A review of “Madlands: a journey to change the mind of a climate sceptic”

Anna Rose is the head of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition. She visited us with Nick Minchin to film the doco “I can change your mind” and has produced a book called Madlands about the filming of the doco. Another author, David Mason Jones, has written a review and comes at this from a fairly neutral background. Anna’s approach, which is essentially an ad hom from beginning to end, punctuated with other fallacies, was evident when we met her, and sadly been amplified in her book. When they have no evidence, they attack the messenger. — Jo

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

Guest Post by David Mason-Jones

A review of ‘Madlands: a journey to change the mind of a climate sceptic’ by Anna Rose. Melbourne University Press. ISBN9780522861693

His site: www.journalist.com.au

 

Dare not peer into the forbidden room …


…. and dare not speak to the unspeakable people. Dare not test the nasty taboos and dare not open the Pandora’s box labelled ‘the nature of the scientific process’. Above all, do not admit the integrity of the people on the other side of the debate in which you are involved. Instead, smear and ridicule your opponents remorselessly before looking at their arguments.

These seem to be the guiding principles of Anna Rose’s somewhat less-than-intellectual approach in her book, ‘Madlands: a journey to change the mind of a climate sceptic.’ The approach Anna takes is to turn the sceptics we are about to meet into non-persons – or persons who are easy to hate, villains. The effect of doing this is to make it easy for the reader to dismiss their arguments with hardly a thought.

Anna carefully character assassinates all the sceptical people she is about to introduce. She then gives them a fairly cursory hearing,  ignores their arguments, and responds with personal attack and ridicule, appealing to the twin arguments of authority and consensus all the way.

The adjectives Anna assigns to adherents of the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis are; eminent, highly respected, thorough, forward thinking, moderate and polite, intellectual, diplomatic, world-renowned, progressives and mainstream. Sceptics are described with derogatory words and terms like; attack dogs, more than a touch arrogant, fringe, wackiest, plays dirty, bizarre, contrarian, nutty, abrasive, notorious, bullying, dishonourable tactics, gang, cyber bullying, sexist, curious (in a derogatory context), petulant, bitter, web of denial, ideological warriors, generating hate towards climate scientists, and warped world vision. This sets the scene for the tone of her work.

“In the inquisitions the inquisitors had to climb up into every last village, high in the mountains of France and Spain, to track down every last heretic…”

After you are only part way through the book, the set-piece use of these descriptors starts to wear thin. If you have an honest desire to read Anna’s point of view, it becomes harder and harder to do so objectively as you become aware that the writer is endlessly outlining her ‘good-versus-evil’ view of the debate.

Special vilification is reserved by Anna to demolish the character of Professor Richard Lindzen who she implies is just a nutty professor. In her terms, he is a ‘used to be’. Anna tries to malign him as an old man with the evil habit of smoking, and makes out that she even struggled to breathe. I do not know Professor Lindzen, and I have never been to his house, but I understand that while he is a smoker, he doesn’t smoke in the area where Anna was. [Editors note: Anna’s attack is a measure of Lindzens influence. This is all so irrelevant to anything that matters except to note how far some people will go to vilify their opponents. It tells us all something about Anna, that when I asked Nick Minchin if Lindzen was a smoker, Minchin said he didn’t know, and couldn’t recall any clues from visiting his house. Nick Minchin is a non-smoker too, he’d notice. In an email, Lindzen remarked to me that Anna seemed to be perfectly comfortable while enjoying his hospitality and that the ABC tapes would show that. Message to skeptics: video everything. It means the activists have to stay closer to the truth — Jo].  This shameless attempt to  demonize Lindzen, based on his personal habits, has little to do with the question of whether or not he is raising valid scientific objections to the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis? Why can’t the scientific issue be discussed without maligning his personal habits? Should we all, like Anna, feel free to dismantle the credibility of other people, with whom we disagree, based on their personal habits? How far should this license go? Would Anna approve if people on either side of the debate extended her technique to other personal aspects such as; gender, age, race, sexual orientation, body shape, disability, religious affiliation or any other irrelevant characteristic? What are the intellectual processes Anna is trying to set up here?

 [Editors note: Richard Lindzen is one of the top meteorologists in the world, with over 200 publications to his name, as well as awards, medals, prizes and is a member of the NAS, AAAS, AGU, AMS. He is The Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his work  includes major contributions to our understanding of the Hadley Circulation, small scale gravity waves on the mesosphere, as well as atmospheric tides and oscillations in the tropical stratosphere. That he should face this kind of petty and personal attack is disgraceful. What kind of message does this send to younger, less secure scientists who doubt the IPCC dictat? There is more science, insight and good manners in one article of Richard Lindzen’s than in Anna Rose’s life’s work.  – Jo]

Some pages after that she moves on to again to demolish another character. Before we even meet Marc in the book she is already maligning him. Maybe I’m not very widely read but I have not before heard of Marc Morano. I have never visited his blog and, at the time of writing this, still haven’t. So I had no preconceived ideas about him before I read what Anna had to say. After Anna’s onslaught, however, the attitude I had to Marc was that he must be a pretty bad person. This was irrational, I know, especially given the fact that I was already suspicious of her technique of character demolition. But it shows that character assassination works! It works even with the sceptical reader. It seems to be human nature to be swayed – at least in the first instance – by the rumors and insinuations made by others about someone you don’t even know.

[Editors note: I do know Marc Morano, who runs the excellent Climate Depot blog. He is ever the gentleman, polite, staunchly patriotic (without being over-the-top), has a wide grin and a warm optimistic nature. He’s a riot to be around, the life of the party, and genuinely considerate, always diplomatic, and not domineering in ways that smooth talking effusive people can sometimes be. In short,  — I’d work with him any day, he’s a delight to be around, and inspiring to watch in action. A hero in his relentless quest to get the true story told. — Jo]

But this is only in the first instance. There is another aspect of human nature that comes into play when one starts to suspect that he or she is being relentlessly propagandized. I feel that Anna has actually tripped off this second characteristic – in me at least. This is the tendency of an independently minded reader to start wondering if this can all be true. It is the tendency to start wondering if Marc Morano is really such a bad person. It is the tendency to ask, ‘Well, let’s take a look into this forbidden room, let’s talk to this unspeakable person, let’s test this nasty taboo, let’s open the Pandora’s box’. Surely it is not the aim of Anna’s book to drive people to look more deeply into the sceptical questions?

And this opens the question of the unintended consequences of Anna’s book even further. At the start of the book she describes how some of her associates, who are adherents of the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis, advised her not to do the world trip with Nick Minchin and not to do the television program. They said it would only give publicity to the sceptics’ position.

Her whole tone of perpetually rubbishing the character of people on the other side must surely drive the impartial reader to ask why the character assassination is so essential.

Having now read the book, I believe she has fallen into the very trap of which she was warned. Her whole tone of perpetually rubbishing the character of people on the other side must surely drive the impartial reader to ask why the character assassination is so essential.  Why can’t the arguments in the book just be allowed to stand on their own merits – or lack thereof?

In terms of her truthfulness about reporting certain positions of Nick Minchin, Anna makes at least one straight forward misrepresentation. She asserts that Nick does not believe in feedbacks. This is simply not true. He understands that a significant part of the doubt in the hypothesis is about the strength of feedbacks and whether they are positive or negative. There is a world of difference between saying he is sceptical about the effect – positive or negative –and saying that he doesn’t believe in them at all. A misrepresentation such as this does not help Anna’s credibility.

And while on the subject of feedbacks, the topic provides an interesting dilemma for Anna. She concedes on several occasions that the degree to which feedbacks occur, the climate sensitivity, is not known with certainty. And yet, when sceptics point out the same fact, she labels them as deniers of science. It’s a contradiction I find hard to fathom. There is another contradictory element in which Anna shows that she does not have a consistent line. When discussing aerosols, she virtually admits that the current climate models upon which the IPCC relies, do not include all the potential variables, specifically the effect of aerosols. How then can she point the finger at sceptics who decry the failures of the models and call them deniers of science? It’s just a contradiction I find glaring and mystifying. Anna can apparently point out a deficiency in a model and still believe in ‘the science’ but woe betide any sceptic who does the same thing.

There are many other aspects of this book upon which I would like to comment. Let me confine myself to just one. Early on, Anna describes Nick Minchin as one of the ‘remaining few high profile climate-sceptics in Australia’. In other parts of the book she uses terms like ‘tiny’ to describe the group of people who are still sceptical. Based on this I ask myself a hypothetical question. If it is true that there are only a ‘remaining few’ and that the group is ‘tiny’, why is it then so necessary for her, and others, to go out with such zeal to convert every last disbeliever into a believer?  If these sceptics are in such a small minority, then surely their argument must be lost already. Why can’t they just be left to wither on the vine? Why can’t they just be by-passed and ignored?

Those who have studied the history of Europe could not have avoided becoming aware of the conflict of religious ideas. In these conflicts it was often the very existence of your ‘belief’ that mattered – not your actions. In the inquisitions the inquisitors had to climb up into every last village, high in the mountains of France and Spain, to track down every last heretic.

In the inquisitions the mere existence of doubt, disbelief and heresy was the threat. In Anna’s book it seems that the same may be the case. It is as if the existence of someone else’s doubt negates the truth of one’s own beliefs. Could it be that Anna’s zeal to track down and convert even the ‘few remaining’ doubters and heretics could actually be a marker of her own insecurity about the veracity and resilience of her own belief.

 

My other posts related to that documentary:

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

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

and The IPCC 1990 FAR predictions were wrong

and there is another post coming very soon…

UPDATE: Commenter  Brook Acklom reviewed the book at The Castlemanian:

Unfortunately, much of the 357 pages is devoted to irrelevancies having nothing to do with climate and consequently wastes a substantial amount of the reader’s time. The book could have been edited down by at least a third without loss of the real story.

Perhaps some readers may find it interesting to read of Rose’s childhood, the meals she ate while traveling, the clothes she wore, her encounters with activist friends and her thoughts while flying in carbon dioxide producing jumbo jets; I found it boring and a waste of time.

9.4 out of 10 based on 97 ratings

215 comments to A review of “Madlands: a journey to change the mind of a climate sceptic”

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    David,
    thanks for reading the book for all of us. I can hardly stand reading such a book therefore I’m glad you did this sober review.

    And, I appreciate your conclusion.

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    Joe V.

    What I imagine you get on the ABC, if this Anna Rose series is anything to go by, is much the same as on the BBC. All the promoters of AGW, are presented as relaxed, cool & trendy. AGW is simply a given, which they talk around.

    The choice of Nick Minchin was clearly designed deliberately to accentuate that association of young cool and trendy with the presumption of warmism (sorry Nick).

    The cosy accommodating approach saying clearly its OK to be a ‘Dad’ but do you really want to be associated with the ‘Dads’ way of seeing things ?
    (nick is cool and trendy, and I’m sure he was once young too).

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      Bulldust

      Yes the CAGWers are hella trendy … or is that fully sik trendy?

      Anywho, you can find the good book at your local AYCC store:

      http://ayccshop.spiffystores.com/products/anna-rose-madlands

      Skimming the page a few things strike me about the three endorsements:

      1) McKibbin or the web site has a hard time spelling “Earth”.
      2) Tim Flannery endorsement … well that’s our $180k per year for a part timer hard at work…
      3) NATALIE PA’APA’A, lead singer of Blue King Brown endorsed it … there’s your fully sik trendy, or whatever.

