Antarctic climate scientists finally return: ABC covers for the $2.4m failure. Speedy’s epic poem

A boat full of climate scientists and their adoring media entourage got stuck in sea-ice in Antarctica on Dec 24th, and they’ve finally made it back to Australia on Jan 21st.

The ABC PR machine covers for their embarrassment — lest anybody think that climate scientists might be clueless. In the ABC’s world an “Australian Research Team” with “60 scientists” left because “scientists believe there is evidence of climate change.” After they got stuck in ice they didn’t predict, and looked like partying fools on an ill-prepared junket, the magic wand of ABC-apologia stopped using the term “climate” and they underwent a magical transformation to become a “Russian Passenger Ship“.

The sudden lack of accurate reporting was all the more strange given that the ship and the icebreaker had a dedicated on-board media team from BBC World News, the Guardian, and Fairfax news. They had media on satellite connections, but probably needed meteorologists on it instead.

Repeat after me, The media IS the problem. If reporters were reporters instead of political activists, $1.5 million dollar junkets to promote climate scares would not be approved in the first place. Total cost of this mission now could be almost $4m:

“Director Tony Fleming says the total bill (for the rescue) could be as high as $2.4 million.”

No one is sure who will be paying for the rescue. It depends on insurance clauses. But we all know who pays a billion dollars a year to be fed climate spin.

For those who appreciate poetry, the infamous Speedy has penned an Antarctic epic.

Mawson’s Spirit Gets Right of Reply.

There seems no shortage, nor a dearth, of those who plan to save the earth;
Christopher Turney, (“That’s Professor, thanks”), felt the need to join their ranks,
So he organised his own crusade, somewhat pricey, mostly paid,
By largesse of the public purse – not the last time, nor the first.

His purpose and his noble goal – to sail towards the Southern Pole,
To collect, collate and then report, all data of the climate sort,
Thus confirming something we all “knew” – the evil role of CO2;
Any changes he would show, compared to Mawson, years ago.

(To raise the profile of his scheme, he passed it off as “Mawson’s Dream”.)
Apart from that, not much to do, just hire a boat with Russian crew,
And, to tabulate the climate ruin, invite some friends and camera crew in;
(These climate types, I don’t know why, are rarely, rarely camera shy.)

The ship sailed southward, out to sea, and all was going, swimmingly,
However, as the South Pole beckoned, a fact arose; no-one had reckoned;
For, despite what they’d all been told, the South Pole still was JOLLY COLD!
And, nearly 60 k’s away from shore, the ship was blocked, could go no more.

Chris gazed upon the icy sea; “We’ll disembark, – just follow me,
To explore the ice; this will be awesome – we’re gonna do a Dougie Mawson!”
So the kiddies all got off and played, but, tragically, they overstayed;
For when they returned, the time had passed – the ship by now was stuck and fast!

These latest antics off the coast, had worn quite thin with Russian host;
To Chris he cried: “You stupid jerk! You’ve cost me time and lots of work!
I’m sure you thought it would be nice, to take that frolic on the ice;
You came back late, now, thanks to you, my ship is firmly in the pooh.”

“Your mission’s goal was crystal clear – you had but just the one idea,
To preen and ponce, pontificate, while playing judge to mankind’s fate;
And earnestly parade your views, while looking good for camera crews –
But I’d be more impressed, my climate chap, if you’d learnt to read a weather map!”

“You’re very wrong, my Russian friend, for I know how this will end –
The climate models clearly show, a future lack of ice and snow,
And while models may be thin on proof, we treat them as the Gospel truth,
So therefore soon, perhaps today, we’ll free this ship and sail away.”

Three days later…

But cold it was, and stuck they stayed – a few were getting quite dismayed:
“Oh won’t you come and save us please – we’d much prefer not stay and freeze –
And, if your ship burns fossil fuel, it’s quite OK, we’re really cool.”
Our icebound heroes were at wit’s ends, and sent some “selfies” to their friends…

That evening…

After dinner, and a well-aged red, Chris did toddle off to bed,
He pondered the ship’s immobile status, (it could only be a mild hiatus),
And what would Deniers have to say, as they saw that ice just melt away –
So he dreamed his dream, as he closed his eyes, of that long-awaited Nobel Prize…

He awoke at midnight, and became aware, of the ghost which stood in silence there,
With his slimy green skin and his icy cold breath – this guy was having a lousy death,
And was not at all a happy ghost, being most abrupt towards his host;
“Wakey, wakey, Climate Priest – you know how it is with us deceased,

Turning up at awkward hours, invoking all our spooky powers;
Groaning and moaning and delivering lectures, that’s afterlife for all us spectres,
Floating on air along the halls, then disappearing through the walls;
But, I think you’ll find me extra awesome – for I am the ghost of Douglas Mawson!

And I, myself, have something new – a few “ideas” I feel that you,
Would be advised quite full and well, to remember, recollect and tell
Your colleagues of a similar ilk, those who lie and cheat, defraud and bilk.
For I am annoyed at you, to say the least – you’ve cheesed me off, you Climate Priest!

One hundred years ago, nigh on the day, I steamed my boat into this Bay,
And, well before your climate “crisis”, we landed where the coast was iceless.
Now, this self-same spot, post global “warming”, is blocked by all the sea-ice forming,
So, despite the “wisdom” of your creed, the facts, it seems, have disagreed.

But facts are dull and oh so dreary – they contradict your precious theory,
But you climate chaps know what to do – you implement a “trick” or two,
To “educate” the public mind, and, (for causes of this noble kind),
You deem deception just and right. (All lies by Greens are small and white.)

As an example use this present case, this very boat, this very place,
Locked in ice you thought had melted; your theory, sir, I say, is belted!
But that conclusion would not do! It contravened your point of view –
So, with sophistry and convolution, you ascribe both hot AND cold to man’s pollution!

But your argument now is quite absurd – it’s nothing more than bovine merde –
Then, to show how much you just don’t know – you change your story as you go,
And to ensure the public understands, you raise your voice and wave your hands;
You thus escalate the public fears, and gain approval from your peers.

But the fact remains, you can’t disguise – that what you speak are porky pies,
As has been done, times countless past, by those of upper climate caste,
Lies of fact, lies of exclusion, lies of logic, lies of collusion,
Are stock in trade for a thieves’ alliance – but they have no place in open science.

If you know your facts and have the proof – it’s very easy, just tell the truth –
But if you’re any less than total Francis, you have to go and take your chances,
With cons and shams and tricks and cheats, hockey stick graphs and missing heats –
And oh what a tangled web we do weave, when first we practice to deceive!

You blazed your path to fame and glory, by telling less than half the story,
And if ever there was room for doubt, you’d skip the bits you wanted out,
To reach the sure and safe conclusion, approved and blessed with team collusion;
And though you’re just a phoney prophet, you somehow get your jollies off it.

Half-baked theories and utter twaddle, you embed these in a “climate model”,
While your “settled science” – that proud consensus – is a roll-call of the vain pretentious,
Your fellow travellers, who so richly gain, from coasting on this gravy train.
But when your friends are wrong – which is hardly new – you label it as “Peer Review”.

All these shams and fakes and little tricks, they’re not science, they are politics,
But what I find is really lame – you do these things and use my name,
As if to suggest or imply, of course, that I would support or like endorse,
You, your theory, or your acts, which both hide the truth and twist the facts.

So I’d thank you please, in future verbals, invoke the name of Joseph Goebbels.”

9.3 out of 10 based on 182 ratings

182 comments to Antarctic climate scientists finally return: ABC covers for the $2.4m failure. Speedy’s epic poem

  • #
    Truthseeker

    Epic poem. Nice if Speedy could have included a stanza about the alarmists asking the “evil” Anthony Watts of WUWT fame to make a weather forecast for them …

    Their models were not accurate … who’da thunk it?

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    • #
      Peter Miller

      And here is the latest BBC take on the fiasco.

      Surprisingly, it appears to be relatively objective.

      Turney is viewed more as the villain than the hero in the fiasco.

      I particularly liked this comment: “Another said the expedition was run like a “boys own adventure” and expressed concern over what she believed was a lack of thorough briefing on safety procedures throughout the Antarctic leg of the expedition.”

      So, alarmists are prepared to throw their own under the wheels of the truck whenever it is deemed to be expedient.

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25833307

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    • #

      Quote: “..the alarmists asking the ‘evil’ Anthony Watts of WUWT fame to make a weather forecast for them”

      I have seen that claim before, but it is not exactly how it happened. The route to Anthony wasn’t that direct.

      From W.U.W.T. blog (Dec 31, 2013) :-
      “Then to my surprise, [John Coleman] relayed a conversation he had just had; a person on the Akademik Shokalskiy had reached out, because they didn’t have adequate weather data on-board. At first, I thought John was pulling my leg, but then as he gave more details, I realized he was serious.”

      “What had happened was that the US Coast Guard had received a message from the ship, requesting weather and wind information for Antarctica. That got relayed to someone at the Scripps oceanographic Institute in San Diego, and it went to John’s weekend KUSI meteorologist Dave Scott. Dave had worked with a scientist who is now on the US Coast Guard IceBreaker Polar Star, and they had logged the request for weather for forecast data from Akademik Shokalskiy. That’s how all this got started.”

      “The message was that they needed better weather information on the ship than they had, specifically about wind and how it might affect the breakup of sea ice. John asked me to gather everything I had on the area and send it, and also to help him contact Joe D’Aleo of WeatherBell Analytics, … .”

      “My first thought was that no matter how much we’ve been criticizing the expedition for its silliness, that if such a request had reached all the way from Antarctica to me, I’d do everything I could to help.”
      Link to blog post

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    • #
      jon

      “Repeat after me, The media IS the problem.”

      Some ideas[Snip]?
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDb3sTwD_vA
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGBkJT2L55k

      According this it’s claimed that Media does not have a moral/culture basis(they think they are neutrual, like Imagine by Lennon) and that they can’t discriminate.
      So we no longer as a society can tell the difference between right and wrong.

      [Snipped aside remark was not relevant -Fly]

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    • #
      Tel

      Down to our last, what else have we gots?
      There’s nothing for it but Anthony Watts!

      He rants and raves with denier claptrap, but he knows how to read a weather map.

      20

  • #
    jorgekafkazar

    verbals-Goebbels. Love it.

    230

  • #
    Capn Jack Walker

    Aaargh, Author Author, belt yer rum mugs on yer keyboards yer scurvy swabbies.

    By Poseidons pointy pitch fork this place is getting some class at last, we have a poet in residence by Jove and Yahweh.
    That’s a right nice bit of the ol jibber jabber.

    210

  • #
    Another Ian

    Jo – Another one

    From comments at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/07/russian-ship-in-stuck-in-antarctic-ice-starts-moving-again-per-my-forecast/#comments


    woz says:
    January 7, 2014 at 9:24 pm
    Also moved by the muse!

    (Mod – apologies if there are words here that trigger autospam – I don’t post often enough to be familiar)

    THE HUNTING OF THE SPARK (of heat)
    With humble apologies to Lewis Carroll

    Brave Chris Turney often paced on the deck,
    Or would make hockey sticks in the bow:
    And had often (Chris said) saved the whole ship from wreck,
    Though none of the sailors knew how.

    The group was complete, with kids and a wife,
    Plus some warmingist scientists all experts –
    Each a drip under pressure – all headed for strife
    (These are better described as just “spurts”!)

    Of course no contingent so brave and undaunted
    Could venture too far without Press.
    So the Guardian sent and so proudly then flaunted
    Reporters to add to the mess.

    “We’ll show those deniers!” bold Chris Turney cried
    As he landed his party on ice;
    “We know without doubt that the ice has all fried
    So the beaches will all be quite nice.”

