JoNova
A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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Statistics
link to a video on Brians blog about an ecavation
[Brian, I fixed the link, but please try to write a link explaining your point rather than just posting a link. we won’t normally publish comments that are links with no lines. Jo]
30
Jo, Glad you let that through 🙂
Brian, those last 20 seconds or so are a perfect description of the church of CAGW ! 🙂
40
Thought I was the only one obsessed with Neo-Paganism as the prime driver of ACC. Socialism, power, money and reputation are all perhaps involved as motivations in the great scam known as “climate change”.
From my observation all pale into insignificance as the reason for belief in ACC when compared with contemporary Paganism. There is little doubt that its revival provides the rationale for “climate change” alarmism across a wide intellectual spectrum of people, including many scientists.
Interesting comment in the video about ancient Pagans living in permanent terror of the natural world and their response in seeking to appease the particular god responsible. That is a perfect description of present believers in “climate change” who mistakenly imagine they have science on their side.
For contemporary Pagans the cause is those evil, post IR, Earth destroying humans who use the Earth’s resources and technology to make their lives last longer more comfortably.
70
“If a person does not believe in God, the problem is not that he believes in nothing, but that he will believe in anything” Attributed to G.K. Chesterton.
162
On the contrary Kevin.
I believe we are learning, slowly.
But that means always questioning, never being overly sure of anything.
I see no need for a God, unless you actually expect to be able to explain everything.
64
And there was me thinking that faith in a God actually removed the burden of having to explain everything. Have faith and you’ll be alright, while you try to figure out what’s going on, whereas imagining you actually can have everything figured out (fun as it might be trying) is a road to madness.
61
“faith in a God actually removed the burden of having to explain everything”
Precisely, the faith is used to fill the gap between explanation and not knowing, nothing wrong with that.
I just accept that there are things we don’t know and may never know.
Each to there own. 🙂
30
Pity we can’t discuss that proposition with Isaac Newton and a raft of other science history changing believers in God. It does seem to me that the Theists and Deists did a lot better at science than any of our contemporary A-theistic Pagans vainly trying to emulate those great science stars as they dogmatise on “climate change”.
Valid Science Score:
God bothering scientists – 10.
Contemporary Pagan climate scientists – 0.
Question: Which religious affiliation hinders the development of science? Theism or Paganism?
Whether Newton was an orthodox theist or not here’s a nice little quote to show he was not a fence sitter:
“This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent Being. […] This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, (as in Paganism… my elucidation if required) but as Lord over all; and on account of his dominion he is wont to be called “Lord God” παντοκρατωρ [pantokratōr], or “Universal Ruler”. […] The Supreme God is a Being eternal, infinite, [and] absolutely perfect.[6]”
“Opposition to godliness is atheism in profession and idolatry in practice. Atheism is so senseless and odious to mankind that it never had many professors.[38][39]”
Oh heck Isaac I’ve got friends who are atheists. You did not really say those things did you? Please tell me wiki made it up.
80
Just a reminder.. Our number system is called the Hindu-arabic number system 😉
11
God isn’t the problem. Churches may be the problem, particularly where the God is human, or overly interpreted & represented by humans.
80
I’m not saying belief in God is a problem, I just think Chesterton’s words are just one man’s opinion.
I have no problem with whatever other people want to believe,
until they either try to force their beliefs on me, or
until their beliefs start to affect me in an adverse way.
Christianity does neither.
The AGW religion does both.
111
The word “God” stands for “I don’t know”, “I don’t want to know”, I am afraid to know”, and “I don’t want the responsibility for knowing.” If that was all there was to it, only the one’s clinging to their willful ignorance would be affected. However, the problem for the rest of us arises from actions based upon the monumental evasion of reality called “faith in God”.
33
Lionell,
For once I’m going to butt heads with you.
This absolutely not the truth. A belief that there is a creator who actually cares about you and me means no such thing. It does not stop me from wanting to know or wanting the responsibility to know. It enables me to understand that there are things about life that I should not mess around with. If there be no God, what say you about the Declaration of Independence? How do you justify wanting those rights for yourself if you deny there is a source which justifies your wanting those rights? You either have a basis for them that is larger than you are or you submit meekly to Obama’s ever tightening noose. Anything else is hypocritical.
111
I suggest that when you arrive at a question “Why?” that you cannot answer, you use the equivalent of “God did it.” as an answer. As such, that answer is intended to stop all further question, investigation, and thought. One is simply supposed to “believe”.
The use of a reference to a nonexistent “God” adds nothing. If you insist that “God” exists demonstrate his/her/its existence. That you truly believe is not evidence.
52
Many real people have neither the time nor the inclination to question everything Lionell. They accept that many things are as they appear and get on with struggling to influence that which they can or must , like putting food on their table for instance. That is not an abrogation of responsibility.
Those of us with more time on our hands perhaps can of course help them to see better where things may not be as they appear.
30
Eddie,
I understand what you are saying. My problem is that, without questioning the fundamentals in detail, you are left with accepting your values and principals based upon the opinions of others. It is safe, if and only if, the others about you have done the work you should have done but have not. Even then, it is not safe.
This is because you have no bases for the selection of what is safe beyond what feels safe to you. However, what you feel as safe is determined by what you have already selected by that self same unthoughtful absorption of “this is safe”. There is “trust” but no verify. Your life is being dry labbed because you assume what you should have proved.
Which leads me to the conclusion that there is a fundamental refusal to be responsible for knowing. The acceptance of “I believe” is not a substitute for knowing. Ultimately, the belief is “God” and others know but you don’t and don’t have to.
If you think the approach is safe, consider the consequence of accepting the pronouncements of the IPCC without question or examination. THAT has been demonstrated to be anything but safe.
I for one cannot and have not lived that way. I have no problem with others trying to live that way but I do object if they demand that I pay for the consequences when their way doesn’t work.
41
Lionell: Not everyone says “God said so” and then just goes on unquestioning. Some actually study religion, think things through and make their own decisions. Some don’t. However, lumping everyone into one category is not realistic. Some religions have no problem with the theory of evolution. Some follow science closely. If we believe God is rational, then not examining religion would be foolish. Religious rules should make sense even if you remove God from them.
20
I do not (and do not need to) do any such thing. When I arrive at that point I’m a big enough and confident enough man to admit that I don’t know. I hope you can say the same.
40
Lionel,
I must preface my comment on what you have said by stating that I am an atheist. However, I think atheists in glass houses should not thrown stones. The whole CAGW paradigm is religion for atheists. By that I mean that a goodly proportion of so called “atheists” seem to need a faith based belief system which incorporates an ideology of sin and redemption. I would suggest that rather than prime examples of atheism, Lionel, that you and I are probably exceptions in that we do not act out this delusional fantasy that we are completely without faith, when in fact lurking beneath this facade lies superstitious children looking for a belief system in which to seek emotional refuge, or to provide a moral structure to justify their actions to their inner moral arbiter.
I am actually grateful that I have had a Judeo-Christian philosophical and moral base upon which to build my approach to people, even while I personally eschew any organised religion of any kind. It helps me to dedicate myself to the betterment of others at the expense of my own selfish goals, even though I find the acknowledgement and praise of others quite uncomfortable when it occurs. I certainly feel it is demonstrably ridiculous to imbue human morality or emotions or feelings or anatomical features on “a deity” of any kind. I suspect that any supra-natural forces that shape our experience of reality perhaps may have some level of “existence” (for want of a better word) beyond our ability to understand it, since that dimension of reality lies beyond the ken of our limited powers of observation. But that doesn’t make for “a God” in my opinion, or other attempted personification of a force of nature in a universe we have limited scope to even begin to comprehend.
While religion can be anathema to knowledge and understanding, it is unfair to tarnish anyone with that belief with a brush-stroke of ignorance, since acknowledging that there are some things one cannot know at this point in human evolution does not preclude the ability to objectively understand other aspects of reality not infringed upon by religious belief. Christianity takes many forms and most Christians I have met are more than willing to shape their understanding within the realms of their core beliefs by diminishing their interpretation of where religion begins and ends by enlarging their objective reality at the expense of superstitious beliefs. This plasticity only becomes an obstacle when one is over-literal in what amounts to interpretive texts that make up most religious dictum, whether it be the Bible, the Koran or whatever. Fundamentalists will always be a vocal minority but cannot hold back the march of truth without force. Therefore the most important battle to engage is not with faith, but with rigid adherence to that faith in the face of objective reasoning to the contrary. Unfortunately, with CAGW, dogma has now overcome reason in science, and so threatens to compromise its validity through zealotry poisoning scientific enlightenment.
