Is the media waking up? Global warming: time to rein back on doom and gloom?

Tic, tic, tic. The sleeping MSM is stirring. Headlines no one could imagine seeing a few years ago are popping up on a regular basis. The backdown is beginning.

For those who have not gone-over-the-falls and chained their reputation to a big-Green-rock, there is time to backtrack. This is a good moment to start mentioning that “things have changed.” It’s five years too late, but that’s better than being ten-years-too-late, and it still has a tiny bit of kudos for being ahead of stampede that is coming.

The term du jour is “new evidence”. It’s the ticket back to reality, even though strong evidence has been there for a decade, and the lack of warming is just one more clue that the models are wrong.

As far as I can tell, Geoffrey Lean is one of the commentators who’s been very much on the side of the global warming drive, but not a zealot. He allowed the odd caveat, he spoke of skeptics, but not of deniers. When the ClimateGate II emails were released, mostly he wrote about how they didn’t matter, were misrepresented, and the science was settled. Even then, there was a small caveat that “disturbing questions” remain, but largely he defended Phil Jones. Right now, he is still saying we need to reduce CO2, but it’s not as urgent as we thought. This is not a U-turn, but a fork in a better direction (with a nice headline).

What caused the shift? Lean noted in late December that the UK Met Bureau reduced its forecasts, that there has been a long pause in warming, and he points out here that there are now, increasingly, new lower estimates of climate sensitivity. I would argue that there have been plenty of lower estimates in the past, and that environmental journalists ought to have looked at the skeptical position years ago and interviewed a few key players, or looked at the data directly themselves.

The other thing that has changed is that this is the fifth cold winter for the UK, and a few authoritative groups have finally succumbed, acknowledged the “pause” and trimmed their hyperbole. An investigative journalist would have been hunting for the signs this was coming long before it did, rather than waiting for official announcements. But don’t be too hard on Lean, he’s doing a better job than many compatriots.

The meme that skeptics do have a point has made it through to a new circle of journalists.

Presumably this will only make the religious followers more apoplectic.

 

The Telegraph, UK

Global warming: time to rein back on doom and gloom?

Climate change scientists acknowledge that the decline in rapid temperature increases is a positive sign

… there are important, and possibly hopeful, developments in the complex, contentious world of climate science that might finally give us all a sense of spring. For some recent research suggests that climate change might not be as catastrophic as the gloomiest predictions suggest.

The resulting increase has long been put at between 1.5C and 4.5C (the threefold range itself gives some idea of how little is known): the best guess has been 3C, which would be likely to have devastating effects on the climate. But the latest findings – which stretch over several papers from different, well-established scientists – suggest that the rise may be towards the lower end of that big range, possibly less than the 2C danger level.

So while governments must urgently adopt measures to cut emissions of black carbon – mainly from diesel engines and inefficient Third World cooking stoves – they will also have to do much more to control carbon dioxide.

The new research might just give the world a much-needed breathing space. But it would be foolhardy to breathe out for long.

 

Only in December did Geoffrey Lean say in: “Wildfires across Australia and the US’s hottest year on record: the heat that’s making history”

…the only honest thing to do is to look at long-term trends.

But these suggest that something is indeed afoot. Days above 37.8C are now five times more common than between 1911 and 1930 and extremely hot summers are 10 times more widespread globally than between 1951 and 1980.

There is no doubt that the world has warmed, and that this will continue.

But he acknowledged that both sides of the polarized debate were exaggerating.

Last November he was holding his breath for a new agreement in Doha.

A new agreement forcing countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is crucial

Here we go again. This weekend, as in every year for the past 18, thousands of negotiators, lobbyists, activists, journalists and assorted hangers-on are converging on a cavernous conference centre to haggle over one of the most complex, frustrating and urgent tasks of our times – the prevention of catastrophic climate change.

This time, the travelling circus is pitching up in Doha…

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PS: The site was down today due to maintenance beyond my control. In future, if you can’t see the site, please check my twitter account @JoanneNova. I always post information about site there (it’s my backup method to reach readers when the site can’t).  Join my new public facebook page as well.  It will help us reach a new crowd. :-) Thanks – Jo

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9.7 out of 10 based on 91 ratings

252 comments to Is the media waking up? Global warming: time to rein back on doom and gloom?

  • #
    Kaboom

    I understand your desire to build a golden bridge but there’s really no excuse for a journalist to not do his research. Relying on green propaganda for your articles is like a haute cusine cook buying and serving chinese takeout because he’s too lazy to chop onions. If I was in the business of publishing news, these guys would be on the top of my redundancy list.

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    • #

      It’s even worse when they just cut and paste from AP or AAP without any real journalistic work in fact checking. The blind leading the blind.

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      • #
        Catamon

        It’s even worse when they just cut and paste from AP or AAP without any real journalistic work in fact checking.

        Worse than that is journalism by press release. The media here are really pretty lazy, particularly when it comes to politically charged issues of substance.

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        • #
          Mark D.

          Catamon with 6 thumbs up and none down?!?!?!?!?!

          Times are a changing indeed!

          Better be careful Cat, all your friends they will desert you.

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          • #
            Catamon

            Times are a changing indeed!

            Nah, that would be since Crackchild and AngryG55 dont seem to have been on this thread as yet, it wont last. 🙂

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          • #
            Roy Hogue

            Now 15 up, including mine. I seldom click the green button and never the red one but I do give credit where credit is due.

            Catamon is right. The media just about everywhere is really pretty lazy. I can think of only one or two places where you can get actual journalism. One is Fox News Channel and its associated Fox Business Channel. The other is CNN. But I rate them as less reliable than Fox.

            Neither one digs deeply enough into climate change.

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            • #
              Carbon500

              Two journalists who don’t follow the warmist path are the excellent Christopher Booker and David Rose, both UK writers.
              Booker is particularly prolific – read ‘The Real Global Warming Disaster’, Continuum Publishing Group, ISBN 978144110527

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              • #
                Greebo

                I don’t have the link, but Booker’s piece on Thatcher as the ‘first AGW skeptic’ or words to that effect is well worth a look.

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        • #
          Annie

          Well done for getting media correctly as a plural! So few people do these days. Having been forced to learn some Latin at school I find using it as a singular noun rather grating (along with criteria, phenomena, etc.).

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        • #
          AndyG55

          Ah, I see rehab has got one of your furry brain neurons firing correctly, and allowed you to say something sensible for once ! .. well done. 🙂

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      • #
        Safetyguy66

        Yeah if you want to see concrete evidence of that sort of nonsense, checkout this video, its extremely disturbing and as usual based on complete nonsense.

        Also it goes the to the heart of your point. The poster is using a Bloomberg press release that claimed (a couple of weeks ago) that wind now sits on par for energy efficiency with modern gas turbines even without subsidies. This was quickly corrected by the Australian CEC who stated that renewables “may” sit on par for efficiency with gas, unassisted, some time in the next decade. This did not stop these “climate heroes” from quoting it verbatim.

        http://youtu.be/T9TgnkTRFcA

        That is a seriously scary proposition and one people need to stomp on quickly before someone starts thinking that investing super in some of the least profitable sections of the economy is a good idea. Imagine your super in GDY…. $1.30 to 7.5c in 18 months… just what we need for our super funds.

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      • #
        Streetcred

        … or just lop the horns and tail off a WWF FoE or Greenpiece [sic] propaganda piece and present it as considered opinion.

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  • #
    Matt J

    The long slow cautious retreat of the warmists continues.
    Jo did you catch the ABC piece last week about the species of Penguin on Antarctica that is supposedly doing better because of global warming? It sounds like more warmist ABC nonsense, but is interesting because it is an acknowledgement that warming can be beneficial. I don’t tink I’ve seen this from the ABC before.

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    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      There is a military saying: All routs start with a retreat, and all retreats start with a tactical withdrawal.

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      • #
        Matt J

        Well said, Whakaaro

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      • #
        Roy Hogue

        Exactly! 🙂

        Uncertainty becomes the epitaph on the tombstone.

        Here lies Climate Change Mania

        Undone by Doubting Thomas

        Only there will be no resurrection this time to resolve their fear that they’re wrong.

        I only hope we live through the decline and fall of the Climate Change Empire.

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    • #

      Not sure what they are talking about – I haven’t actually noticed any warming down here (in Australia at any rate). I guess they are trying to say “It’s alright after all, but we’re sticking to our meme.” LOL. They are fighting every step of the way.

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      • #
        Apoxonbothyourhouses

        Serious bulldust everywhere. Now we are only a small part of Oz north of Sydney but no one will convince me that this year’ summer was anything but cool (yes one hot day but that doesn’t make a swallow sorry summer). And if you don’t believe me trust in the flowers and figs that have not bloomed / fruited as per “normal”. Again it’s only weather but last year was cool as well. Don’t know where they get an “angry summer” from apart from journalistic creations.

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    • #
      theRealUniverse

      is an acknowledgement that warming can be beneficial

      Well there just isn’t any warming at all to be beneficial.

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  • #
    TheInquirer

    Jo,

    A challenge for you: You’re asking humanity to trust your inclination that AGW is not a threat. I know you have not a shred of science beyond you. Ok, time to put your money where your very large mouth is: Don’t bet the world but bet your house. If the global surface temperature trend from 1997 or whatever cherry picked year you want is significant in 10 years time, you donate your house to charity.

    Agree?

    [Nobody disputes that climate varies all of the time – the onus is on you to present empirical evidence that the modern variations are induced by mankind – do you have any?] -Fly

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    • #
      TheInquirer

      So that’s a big chicken-hearted no, then?

      The climate varies all the time? Like this? How about you present the evidence for that?

      [That’s the thing. We have. Look in the Index before you drop in to insult-from-ignorance. Try Paleohistory. Australian temperatures. Global temperatures. Medieval Warm Period. Little Ice Age. Evidence. Holocene. Vostok. Jo]

      Like Monckton, you know that the temperature will go up. THe “septics” have put all their chips down on this idiotic “no warming” faux argument. The GW graph shows this has happened before and those historical “pauses” didn’t and don’t seem to be counter evidence. Why is this one more significant? Because it’s all you have to cling to right now as the Arctic melts (the sceptics said it was recovering), the oceans heat and expand, sea level rises (what happened to the dip in that graph, eh?) and weather is consistent with climate change predictions (despite denials of the undeniable evidence). And you know it. The next El Niño and your money-making, contrarian gig will be up. Unless, of course, you’re a ….

      (It is interesting that you can not address the content of her blog presentation) CTS

      [See my link “The Evidence”. I don’t think I even mention “the pause”. Bad luck eh? -Jo]

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      • #
        AndyG55

        “and weather is consistent with climate change predictions ”

        If you make enough different predictions, you are bound to be right occasionally, (but wouldn’t want the climate mob batting on my team)

        Thing is, all current weather is also consistent with NO climate change .

        Nothing is happening that hasn’t happened many time before, even in the very short while we have records for.

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      • #

        @ TheInquirer (that’s quite funny) Go home buddy, we’ve seen these lame arse tactics for many years and they don’t work. Are we supposed to be impressed? You may get big “ups’ on your home turf but you’ll need a more cogent argument than simple ad homs here. Words in sentences may take up self righteous space but are redundant if they don’t convey cognitive meaning or rational thought. If you want a precis of our gripes with your gang just read Rupert Wyndham’s letter to Sir Paul Nurse. After that, look at yourself in a mirror and tell yourself that your GreenRed cause is worth your self deception. We aren’t political. We probably differ in our political outlooks but we are all on the same side when it comes to the utmost importance of unadulterated science and the part it must play in our world. Grow an ethical spine.

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    • #
      TheInquirer

      You’re no sceptic and no scientist, Jo. I know it and you know it. I reckon that makes you a very sad case.

      But, the good thing is, you’re leaving a nice digital record of your masquerade. In years to come when they want to study in detail the Flat Earther mentality and those that herded the denier communities, JoNova will finally be making a contribution to science. How ironic.

      Yes, I’ll fly – and leave you to your laughable Group Think. I really do hope you’re aware that’s all that you’ve got going on here?

      [Projection anyone? -Jo]

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      • #
        Streetcred

        I really do hope you’re aware that’s all that you’ve got going on here?