    “We’ll show those deniers!” he’s now said it twice
    That alone should encourage the crew.
    “We’ll show those deniers!” he’s now said it thrice:
    What he tells you three times must be true.

    The poor Russian crew shook their heads in dismay;
    Their care-filled advice all ignored.
    “The ice? You are wrong. It’s not melted away!
    Your theories are totally flawed!”

    Ignoring this wisdom and pressing on blindly
    The Turney contingent went boldly
    Into the ice field that proved not to be kindly
    And an ending that beckoned them coldly.

    At deniers Chris Turney continued to jeer
    As lots of “selfies” with penguins they took.
    But it soon became clear that no heat would appear.
    AGW was not looking good.

    They hunted till darkness came on, but they found
    Not a beach or a palm tree. Those asses
    Tried so hard to find things in the air or the ground.
    But no sign of those greenhouse gasses.

    In the midst of the search – trying hard not to play,
    In the midst of their laughter and glee,
    Climate Change had softly just vanished away—
    For CC was “just normal”, you see.

    And then the thick ice that was lurking around
    Surrounded the vessel and trapped it.
    There was just no way out. An escape must be found.
    We can’t sail through this ice so compacted!

    Saviours from Australia and China came fast
    And a Yank ship – a real show stopper.
    But the ice was so tough – the world looked on aghast
    As the group came so close to a cropper!

    But luck doesn’t mean that you need half a clue
    As this ship of fools demonstrates clearly.
    The bad weather eased – out the warmingists flew
    Leaving ship and the crew to pay dearly.

    There are lessons that thinkers can gain from this tale
    Lessons we ignore at our peril.
    Use the scientific method. It’s hearty and hale.
    All other approaches are feral!

    Just remember, “It’s warm!” was the sound in their ears,
    And they tried to believe they were hot.
    But it wasn’t too long before laughter and jeers:
    And the ominous words “No it’s not!”

    270

  • #

    Nice one Speedy.

    Christopher Turney – The Pixie Anne Wheatley of Antarctic explorers.

    Tony.

    410

  • #
    Another Ian

    And another

    From comments at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/02/the-cause-of-the-akademik-shokalskiy-getting-stuck-in-antarctica-sigtseeing-mishaps-and-dawdling-by-the-passengers-getting-back-on-ship/


    Ruth says:
    January 2, 2014 at 9:04 pm
    Here is something I wrote on JoNova’s blog:

    Thanks to Robert W Service for the inspiration!

    There are strange things done in the midnight sun
    By the men who moil for fame;
    The Climate Change has bedfellows strange
    That would make your brain go lame;
    The Southern Lights have seen queer sights,
    But the queerest they ever did bear
    Was the climate geeks on the Akademik
    Who got stuck in the ice-not-there.
    Now Chris Turney was from New South Wee, where the gum tree stands and grows
    Why he left his home in the South to roam ‘round the Pole, God only knows.
    He was always hot, (no matter what), and often channelled Mao;
    And he’d often say in his arrogant way “The Ice has Melted now.”
    On Christmas Eve with Argo’s leave they were slow to find the trail
    Talk of your cold! Through the parka’s fold it stabbed like a driven nail.
    If eyes they’d close, then their lashes froze till sometimes they couldn’t see;
    It wasn’t much fun, but the only one to tweet was Chris Turney.
    And that very night, they got a fright – their ship was in sea ice;
    And the blogs were read, and the wind they said was blowing up a vice;
    Chris Turney claimed it was “Climate Change” – the Ice had Up and Went;
    The rest had napped and they were trapped in their own experiment.
    “Sea ice has waned due to climate change, but here it’s building up!
    We have found this has changed – they all explained, there’s fresh water all about!
    And don’t you know, the seawater below, well, we can almost drink it.
    This ice which packs will have impacts so fast – you wouldn’t think it.”
    The Snow Dragon and had also come, and got stuck in the same sea ice;
    The Astrolabe tried and Turney cried so they hailed the Australis.
    The sea ice grew and tempers brewed, and those onboard got sick;
    The wind was blamed on Climate Change; that’s why the ice was thick!
    The days went by and my oh my; the media had dissed
    The simple fact the ship was packed with climate scientists!
    They tried to show the melting snow would strike our hearts with fear
    And we would back the carbon tax – if truth was far, not near.
    Now a promise made is a debt unpaid and the sea has its own stern code.
    In the days to come – though the papers were stum, we learned to love that load
    Of childish geeks and climate freaks who danced and sang and stuff.
    They howled their woes to ice and snow, and proved their warming bluff.
    The choppers came and came again – the rescue on and off;
    The Australis and the Chinese ship were struggling in a trough
    Of water cold near the South Pole so they could pluck them out
    Of their own vice in the snow and ice – “not supposed to be about.”
    These scientists were more like kids when they begged for help from Watts;
    To give the fools some weather tools, to extract them from a spot
    Of danger here and trouble there – to save them from themselves!
    The choppers came in just in time to pluck from icy shelves.
    There are strange things done in the midnight sun
    By the men who moil for fame;
    The Climate Change has bedfellows strange
    That would make your brain go lame;
    The Southern Lights have seen queer sights,
    But the queerest they ever did bear
    Was the climate geeks on the Akademik
    Who got stuck in the ice-not-there”

    (Robert Service was known as the Canadian Kipling.)

    270

  • #
    John F. Hultquist

    A masterful effort and the shortness of the time in which it was done causes me to stand and cheer. There is no one to hear me though. I do hope this gets circulated widely. Video and a few background sounds (wind, ice banging on steel ?) and this could go viral.
    Did I say fantastic yet? No. Okay. Fantastic.

    190

  • #
    Ross

    Now Prof Turney has been shown up to be a “little casual with the truth” ( I’m trying to be nice !). Claiming support from the NZ Department of Conservation was BS.

    http://taxpayers.org.nz/blogs/news/11753629-update-on-the-aae-doc-requests-that-logo-be-removed

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    • #
      Manfred

      If NZ Dept of Conservation (DOC) had a ‘mind’ they’d take legal action, seeking compensation from the AAE Ship of Fools for the misrepresentation of being listed on their web site as a ‘supporter’. I have a .pdf of the supporter screen showing the NZ DOC.

      In NZ, the MSM news focused on the aim of the expedition to trace the footsteps of Mawson, described the human element of reuniting families with the returning individuals, played an interview with the anti-hero Turney and pointed out the immense cost of multiple rescue attempts….and who was going to pay the bill????
      Not a breath, not a whisper nor the vaguest allusion to climate, nor the presence of Guardian or Fairfax reporters present on the Ship of Fools.

      There was a snip of comment from Turney manufacturing a back handed apology to his erstwhile scientific colleagues engaged in Antarctic science for depleting their funding on his junket (my description), but the justification came from Turney:

      The Antartic is a risky place.

      40

  • #
    Popeye

    Jo – posted this earlier on previous blog – thought it worthwhile to copy here so it’s not missed.

    “Jo,

    Breaking news (if you haven’t seen already) – deserves to be covered everywhere and maybe new post subject.

    http://www.principia-scientific.org/breaking-new-climate-data-rigging-scandal-rocks-us-government.html

    Cheers,

    70

    • #
      Joe V.

      I guess it’ll take either finding the bug in their code, or replicating their corrections to prove it. How likely is that to happen ?

      50

      • #
        Popeye

        Yes Joe – good point.

        Just imagine how much OT they’re doing right now trying to cover their tracks.

        Our Australian BOM (Bureau of Meteorology) have refused to release their data for a number of years now as well.

        Incompetence or deliberate they ALL need to go.

        Cheers,

        Cheers,

        80

    • #
      Eddie Sharpe

      Remember how they used to dismiss skeptics as seeing warming as a rising succession of cooling trends ? I wonder where that idea might have come from.

      30

  • #
    Bob Campbell

    I’m sure I read somewhere today that there were 5 children on the adventure?

    80

  • #
    AndyG55

    Both those impressive missives really ought to be published in the MSM !!!

    Jo, maybe you could send them to BoltA or Tim Blair. They would love to read them.

    The more showing these get.. the better 🙂

    120

  • #
    Ian H

    It has also just been covered on the TV3 news in New Zealand. Fairly bland coverage really focused purely on the cost issue. No mention of climate at all.

    120

  • #
    Yonniestone

    Once again Speedy comes up trumps, well done sir.
    This unfortunately leaves me with the realization that Speedy’s writings of the event may be the most complete and honest account currently in circulation, apart from skeptic blogs of course. 😉

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    • #
      Grant (NZ)

      My favourite line

      But your argument now is quite absurd – it’s nothing more than bovine merde –

      What a turn of phrase. Absolutely brilliant.

      Although I think Speedy may have tortured the language a bit much to match his rhyming scheme. Maybe it is an allegory for how “climate scientists” torture the data to match the models.

      50

      • #
        Yonniestone

        Thinking about the MSM censorship on this Antarctic fiasco it would help if people learnt to think for themselves, then they might start to connect a few dots in the MSM and realize how much they’ve been had by AGW.
        Remember “Carbon” Cate Blanchett spruking with Michael Caton in that ad about evil CO2?, it seems the rising sea level part doesn’t worry her at all, http://www.thecourier.com.au/story/2040182/blanchett-buys-house-on-harbour-as-investment-for-sons/?cs=36
        The word hypocritical comes to mind as do others so I’ll just self snip now and ask if I’m supposed to make do with less does this apply to everyone? answer wake up do some research and join the dots.

        40

      • #
        Eddie Sharpe

        “Although I think Speedy may have tortured the language a bit much to match his rhyming scheme. “

        Tortured ! Never. Speedy has just taken the most expressive parts of each language and melded them into one to produce the best outcome, like an instrumental blade enhancing a paleoclimatic handle.

        My French companions are invariably horrified at my Anglicised pronunciation of a glacier in French as a mer de glace.

        30

      • #
        Eliza Doodle

        What amazes me is how they can have an official MR2 owners club in France.

        00

  • #
    warcroft

    .
    The ABC are at it again. . .

    Climate records for 2013 show no let-up in global warming trend
    http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2013/s3930017.htm

    80

    • #
      warcroft

      The article provides no links, no data, no evidence, no facts. . . just a bunch of plucked comments and we are expected to take it as gospel?
      With all the cold weather around the globe last year being experienced by most countries, the record ice coverage in the north and south poles, the cooling oceans. . . we are expected to believe that “2013 was the world’s fourth warmest on record”???

      170

      • #
        Turtle of WA

        Mate, this one is hilarious:

        US scientists say that for the 37th year in a row, last year’s global temperatures were above average.

        So over the last 150 years of records, during which there has been a gradual 0.8 degree increase, the last 37 were higher than the average, and this is supposed to prove that there is still warming.

        Just for everyone’s information, in my 37 years, during approximately the last 30 I have been taller than my average height over my lifetime. Therefore I must still be growing.

        310

    • #
      Andrew McRae

      They just can’t help themselves. Looks like another Schmidt/RealClimate mental projection.

      US scientists say that for the 37th year in a row, last year’s global temperatures were above average.

      Yes, when you’ve had a century of above average solar activity (now ended) you tend to get 75+ years of rising temperatures. Not surprising at all that the last 37 years would be above the 200-year average. And most of that would have happened without any CO2 increase.
      In the IPCC AR5 draft they finally stopped denying the Svensmark effect but they refuse to give it any power in their climate models.
      By the way, how’s the forecast looking, Gav?

      People are looking forward, and if you look at the forecast for the ENSO, these things seem to be pointing towards an El Niño developing in the second half of 2013 2014. But, you know, these are predictions that are a long way out, so it’s not completely certain.