20
Its really quite simple. Either you accept that there is indeed God, or you admit that everything around you is simply impossible and you will never be able to explain anything, other than by using pagan explanations which are just ridiculous and easily shown to be false.
00
Backslider,
I don’t need a God or a Gaia, or anything else for that matter to acknowledge there is much to reality I will not know, will never know and cannot ever understand because I don’t have access to the fundamental knowledge required to understand it- That also acknowledges that much I have been taught as reality, whether in science or religious belief, is subject to change without notice if the facts present themselves to the contrary. I also acknowledge that that a lack of knowledge in no way hinders my exploration of the limits of human understanding, nor does it prevent me from formulating my own concepts of reality based on my understanding of my life experiences up till now, and being open to the acquisition of new ideas, new paradigms and novel analyses of previously accepted truths as the arise. I don’t need a God or a religion to do that personally, but admire those who do, provided they use that faith to anchor a curiosity for knowledge, provided that anchor does not limit their imagination or bias their observations. Unfortunately, some aspects of science have reached the point where they are being harboured by “faith” based value judgements rather than objectivity, and science now needs its own version of the Enlightenment, having itself been the driver historically for Religion’s enlightenment.
30
Welcome to the philosophy of Tao, Winston.
10
Ummm…. I’m talking about what you think you already know 🙂
00
“Either you accept that there is indeed God, or you admit that everything around you is simply impossible”
Lol… I don’t accept there is indeed god, OMG the telephone in front of me is impossible! Lol.
12
Backslider,
I think I covered that thus:
I KNOW that much of what science currently teaches us as FACT may actually be even fundamentally WRONG, as I am sure that much of what we understand about, for example, Christian philosophy and belief may be misrepresented by errors of omission and alteration of emphasis, the interference of those who came after (the keepers of the faith, Emperor Constantine, etc) for their own religio-political or personal motivations. I think the spirituality of religion is actually a positive boon to the understanding of the universe because it negates unfettered egotism, which is a worse blight on objectivity than anything religion can dish up. I firmly believe that greater understanding comes from allowing people with different fundamental beliefs to express their opinions freely, analyse observations independently and then justify their conclusions in an open forum. Attempts to deride one’s conclusions based on the presence or absence of some other underlying belief system is merely bias and ignorance dressed up as science. Evolution and the Big Bang have a lot of holes in their respective theories but that doesn’t make them wrong, just merely good working hypotheses to explain observations until better explanations come along. they may also be proven to be correct with added provisions or limitations if science is open to questioning them rather than treating them as sacrosanct.
10
Roy,
“Faith” is a powerful thing that can help a person if they choose it. You can have faith in many things, family, friends, humanity in general, etc. Faith is an individual thing that cannot be dictated by anyone else. When faith is dictated by others you have religion. Religion is an entirely human construct so that a smaller group of people can have power over a larger group of people. It has no other function and serves no other purpose. Not everyone who follows a religion is evil, only those who want to enforce their religion on others.
Winston,
Atheists and theists are the two sides of the same cursed coin. The inability to prove the negative (“there is no God”) does not prove the positive (“there is a God”). Similarly the inability to prove the positive (“there is a God”) does not prove the negative (“there is no God”). It is a circular argument without resolution. The universe just is, there is no “why”. The rational person tries to work out the “what” and “how” so that they can improve their life and the lives of those around them. The irrational person tries to work out the “why” and goes nowhere useful.
The universe only works one way. Since no-one has a perfect understanding of the universe (or any part of it), everyone is wrong. Those who start from the premise that they are wrong have a chance of learning something and being less wrong and doing something useful with that knowledge. Those who start from the premise that they are right are never going to learn anything about the universe around them and can only get more wrong.
30
How it got there, according to what you believe, yes.
00
But this is the thing. For those, God is a far better explanation. Evolution, for example, does not hold up against simple math.
I think you mean “Better explanations other than God”.
00
Yes yes of course… how have I been so blind!
01
Backslider,
Don’t interpret that just because I identify as “atheist” in my beliefs that I think there cannot possibly be a God. I’m not that arrogant. I certainly think IF there is a God, He (or it) is nothing like our concept of Him (or it). God also should not be used as a default explanation for everything we don’t understand, and for those theists out there, I don’t think God (if I may be presumptuous enough to speak for Him) would want us to limit our thinking like that. He would likely advise us to extend the limits of our knowledge to the very edge and beyond of our capacities, even to try to form our own concepts of Him according to our level of understanding. God may be a “better” explanation, as you contend, only because the concept of God allows limitless application, however that of itself doesn’t prove or disprove His existence. It also doesn’t disprove evolutionary or Big Bang theory either, merely because those explanations remain demonstrably incomplete. In fact, were there a God I’m sure he would put in place processes which we would be free to observe and describe and understand in the absence of Him. As I’ve stated, I admire spirituality very much, within and outside the confines of organised religion. I just think it is a shame to allow that belief to limit our curiosity and understanding of the universe because it is more convenient to explain it via an act of faith.
Truthseeker,
I agree entirely with your statements, and you seem to be more succinctly paraphrasing what I was trying to say, while appearing to believe you were somehow disagreeing with me. Even though I am an “atheist” in the sense of not personally believing there is a God, I understand that is merely my belief. I also actively reject the beliefs of most other atheists because they seem to be merely inverted or sublimated zealots, often more extreme and intolerant than the most fundamentalist religious acolytes. Added to this intolerance is the bonus of unearned smug superiority and the hypocrisy of putting their faith in an absence of God above the equally faith based assertion of the existence of God. As you say, it is unknowable and will remain ever thus, and not everything within the universe is within the purview of any one individual, and nor should it be.
10
TruthSeeker,
You missed my point. Christianity is personal — between you and God. It does not depend on any group or any other person. And as you correctly say, religion is a human construct. But it has nothing to do with Christianity. When I read the actual teaching and commandments of Jesus I cannot see how you can get the “Christian religion” you see today. Many have abused The Christ for their own purposes and many are sucked into those abuses. But they have nothing to do with Jesus, the man who was God.
I have never abandoned my critical, skeptical intellect in favor of any dogma, religious or otherwise. No one tells me what to think. Lionell appears to want to tell me what I am thinking. But he, like you, misses the point. I’m a free agent, born with the right to make my choices as I see fit. And that’s what I do.
Now the original point of all this discussion is that the removal from society of the higher power from whom we derive certain rights and responsibilities has resulted in a slide into darkness where anything goes. It is very real and very dangerous. Humans show me no evidence that from their own authority alone, they can govern themselves so as to remain free, prosperous and happy. The Obama presidency is the prime example.
00
And then there’s MattB, always commenting at such a deep level that none of the rest of us can understand his great wit and wisdom. 😉
Matt, if you keep acting like a fool we’ll begin to believe you are a fool.
00
To Lionell:
You have repeatedly stated in no uncertain terms on this blog that there is no God (I can go back and find those statements if I need to). How do you know that? Well… …you don’t! Does that position represent faith? I think it does.
In the end you’ve been guilty of what you say others are guilty of.
You can answer me or ignore me as you like.
00
The old religions teach what is ‘safe’, so I don’t have to research the why & the wherefore of everything and experiment & learn the hard way all over again.
That which is new is potentially unsafe and bears far more scrutiny.
20
Eddie,
Thanks for demonstrating my point so clearly.
00
I can’t write a book in explanation, nor do I want to. But you demonstrate that Christianity is very thoroughly misunderstood. It’s not about churches or rules to live by. It’s all about a personal relationship with the creator. Go back and read the gospels. Christ didn’t found Christianity. His followers did that. He didn’t say form groups and make rules to follow. No! He made it personal, one on one — it’s personal right down to charity and good works. He did not say, “When you see a man with no coat, form a charitable, tax exempt organization to collect donations to buy coats for those who have none.” He said, “When you see a man with no coat, give him yours.”
His one commandment to his followers was to go out and tell the world about him. And that’s the one thing most Christians are really bad at. They would rather argue about the minutia of doctrine and make rules for others to follow than take the risk of actually talking to someone about the savior God sent to take upon himself the punishment for our sins. You cannot even begin to have a platform from which to talk about salvation when you’re busy shoving rules down someone’s throat. But that, my friends is what Christianity is all about. Tell the world about The Christ. You aren’t even held responsible for whether the message is accepted or rejected. You just need to speak the message.
You may by all means believe what you want. I wouldn’t even think of doing anything more than what I’ve said here. But the society all around us is hurting for lack of a sound moral compass and the only thing that history shows has ever provided that is the conviction that there is a higher power than yourself who cares enough about you to to have made you a free agent and has some very good advice for you to follow if you’ll listen. I choose to listen.