        You’re spending far too much time reading at the SS site, it’s affecting your ability to reason … exposes how psychologically immature you are.

        Let’s face it, that’s a damn-side lot more than what’s going on between your ears.

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      • #
        Ian

        TheInquirer. Let me say from the start I’m a scientist with a laboratory based PhD encompassing the fields of biochemistry, endocrinology, immunology and molecular biology and I am a sceptic. Not a denier, a sceptic waiting for incontrovertible proof, from direct observations not modelling, that Climate Change is due primarily to CO2 from human use of fossil fuels. I presume from your, impolite, comments to Ms Nova (its her blog so it is incumbent on you not to be so rude) that you’re a scientist but of course that presumption may be well wide of the mark. But just on the remote off chance you are a scientist, could you help me with global warming and modelling. I understand that there are many GCMs ( I think 21 but there are probably more) all of which are programmed by humans. Now that seems a significant drawback for as is well known, humans, yes even climate scientists, are fallible. Presumably you would agree with that and not just discard it as a “straw man”? If not, why not? That being so it follows that their programming cannot be infallible. I know that to make their predictions the GCMs the the atmospheric concentration of CO2 as an essential for without it the predictions are clearly unsustainable. Fair enough. But I also believe that water vapour is always programmed in as having a positive feedback effect. Can you advise if this is not so? In fact this has quite a profound effect on the outcomes of the modelling. However I don’t know of any direct observations that have unequivocally shown this positive feedback effect. Are you aware of any? What do the models show if water vapour is programmed as having no effect or as having a negative feedback effect? An argument for the latter could be that increased CO2 causes global warming, this increases evaporation from the oceans which causes greater cloud formation which diminishes the warming effect of the sun thus stabilising or possibly decreasing global temperatures, Now I know others have proposed that but the modellers never seem to include it in the programs. Do you know if they do and if not why not? I look forward to your (suitably referenced) replies. If you can’t do that you could at least apologise to Ms Nova for your discourteous comments. Come to think of it you should apologise in any event

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        • #
          AndyG55

          “I presume —— that you’re a scientist”

          roflmao..

          seriously ????????

          joke of the week, awarded to Ian !! 🙂

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        • #

          It is and always was a political argument Ian. What I know about computers is that they are only as smart or as dumb as the people using them are. The models have performed as designed.

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        • #
          JFC

          That’s a very good point Ian, we must get some Martians in to program our GCMs for us. Then they’ll only have Martian bias.

          I understand that there are many GCMs ( I think 21 but there are probably more) all of which are programmed by humans.

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      • #
        Snafu

        Had this comment been made on SkS, RC, Tamino (Open Mind) or WtD……it would have been immediately deleted.

        10

    • #

      TheInquirer, dollarwise, we’ve already made a bet, it was hard to arrange, and hardly any believer in man-made warming was willing to put their money on the line.

      Otherwise, I’ve bet something more valuable than my house, and that’s my time. Opportunity costs here are into hundreds of thousands. And if you find That Mystery Paper that shows the model’s assumptions are right, I’ll change my mind back again, but I’ve been asking for 38 months. No one can find empirical evidence to back up their simulations.

      You dear sir or madam, are not even willing to bet your name on your belief?

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      • #
        Roy Hogue

        TheInquirer, dollarwise, we’ve already made a bet, it was hard to arrange, and hardly any believer in man-made warming was willing to put their money on the line.

        Otherwise, I’ve bet something more valuable than my house, and that’s my time.

        Not to mention betting David’s and your personal reputations. And while doing what you do you’ve remained calm and polite, even to the worst of those who’ve tried to trash your name, your work and your integrity.

        I say 3 cheers for Joanne Nova! You deserve it a hundred times over. 😛

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    • #
      crakar24

      Hello TheInquirer,

      This train of thought has often intrigued me, by the tone of your comment it would suggest to the lay reader that you are 100% sure (or close to it) that AGW is a factual phenomenon but for the life of me i cannot see how that could be so.

      Is there something i cannot see? Is there something i do not know?

      Could you please list specific events that have occurred over the past…say…..50 years that you accept as evidence of AGW? I would find this list fascinating to read and perhaps then i/we could offer a rebuttal if indeed i/we can muster one.

      Cheers

      Crakar24

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    • #
      AndyG55

      “Agree?”

      Oh and you, Mr Inquirer, have to leave your job as a janitor and go back on the dole.. again.

      40

    • #
      cohenite

      you donate your house to charity.

      What are you going to bet bigmouth, your shell?

      40

    • #
      ExWarmist

      TheInquirer says

      Jo,

      A challenge for you: You’re asking humanity to trust your inclination that AGW is not a threat.

      [1] I have not yet seen Jo Nova ask anyone to “Trust her inclination that AGW is not a Threat”. Instead she makes her appeals to Reason and Evidence.

      [2] In the interests of having an honest and constructive debate, could you please provide evidence of your assertion that “You’re asking humanity to trust your inclination that AGW is not a threat”

      I know you have not a shred of science beyond you.

      [3] Which suggests (a) that you have not actually spent much time studying the content of this site, or (b) you do not know what science is. So is it (a) or (b)?

      Ok, time to put your money where your very large mouth is: Don’t bet the world but bet your house. If the global surface temperature trend from 1997 or whatever cherry picked year you want is significant in 10 years time, you donate your house to charity.

      Agree?

      [4] Would you be willing to donate your house (or significant property of equal worth) if such a bet was actually made? What are you willing to put at stake? Will you man up too the bet, or just make a wooly one sided “challenge” where you have no skin in the game?

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    • #
      GabrielHBay

      I wonder I wonder… is TheInquirer perhaps the same newish, clueless and obnoxious troll currently commenting over at WUWT under the name Watcher? Style could be similar….

      40

    • #
      agwnonsense

      Isn’t the Inquirer a smutty “news” paper/magazine in the states,Hence the name I suppose.

      40

    • #
      mike

      “Don’t bet the world bet your house”

      Also sprach inquirer.

      Hmm…let me guess Inquirer. An especially nasty, distaff-inflected, venomous intensity to the personal abuse of your comment; a certain Lysenkoist, party-line purist claim, by you, on the “scientific” high ground; and an alpha-matriarch, Queen-bee-wannabee-sense-of-privilege in the tone of your hive-enforcer, back-chat-intolerant, shot-caller comment.

      Again, my guess, inquirer, is that you, unlike the typical, dime-a-dozen, hive-cog, I’m-lookin’-for-girl-who-thinks-“zits”-are-sexy-and-I’m-thinkin’-hive-chicks-are-my-best-shot, eco-weenie, white-dork-girlie-man-loser, capons-are-people-too-sort-of-you-know, flatulence-is-a-badge-of-honor-if-you’re-a-vegan, geek-ball, trough-hugger, parasites-are-people-too-sort-of-you-know, Gaia-and-mom-are-my-favorite-ladies, eating-boogers-is-a-perfectly-acceptable-gustatory-option-you-know, watermelon-wimp-out, lick-spittle lumpen-enabler, pushing the hive’s various scams, cons, bait-and-switch-tax-payer rip-offs, and make-a-greenwashed-buck/make-a-gulag hustles throughout the blogosphere, are rather more of the real thing–a hive-elder, whip-cracker, old-line, lefty-goon, dowager-chekist kick-butt used to slappin’ into shape the class-enemy women who dare to think for themselves and get out of line and tellin’ ’em what’s what and all and makin’ it stick.

      Must shock you that you got on the wrong horse when you came to this blog, right inquirer? Not like the PC-protected, hive-bozo, group-think sanctuaries you normally frequent–eh, inquirer?

      And, inquirer, rather than betting any houses, let’s bet your next carbon-piggie, party-time, blow-out, IPCC, greenshirt, gab-fest bacchanal. I mean, like, you CO2-spew hypocrites, inquirer, are so loath to embrace “carbon austerity” FROM THE FRONT AND BY PERSONAL EXAMPLE–why’s that? You know, inquirer, like video-conferencing all your high-carbon footprint enviro-confabs currently held on site. You know what I mean, inquirer?

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    • #
      Tel

      Don’t bet the world but bet your house.

      If I could afford a house by the water like Al Gore and Tim Flannery, then I certainly would do.

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  • #
    TheInquirer

    Jo works full-time and is supported by donations.

    Do you mean you work on this blog full-time. So this is your source of income? Is that what that means?

    [And the point of your question is – what precisely? If you wish to say something why not just come out and say it?] -Fly
    Thanks Fly. I suppose it is a bit ambiguous. No “TheEnquirer” this blog is a net cost. The donations help. – Jo

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    • #
      TheInquirer

      Come out and say it? What, like you do about scientists being on the grants gravy train, being unethical, unprofessional and other defamatory stuff that is recorded here? But I know it’s all just a dog-whistling exercise. You’d have a pretty small audience if you just went after the truly sceptical of AGW crowd and distanced yourself from your loony conspiracy theorists and political tribalists (how many non-Coalition voters among your “sceptics”, you reckon, Jo?). You know it.

      Have fun, while it lasts.

      (It is interesting that you can not address the content of her blog presentation) CTS

      [looks like Theinquirer wants to head up an inquisition……or suffers from God Complex. Either way his loudmouth complaints indicate that there is some discomfort out there. I say good.] ED

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      • #

        The only political party I was ever a member of was the Greens. How does that fit your fantasy?

        It’s tough when your ship sinks…

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      • #
        Backslider

        @The Inquisitor – we know that something is happening when the quality of warmist trolling has dropped to the lowest level yet seen here. Please go back to SkS and ask them for some lessons, we like a laugh and you did not even elicit a giggle from me.

        Come back when you have scientific evidence of CAGW – we are all ears, believe it or don’t believe it.

        Let me give you a couple of hints:

        1. Climate modelling is not science, its statistics – we want to see science and empirical evidence using the scientific method.

        2. See point one.

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        • #
          Richard the Great

          Climate modeling is NOT Statistics. That is gravely besmirching the pure-as- the- driven- snow science of lies, damn lies and statistics.

          On a more serious note many disciplines reply on models. For example in geology ore resources estimation uses models derived from drill data and analytical data to determine what grades lie where and to enable mining the stuff.

          These things are called models as opposed to reality. If they were 100% correct they wouldn’t be called models.

          Now, you get good models and bad models. Good models stand the test of time i.e. offer a predictive capability that comes true. When you are mining (the model said the gold is there) when you get there, we have a bad model. Likewise when climate models predict hot spots and temperature rises that are not borne out in reality its back to the drawing board. Clearly the assumptions due to with feedbacks and climate sensitivity need revising.

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          • #
            Backslider

            Its interesting that you mention mining, since I have been involved in mining for a good part of my time. Drilling, yes, have done my share of that and yes, it can give you an idea of what is happening, however getting underground and seeing things first hand as they really are is what has always led me to the pay dirt. Naturally that also takes an expert eye. The latter saves a lot of money in pulling dirt that won’t pay.

            But, that is a far simpler thing than trying to model climate. I honestly do not believe that this can be done to any degree of accuracy – there are just too many assumptions and not enough drill holes (lack of data). So likewise, it is better to just look at what is actually happening with the climate rather than relying on models and spending billions on something that empirical evidence shows is not actually happening.

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        • #
          ExWarmist

          Hi Backslider,

          Perhaps TheInquirer is a clone of Maxine – but then again – Maxine actually has better manners…

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      • #
        AndyG55

        “how many non-Coalition voters” ?

        Very, very few, from anywhere, at the next election.. FOOL !! 🙂

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        • #
          Backslider

          Guaranteed that The Inquisitor votes Green. What a total idiot.

          Hey Quiz!! When is Gaia’s incarnation happening???

          10

      • #
        AndyG55

        “Either way his loudmouth complaints indicate that there is some discomfort out there. I say good.”

        When you are getting flak, you know you are over the target.

        Look at the PANIC in his posts.. he KNOWS he has nowhere to go.

        And ZERO proof to back the AGW hypothesis.

        Going to be hilarious to watch him over the next few years as the global temp starts to drop. 🙂

        Poor little worm. !!!

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      • #
        cohenite

        Theinquirer is the worst troll yet; what a knucklehead.