      Right. Can’t predict the temperature over the next 12 months, but can predict the temperature of 84 years into the future. They assume the high frequency errors cancel to zero in the long term. They don’t use the Svensmark effect at all.
      To take these people seriously it helps to have an MSM-level of amnesia.

      80

      • #
        Another Ian

        Andrew,

        Look at the eastern Pacific on the UNISYS sea temps – and note that the ENSO meter at WUWT has swung from neutral towards La Nina just recently.

        80

  • #
    mareeS

    Chris Turney seems to have been selected as the scapegoat. Others un-named are getting away with it, un-scapegoated though equally complicit.

    Who works this stuff out behind the scenes, to decide who dies and who lives, professionally speaking?

    There’s a good book in this, all around the climate-sphere (and politics in general).

    120

    • #
      Speedy

      MareeS

      True, Turney is no worse or better than the rest of the warmist brigade, it’s just that he seems to be taking a hit for the team. In many ways, Turney’s character in this poem is supposed to be a caricature of the typical warmists shoving their faces in front of a camera.

      And Jo’s point is entirely correct – the media is an accomplice before, during and after the act.

      Cheers,

      Speedy

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      • #
        mareeS

        Speedy, not all of us are accomplices. That’s why this blog and most people here, and reputable people remaining in the media keep fighting the good fight. Victory is within our reach (and don’t the lefts just hate it).

        60

        • #
          Speedy

          MareeS

          Fair enough, that’s a generalisation too far. Can I say that 90% of the media give the rest a bad name?

          Cheers,

          Speedy

          00

  • #
    Al in Cranbrook

    OT…
    Here in Canada Neil Young has just finished a cross country tour dedicated to bashing our Alberta Oil Sands. Essentially made an idiot out of himself, but still got all kinds of free publicity and respect from the usual suspects in the MSM, not the least of which was the CBC.

    Up here, when one wants to hear the truth of such things, one turns to Sun News, and more specifically, Ezra Levant, who is a veritable pit bull when he sinks his teeth in.

    The following is an expose on just who is who in this tour, who foots the bills, and how. It’s incredibly revealing as to how environmentalist organizations work, and the forces we’re up against here in Canada. Hang in for all of it, it gets pretty interesting towards the end. And as per usual, Ezra doesn’t pull any punches!

    http://bcove.me/tj2lmk9p

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    • #
      Dan

      Well worth a listen, shows us how it all works. Thanks.

      60

    • #
      mareeS

      Neil Young’s music was brilliant, except in the numerous times when he took too many drugs. His politics reflect his drug-taking, as do the unfortunate effects on his offspring.

      Hey Neil: Stick to steel guitar and lay off the other stuff.

      40

    • #
      john robertson

      Al just imagine Ezera interviewing the media personel from this voyage….
      Makes me laugh just thinking about it.
      Any real journalist would interview these embedded darling with savage joy.
      Ask banana boy, so what happened, how did it happen?
      BB, I can’t say, I don’t know..
      You were there.. weren’t you?
      The media blackout after the ship got trapped…why no updates from any of 5 prancing prima donnas of the press?
      Was this blackout alcohol induced?
      At what time did the Climate Change Champions, transform into passengers?

      40

    • #
      MacS

      Well, that kinda puts a different perspective on his call to ‘keep on rockin’ in the Free World’.

      Still, in times such as these, casualties were always inevitable. Too bad Neil’s fallen for the groupthink.

      10

    • #
      Bones

      Hey Al,how smart are these indians,they live off oil money and then protest against the same company that pays them.With a little luck the tax dept will have a look at them and their finances.Ezra seems to be Canada’s version of Glenn Beck.

      00

  • #
    Eugene WR Gallun

    Alright!!!!! Poets rock!!!!!

    Eugene WR Gallun

    60

  • #
    LevelGaze

    SPEEDY!!…

    McGonagall re-incarnated at last.

    61

    • #
      Speedy

      LevelGaze

      I’m not sure that was a compliment 🙂

      Cheers,

      Speedy

      30

      • #
        LevelGaze

        But it is!

        Although I usually am reluctant to cite Wikipedia I make an exception in this case:

        “so giftedly bad he backed unwittingly into genius”

        I can recommend reading the entire entry, it’s a hoot.

        But I spent many years studying and working in Dundee, so perhaps I’m a little biased in favour of that hell-hole.

        Your poem is indeed a work of genius! 😉

        30

        • #
          Speedy

          LevelGaze

          So I suppose you wouldn’t describe him as mediocre?

          Cheers

          Speedy

          00

          • #
            LevelGaze

            Speedy (do I sense you’re a little perplexed/suspicious here? – pray do not be!)

            “Mediocre” is totally misguided. William Topaz McGonagall is in a category all his own. He is much loved and widely spouted still by Scots, probably more quoted on streets and in pubs than Burns. He has NEVER been out of print. He is REVERED.

            I myself have an anthology of his poetry on my shelves.

            You ARE him revisited upon us. A new Golden Age. 🙂

            (Sure you’re not descended from Lowland Scots?)

            10

            • #
              Speedy

              LevelGaze

              Yep, I’m 100% purebred mongrel! Dash of Scot as well as Irish, English, Cornish and French.

              And don’t worry, the allusion to McGonnagall is OK – I always try an put a bit of daggy stuff into it when possible. And maybe like WTM, sometimes there’s debate about how much of the daggy is deliberate…

              Cheers,

              Speedy

              10

  • #
    Turtle of WA

    Non-lefties are the best writers of verse. They respect the traditions of style, metre and rhyme.

    The warmists are turning on their own, an encouraging sign that the movement is in trouble:
    http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/cuttung_turney_adrfit_and_dont_mention_hes_a_professor_of_climate_change_ei/

    80

  • #
    turnedoutnice

    These ‘brave explorers’ couldn’t pull up the anchors,
    Because it seems they’re a load of *******……..

    70

  • #
    Shane

    Fantastic poem. Kudos to the author. I feel like paying for a full page ad in the paper to distribute it…

    [I’m sure Speedy would be happy to see a donation go towards helping Jo keep up her great work. Donation box at top right if you are feeling generous 🙂 – Mod]

    90

  • #
    Sonny

    favourite line:

    And though you’re just a phoney prophet, you somehow get your jollies off it.

    Brilliant!

    100

  • #
    handjive

    The University of New South Wales’ Climate Change Research Centre is a sponsor:
    “In short, extreme temperatures generally occur more uniformly over a wide area when compared to intense, localised rainfall events.
    For this reason, climate models fail to capture extreme precipitation events as well as they capture extreme temperatures.”
    .
    When something ‘fails’ there is no second prize with claims of 95% confidence.
    To claim billions must and consequently IS spent because of failed, incomplete climate models is fraud at all levels.
    . . . .

    The University of New South Wales’ Climate Change Research Centre (CCRC) is the home of prominent climate alarmists such as professors Andy Pitman, Matthew England and Steve Sherwood.

    70

  • #

    Kudos ter Speedy. Herewith something I posted @ Climate Etc.
    Beth_the_serf.

    Nay-chur is genuine
    and don’t yer fergit it.
    Say jest when yer thought
    yer could safely advent-chure
    into the Antarctic
    in a ship_not_an_ice_breaker,
    nay-chur reminds yer
    not ter take lightly,
    climate’s vari-ability,
    sea-ice, tempests ‘n such like
    that test yer ass-umptions.*
    ‘cos nay-chur is genuine,
    and don’t yer fergit
    it.

    *Models. 🙁

    90

  • #
    Eddie Sharpe

    An epic work Speedy and a fitting tribute to Turneys epic escapade in the ice.

    It will be interesting to see how are the MSM going to capitalise on Turney’s Climate Science Award, without blowing the gaff on what this comedic escapade was all about ?

    50

  • #
    janama

    Another Epic Speedy – I must say I was hoping for a Brian interviews Dr Turney. (John)

    50

    • #
      Joe V.

      I’m sure that interview come Janama but Turney has only just landed and comedy is all about timing .

      50

    • #
      Speedy

      Janama

      I agree, but it’s pretty hard to imagine anything more ridiculous than what the warmists have already done!

      Cheers,

      Speedy

      50

  • #
    bullocky



    While Turney bungles Dougie Mawson,
    Speedy channels Henry Lawson!

    Thanks, Speedy!…..I chuckled all the way through!

    70

  • #
    Joe V.

    The aspirational naming of the likes of UNSW’s Centre for Climate Excellence or whatever is all very well, but as soon as you overtly and officially name something as such at tends favour the pursuit of recognition rather than the pursuit of excellence and fools no one but the impressionable.

    True excellence should take every fibre of ones being while once effort is being distracted by vanity and diverted on PR then the excellence must suffer.

    Of course perhaps creating the perception seems necessary to attract funding , but that behaviour shouldn’t be mistaken with excellence.

    70

    • #
      Joe V.

      … and as I was building up to, before the iFinger Phone published prematurely, Excellence is what we have in Speedy.

      70

  • #
    Peter C

    Thanks Joe,

    And congratulations to all our poets! I laughed and laughed.

    Any More?

    50

  • #
    Peter

    That’s an A+ for Effort Speedy.
    Just about everyone has a Limerick in them.
    A variation on a theme then;

    The Turney stood on the frozen deck his hockey stick was ablaze,
    It was his wife who had lit ‘ we’ve been stuck in this $$$t you frozen git’!
    Yes it was all his fault
    It’s a Turkey we’ve bought when all you sought’
    Was Fame and Glory in those soddin bays’
    Or;

    The Turney stood on the frozen deck,
    The writs fell like snowflakes around him,
    It coulda been worse if the Chinese hadn’t a found him.

    Ok I’m not a poet and I should know it.

    English Aborigine

    60

  • #
    Carbon500

    It’s not just the media that is the problem. I found this depressing missive on the European Commission’s’s website:
    “Climate change is one of the biggest challenges facing mankind in the coming years. Rising temperatures, melting glaciers and increasingly frequent droughts and flooding are all evidence that climate change is really happening. The risks for the whole planet and for future generations are colossal and we need to take urgent action.
    For several years now the European Union has been committed to tackling climate change both internally and internationally and has placed it high on the EU agenda, as reflected in European climate change policy. Indeed, the EU is taking action to curb greenhouse gas emissions in all its areas of activity in a bid to achieve the following objectives: consuming less-polluting energy more efficiently, creating cleaner and more balanced transport options, making companies more environmentally responsible without compromising their competitiveness, ensuring environmentally friendly land-use planning and agriculture and creating conditions conducive to research and innovation.”

    50

    • #
      Peter

      That, translated means;
      We’re a legalised criminal gang who will tell the most outrageous lies to keep the the greatest fraudulent enterprise in the history of civilisation going. If we have to use other means we will. Your property, money and the eight pints of blood in you are ours. End of conversation.

      Yeah right! We will see.

      English Aborigine

      160

    • #
      ROM

      Carbon 500

      Check the following European skeptic blogs which I do daily to get an overall picture of what is happening in Europe, the center of this whole crazy global warming, and renewable energy scam.

      GWPF Go to “Latest Postings” for archive material
      German to english NoTricksZone blog
      Bishop Hill which is a UK political analysis of climate and energy matters in the UK

      For a wider view and more of the now rapidly accelerating and changing climate science.