20
Roy,
Thanks for continuing to demonstrate my point.
You have faith and faith is outside the realm of argument, proof, or even rational discussion. It has no evidence, it needs no evidence, and requires that you believe in spite of the evidence to the contrary.
You believe what you believe is true but is it? How do you know? You believe simply because others have believe before you and they exactly the same all the way back to dim prehistory. You feel safe in your belief but are you?
11
Is that which has stood the test of time, likely to be as dim as the harebrained novelty with which we are confronted daily ?
That which is new isn’t always wrong, but getting the scale and significance right is often prone to a lot of overreaction in the meantime.
I don’t know if Aristotle had a word for it, but I’m always wary of the appeal to novelty.
It has nothing to do with faith in a God btw., but a sense of perspective based on a long timeframe (otherwise known as History).
If our forebears were do dumb it is incredible we have survived to become as dumb and idle as we are today. (Or as David Attenborough put it :- human evolution may have stopped)
10
Lionell,
You are absolutely right. I don’t know. Furthermore, I know that I don’t know. Does that surprise you?
If you read me carefully over the past months you’ll find that I’ve never made the statement that there’s a God, nor have I ever said there isn’t one. But I think it entirely within the realm of possibility that there could be such an entity.
Now here are some things I am sufficiently sure of to want to be a Christian.
1. A rather obscure young man from an obscure little town in an obscure out of the way corner of his country made the most extraordinary claim I can imagine. He claimed in no uncertain terms to be God — not just a prophet but God.
2. He convinced his group of followers that he had risen from the dead.
3. Those followers were so thoroughly convinced of the resurrection that they risked their lives to spread the word.
3. In the end he cut a wide swath right through the known world that is still going today.
4. Even if he was not who and what he claimed to be, the belief that he was God revolutionized every human culture that embraced him. And it worked for the better even in the face of such terrible abuses as the crusades and the inquisition.
Do you honestly think the Declaration of Independence would have declared,
without Christianity?
Do you honestly think the Constitution and it’s Bill of Rights would be what they are without Christianity?
Do you honestly believe that what I quoted above didn’t guide the thinking of those who put together the Constitution?
Lionell, what you get when you remove God from society is the shit-house we’re now living through.
I’ve never said you or anyone must believe there’s a God. But I do say that when we abandoned that higher power than ourselves as the source of our rights, the substitute inevitably became the government, totally run by the whims of whoever can gain control. We already see how tyranical it’s becoming.
I’m only a man. I admit my doubt. And I think you and the rest who are so adamant should rethink your position.
10
Edie, Roy,
Your position presented here is fundamentally identical to the position the AGW alarmists use to defend their position. In fact, that your position is so pervasive is exactly what the AGW mime became so pervasive. It was all beyond question because of the authority of the past and the certifications of those whom you grant the unquestionable authority.
As I said, you are abdicating responsibility for knowing. You simply ***believe***.
11
Indeed there might be dangers in believing Lionell, but its not simply believing, it’s rationalising what to believe and what to query. The whiff of human self interest is often helpful in that judgement.
30
I hate to be a naysayer but Kevin Lohse is right.
The argument I’ve made before is manifestly correct. When our rights were from God no one would mess with them. We wouldn’t stand still for that. So they eradicated God and now we stand still for anything. The government now begins to dictate what our rights are and we are slowly becoming slaves. The government of this country of mine is now teaching what life should and should not be in the public schools. There is no mention of individual responsibility, individual rights, individual accomplishment or fulfillment of your personal dreams anymore. It’s all about being a compliant member of the group. It’s simply slavery in sheep’s clothing.
Oh yes, there is one individual rights position. It is very libertine and destructive. Read the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child for starters. Follow the ACLU’s work to keep pornography legal and to prevent restricting access to it by children in public libraries. Watch them work to legalize the God-damned NAMBLA organization — North American Man Boy Love Association if you don’t recognize the acronym. Look them up and be very scared.
No! Sorry but you cannot argue this position down because it is being played out in our daily lives in plain sight.
71
Really? !
I know of a few other groups that try to hang guilt on non-believers!
00
Roy has it. The sense that right and wrong are absolute and beyond the dictate (or whim) of mere human authorities. That won’t necessarily stop human authorities from prosecuting (or persecuting) you, but you choose which authorities to observe when there is a conflict & live with the consequences, sometimes at great cost, if you so choose.
20
Adventurers have stumbled across a cave so enormous that it has its own weather system, complete with wispy clouds and lingering fog inside vast caverns.
A team of expert cavers and photographers have been exploring the vast cave system in the
Chongquing province of China and have taken the first-ever photographs of the natural wonder.
40
Didn’t I see those caves in a James Bond movie once?
20
Handjive, I have a problem with the photos showing the lush vegetation and the wisps of cloud. If that is inside a “cave”, where is the light coming from? If it is getting natural sunlight … it is not a cave.
21
(Hat Tip to pat who mentioned this on the previous Thread)
India has plans to open up a a large new Solar Plant.
No hiding under a bushel here as this plant is called the Sambhar Ultra Mega Green Solar Power Project. The end product will be 4GW (that 4,000MW and is just the Nameplate Capacity) of solar PV (panels here not reflecting mirrors). The first part of the project, 1GW will be (well they hope anyway) up and running by the end of 2016. Overall this plant will cover around 23 square miles.
There’s a real kick in this one that will be latched on to by the rabid green supporters, as they actually hope to be able to sell their power to the grid for a price now getting down towards (but still more expensive than) the cost charged for power from one of the new large scale coal fired power plants already delivering power to Indian grids. These coal fired plants are the new Chinese USC (UltraSuperCritical) plants that are now going in all across India. India is now using this new technology developed by the Chinese.
Now, the green urgers will point to this and say how solar power is now in the cost province of coal fired power, but there is something they will not even bother to check. Now, while this plant will be selling its power for this small(ish) cost, that cost is worked out over the life of the plant, taking into account construction etc, and that construction cost is the largest part of that. As thinking people might understand it is cheaper to construct one of these types of plants in a still Developing Country, in fact they can actually do at at one fifth of the Developed World cost, so any plant of this nature would cost five times as much to construct here in Australia as it would in India. This is graphically shown with those new USC plants in China, where they can be constructed for just on an equivalent of $AUD1Billion and the comparison price for a similar plant in Germany is just under $AUD5Billion. The same would apply for any and all types of power plants in those 2 Countries.
So then let’s look at this proposed Indian Solar Plant, just the first stage now of 1,000MW of Solar PV Power. There is (quite literally) no solid information yet, mainly because journalists have absolutely no clue as to how to chase up information like this.
Solar PV currently has a theoretical Capacity Factor (CF) of around 16%, and some may actually quote as high as the low 20’s, and trust me, that is totally spurious. Solar PV plants in actual operation are running at around 12% CF, but hey, I usually always go with their quoted high figures because when you do the Maths, it is still laughably tiny results.
So, and here the Indian proposal plans to sell its power to the grid for $89/MWH, while the new USC coal fired plant is already selling its power for $73/MWH.
So then here’s the returns for both plants just on the sale of electricity to the grid, all amounts shown in AUD. This is for this proposed 1GW solar plant and a typical 2 unit USC coal fired plant of 2GW Nameplate Capacity.
Solar – $125 Million a year – Total lifetime return $3.12 Billion.
USC Coal Fired Power – $1.12 Billion a year – Total lifetime return $56 Billion.
When I see that end total for this solar plant, the first thing that springs into my mind is that someone is paying a pretty large subsidy to this proposal, because that end total is just too low, by any standard. I would expect the end result to be closer to double that.
Now both plants will have extra costs that will eat into those totals, the coal fired plant mainly for the cost of the coal itself. But, even so, the difference in those returns is stark.
As well as this, the added expense of the solar plant will add marginally to the overall cost of power for consumers.
The grid will also have some questions to address.
Consumers will be demanding their power on a 24/7/365 basis. The coal fired plant can actually supply huge amounts of power on that basis, while the Solar plant will be supplying its (equivalent maximum) power on average for less than 4 hours a day, and only small amounts at that.
This is a hyped story blown into proportions it does not deserve. The real truth will not be mentioned, mainly because those reporting on it have no clue other than what they are being told.
Tony.
231
Agreed Tony – you can’t actually do any accounting for the project until they release the amount of Government subsidy being paid to support the scheme.
71
How could they know what they can offer the electricity for if they don’t know the size of the subsidy ?
30
I thought India was over its obsession with green energy.Just a couple of weeks ago I read they were so sick of wind power’s notorious unreliability that one state legislated law enforcing 15 minute,accurate updates 24 hours ahead to avoid expensive damage to “infrastructure”.Heavy fines apply for faulty forecasts!