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      • #
        ExWarmist

        TheInquirer says…

        Come out and say it? What, like you do about scientists being on the grants gravy train, being unethical, unprofessional and other defamatory stuff that is recorded here?

        [1] If anything that has been posted here is, in fact, defamatory – where are the lawsuits?

        [2] The cast iron defense against accusations of defamatory comment, is of course, that the comments are true.

        [3] True comments, hence no lawsuits.

        [4] See the logic?

        But I know it’s all just a dog-whistling exercise.

        [5] Just curious, how long have you believed that you can read minds, and discern motives?

        You’d have a pretty small audience if you just went after the truly sceptical of AGW crowd and distanced yourself from your loony conspiracy theorists and political tribalists (how many non-Coalition voters among your “sceptics”, you reckon, Jo?). You know it.

        [6] Can you quantify “pretty small audience”?

        [7] Is there a “Big Oil” conspiracy to fund Anti-CAGW propaganda and the Global “Denial” Movement?

        [8] Personally. A conspiracy is by it’s very nature – secret – unless it has been operationally compromised. As a consequence, I don’t believe in any popular “conspiracies” – as I’m not on the inside of an active conspiracy.

        [9] Political Tribalism – I have voted, National Party, Liberals, Independents, ALP & Greens over the span of my voting history. I believe that would make me – Not Tribal.

        Have fun, while it lasts.

        [10] Sounds a bit threatening – what do you see happening when the “while it lasts” runs out?

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        • #
          Rereke Whakaaro

          You forgot to mention that a large number of visitors here reside in Europe, America, New Zealand, or other places remote from Australia. So probably the vast majority of visitors here do not vote for “the coalition”.

          What a narrow and parochial world view, TheInquirer has, … quite pitiful really.

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  • #
    pat

    jo,
    fyi, this is the first time in approx 10 hours that i have been able to access your website. don’t know if others had the same problem. there wasn’t even a message.

    meanwhile, wonder who the Aussie contractors are? certainly haven’t found any mention in our MSM as yet:

    7 April: UK Daily Mail: UK aid wasted on South Pacific windfarm fiasco: failed green energy scheme for only 55 people cost £250,000
    Aid wasted trying to bring green electricity to community of 55 people
    Scheme axed after contractors pocketed cash without building wind turbines
    The £1.7million scheme was scrapped after Australian contractors pocketed huge amounts of cash without building any wind turbines on the islands made famous by the Mutiny on the Bounty…
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2305442/UK-aid-wasted-South-Pacific-windfarm-fiasco-failed-green-energy-scheme-55-people-cost-250-000.html

    hope someone can identify the contractors.

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      Ian

      Pat Although the Daily Mail is certainly not in the alarmist camp it is perhaps better to not quote that newspaper as it really is a right wing rag. The Independent or Telegraph have a little more cachet and if you ever see an article in the Guardian that is anti-warmist quote it as soon as is possible

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      • #

        Right-wing rag or not, they tend to publish stuff that would otherwise not see the light of day in places such as the Guardian. It doesn’t then take much work to follow up and confirm the facts of the matter.

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        • #
          Ian

          Its the capital that the warmists make out of comments based on articles in the Daily Mail that does the damage.

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          • #

            Warmists would make capital out of anything, even The White House under a metre of ice would still get the

            …it’s clearly shown in the models…

            treatment.

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      • #
        harry

        It is not a right wing rag, it happens to be comfortably the second highest seller of newspapers in the U.K. They have done a good service informing the British public through articles by the likes of David Rose of the real facts about so called climate change. It is a shame other newspapers still have their heads stuck in the sand.

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        • #
          Ian

          The top 3 papers are The Sun, The Daily Mail and The Daily Mirror. That probably says it all really

          20

          • #
            Streetcred

            Boo-hoo … the Guardian is second last. That tells me that it has a minority readership and is irrelevant to the majority of UK residents. The Guardian doesn’t even rank in the top ten UK newspapers. FAIL Management Strategy 101.

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            • #
              Ian

              Streetcred. I obviously didn’t communicate well enough as you have completely missed the point I was trying to make. From your comment you may not know that The Guardian is a bastion of warmist supporters, much as the Daily Mail caters for those who take an opposing view. My comment “and if you ever see an article in the Guardian that is anti-warmist quote it as soon as is possible” refers to the fact that the Guardian never ever reports an anti-warmist view so if they ever did grab it and report it as it would be such a rarity. Additionally, by referring to it you would irritate those who blindly accept the views of the Guardian and that could only be a good thing.

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              • #
                Streetcred

                Then I did miss your point. My apologies, Ian. But that was my point too about the Guardian … it has marginalised its readership through its ridiculous support of CAGW amongst most other things 🙂 Just like FauxFax has done here. Instead of some inward reflection it has doubled down on its leftist rhetoric and further eroded its economic existence. Leftists, socialists, fabians, communists … all the same to me … don’t learn from history, albeit that history is staring them in the face. Hands over eyes, fingers in ears, Lalalalala … 😉

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              • #
                ExWarmist

                Streetcred,

                They seem to have no powers for honest self reflection – and therefore no capacity for self criticism. This essential flaw condemns them to continue to make the same mistakes over and over again.

                It also seems to me to be at the root of their overweening arrogance, and hubris.

                Such people always sow the seeds of their own destruction and are mystified when they and their utopian dreams are destroyed by the necessities of the real world.

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              • #
                crakar24

                I dont agree Ex the situation is a lot more simple, climate scientists are many things but they are not stupid, lets look at teh facts as we know it.

                A, Since record keeping began we know that there are step changes in the temp record, every 30 years approx the temp has switched from slight warming to slight coolin/levelling off.

                B, We know that this slight rise in temps has the same decadal rate as the one previous and the cooling/levelling is the same as the previous

                C, Though we still dont understand the mechanism, we know that the step changes occurr at the same time as the phase change of the PDO.

                D, Temps rose slightly from the early 70’s to around 2000 during a +ve phase of the PDO and have now levelled off once the PDO went -ve.

                Now i predicted this would happen over 15 years ago but so did another billion people and none of us had a computer model to prove it so i am sure these climate scientists knew this (or expected it) as well.

                So now we are subjected to bullshit theories of where the heat is with the caveat “AGW is gunna gitcha after 2025” or some such crap because they know as well as anyone that once the PDO goes +ve the temps will rise again.

                What we are seeing from these frauds is nothing but a stalling tactic, to be honest i dont think they expected such a levelling off, they expected they could easily bullshit their way through for 20 years but they were wrong so now they invoke stupid impossible excuses that only the brain dead moron followers (nice one, cat, Mattb etal) will believe.

                They will stay stuck on the teat until the PDO changes and then say “see i told you so”. Only question is can they last that long?

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              • #
                Mattb

                Crakar I don’t agree with your opinions on this step change, in that the records show an underlying warming trend as well as an oscilation of shorter term cycles.

                05

              • #
                AndyG55

                “in that the records show an underlying warming trend ”

                Matt..

                do you mean the GISS/Hansen/HadCrud adjusted records.. (where the temperature rise pretty much matched perfectly to the adjustments)

                or do you mean the real temperatures which haven’t moved much since the late 1800’s ?

                Anyways… I am really quite glad there has been a warming trend since the LIA, and I assume you are too.

                30

              • #
                ExWarmist

                @crakar24

                I was responding to Streecred – I think that we were discussing a different point.

                BTW: People can be both clever and non-reflective.

                20

              • #
                artwest

                I agree with Ian that a mildly sceptical article in The Guardian would be more useful than numerous stronger articles in the Mail or The Telegraph (both of which, let’s not forget, also publish mindless cut and paste CAGW PR dross amongst the fewer critical pieces).
                The Guardian has a far smaller readership but it is very influential amongst politicians, the public sector and the media, many of whom would instinctively trust The Guardian over any other news source, with the possible exception of the BBC (which both influences, and is influenced by, The Guardian).
                If told, as it is relentlessly, by The Guardian (and the BBC) that CAGW is real, its more blinkered readers will never take an opposing article from a source like the Mail or Telegraph seriously. If ever The Guardian makes it “OK” to criticise CAGW and not be accused of being a right-wing Mail-reader (think “Nazi baby-killer”) then expect the floodgates to open.
                I’ve said before that we will know that alarmism is really dead in the UK when the average Guardian-reading comedians on BBC topical comedy shows start mocking alarmism.

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      • #

        I utterly reject the idea that one should filter your assessment of an article according to agreement or disagreement with one’s inbuilt prejudices. That can only lead blind acceptance of a set of views. In a movement based on presenting a coherent consensus, when diverse views are possible, it means the craziest end extreme ideas that maintain that consensus are supported. Conversely, criticism of high quality that undermines the consensus is dismissed.
        When you discriminate based on prejudice you are following a profoundly human path well-trodden by the majority in history. When you choose to evaluate ideas and new information based on your own judgement and by external standards, then you cut new paths in which others can follow.

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        • #
          Ian

          I’m not sure if you’re replying to me or to StreetCred as your response is equally relevant to. both. My prejudices are that I don’t like sensationalism which the Daily Mail certainly is a past master at. Streetcred has completely missed the point about the Guardian and I’ll reply in a moment. I’m not sure if you read warmest blogs as well as sceptical blogs like this. I do. I hate it when those such as Tamino (who has blocked me from his site) and John Cook and (but to a lesser extent) Gavin Schmidt sneer at comments made on sceptical blogs where the primary data come from sources such as the Daily Mail. So you’re quite right about my prejudices in one respect but not about my blindly accepting one set of views. In fact your comment “craziest and extreme ideas” could sometimes apply to the reader’s comments on articles on Climate Change in both the Daily Mail and The Guardian

          30

          • #
            ExWarmist

            Hi Ian,

            This sub thread goes to the logical fallacy of Poisoning the Well.

            The essence is that the message matters – not the messenger.

            Even a poor messenger may carry the truth.

            For the recipient of each message – we need to rely on our own reasoning skills and ability to sift data on it’s merits to arrive at conclusions that are warranted and which will carry actionable value.

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    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      Perhaps the site has been down for preventative maintenance? You know, maintenance that is designed to prevent anybody from using the site. … Just kidding.

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        jorgekafkazar

        There is no such word as preventative. You mean preventive.

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        • #
          Safetyguy66

          Ha didnt know that. Ive always used preventative, well done thanks.

          10

        • #
          Rereke Whakaaro

          There is no such word as preventative.

          Excuse me.

          preventative a. & n. [f. PREVENT + -ATIVE.] = PREVENTIVE a. & n. preventatively adv. (source Shorter Oxford).

          So preventative and preventive are alternative spellings of the same word.

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    • #

      Pat, yes, sorry, there was routine maintenance in the early hours of my web-host that was supposed to be brief (measured in minutes). Something went wrong and all the sites managed by the same host were down. It was unfortunate, but perhaps one of “those things”. Sigh.

      FYI, When the site goes down, check my twitter account @JoanneNova. I always post information about site there (it’s my backup method to reach readers when the site can’t).

      In future I will use my new public facebook page as well. Please sign up if you are a facebook user. 🙂 Thanks – Jo

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        Roy Hogue

        The disappearance wouldn’t bother me if the host could still be pinged. But when you open a command prompt window and do

        ping joannenova.com.au

        and it doesn’t get through it means the server is down and usually means bad trouble. This is one thing you can do to tell whether the server is online or not.

        I can only imagine the headache — or is it ulcer?

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      • #
        Backslider

        The length of time it was down is unacceptable, I hope you get an appropriate discount.

        This is what happens when crucial things are outsourced, somebody always screws up the DNS it seems.

        10

        • #
          Roy Hogue

          FYI, Jo is getting this service at a very good price. The Domain Name Server (actually there will be several of these) wasn’t the problem. The actual hosting server was off the air.

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          • #
            Rereke Whakaaro

            Perhaps the wick in the engine went out …?