      Anywho … being a trendy progressive myself I was watching TED again this morning, and came across this interesting presentation by Noreena Hertz:

      http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/noreena_hertz_how_to_use_experts_and_when_not_to.html

      Interesting to see the progressive TED types enjoying a presentation of someone warning us not to rely overly on “experts.” Oddly she never mentioned “climate experts”, but I certainly heard those words in my mind. A worthwhile talk IMHO, and makes the skeptics case.

      Yes, the irony struck me that I was strangely on topic today :p

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      • #

        Bulldust,

        ….. being a trendy progressive myself I was watching TED again this morning …..

        The only good Ted on TV is, umm, Father Ted!

        Tony.

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          Bulldust

          You’re missing out on a lot of good non-partisan stuff Tony. I sift around the obviously political videos (which are few indeed). Then again, I have never made a secret of the fact that I am largely apolitical … I am only interested in good policy, something which is largely absent in the public debate anymore. I appear to be mostly anti-Labor at the moment as they are the ones in power Federally speaking. Therefore they wear most of the flak for poor policy ATM.

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    Joe V.

    I like the picture. While you can believe Nick is actually sitting in the boat, you have to wonder how much of Anna is below the surface.

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    Peter Miller

    This book sounds like typical alarmist nonsense which is best ignored, unless you want to have the twin experiences of boredom and rising blood pressure.

    I found these lovely snippets from the Age on June 22 this year:

    1. “Anna Rose believes the truth of climate change has been manipulated by vested interests.” I think we can all agree with this – the vested interests being the high priests of the global warming industry, who obviously want to preserve their comfortable positions in the bloated bureaucracies we have foolishly allowed them to create.

    2. “SOY latte with honey” was climate-change warrior Anna Rose’s choice of coffee at a cafe. I doubt if you can get more pretentious than this.

    3. She says: “That can seem small until you realise it is a global average. For example, Arctic temperatures have risen six degrees.” Here, an outright law – the time reference was since before the Industrial Revolution. As we all know, the period before the 1780s was renowned for its accurate Arctic temperature readings, and there are no proxies which suggest anything remotely close to this figure.

    4.She says the great sceptic push began in the 1990s when ”mining and other carbon-intensive companies joined with right-wing think tanks and allies in the main political parties to orchestrate a campaign to undermine climate science”. Oh, please!!!!

    5. ”More than 40 per cent of our food comes from the Murray-Darling basin and when the Garnaut Review looked at the impact of climate change on this area, they found agriculture could decline by up to 97 per cent by the year 2100. That’s an incredibly concerning statistic.” Typical unsubstantiated alarmist nonsense.

    6. Rose’s other message is on rising seas. “At the moment, Australia is on track for at least a one-metre rise by 2100.” Yeah, right.

    My conclusion is this: When lawyers start writing climate books – yes, she is a lawyer – then common sense should tell you that any sane thinking person’s BSometer will spin off scale if he, or she, decides to read it.

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    • #
      wes george

      Peter,

      When lawyers write evangelical tirades on the evils of the rational examination of the CAGW hypothesis, without bothering to mount a reasonable defence of CAGW based upon the evidence, it’s as close to an admission that the CAGW hypothesis has failed to prove a useful description of climate as is possible to wring out of a true believer.

      We shouldn’t expect people like Anna Rose to ever change their minds based upon a rational analysis of all the evidence and say “sorry, I got it wrong.” Rather she’ll employ the only rhetorical strategy left — to unconsciously withdraw from the scientific debate, ironically, into a world of psychological denial where photoshopped polar bears on ice chunks pass as avatars of evidence and rational dissent is a social evil. That is the best she can do, because it’s all she’s got left.

      See Robert Manne’s “Victory of the Denialists” where he exceeds his carbon credit allotment bemoaning the failure of the climate millenarians to convert the great mass of Australians to the orthodox faith. Of course, no evidence to support the climate faith is offered by Manne either. Most of the article is dedicated to a convoluted conspiracy theory to explain how good was conquered by evil. Nevertheless, the unstated assumption powering Manne’s apology is the complete failure of CAGW to prove scientifically useful in explaining the observed features of climate.

      A distinct lack of native curiosity to “open up the black box of the scientific process” is exactly what one expects from a faith-based belief system.

      After all, we don’t attend Catholic Mass expecting the priest to give a rational exposition of the evidence in support of the divinity of Christ in his sermon. We do, however, expect he’ll deliver a message on how to live a proper life according to Catholic doctrine. This is exactly all we should expect from climate millenarians.

      Faith never requires evidence as proof, rather it is the other way around. To be faithful is to believe despite the evidence!

      The scientific part of the debate is over and we won. By default.

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      • #
        cohenite

        One of the great ironies of the pro-AGW position, and there are many ironies, is that the psychological pronouncements about the alleged delusions of “Deniers” from such fools as Lewandowsky, are perfect for the mental allignment and rigidity of the perspective of the Alarmists. Rose is a classic case in point.

        The particular characteristic of the Alarmists I find most loathsome is their arrogance; it is an arrogance which reminds me of the arrogance of the religiously saved; there is no need for such people to engage in the common arena of social discourse based on rational and evidentiary process; they have been saved and seen the light; those who haven’t are beneath their rarefied and elevated position and can be patronised, reviled, castigated and punished.

        Rose, like all believers, is communicating from a finalised, emotional, religious viewpoint; any contrary evidence or view is a threat to her inner psychological base and must be resisted.

        If such people were not in positions of influence it would be pitiful, but because they do have influence it is scary; Rose is a scary person because she has a punitive attitude towards those who do not share her world view.

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        • #
          John Brookes

          Cohenite, it is the arrogance of people who watch the temperatures rise and the arctic sea ice melt, and realise that, like it or not, they are probably right. Its the arrogance of those who see an army of opponents with an array of mutually inconsistent arguments, that they don’t use to establish an argument of their own, but just use to try and demolish the AGW argument.

          Cohenite, did you stand up and say that Salby’s ideas were rubbish? Because they clearly were, and no one would indulge them for one second unless they were working to the dictum, “My enemies enemy is my friend”.

          As for Rose being scary, I think you could say that of most young idealists – including those wedded to the free market.

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          • #
            Twodogs

            What, better to all sing from the same song sheet like the alarmists? Most sceptics tolerate dissent, so maybe there’s a lesson in there for you.

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            cohenite

            Why were/are Salby’s views rubbish? Are you saying I am Salby’s enemy or friend? You’re being very cryptic today John.

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            AndyG55

            No Cohenite.. he’s just even more incoherent than usual.

            Is that possible ???????

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            Allen Ford

            Salby’s ideas were rubbish? Because they clearly were, and no one would indulge them for one second

            Detailed critique, please John.

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            Markus Fitzhenry

            Snap out of the arctic sea ice alarm-ism, Brookes. March 2011 was the highest cover since 2006. Severe storms cracked it this year and Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Centre has evidence of a uptick in volume over the last 2 weeks.

            You are a goose for not understanding the time lapses for transfer of energy between the hemispheres. The northern summer in 2 years will see a heavy increase in arctic extent, no matter what you and Anna Roses simple minds ‘beleive’.

            As in 2007 when some goose from the CSIRO said we will have next to no cover on the Snowy Alps within years, yet we have ended up with the best cover this year for decades, you, numbnuts, are perpetrating the same existential fallacy.

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            Sean McHugh

            John Brookes said:

            Cohenite, it is the arrogance of people who watch the temperatures rise . . .

            How are we expected to watch the temperature increasing when even thermometers can’t detect it?

            New HadCRUT Data Indicate Huge CO2 Emissions Have Little Impact On Last 15 Years of Global Cooling

            HadCRUT is the IPCC’s gold-standard for measuring global temperatures – over last 15 years (180 months) the globe has cooled with a -0.24C per century trend, not warmed as predicted

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          • #
            Shevva

            Guys I’d stop entertaining JB’s trolling, he only comments at Joanne Novas blog to collect red arrows now, looking at this comment thread I guess he was aiming for 100.

            Let him scuttle back to people like Anne Rose, they are the outliers do not bother with them.

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          • #
            Shevva

            Sorry example:
            John Brookes
            September 5, 2012 at 12:35 pm
            Gina Rinehart is fat.

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          • #
            Sonny

            Hahahaha John Brookes you always make me laugh

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          • #
            Sonny

            ALARMIST COMMENT ALERT

            1) commentor unable to provide evidence of CAGW.
            2) commentor unwilling to change ideological bias.

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          • #
            Rolf

            Make a rebuttal on Salby that’s ok if you do it with science. Just show what is wrong and why. That will make many people here happy. If you can not, you are rubbish to use such wording without reason.

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        • #
          Rick Bradford

          cohenite,

          As you note, Anna Rose shows the classic symptoms of psychological projection, which is the emotional technique of attributing one’s own unacceptable feelings to someone else in order to ‘disown’ those feelings.

          Projection is rightfully referred to as an immature defence mechanism because children early in their development quite routinely use it.

          As they mature, this initially unconscious capability to project one’s own emotions into others will become the conscious psychological capability of experiencing empathy.

          The trouble is that the Green/Left seems to be incapable of maturing.

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        wes george

        Rose is a scary person because she has a punitive attitude towards those who do not share her world view.

        I find Rose’s oeuvre less scary then a pathetic unconscious admission of intellectual bankruptcy, and as such I’m very much in a schadenfreude mood.

        Madlands is an appeal solely to emotion.

        When appealing to emotion, the key technique is to suspend the rational sense of disbelief. The emotive narrative you present has to be real enough that your audience willingly agrees to submit to go along for the ride, in spite of knowing that what they are viewing or reading is just a media construct to deliver content.

        Artists have forever been working to find new ways to convey authenticity to seduce their audiences into participating with them in suspending rational analysis of their work. You know, just kicking back and enjoying the blockbuster effects.

        The earliest English novels used the device of pretending to be a cache of a heroine’s letters. Jane Austen’s earliest novels, such as ‘Lady Susan’ were just pretend collections of letters to and fro, complete with punctuation and spelling errors to increase the sense of authenticity. Readers became totally immersed in the lives of fictional characters – in a way we take for granted today – for the first time in the history through the epistolary devise. Of course, readers knew it was just a literary devise. They agreed to suspend their sense of disbelief to enjoy the story.

        Each subsequent generation of writers has struggled to find new ways to import authenticity into their work, since after a while old techniques overused becomes hackneyed and open to satirical abuse.

        In the 1960’s and 70’s the genre of the scientific TV documentary drew audiences with authenticity derived from the authority of science. Who of us as children doubted that David Attenborough’s voice didn’t represent the absolute empirical truth of nature revealed before our very eyes! We didn’t willingly suspend disbelief, skepticism wasn’t even possible.

        Fast forward to the 1980’s and the mainstreaming of science journalism. What could be more authoritative than the latest pronouncement of the “Scientific Experts” upon the topic du jour?

        There is a lot more we could say about the decline of religion in our society and the rise of secular knowledge as the source of all empirical truth… About the role of mythologies in powering culture. About how humans are hardwired to crave a map of the numinous landscape. Who are we? Why are we here? What should we do? Where did we come from?

        What the Greens did was to exploit the vacuum left by the imploding mythologies of western civ by grafting their faith-based value system to scientific authority. (Scientology tried to do the same thing more bluntly and with less success.)

        The Greens appropriated the language of science, while discarding the method of science, in order to use science as a cloak for a whole program of pseudo-religious beliefs.