40
A history of most of Australia’s worst known cyclones over the last couple of centuries.
10
Here’s a good question for the Weekend Unthreaded…
What would happen if atmospheric CO2 fell to 0%?
50
You are kidding right? Essentially all life on this planet would be dead long before it got that low.
60
It’s a question for the warm-mongers as I’m sure they have never thought about the consequences of a fall in CO2. to my mind, at 390ppm, it’s not that far from 0% already…
50
.
As I understand it, most green plant life struggles below 200ppm, is in survival mode at 180ppm, and dead at anything less than 160ppm.
As goes plant life, so goes all life.
80
Quite right. We should be more concerned that throughout Earth’s history CO2 has been steadily falling. The small rise this century could be regarded as “noise” statistically. Plants would be much happier with at least 5 times as much CO2.
At 150ppm all plant life would die and with that essentially everything else.
100
I agree.
I hope that sooner rather than later, the powers that be will wake the **** up from this moronic idiocy of trying to restrict CO2 from fossil fuels.
Most of that CO2 used to be in the atmosphere. That is where it belongs.
And don’t talk about the absolute cretins saying that we should be removing CO2 from the atmosphere.
Those guys are seriously dangerous !!!
122
Everything, I say again, EVERYTHING dies! Life on this planet cannot exist without CO2 in the air. If CO2 levels drop below 200ppmv billions of people will die of starvation because current global crop production would drop to below half.
90
I suspect that if it even drops below 300 again, the world will have great difficulties feeding its population. (maybe even 350ppm.)
This extra 100 or so ppm has arrived just in time to keep the human population mostly ticking along, once we stop wasting it on biofuels etc.
And all that coal, gas is there for us to use … just when we need it.
If you believe in God, maybe this was ordained 😉
91
It is funny that in The Netherlands and Belgium the most loud pro IPCC people are those who dislike summer and love winter. I think it’s part of their inner system or demons to rather have dead nature over living nature. It comes close to selfhate and hate for the human race. I discussed with a woman of this cult. She really hates playing children in the streets in summer (she hates children being children) and neighbours being outside at evening in the summer enjoying company and having a barbecue.
70
We would have a severe outbreak of very upset Greenies. But not for very long. The average time a person can go without food is eight days – plenty of time for rioting.
80
OK,
Yes plant life would die, followed by all of the rest of us.
But what about the temperature? According to established science in which CO2 as a greenhouse gas causes global warming. The first amount of CO2 has the greatest effect, and subsequent additions have a lesser effect.
Therefore, if there was no CO2, we would would expect the earth to enter into a new ice age (after we had all died).
There has not been a geological period (as far as I know), with no CO2, so we cannot look back in history to answer this question directly. However the ice core evidence from Antactica indicates that CO2 levels follow temperature changes, not cause them.
You might therefore come to the same conclusion as I have. That is, CO2 has no effect on temperature. Same for other so called green house gases. Or Maybe they even cause some cooling of the earth
40
No CO2 No People
We need CO2 to function:
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/09/plants-suck-half-the-co2-out-of-the-air-around-them-before-lunchtime-each-day/#comment-1321691
KK
30
If atmospheric CO2 went to zero, it means there’s probably no CO2, which means no life on Earth.
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2013/03/01/sleeping-with-the-enemy/
Pointman
40
The end of life as we know it?
10
One word answer…..
DEATH.
10
Weekend reading, miscellaneous Australiana.
Green reading. The pre-history of the Deep Greens, morphing out of the Ban the Bomb movement to the anti-nuclear power push…
Sumary of “The climate caper“, by Garth Paltidge,including the use and abuse of climate models by our Treasury.
Summary of The IPPC as a Delinquent Teenager.
Critical review of the policies of the Greens, across the board.
70
Bought your (e)book, Rafe. Looks good! I bought a Kindle (paperwhite) about six months ago. I take it everywhere. (Yes, there too).
10
No more sharing, thank you.
10
390ppm is 0.039% for those who were wondering…
20
4 cents in $100.
40
And about 1 cent out of that $100 is caused by man.
32
Far, far less than 1c, but we can keep trying. 🙂
We may pay our way eventually, once we get rid of this scam !!
50
Actually 0.16% not 1.0%
And IF, and there is some considerable doubt here, If Green House gases are related to world temps, then we must take into account the
fact that water vapour is a major item.
So IF that is true, that GHGs control atm temps, an no they don’t but just play what if, then man made CO2 is 0.008% of the total green house gas effect.
Man.
We are SO powerful.
So since 1860 the World temperature has been said to have risen by 0.6 C degrees.
Man has therefore contributed 0.000048 C degrees of the rise according to the “Science”.
KK
60
@TonyfromOz
4,000MW and 23 square miles!
How on earth do you wire something like that up? It sounds like a lot of very thick cable to me. Presumably, it is connected together as DC then converted to AC?
I was always “light current”. I left the bus bars to the heavy current mob.
20
And how much energy (from coal fired power stations of course) to actually extract the copper, and make the cement, and make the steel and aluminium, and how many trees cut down for poles.
40
.
Tim Flannery of the Climate Council:
He said on 23rd September, “To launch this organisation he needed to raise around $200,000 to establish an office and employ a small number of support staff.”
So that’s $800,000 left, betcha Tim and Will start their global jaunts off to various UN & IPCC meetings. The wheels will fall off this big time very soon through lack of money.
And it’s great to see all these Greenies being fleeced of their hard earned by other Greedy Greenies.
132
They deserve it….. Michael, Michael!!! How much did you fork out???
80
Maybe it’s better if the wheels stay on and The Climate Council keeps siphoning off the ‘green’. I imagine it will provide a good deal of entertainment value in the coming years, as well. It’s fun if it’s not our money being wasted.
70
Yep. . . .Good point!
It’s now ‘donated’ not ‘tax payer’.
🙂
30
Might be interesting to find out a bit about people who provided big donations..
ie, wind and solar companies etc etc
72
.
AndyG55
The new CEO of the Climate Council is one Amanda McKenzie.
This is her history:
1. Senior Communications Advisor at Climate Commission (Ex adviser now)
2. Co-founder, National Director at Australian Youth Climate Coalition AYCC at International Youth Climate Movement.
3. Consultant, Sustainability and Climate Change at Price Waterhouse.
But the AYCC Group, operates on fund raising also, so maybe all the little corporate sponsors will come over, but there’s only three:
1. Purves Environmental Fund. These are the details,
The Sydney-based Fund was established in August 2004 by Robert Purves AM, who is committed to making an impact for a better environment.
Robert is a businessman and an environmentalist. He is currently President of WWF Australia and is a former board member of WWF International (the world’s largest science based conservation organisation).
Robert is also a founding member of The Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, a Director of Earth Hour Global, a Patron of the Lizard Island Research Station and a Governor of Australian Youth Climate Coalition. He is also the former Chair of Sustainable Business Australia (SBA).
Robert has a long career in public companies, including being Chairman of a public listed company, DCA Group Limited, the then the leading provider of radiology and the largest private operator in aged care in Australia.
In 2008 Robert was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for service to conservation and the environment, and awarded an Honorary Fellow from the University of Sydney.
2. Australian Ethical Super: seems OK but very environmentally aware on their donations, no Tim Flannery types in the group.
3. Aussie Renewables:
Aussie Renewables is part of Biz2030 Pty Ltd and is based in Sydney, Australia. Aussie Renewables was designed by Mary Hendriks and Peter Thorogood to inspire creative thinking about the ways we produce and manage energy with focus on renewable and clean energies.
Peter Thorogood began his career working for large organisations including BHP, and the Australian and New South Wales Governments. He then built his own business in the IT industry and later specialized in web services and online businesses. Peter is still active in web design and in other business ventures. (See Peter’s blog at http://www.greenbizcafe.com.au and Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/greenbizcafe.)
Peter is a Director of Biz2030 Pty Ltd and Manager of Aussie Renewables.
Mary Hendriks was involved in the development of Aussie Renewables, with the initial concept and design of the project in 2008.
Mary is currently working with the Australian Solar Council (www.solar.org.au) as Community Projects & Membership Development Manager. From 2009 to 2012, she was the Business Development Manager for the All-Energy Australia conference and exhibition in Melbourne which grew to become Australia’s largest international clean energy show.
Previously, Mary was Project Manager for several Australian Government funded programs to support and promote entrepreneurship in small business. She has been a business mentor and a coordinator for programs such as Women in Business and the award winning GoYoungBiz programs. In the early part of her career, Mary worked for the Australian Government, and thereafter, for 18 years, she was the co-Director and Sales Manager of an IT business.