            10

            • #
              Roy Hogue

              I wouldn’t be surprised at all. I always thought there were little tiny guys in there with an abacus doing all the arithmetic. But on second thought, it just might be candle powered. They sure do run slowly sometimes…

              I need more coffee again. 😉

              10

      • #

        Hi Jo. I’m afraid I don’t have twitter or facebook. I mentioned being unable to connect to your site on WUWT and Anthony kindly told me what was going on. 🙂

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      • #
        Ian

        Jo I know this isn’t replying to the topic in your post but where has TheInquirer gone? I asked her/him some specific questions but the silence is now deafening. Actually you might be able to answer some of the points. One other thing which is asking perhaps a bit much, please can you keep posting comments from warmists as on a warmist blog, sceptics comments are usually severely snipped (eg SkepticalScience) and the moderators issue stern warnings to any who disagree with the ethos of their site. Of course posts disagreeing with the ethos of the ludicrously inappropriately named Open Mind run by the egregious Grant Foster never see the light of day as the poster is banned. That you are so much more tolerant merely emphasises the difference between sceptics and war mists

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  • #

    It’s the foot-soldiers I feel sorry for. One by one their spokesmen are easing back on the doom-laden rhetoric but until organisations such as the BBC start being more open there is still a long way to go.

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      Streetcred

      How is the BBC going to avoid this: Met Office’s Private Briefing Document For The Environment Agency dug up by Paul Homewood ?

      Following the wet summer in the UK last year, the Met Office provided the Environment Agency with a briefing document, giving an overview of the weather. This was discussed at the September Board Meeting of the Environment Agency, which Met Office officials attended.

      As far as I know, this document, which I obtained through FOI, has never entered the public domain. It is brutally honest in admitting how little the Met’s scientists understand about what affects our climate, and, in particular, what caused the unusual weather last year. This is in stark contrast to many of the hyped up claims, made in public statements in the recent past by, among others, the Met Office themselves.

      Now, don’t forget that our BoM is a mini-me of the UK Met Office !

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    • #
      ExWarmist

      It’s the foot-soldiers I feel sorry for.

      You are more compassionate than I am.

      30

  • #
    Rick Bradford

    Cults implode in a predictable way.

    As some fringe dwellers peel off, the dwindling hard core become even shriller, more vindictive and dogmatic, until they start getting paranoid with one another and set the bar for ‘acceptable behaviour’ even higher, splits occur over which is the ‘true path’, the core dwindles even further and so on to ultimate implosion.

    This is what happened in Pol Pot’s Cambodia and I see no reason why it wouldn’t happen in the climate cult.

    480

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      You are dead right.

      In religion it results in a schism, which in turn results in further schisms, as previous leaders fight to retain their privileged positions.

      The schisms in early Christianity that resulted in the Roman and Greek and Russian orthodoxies, is one example. And then there was the schism, in the 16th century, that resulted in the Protestant Church emerging from the Roman Catholic Church, followed by yet more schisms, as the original Protestant Church split into dozens of different variants … and so on.

      Not that I am suggesting that AGW is, or was, a religion.

      I am just agreeing with you, that any organisational entity that is rigid in its orthodoxy will eventually implode in this way.

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      • #
        Byron

        “Not that I am suggesting that AGW is, or was, a religion”

        Hmmm ? It may have started it`s life as a vaguely interesting but wonky hypothesis as AGW but it metamorphisised it`s way into CAGW , then into a religion , or at the very least a religion substitute for the neo-puritan zealots of the green movements . It does tick many of the boxes for the requirements of a religion while missing significant boxes that need to be ticked for it to be science

        1)Acceptance on faith , no need for evidence , ESPECIALLY don`t question the high priests/alarmist climate scientists for They are the anointed and never wrong

        2)Omnipotent being(chemical)responsible for all ,If it warms,cools or stays the same , rain or drought , storm or dead calm ,Ice shrinks or expands it must be that God wills it /CO2 caused it . In other words a complete lack of falsifiability

        3)Sacrifices must be made to atone for Our sins/carbon emissions , naturally , the high priests and their acolytes are exempt from such in the performance of their duties and the wealthy may purchase indulgences/carbon credits

        etc. etc . etc

        I`ve linked to John Brignell`s Essay “Global Warming as Religion” before but it`s well worth a re-read

        Of course as well as Us heretics there are swags of people who aren`t amongst the “Faithful” but are just on it for a free ride on the gravy train

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        • #
          Roy Hogue

          Of course as well as Us heretics there are swags of people who aren`t amongst the “Faithful” but are just on it for a free ride on the gravy train

          They worry me the most. I think they’ll be by far the hardest to get rid of. Once they have a gravy train they’ll fight to keep it no matter how it must morph into some new variation in order to keep it going.

          But the faithful will be a problem too.

          The fight has only just begun and how we conduct it will be a major factor determining success or failure. I think Jo’s approach, keep on exposing the flaws, the deceit and so-on; along with an olive branch where it’s warranted, is the way to go.

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          • #

            On the contrary Roy, it is the believers who will retain the bitterness and resentment for decades to come. Yesterday Margaret Thatcher passed away. Still after a generation the people who she overcame – the trade unions, the socialists and the masses reliant on government subsidies – retain deep bitterness towards what Thatcherism stood for. There is unlikely to be any one person that undermines drives the stake through the heart of the belief in catastrophic global warming, but there will be many who will have an enduring hatred towards those who dispossessed them of their beliefs.

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            • #
              Streetcred

              Judging by the scene photographs, most of those hooligans weren’t even around in Lady Thatcher’s heyday. So the bitterness and resentment is not only harboured, it is passed down the generations … how so typical of “the trade unions, the socialists and the masses reliant on government subsidies …”

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        • #
          jorgekafkazar

          “Omnipotent being, responsible for all…”

          Drought? Bigmanuptop angry. Floods? Bigmanuptop angry. No awkward pseudoscientific “mechanisms,” no complex statistical jiggery-pokery, no eye-straining fudged graphs, just a simple, Occam’s-Razor-friendly rain god. The advantages go on and on.

          When Greens wished for a return to simpler living, they probably didn’t realize they would descend into the primitive superstition part well before the lights went out. If anyone doubts this is the case, see the 10-10 video, a clear call for blood sacrifice, spewing forth without restraint from the Green Unconscious mind.

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      • #
        Backslider

        If you listen to the Gaia rants of Tim Flannery and the coming incarnation, then yes, it is a religion.

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    • #
      AndyG55

      “the dwindling hard core become even shriller, more vindictive and dogmatic”

      as noted at posts #3, and #4, where we have real loony panic-strickened moron getting all fired up.

      Quite funny to watch 🙂

      Pop-corn? anyone !!

      40

  • #
    Yonniestone

    I feel that MSM journalists have been reduced to stenographers for vested interests from higher up.
    This has been the standard for some time in my local Fairfax rag,http://www.thecourier.com.au/story/1412467/a-commitment-to-change/?cs=66
    Funny thing is recently in the papers website “comments” options, skeptical views have been allowed to appear (including mine) 🙂
    And that editorial is very cautious in it’s delivery compared to the “hellfire & brimstone” AGW sermons of past.
    Yes the tide is turning and not in a “Catastrophic” way.

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    • #
      cohenite

      Fairfax in Newcastle has had these 2 efforts recently:

      http://www.theherald.com.au/story/1414885/opinion-gillard-poll-shifts-hint-at-long-spell-in-opposition/?cs=308

      http://www.theherald.com.au/story/1407342/opinion-solar-and-wind-energy-not-reliable-enough/?cs=308

      The comments on the 2nd article are revealing; there are some implacable believers out there.

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      • #
        Yonniestone

        Wow, those comments are getting out there aren’t they?
        As much as the MSM have softened on AGW they have been pushing “Sustainability” like crack in the projects.
        This is where the real battle will be, a bonus is we already know the enemy’s tactics.
        I encountered a local eco zealot recently who literally frothed at the mouth when I questioned their beliefs’.
        Said zealot then offered me to present my view to their group meeting, anyone dare me to attend and secretly record it? 🙂

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        • #
          cohenite

          Go for it but don’t get lynched.

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        • #
          Roy Hogue

          Indeed, go for it.

          Be sure your presentation is well rehearsed and you know all the answers to their objections, cold turkey. You don’t want to get caught stumbling around like someone I could mention. 🙂

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        • #
          jorgekafkazar

          The danger isn’t that you’ll find yourself suddenly facing a cogent argument; the danger is that you’ll be confronted by assertions so wrong, so fallacious, so unbelievably ignorant, so bond-crushingly stupid that you find yourself speechless, unable to decide where to start.

          Feel free to quote me when you do so. [just kidding]

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          • #
            ianl8888

            Yes, indeed

            I recently found myself, quite inadvertently, confronted by an academic from Melbourne University who described herself as a “feminist philosopher”

            Her put-up argument was that E = mc^2 is a sexist equation

            When I asked why (and I really knew better than to ask but I just couldn’t help myself), she jubilantly answered:

            “Because it privileges the speed of light above other speeds ! Typical sexist behaviour”

            I was absolutely speechless … still am

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            • #
              cohenite

              I always thought the speed of light was a female.

              60

            • #
              jorgekafkazar

              Ian, I meant to say “bone-crushingly stupid,” above, but perhaps in the context of your feminist philosopher’s rant, I should just leave well enough alone.

              20

              • #
                ianl8888

                Well, yes
                As you see from my absolute speechless astonishment, I left it alone as well

                Such people will never be convinced by logic. CO2 is an evil by-product of sexist capitalism, neo-fascist criminals, and so on and on and …

                30

            • #
              ExWarmist

              I’ve seen that before.

              It’s a product of deeply held assumptions about the world, and how it operates that the speaker has never actually fact checked vs reality.

              And unfortunately – the ideology – would consider the act of actually fact checking vs reality to be a sexist, penetrative, interrogation of the feminine – and hence verboten.

              When ideological frameworks are constructed with inherent, and explicit, protections against the use of reason to provide self-criticism – they are doomed to fundamentalist rigidity.

              A strategy of “attack” would be to discuss just how “self criticism” would occur, and how could positive growth occur without constructive self criticism. how would the speaker defend themselves from hubris, arrogance, etc without being able to question their own beliefs.

              20

            • #
              Sceptical Sam

              I think she was probably covering up. I suspect it was the square root part that gave her the problem! With appropriate therapy she should be OK.

              40

            • #
              Roy Hogue

              Academic? Sounds more like an epidemic.

              10

        • #

          Will anyone turn up? A lot of these eco-nuts pretend there are more in their camp than actually exist. They stomp and rave and tell all how many are with them, but in the end they still turn to rent-a-crowd. Only now, I don’t think they can get rent-a-crowd. You might find there are only three lunatics waving their flags, two of them not so enthusiastic about it. The rest (they’ll say) aren’t feeling very well and had to stay home.

          70

          • #
            Dennis

            The ALPBC never ceases the propaganda barrage

            30

          • #
            Yonniestone

            A.D.Everard
            This group has developed into an actual business, so their very well organized and have been pushing (read ramming) the “sustainability” thing locally, including high jacking media.
            Oh well I’ve been brainwashed by all you DENIERS for years so I might as well put it to good use. 🙂

            30

        • #
          Rod Stuart

          The good folks at the Galileo movement are prepared for presentations such as this if you need to enlist some support.

          40

        • #
      • #
        KinkyKeith

        Hi Cohenite

        That item by Anthony Cox is right on target in presenting the real costs of renewables.

        That’s what the paying public will take note of.

        KK 🙂

        10

    • #
      Streetcred

      Yonnie, we’ve cancelled our 20-year subscription to the CM and now have The Australian. My wife the academic, published and all, appreciates the intelligent journalism compared to the socialist slop delivered up by the likes of Syvret, Aitkens, et al.

      50

      • #
        Yonniestone

        Thanks guys for the encouragement and warnings, I think I’ll be ok as I held a combined security license for a few years and “carried” for a while as well, also did ameteur boxing, Muay Thai (full contact) and grew up in Ballarat and survived! 🙂
        If it all works out I promise to show the footage here first.

        40

        • #
          crakar24

          Ah a Ballarat boy, you must be tough….of course not as tough as us who grew up down the road in Geelong.

          Cheers

          Crakar

          20

          • #
            Yonniestone

            Hey crakara24, Geelong’s a great city and I’ve a lot of work there over the years.
            That waterfront development is amazing compared to how it was let go years ago.
            I’m a bit worried about the main industries winding up there, they put so much into the city.

            40

            • #
              Yonniestone

              Correction “I’ve DONE a lot of work..”