        They did this for the same reason Jane Austen wrote epistolary novels — for the authenticity, to convince audiences to suspend their rational skepticism of the Green narrative. Just sit back and enjoy the ride. Don’t think. Listen to the Experts. You have no authority, other than that of a sponge. Just absorb, sponge.

        The Green appropriation of science worked wonders for a couple of decades. Audiences were bowled over by the authenticity and authority. “She Blinded Me with Science!” But old techniques become hackneyed and transparent and less easy to forgive, more fun to parody.

        What solemn Anna Rose, Clive Hamilton, Robert Manne, Oreskes, Lewandorksky, etc represent is the creative exhaustion of the Green project to appropriation scientific authority, which reached its most overextended form with Al Gore’s ‘An Inconvenient Truth.’ Today not even the Green faithful can completely suspend disbelief. And the rest of us see shades of Monty Python in grim Green self-righteousness. After all, science can only be your friend as long as empirical evidence is either still out or on your side.

        So the new wave of Green “intellectuals” are seeking new forms of authority and authenticity to shock and awe the now bored punters with. Instead of David Attenborough’s reasoned voice of scientific authority, they’ve moved on to shrill extremism –Millenarian, McCarthyism, Finkelstein, Make Believe! and demagogic hate. All clear signs of intellectual bankruptcy.

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          cohenite

          Exactly right wes; the blighted crave legitimacy and the Greens have pilloried the scientific imprimateur as their vehicle to achieve that goal.

          But just as business has gone MIA in this AGW debate so have a lot of scientists and science will be the poorer, in respect of its community standing, for it.

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      • #
        Duster

        You want to look at “The Righteous Mind” by Johnathan Haidt. It is a remarkably interesting read. One chief take-away is that we nearly all tend to argue like lawyers when defending beliefs. Scientific argument, weighing evidence and drawing a conclusion, is alien to common mental habits, which do not want to be confused by facts. Lawyers argue rhetorically rather than logically. They also cherry pick their evidence to support their position, a familiar behaviour. Where they do not have “evidence” they will introduce character if possible, essentially arguing ad hominem. Things like logical consistency may be distant second considerations.

        The problem with climatology is that it has become politicized, with polarized clusters of adherents to various “faiths.” What we need is a better understanding of empirical reality and of our own misunderstanding of it.\

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      Rereke Whakaaro

      Peter,

      She didn’t happen to go to the same law school as Gillard, did she? Just a thought.

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        cohenite

        So Rose is a lawyer; I hate lawyers.

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          Grant (NZ)

          I hate lawyers

          Careful. You will get accused of being sexist. No – racist. No – occupationist.

          There are some very nice lawyers. There are a couple in the cemetery down the road from where I live.

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            AndyG55

            “There are a couple in the cemetery down the road from where I live.”

            Watch out after dark then.. that is when lawyers feed.

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            Eric Anderson

            Lawyers get a bad rap they don’t deserve. After all, you shouldn’t judge an entire profession just on the basis of a few hundred thousand bad apples! 🙂

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          Joe V.

          “So Rose is a lawyer; I hate lawyers.

          There’s a difference between studying Law and practising as a Lawyer.
          Still , those who study it learn the Law is a tool and may go on to use it..

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      Allen Ford

      I am more inspired by this quote from a real scientist, Prof. Murry Salby, on this matter (settled science), from a speech he delivered to the Sydney Institute last year:

      I will close on a philosophical note. When I hear politicians speak on this fashionable topic, and cite the science, as do those of a certain bent, it stimulates my involuntary gag reflex. There is no such thing. Science is dynamic. It’s predicated on discourse – questioning. That is how we get to the truth. Were it not for discourse, we should still be in the Dark Ages. Excluding discourse from the equation is not science: it is advocacy. And, if it is from an advocate that you hope to understand nature and how it will evolve, pick up your phone and call Canberra. There are thousands of them.

      Beyond what you have seen today, and irrespective of how much of it you have grasped, there is one thing – one overarching theme that this audience should carry forward – with unanimity. Anyone who thinks that the science of this complex system is settled is in Fantasia.

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  • #
    Eric Simpson

    In America, in the last ~ 3 years there has developed a unmistakeable chasm between the positions of Democrats and Republicans (conservatives) on AGW.
    The question is… why the conservative / leftist chasm?
    It is not that conservatives are stupid or hateful or anti-science. Instead, for the answer, lets first look at the draconion 83% mandated CO2 cuts by 2050 in the cap & trade bill that -passed- the U.S. House in 2009 (over nearly unanimous Republican opposition). Without question, these brutal cuts would have precipitated massive de-industrialization.
    Conservatives have never felt that the extreme measures proposed by the warmists are something desirable, but Democratic Senator Tim Worth put it this way: “Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing.” Herein lies the starting point for the chasm that has developed.
    Conservatives were never thrilled with the idea of de-industrialization. But, I was arguing with my Democrat brother about AGW, and predictably, he says that he is not in favor of de-industrialization. YET, when it comes right down to it, we can expect that my brother and most of his ilk would be in favor of Obama’s Energy Secretary Stephen Chu’s desire to see gas prices rise to $10 a gallon or higher, and of Obama’s call to see electricity prices skyrocket, perhaps to as high as $2 a kilowatt hour. These type of energy prices are what proponents of their cap & trade bill hoped to achieve, and energy prices like that would directly cause economic disaster (more charitably put, it would cause “de-industrialization.”)
    So, while the warmist Democrats may not always say they explicitly favor de-industrialization per se, they favor policies that would bring about de-industrialization.

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      Philip Bradley

      The question is… why the conservative / leftist chasm?

      The Left essentially has 2 constituencies. One is rent seekers, the other is people who live in world populated by ‘god guys’ and ‘bad guys’, and the way to become one of the ‘good guys’ is to have the right belief system, which currently includes belief in CAGW.

      The genius of CAGW is that it allows you to be both a rent seeker and one of the ‘good guys’. With the added benefit for people like Ms Rose of not having to try and understand all that difficult sciencey stuff.

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      John Brookes

      Conservatives don’t like to see something they have been making money from vanish.

      Take asbestos. There is a steady stream of people being diagnosed with mesothelioma, mostly because someone was going to lose money if they did the right thing and stopped selling the stuff – so they didn’t do the right thing.

      AGW is the same. The “conservatives” want things to continue as they are, and don’t like to believe that they’ll have to change.

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        dr ian hilliar

        JB , do you even understand the difference between blue asbestos [crocdilite] ,and white asbestos? Or do you just lump them both together because they sound the same? Blue asbestos causes mesothelioma. White asbestos does not. The WHO blieves that the number of theoretical deaths from white asbestos is ZERO. Look it up. you may learn something, though after reading your comments on Jo’s blog I wonder if it is possible for you to learn anything. Too many trips as a student can cause irreversible brain damage.

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          Twodogs

          Silly question, but is blue asbestos actually blue? I ask because my mum had an asbestos kettle placemat, or whatever they’re called. It was white so I’m hoping blue asbestos is blue!

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        MudCrab

        You seem to be making a broad and sweaping statement on the histroy of asbestos related illness. Without wishing to talk down the suffering many thousands of people were forced to endure, your linking this to global warming debates does suggest you have no real arguement and are just playing the guilt card.

        Is everyone allowed to play? Can we make reference to the massive toxins being released in China as a side effect of making rare earth magnets for wind towers? Could we suggest that the people making these magnets know they are polluting and harming the health of the local Chinese farmers but know there is good money in pumping out the magnets? Or is that a cheap hit?

        AGW is not the same. Conservatives are conservatives because they don’t want to change the rules of the game. They are willing to modify within the game rules, but change for change sake is regarded as pointless. If it ain’t broke, why fix? Conservatives make change when what they are doing is no longer successful.

        Progressives want everything changed. They don’t like the current game and want it changed. Their team isn’t winning any games so they want to press the sporting association to change all the rules. Their problem is that their arguement for rule change is slowly becoming weaker and weaker and they can’t face the fact that their proposed changes may turn out to be unnecessary.

        And it is this failure to accept they might be rejected that is making them less and less rational in their arguements.

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        • #
          Winston

          Mudcrab,
          Your quoted example is an excellent one, and one which no alarmist has raised a single voice in protest against with the egregious exploitation of these people, especially when you consider the very dubious merits of wind power in reducing CO2 as amply demonstrated in Jo’s post a couple back.

          Could we suggest that the people making these magnets know they are polluting and harming the health of the local Chinese farmers but know there is good money in pumping out the magnets?

          Yes we can, to paraphrase Obama- So John Brookes has effectively just outed himself as complicit (by his above asbestos comparison) after the fact in perpetuating this environmental and future medical catastrophe by tacitly approving of this form of exploitation of the masses for the “greater good” with his silence by allowing “things to continue as they are”, and by his not wishing “to believe that he’ll (sic) have to change”.

          So, John will you man up and admit that much being done in the name of CAGW is causing great harm, because after all skeptics have no right to a voice according to you, so that leaves the ball squarely in your alarmist court- so, how about it John? Does your moral compass only work when it suits your agenda? I think we will be waiting a long time for our Erin Brockovich moment from the boy from Freo.

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          AndyG55

          “Progressives”

          Darn it.. STOP using that word when referring to the green left.

          the proper word is REGRESSIVE !!! or ANTI-PROGRESSIVE.

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          Twodogs

          You ain’t the Mudcrab that used to troll on the SMH.

          Where’s the mindless trolling? Where’s the vitriol? The ad nauseum leftist doctrine?

          Imposter!!

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        Streetcred

        Just like the socialists don’t like to be denied the hard earned taxes of others for their hysterical need to spend it.

        By the way, loved article by Peter Murphy … The End of the Age of Reform

        The Left still commands the institutions and the media of ideas. It still dominates the press and the universities. But it no longer commands the ideas of the age. Its idea-set is exhausted… It is true that in the universities the intellectual Right remains marginalised, but the Left commands only the institution. The wellspring of leftist ideas has dried up. Most of the great left-wing intellectuals of the last century, some of whom were truly great, are dead. Their younger intellectual successors are almost entirely third-rate. They speak in clichés.

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        Geoff Sherrington

        On asbestos, John, it has saved a few lives – firemen with asbestos suits rescuing people from burning buildings, or sinking ships afire. It has saved a lot of energy – lagging on steam pipes making ship propulsion and power stations more efficient. More lives saved in automobiles, with efficient materials in the brakes. More energy saved, with asbestos housing panels delaying the uptake of home air conditioners. It is difficult to quantify all of this, because some critical records are poor to non-existent; because there are several types of asbestos, many non-carcinogenic; because the terrible disease of mesothelioma can be latent for decades; because the disease might interact with other habits, like smoking, in unassignable portions in retrospect.

        It is scientifically deplorable to make a sweeping statement of condemnation like you have, when you have failed to address benefit.

        It’s much like the deplorable shorthand science of those rising temperatures of which you speak being from GHG alone – and producing only harm and damage.

        There is a dimension of depth in science. It is a necessary pre-requisite to a proper scientific investigation. It’s best to learn to use it before getting too confident with shallow words in public.

        You simply cannot justify your “all for the money” accusation because you lack the knowledge. You will run from a call for proof because you are lacking in depth of understanding. I’m sorry for you. But I’d be willing to help you to be educated because you display a curiousity that many lack. Just don’t hang out with those Anna types, they have no more depth to impart.