      The Hockey Schtick for good science
      NIPCC Papers are in a sequence per calendar month .
      C3 Head lines plus a lot more on this site

      The excellent Norwegian Climate4you with it’s extensive and easily understandable [ [and often surprising ] analysis of numerous climate factors

      For often very interesting climate commentary
      The Chiefio
      Roy Spencer, head off NASA’s satellite global temperature research unit.
      The Resilient Earth

      And one that every skeptic should try and read, the history of where it all went wrong and the players involved in making sure that the doubts and alternative views on the anthropogenic aspect of the warming climate never made it into tne 1995 IPCC’s Madrid confernce final draft where some 300 papers doubtfull and skeptical about the claimed nascent anthropogenic global warming just disappeared .
      The name Ben Santer, who has admitted his role in Madrid is prominent in this expose.
      This site is by a scientist who was closely involved in climate science research and knows all the players, most of whom supplied him with background information for this series of exposes.
      Check the RH column for the various titles in the sequence of posts

      Madrid 1995: Was this the Tipping Point in the Corruption of Climate Science?
      ______________________________________________
      Re the EU and climate change

      What the EU says and what it does don’t necessarily coincide.

      After sorting through the usual political smokescreen verbiage, the UK and Germany in a space of only a couple of months are switching tracks and fast and are on the way to pulling the pin on all the climate and renewable energy crap with off shore turbines the first to get the subsidy chop.
      Both are getting back to economic basics to try and restart and kick their industries and economies back into gear.
      The UK has just given the go ahead for full scale frakking.
      The EU has just in the last couple of days and despite the howls of outrage from the watermelons and renewable energy scammers, have refused to place any limitations on frakking and has stated that any member country can do what it wants with frakking as long as they follow basic EU environmental requirements.

      The Germans are facing increasing presure internally to restart their nukes which were closed down since Fukashima, a couple of which are still operating and are about to, from reports, to cut back severely on the renewable energy subsidies .

      Thats all about getting Russia off their backs re gas supplies and getting gas and energy prices right back down again so as to not get wiped out literally by American and Chinese industries with their access to very cheap energy prices at about a third the cost of Europes.

      The Italians have just started drilling a huge oil field down in the instep of the heel and toe of southern Italy

      The latest from France is that they are having a darn good look at the mess their economy is now heading for and are arguing about how to get out of it

      Denmark, Spain, Ireland, has already done the deed in reality and only the verbiage remains as they also are now showing signs of recovering economies. Poland refused to go with then EU climate crap despite being a member.

      The world is changing and fast as the great pendulum starts to get faster and faster in it’s swing back past centre to a place where people and economies and jobs and infrastructure and a better life for all the citizens takes precedence over some abstruse psuedo scientific, numerically modelled hypothetical, never proven, unsubstantiated and impotent catastrophic anthropogenic global warming that was the reigning ideological cult across the western world.

      160

      • #
        Carbon500

        Thanks ROM; some very interesting material and links here. Some I’ve had a look at before – e.g. the NIPCC, Roy Spencer and Bishop Hill sites, but not others.
        I see that there’s a film clip of Al Gore among these.
        As soon as I first saw his book some years ago I was suspicious of the whole CO2/climate story, and almost immediately afterwards read Singer and Avery’s fascinating ‘Unstoppable Global Warming – Every 1500 Years’, closely followed by Ian Plimer’s ‘Heaven and Earth’ and Bob Carter’s ‘Climate – The Counter Consensus’ and various original papers.
        It’s been interesting to actually see some of the people whose papers I’ve read – for example Paul Reiter. It became very subdued on SkS when I raised his comments as an expert on mosquito borne malaria to counter some rubbish I’d seen on their website. SkS didn’t acknowledge that they were wrong or discuss the points made; that says it all about SkS.
        In closing, I’m hoping that one or two of the UK’s politicians will show that they are thinking about the issues, and speak up. Your comments suggest that there may be some hope after all!

        50

  • #
    Otter

    Speedy! Permission to repost your poem, Please!

    40

    • #
      Speedy

      Otter – OK with me, but it’s Jo’s post…

      Cheers,

      Speedy

      [Jo is always happy for material from here to be re-posted with appropriate source credit acknowledgement.Mod]

      40

  • #
    Peter

    It’s addictive,

    The Turney stood on the frozen deck his hands and feet all a shiver,
    Too much Christmas booze he’d had and his lower appendage began to quiver,
    For the penguins below he’d give a show so in the snow his initials did write,
    A capital C and then small t a Freudian slip in the middle [MOD]
    It was a fearful sight the resultant frostbite
    For all alone he’d sleep that night!
    Be careful where you Jimmy Riddle.

    I’ll have to stop cruising in the pre-muffler V8 for no particular reason. It just makes one imaginative.

    Forgive me,

    English Aborigine

    50

  • #
    Annie

    Totally brilliant Speedy. Thank you Jo for publishing this.

    40

  • #
    Bones

    Turney the turkey stood on the frozen deck
    flogging his credentials like crazy
    when a gasp from the gathered crowd said
    “look,here comes the gravy.
    Take this any way you want.

    51

  • #
    colin maclean

    The ancient and universal art of versification is still best at expressing some things – in this case – satire, humour and ridicule.

    Thanks, Speedy. You made my day.

    50

  • #
    Tim

    Speedy’s masterpiece inspired me to write a short one:

    There came a call to Casey Station:
    “Drop everything you’ve undertaken
    and that research on acidification;
    there’s been an emergency situation.

    Your supply ship’s just been seconded,
    so forget those provisions you so badly wanted;
    a Media Junket’s been caught unaware
    by ice they reckoned just wouldn’t be there.

    They need to get back and on through the Fiord
    to pick up some medals and an award.”

    190

  • #
    Maverick

    No trolls for this post? I Guess they got the ABC memo for this farce – “spin like a mute”.

    140

  • #
    pat

    to all the poets – bravo.

    our comedians are unnable or unwilling to see/utilise the non-stop tragicomedy of CAGW & its adherents. so much material has gone to waste.

    Alok Jha outdoes BBC in obfuscation with his latest piece – which is a real travesty. as with BBC, u would NEVER KNOW that Jha (Guardian) & BBC (Andrew Luck-Baker) were EMBEDDED with the Expedition (btw did either media outlet provide any of the funding?). these CAGW hacks were given a whole four weeks to send back scary CAGW stories about lovable penguins etc, yet BBC reports as if Luck-Baker just happened to be on the Shokalskiy, & Jha is just a science reporter in Hobart!

    22 Jan: Guardian: Antarctic rescue: passengers of research ship back on dry land after two months
    Cheers go up on rescue vessel Aurora Australis, then each of the 52 passengers gets a hug – and clearance to head home
    Alok Jha, science correspondent, in Hobart
    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/22/antarctic-rescue-passengers-akademik-shokalskiy-dry-land

    BBC Media Centre: Discovery: Return To Mawson’s Antarctica
    Over four weeks in December and January, BBC World Service’s Discovery will be embedded with a team of Antarctic researchers on board an ice-breaker retracing the route of the first Australasian Expedition to Antarctica.
    The 2013 Australasian Antarctic Expedition aims to repeat many of Mawson’s investigations around Commonwealth Bay and Cape Denison in East Antarctica where the original team set up their base. This remote area hasn’t been studied systematically for 100 years, so the expedition will reveal any changes that have taken place as a result of climate change.
    The BBC’s Andrew Luck-Baker and Science journalist Alok Jha join the 26-strong scientific team led by Professor Chris Turney of the University of New South Wales. They study penguins, record the underwater songs of seals and deploy a robot submarine to sample the rich sea life under the ice…
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/proginfo/2013/51/ws-antarctic-1.html

    40

    • #
      Senex Bibax

      “Embedded” certainly describes the condition of the ship vis a vis the sea ice. As for the journos, “IN BED WITH the expedition” is more like it.

      70

  • #
    pat

    wow:

    21 Jan: BBC: Matt McGrath: ‘Burnt out’ EU likely to curb climate goals
    Binding national targets on renewable energy are expected to be dropped from new EU proposals due to be unveiled on Wednesday.
    The UK has lobbied hard to have the mandatory 2030 target watered down, saying it would drive up energy bills…
    But green groups said the proposals lacked ambition and were the acts of a “burnt out” Commission…
    With huge government subsidies, installations of renewables soared…
    “It makes no sense to impose artificial constraints on how individual countries meet emissions targets,” said a spokesman for the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC).
    “We are determined to keep people’s energy bills as low as possible and that means having the flexibility to cut emissions in the most cost effective way”…
    “We are moving from an ambitious targets and timetables approach to a classical muddling through approach,” said Dr Oliver Geden from the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.
    “It is a changed world, it is not just about the financial crisis, it is also the result of changes in international climate policy.
    “There is not the ‘we can change the world’ optimism, they are retreating a little.”…
    With European elections due this Spring and a new set of Commissioners to be selected in the Autumn, there is a sense among some critics that the incumbents are very keen to agree a new set of proposals.
    Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard has been singled out by some green groups for making too many compromises to achieve agreement.
    “That’s a burned out commissioner, she’s achieved practically nothing over the past four years,” said Brook Riley from Friends of the Earth.
    “She wants a political win in the last few months in office, she’s almost desperate, that’s not the frame of mind you want to try and steer through something as important as this dossier.”…
    The price of carbon has collapsed over the past year due to an excess of carbon permits…
    The Commission’s proposals will go forward for consideration at heads of government meetings in March and June this year.
    Some critics believe that the climate and energy plan may be watered down even further at these meetings.
    “There is this huge rift within the EU on energy and climate policy. Since 2010, they haven been able to decide on anything substantial,” said Dr Geden.
    “The member states don’t like what they have to do now and the less ambitious states are in a better position.”
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25828181

    20

  • #
    pat

    forget shutting down the ABC. just get rid of these ridiculous people like Leigh Sales who have no journalistic qualities whatsoever. taxpayers should not be paying for this:

    (VIDEO & TRANSCRIPT)22 Jan: ABC: Leigh Sales: Ice-bound ship ‘inherent risk’ says expedition’s leader
    The leader of the Antarctic expedition whose ship got stuck in ice says that was one of the risks of that kind of work, and he disputes that the incident is evidence against climate change.
    CHRIS TURNEY, EXPEDITION LEADER: Well, hello and lovely to be back in Australia. The Australasian Antarctic Expedition was a multi-disciplinary program of research going into an area of enormous environmental and global climate change, using the latest information – the satellite data, the weather observations and forecasts. The final part of a research program suggested we were working in clear area. We’d been hugely productive up to that time. We were heading back out north and unfortunately got caught by this massive breakout of sea ice. Now, unfortunately that has had an enormous knock-on effect to some teams, apparently. We’re terribly sorry about that and we’re hugely grateful to the large international effort, including the Australians, primarily, and the Chinese, who helped get the team home safely…
    LEIGH SALES: Who paid for the scientific expedition and then who ultimately is responsible for the rescue costs?
    CHRIS TURNEY: So, we had a variety of different corporations that supported and basically we sold berths to the public, much like Scott and Mawson and others had done 100 years ago, to actually get those team members onboard and embed them in the science team. With regards to paying for the actual recovery, for the help and the return of the team back to Australia, the expedition vessel and individuals were all fully sponsored and that’s being worked through with insurance now.
    LEIGH SALES: Your mission has been subject to ridicule in some quarters…This editorial from (Murdoch’s) The Australian pretty well sums up the tenor of it…
    CHRIS TURNEY: That’s quite interesting. Well, we’ve been living in a bubble for the last couple of months and just talking to people. I had heard there was an editorial. I haven’t read it…
    Ultimately, I think this actually is a reflection of how as a scientific community we need to engage perhaps more explaining the science method rather than just the results. It sounds a bit like the wonderful quote from Carl Sagan where he said, “If we don’t communicate the science method, how is the public meant to know the difference between pseudo-science and science?”…
    LEIGH SALES: Were you able to gather much research data before the boat became stuck and so was the trip worth it in that regard?
    CHRIS TURNEY: Oh, look, it was hugely productive. In the six weeks or five weeks that we were operating, we’ve got a wealth of information from the sub-Antarctic islands, crossing the Antarctic convergence, we’ve left drones and floats in the ocean which are broadcasting their position and the temperature and saltiness over time and will continue to do so for many years. We got into Cape Denison, we pioneered a new route into the old Mawson hut, travelling across 65 kilometres of sea ice. We got into that location, delivered the conservators to the Mawson hut, collected data on the impact of changing sea ice on the penguins, collected evidence, or samples – 80 kilos of samples, actually – to show the former extent of the ice sheet. The only constraints we’ve got for over 2,500 kilometres.
    LEIGH SALES: Chris Turney, thank you so much for your time tonight.
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-01-22/ice-bound-ship-inherent-risk-says-expeditions/5213910

    10

    • #
      redress

      Pat

      I thought Leigh Sales looked very deflated on the 7.30 report, especially with the professors answers….She knew he was not answering the questions, that he was making a fool of himself and knew the reasons why….but she was hoping he would respond far better than he did.