              20

              • #
                crakar24

                Yonnie,

                I was born and raised in Geelong but dont live there now, i go back there now and again. Some things have changed but much is the same.

                The water front looks OK, then again anything would be an improvement LOL.

                Shell is all but gone, Alcoa would have gone due to the carbon tax so Dullard gave them a waiver and Ford is on its knees.

                I would like to go back and live there again but my line of work does not allow me to.

                Ballarat is a nice place and i could live there (bit cold in winter though) took my kids to Soveriegn hill talked it up big time but when i got there was very disappointed, its all changed 🙁 but i did find some gold…yippee.

                Had a sister that lived in Meredith for a while now she lives near Drummond which is kinda near Ballarat i suppose.

                Cheers

                10

          • #
            Gee Aye

            how does Broady count?

            00

  • #
  • #
    Fox from Melbourne

    They look and they don’t see. They see the evidence, years and years they have cried at the moon it will come but alas no the evidence that their prediction which claimed that the end of the world is near. But alas the world is still here and the prediction haven’t come true. One by one they will smell the roses and will realize not only that their prediction are wrong but their Green religion is little more than a house of cards just waiting to fall. I know my friends that we have being wait for many years but as they, our friends wake up for there big green day dreams our true believer friends will come back to their senses. Will until the next thing comes along and their get whisked of their feet again. Lets welcome Geoffrey Lean back to the fold. Go easy on him his just waking up to himself, he still sounds a bit sleepy. It may take a while but we can all hope he gets there soon. Bye for now and stay Skeptical my friends.

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  • #
    Richard111

    “There is no doubt that the world has warmed, and that this will continue.”

    ‘They’ are so convinced it will continue but never explain how it is supposed to work.
    I am currently reading The Quantum Universe by Brian Cox and very interesting it is too. Excellent grounding for understanding the effects of photon radiation into and out of electron shells in atoms and molecules of gasses and why some gasses are poor emitters/absorbers and others are quite active.

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    • #
      Ian H

      “There is no doubt that the world has warmed, and that this will continue.”

      “There is no doubt that property prices have increased, and that this will continue.”

      “There is no doubt that the stock market has risen, and that this will continue.”

      … when people start talking like this expect a crash.

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    • #
      Dennis

      They ignored the Chinese delegation to Copenhagen who referred to 3,600 years of civilisation in China and that there were three periods warmer than what was then still claimed to be a warming period by many and during each warmer period increased prosperity was enjoyed as crop yields increased along with grasses and feed for animals. Earth cycles.

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  • #
    Andrew McRae

    Meh, we wish.

    Rumours of a climate media tipping point are as exaggerated as rumours of a global warming tipping point.
    It’s not all going to change rapidly at once. A softening here, a melting there, an occasional climbdown, rarely a public reversal, and in the majority of cases the subject will be silently dropped with no errors admitted.
    That is the prediction of my climate media model, so now to see if the forecast eventuates.

    That means it’s time for the WWF to begin campaigning to save all the species endangered by this NEW climate change: jaded warmist journos, thermageddon thickies, windfarm windbags, solar cell spruikers, and pseudoscience shonks.

    [SCENE: dimly lit alley. CLOSEUP: Shonk]
    [CELEB, V/O:] It’s hard not to feel sad looking into eyes like these.
    [CELEB, WIDE SHOT:] A tragedy unfolds here in East Anglia every day as warmist habitat destruction continues. This little Jones has had its whole empire destroyed, and now it needs your help. Just $2 a day can help rehabilitate an abandoned scientist like this and help return them to the wild…

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    • #
      Roy Hogue

      Andrew,

      Is the glass half empty or is it half full? 🙂

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      • #
        Andrew McRae

        I have no idea what you mean by that question. If you actually want an answer you’ll have to clarify.

        In literal terms of course the answer is neither of the above. The glass is entirely full, but half is air and half water. 😉
        In engineering terminology one might say the glass design was over-specified with a 100% margin of error. 🙂

        20

        • #
          Roy Hogue

          I was referring to what you were apparently saying; the change Jo’s been talking about will make no difference. The glass is just a metaphor for the current situation. You can see it two ways:

          1. The glass is being emptied and will continue that way — climate change wins; half empty.

          2. The glass is being filled and we’re at the halfway mark asking, will it continue filling? Evidence suggests that it will; half full.

          You appear to be suggesting that it’s half empty.

          Hope this helps. 🙂

          00

    • #

      A few years ago, there wasn’t a hint of a climb-down. There wasn’t a hint of doubt, except in some opinion columns, so newspapers openly questioning climate “science”, validity of computer models, data manipulation, and waste and damage of green “solutions” is good to me.

      60

  • #
    Gee Aye

    has anyone invented the term propagandism?

    Here we see it but don’t wait for me to define it.

    07

  • #
    alex

    While the reasonable warmist ones are repositioning themselves such as Lean, if not abondoning the AGW army, such as Fritz Vahrenholt and Sebastian Lüning and many others, the really hard-core ones are ending up fighting shadows like Kim Jong-un is doing right now, threatening to burn the USA and the rest of the free world. If it was not for the many people suffering hunger, cold, unemployment, etc resulting from the current prohibitive energy prices that have been forced upon us by the green dictators, and if it was not for the thousands or millions who have died in North Korea at the commuist hands, the situation would be highly laughable, but contrarywise it is very much the opposite. It is a very sad situation indeed.

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  • #
    Macha

    Well the MSM here in Perth, WA still make the most out of any “hot” days. It was 37C here today and reportedly hottest on record. Hmmmmm.

    50

  • #
    sallyco

    The alarmists at this site http://openparachute.wordpress.com/2013/04/04/i-was-wrong-about-lord-monckton/#comment-39290 are having a real hate session at Monkton and Jo.

    15

    • #
      Catamon

      Funny, i went to that site to have a look at a “hate session”, found only 1 reference to Jo Nova, and actually most of the criticism of Monkton was fairly tame.

      Particularly compared to some of the threads here. Disappointing sallyco, i was expecting more entertainment. 🙁

      That aside, does anyone know if the Lord das Monkers has sued that guy in Tassie yet??

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    • #
      Roy Hogue

      This has really got to get to you. I mean, gee whiz! A pregnant young girl with long hair, headband, beads and necklace, not to mention all the exposed skin, is so right out of the 60’s that you just have to believe her pleading eyes.

      Don’t you? Sure you do! C’mon now! The world must be ending soon. She wouldn’t lie to us, would she?

      Oh! You say she would? I am so-o-o-o-o-o disappointed. Say it ain’t so! 🙁

      And how shameless!

      Shades of the recent video blowing up children!

      40

      • #
        AndyG55

        “This has really got to get to you. ”

        Sorry, but I don’t believe Lord Monckton had anything to do with that situation. !

        40

        • #
          Roy Hogue

          I think you’re right.

          30

          • #
            crakar24

            i dont get it……….is Monckton the father?

            20

            • #
              AndyG55

              They say “truth about climate change” then advertise LM’s tour.

              While also figuratively showing the furtility of Earth under raised CO2 levels.

              Seems like they are on the right track. 🙂

              40

            • #
              Catamon

              i dont get it……….

              much surprisiment!!

              is Monckton the father?

              Really! The dirty old man!!!

              11

            • #
              Roy Hogue

              About the picture:

              I saw it as a plea for action to protect the world for her yet to be born child — the child being a stand-in for future generations generally. It’s another blatant use of children as a club to beat deniers (their word, not mine) over the head.

              I don’t think the question of who the father might be even crossed their mind when that picture was put together and stuck in there.

              20

  • #
    ROM

    The increasing indications that the MSM is starting to change climate horses midstream is actually running well ahead of schedule.
    About the time of Climate Gate and Copenhagen in Oct 2009 I came across a report of a research project into the timing and the way in which the MSM changes it’s stance and attitudes
    This report indicated that it took about 7 years before the MSM had made the full change over in attitudes from one stance to a different or opposite stance towards a controversial subject.

    From the end of 2009, that 7 years would put the complete switch in MSM attitudes towards the global warming / climate change / extreme weather / ????? meme to about the end of 2016.
    That time line fits as it would account for a new crop of reporters coming into the system whilst the older reporters would have rotated into another section of the media or rotated out permanently
    Sub editors would have been kicked upstairs and would be looking for some distinguishing personal attribute to highlight themselves in the media herd to ensure they were making their mark and could therefore guarantee their future employment in the media somewhere as a media person who stood out.

    Editors would have moved on or out and new editors, again with the goal of distinguishing themselves from the media herd by their “independence” would be in the influential seats of power in the MSM.
    So that seven years for the MSM to change horses seems to fit quite well with the proposed time line for media changes in attitudes.

    However, the fact that there are now very firm and firming indications that a major shift in the MSM against the CAGW ideology is already under way spells a lot of future trouble for a great number of prominent self promoting power and influence hungry, climate science media tarts.

    For it indicates that the rapidly mounting evidence against any sort of significant effect let alone a catastrophic outcome from increasing CO2 despite the overwhelming forcing of this meme of the dangers of CO2 onto the public and politicals by various mostly rabid green outfits and the arrogant self promoters in climate science, the now increasingly recognised decade and a half long lack of any warming reinforced by a series of extremely cold northern winters and cool wet summers is becoming overwhelming evidence in the eyes of a lot of the media and a firm indication to a lot of them that they had got it all wrong and it was time to reassess before they themselves got hung out to dry.

    When those cynical old hands in the media finally figure out they have been very thoroughly conned, hood winked and regularly lied to by the catastrophic climate warming promoters, they being human like the rest of us and not liking being taken for fools any more than the rest of us, and having been thoroughly conned like most of the rest of the populace about the catastrophic global warming meme are going to take out a very subtle and very nasty revenge indeed on those same promoters of the catastrophic warming meme and their running dogs in political and bureaucratic circles.

    Time to stock up on popcorn me thinks.
    This could be fun,

    A small problem though; like the Roman bleachers in the Colosseum, who do we give the thumbs down to and who do we give a thumbs up and let live to another day ?

    Sigh! decisions! decisions !!

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    • #
      Graeme No.3

      I recently recalled an article in 2009 by Simon Heffer a UK journalist?
      Sorry, I have no link nor do I know much of him, but his comment in 2009 when AGW was running amok was cheering.

      Starting with the observation that only a fool made predictions 10 years in advance, he then made his for 2019.

      The pertinent one was that “by 2019 global warming would have been forgotten, except by a small group of eccentrics”.

      I hope he is right!

      100

      • #

        Here you go;

        You heard it here first…

        Only a fool makes predictions for the years ahead, but in making them for the decade ahead, one at least hopes one’s readers will have forgotten by the end of it how wrong the predictor was. So here goes. By the end of 2019 we shall have had three changes of government; the Queen will be preparing for her platinum jubilee; the Anglican Church will have ceased to exist; alcohol will have been accorded the pariah status of tobacco; America will be the second most powerful country on Earth; man-made global warming will be a belief only of nutters and extremists; Russia will have started a serious war; the euro will have fewer members; and, contrary to a ridiculously prevalent view, people will still buy and read newspapers.

        http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/simonheffer/6872812/Noughties-The-lies-that-saw-in-a-decade-of-debt.html

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        • #
          Graeme No.3

          Thank you for the link.

          I am not sure of some of his other predictions, particularly about the one about alcohol, but his “man-made global warming will be a belief only of nutters and extremists” is my favourite to be first past the post.

          20

  • #
    Joe Lalonde

    Jo,

    How many times has scientists been correct in the past in many, many areas?

    Current statistics do not include past histories.
    The models are a mathematical calculation that does not fit to an orb.
    Have you tried to add these to an actual orb?
    It does not work due to the art of averaging which excluded many factors.
    Only temperature data was used with calculations on predictions for only the last 100 years. All other values are excluded as the money train was running rampant with “green”…

    10

    • #
      michael hart

      as Roger Waters once wrote:

      Everybody else is just green,
      Have you seen the chart?
      It’s a helluva start,
      It could be made into a monster
      If we all pull together as a team.
      And did we tell you the name of the game, boy,
      We call it Riding the Gravy Train…

      🙂

      30

      • #
        crakar24

        To me the most important lyric (in this context) is “Oh by the way which ones Pink?”.