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        Sonny

        Another ridiculous comment from John Brookes
        Hahhahaha

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        Duster

        “Asbestos” is a demonized term. The incidence of mesothelioma is at the highest 3:100,0000 in Britain and Australia. In the US the rate is about half that. Lung cancer, associated with smoking, is about 1:1,000. Traffic related deaths are about 15:100,000. Mesothelioma is a nasty disease. It is however, occupation related, and can be prevented by fairly simple steps like using white asbestos, and for workers wearing a dust mask. Worrying about asbestos, while driving to work is evidence of poor thinking. If you are not worried about getting taken out by another driver or your own cell phone use while driving, then there is certainly no reason to worry about asbestos.

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    Manfred

    Anna Rose peddles the usual toxic melange we have come to know, badged with the predictable polar bear – which is predictably stupid since the bears flourish.

    She appears to have overlooked the inevitable, that given a de-industrialised and impoverished future reliant upon a high level of human labour, most bureaucrats and lawyers would likely find themselves usefully tilling the fields, possibly with wooden, renewable implements.

    On a brighter note that I admit I seem to crave after reading David Mason-Jones informative guest post is if you haven’t already seen the film ‘The Boy Who Cried Warming’ http://www.theboywhocriedwarming.com/
    it’s worth a look. Nothing ‘new’ to the cognoscenti that frequent Jo’s site of sanity, but nonetheless, a buoyant trip through the unsettled science. Think of it as a beta-blocker!

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      Sean

      “She appears to have overlooked the inevitable, that given a de-industrialised and impoverished future reliant upon a high level of human labour, most bureaucrats and lawyers would likely find themselves usefully tilling the fields, possibly with wooden, renewable implements.”

      Wait a second, that sounds like a good thing. Maybe AWG alarmism is not such a bad thing after all. Unfortunately I have a sinking feeling that these rent seeking clowns would somehow end up being the privileged pigs on the farm while all of us skeptics would end up either doing all the hard labor or being shipped of for use in the making of “Soylent Green”.

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        elva

        When the fact dawns on the Greens and other ‘conservationists’ that they and their gran’chil’run are facing a life without mod con’s they might, just might, see the senseless banning of use of resources for what it is…senseless.

        They are not really concerned with the far future. No society ever has. It’s an ego trip. That’s all. To forecast the future 100 years ahead as well as claiming to ‘do something’ to change the future in 100 years time belongs to crystal ball gazers, priests of old, shamans, readers of entrails…but even they only ‘forecast’ by a season or two.

        It always strikes me as interesting that the likes of Manne, Hanson, et al, will be dead and gone in 100 years and hopefully their eminence reduced to the great sea of forgetfulness in the sky. I just hope not too much more damage is created between time.

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      Graeme No.3

      Remember Pol Pot?

      He wanted a de-industrialised country, with people supporting themselves with subsistence agriculture.

      He had to use a large number of guards armed with (politically correct) wooden clubs to beat the population into submission. Chosen, no doubt from law and psychology graduates.

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        John Brookes

        What is your point? Did anyone say anything about de-industrialising? Or are you just putting up straw men and knocking them down again?

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          dr ian hilliar

          JB ,did you read Bob Browns speech? Remember, the one he gave on Hobart town hall steps? try googling . Force yourself to read through the drivel in the transcript, then come back on to Jo’s site amd comment on it.

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          Streetcred

          The carbon dioxide tax is, amongst other things, about de-industrialising the nation economically unachievable CO2 emission reductions.

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    Otter

    So, what color stars will we be forced to wear?

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    Manfred

    Anna Rose peddles the usual toxic melange we have come to know, badged with the predictable polar bear – which is predictably stupid since the bears flourish.

    She appears to have overlooked the inevitable, that given a de-industrialised and impoverished future reliant upon a high level of human labour, most bureaucrats and lawyers would likely find themselves usefully tilling the fields, possibly with wooden, renewable implements.

    On a brighter note that I admit I seem to crave after reading David Mason-Jones informative guest post, if you haven’t already seen the film ‘The Boy Who Cried Warming’ http://www.theboywhocriedwarming.com/
    it’s worth a look. Nothing ‘new’ to the cognoscenti that frequent Jo’s site of sanity, but nonetheless, a buoyant trip through the unsettled science. Think of it as a beta-blocker!

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      Joe V.

      “She appears to have overlooked the inevitable, that given a de-industrialised and impoverished future reliant upon a high level of human labour, most bureaucrats and lawyers would likely find themselves usefully tilling the fields, possibly with wooden, renewable implements.”

      I’m sure all these latte ‘intellectuals’ that advocate return to idyl for the rest of us don’t for a moment imagine they’d have to do any work.
      Theorising and writing about it they reckon should pay their way.

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        ExWarmist

        Joe V says…

        I’m sure all these latte ‘intellectuals’ that advocate return to idyl for the rest of us don’t for a moment imagine they’d have to do any work.
        Theorising and writing about it they reckon should pay their way.

        I’ve come across people who firmly believe that Government has an endless supply of free money. Perhaps she also believes in an endless supply of free money to pay for her existence.

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    Manfred

    Apologies Jo for the repeat post over sight

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    Joe V.

    “2. “SOY latte with honey” was climate-change warrior Anna Rose’s choice of coffee at a cafe. I doubt if you can get more pretentious than this.”

    I don’t know about the SOY, but I can thoroughly recommend honey in coffee, any coffee – even instant. I almost never have sugar now. It’s honey with everything. It leaves a ‘bite’ at the back of the throat. 🙂

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      MudCrab

      That ‘bite’ is actually a sting.

      When using honey, always double check you have taken the bees out 🙂

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        Joe V.

        It actually leaves a spicy, lingering aftertaste. Sugar is just, well so bland after tasting the honey, mummy !

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    janama

    The point is that she didn’t change anyone’s mind. Her and Nick appeared in the ABC TV show and at the end of the program the number of viewers dismissive of climate change didn’t alter with the majority being dismissive.

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

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    Anthony Watts

    The book cover is hilarious…they are in a boat without a paddle, rather like the AGW movement right now.

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      Joe V.

      A paddle may not be of much use. It looks as if Anna has gone straight through the bottom. She certainly doesn’t look very comfortable there.

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        Sean

        Maybe she should reduce her carbon intake – she seems a little plump.

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          Jesus saves

          Way to go [snip. False claim, wrong conclusion.] ED

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            Heywood

            Wow. Such righteous indignation off the cuff from another lefty loser.

            Maybe you should re-visit the dictionary and re-discover what “sexist” means, apply it to the above comment, and explain how saying she “looks a little plump” is because of her gender. What, men can’t be plump too?

            Your little cry of outrage proves the gross hypocrisy of the warmist collective. You complain about one little statement by a commenter on a blog, but do not decry a warmist that has written a book full of ad hominem attacks.

            Different rules apply to alarmist “a$$ holes” huh JS?

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            Schitzree

            Jesus saves… By cussing at you?

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            Twodogs

            What, males can’t be fat? Since when? If you call an aboriginal fat, does that make you a racist?

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            Twodogs

            Now you’ve got me thinking – if I call an aboriginal woman fat, am I a racist or misogynist? I’m confused…

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            handjive

            Observe the faux indignation of the proglodyte.

            “Women Are Fat Arsed Creatures”,”A Woman Is Not Her Jacket”

            Now, there is a sexist a$$ hole, according to Jesus saves.

            Not to mention the level of debate.

            And, Anna does have some junk in the trunk. Suck it up, princess.

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            John Brookes

            Gina Rinehart is fat.

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            Truthseeker

            Hey look … a momentous event has occurred.

            John Brookes has said something that is … correct!

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            ExWarmist

            JB Says…

            Gina Rinehart is fat.

            John – you are not beyond redemption. Now see how easy it is to get the facts straight, when you restrict yourself to clear, unambiguous, statements about the empirical world.

            Now, please apply the same techniques to your assertions about CAGW, and I’m sure that you will begin to get to the actual facts of that matter as well as understanding the girthiness of Gina.

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        • #
          Markus Fitzhenry

          Ode to our mining Queen

          A champion of liberty, for what many have toiled
          Beacon of right, she shines a light
          The wealth dispersed, for all to fill their purse
          Quiet strength and will, no show of ill

          Evil was cried, by those with envied eyes
          In chambers of power, she will not cower
          In the red dust, was the gift she gave to us
          Her beauty transcends, it will never end

          In the dreaming clouds, we know she is ours

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      Tom

      Just keep doing what you’re doing, Anthony – exposing the junk science being peddled by people with a political agenda. Anna Rose is a political activist who wouldn’t know a scientific fact if it barked at her.

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      Dave N

      ..and Anna is either legless, or waist deep in it. Perhaps the latter is supposed to imply rising waters, but then it would also mean there’s a hole in the boat, but it doesn’t appear to be sinking.

      Going by David’s review, the cover idea speaks volumes about the nature of the content; doesn’t quite follow.

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        Rereke Whakaaro

        No. She is standing on the bottom. “Anna, you lost the lunch box! And you are not allowed back in until you find it”.

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      Ian Hill

      Who, apart from John Cleese, goes boating in a suit?

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      jorgekafkazar

      Should I find her adrift without a paddle in such circumstances, I’d be happy to do the right thing and hand her a hockey stick.

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      wes george

      The book cover is hilarious…they are in a boat without a paddle, rather like the AGW movement right now.

      Anthony,

      The book cover is an example of the latest innovation in Green sustainable propaganda.

      The cover art is not just about being up the proverbial climate creek without a paddle, it also can be recycled as a homage to the Green’s support for illegal people smuggling into Australia by small leaky boats, many with holes so big in them you’d need a bum the size of Anna’s to plug until the Australian water taxi service Navy arrives to chauffeur the lot to the non-stop Aloha party at Christmas Island. This explains why Anna looks so uncomfortable listening to her fellow economic migrant in the boat explain to her how to weigh down her ID documents so they don’t float when thrown over board.

      Note that Mr. Pollie Bear and the seal are photoshop layers which can be switched out for a menacing Tony Abbott sporting Taliban gear and Shark with a mere mouse click.

      Carbon credits required = Zero!

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        Joe V.

        “Note that Mr. Pollie Bear and the seal are photoshop layers which can be switched out for a menacing Tony Abbott sporting Taliban gear and Shark with a mere mouse click.”

        You mean like that technique that can be used for Hawain stamps ? I don’t think we want to go there.

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    Annie

    A very interesting article…thank you.

    I was struck by the likeness to religious fervour displayed by the author of the book, and David’s comment in the last paragraph about the Inquisition. I have long believed that it the people with sub-conscious doubts about their beliefs who are the most violent in their actions trying to force them onto others.

    PS I am a Christian and do not believe you can force others into belief.

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      Greg Cavanagh

      You would be right. Ask an ex-smoker if smoking should be banned.

      I think critical thinking is simply lacking in society. An opinion is enough of a conclusion, that everybody else should also have the same belief, therefore must have the same belief. And if they don’t they should be told, convinced, forced. It should be outlawed… it goes on. They tie themselves in knots all over their own opinion, never recognising that someone else is fully entitled to their own opinion.

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        Sean

        I think critical thinking is simply lacking in most of our species. Not all of us were that great a step forward from Homo Erectus.

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          Jesus saves

          And you’re critical thinking goes as far as “she seems a little plump”.

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            Mark

            Oh, come off it “Jesus Smokes”!

            After some of the comments from your ranks about the appearance of Monckton and Rinehart.

            Hellooo….Glasshouses…stones.

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            Heywood

            Mark,

            Come on now,

            You know different rules apply to the warmist collective. They are a very ‘special’ bunch who think know that they are better than everyone else.