      40

      • #
        Sonny

        Seems like Turney is hanging his hat in the theory that sea ice moved and attacked and surrounded the ship?
        Is this vaguely supported by any evidence? Or is it just nonsense spin?

        10

        • #
          Speedy

          Sonny

          Call me cynical, but I suspect Chris was going to arrive at the same conclusion whether there was ice there or not.

          Cheers,

          Speedy

          10

  • #
    pat

    the MSM has no credibility whatsoever:

    sky news channel has not a word about Turney & co in their news menu (tho they have no doubt been carrying something in their broadcasts).

    i just put “chris turney” in a google Al-Gore-ithm search, clicked “news”, and the top grouping is 500-plus stories all dated around 5 January, with only these three showing:

    Leader of ill-fated Antarctic expedition, Professor Chris Turney …Radio Australia-5 Jan 2014

    Leader Chris Turney defends Antarctic expedition against critics of …
    Raw Story-5 Jan 2014

    Antarctic expedition: ‘This wasn’t a tourist trip. It was all about …
    The Guardian-4 Jan 2014

    under the grouping, is this from way back on 30 Dec (no doubt to show Murdoch is a CAGW denier):

    ‘Stuck in our own experiment’: Leader of trapped team insists polar …Fox News-30 Dec 2013

    way down further on the first page of Turney “news” results, u finally get:

    Long Antarctic ship rescue ends in Hobart ABC Online-4 hours ago

    Rescued Antarctic ship passengers return, expedition leaders sorry …ABC Online-7 hours ago

    Stranded Passengers Arrive in Australia The Weather Channel-5 minutes ago

    Rescued Antarctic scientists back on dry land The West Australian-6 hours ago
    Expedition leader Chris Turney said the rescue operation — which included French, Chinese and Australian ships — had been a great example …

    GIVEN ALL THIS, HOW COULD YOU EXPECT THE PUBLIC TO HAVE A CLUE ABOUT THE TURNEY FIASCO?

    90

    • #
      john robertson

      Depends where they get their news.
      CBC in Canada has created a unique situation, more canadians get their news from online sources than watch CBC.
      These state funded Presstitutes are so pathetic, even sworn Liberals no longer watch them.
      The advent of Fox and now Sun Tv have really exposed these plonkers for the intellectual vacuum’s they are.
      “Waste of skin” can be given a number of names.
      You Australians will be currently subject to Abbott Derangement Syndrome, here we have had years of Harper D.S.
      These posers cannot even report the news without spitting at all who doubt their wisdom.
      We voters are stupid, evil and wrong(according to CBC) for electing our conservatives, especially with a majority government.

      70

  • #
    David

    There was a professor called Chris
    Who, on climate, knew all that there is
    Or that’s what he thought
    But in the ice he got caught
    Now everyone’s taking the p***

    200

  • #
    Sonny

    There once was a clown named Prof. Chris Turney,
    Who took his friends on a Antarctic journey.
    Expecting the weather to be nice, they got stuck in some ice,
    Next stop for Chris? An award ceremony.

    140

  • #
    PhilJourdan

    Thank you Speedy! An outstanding poem! I am in awed how different colloquialisms of the English language were woven in to ensure the metering stayed consistent! You have a rare talent!

    As for the Media – a shame that they are merely a product of a failed education system. In whatever country they seem to mispractice their supposed profession.

    50

  • #
    Speedy

    Another Limerick:

    There once was a fellow named Chris,
    A polar “hero” but slightly remiss,
    You see, his theories all sucked –
    From his bum they’d been plucked,
    Which most people found obvi-is!

    Cheers,

    Speedy

    150

  • #
    john gorter

    Well done Speedy (and all the others) !

    Ciao

    John

    10

  • #
    Russell Klier

    A global warming PR stunt that went bad and backfired. The world is left with thousands of images of climate scientists [surrounded by curious penguins!] on a big ship stuck in sea ice that extends from horizon to horizon [in the middle of summer!]. Also we see that the scientist in charge led a scooter full of tourists on a sight-seeing tour after a desperate call to return from the ship’s captain.

    60

  • #
    MadJak

    Utterly brilliant Speedy. Well done!

    20

  • #
    john robertson

    Thanks Speedy brilliant poem.

    10

  • #
    handjive

    Prof. Turney, UNSW Climate Change Research Centre (CCRC), ABC 7.30 Report, 22 Jan 2014:
    “Ultimately, I think this actually is a reflection of how as a scientific community we need to engage perhaps more explaining the science method rather than just the results.”

    UNSW Climate Change Research Centre (CCRC) Vision Statement:
    “The CCRC is the lead institution in the newly formed ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science, a multi-university initiative to advance fundamental climate sciences in Australia.
    UNSW CCRC is a multi-disciplinary research group comprising one of the largest university research facilities of its kind in Australia.” (my bold)

    All of Australia’s best & brightest in education & climate ‘science’ collected in one place.

    How much did tax-payers pay for this example of lazy group think passed off as advancing fundamental climate sciences in Australia:
    Consider a cricketer who starts taking performance-enhancing drugs.
    Suddenly he hits 50% more boundaries in this season than he did in the last one.”

    Uh-oh. 2012 Steroids, baseball, and climate change (youtube)
    UCARNCAR education?

    How lamely un-original.
    After the brain-storming session it took to change the word baseball to cricket, a WEB (well earned break) was surely taken. Possibly in the Antarctic.
    With this advice from UNSW-CCRC Australia’s best & brightest:
    “”Our modelling shows that recent changes in ice and snow cover at the poles have already transformed the amount of light reaching large areas of the Arctic and Antarctic annually,” Johnston said.

    This is a prime example of the large-scale ecological impacts that humans can impose through global warming – even in places as remote as Antarctica,” said Associate Professor Emma Johnston from the University of New South Wales.
    . . .
    That is the quality work by “expertise in the key areas of Earth’s climate: atmospheric, oceanic and terrestrial processes” as presented by the UNSW-CCRC best & brightest.
    No wonder they were stuck in ice their failed computer models failed to see, ignoring their own borrowed failed communication.
    . . .

    ABC Fact Check: Leigh Sales also claims in introduction (not shown) of interview it was a privately funded adventure. FALSE.

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      Bones

      Handjive,if these excellent UNSW climate X spirts can blame hot temps on human induced effects,why is man not the reason for more rain also.Are they not both weather patterns caused by atmospheric conditions?How can we get blamed for one and not the other.I feel ripped off “So, while some recent studies have clearly detected substantial human influences on extreme temperatures across Australia, including the record summer temperature of 2012-13 and the record temperature for the last 12 months, the ability to detect the human-induced effects on extreme precipitation events over our continentremains elusive.”

      20

  • #

    A little note to the poet, Speedy: It is Christian Turney, not Christopher.

    40

  • #
    michael hart

    If there is anybody who is a customer/employee of the Commercial Bank of Australia then they might want to have a word with them to spare their blushes:
    http://blog.commbank.com.au/your-bank/sub-antarctic-experience/

    CommBank sponsored the Doodle-4Google prize expedition which was won by Lisa Baddock. Proud Dad, Wayne Baddock accompanied his daughter to Antarctica. According to the blog they interviewed Wayne just after he returned. The problem is, they dated the article 17th January 2014, several days before the ship returned.

    An honest typographical error? Or the interview was done much earlier by internet or telephone? Well, when asked the question:

    ‘The unknown’ is often the core of adventures. What surprised you most about your trip?

    Wayne is reported as replying:

    “The isolation from the rest of the world. It really gave us the opportunity to connect with the environment around us. We didn’t encounter another vessel throughout the expedition.”

    🙂 And they say you couldn’t make these things up….

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    pat

    LOL. all that’s left is nuclear & a price on carbon dioxide!

    22 Jan: Reuters: Charlie Dunmore: EU sets out leaner 2030 climate and energy vision
    That would allow Britain and others to meet their emissions targets for example by building more nuclear power plants, which are carbon-free but not renewable…
    Current national targets had not proved the most cost effective option and ditching them would give governments more flexibility over how to meet main emission cutting goal, Barroso said.
    The policy outline is not expected to be followed by formal legislative proposals until early next year, and would still require lengthy debate by EU governments and the European Parliament to become law.
    The one firm legislative proposal included in Wednesday’s announcement was a scheme to prop up Europe’s faltering carbon emissions trading market, with the aim of removing carbon permits from circulation to support prices.
    Under the proposal, the Commission would set aside up to 12 percent of carbon permits from 2021, as long as certain conditions are met. Among the conditions is that the number of allowances to be set aside must exceed 100 million…
    http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/01/22/us-eu-climate-idUKBREA0L0V120140122

    UPDATE 1-EU aims to keep free carbon permit rules unchanged over 2015-2019
    LONDON, Jan 22 (Reuters) – The European Commission will not change the criteria it uses to determine which companies can receive free carbon permits under the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) for allocations over 2015-2019, the Commission said in a document on Wednesday…
    http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/reutersnews/1.3801882

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    Just wondering: shouldn’t the frequent manic laughter have alerted those in authority that Turney is not someone you’d want minding your budgie over a weekend, let alone leading a polar expedition?

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    • #
      James (Aus.)

      And childishly pulling stupid faces when being interviewed, Robert.

      You have to wonder about the maturity of the little prat; he’s not a leader’s bootlace.

      40

    • #
      Yonniestone

      Good point, I did wonder if the expedition had established an official chain of command after discovering the landing party fiasco, if Turney was indeed first in command off ship then they should count themselves lucky lives weren’t lost.
      He’s the type of lower ranked officer that get’s “Fragged” during battle.

      10

  • #
    EternalOptimist

    not a limmerick. a double dactyl

    Silly-ous Billy-ous
    Christian Turnery
    Went to Antartica
    To check on the ice

    Ignored the captain
    Quite Inexplicably
    Went back in the ice field
    And got them stuck nice

    10

  • #
    Bite Back

    Russian passenger ship my [snip]! A ship full of fools and their adoring press are still just as ridiculous by another name.

    Can we have our money back? Correction, can you get your money back?