        Which suggests a lack of knowledge on the part of the promoter as he has no inetrest in the band just simply how much money he can make, which is of course akin to AGW, no one who promotes the theory really has any understanding of it but they can see a cash cow when one walks by.

        Might have a cigar when i get home tonight 🙂

        30

  • #
    DougS

    Andrew Montford, on the ‘Bishop Hill’ blog was wondering if Lean had got (from contacts at the IPCC), a whiff of what AR5 might be going to say – and has decided to get ‘on board’ early.

    Sounds about right to me!

    80

  • #
    Joe Lalonde

    Jo,

    All these policies changes governments have made are based off our current crop of scientists pushing AGW.
    This has generated problems for countries who fell for this load of crap.
    Many weather related NEWS items are NEVER reported that should give concern to what the weather is doing and where it is heading.

    When you base your policies strictly on warming…what happens when that does not happen and it starts to change…
    Government produced market problems then have to be dealt with.

    70

  • #
    Keith L

    Once the media have exhausted the story about impending doom and denier cranks then the next story has to be the conmen scientists and the “why did they lie to us?!” story.
    They can then chase the Phil Jones and Mike Manns of the world down the street yelling questions at them or doorstopping them at 6am until the public have lost all interest and something else comes along.

    40

  • #
    Peter Miller

    While it is obviously nice to see realism entering the climate debate, we can be sure of one thing:

    HMAS Alarmism is not going to fade quietly into the sunset. Rather it is going to be a case of North Korean Syndrome, plenty of scary, paranoid rhetoric from people you wouldn’t normally trust to give you the right time of day.

    I would therefore expect the alarmist scary stories to start seriously ratcheting up their unfounded claims in the months ahead. Any minor heat wave, dead polar bear, big storm, period of low rainfall, or melting iceberg will be loudly touted as being ‘proof’ of imminent Thermageddon.

    110

    • #
      Rod Stuart

      It is already underway. CO2 causes global warming which causes climate change which makes your transatlantic flight bumpier. Lord Almighty, what will they dream up next?

      40

      • #
        michael hart

        At some point it will be easier to list what hasn’t been blamed on global warming. But I don’t think we should start giving them suggestions.

        20

      • #
        crakar24

        Interesting how they simulate then postulate stronger winds but yet show picture a jet stream that is experiencing no wind at all?

        Obviously the journalist does not understand what they are reporting on.

        40

      • #
        Byron

        “Lord Almighty, what will they dream up next?”

        Rod ,
        How about …(insert dramatic fanfare here) ……. Giant Crabs

        We need to start stockpiling butter and cracked pepper NOW to deal with this new threat !

        20

  • #
    Annie

    I noticed Geoffrey Lean’s article in the DT over the weekend. He certainly does seem to be modifying his stance somewhat.

    Jo, if you ever want the paper copy of an article in the DT, let me know before I throw it away into the recycling bag. We’ll be taking the paper copy for the next few months before returning to Aus.

    Annie (in cold, cloudy, depressing North Yorkshire).

    20

  • #
    Mike Spilligan

    There’s still a long way to go before the warmists fade away; they’ll keep the propaganda going until their taxpayer-funded salaries and pensions are secure – and they’ll take the gullible MSM journos with them. For those that remain, who got on the bandwagon too late and who’ll be making the excuses, the rationale of a non-warming, non-flooding world will be: That’s what we were saying all along, but just expressing it differently. As ever with such matters; no one will be to blame.

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  • #
    Michael Urry

    The Telegraph is a peculiar paper – on Saturday it has David Lean while on Sunday there is Christopher Booker. It’s difficult to see how these can be accommodated in the same News group. It’s a bit like the Editor of the Daily Mail writing a weekly column in Pravda.

    40

    • #
      Ross

      Micheal

      That difference is what makes a good newspaper. 30yrs ago it wasn’t unsual –now it is the exception.

      20

  • #
    turnedoutnice

    Lean has been a paid hack, a Shill for Shell carbon trading.

    60

  • #

    […] Or so says Jo Nova, reporting on how the AGW cheerleaders are lowering their alarms. […]

    40

  • #
    Rod

    I think the latest spin is that since AGW is not as immediately urgent as previously thought that even more should we act since we can do something about it.

    20

  • #
    Backslider

    I don’t believe they will retreat just yet. The latest thing is to blame the oceans

    We will hear a lot more of this.

    70

    • #
      Popeye

      Backslider

      Anybody who tries that BS doesn’t know much about the physics of water vs air in relation to heat absorption.

      See here for a rather good explanation (I’ve posted this before but worth doing so again).

      Cheers,

      10

  • #
    Roy Hogue

    And so the fight will go on. But I will take all the promising developments I can get.

    30

  • #
    Carbon500

    Readers across the world’s oceans might be interested to know that according to Philip Eden (a meteorologist who regularly writes in the UK’s Sunday Telegraph), the British Isles have just had the coldest March, averaged nationally, since 1962.
    Locally, in the Midlands, East Anglia and South England, it’s been the coldest since either 1892 or 1833. The Central England Temperature was 2.9 degrees Centigrade, and by this measure March was the coldest month of the entire winter, for the first time since 1937.
    And yes, we’re all heartily sick of it and can’t wait for things to warm up!

    40

    • #
      turnedoutnice

      We’re back to 1980s’ weather already, and that is just the start of the new LIA….

      30

  • #
    Safetyguy66

    “The term du jour is “new evidence”. It’s the ticket back to reality, even though strong evidence has been there for a decade, and the lack of warming is just one more clue that the models are wrong.”

    Well said Jo. There is a need to leave a gate slightly ajar for the sensible folk to stroll back into the right paddock without fear of getting the cattle prod.

    I never took this side of the debate to yell “I told you so” at the inevitable (and it was always inevitable) time when the truth came out. I took this side of the debate because the science of AGW was a mockery of science and the people arguing it had forgotten all basic tennants of scientific method and often the basic tennants of decency.

    But I would welcome them all back to reality with open arms and let bygones be bygones any time.

    Again, well said Jo.

    80

  • #
    handjive

    TAXPAYERS forked out nearly $900,000 to send Julia Gillard and her 52-strong contingent to last year’s climate change summit in Brazil despite the global talkfest being labelled an ”epic” failure.

    Labor has spent millions of dollars attending climate change summits with the ill-fated Copenhagen meeting in December 2009 costing $1.5 million while a 38-member delegation to Mexico in 2011 cost $360,000.

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  • #
    pat

    re Pitcairn Wind Project and Aussie contractors who pocketed the money, etc –

    further searches online, using multiple possible search terms, reveals nothing of the contractors’ identity. surely our MSM would have reported this scam??? LOL.

    have a feeling it could be one of the companies connected to HydroTasmania, which is involved in wind, but who knows:

    UK Parliament:
    48. HMG (led by DFID) continues to work with Pitcairners to plan two major infrastructure projects: a wind power system for which DFID expects to sign a design and installation contract with a Tasmanian firm early in 2010…
    http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmfaff/memo/overseas/m41002.htm

    8 April: UK Telegraph: Hayley Dixon: Britain wasted £250,000 on failed wind farm project in South Pacific
    They are now considering a solar-powered generator, and if the project is approved the total cost of the island’s electricity supply will be even higher…
    A DfID spokesperson said: “Where contracts are not good value for money and are not being properly delivered, HMG will take action to protect taxpayer money. This contract was signed in 2007 and by October 2010 was behind schedule. It was formally terminated in March 2011…
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/pitcairnislands/9978125/Britain-wasted-250000-on-failed-wind-farm-project-in-South-Pacific.html

    10

  • #
    Dennis

    I have noticed that Tim Flannery is looking more desperate, the eyes give him away.

    50

  • #
    Bite Back

    I just saw these two “quotes”. One is real and I think the other one is gleaned from the speaker’s past and present attitude. It’s a very stark contrast. I thought it might be interesting.

    America is too great for small dreams. — Ronald Wilson Reagan, 40th President of The United States

    As opposed to…

    America is too small for great dreams. — Barack Hussein Obama, 44th President of The United States

    It took a difference of only 4 men, just 20 years to forget everything we have stood for since before we even became a nation.

    The Plymouth Colony was founded in 1620** on a platform of self confidence, hope for independence from the government and freedom to be who you wanted to be. 388 years later Barack Obama became president on a platform of self doubt, the desperate hope for a free lunch depending solely on the government and no confidence in our own abilities, individually or collectively. We went from masters of our own affairs to crying out for the UN to save us from ourselves in just the 68 years since WW II.

    **You could count the Jamestown Colony, founded in 1607, as the beginning. But it was a commercial venture when first settled. So Plymouth seems more appropriate.

    41

    • #
      RoHa

      “It took a difference of only 4 men, just 20 years to forget everything we have stood for since before we even became a nation.”

      We? Reagan and Obama have nothing to do with us. They are Americans, not Australians.

      23

      • #
        Bite Back

        R0Ha,

        Did comment #35 escape your notice?

        It’s strange that every time I look, Jo has more readers signed on from the USA and parts of Canada than from Australia.

        We’re two nations in this fight together. Both were built out of virtually nothing by hard work and individual initiative. We’re both throwing all that away fast.

        I’ll leave you to be the judge. But I respectfully disagree.

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  • #
    Bite Back

    I cannot escape the parallel between the USA and Australia.

    92

  • #
    pat

    UK govt shuts three more carbon credit sellers
    LONDON, April 5 (Reuters Point Carbon) – Three more London-based carbon credit sellers have been ordered into liquidation by Britain’s High Court after investigators found them to be marketing “unsuitable” investments, the UK government’s insolvency agency said…
    http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2263087?&ref=searchlist

    ***can’t resist posting Mueller’s ice-age comment:

    8 April: Platts: German utilities plan 38 GW new power plant capacity by 2020: BDEW
    Germany’s utilities have plans to build some 76 large power generation projects with a combined capacity of around 38,000 MW by 2020, the energy industry lobby group BDEW said Monday.
    However, due to unstable political framework conditions, the uneconomic outlook for gas-fired power generation as well as public resistance to new coal-fired power plants, almost a third may be cancelled, the BDEW said.
    ***”A new ice-age is threatening the construction of new power plants,” BDEW chairwoman Hildegard Mueller said in the statement. “In particular, plans for projects beyond 2015 have been put on hold, even if they already have the necessary permits. Almost a third of all projects now have an unclear timing as investment conditions are currently just too uncertain.”…
    http://www.platts.com/RSSFeedDetailedNews/RSSFeed/ElectricPower/8290335

    50

  • #
    pat

    more on the “carbon sellers” liquidated.
    MSM will ignore, of course. READ ALL:

    5 April: Redd-Monitor: World Future Ltd: A boiler room scam bites the dust
    Last month, three London-based companies were ordered into liquidation by the High Court. The three companies, World Future Ltd, Capital Wealth Ltd and Fourteenforty Ltd were selling carbon credits to the public, credits that “were wholly unsuitable for investment by the public”, according to a press release from the Insolvency Service…
    The Insolvency Service reports that,
    – “The investigation found that investors received unsolicited phone calls and were misled as to the prospective investment value of the credits; for example they were told to expect returns of at least 25 per cent and in some cases as much as 50 per cent within a year.
    The investors were also told that airlines would be buying carbon credits every time a plane took off and that investors would have to get in first to maximise returns. In addition they were told that their investment could be withdrawn at any time. All of these claims were false. –
    Company Investigations found that before selling carbon credits to the public, World Future jacked up the price by between 150% and nearly 250% of the price paid to its suppliers. World Future was set up in July 2011 and in its first 10 months managed to scam £2.5 million from the public for “near worthless carbon credits”.
    Insolvency Service’s press release lists the following projects as generating these “near worthless” carbon credits:
    •Hydro Power project in China,
    •Wind Power project in India,
    •REDD Reforestation project in Kenya,
    •Forest Management project in Papua New Guinea,
    •and a Biomass project in Thailand.
    There’s an interesting discussion about World Future on the Love Money forum, here, featuring several people who were ripped off…

    http://www.redd-monitor.org/2013/04/05/world-future-ltd-a-boiler-room-scam-bites-the-dust/

    60

  • #
    KinkyKeith

    My interest in the Global Warming “threat” was initially prompted by scientific curiosity.