Mary is also a volunteer committee member of the New South Wales Branch of the Australian Solar Council (prev. AuSES). She holds a B.Sc. degree and has training certifications. (Follow her Twitter updates at http://www.twitter.com/maryehendriks).
I think 1 and 3 of this sponsor group would also be donating to Tim’s new charity.
Who is Amanda McKenzie?
Amanda McKenzie
Amanda is a passionate sustainability leader and social entrepreneur. Amanda is the 2009 joint Young Environmentalist of the year after co-founding two environmental advocacy organisations, the Australian Climate Change Education Network (ASCENT) and the Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC) at the age of just 23. Amanda served as National Director of the AYCC for three and a half years. Amanda graduated from a Bachelor of Laws with honours from Monash University in 2007 after completing an Arts degree from Melbourne University in 2004. Her honours thesis, which was granted a High Distinction, considered the integration of an Australian emissions trading scheme into the global carbon market.
It’s amazing how such young people like this are on the same gravy train of fraud like the men in Latte sipping Lycra on bicycles like Tim Flannery.
101
Ahh…. so that’s the new name for “The Young Socialists”…..
70
Well done.
The Money, the money and the money.
Donations please to help the Environment.
And my bank account.
30
Nicely done, Dave.
Does Aussie Renewables actually trade a tangible product? Or is it just a money-scrubber?
70
If only Jo could sell 1 Miillion dollars worth of chocolate! Tim Flannery has not responded to Jo’s invitation to sell his message on this blog site, and clearly he does not have to. His message is alive and well.
Therefore we cannot rest yet. The donating public has not been won over yet.
52
Does Tim Flannery know more about his prospective donors than us? He seems pretty confident for an unemployed Public Servant.
Let’s not underestimate his value to the powers that be and powerful NGO’s like Greenpeace and WWF. They’ve probably got millions to donate in their petty cash jars alone.
Love to see a concise balance sheet 12 months’ time.
31
Can we pullleeeeze let go of this idea that Flim Flammery and the Climate Commission are now unemployed? Of the six former Commissioners and eight members of the Science Advisory Panel of the former Climate Commission:
One is a retired millionare – the former Managing Director of BP Australasia.
One is an Executive Director of a multi-million dollar company that “prepares audit reports” for the government of the day.
One is a high ranking executive at the CSIRO.
One is a high ranking executive at the BoM.
Ten, including Flim Flammery, are tenured professors at various Australian universities.
.
The Climate Commission was only ever a part-time hobby for prestige and pin money for these public trough feeders.
100
That’s the point, isn’t it.
They DON’T NEED the money to keep their little band together..
… but they managed to siphon it from the trough anyway !!
A lot of the little people donating will be FAR worse off financially than these scammers.
And they fall for it! DOH !!!
20
Thanks for pointing that out.
10
Has he officially registerd that club as a charity organisation? Since Joanne is not allowed to accept donations, because she is not registered as a charity organisation.
80
I don’t see any sign of a ‘Climate Council’ being registered with the Australian Charities & Not-For Profits Commission.
How is it they can hawk for donations then ?
Perhaps they are based off-shore of course, putting themselves beyond the Law, like most good supra-national organisations.
80
Interesting story on tim FLUMMERY.
Why is Flannery the ABC’s pet charity?
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/why_is_flannery_the_abcs_pet_charity/
10
Looks like the ‘promised’/’threatened’ Double Dissolution – vote for Abbott and we’ll have another election in 12 months! – is off the cards.
I assumed the Liberal Democrats were some lefty front trying to siphon off votes from the Liberals, but it turns out they are genuine libertarians/classical liberals. I went to an IPA event in Sydney a couple of weeks ago and the new senator for the LDs gave a bit of a talk. As far as one can tell they are the real thing.
So no DD, no Carbon Tax, and probably no Direct Action nonsense (or paid maternity leave) either. Really, the election result couldn’t have been better. If the Coalition had won the Senate in it’s own right, they probably would have pushed through the later two schemes.
120
Greens will back PPL, but insist on heavier means test and lower cap. Abbott666 could have used budget disaster to walk away / scale back, but why when Milne will do it for him?
40
Indeed, I watched him on the Bolt Report and I was quite impressed by what he said..
30
People – usually let by the nose by people pushing the Enormous Trading Scam for their own self-interested purposes, and I’m self-moderating by saying “self-interested” rather than “corrupt” – dismiss Direct Action as nonsense. But as an economist (not an ETS economist, or a Goldman Sachs economist, but a real economist), DA captures the economic rent where marginal cost is less than market clearing level where it equals marginal revenue from selling carbon permits.
If someone can tender at $5/t when the market clearing level is $25/t, can someone explain to me WHY this makes Abbott666 an “economic illiterate” for supporting it? Remember Bob Carr’s “world leading” ETS? He paid $X/t for “abatement.” Origin Energy paid for CF lightbulbs, then paid for teams of backpackers to sit at railway stations to push them on me, and get forms signed which teams of analysts converted to theoretical abatement, and made a profit.
A DA programme would have simply GIVEN me light bulbs (or Woolies vouchers good for light bulbs), and kept the rest of the $. Cheaper for the govt, and consistent with small govt. No different to libertarians wanting a voucher system for schooling.
Another example: He could reduce emissions by ~35% from the power sector simply by kicking in X% of the cost of upgrading 1950’s power stations to 2013-spec USC coal burners. It would also improve our economy more broadly, reduce inflation, make our reserves self-sufficient for longer (or allow more exports to non-Kyoto countries who still use coal), increase output (fixing the baseload problem) and reduce particulate emissions. Cost to public purse is negligible, the private sector would bear the overwhelming majority of the cost, but they might want a small kicker to get them over a WACC hurdle that they’re just short on.
Personally I hope Abbott666 does this, plus builds dams that can be used for hydro. Great for CO2 emissions, and also stored water has another useful property: You can drink it to avoid death.
Let’s judge DA after we’ve seen it, not before.
00
A reference on renewable energy:
http://www.withouthotair.com/Contents.html
Worth a read.
It’s written by an advocate of renewable energy — but he’s an engineers — so he knows he can’t make the numbers work.
Highly entertaining.
70
Very good reference Willr. Thank you for posting it.
Have started using it for knocking Greenie’s fantasies into touch already.
60
Pachauri’s Demon is a funny old thing. It magically transports hotter than average water molecules from the ocean surface through the top 2000 m, thereby heating the depths where you can’t actually measure the temperature rise.
And, amazingly, this only works when average air temperature and total precipitable water are falling, yet they claim it’s where the ‘missing heat’ ends up.
This science comes to you from a railroad engineer backed up by truly heroic scientists who imagine that the cause of the missing heat is the atmosphere heating the Earth’s surface at twice the average warming from the Sun by a mechanism, ‘back radiation’, no real scientific discipline accepts as valid.
As I said, it’s IPCC magic all the way. The genius of intellectual dwarfs inventing imaginary CO2-AGW to scare us back to the stone age whilst the insiders get rich.
90
In Pachauri’s universe heat does not rise.
30
Greenpeace takes on Russia and is not doing so well for a change.
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2013/10/04/russia-2-greenpeace-1/
Pointman
100
Excellent pointman post.
I believe they were once referred to as “useful idiots.”
80
And now, they are no longer useful.
100
It’s not a huge step from being useful idiots to being, well just idiots.
90
Like the Climate Commission perhaps.
80
I was pondering on something happening in Holland.
A strange thing about how stupid they think we are or am I missing some thing.
So let go true my head, last week on nujij a Dutch sort of open news form (they cickt me of because I am skeptic and the scientist on there where mad about me so how about open) there was the news that September was the 7 coldest Month in 2013.
Then my brain went of. A month can be cold, warm or average and we have 12 months in a year and because this being October this means that there where only 3 months witch are different.
Now looking at the local weather the only 3 months to be different cane be June, Juli and August.
Then looking at what we got left I thing yes June was average and both Juli and August where warmer then normal. Yes sumer was warmer in Holland. The others where simply to cold and whit only 3 to go who will also be to cold you can wonder where global warming is gone.
On nujij however came the hardest brain cracker of al witch me made think who is the dumm ass.
One of the scientist came that this cooling was only 0.1 degree Celsius so almost nothing. Yes correct. But over the past 100 years the warming in total was 0.7 degrees Celsius and that is danger es global warming. 0.7 degrees in 100 years means that over 10 years the warming is far less. Looking at that I came whit 0.007 degrees in 10 year, so in 10 year the global warming is 0.007 degrees and that is danger es o boy we cone be dead soon. But when the temperature drops 0.1 degrees in 1 month its meaningless? I ask you who is the stupid one here.