    Russian passenger ship, NOT! 🙁

    BB

    10

  • #
    pat

    with EU jettisoning CAGW policies, we look to China to fill the gap. Fairfax, Huffpo, etc all running this today:

    22 Jan: Reuters: China must spend $330 billion more to do fair share on climate – report
    Reporting by Kathy Chen and Stian Reklev, editing by Mark Heinrich
    China must increase spending on emission cuts and clean technologies by 2 trillion yuan ($330 billion) to do its fair share to halt climate change, a report by Beijing’s Central University of Finance and Economics said.
    It urged the government to raise money from carbon markets to fund investments…
    The report’s conclusion contrasted with China’s official policy that the main responsibility for ramping up action against climate change rests with developed nations…
    “Public funding is essential to address climate change problems, and without a clear signal on CO2 emissions, mitigation projects are not financially attractive to investors,” said the report.
    It called on the government to use carbon markets to auction CO2 permits to help raise climate revenue…
    The report, which has been submitted to the State Council, China’s cabinet, said the state-owned China Development Bank should set up a green investment department to stimulate private and public investment in climate-related projects.
    It further urged the financial market to develop products and mechanisms to draw further funds.
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/22/us-china-climate-idUSBREA0L0VU20140122

    About Us: Central University of Finance and Economics
    The former name of CUFE was Central School of Taxation.
    http://en.cufe.edu.cn/aboutcufe/index.htm

    an example from CUFE:

    LinkedIn: Bo Chen:
    Research Assistant at Central University of Finance and Economics.
    Bo Chen is the Director Assistant of Research Center for Climate and Energy Finance(RCCEF),Central University of Finance and Economics(CUFE). He holds a PhD in Economics at Renmin University of China and two master degrees in Carbon Finance at University of Edinburgh (Chevening Scholar) and Control Engineering at Zhejiang University. He has abundant experiences both in academy and industry. He worked in ERI, NDRC for three years and was involved in many national research programmes in climate change and economics. Before that he worked in SK E&S, Seoul as an energy investment manager. He published a new book named Low Carbon Revolution: What should China do in Next 30 Years funded by Petroleum Industry Press last year…
    http://cn.linkedin.com/pub/bo-chen/29/688/287

    been there, done that previously:

    March 2013: Bloomberg BNA: Shaping China’s Climate Finance Policy (The Climate Group)
    China must raise up to $243 billion of additional funds per year by 2020 to mitigate and adapt to climate change, according to this report prepared for the Chinese government
    The report was produced by The °Climate Group, which promotes clean technologies and policies, and the Research Center for Climate and Energy Finance at China’s Central University of Finance and Economics…
    http://climate.bna.com/climate/document_climapedia.aspx?id=255587&hhterm=KGNsYXNzX25hbWUgY29udGFpbnMgQXNpYS9QYWNpZmljKQ%3D%3D&hhtype=Qm9vbGVhbg%3D%3D

    10

  • #
    pat

    23 Jan: SMH: Andrew Darby: Plan to curb Antarctic expeditions after costly rescue of trapped ship
    The Australian government is pushing to rein in private operators in the Antarctic after the multimillion-dollar rescue of a University of NSW expedition that became caught in pack ice.
    A new law adopted by Australia, but yet to come into force through the Antarctic Treaty, requires all such expeditions to be fully insured for search and rescue, and have their own emergency plans…
    ”We’re having discussions with the insurers of the ship and the insurers of University of NSW, which chartered the ship,” Dr Fleming said. ”It’s up to those discussions where we will be pursuing it next.”
    He said Australia’s Antarctic program might need to be readjusted or delayed for next season.
    The Akademik Shokalskiy rescue costs were also faced by the governments of China, France and the US, which sent ships to help…
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/plan-to-curb-antarctic-expeditions-after-costly-rescue-of-trapped-ship-20140122-3191c.html

    more signs of the retreat:

    22 Jan: UK Daily Mail: Ben Spencer: Climate change is NOT main cause of floods, say experts: Building on plains and cutting down trees are among the true reasons
    Eminent scientists claim over-development is making flooding much worse
    They say the link between global warming and flooding is less certain
    It comes after David Cameron claimed climate change had caused the recent floods in the UK
    The 19 scientists, from prestigious universities and institutes in Britain, the US, Japan, Australia and across Europe, said that while greenhouse gas emissions are ‘strongly linked’ to flooding, there is insufficient evidence to accurately describe the connection.
    They said that until there is firm evidence about the role of climate change, it is better to concentrate on what we do know – that the way we are changing our physical landscape is making flooding worse.
    Many of the authors, all respected climate change scientists, have contributed to UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports. They include Professor Nigel Arnell, from Reading University’s department of meteorology, Robert Muir-Wood, a London-based consultant who advises the OECD and UN…
    The paper, published in the Hydrological Sciences Journal yesterday, says: ‘There is such a furore of concern about the linkage between greenhouse forcing [the process by which man-made greenhouse gases are said to force climate change] and floods that it causes society to lose focus on the things we already know for certain about floods and how to mitigate and adapt to them.
    ‘Blaming climate change for flood losses makes flood losses a global issue that appears to be out of the control of regional or national institutions…
    But the authors say that when it comes to climate change they had only ‘low confidence’ in models that try to forecast the impact on flooding…
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2543600/Climate-change-NOT-main-cause-floods-say-experts-Building-plains-cutting-trees-true-reasons.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490

    22 Jan: SMH: Peter Hannam: Tipping El Ninos harder as Pacific sensor array output ‘collapses’
    Floating sensors that have predicted extreme weather events for decades and saved lives in the process have been left to “collapse” amid vandalism and US budget cuts.
    The United States and Japan set up the Tropical Pacific Observing System – made up of about 70 buoys – after a large El Nino event in 1982-83 caught forecasters unaware…
    But the performance of the moored devices, which take atmospheric readings and monitor conditions down to 500 metres below the sea’s surface, has fallen to about 40 per cent since 2012, according to the the climate observation director of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, David Legler…
    That is affecting the ability of forecasters and climate modellers, including those in Australia, to predict extreme weather patterns…
    “The collapse in the data return from the array has happened very rapidly,” head of CSIRO ocean-observing research Susan Wijffels said. “That has taken the community by surprise.”…
    Scientists from around the world will gather at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, California next week, to discuss how to sustain or replace the array…
    http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/tipping-el-ninos-harder-as-pacific-sensor-array-output-collapses-20140122-318q4.html

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    • #
      handjive

      @Pat’s 2nd link:

      So now we have a situation where the climate scientists are claiming the spot where the missing heat is supposed to have gone, to explain the halt in global temperatures that isn’t happening, is in an area where reliable equipment has ‘suddenly’ failed.

      Sounds like weasel words to me.

      Add this information:
      Sea levels rising, and so is the CSIRO’s margin for error
      RECORDS of global sea level rises may be out by as much as 14 per cent on official findings, a climate change study released shows.
      . . .
      Settled science? More like junk science.
      Wouldn’t bet the economy on it.

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    handjive

    This quote is a doozy:

    “The federal government is considering how to replace the 24-year-old Aurora Australia, which was caught in the ice for 12 days in November before it broke free.

    ”One of the criteria of a new vessel will be its requirement to be deployed for search and rescue events,” Dr Fleming said.

    Its captain, Murray Doyle, said his ship could break ice up to 1.3 metres thick. ”It’d be very nice to have more capability.
    . . .
    Question for Antarctic Climate Specialist Prof. Turney:

    If the antarctic ice is melting because of Global Warming, is Capt. Doyle scientifically ignorant claiming to need a new ship with more capability to rescue people from ice?

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      Franny by Coal light

      If the perception of Global Warming means more dipsticks like this visiting the Arctic he’s going to need a lot more capability. Shutting down the UNSW Centre for Climatic Excess might be rather more effective to avoiding such tragedies though.

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    pat

    michael hart –

    Baddocks were on Leg One, it would seem.

    can’t copy from here, but it mentions the comp & the dates are from 27 Nov to 7 Dec – Lisa Baddock also gets a mention in a comment.
    http://www.lottos.com.au/competitions/viewthreadlite.php?tid=349170

    also:

    Climate Audit – Shub Niggurath wrote –
    Google, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Argo ATV sponsored portions of the trip. In fact, Google sent one of their marketing executives on the expedition to Antarctica. The Commonwealth Bank selected a Lisa Baddock to go after soliciting a short text passage on its contest Facebook page from entrants describing how excited they would be to go to Antartica. Interestingly enough, there was no entry from a Lisa Baddock on the page but she was declared a winner.
    http://climateaudit.org/2014/01/15/ship-of-fools/

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    incoherent rambler

    forget shutting down the ABC. just get rid of these ridiculous people

    Has anyone else noticed that ignorance and incompetence quickly rises to the top in media, university and government organizations?

    Methinks we now have a society where rewards are inversely proportional to the square of the intellect of the individual.

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      Franny by Coal light

      Awards are so often just inducements to future behaviour, in the recipient or in others, of which Barry’s Nobel must be the most exemplary of recent times.

      20

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    john

    Nice poem.

    Here is something that I found both shocking and funny as hell. This will be one reason why Reuters, who used to have a good track record reporting prior to this (although there are financial conflicts of interest), has lost my respect. I would have expected this from The Onion.

    NO RELIEF FOR EARTH’S WARMING TREND IN 2013, STUDIES FIND

    http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/reutersnews/1.3795684?&ref=searchlist

    Jan 21 (Reuters) – The average temperature of Earth maintained its warming trend in 2013, despite seasonal and regional variations that included a shrinking ice cap in the Arctic and a massively growing one in the southern hemisphere, U.S. scientists said on Tuesday.

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    • #
      john

      Keep in mind my last few post over the last 3 days.

      Every corner of China’s economy, inc. oil, green energy, mining + arms trading, appears in the #chinaleaks data http://bit.ly/1cJwSQr

      Keep in mind, Gold Wind, UPC/IVPC/First Wind, Evergreen, Xinjiang/A-123, Extreme Power.

      50

  • #
    pat

    drip, drip, drip…

    23 Jan: Bloomberg: Alesandro Vitelli: EU Ban on UN Carbon May Flag End of Offset Market, Nomisma Says
    A proposed European Union ban on the use of United Nations carbon credits in its emissions market may signal the end of the international offset market, according to energy consultant Nomisma Energia srl…
    Factories in the EU’s carbon market have been able since 2008 to offset a portion of their pollution limits with credits generated by projects in the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism. The price for UN-overseen credits slumped 98 percent in the past six years, reducing the incentive for nations to invest in less-polluting energy in developing economies.
    “The EU decision might be the end of the CDM as a market,” Matteo Mazzoni, an analyst at Nomisma Energia in Bologna, Italy, said in a phone interview today. “There will still be some trading and people will try to extract something from their investments in projects, but without any new demand there isn’t much of a market anyway.” …
    Trade in UN Certified Emission Reductions dropped 70 percent to 464 million metric tons in 2013 after hitting a record 1.57 billion tons in 2012, according to data from ICE Futures Europe exchange in London…
    “It’s disappointing that there’s no international offsets after 2020,” even from the least-developed nations, said Andrei Marcu, senior adviser at the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels. “That will put a dampener on investment in emission-reduction projects” and potentially on carbon-cutting programs in emerging nations, he said…
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-22/eu-ban-on-un-carbon-may-flag-end-of-offset-market-nomisma-says.html

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    John Of Cloverdale WA

    Turney on the ABC last night appeared a little punch drunk.

    40

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      Dave

      John Of Cloverdale WA

      Totally agree, 3 parts to the wind. So many stumbles, missed words and corrections. Watched it 3 times and seems worse. “Internet international effort????” You’re right on the money.

      The guy is under pressure for blowing nearly $4 million, and he jumps on the juice.

      20

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    Safetyguy66

    OT to lighten the mood a little.

