endeavor that knows the most about feedbacks and complex systems — exactly the aspects under debate in climate change.

    Ash Casey: ‘ also, wondering when the science is actually going to be debated rather than this type of puff piece’

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    Ash Casey

    Just posted on the ABC;s Q%A wall:
    Ash Casey:
    “Since it’s release, the IPCC 2007 report has been criticised for its misleading presentation as valid science of: Unreferenced student papers, Magazine articles and Anecdotal comments (all unreferenced of course), the IPCC’s significant reliance on WWF information, Inadequate modelling, Lack of Verifiable and Appropriate Raw Data and conclusions that are in some cases, completely contrary to the recommendations of the IPCC. The scientific challenges to the report, methodology, data used and the conclusions reached in the report has left 2007 IPPC report in tatters and the reputation of the IPCC lower than a worm in a wagon rut. To the extent that the UN has announced an Inquiry into the IPCC. The policies around the world that have relied on this shabby report have cost billions of dollars and even in some cases, human life (Honduras, Uganda and yes, even the deaths of Australian workers as a result of Labor and Peter Garrett’s home insulation scheme).***** Even the GW Gurus are now recanting on their own ‘alarmism’ ****.. Not merely James Lovelock, but also others found here http://www.populartechnology.net/2010/07/eminent-physicists-skeptical-of-agw.html. Climategate (story ‘broken’ by James Delingpole of the London Telegraph and Spectator Magazine) showed how shoddy the ‘science’ is and the ends to which many of the self-serving academics will go for awards, glory and who knows.. maybe even money. Recently in a letter to the NASA administration, 53 [NASA} scientists demanded NASA cease promoting GW as a reliably based concern… and the list goes on…”

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    Andrew

    The time to put the ABC out of our misery is fast approaching.

    One of the first acts of Prime Minsister Abbott should be to lop the head off this monster, severe its taxpayer umbilica and then haul its fetid carcass to private auction…

    The ABC has declared a war by propaganda on Australian democracy. We must rise to this threat. Abbott – take-up that axe and decapitate this agent of authoritarianism. Once and for all.

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      Juliar

      He won’t. Did you read his recent speech to the Victorian Liberal Party Council? I hope I am wrong, but he seems convinced about the whole scam. Hopefully some of the more sceptical Liberal party members such as Dennis Jensen can convince him otherwise.

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    Dave

    .
    The Converting Station Conversation has been a big hit – NOT – only 50 comments so far and 28 of these are anti CAGW – Really!

    This will probably change as they start banning members (all 350,000 readers per month)!

    Great site for a laugh!

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