You could also think that if every of the 7 months where 0.1 or more colder that means that all the warming of the past 100 years is gone in 7 months. Hows that for global warming.
Ow and yes I now Holland is just a small part of the world. So scientist tell us but also who is the dumass than? Weather do sent work whit borders so what goes for Holland goes for most of Europe, Canada and the USA.
Now for some different story.
Anding 2012 whit a bang MET Office UK came whit the 15 year (or more) pause in the warming. They had a picture whit the monthly data from 1997 to 2012 or so. When I look d at that I saw 12.4 degrees. Now in 2013 MET Office came again whit the picture.
O well look for your selfs.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2436710/Met-office-proof-global-warming-pause-climate-summit-confirms-global-temperature-stopped-rising.html#ixzz2gEmEdUxK
Yes 14.5 degrees where the hell is the 12.4 degrees gone?
2 thinks I cane thing about.
1) I was wrong? Couldn’t is be?
2) MET Office alter t the temperature whit 2.1 degrees to go whit the flow willingly or unwillingly a justing the numbers to fool the growth.
Now I wonder is there someone who has the origanel data-sheet from 2012? I cant find it.
Thanks all.
70
I cannot find the article there. Perhaps you can give a direct link? I live very close to the Belgian and Dutch border, only 3 Km and I am originally from The Netherlands now living in Belgium so I follow the meteorology in both countries. September 2013 had an average temperature of 14,4°C. Normal is 14,5°C. September 2013 is therefore the 7th month this year with an average below normal. Only July and August were above normal. We had a cold winter and cold wet spring. June was also below average. I really cursed the spring. Plants in my garden had a very tough time and the seeds of beans rotted in the soil. Almost everything was late this year. Lettuce, endive, coley flowers, potatoes, spinach (I had to sow again), leafbeet and beans. With only October, November and December to go it is almost certain that 2013 will end up being a cold year. The last time we had 6 too cold months in a row was somewhere in the 80’s last century. Was this just a coincidence or a prelude to the things to come? I fear the latter. In the Baltic States and parts of Poland and Belarus temperatures are far below average for the time of year. The prologue to a cold winter has begun.
70
.
Do we stop investigating the idiotic reports?
I was looking for stuff on Tony’s article about India and solar etc.
Aljazeera provided this gem: “Climate change dries up India tea production” and they backed it up with all this stuff:
1. Now experts say the “ideal climate” has changed – soaring temperatures and fickle rain are choking the once-flourishing plantation industry.
2. “We have found that the minimum temperature has risen by 1.5 degree centigrade, and the annual rainfall has reduced by 200 millimetres,”
3. Tea trees in Assam previously would be high yielding until 40-45 years of age, but now decline at 30-35.
4. The association is also testing clones that are resistant to climate change.
5. Assam always had sub-tropical climate, but now it has become fully tropical – affecting production.
6. In Assam, the usual ambient temperature used to be below 35 degrees Celsius. But now the range has shot up to 38 to 40 degrees C in shaded areas.
This is only 6 little fibs by the news group Aljazeera and reporter Bijoyeta Das who has done nothing to investigate the facts about Assam tea production.
Here’s some facts:
1. In 2010, Assam produced 480 million kilograms of tea leaves and 588 million kg in 2012, but the area has increased. The rain forests and surrounding country is being decimated by development.
2. During the 1980s, the Assam tea industry shifted its focus from quality to quantity to cater to the growing global demand for tea “Many high yielding clones were used, but flavour was lost.”
3. Assam temperatures are normally below 35 degrees C, but only twice have they reached above 38.4 degrees. Once in 1979 and this year in June. Ambient temperature claims above are fabricated by the authors.
4. Assam is temperate (summer max. at 95–100 °F or 35–38 °C and winter min. at 43–46 °F or 6–8 °C). The report above is fabricated, going from sub-tropical to tropical.
This rubbish must have been written by Tim Flannery.
Tea production has increased year on since 1998, amazing that, since CO2 increased and temperatures stabilized. The biggest factor in Assam tea production is that they are losing labour through industrialisation, they are now providing lower grade tea varieties instead of the much sort after black breakfast tea market.
I wrote (emailed) to Aljazeera complaining of the lack of data and confirmation of facts in this article, and demanded they too must adhere to honest reporting.
60
.
I thought they got rid of this stupid department.
Seems the IT sections are still in business.
Multi-Party Climate Change Committee
WTF is this still doing up as a reference website by Greg Hunt etal?
Get rid of it now: email [email protected] and tell him to start working on direct action in closing this stupid section of the department.
Greg Hunt – get rid of this type of garbage: http://www.climatechange.gov.au/climate-change/multi-party-climate-change-committee/committee-members
50
Looks like they might benefit from a Govt. shutdown until they can catch up on their Website changes eh ?
30
I’m sure it is an oversight. Besides…six members of the committee are no longer in politics.
I will be pilloried here but don’t really care. I’ve known Greg for over five years, have had input into the Direct Action policy. Albeit, the environmental aspect and Greg is well aware that I’m a sceptic.
My interest is REAL environmental issues and nation building. Without Greg’s assistance through influence and his portfolio responsibilities, achieving my aims would be near impossible.
Also, never intended to get into this fight for reason but envisaged that my aspirations would be blocked if this AGW rubbish or the tax/trading scam came into effect, permanently.
It’s like trench fighting with a few differences. It is not always clear at times that there are two sides as there are many battles being fought that attracts strange alliances.
One case in point is Alan Jones and Drew Hutton from the Friends of the Earth on the Coal Seam Gas issue. You’ve got ultra conservatives, agrarian socialists, the soft left/right and the green movement, all in one camp, each with their own agenda. Bizarre!
The Shut the Gate Alliance has had some success by locking the industry out of productive agricultural land, especially in NSW but my concern is if there is contamination of the Great Artesian Basin. Thus far there have not been done unbiased scientific analyses of possible effects of chemical fracture on this unique water table that spans four states.
Still work to be done on that front but this issue, being primarily a state responsibility, work done behind the scenes through political bipartisanship that was forged in Canberra a couple of the days after the Convoy of No Confidence. The result was the Water Trigger Legislation which is not perfect but a step in the right direction.
I note that Greg Hunt is maligned here but that does not worry me because in trench warfare which I see as a constant discombobulation, there might be a pleasant surprise around a corner.
30
I like the fact that the Liberal Democrat senator mentioned that his party was also against this “direct action” policy rubbish.
I am hoping that when the new senators are operating from the middle of next year that the mostly conservative minor parties that hold the balance of power will block this ridiculous nonsense from the coalition.
41
A Sydney Morning Herald writer believes that millions of refugees are fleeing because a ‘Climate change exodus looms.’
http://newsstore.smh.com.au/apps/viewDocument.ac?page=1&sy=smh&kw=climate+change+exodus+looms&pb=smh&dt=selectRange&dr=week&so=relevance&sf=text&sf=headline&rc=10&rm=200&sp=nrm&clsPage=1&docID=SMH131005KE4QT4CTS7L
Nothing to do with poor living conditions, population growth, stagnant economic development, war, violence and the abuse of power, economic migration – or simply that rich industrialized states are becoming more accessible.
NO. Owen Thomson writes that it’s really going to be a massive sea-level climate change exodus of the uninformed!
20
That article is almost as stupid as when chairman rudd made the statement that they were fleeing “peace”.
I’ve had a gutfull of these ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS (mostly criminals, terrorists and rent seekers)trying to force their way into our nation and who have no intention of integrating into our society.
In fact they want to turn Australia into a clone of the towel head hell hole countries they originate from !
61
You are truly a revolting individual Angry.
07
.
At least he didn’t suggest people in Great Britain and Europe suffering from fuel poverty due to murderous green energy policies, “wear an extra jumper” to slow down their deaths from hypothermia.
.
Not like some here we could mention, eh, MattB?
60
Sensible clothing advice vs racist diatribe MV – glad you think they are comparable.
06
.
Well, you know what they say MattB – if the jumper fits, wear it.
Personally I don’t have a lot of time for anybody that revels in other people dying – whether by freezing because of green fanaticism, or beheading, because of religious fanaticism. Don’t see much difference in them, either.
Which reminds, here’s a story both you AND Angry might enjoy together.
For some people, apparently, cheating is hard-wired into their nature.
I wonder if it has anything to do with their religion or ethnic customs?
50
What about the red dog communist gillard telling Australians that can’t afford overpriced electricity to “sleep with a pet” to stay warm.
How caring!
11
Why thank you!
Coming from a troll like you “MattB” that is indeed high praise !!
Much appreciated !!!