    Which is more bizarre the “Christian Science Monitor” playing it’s MSM role in repeating the lines?

    http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-Update/2014/0122/Global-warming-trend-continues-so-why-are-we-all-shivering-video

    Or their quiz….?

    http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2012/0928/Think-you-know-the-odd-effects-of-global-climate-change-Take-our-quiz/island

    The thing I love about Christians and AGW is the inexplicable dichotomy of being a christian and an AGW disciple. I mean if you sincerely believe in a personal God and an afterlife, why the hell (no pun) would you care what happens to the climate? Surely any changes in the climate are the work of God and it wont be a worry to you when your in paradise anyway. If anyone can explain in 40,000 000 words or less how that all links together, I wont bother reading it.

    God did it, no CO2 did it, no wait….. who needs the comedy channel, just talk to the person next to you lol…

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    pat

    not a hint of CC/AGW/CAGW/MMGW, of course, but:

    22 Jan: UK Independent: Steve Connor: Communication breakdown on board the Akademik Shokalskiy blamed for the ship being stranded in Antarctic ice over Christmas
    Serious questions have been raised about the behaviour of the expedition scientists who led a group of tourists and journalists onto the ice without properly planning for the rapid evacuation ordered by the ship’s captain as he became increasingly concerned about being trapped by sea ice…
    Andrew Luck-Baker, a BBC radio producer who was one of the four journalists on the expedition, said that most of the 52 passengers were fee-paying tourists and there were chaotic scenes on the ice during the period when Captain Kiselev was trying to get them back to the ship.
    “The expedition leaders could have some tough questions to face about logistical shortcomings that may have put the vessel at increased risk of becoming trapped. These were operational errors and mishaps during a visit by scientists and tourists to a location close to the Antarctic shore on 23 December,” Mr Luck-Baker said…
    The expedition, which The Independent understands was sailing under a tourist permit rather than a research permit, has been criticised by some seasoned Antarctic scientists…
    ***Professor Turney said: “The timeline in the SMH article is inaccurate. I strongly reject any suggestion that I would knowingly put the safety of my team members at risk.”…
    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/communication-breakdown-on-board-the-akademik-shokalskiy-blamed-for-the-ship-being-stranded-in-antarctic-ice-over-christmas-9078090.html

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    pat

    i don’t think Roston realises quite how funny this is:

    23 Jan: Bloomberg: Eric Roston: Is It Hot In Here or Is It Just Me Telling You It’s Hot In Here?
    As the mercury drops in the eastern U.S. this week, expect snow, icy driving conditions and ludicrous statements about global warming from Donald Trump and Rush Limbaugh…
    A new study in a leading peer-reviewed journal, Nature Climate Change, asks why the local warming effect should be so influential. The researchers conducted several experiments to try to overcome participants’ reliance on cues from weather. The work was led by Lisa Zaval of Columbia University’s Center for Research on Environmental Decisions…
    A third approach investigated the effect of “priming,” or providing subtle topic cues. Researchers gave subjects hotness or coldness cues before answering questions about climate change. Study participants were asked to make four-word sentences from five-word groups, such as:
    potatoes she the roasted it

    Or:

    the shivers man old of

    People who were given “hot” priming sentences tended to believe and be concerned about climate change science more than those given “cold” or neutral sentences…ETC ETC
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-22/is-it-hot-in-here-or-is-it-just-me-telling-you-it-s-hot-in-here-.html

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    Eliza Doodle

    OT. What Time Zone is your Internet Server in Jo ?
    It appears to be 5 minutes fast btw., wherever it is.

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    • #

      and I am just writing to congratulate you on an excellent pseudonym.

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      Rereke Whakaaro

      Our your local clock reference could be 5 minutes slow?

      20

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      Rereke Whakaaro

      I take that back, I timed it against NIST, and the server is five minutes fast. The question is: Is that relevant to this blog, where all the comments will be out by the same relative amount?

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        Safetyguy66

        97% of the comments will be unaffected.

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        Eliza Doodle

        ” Is that relevant to this blog, where all the comments will be out by the same relative amount? “

        It may be when you post then notice from the time stamp you haven’t posted it yet. You might then , even if just fleetingly but after checking your own time reference, begin doubting your own sanity. It doesn’t seem to match any English speaking Time Zone though and quite irregardless of the odd 5 minutes.. Why oh why does Central Australia NT & SA have that odd 1/2 hour in their offset from their neighbours ? Only the tiny Himalayan country of Nepal seems more eccentric with its 3/4 hr offset.

        All that aside though it seems to put this site in New Guinea, Japan, Korea or Yakutsk time.

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      mmxx

      It’s only to be expected that we suffer these extreme time variation events in these desperate CAGW times. One of my poinciana trees failed to flower again this year – the first time since CO2 was adjudged a dastard global villain in IPCC consensus court and Y2K laid waste global digital communications in 2000. (Sarc switch turned off at this point.)

      10

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    old44

    60 scientists” left , 60 tourists returned.

    What, did they get decommissioned down there?

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    scaper...

    I see that Greg Hunt will be pursuing the Ship of Fools for the cost of their rescue. Through the insurance company, but what then if the insurance company won’t pay out due to Turney’s negligence?

    Don’t have to be a climate scientist to know who will have to stump up the $2.4M.

    Pay walled.

    20

    • #
      James (Aus.)

      Hunt will busy himself with that instead of organising the immediate removal of the Renewable Energy Target and Renewable Energy Certificates (aka subsidies).

      What a veritable little beaver he is, doing anything but tackling the Green scam and rorts that are damaging this country.

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      • #
        scaper...

        Emailed Greg about an hour ago.

        Greg,

        The reports in the media indicate that Turney was instructed to return to the ship by the captain. He disobeyed the order and hence the ship became ice bound.

        If this is indeed the truth, I doubt that the insurance company will pay out.

        If it is the case, is the commonwealth going to take action against Turney and his employer to cover the cost of the rescue and the disruption of the science teams that were doing real science in Antarctica?

        T

        Have received a reply.

        10

        • #
          Dave

          scaper…

          What’s the reply, the standard Greg Hunt response letter?

          00

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            scaper...

            Nah, sent from his iPhone, old chap.

            Method and madness comes to mind. Show trial?

            Maybe the first of many that will have to take the stand?

            There will be no protection.

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            • #
              Dave

              Dud you this this in the SMH?

              Greg said this:

              “However, what we see here is that there are some questions as to whether or not the ship was detained by the action of those on board within an area that the captain had identified as being potentially subject to being frozen in.”

              “We will be seeking full cost recovery through insurance for the up to $2.4 million costs incurred by the Australian government,” Mr Hunt said.

              Is this where the insurance companies go hell for leather against UNSW and Prof Turkey? Going to be interesting.

              20

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      mmxx

      Recovery of the $2.4M rescue costs from the 52 scientourists is reasonable. They could be about to learn of an unexpected voyage premium cost escalation for some landing in Antarctica (perhaps more specifically on sea ice near Antarctica) of $46,150 each.

      When these invoices hit home, will on-board disciples of CAGW stump up unquestionably? Waverers, however, may feel more that a bit peeved with the University of New South Wales (UNSW) as the organiser of this fiasco.

      UNSW must publicly release a full detailed costing of this escapade and identify any public funding involved. If public funding was used, those amounts too should be recovered.

      UNSW should bear the rescue costs initially and recover the amount from the participants as appropriate.

      Prof Turney has showcased UNSW’s incompetence through the organising and conduct on this summer cruise.

      That UNSW SpiritofMawson’s organisational incompetence must alert the public to also now shine a spotlight on the entrenched soft university playground schemes involving spending of public research dollars, for example, international travel and the labyrinthine money-trail systems of Australian universities’ sabbatical programs for its academics.

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  • #
    Mattb

    Your last link here “and they underwent a magical transformation to become a “Russian Passenger Ship“.”

    portrays that it is an ABC rebadging of the trip… but it’s a link to The West Australian… not exactly a public organisation doing the will of the government.

    02

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      James

      Unlike the practice of global warming alarmist’s explaining the Turney Expedition cluster f#@k to prove historic levels of declining sea ice as a localised sea ice increase anomaly.

      20

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      Dave

      MattyB,

      You say:

      portrays that it is an ABC rebadging of the trip

      MattyB, have your been to the link? The West Australian got the info from the ABC.

      They said on the ABC
      “The Australian icebreaker Aurora Australis arrived in Hobart this morning carrying 52 passengers from the Akademik Shokalskiy.”
      And their headline said:
      “Rescued Antarctic ship passengers return, expedition leaders sorry for disruption”

      MattyB, grasping at straws stuck in the icecream Green Gravy Train

      20

  • #
    ROM

    Steve McIntyre, a retired and very astute and skilled oil fields assessor for the sake of a better description, runs the Climate Audit blog which in the whole of the climate science and climate blogger world probably rank as THE most respected and feared by some, blog on both sides of climate science.

    For the purveyors of seriously bad, often deliberately corrupted and sheer incompetent climate warming science, McIntyre would have to be one of the most feared and hated individuals by all those whose science he has torn to shreds through his amazing forensic and analytical ability to find the pea under the thimble as he calls it, in so much of their pathetic attempts at science.
    And he is not or was not a skeptic but perhaps was or maybe still is a luke warmer.

    When Steve Mc decides to take an interest in your science and affairs he will always have a darn good reason for doing so, so it is then time to be afraid, very afraid.
    And that perhaps is what the University of NSW should be starting to seriously think about now

    Climate Audit headlines this latest post is

    The Copyright of the The Copenhagen Diagnosis

    Readers may recall The Copenhagen Diagnosis, a (so-to-speak) non-governmental international climate assessment published in November 2009 and targeted by activists at influencing deliberations at the Copenhagen conference. Because it coincided with Climategate, it received little-to-no critical attention at climate blogs. Thus, I suspect that few, if any readers, will (without peeking) be able to guess the answer to today’s trivia question about The Copenhagen Diagnosis: who holds the copyright to The Copenhagen Diagnosis itself?

    .

    The 2009 document The Copenhagen Diagnosis

    I never knew of this document until now but just a quick perusal of this document indicates it contains the most extraordinary range of predicted catastrophic climate related events about to descend on the planet.
    All due entirely and only to mankind’s complete perfidiousness towards the holy Gaia along with mankind’s abject failure to heed the strident warnings and demands for action and more funding from the authors listed in this document along with their accomplices who in their expert and all knowing climate science exclusivity were THE authorities who were unquestionably qualified to give firm and unchallengeable advice and a firm basis for immediate as specified by themselves, climate warming mitigation action on the part of the political apparatchiks.

    The list of authors of this document is a veritable who’s who of the worst of the alarmist climate science world ‘s advocates and corrupting of climate science on a grand scale.
    And the grand conspirator of this collection of educated idiots skilled in the ways of showing all how never to do science is;

    ©2009 UNSW Climate Change Research Centre
    UNSW Sydney NSW 2052
    Australia
    Title: The Copenhagen Diagnosis
    Subtitle: Updating the World on the Latest Climate Science
    This report should be cited as:
    The Copenhagen Diagnosis, 2009: Updating the World on the Latest Climate Science.
    I. Allison, N.L. Bindoff, R.A. Bindschadler, P.M. Cox, N. de Noblet, M.H. England, J.E. Francis, N.
    Gruber, A.M. Haywood, D.J. Karoly, G. Kaser, C. Le Quéré, T.M. Lenton, M.E. Mann, B.I. McNeil,
    A.J. Pitman, S. Rahmstorf, E. Rignot, H.J. Schellnhuber, S.H. Schneider, S.C. Sherwood, R.C.J.
    Somerville, K. Steffen, E.J. Steig, M. Visbeck, A.J. Weaver. The University of New South Wales
    Climate Change Research Centre (CCRC), Sydney, Australia, 60pp.
    ______________________________________________
    We can look at the Executive Summary here of “the science is settled” and a “consensus” reigns that mankind and his CO2 emmissions were on the way to destroying life and the planet as we knew it and marvel at the total hubris of it all.
    Just a mere 4 years later Nature and the Climate and the unfolding of new science is leading to an increasing loss of confidence by the warmist advocates in their own models and in their modeled climate predictions which makes a totally laughable mockery of all the high flown arrogant claims and predictions made in this document by the authors and the UNSW’s.