            Now give yourself an uppercut….

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            Truthseeker

            Jesus slaves … you have no real argument so try repetition. A wrong argument repeated just tells everyone else that you have no intellectual capactity to actually debate a point.

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            ExWarmist

            Heywood says…

            Now give yourself an uppercut….

            Excellent advice, I’ve already given myself three uppercuts,

            Then a Jab, and another Jab…

            Then a hook, and another uppercut, my knees are getting wobbly,

            I shuffle forward, another 2 jabs, then a right cross, the knees are beginning to buckle.

            How much more can I take, one eye is puffed up and closed…

            I shuffle forward again, rip out a left, right, left combination and open a cut above my other eye.

            I can only see a bloody misty haze…breathing is shallow, ragged…short breaths… blood and sweat are now streaming down my face, and splattering the canvas, my gloves are bloody and I wipe them on my singlet, and shape up again.

            I shuffle back, and fall back against the ropes, as I move in to finish this. I let rip half a dozen body blows, I hear a rib crack, my defenses are down, my lungs spasm, I can no longer breath, I start to lean over, with one arm I grab the ropes.

            I lean in, only one punch left to make, a smashing right cross to the head, I snap back, the lights blow wide, a brilliant light, and then crushing blackness.

            I wake up on my back, some one is counting… meaningless words… a bell rings… there is a wet towel, cold, icy, soothing…. my trainer is with me, the white bristles of his beard scratch my cheek, he is shouting into my ear, but it’s a whisper…

            “Your OK, your Ok… – you won on points…”

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    AndyG55

    Both Anna and Simon leave a slime trail behind them a mile wide. Well suited to each other..

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      Joe V.

      It’s all about ‘movement building’. Wait a minute, I think I can feel a movement building…. You’d better clear the room.
      .
      Climate Leadership
      I fancied the Free Lunch, but I guess Nick would have been too old to apply.

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    Alexander K

    I am delighted the book revuer saved me the bother of reading Anna Rose’s torrid magnum opus; all kudos to him for such a selfless endeavour!

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    • #

      Potentially the supreme sacrifice of his own sanity.

      Hers and Flannery’s books rate 11/10 on the flingability scale. I usefully occupy myself by reshelving such tripe into the fiction and religion sections of the newsagents at airports. 😉

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        Rereke Whakaaro

        I usefully occupy myself by reshelving such tripe into the fiction and religion sections of the newsagents at airports.

        That is sooo evil. I love it.

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        Manfred

        It is a relief to learn that one is not the only one afflicted with ‘rearranging’ behaviour. I find myself reflexively engaged in helpless systematic rearrangement in DVD stores. It’s compelling.

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        Annie

        Thank you for a great idea! I’ll remember that the next time I’m hanging around an airport somewhere. My own preference with already-bought books that annoy me is to put them in the recycling bin, or bury them in the garden or use them as fuel on the stove. I’ve also been ‘guilty’ of bringing a good book to the front of an upright pile and shoving the rubbish to the back.

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  • #

    Anna Rose – what an amazing piece of work, and double the fool for actually commiting her character assignations attempts to paper – the use of terms like sexist and bullying if referred to me would have me calling my proper lawyer – damages are due!

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    MadJak

    I wonder if this book is going to be put in the childrens section?

    Maybe somewhere between chicken little and the boy who cried wolf?

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      Sean

      You laugh now, but not so much when it turns up on some school board’s reading list for students…

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      Mark

      Hey Madjak. Maybe it would find a natural place alongside Enid Blyton’s “Magic Faraway Tree”. Oh, and how could we forget “Noddy”?

      On second thoughts……Nah!

      Blyton knew she was writing for the kiddies. Rose is writing for brain-dead zombies who need to be told about what to do in the smallest room in the house.

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        elva

        Yes, Enid Blyton wrote to the children, not down to them. They lived in a magic world but surrounded by level headed people. I’m not sure who’s father it was but one had a father who was a scientist. He worked on mysterious projects but later I believe it turned out to be radar of sorts…some books were written in WW2. The children enjoyed picnics. No mention of eco systems and other complicated subjects of nature to scare the living daylights out of them or the readers.

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    handjive

    “This novel result is particularly intriguing because only one of those facts, the link between tobacco smoke and lung cancer, has regulatory implications and a history of organised ideologically motivated denial,” the researchers write. (Professor Stephan Lewandowsky, 4/9/2012)

    And so we have the psychology- motivation behind Anna Rose’s linking of smoking & Prof. Lindzen.

    To digress a little further:

    On 3/9/2012, Lewandowsky attempts to explain his latest research paper and the data kerfuffle/manipulation and who did answer the questions.

    “In a somewhat ironic twist, given that the paper addressed conspiracist ideation, much attention has focused on the source of participants…”

    “To clarify, this means that participants were recruited from those blogs that posted the link—not those that did not.”

    Joannenova addressed this paper 29 August, 2012

    Lewandowsky – Shows “skeptics” are nutters by asking alarmists to fill out survey

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    Bruce

    Anna Rose is a fine upstanding critic of climate denial advocates
    like Lindzen, who knows nothing about climate physics. Shame on you for pillorying this fine woman.

    ———————————-
    REPLY: Name the scientific observation we deny or apologize for the sloppy use of English, and baseless insult. – Jo

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      Jesus saves

      Record Arctic ice melt would be the first place to start looking for denial Nova.

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      wes george

      Yeah, Bruce, I’ll bet Anna, a Green advocate, knows more about climate physics then Lindzen.

      Anna…graduated from Merewether Selective High School in 2001. She won a scholarship with Distinction to the University of Sydney and graduated in 2008 with degrees in Law (1st class honours) and Arts. During her studies, she was part of the Department of Geography’s South East Asian field school along the Mekong Delta, and in her final year she went on exchange to Cornell…

      Anna worked as a Senior Campaigning Specialist with Sydney-based communications and strategy consultancy Make Believe, where she remains an Associate. Part of her work included communications strategy on the successful Make History Melbourne campaign to elect Adam Bandt, Australia’s first Green to be elected to the lower house in a general election. Rose also coordinated web and social media strategy for Independent Lord Mayor of Sydney Clover Moore.

      Her only life experience is as an advocate for the Greens playing Make Believe? Hello???

      The pathetic thing that the Greens are serious.

      *

      Hey, Kids! What time is it?

      Time to play Make Believe! with your host, Senior Strategy Specialist Anna 😉

      La, la-la ,la…I’m a little Greenie, green and stout… la, la, la-la…

      Hello, Mr. Pollie Bear! I hope it’s not too warm for you today!

      Look, Mr. Pollie Bear…Here comes Mama Seal and her little baby seals. They are soooooo cuuuute!

      What’s that Mr. Pollie Bear? You want to do… WHAAAAT?

      OH NO, NO, NOOOO MR. POLLIE BEAR. DON’T EAT THE BABY SEALS!!!!

      (sobbing)

      Well, that’s the end of today’s episode, kids.

      Come back tomorrow to watch what happens when little Anna discovers that Mr. Pollie Bear is STILL HUNGRY!

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        Joe V.

        “Anna…graduated from Merewether Selective High School in 2001.”

        What do you learn at a Selective High School one has to wonder, after seeing what it has produced.

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      Bob Malloy

      You did mean to put sarc at he end of that post didn’t you Bruce???

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      Joe V.

      When you don’t put the /sarc off tag, everything follows get infected by the sarcasm.

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      John Brookes

      Why am I the only one who thinks that Bruce is taking the piss?

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      Billy Liar

      Bruce, g’day! Are you from the University of Woolloomooloo, Dept of Philosophy? I’m guessing your well chosen words mark you out as an academic.

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f_p0CgPeyA

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    Glen Michel

    I recalled quite acutely the glazed eyes of the zealot in the documentary on our ABC ! This messianic desire to convert and to punish the unbeliever or the apostate.Unfortunately, a lot of our youth are so brainwashed and so devoid of common-sense . only time will show us the wiser.

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      I know quite a few young people and they are having nothing to do with the whole global warming ‘meme’ – I have high hopes that the majority of our youth will see it exactly for what is it – an excuse to push a political agenda and raise monies.

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    Simon Greener

    David proves in his last paragraph that the smearing of the Inquisition done by the Protestant pamphlateer press of Holland worked. People still believe the most virulently anti-Catholic anti-intellectual rubbish put out over the past hundreds of years. There have been excellent historical studies done in modern universities (eg secular Spanish) on the different Inquisitions and their modes of operation that show as lies such popular rubbish as David repeats. Sorry, David, to resort to ad-hom to attack an ad-homer par excellence means you also wrecked your argument. Who will people read in future? University papers cf Linzen or ad-hom pamphlateers cf Rose? God help us if the Anna Rose-es of this world win again.

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    Phil Ford

    Marc Morano has always had the common courtesy to somehow find the time in his hectic schedule to politely reply to my few emails to him. I find him immensely entertaining to read and to watch in his TV interviews. You just know from watching him that the man has a great, infectious sense of humour. I am very grateful we have such a confident, media-savvy individual working on behalf of climate sceptics everywhere.

    I’m sorry, but Anna who..?

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      Ross

      Phil I agree with your comment

      “I am very grateful we have such a confident, media-savvy individual working on behalf of climate sceptics everywhere.”

      I think this is one of the reasons the sceptic side of the gains so much traction ( besides the issue of the facts being right ! ) is that the prominent people are such good communicators in their own way
      (they are not all the same) –Jo , Anthony Watts, Chris Monckton , Steve McIntyre , Andrew Montford etc. etc.

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    ursus augustus

    And she titles her book “Madlands” She is obviously not much into irony, probably hard to be with that amount of sanctimonious conceit fluttering around in her head . Anna Rose et al are the Timothy Leary’s of climate and they certainly live in the climate change madlands. She came across as a tiresome little know it all in the bit of the show I saw and barely worth the time of day and like a single mosquito or fly, just gets on your pip after a very short while.

    Thanks for the review. Someone else here got it about right, put it in the childrens section but then that would only serve to pervert the minds of children. Can’t burn it, that has connotations both historical and environmental. I know, use it for mulch!

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    Bob Fernley-Jones

    I think the review by David Mason-Jones should be balanced with the great wisdom of the ABC’s “Science” Show. The eminent presenter of this flagship show, Robyn Williams, has said of Rose’s book:

    Do look out, by the way, for Anna Rose’s book on the filming, it’s called Madlands: A Journey to Change the Mind of a Climate Sceptic, published by Melbourne University Press. It’s a terrific read.

    This was concluding on the story; I Can Change Your Mind On Climate.
    http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/i-can-change-your-mind-on-climate/3963066

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      Robyn Williams is really funny. Yes, ‘Do look out’ – and be ready to duck. Hey, considering the cover of Anna’s little book, complete with polar bear on icecube and the author herself with her legs apparently stuck through the bottom of that tiny boat, maybe she’s just another practical joker.

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      Bob Fernley-Jones

      Hey, whoever put a thumbs down on my #22

      I was being sarcastic!

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    […] at Jo Nova's site, there is a fascinating review of the book, which you must read in full, but there are some excellent quotes which I will share […]

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    MadJak

    Hey I notice melbournes water storage continues to threaten reaching 100%

    Maybe that is where Annas book cover was done – in the middle of thomsons reservoir?

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      AndyG55

      Such a pity they didn’t build that one on the Mitchell River….
      ……which has flooded 3, or is it 4, times since Flannery said it never would.