    After blogging for some time and acquainting myself with the reality behind the thin veneer of climate science it became a challenge to weed out the money side of the game and naturally this lead back to Government Money and then to the Politics of Global Warming.

    It has been a long journey and a real education to try to sort out what is going on; what appears to me now is a web of deception, theft and misappropriation, government vote buying, government patronage of those to be rewarded and so on.

    The role of the media has been critical in preventing the full disclosure of the Climate Scam and I would

    think that the one and only reason for any change in media attitude is that they know the scam is well and

    truly done for. They are changing the public perception of their beliefs so that when it finally crashes

    they can say: “see I was on your side”.

    For me and probably a few others on this site there is a parallel to the CAGW scam in the situation in PNG.

    Both CAGW and PNG Handover to self rule were only possible because of the new style of government that cares little for reality and relies totally on government by perception.

    CAGW is a creature of Media and like CAGW the situation in PNG has been bad because of the failure of the media to investigate and report on reality of life in the new fledgling state. Corruption is rife.

    Things that are hidden don’t need fixing; Government Motto.

    One aspect of PNGs new face of progress was recently illustrated by the media, a good piece of reporting, is to be found in the weekend Australian here:

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/a-builders-labour/story-e6frg8h6-1226613133623

    KK 🙂

    40

  • #
    RoHa

    It would be the appropriate time.

    Margaret Thatcher is dead. She is the one who pushed the Global Warming scare into political prominence, as part of her campaign against the coal miners*. Now she has gone, so should the scare.

    (*As well as destroying British industry, damaging British society, and placing the economy in the hands of the corrupt fraudsters and money shufflers of the City.)

    314

  • #

    Surely I couldn’t be the only one who saw this.

    It was hidden away, way down the page, with no heading, and just a small ten word line link.

    It’s from Bjorn Lomborg, (hey, I know I know) but it does fit in nicely with this Post from Joanne about media looking for ways to say ‘Yehbut’.

    It all starts with little cracks appearing here and there.

    Wrong Way, Go Back

    Tony.

    60

    • #
      mullumhillbilly

      “The solution is not to make fossil fuels so expensive that nobody wants them because that will never work but to make green energy so cheap that eventually everybody wants it.”

      Lomborg has been saying this since 2001, its a reasonable and sensible argument regardless of where you sit in the spectrum between catastrafarianism or slayer-fysicsism, so there is no “yehbut” involved. What’s with the “I know, I know” ?

      30

      • #
        KinkyKeith

        Hi Mull

        The problem is that too many warmer apologists try to make the case that Renewables are right now, today at

        10:23 am, no more expensive than coal fired power stations.

        This is wrong and either a sign of deceitfulness or ignorance.

        I am sure that most people would welcome cheap solar power but cannot afford to pay the real cost as it is at the moment.

        KK 🙂

        60

    • #
      KinkyKeith

      Hi Tony

      Yes, saw it, but the main thing I took from it is that he still wants to have foot in each camp.

      Whatever he says is still qualified by the comment that “some part of global warming is due to humans”.

      Just how he knows this I can only guess; divine inspiration perhaps?

      This type of article is what you get from an economics professor writing about economic models based on dream science.

      KK 🙂

      40

    • #
      Graeme No.3

      Tony,
      false hope. His specialty is economic statistics, which led to his first article then book showing that the Greens had got their statistics wrong. He has been stating since then that AGW is real, but that the methods being used to stop it are a waste of money and would achieve little. The last 9 years have proved him right on that.

      He still accepts AGW, although now accepting that it won’t be as bad as claimed, but still want money to go into research. Exactly his point of view in the article.

      I am not so enthusiastic about ‘renewable’ energy due to the low energy density and intermittent nature of the sources. Storage of electricity is still the problem. Only pumped storage is practical at present, and at 70-75% efficiency. The greens won’t accept new dams despite it being the only way to make largish amounts of “renewable” energy usable.

      50

  • #
    pat

    5 April: GigaOM: Fisker hit with lawsuit over layoffs
    Struggling electric car maker Fisker Automotive has yet another thing in common with infamous solar panel maker Solyndra. Shortly after Fisker laid off 160 of its workers — or 75 percent of its staff — last Friday, law firm Outten & Golden hit the company with a class action lawsuit alleging that Fisker violated the Warn Act, which requires companies with 100 or more employees to provide at least 60-days notice before conducting mass layoffs or closing plants…
    Fisker owes the DOE the first loan repayment at the end of this month for its $193 million loan. The company hasn’t made a car since the Summer of 2012, reportedly saw potential acquisition and investment bids from two Chinese auto makers fall through in recent months, and announced last month that its founder design Henrik Fisker had left the company over disagreements.
    Filing for bankruptcy is a very real next possible step for the company. Fisker has reportedly hired a bankruptcy lawyer to look at its options…
    Fisker has raised over a billion dollars in private funds, including money from Valley venture capitalists Kleiner Perkins and NEA.
    The company has sold a couple thousand of its $100,000 electric hybrid Fisker Karmas to customers, including celebrities like Al Gore, Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Justin Bieber and the Game.
    http://gigaom.com/2013/04/07/fisker-hit-with-lawsuit-over-layoffs/

    30

  • #
    pat

    buying off farmers!

    7 April: ABC Rural: Federal Government rolls out more carbon farming funding
    The Federal Government has announced a $30 million package for farmers and land managers as a part of the Carbon Farming Futures Action on the Ground Program.
    The shared program aims to reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions and increase carbon sequestered in soil.
    Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Senator Joe Ludwig, made the announcement at the Mulloon Creek Institute, a farm near Canberra where biodynamic landcare practices have been applied for a long time…
    The grant is part of the Federal Government’s $1.7 billion Land Sector Package.
    http://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/content/201304/s3732316.htm

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    pat

    8 April: Murray Valley Standard: Carbon grant for Monarto mill
    A MONARTO manufacturer will receive up to $424,000 of Federal Government funding – raised through the carbon tax – as a reward for becoming more energy efficient.
    Timber processing firm SA Pine, formerly Recut Industries, will use the retrospective grant funding to reduce its emissions and cut power bills…
    “We decided it was economical for us to put a wood-fired boiler in rather than LPG,” he (Company director Gary Tucker)said.
    “LP gas out here is pretty expensive, and it only takes four tonnes of chips to get the equivalent heat output of one tonne of gas.
    “Pine chips are carbon neutral, so we’ll save 17 kilotons of carbon over 17 years.”…
    The Federal Govern-ment will spend $1 billion helping manufacturers reduce their pollution through the Clean Technology Investment Program and Clean Technology Food and Foundries Investment Program.
    http://www.murrayvalleystandard.com.au/story/1416666/carbon-grant-for-monarto-mill/?cs=1527

    what’s a billion here & there?

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    pat

    8 April: CleanTechnica: Energy Secretary Nominee: Need Carbon Price To Double Or Triple Cost Of Dirty Energy
    Tuesday is the confirmation hearing date for Energy Secretary nominee Ernest Moniz. The MIT professor will face the Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee (webcast here starts at 10 am ET).
    I have known Moniz for 30 years. Turns out he was my professor for advanced electromagnetism in 1982. Then I worked with him again at the Clinton Energy Department in 1997 and 1998 (his full bio is here). I think he’s a fine choice for Secretary — and considerably better than many of thealternatives…
    Moniz is exceedingly knowledgeable about carbon issues. Just last year told the Switch Energy Project he supports a carbon price that would substantially increase electricity costs:
    “If we start really squeezing down on carbon dioxide over the next few decades, well, that could double; it could eventually triple…. I think inevitably if we squeeze down on carbon, we squeeze up on the cost, it brings along with it a push toward efficiency; it brings along with it a push towards clean technologies in a conventional pollution sense; it brings along with it a push towards security. Because after all, the security issues revolve around carbon-bearing fuels.”…
    HERE is the VIDEO:
    http://cleantechnica.com/2013/04/08/energy-secretary-nominee-need-carbon-price-to-double-or-triple-cost-of-dirty-energy/

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    pat

    what the MSM will publish – no matter how ridiculous!

    3 April: SMH: Peter Hannam: Switch to fully renewable energy within reach: report
    Australia’s main electricity market could source all of its electricity from renewable energy with the help of a carbon price of as low as $50 a tonne, according to research at the University of NSW.
    The researchers found currently available renewable energy technologies such as wind and concentrated solar thermal power could displace all fossil-fuelled power plants in the National Electricity Market, according to a peer-reviewed paper published in the international Energy Policy journal…
    A carbon price of $50-$100 a tonne would make coal and gas-fired power plants uneconomical, depending on varying assumptions, the report said…
    Running simulations based on power demand and supply data for 2010, the researchers found wind would contribute most in a switch to fully renewable energy. It would account for between 46 and 59 per cent, while solar PV and concentrated solar would supply 15-20 per cent each, and hydro and biofuel-based gas generators the remainder…
    Pacific Hydro, a renewable energy generator in Australia, Chile and Brazil, said reaching 100 per cent renewable energy supply is technically feasible but obstacles are steep.
    “It would take a substantial shift in political thinking,” Andrew Richards, executive manager of corporate affairs at Pacific Hydro, said. “You’d need to mobilise tens of billions in capital to make it happen.”…
    After a bruising political fight to implement a $23 a tonne carbon tax, the government is not keen to rekindle debate over lifting the price.
    Instead, the price – if it hasn’t been repealed – is likely to fall after July 2015 when the rate is linked to Europe’s emissions trading scheme where prices are hovering below $6 a tonne.
    “The level of the carbon price is likely to move with international carbon prices as countries act together to cut emissions,” said a spokesman for Climate Change Minister Greg Combet.
    The Coalition, meanwhile, argues the existing renewable energy target is driving sufficient investment to the sector.
    “To drive up the carbon tax to $100 would largely make electricity unaffordable for most Australians who are already struggling to pay their power bills, and put thousands of jobs at risk because of the impact it would have on manufacturing,” said opposition climate spokesman Greg Hunt. “When commentators put forward these proposals they need to be honest with the public about what the real costs would be for people’s power bills.”
    Greens leader Christine Milne, though, described the UNSW research as “hugely significant”…
    Senator Milne noted the Multi Party Climate Change Committee ordered the Australian Energy Market Operator to conduct a similar study to determine the feasibility and cost of achieving 100 per cent renewable energy by 2030 and 2050.
    AEMO delivered its findings to the government on Tuesday. It is understood the release of the report is not imminent…
    Pacific Hydro’s Mr Richards said calls for additional renewable energy support should be viewed in light of the International Monetary Fund’s report last week that energy subsidies total $US1.9 trillion a year, mostly for fossil fuels.
    “You need to slowly unwind [those subsidies] at the same time you ramp up the positive stuff,” Mr Richards said. “Then you’ll start to see the transition more quickly.”…
    http://www.smh.com.au/business/carbon-economy/switch-to-fully-renewable-energy-within-reach-report-20130403-2h5ro.html

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      Graeme No.3

      Pat:
      what we need is a way of getting renewable energy cheaply from the seemingly inexhaustible supply of bullshit available.

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        theRealUniverse

        Carefull.. Bullshit produces Methane! A so called ‘greenhouse’ gas.

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        Sonny

        If lies were combustible one weeks worth of mass media propoganda could power the whole world for … I don’t know… A week.

        I know because some pesky little university twat, who has never stepped foot inside a facility which produces power, told me so in some government funded peer reviewed report.

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      Safetyguy66

      Why mess around. Just go with Sarah Hanson Young’s proposal and turn off all fossil fueled power tomorrow, geez I wish they would show some comitment. All this creeping death toward the real solution of sitting in a cave with gloworms for light when we could be there next week, but for a lack of will.

      /sarcasm off

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      Dave

      .
      Pat,

      How is this happening – Mr. Pacific Hydro wants more money:

      Pacific Hydro’s Mr Richards said calls for additional renewable energy support should be viewed in light of the International Monetary Fund’s report last week that energy subsidies total $US1.9 trillion a year, mostly for fossil fuels.

      This is the latest Tasmanian wrecking of wilderness area with windmills, he gets a grant to help construct, a huge rate of dollars to sell the intermittent power supply, and a guarantee that the project can be paid for. Then what – he sells most of it to a overseas company, increases company profits, gets extra as leader of the Windmill developer.