    The existence of this document authored by all those so called climate scientists who with their arrogant closed shutoff minds and arrogant rejections and rabid denigration of any other science based potential grounds for the past global temperature trends is now leaving all of them looking like little more than educated idiots and scientific poseurs of little or no value, veracity or relevance to today’s rapidly changing climate science.

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    Sunray

    Sorry, but I am having a problem alternation between laughing and crying. By the way, this farce seems to have really annoyed the staff writers at the taxpayer funded Drum, because their latest efforts are unconcealed elitist, arrogant, contemptuous diatribes, to anyone who is not of the Warmist Faith. I know that is not unusual, but the intensity nastiness is way up there.

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    Sunray

    Sorry but “alternation” should read “alternating”, and “intensity” should be followed by “and”.

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    PeterS

    When is Abbott going to wake up and do something serious about the ABC? Everyone knows it’s just a propaganda front for the ALP that’s funded by the tax payer. Please do something Abbott; PLEASE! Show us you have the guts to do it; or are you too chicken?

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    william2

    I don’t read a lot of poetry, but I savoured every word Speedy, well done.

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    David

    I couldn’t watch much of that ABC interview with Turney.
    He’d be out of his depth on a damp pavement…

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    Andrew McRae

    This issue has been done to death already, but did anyone else notice the following red herrings and contradictions in the official story?

    LEIGH SALES: Your mission has been subject to ridicule in some quarters. This editorial from The Australian pretty well sums up the tenor of it: “We have to feel a touch of sympathy for the global warming scientists and others stuck in impenetrable ice in Antarctica. The mission they so confidently embarked on to establish solid evidence of melting icecaps resulting from climate change, embarrassingly abandoned because the ice is in fact improbably thick.” What’s your response to that kind of commentary?
    CHRIS TURNEY: There’s obviously a – oh, no, there’s obviously misunderstanding with regards the impact of climate environmental change. This was not a climate change issue. It’s clearly a misunderstanding between continental ice and sea ice. This was an issue where the sea ice had broken out from another part of Antarctica and then moved by weather.

    The Australian is imprecise and wrong about the relevance of land-based “icecaps”. The ships’ problem was too much sea ice, which at -2° would be affected by warming much sooner than land ice at -15°. In a warming Antarctic there would still be less of the stuff floating about no matter which way the wind blows. But the IPCC in AR5 draft was quite unambiguous:

    It is very likely that the annual Antarctic sea ice extent increased at a rate of between 1.2 and 1.8% per decade between 1979 and 2012. There was a greater increase in sea ice area, due to a decrease in the percentage of open water within the ice pack.

    Right, so Turney says their misadventures were not related to expectations of global warming melting sea ice and the IPCC says Antarctic sea ice has NOT been melting, it’s been expanding. The darn climate deniers at The Australian have made it all up again, glad we got that cleared up.

    CHRIS TURNEY: Ultimately, I think this actually is a reflection of how as a scientific community we need to engage perhaps more explaining the science method rather than just the results.

    It’s great that he should perfectly understand the scientific method and explain it to the public, but he can do that from his comfy office in Sydney, he didn’t need 2 MILLION BUCKS AND AN ICEBREAKER to do it! For 2 million dollars we expect RESULTS.

    CHRIS TURNEY: It sounds a bit like the wonderful quote from Carl Sagan where he said, “If we don’t communicate the science method, how is the public meant to know the difference between pseudo-science and science?”

    Jo, I think you just got a new recruit, one Chris Turney. 😉

    But what was the real impact of global warming on the area if it wasn’t melting continental ice and definitely wasn’t melting sea ice?

    EMMA JOHNSTON, EARTH AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES, UNSW: We have these special communities underneath the sea ice that really don’t exist elsewhere. … You have sponges that are as tall as me, sea squirts and anemones out this large.
    MATT PEACOCK: When the sea ice melts earlier, these species are being squeezed out by beds of algae like these, filmed further north.
    EMMA JOHNSTON: These communities can only exist because the sea ice is actually dropping the amount of light hitting the sea floor, which means they don’t get outcompeted by algae. So what we’re talking about is the loss of these filter feeding communities, these invertebrate communities that exist, as far as we know, nowhere else.

    So there you have it. Global warming is causing the sea ice to melt and is NOT causing the sea ice to melt, and if you don’t understand that then you’re obviously suffering a “misunderstanding with regards the impact of climate environmental change.” This AAE team are quantum mechanics geniuses, they’ve discovered Schrödinger’s Sponge, which is in a simultaneous quantum superposition of safe and endangered.
    Again, if you want to take these people seriously you have to have an MSM-level of amnesia.

    I suspect there is no global warming endangerment to the community of bottom-feeding invertebrate sponges at UNSW.

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    Kevin White

    A picture often worth a thousand words

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    Speedy

    Morning all.

    Unlike Climate Scientists, amateur writers like I accept the need for improvement. Your comments have been taken aboard in the text below. Humanity thanks you.

    Mawson’s Spirit Gets Right of Reply.

    There seems no shortage, nor a dearth, of those who plan to save our earth;
    Christian Turney, (“That’s Professor, thanks”), decided he would join their ranks,
    So he organised his own crusade, somewhat pricey, mostly paid,
    By largesse of the public purse – not the last time, nor the first.

    His purpose and his noble goal – to sail towards the Southern Pole,
    To collect, collate and then report, all data of the climate sort,
    Thus confirming something we all “knew” – the evil role of CO2;
    Any changes he would show, compared to Mawson, years ago.

    (To raise the profile of his scheme, he passed it off as “Mawson’s Dream”.)
    Apart from that, not much to do, just hire a boat with Russian crew,
    And, to tabulate the climate ruin, invite some friends and camera crew in;
    (These climate types, I don’t know why, are rarely, rarely camera shy.)

    The ship sailed southward, out to sea, and all was going, swimmingly,
    However, as South Pole beckoned, a fact arose; no-one had reckoned,
    That, despite what they had all been told, the South Pole still was JOLLY COLD!
    And, nearly 60 k’s away from shore, the ship was blocked, could go no more.

    Chris gazed upon the icy sea; “We’ll disembark, – just follow me,
    To explore the ice; it’s truly awesome – we’re gonna do a Dougie Mawson!”
    So the kiddies all got off and played, but tragically, they overstayed;
    For when they returned, the time had passed – the ship by now was stuck and fast!

    These latest antics off the coast, had worn quite thin with Russian host;
    To Chris he cried: “You stupid jerk! You’ve cost me time and lots of work!
    I’m sure you thought it would be nice, to take that frolic on the ice;
    You came back late, now, thanks to you, my ship is firmly in the pooh.”

    “Your mission’s goal was crystal clear – you had but just the one idea,
    To preen and ponce, pontificate, while playing judge to mankind’s fate;
    And earnestly parade your views, while looking good for camera crews –
    But I’d be more impressed, my climate chap, if you’d learnt to read a weather map!”

    “You’re very wrong, my Russian friend, for I know how this scene will end –
    The climate models clearly show, a future lack of ice and snow,
    And while models may be thin on proof, we treat them as the Gospel truth,
    So therefore soon, perhaps today, we’ll free this ship and sail away.”

    Three days later…

    But cold it was, and stuck they stayed – a few were getting quite dismayed:
    “Oh won’t you come and save us please – we’d much prefer not stay and freeze –
    And if your ship burns fossil fuel, it’s quite OK, we’re really cool.”
    Our icebound heroes were at wit’s ends, and sent some “selfies” to their friends…

    That evening…

    After dinner, and a well-aged red, Chris did toddle off to bed,
    To ponder the ship’s immobile status, (it could only be a mild hiatus),
    And what the press would have to say, as they saw that ice just melt away –
    So he dreamed his dream, as he closed his eyes, of that long-awaited Nobel Prize…

    He awoke at midnight, and became aware, of the ghost which stood in silence there,
    His slimy green skin and his icy cold breath – this guy was having a lousy death,
    And was not at all a happy ghost, being most abrupt towards his host;
    “Wakey, wakey, Climate Priest – you know how it is with us deceased,

    Turning up at awkward hours, invoking all our spooky powers;
    Groaning and moaning and delivering lectures, that’s afterlife for all us spectres,
    Floating on air along the halls, then disappearing through the walls;
    But, I think you’ll find me extra awesome – for I am the ghost of Douglas Mawson!

    And I, myself, have something new – a few “ideas” I feel that you
    Would be advised quite full and well, to remember, recollect and tell
    Your colleagues of a similar ilk, those who lie and cheat, defraud and bilk.
    For I am annoyed at you, to say the least – you’ve cheesed me off, you Climate Priest!

    One hundred years ago, nigh on the day, I steamed my boat into this Bay,
    And, well before your climate “crisis”, we landed where the coast was iceless.
    Now this self-same spot, post global “warming”, is blocked by all the sea-ice forming,
    So, despite the “wisdom” of your creed, the facts, it seems, have disagreed.

    But facts are dull, and oh so dreary – they contradict your precious theory,
    But you climate chaps know what to do – you implement a “trick” or two,
    To “educate” the public mind, and, (for causes of this noble kind),
    You deem deception just and right. (All lies by Greens are small and white.)

    As an example use this present case, this very boat, this very place,
    Locked in ice you thought had melted; your theory, sir, I say, is belted!
    But that conclusion would not do! For it contravened your point of view –
    So, with sophistry and convolution, you ascribe both hot AND cold to man’s pollution!

    Which makes your theory quite absurd – as nothing more than bovine merde –
    Then, to show how much you just don’t know – you change the story as you go,
    And to ensure the public understands, you raise your voice and wave your hands;
    You thus escalate the public fears, and gain approval from your peers.

    But the fact remains, you can’t disguise – that what you tell are porky pies,
    As has been done, times countless past, by those of upper climate caste,
    Lies of fact, lies of exclusion, lies of logic, lies of collusion,
    Are stock in trade for a thieves’ alliance – but they have no place in open science.

    If you know your facts and have the proof – it’s very easy, tell the truth –
    But if you’re any less than total Francis, you have to go and take your chances,
    With cons and shams and tricks and cheats, hockey stick graphs and missing heats –
    And oh what a tangled web we do weave, when first we practice to deceive!

    You blazed your path to fame and glory, by telling less than half the story,
    And if ever there was room for doubt, you’d skip the bits you wanted out,
    To reach the sure and safe conclusion, approved and blessed with team collusion;
    And though you’re just a phoney prophet, you somehow get your jollies off it.

    Half-baked theories and utter twaddle, you embed these in a “climate model”,
    While your “settled science” – that proud consensus – is a roll-call of the vain pretentious,
    Your fellow travellers, who so richly gain, from coasting on this gravy train.
    But when your friends are wrong – which is hardly new – you label it as “Peer Review”.

    But these shams and fakes and little tricks, they’re not science, they are politics,
    And what I find is really lame – you do these things and use MY name,
    As if to suggest or imply, of course, that I would support or like endorse,
    You, your theory, or your acts, which both hide the truth and twist the facts.

    So I’d thank you please, in future verbals, invoke the name of Joseph Goebbels.”

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    […] Nova further reported the return of polar expedition members to Australia on January 21:  The ABC PR machine covers for their embarrassment — lest anybody […]

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