11
I’m not baiting Lewandowsky, really. Just spreading the evidence.
Those who wish to occasionally indulge in conspiracy theory may like to watch this.
Those who never engage in “conspiracy ideation” may ignore that link and live in bliss.
30
German blogger Michael Krueger at ScienceSceptical (in German) has blow away some of the smoke and broken the mirrors on the latest IPCC fudge served in Stockholm.
Pierre Gosselin of NoTricksZone explains in English.
In other words, they brought down the bands of previous (AR4) estimates by 0.9⁰C so that they look like they were better estimates.
I also note that the error bands have been widened from about ±0.5⁰C to about ±1⁰C for their projections/scenarious/soothsaying for temperatures in 2100. One has to admire the chartmanship where the labelling interval of the vertical axis has been doubled, making the widening less obvious.
The IPCC have doubled their uncertainty in the models.
80
So the IPCC is now even more certain that it’s not so sure about anything.
That’s confidence for you.
60
Some recent stories about the ipcc from Bolt worth reading….
IPCC not so confident we’re about to face catastrophes
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/ipcc_not_so_confident_were_about_to_face_catastrophes/
IPCC hides the decline of its climate models
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/ipcc_hides_the_decline_of_its_climate_models/
IPCC warmists insist they’re right despite all their mistakes
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/column_ipcc_warmists_insist_theyre_right_despite_all_their_mistakes/
IPCC more certain just as its models fall apart
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/lindzen_ipcc_more_certain_just_as_its_climate_models_fall_apart/
20
I used to be uncertain, but now I’m not so sure.
70
Just like saying..
I’m in two minds over schizophrenia.
10
I wouldn’t be so sure that acknowledging uncertainty can be equated with schizophrenia, though I often do at least sleep on new ideas to see I still agree with myself in the morning.
10
Update:
Michael Krueger has responded to my comment on his article and pointed out that the “best estimate” range for the AR4 graph is in the grey bars to the right of the wiggly lines. I checked the source and IPCC says that the shaded region either side of their wiggly lines is ±1 standard deviation.
The figure published in AR5 SPM says that the shading on its graph is “uncertainty”, statistically unquantified in the SPM. I’ve yet to dig into what is being rewritten in response to the summary to see what quantity that shading actually represents.
20
What constitutes scientific evidence?
It is my understanding that scientific evidence is data (measurements and/or observations) that are collected and processed. This evidence is then used to support (or repudiate) a scientific theory.
From AR5 WG1 SPM:
http://www.ipcc.ch/
A. Introduction
…..
Confidence in the validity of a finding is based on the type, amount, quality, and consistency of evidence (e.g., data, mechanistic understanding, theory, models, expert judgment) and the degree of agreement.
…..
So, of the factors in brackets defined as evidence by the IPCC, I could not accept “mechanistic understanding, theory, models” or “expert judgment” as scientific evidence. Is my view of what constitutes evidence too simplistic? Or are there any other areas of science where models and expert judgement are accepted as scientific evidence?
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Data may not necessarily be the RIGHT evidence one is looking for. e.g. “Arctic polar ice cap is disappearing, (data) therefore CO2 is causing warming enough to cause catastrophe in the future”.
Polar ice caps could be disappearing because of many other reasons including being pushed out of the Arctic by currents and storms etc. Yes it’s data and may well be evidence of something, but not necessarily for the hypothesis put forward
As for the rest of those “evidence” listed by the IPCC, not one of them constitute evidence.
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Day 6 of the government shutdown and the world is still turning.
My prediction in a prior thread that all those laid off government employees would get full pay after things start back up again has been made fact by unanimous consent of both houses of congress. I don’t wish those employees any harm but I wish the rest of us could get as much consideration from our government over this insult of health care law. That is what the fight is about, pure and simple.
Keep up the fight you Republicans! Go! Go! Go! 🙂
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oBUMMER thinks that he can continue to keep borrowing Ad infinitum.
Stupid mongrel.
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“over this insult of health care law.”
but but but
“He said, “When you see a man with no coat, give him yours.””
04
“give him yours.”
Before he rips it off your back.
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Aggressive begging is a problem when it reaches government.
10
Matt,
Non sequitur!
Oops! 🙁
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“Mattb”, TRY using that grey matter between your ears sometime…
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How is he meant to use soggy cardboard ?
00
I made a page on Facebook about the IPCC climate change hoax. It will be a page exposing the IPCC and their affiliates. Videos and links to sceptic blogs and articles will appear there. I can upload videos to Youtube lasting more than 3 hours so I also download videos on climate change hoax from Youtube which are in parts and then re-upload them as full versions with a link on the Facebook page. I used Joanne’s film on Youtube as an introduction to the page (if she does not approve I will choose another one).
I will be the sole moderator there, but feel free to post on topic articles or your thoughts there. Here is the link:
https://www.facebook.com/IPCCHoax
Spread the word!
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I would have bothered calling to call it a hoax, the Facebook page. Just ‘Everything you ever needed to know about Climate Change IPCC’.
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The headline motif is rather confusing, of 500 million years of Temps. & CO2.
It takes the presentation by Prof. Carter to explain it, but you seem to have taken that one down.
The temperature adjustments are a much more damning indictment.
These are presented on pages 5 to 7 of this submission
Frauds, serious frauds and IPCC assessment reports, if you are interested.
Jo’s brilliant & engaging presentation is a great introduction though.
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I chose the 500 million years chart for two reasons. A. To demonstrate that we are actually in a very cold phase of planet Earth compared to other very long periods. B. To demonstrate that there is hardly any relation between temperatures and CO2. There are two vides of professor Bob Carter. As profile picture I chose the logarithmic effect of adding more CO2 to our atmosphere in relation to increasing temperatures as evidence that adding more CO2 to our atmosphere will have a negligable effect on temperatures. I agree, there is no other video on youtube or anywhere else I could think of as a fixed introduction to the page than the video of Joanne. I am going to read your link about frauds now and then probably add them to the page. Feel free to add things yourself there as well.
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As pictures of eminent Professors aren’t the most engaging, even if they are free thinkers.
Is there some way to use a suitable graphic to front each piece and attach the link to the video presentations behind that ?
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If I understand your question correctly the answer is no. Facebook determines the “picture” of a videolink there.
00
(that’s ‘wouldn’t have bothered…’ , btw.)
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chuckle.. that’s the fun with trying to proof read your own stuff..
You always seem to read what you thought you just typed. even when you go through preview mode.
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Ain’t it so?!?! 😉
You should try debugging your own computer code. It teaches humility real fast.
10
this has a way to play out…
29 Sept: Courier Mail: Daryl Passmore: Regular households subsidise feed-in tariffs paid to homes with solar panels by $32 a year
TRADITIONAL electricity users are copping a $167 million-a-year bill to subsidise those with solar panels.
The huge cost of recovering payments to householders for feeding power into the network from photovoltaic systems has been revealed in the latest Energex annual report released last week.
The scheme will add about $32 to the average Queenslander’s annual bill this year – rising to $67 next year and $276 by 2015-16…
The amount paid by Energex in feed-in tariffs to property owners with solar panels in 2012-13 was more than double the $73.9 million the previous year.
That is despite the incoming Newman Government – elected on a promise of reducing the cost of living – moving quickly in July 2012 to end the Solar Bonus Scheme which paid householders with solar panels 44c for every kilowatt of electricity they generated into the grid.
It was replaced with an interim 8c/kW scheme until the middle of next year. Existing customers, however, will continue to receive the 44c until 2028 unless they sell the property. The energy retailers pay an average 8c/kW on top of the base subsidy…
Queensland has the highest solar take-up rate in the country, with 290,000 households installing panels so far…
Queensland Consumers Association spokesman Ian Jarratt said when the “generous” 44c tariff was introduced by the previous Labor government, his group had argued the cost should be funded by taxpayers rather than other power users, but slashing the 44c tariff would be an unfair retrospective penalty on early adopters of solar panels who would take a long time to recoup their large capital outlays…
Geoff Evans, national campaign manager for Solar Citizens, said it was unreasonable to “scapegoat” solar owners who were encouraged by governments to install panels and help develop an industry which created thousands of jobs…
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/regular-households-subsidise-feedin-tariffs-paid-to-homes-with-solar-panels-by-32-a-year/story-fnihsrf2-1226729198405
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How many of the atheists out there who say we don’t need God and we can’t prove he exists believe the Heisenberg Principle of Uncertainty is true and scientific?
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go on please enlighten me with an explanation of the relevance of your statement Sheri.