      But it is slowly getting out now, investment is decreasing, and word of mouth has it he’ll be off to the USA. The MSM aren’t game to publish this sort of stuff, including one of the super funds investing in Hydro Pacific is an ex Union leader. The Union, Green and ALP people are all heading for positions of industry, knowing their existing life is over.

      Pocket the money and run. The Carbon Cowboys, Labour lickers and Greedy Greens are out to make a BUCK in this new Agenda 21 world.

      Their names are becoming public for the liars and hypocrites that they really are.

      The tables are REALLY turning, because these boys and girls are running scared.

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    theRealUniverse

    Its all piffil to get them off the hook. They have been touting for years that there is doom and gloom now that the earth is cooling, obviously!, to what is most likely another LIA-MIA they are between a rock and a hard place so they are quickly ducking for cover. There just ISNT any warming man or natural. Its all down hill. Lets see which dirty rag/network can come up with the best load of crap about why theres lower temperatures with their dirty excuses. Sack the lot! let em crawl in the gutter.

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    theRealUniverse

    The ‘secrative’ Agend21 is the most bothersome. It intends to put the western world under a a ‘sustainable’ (NOT) Green Hell. In Amerika it has already started in force. Be warned.

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      Streetcred

      tRu, IT’S ALREADY HERE AS WELL … almost all of the government departments, federal, state, and local are signed up. Not to mention the professional societies and and many business organisations that have entrapped themselves in the “sustainable” rhetoric of Agenda 21 … though I think that they may be more mercenary in their approach.

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      Andrew McRae

      Depends on whether “global governance” turns out to be democratic in any practical sense. The status quo is hardly encouraging.

      If it follows the EU model then people cannot vote for their EU representative, but the major parties within each country can send whoever they want as their representative and so it is entirely up to them as to whether that candidate was democratically elected or simply installed. The EU is not designed to be democratic and some would argue whether it qualifies as democratic.

      If it follows the Australian model, then you will get the same group of vested interests operating under two banners and offering a false choice at election time, followed by issues of national importance being decided with little coverage or debate whilst relatively unimportant changes are grandstanded as a distraction.

      But “global governance” could just turn out to be a new USSR, which would make a mockery of the claim for “sustainability”. Democracies seem to remain stable for a lot longer than totalitarianism ever has.

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        Andrew, ever notice how pollies balk at the idea of mandated binding referenda. God forbid they serve. I think for most of them there is a special and overriding sense of post election ideation that thwarts their very purpose within a democracy That’s probably why we’ve all become so cynical. Here in NZ with our MMP the soup can arrive at the table as tomato even though you ordered vegetable. For many pollies it seems that democracy is an irritation, publicly endorsed but politicly an inconvenience and privately scorned.

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    crakar24

    Is the media waking up? Sadly no.

    The link i am about to produce will take you to a website that explains the lack of warming by claiming it is absorbed in the oceans, they even have a camoe by Travesty.

    Of course by this logic the entire balloon flight tourist industry is now in jeopardy, maybe they can get a government hand out to convert their balloons to accept hydrogen?

    http://wkzo.com/news/articles/2013/apr/07/oceans-may-explain-slowdown-in-climate-change-study/

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    pat

    8 April: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Editorial: Solar sunset: Public incentives must come with strings attached
    The collapse of a Findlay-based solar energy company is unfortunate for the 70 people it employed as of last week, but it’s also a loss to the taxpayers, who offered it nearly $20 million in state and federal tax breaks and grants.
    Flabeg Solar U.S. Corp., a subsidiary of a German glass finishing firm, operated for four years at the Clinton Commerce Park near Pittsburgh International Airport. Its business, the manufacture of large mirrors to generate solar power, was given a boost by assorted government incentives meant to spur the clean energy industry.
    The company, whose attorney said it would “most probably” file for bankruptcy, never reached the 300 jobs it had forecast, peaking instead at 200 at one point…
    There’s nothing wrong with using public incentives to lure promising businesses to a region. But whether the recipient is US Airways or Shell Oil Co. or Flabeg Solar, the public’s interest must be protected by terms written into the deal that make the company deliver on its promises.
    http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/opinion/editorials/solar-sunset-public-incentives-must-come-with-strings-attached-682562/

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    Kreek

    What I think they are doing is they’re posponing the doomsday to keep the momentum from turning into apathy. Since not enough was done before earlier deadline closed, those deadlines must be moved to a later date. The “last possible moment to do something” must always be a few years from now.

    So in a way this is not at all surprising, but a logical step in every doomsday cult when the end doesn’t come.

    But as with all doomsday scenarios, this moving the deadlines will result in the believers becoming more and more sceptical – which is propably why they are targetting kids now.

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      Like a parent who say’s “I’m going to count to three…. one…two… I really mean it! Ok this is your last chance…..”

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      Sonny

      Kids have always been the target!

      The climate insiders have stopped attempting to pursuande skeptical adults now.
      This is why we don’t get the same kind of scientific debate here anymore. The climate insiders know where to find is buy they have learned that we are impervious to their lies.

      Children on the other hand have been conditioned for a long time to fall for “environmentalism” which is really just one tentacle of the Fabian Socialist New World Order Non Conspiracy.

      Non Conspiracy because it is not secret. I.e Agenda 21. (But it is funny how few people have heard of it).

      So no, the media will not suddenly “wake up”, because they are controlled by the Insiders. The scientists will not suddenly “wake up” because they too are controlled by the Insiders.

      World events are being manipulated and manufactured through the control of money and the media toward the fulfillment of the Socialists dream – the new world order.

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        Sonny

        What “Theinquirer” probably meant by his flippant remark “enjoy it while it lasts”,
        Is “enjoy your freedom while it lasts”, “enjoy your right to vote while it lasts”, “enjoy your right to own property while it lasts”, “enjoy your right to grow wealth while it lasts”, “enjoy your right to hav a family unit while it lasts”, “enjoy your right to a self determined future while it lasts”.

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          Ace

          Right Sonny, except….er….in the case of MOST of those things, they were lost a few years ago already.

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            Sonny

            Correct. In my case I was born into a world in which the machinations of the global socialist takeover was already locked in place.

            I recommend the book “None dare call it conspiracy” by Gary Alen.
            Unlike the climate models, this book written in 1972 paints a very accurate picture of how socialism (a plot to enslave the world) in not a movement of the downtrodden but a scheme supported and directed by the wealthiest people.

            Just looking at the political background of some of our known leaders should be cause for concern.

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    thingodonta

    I wonder when the media will wake up to the idea that most 20th century warming was from the sun, and not from human activities? I suppose when it fails to warm over the next 20 years it might finally sink in that a ‘consensus’ of scientists have been self -serving.

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      Sonny

      It will not matter by then.
      Global warming and climate change are simply brainwashing tools to enact socialist legislative reforms, transfer wealth from private citizens to the state (killing off the middle class), monopolize energy, destroy private enterprise, abolish democracy in name (although its just an illusion now), and ultimately depopulate the world.

      I actually think global warming and climate change will be fairly tame compared to the “catastrophes” that have already been planned but yet to unfold.

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        Yonniestone

        Sonny, Very well said.
        I’m hoping that we know our enemy enough counter or pre-empt any more destructive actions, enough has gone unchecked for too long already.

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    David

    The thing which still puzzles me, as a simple retired engineer, is that the ‘warmists’ seem to see every report of ‘normal’ climate behaviour as some sort of ‘defeat’….
    Wouldn’t you think they’d be pleased that they had totally over-hyped the problem..?

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    • #
      Sonny

      Are you kidding?

      The “warmists” are engaged in a propoganda war.
      The battle is not for the environment but for your mind.
      They have a vision for the future which most of us, if made aware of, would resist.
      How do you like the idea of having every aspect of your life controlled and not owning anything?
      Read Agenda 21 for more information. This is what they want for you.
      To achieve this they require that you buy into the “consensus science”.
      Natural climate change is a theory which challenges the consensus.

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    Dan Clancy

    Well put Sonny. The “warmist” nonsense now serves only as a distraction to the implementation of Agenda 21.

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    Jaymez

    And The Wall Street Journal http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204301404577171531838421366.html

    No Need to Panic About Global Warming
    There’s no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to ‘decarbonize’ the world’s economy.

    “In spite of a multidecade international campaign to enforce the message that increasing amounts of the “pollutant” carbon dioxide will destroy civilization, large numbers of scientists, many very prominent, share the opinions of Dr. Giaever. And the number of scientific “heretics” is growing with each passing year. The reason is a collection of stubborn scientific facts.”

    “Speaking for many scientists and engineers who have looked carefully and independently at the science of climate, we have a message to any candidate for public office: There is no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to “decarbonize” the world’s economy. Even if one accepts the inflated climate forecasts of the IPCC, aggressive greenhouse-gas control policies are not justified economically.”

    We just need for these type of messages to filter through to the Australian general public who aren’t closely watching this subject.

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    eddie o

    Hey Jo! I’m up in northern Wisconsin and we’re looking at 5 to 10 inches of snow from Thursday 4/11 toFriday 4/12! Must be global warming! I remember back in the seventies we we’re told to prepare for the next ice age! I’m still waiting!

    [Sounds like it is coming for you guys! – Mod]

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    Sean

    “But don’t be too hard on Lean, he’s doing a better job than many compatriots.”

    Sorry jo you are wrong. People like Lean, who have a track record of mindlessly parroting green press releases, need to be hounded our of journalism. There is no room for them in this profession. They have demonstrated by their lack of skeptical thinking, lack of will to investigate, and willingness to accept as fact whatever is the popular view, marks them as cognitively unqualified for the function of journalism, and their lack of concern for the ramifications of their dissemination of propaganda labels them as ethically unfit for this critical role of informing the public. They have breached their trust – this is one of the reasons why journalists now hold such low esteem with the public.

    There will be no criminal trials at the end of this big scam. But we CAN remember who the liars were, who the useful idiots were, and marginalize them from any future participation in the public discussion. Time for a “time-out” for these clowns. Send them to their rooms without desert.

    I am not that desperate for an end to AGW that I want to play Nevile Chamberlain and appease these people on some faint hope that they can be rehabilitated, or that winning them over will speed the process.

    No, instead let them go down in history with people like Lysenko and that clown who created the Piltdown man. They lined up with the army of activist scientific frauds, let their reputations fall in tatters and let them reap what they have sown.

    We can not forget or forgive. We need to remember and be vigilant.

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    Backslider

    that clown who created the Piltdown man

    They are all actually guff. To descibe extinct primates as our ancestors, with no empirical evidence whatsoever is a very very long shot and most certainly not science.

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  • #
    inedible hyperbowl

    The sleeping MSM is stirring.

    As the MSM turns on the weakest members of the pack, we know that they will hang a few “sciolists” out to dry.

    Retribution is coming (slowly because the neighbours keep complaining about the incessant hammering on my newly constructed gallows)!

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    gbees

    Jo, can do you have TheInquirer’s IP address? just interested since his posts seem threatening …

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      Roy Hogue

      gbees,

      Jo and any of her moderators can see the IP address of anyone connected to the site. It’s impossible to hide your IP address from any computer you connect to, since knowing it is the only way the information you ask for can be sent back to your computer.

      IP addresses, however, are only specific to a general geographic area. And they can change from one day to the next or even from one browsing session to the next.

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        Backslider

        It’s impossible to hide your IP address from any computer you connect to

        Not so. Take a look at Tor. It uses World wide proxies to mask your real IP address.

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    Roy Hogue

    I’ll make a pretty safe prediction that TheInquirer will disappear like so many other trolls when they discover that Jo and her contributors don’t kiss up to them.

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    The Sun UK Newspaper today
    “BRITAIN’S winters are getting colder because of melting Arctic ice, the Government’s forecaster said yesterday.

    “Met Office chief scientist Julia Slingo said climate change was “loading the dice” towards freezing, drier weather — and called publicly for the first time for an urgent investigation.”

    Prof Slingo said: “If you look at the way our weather patterns have behaved over the past four or five years, we’re beginning to think that there is something happening. ”

    So climate isn’t 30 years, it’s now 4 years and why did they predict warmer wetter winters? Shows they haven’t got a clue about our climate.

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