      More Green idiocy

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        MadJak

        Andy – I agree, we need more dams and we should be building them now – not waiting for another drought or brownout.

        Personally, I favour Hydro power generation above all others. I think it’s the cleanest thing to do overall. But that’s just me

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          Rereke Whakaaro

          Yes, A power source you can waterski on … what is not to like?

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          AndyG55

          I don’t think Australia has a consistent enough rainfall to rely on hydro too much. Tassie’s west coast does, but everywhere else near populations is always going to be an iffy proposition with Australia’s highly variable rainfall.

          You cannot have both water for drought security AND water for hydro.. it doesn’t work that way.

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          AndyG55

          PS.. yes use it where applicable..most dams have a small hydro station on them because they have to release environmental water flows etc, so why not use the energy.
          But the whole aim of drought security is NOT to use water you don’t have to. Keep the dam as full as you can.

          That is why, when it looks like we might be heading into a drought, things like the desal plants, water reuse and harvesting etc can make water in the main reservoirs last a lot longer.
          We know there will be droughts again.
          We only really have 200 year max of records, and there have been many bad droughts during that period.
          Who knows what Australia’s NATURAL climate can actually dish up !!

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    KinkyKeith

    Thank you David Mason-Jones.

    That is an extraordinarily erudite and penetrating analysis of the Man Made Global Warming disease.

    No analysis of anything is complete however unless the motive has been exposed.

    In Anna’s case the motive is obvious.

    She can live in and be paid to inhabit a comfortable fairyland which provides her with all of the emotional and financial rewards that the Green world has at it’s disposal.

    The mundane alternative of working 9 to 5 in a real world job just not an option for her.

    The real manipulators are those who infest the United Nation and the focus there is on MONEY as this quote from the senior UN Climate spokespersons shows:

    “All sides need a clearer understanding on how to get to $100 billion a year by 2020 with no gaps,” said

    Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the U.N.’s climate department.

    Theft of taxpayer money under any fraudulent guise is still theft and we need prosecutions over Climate Change theft.

    We also need to GET OUT OF THE UNITED NATIONS. It will bleed the workers of Australia dry.

    KK

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    It’s a sad reflection on the standard of science education that Australians of Rose’s generation have received – unless she managed to avoid any science subjects at all. They have never been taught about the nature of the scientific process, so they can hardly open that ‘Pandora’s box’. Instead, they judge participants in the debate by how they “come across”, by their fashion sense, by their knowledge of the right catch phrases and by what tunes they have on their iPods.

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      Bob Fernley-Jones

      Right, we need to get Lewandowski onto this. And why is it that the Greens are politically successful in Melbourne more so than in the bush? Does latte sipping promote this? Why is cappuccino passé?

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        Manfred

        And why is it that the Greens are politically successful in Melbourne more so than in the bush? Does latte sipping promote this? Why is cappuccino passé?

        May be too many bubbles, too much froth, not enough substance. Rather a forceful tactile, gustatory and visual reminder of a ‘lack of substance.’

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      AndyG55

      “– unless she managed to avoid any science subjects at all”

      I believe it is now quite easy to avoid doing either science or maths past year 10.
      And certainly, even if someone opts for the “basic” levels of maths or science in year 11, 12, they are still going to come out pug-ignorant. Just like JB, I guess. !

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    memoryvault

    .
    Totally O/T but a fascinating example of what I assume to be some artistic photoshopping on the ABC right now. Two stories this morning on Hazelwood Power Station in Victoria. Here’s the first:

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-09-05/hazelwood-power-station-in-the-latrobe-valley/4243644

    Notice the following points:
    1) – Hardly any smoke.
    2) – Smoke rises straight up quickly – because the exhaust gas is HOT.
    3) – Not all stacks appear to be releasing anything – some gen-sets offline – as would be expected.

    Now compare to picture in this more recently posted article:

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-09-05/hazelwood-power-station-in-the-la-trobe-valley/4243978

    Now note the following:
    1) – Lots and lots of “smoke”.
    2) – “Smoke” begins to spread horizontally as soon as it clears the stack.
    3) – All eight stacks belching.

    Also interesting to note that the first photo is credited to the power company, and the second to Greenpeace.

    Opinions?

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      AndyG55

      opinions..

      Yes, that should be using proper cooling towers to cool down the STEAM !!!

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        memoryvault

        .
        There’s very little water vapour content in the exhaust from a powdered coal-fired power station.

        The raw coal itself has to be dried before being pulverised into powder for the boiler, and the boilers burn too hot for the chemical formation of much H2O, even though the ingredients (hydrogen and oxygen) are present.

        About all that comes out of the stack is hot CO2 plus a tiny bit of water vapour – nothing like shown in the photo.
        In fact, it is the sheer quantity of “steam” in the photo that is the give-away that it is faked. No coal-fired boiler could run on fuel that “wet”.

        The cooling towers at a power station are to condense the reduced energy steam exiting the turbines back into boiler feed water so it can be heated back into steam again. None of it goes up the stack.

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          Keep in mind here that there are two different types of stacks at most coal fired plants. The tall thin ones are the exhaust stacks for the furnace, and the short fat concave stacks are the cooling towers for the steam.

          Because in nearly every case the only visible ‘white stuff’ billowing from coal fired plants is cooling steam, images of them are most often used to show filthy disgusting pollution spewing from coal fired power plants, and oh how it makes me laugh.

          There’s a really good graphic of how a coal fired power plant works at this following link. That graphic is at mid screen after you arrive at the link. Under that image is a scrolling bar and you can scroll across to see all the stages. Note the thin stack near the furnace, and the fat stack at far right.

          Above each section in the process is a small tab with Step numbers on them. Click on those steps and a small text will open under the image explaining that step.

          The Electricity Generation Process

          Tony.

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          NigeW

          MV, The brown coal fired power stations in The Latrobe do not dry their coal (this markedly increases the self-ignition probability in the short term storage bin). They basically dig it, pass it through the short term bunker (about a weeks supply IIRC) then push it through the boilers.

          The coal that goes through the pulverising mill (8 per boiler, 6 required operational for full output) resembles a really nice loam, Victorian brown coal is only one step above peat really..

          To dry the coal takes energy, heat…you might as well do it at the feed stage, so they do.

          Even though I feel that the Greenpeace photo is shopped (can anyone access the EXIF data to see the changes?) it’s probably only been ‘enhanced’ rather than ‘faked’

          Disclaimer: 20 years ago, as an engineering Post-Grad, I was given 30 000 days of data from the Hazelwood plant to bash into some sort usable form. They were trying to figure out what was causing the most down time in their boilers. The day I visited the plant, they were outputting 1635MW

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            memoryvault

            .
            Apologies, NigeW, I was speaking in simple terms, not engineering or chemical terms, when said “dry”. I meant as opposed to soggy as in dripping from being in the rain, which is what it would have to be to produce the amount of steam in the Greenpeace enhanced photo.

            And if was that wet the pulverised powder would instead be more like porridge.

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          Andrew McRae

          MV what do you think of this hypothesis:
          The air at that time was supersaturated with moisture, like near dew point, so the formation of natural fog from the air is possible and some may be seen at bottom right of photo. Particles in the exhaust could act as cloud condensation nucleation points, and create cloud/fog from the moisture already in the air.

          So….probably no need for the “CSI Enhance!” reaction just yet???

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            memoryvault

            .
            Andrew, your hypothesis is fine and I have witnessed similar conditions on hot, sultry days in the NT.

            However the exhaust gases would still be HOT and the “clouds” would still form somewhere above the top of the stacks as an upwards stream, and not spread out horizontally immediately upon clearing the stack as depicted in the photo.

            Again, I have witnessed this, even to the point of standing out in the little patch of localised “rain” that subsequently fell. However, the “clouds” did not even become visible until about 50 metres above the stack, and travelled straight upwards as a column for some distance.

            The only thing that might interfere with such a scenario would be a strong wind. There is no such wind evidenced in the rising mist you quite correctly point out as being present.

            I’m sticking with photoshopped – when I can catch up with my son I’ll get him to analyse the picture. He has the software and expertise.

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      AndyG55

      MV.. Copy of email from Greg Hunt Lib Environment minister. brackets added for clarity because it was a reply to an email from me.

      “Hi Andy
      With respect on numerous occasions both he (meaning Mr Abbott) and I have said there will be no carbon tax or ETS.
      We simply want to repeal and will repeal the tax and the ETS.
      The commitment is absolute and unqualified.
      Cheers,
      Greg

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        memoryvault

        .
        Three points if you happen to be writing back:
        star comment

        1) – Could he provide a link to ANY statement about “scrapping the ETS”? Yes, both Abbott and Hunt have referred to scrapping the carbon tax (it’s signed in blood, don’tcha know). But scrapping the ETS – I don’t ever recall seeing that.

        2) – If they have, in fact, made such a commitment, how come an ETS is still part of the Liberal Party’s written Environment Policy?

        3) – It is not the carbon tax which has cause electricity bills to almost double over the last four years, but rather the requirements of the Renewable Energy Target (RET) of a 20% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2020. This is also Liberal party policy. Do they intend scrapping that?

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          AndyG55

          “Renewable Energy Target (RET) of a 20% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2020. This is also Liberal party policy. Do they intend scrapping that?”

          We can only wish 🙁

          I had something from the NSW Libs in in pdf which I can extract text from….so ignore typos

          “The NSW government views renewables and low emission energy as critical to maintaining NSW’s current energy supply mix and to meet furtue demand. Investment in renewable energy will play a key part in this vision, whilst encouraging regional develeopment opportunities……..

          …. it must be as least cost to the energy consumer and with maxiumum benefit in terms of investment in NSW. It must also not involve schemes that deliver subsidies to iindustry at the broarder expense of the community”

          there is more to the email but it is sort of going a bit of the way, but not enough in my mind. Jo has a copy of the email I think.

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          AndyG55

          1) No, I don’t recall hearing that either.

          2) I hope the Libs are more sensible and, even though policy, they can see just how damaging and pointless and ETS would be. Hey, I gotta see SOME hope, please !!

          3) I agree, the RET is probably worse than the CO2 tax and ETS would be at destroying Australian industry, because it mandates un-reliability of supply while also pushing up costs by a large amount. Moronic really !!

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      I wasn’t really going to reply to this because it is off topic, but, in a way, it would also serve to nullify Ms Rose’s perceived ‘traction’, and would very effectively kill off virtually all ambivalent support for The Greens in one stroke.

      Each morning, first thing I do is open up 5 news sites and work backwards through them for an hour or so, and then I get on with the other things I do during the day.

      I saw this patently and obviously photoshopped second image at two of those news sites, and it made me smile quite broadly.

      Read the article and you’ll see that Christine Milne is positively ropeable at this decision not to proceed with buying out and then closing these plants in Victoria, and she blusters on about it.

      Hey, I don’t care.

      Close the damn plants down.

      Just see what happens then.

      She talks about closing down 2000MW of filthy dirty brown coal fired plants in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley, so let’s look at that then.

      Hazelwwod is 1600MW, Yallourn W is 1400MW, Loy Yang A is 2200MW, and Loy Yang B is 1050MW, so there’s 6300MW in all.

      Milne wants to shut down 2000MW, so that’s almost a third of all that Latrobe Valley power, and that 2000MW she wants to close provides around 27% of all Victoria’s power.

      So, let’s just shut em down eh!

      Victoria supplies power into N.S.W. Victoria supplies power into S.A. Victoria provides power into Tasmania.