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Enlightenment comes from within. I cannot enlighten you–that’s for you to do. I merely point the way. (Yes, sarcasm-Either you get it or you don’t. If you know Heisenberg’s Principle, it’s not a leap…)
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May I counter with the fact that many physicists (just like any people) are atheists… therefore there is a significant number of people with actual real physics qualifications (like myself) who know what the Heisenberg Principle of Uncertainty is, and yet are happily atheists, meaning that simply knowing and understanding it does not click on a lightbulb in heads to say wow being an atheist is pretty nuts now.
02
You’re getting colder. I would never say atheists are nuts–it’s a completely unscientific, unverifiable statement, unless you’re using Lew’s scientific guide book. This is not about whether or not atheists are right.
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I never said anything about anyone being right. Just pointing out that an understanding of the uncertainty principle does not lead to a conflict with atheism.
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Oh, Mattb, you are sooo close. Perhaps enlightenment will occur yet. (You’re probably going to have to jump out of that literal box a ways to figure it out, it seems.)
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you know what, forget about it.
01
also it’s pretty much everyone says we can’t prove god exists.
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You’re getting warm.
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You doubt that God exists ?
Then what makes order in the Universe ?
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oh good grief. Define your terms and read a little.
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Don’t expect too much enlightenment from the omniscious Gee Aye.
The Universe is arranged by the laws of nature
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That suggests a lawmaker
10
Not necessarily. To paraphrase:-
‘There are two competing theories of Laws of Nature. The Regularity Theory which has it Laws of Nature are statements of the uniformities or regularities in the world; they are mere descriptions of the way the world is. On the other account, the Necessitarian Theory, Laws of Nature are the “principles” which govern the natural phenomena of the world. That is, the natural world “obeys” the Laws of Nature. This seemingly innocuous difference marks one of the most profound gulfs within contemporary philosophy, and has quite unexpected, and wide-ranging, implications.’
apparently.
00
That depends pretty much on how you get your proof.
We can also say that we cannot prove that evolution happens…. what’s the difference? Digging up extinct monkey proves nothing whatsoever.
Oh, by the way. I asked you a question a while back but I never saw an answer, so I’ll ask again:
How many bombadier beetles blew their own arses off before they got it right?
00
“How many bombadier beetles blew their own arses off before they got it right?”
as many as it took.
Regardless I’m not of the opinion that evolution itself could not be the product of an intelligent designer. In fact a far more intelligent designer than one who actually designed every living thing as they are today. It is, however, irrelevant to my life.
00
but not to your existence. You are the product of evolution. I think the problem for the others is that they don’t want to share an ancestry with you.
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well I’m pretty sure I’m the product of evolution.
00
Micro evolution which for example is selecting cows to get bigger udders is proven, that is why cows give more milk today than 2000 years ago.
Macro evolution on the other hand is just a religion for atheists. You cannot prove it. All you can do is fabricating links between fossils, but you cannot prove those links were/are real.
00
Perhaps you already know this site Sheri. It is an absolutely lovely site which explains that atheists actually believe the unbelievable:
http://www.godandscience.org/
00
I think we are headed into genuine acceptable usage of the D-word territory. Have fun with your fantasy lives.
01
Here in the UK, I’ve just been to have a look at our local bookshop. It’s Waterstones, a major retailer with several floors full of books.
There’s plenty of climatic doomsday material on the shelves, but not one book taking the opposite view.
I bought a copy of Ian Plimer’s book from this shop some time ago, and also Robert Carter’s plus the last (2007)IPCC report, but seemingly the shop doesn’t restock books automatically. I’m going to contact the shop manager to find out why they don’t have a more balanced selection on the subject.
There’s always Amazon, but I prefer to support a local retailer where possible.
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I only tend to use my local Waterstone’s for their quite agreeable Coffee Shop. Now if they had a reference section I might be tempted to consult, though I suppose that’s really a library (with a nice Coffe Shop) I’m looking for.
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I’m sure they could get it for you, if you really are that keen on supporting them.
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“We can also say that we cannot prove that evolution happens”
If you like. Sheri didn’t mention that in the post to which I responded though. Are there any other issues of science or faith that are irrelevant to Sheri’s post that you think I should have mentioned in my replies?
01
Last Thursday something happened that is I suppose unique in the world: skeptics and a contributor to the IPCC report did give their view on the recent published SPM at the same meeting in The Netherlands:
http://www.dagelijksestandaard.nl/2013/09/nieuwspoort-klimaatsymposium-2013
Fred Singer and Bob Carter presented the NIPCC report. Fred Singer specific about sea level change, quite important for The Netherlands (where the lowest point is 12 meters below average sealevel…), while Bob Carter showed the current CO2 levels in historical perspective.
Marcel Crok was a critical reviewer of the evolution of the IPCC report during all stages and showed the difference between “projections” and reality, and how the IPCC tried to hide the difference. Most important to him is that they don’t give a best estimate for climate sensitivity, contrary to all former reports.
Albert Klein Tank defended the IPCC report by telling that at this moment there is no possibility to give a “best estimate” for climate sensitivity, as there are a lot of recent reports coming out, which all show different outcomes for climate sensitivity. Even the IPCC shows that the empirical estimates are all at the low side, around 1.5-2 K for 2xCO2.
After that there was a lively discussion, unfortunately quite short in duration.
After the meeting there was a dinner for the presenters and some interested people, including me, where I had a nice chat with Bob Carter…
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“Fred Singer specific about sea level change, quite important for The Netherlands (where the lowest point is 12 meters below average sealevel…)”
65% of tide gauges have shown no sea rise at all –
http://pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il/~msdfels/wpapers/Tide%20gauge%20location.pdf
00
But The Netherlands is sinking, partly as reaction on the uplift of Scandinavia after the melting of several km of icesheet above their land after the previous glacial period, partly by the draining of land where huge peat bogs are compacting and partly of huge gas belts explored far below the surface…
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Okay, Mattb give up and Backslider touches very close to the point with evolution. However, I used the Heisenberg Principle because it is absolutely unprovable in its most extreme form. It isn’t necessary–we can live without it just fine. So in Science, you have an unproven “principle” that is taken 100% on faith. If science takes principles and some theories on faith, how does that make it different from religion? How does that allow science to thumb its nose at religion as taken on faith and we don’t need it? Answer, in case Mattb is going to give up again–it does not. Science has no right to claim any superiority over religion when parts of science are absolutely faith-based also. Only those individuals whose lives are based 100% on empirical evidence can diss religion as “faith-based” fluff. Anyone out there living 100% empirically?
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I’m not sure you get the uncertainty principle to be honest Sheri.
00
I don’t think I’m so sure about uncertainty either.
10
Yes, I am definitely uncertain about that also…..
10
Hiesenburg’s uncertainty principle stated that certain physical properties, like position and momentum or energy and time, cannot simultaneously be known to arbitrary precision. If we know one, we have affected the system and we can not measure the other without the previous measurement now not being true.
“The path (of a particle) comes into existence only when we observe it” (uncertainty paper 1927). “Such concepts as orbits of electrons do not exist in nature unless and until we observe them”.
What have I missed?
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its not taken on faith at all… it is rigorously tested experimentally and if i’m not mistaken was even demonstrated to be untrue in the last few years.
10
http://science.slashdot.org/story/13/03/04/1438254/physicists-discover-a-way-around-heisenbergs-uncertainty-principle
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Read that one. I liked the comments about whether the cat is dead or alive–no clear answer on that one.
10
How do you design an experiment that proves a path does not exist until you observe it? If you don’t observe it, how can you know it’s there? If it’s not there, what does the electron do when we are not observing it?
10
these questions of yours do not make science a faith.
10
They may demonstrate that parts of science are unprovable and probably not needed, yet they remain accepted. As previously noted, unless one lives one’s life using only empirical science, there will be things accepted on faith, whether it be scientific theories or God. I did not state that science was a faith, only that parts of it lack proof to the same degree that God does.
10
I think that there is somewhat of a misconception as to what “faith” is. Many think that it means to believe in something that cannot really be known. The Apostle Paul contradicts this thinking with:
And as for uncertainty:
10
I don’t have a problem with faith though. I don’t even agree with Sheri’s suggestion that science thumbs its nose at faith. Only yesterday I spoke with a mate who just happens to be a PhD statistician who works in WA’s leading child health research centre and who is amongst the smartest and most scientifically literate people I know, who just happens also to be a totally radical god botherer and I have no problem with that.
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Isn’t science a quest to understand, while faith fills in the gaps, the many gaps ?
10
I wonder who God is bothered more by, Mattb or his faithful friend.
10
The lord god loves them all. That’s what we sang at Sunday School.
10
Not sure if he’d pass the Background checks with an M.O. like that today
00