      So, 2000MW closed down means Victoria is now stressed for power. The supply into those three other States would now be needed just for Victoria.

      Even so, Victoria would grind to a halt, completely and utterly, as most probably would those three other States.

      The heartland of The Greens is those 4 States, so given that they have now ground to a halt, people would see just what it means to shut down those plants. The blame would be sheeted home directly to the person calling for it, and those people who flip flop towards The Greens would desert them in droves, and Milne would become a laughing stock, either for not knowing this would happen, or lying about it.

      Everyone calling for reduction in CO2 emissions, and here you can come back to the topic if Anna Rose, would also lose support hand over fist.

      I fully understand that something like this would not be allowed to happen, as this would be disaster on a scale unimaginable.

      Closing down that level of power would take a couple of days, and then day completely off line, and then two to three days to run back up again to full operation. So, there’s almost a week of unmitigated disaster, and something that would kill off The Greens forever. That’s all it would take. Just one week.

      Just shut em down I say.

      SHOW the people what would happen.

      Then see what calls there are to shut down coal fired power.

      Milne is just bluster. She knows they won’t shut them down. She knows that the people will never see what would happen, and because of that, she knows that she’s on safe ground in screaming at the top of her voice for their closure.

      Call her damned bluff I say.

      When you see blatantly photoshopped images like the second one memoryvault linked to, you also should be smiling.

      Tony.

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        memoryvault

        .
        I have this sort-of intellectual wet-dream fantasy in which a bunch of our Eco-Fascist, Green terrorists manage to very publicly cripple Loy Yang A and B, forcing them offline for a month or so.
        Preferably right in the middle of summer or winter.

        Then everybody in NSW and Vic would get to fully appreciate the Greens “Renewable Utopia” and know just exactly who to thank for the opportunity.

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          memoryvault,

          thanks for saying that.

          I’ve been fantasising exactly the same thing for three or more years now, just never game enough to actually say it.

          Tony.

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            memoryvault

            .
            Sometimes in my naughtier moments I’ve played with the idea of tipping them off anonymously on just how to do it. It would be so easy.

            .
            Then I remind myself that I’m supposed to one of the good guys, and go and weed the garden for an hour as penance for my wicked thoughts.

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      Brian from Bondi

      I have tested this pics on a couple of public sites that test for Photoshopping. Results negative.

      No exif data in the picture – pretty common on the web.

      Effort to find the same picture before alteration – failed.

      Simple answer – it’s actually raining and quite heavily. The falling rain turns to steam.

      Sad to report, it’s by far the most popular picture of Hazelwood used by the media.

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    Rose visited our town (Castlemaine Vic) a few weeks ago amid much hoo-ha from the local press and gave a propaganda alarmist talk to those sufficiently foolish to attend.

    She also handed out multiple copies of her book to local libraries.

    It’s very interesting that the AYCC web site publishes Annual Reports of the AYCC, but none of the “reports” contain financial information.

    Exactly where does AYCC get its money? Rose is married to GetUp! ex-director Simon Sheikh so one may assume the Left/Union sponsored GetUp! may be good for some loot.

    Rose should be regarded as extremely dangerous, not as a dumb bimbo. She has a law degree and is clearly a Green. One wonders if some years down the track she’ll be using the excuse, “I was young and naive” when questioned about her current activities.

    I borrowed Madlands from the local library and write a revue of it here.

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      Joe V.

      Great review Brook.

      If you want to read another boring book using the dying global warming theme as a medium for furthering far-Left-wing political agendas and activism, borrow this from a library (don’t waste money buying it).

      And perhaps you could take Rereke’s tip and relable it before returning, so it goes back onto the right shelf. Have fun reclassifying appropriately :-
      Classification System

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    jorgekafkazar

    Does anyone doubt that deep within the unconscious minds of most AGW true believers, there is a 10-10 video playing?

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    pat

    helloooooo! this is the best news in years, yet check out Tony Abbott’s quotes!!!!! what is wrong with the Coalition?

    5 Sept: ABC: Simon Cullen: Govt scraps plans to shut down dirty power stations
    Resources Minister Martin Ferguson: “I’ve said all along that there was no bottomless pit in terms of the amount of money available from the Government’s perspective to actually buy out electricity generation.
    “On the basis of the outcome of discussions to date, I simply say there’s no value for money for the Government in continuing this process.”
    And he said it was now up to the power stations’ operators to decide their future.
    “In terms of the Latrobe Valley [in Victoria], there’s a large degree of certainty as to the future. Those coal-fired power operations will continue to operate on a commercial basis, and the companies themselves will make their own commercial decisions as to their future over time” he said.
    The operator of the Hazelwood power station in Victoria, which participated in the negotiations, has released a statement saying: “We will continue to focus on providing competitive and reliable base load power to the National Electricity Market.”…
    Mr Ferguson says recent forecasts showing declining energy demand in Australia raised questions about the value for money attached to closing down the coal-fired power stations…
    But the Greens have slammed the decision to abandon talks as a “serious breach of faith” on behalf of the Government, accusing Mr Ferguson of only making a half-hearted attempt at getting a deal.
    “This is a breach of faith with the Australian community, a breach of faith with the multi-party climate committee, and it really goes against the spirit of everything we’ve been trying to do and that is close down the dirtiest power stations in Australia – particularly Hazelwood in Victoria,” Greens leader Christine Milne told reporters in Hobart.
    “You’ve got a minister who will be smiling all the way to the next coal pit… and really thumbing his nose at global warming and at the efforts that have gone in around the country to the transition out of fossil fuels.
    “Keeping the dirtiest coal-fired power stations in Australia operating longer is going to make it harder to meet our greenhouse gas emission targets.
    “It also means that it will be an excuse that the Government uses for why they can’t lift the [emissions reduction] targets.”…
    ***The Opposition says the latest development shows the carbon tax was poorly designed, and believes the decision to abandon negotiations is more about trying to deliver a budget surplus.
    “I think what we have seen today from the government is a desperate attempt to patch up the budget,” Opposition Leader Tony Abbott told reporters in the regional Victorian city of Bendigo.
    “It’s a desperate attempt to preserve the microscopic budget surplus by failing to spend the money that it had previously promised on carbon tax closures.”…
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/04/australia-carbon-idUSL4E8K48AK20120904

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      elva

      Yes, once again Milne and co’ will be crying and gnashing their teeth over this reluctance to follow their plan to demolish coal stations. Yikes! This wasn’t in the plot. It is like the decision last week to now ignore the $15 floor price for carbon credits.

      Alas and alack! Their influence seems to be dwindling even among Labor members. Labor MPs know that any taint of Green on them in the coming election will serve to lose their seat. However, it is too late. They should have given the Greens the heave ho 17 days after the 2010 election.

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        Mark

        Yep, elva.

        Even the most left of the ALP leftards are anxiously sifting through the latest poll results and coming to the ghastly conclusion that even 100% of Green preferences won’t be enough to save them. After all, 100% of a small number is still a small number.

        They had their chance and blew it……badly.

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        Bob Massey

        Do you mean to imply that Julia has hoodwinked the Greens much like she did to the Australian people. Who’d of thunk !

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    Barry

    Anna’s ‘virtue’ is paying off very handsomely. That’s what it is all about.

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    Luke Warm

    Anna Rose, have a nice day buddy.

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    tonyM

    The only surprise I have is that Anna Rose conceded there may be a question about feedbacks or accuracy of the models. I’m stunned as am used to the proselytising fervour of wandering religious purveyors – never any doubt.

    There is some hope. Perhaps there is room to concede that “deniers” are not possessed by the devil.

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      Anna Rose did not know what a feedback was when we spoke to her at the start of the series.
      Jo

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        Sonny

        Yet she can publish a book about climate change…

        That’s like someone publishing a law book who only just learned about “precedent

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      Joe V.

      Credit to Jo for sewing that tiny seed. Perhaps the series did begin to change a mind after all, a tiny one and credit to Anna for noticing. I wonder does Anna realise the significance of something like accuracy though . When will she realise it’s more than a mere detail?

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    Keith H

    O/T but hugely important to the country and relevant in many areas. Gillard wanted to know what she did wrong. Well, she did ask!!!

    Get across to Mihael Smith News.com

    (Sh)its all hitting the fan and landing on some most worthy recipients!! Cheers all!

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    pat

    if only our MSM would chase down some of our CAGW gravy-trainers:

    4 Sept: ABC America: Red Carpet for Solyndra Figure at Democratic Convention
    The Obama campaign rolled out the red carpet this week for a former top Energy Department official who was at the center of the ill-fated government loan to Solyndra, a California solar panel firm that wound up in bankruptcy.
    Steven J. Spinner joined other top fundraisers for a VIP tour of the Democratic National Convention floor in Charlotte Monday evening, posing and waving for a photographer while standing behind the podium. When he saw ABC News cameras, however, he ran for the exit…
    Spinner was last in the headlines in October, when emails surfaced showing he had pushed for the Solyndra loan from his post in the Energy Department, apparently in an effort to score the loan as a political victory for President Obama…
    The fast-tracked Solyndra loan became the showpiece of the Obama administration’s Green Energy loan program — a plan to give a jolt of federal aid to firms developing new forms of alternative energy. Solyndra, the program’s inaugural loan recipient, received $535 million.
    But it fast became a symbol for Obama’s Republican opponents, who have characterized the loan as a boondoggle. The company’s bankruptcy led to a lengthy investigation by the Republican-led House Energy and Commerce Committee, which argued that the administration failed to heed warnings from budget analysts who believed the company was a bad bet…
    He (Spinner) appears also to be a top donor to the convention’s host committee, which accepts up to $100,000 from individuals to help offset the cost of the three-day Charlotte event…
    When he was approached by ABC News on the convention floor Monday, he bolted for an exit.
    A DNC employee blocked ABC News reporters from following Spinner as he broke into a run.
    “You can’t follow people,” the aide said, as he held up his arms to keep the camera from filming Spinner as he left the venue…
    Spinner was awarded his high-ranking post with the Energy Department after raising more than $500,000 for Obama’s 2008 campaign, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics…

    http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/red-carpet-solyndra-figure-democratic-convention/story?id=17150368&singlePage=true#.UEasrxspA95

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    pat

    bishop hill has several threads on potential CAGW backtracking by the UK Govt:

    http://bishophill.squarespace.com/

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    Betapug

    Now, now…be polite. She may not be in the room. Anna is presumably back in the USA again, working for the Obama campaign as she did in 2008.

    I do not understand her criticism of Lindzen’s smoking. Most of the lefty youth cohort here in Canada smoke a lot, but are careful to use only materials purchased from non-taxpaying criminal organizations.

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    Brian from Bondi

    I have actually bought this book and attempted to read it. I bought it at Glee Books on 2nd May right after the TV documentary had screened, and when I enquired, I was told the book launch had been the previous night. I had just missed out on being a “fly on the wall”.

    Basically, Anna Rose’s book is unreadable because it’s one-sided and full of irrelevant details like what sort of coffee she had – exactly as other reviewers have pointed out. The book has no index but I soon discovered how to read it alongside James Delingpole’s book which I had bought a few days earlier. His book has a good index and any topic she tackles is quickly demolished with a few well written sentences from James.

    The chapter that really gets up my nose is “Collapsing Cliffs” where climate change and increasing storms are blamed for damage in Norfolk. I visited Norwich for two weeks in 2006 and drove all over Norfolk. At one seaside town, the library had an exhibition of old photos from the early 1950s where huge storm waves washed onto the land all across the top of Norfolk. Today you can see a caravan park protected by ten metre high levee banks.

    Just south of Norfolk, much of the clifftop town of Dunwich fell into the sea in the year 1286 during a storm. England has been tilting since Roman times, it is going down at the south-east and up at the north-west. Thus London has built barrages across the Thames to hold back the sea and in the north-west, the Roman town of Chester is no longer a port.

    Sorry but it’s not really climate change, even if the University of East Anglia is in Norwich.

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      Joe V.

      “The book has no index but I soon discovered how to read it alongside James Delingpole’s book which I had bought a few days earlier. His book has a good index and any topic she tackles is quickly demolished with a few well written sentences from James.”

      Shhh…,
      You’ll be giving Fenbeagle ideas. Like a special deal with his booksellers to bundle a copy of his “Killing the Earth to Save it”, along with every copy of Anna’s “Madlands” sold, as an Index.
      Novel idea. Brilliant.

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    pat

    surely anna has woken up to Obama by now! LOL.

    on Bloomberg’s homepage, this is headlined: “Obama Gets More Fossil-Fuel Than Green Jobs”

    4 Sept: Bloomberg: Jim Snyder: Ohio’s Gas-Fracking Boom Seen Aiding Obama in Swing State
    Four years ago, Barack Obama pledged to promote a green revolution, saying the government would back alternative-energy technologies that could create 5 million jobs and free the U.S. from a dependence on overseas oil tyrants.
    Today, the energy industry is one of the main engines of job growth and the U.S. is the closest it has been in almost 20 years to meeting its own needs. Yet the transformation — driven by a surge in oil and natural gas production — isn’t primarily green and has little connection to the president’s plans…
    The boom in oil and natural gas is setting up an election- year irony: a green-energy president who is getting a boost from fossil fuels…
    Fracking is unlocking oil in North Dakota and Texas. More important to Obama’s re-election chances, it’s aiding natural gas production — and Obama’s poll ratings — in Ohio and Pennsylvania, swing states with 38 electoral votes combined…
    When he entered the White House, Obama offered a different vision for the U.S.’s energy future, vowing to revive an economy battered by a recession and mend the environment with an export- heavy, green-technology push…
    Green energy “is a big area of unfulfilled promise,” said Julian Zelizer, a history and public affairs professor at Princeton University in New Jersey…
    Standing in front of a coal facility in Ohio on Aug. 14, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney criticized Obama for regulations such as Environmental Protection Agency greenhouse gas curbs. His own plan calls for ending clean-energy subsidies and aggressively expanding fossil fuel development…
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-04/ohio-s-gas-fracking-boom-seen-aiding-obama-in-swing-state.html

    why Bloomberg saw the need to get a quote from a history and public affairs professor at Princeton is beyond me.

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    pat

    this is lengthy and hilarious:

    4 Sept: Bloomberg: Jason Scott: Prisoner-Turned-Kingmaker Milne Leads Australia Green Battle
    (OPENING PARA?) Christine Milne, whose Australian Greens party holds the balance of power in the nation’s Senate, grimaces as she recalls the day an opponent called her a “political slut” in Tasmania’s state parliament…
    Milne’s challenge is underscored by polls showing support for her party at the lowest in more than three years…
    Milne’s political opponents point to the island state of Tasmania, birthplace of both Milne and the Greens, as an example of what may happen to Australia if her political influence increases…
    The former British convict colony, one of the most brutal in the country at the time, had an unemployment rate of 6.5 percent in July, almost double that of Western Australia.
    Western Australian Premier Colin Barnett called Tasmania “Australia’s national park” last year, while federal lawmaker Don Randall in 2010 said the state was a “leech on the teat” of the national economy. Tasmania will rely on A$2.88 billion in federal grants this fiscal year to meet government expenditures for its half a million people…
    ***“Tasmania is a small, peripheral island in a globalized economy and no one owes it a living,” Tony McCall, a political analyst for the University of Tasmania and a former adviser to the Greens in the early 1990s, said in a phone interview from Launceston. “The state’s high-risk reputation due to stalled projects makes it one of the last places where international capital is going to invest.”
    Milne says the problems in the nation’s smallest state are due to failed policies of Labor and Liberal governments, and the Greens need to sell their economic vision better.
    “We’ve got good economic policies but we’re not so well known for them, nor do people understand how they connect with our environmental and social policies,” she said.
    Those policies include regulation of chief executives’ salaries, no tax cuts for the rich, government ownership of “natural monopolies” and eradicating service taxes…
    Milne said she wants to broaden support to appeal to small business-owners and farmers, a strategy that risks alienating the affluent, professionals in cities like Sydney and Melbourne who have become the party’s core, said Zareh Ghazarian, a political analyst in Melbourne at Monash University…
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-04/prisoner-turned-kingmaker-milne-leads-australia-green-battle-1-.html

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    pat

    4 Sept: Reuters Point Carbon: EU exchanges handle 19 pct fewer CO2 units in August
    European carbon volumes fell 19 percent month-on-month in August, as a lack of market-moving developments meant liquidity reverted to more typical thin summer trading conditions following a surprise rise in activity in July…
    http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.1976621?&ref=searchlist

    4 Sept: Reuters Point Carbon: Big nations failing on climate pledges: report
    Several of the world’s richest nations, including the U.S. and Japan, will not meet their own pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions by the end of the decade, a new report said Tuesday, just days after the EU warned it was unlikely any country would assume deeper targets to cut emissions this year….
    http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.1976190?&ref=searchlist

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    pat

    ClimateActionTracker has resurrected this scary warning again, and Bloomberg has no problem with giving them space.
    as for the headline stating double “UN Goal” when they are talking about doubling “global warming”…whatever:

    4 Sept 2012: Bloomberg: Alex Morales: Global Warming May Double UN Goal Without More Carbon Pledges
    International pledges to reduce greenhouse gases may fail to stop global warming from rising to twice the level deemed safe by United Nations scientists, Climate Action Tracker said…
    Aside from Climate Analytics in Potsdam, Germany, the tracker is run by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Ecofys, a consultant with offices in the U.S., China, Germany, the U.K. and the Netherlands…
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-04/global-warming-may-double-un-goal-without-more-carbon-pledges.html

    nine months ago:

    6 Dec 2011: ClimateActionTracker: Delay in climate decisions will cost more, as we head to 3.5 degrees C of warming say scientists
    We are heading toward a global emissions pathway that will take warming to 3.5degC, and far from a cost-optimal pathway to keep warming below 2degC, according to the latest analysis from the Climate Action Tracker, a joint project of Climate Analytics, Ecofys and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research…
    http://climateactiontracker.org/news/96/Delay-in-climate-decisions-will-cost-more-as-we-head-to-3.5-degrees-C-of-warming-say-scientists.html

    posting the following to show Bloomberg weren’t using the old blurb:

    4 Sept: ClimateActionTracker: Governments set world on more than 3°C warming, still playing with numbers
    Governments are still set to send global temperatures above 3°C by 2100, even though their agreed warming limit of 2°C is still technically possible, scientists said today.
    In releasing their latest update at the Bangkok UN climate talks, the Climate Action Tracker (CAT), a joint project of Climate Analytics, Ecofys and the Pik Potsdam Institute, said that it is still technically possible to meet the limit of a 2°C warming above pre-industrial levels – or lower.
    http://climateactiontracker.org/news/128/Governments-set-world-on-more-than-3C-warming-still-playing-with-numbers-.html

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    Banquos Son

    One thing which I find very disturbing, is that these “Youth” are militant.
    I personally don’t believe in AGW, I think it a method of propaganda for the populas to swallow an ETS and I have put forward my opinion on various forums.
    To date, I have had my Facebook account hacked over 5 times, my personal email account hacked, and had a well organised campaign to harass me on various forums.
    Instead of the NAZI era Brown Shirts, we have a vitriolic campaign against me by Green shirts.
    And I am but one small insignificant voice.
    I think they are dangerous.

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      Joe V.

      Ah yes. The tyranny of noble cause fascism.
      It can cause many otherwise perfectly sensible children to lose all sense of perspective.
      Groupthink of course quickly takes over from rational individual thought.
      .
      I note the recent passing of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon.

      I rarely quote the Guardian, but they have an ‘interesting’ take on the survival of new religions
      The problem is perhaps truer of personality cults.
      .
      The Greenies have certainly been working on that capturing the next generations aspect though, by infiltrating the education, the Global and local institutions.
      .
      That makes the politics that has attached itself to well meaning concern for the environment all the more dangerous.
      .
      Has ‘watermelons’ got some special significance in Aus, that prevented Delingpoles from publishing his book under that title ?

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    Joe V.

    The chapter that really gets up my nose is “Collapsing Cliffs” where climate change and increasing storms are blamed for damage in Norfolk.

    Har, Har,
    The only damage that occurred in Norfolk was the collapse of the whole Climate Change edifice, beginning November 2009.

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    Mike

    The unfortunate thing in our society is that kids are subjected to so much propaganda via the public school system, the media and the government that few of us know which way is up in our 20’s. I certainly didn’t.

    I think it really would help in society if there wasn’t so much dishonesty in the way our so-called elders, particularly those in government, conduct themselves. But then, if they stopped lying it wouldn’t be government anymore. If they stopped lying they’d have no excuse for wars, the banking system, or a myriad of other crony projects they regularly engage in.

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      Joe V.

      Yes, If Only.
      Is education in the Classics the preserve of a Private Education ?

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      Grant (NZ)

      Education for all is a right that is mandated by some UN convention. Governments must educate their citizens. I strongly suspect this is so that they can indoctrinate, dumb-down and manipulate them. Maybe the book demonstrates this.

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    Speedy

    Evening all.

    I suppose Anna Rose’s novel is more a revelation of her own brainspace than it is of her supposed subjects.

    And a fairly confused place it seems to be.

    Cheers,

    Speedy.

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    Sonny

    Look on the bright side.
    Annas book will one day be studied in schools as an example of 21st century political propaganda.
    I cannot actually believe she uses a freaking polar bear on an icecube.
    Her target market is clearly the morons who have already been brainwashed into the green way of not thinking. I can’t imagine she will have much success convincing anyone who has not already fallen under the alarmist spell.

    Big thumbs down Anna. Shame on you.

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    Joe V.

    It’s nothing but entertainment. The book of the (TV) series. The BBC is always doing it. They even have bookshops, specially to milk the revenue from interest generated by a TV series.

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    paul drewry

    This little opportunist is obviously trying to capitalise on her fifteen minutes of fame with Nick Minchin

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    Sonny

    Anna Rose must have approved a book cover featuring herself in business attire standing in a miniature paddle boat (with no paddle) with her legs missing or dangling in the water. There is a cute polar bear and a seal…

    My god is this chick totally bereft of brains? Does she realize this book comes across as a total joke? Is this book really a satire? Maybe she works for us!!

    Thanks Anna. You just kicked an own goal. Hahaha

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    John Q. Galt

    Oh lordy, that book cover. I can’t help but think it was designed by the same people that design Christian Rock album covers.

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    hunter

    I wonder why people like the author depend on deceptiion and distraction to make their book work?

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    Cold-Hands

    I posted my review of this book at The Age. While the review is similar in tenor to David Mason-Jones’ (albeit much briefer), I was most surprised that the Guardian-on-the-Yarra put up my post unmodified, especially as I had awarded the book a half star (out of five).

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