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The Bloggies awards were so enthused that skeptics dominated the Science and Tech category that they removed the category. So I suggested skeptical readers pick different categories, and lo and behold today skeptics win in six different areas.
Thousands of readers will not go away.
I’d like to thank especially, the Mainstream Media, without which I would have hardly any traffic. I dedicate this win today to the science journalists in the ABC, BBC, CBC, CBS or CNN, and to Roger Harrabin, Andy Revkin and George Monbiot — all of whom make it so easy for skeptical blogs to flourish. Their promotion of logical fallacies, one-sided reports, and rank name-calling paves the way, en masse for hundreds of thousands of disappointed, thoughtful, inquisitive readers to hunt online for something better.
If science journalists were good scientists or good journalists skeptical blogs would not be one of the largest single categories on the world wide web. (Judging from the other winners, the mainstream media is also lacking in Moms).
Best European Weblog, Winner: Tallbloke’s Talkshop
Best Weblog About Politics, Winner: The Global Warming Policy Foundation
Best Topical Weblog ,Winner: Climate Audit […]
Just another signpost on the road to Sensible-land. Remember how skeptics were the fringe minority, the dying dinosaurs, and there were only a few left on the planet? That was last week. Suddenly, begrudgingly, being a skeptic is fashionable (but still wrong, of course). This is “fashionable” in the sense of popular but meaningless, not storming Gucci-type chic, more like getting a high-def TV built into the fridge door. It’s trendy but essentially useless. (By the way, the cool TV has a remote control, DVD and FM radio so you… don’t have to get off the kitchen floor. I suppose it’s just a matter of time before the TV in the family-room will get a fridge built in?)
But I digress.
The Telegraph has the headline “Global warming – there’s hope amid the gloom” .
Geoffrey Lean tells us “scepticism has replaced concern about climate change”, and you and I might think, that therefore, global leaders ought to pay attention to their citizens. But Lean says more skepticism means world leaders have to shout at the punters even louder. Never, ever assume the voters are right.
Lean hasn’t read Marcel Crok and Nicholas Lewis’s report about climate sensitivity being lower […]
Australian Outback | Photo by Geoff Sherrington | (Click to enlarge)
… Photo by Geoff Sherrington
9.1 out of 10 based on 17 ratings
Friday curiosity: Duck-diving Cuvier’s beaked whales can hold their breath for over two hours, and reach a depth of 2 miles (3.2 km) underwater. What’s more, when they come up, they recover in an unbelievable two minutes. (Actually, I really do find this hard to believe. Two minutes? Seriously? )
Cuvier Beaked Whale | Oceanus Magazine Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
These whales can go four times deeper than modern nuclear submarines which are estimated to have a hull crush depth of around 730m. Presumably the Department of Defence will be looking into blubber power or nuclear whales.
But seriously, whales and seals can hold their breath for a ridiculously long time because they pack a lot of oxygen away in their muscles — it’s attached to myoglobin which they have in abundance. Myoglobin‘s quite a lot like the haemoglobin molecule found in blood, it uses iron to bind the oxygen.
For a completely useless culinary tip, whale meat is thus the absolute reddest-of-red-meats and very iron rich — “perfect” then, for anemic vegetarians.
Scientists monitored Cuvier’s beaked whales’ record-breaking dives to depths of nearly two miles below the ocean surface and some dives lasted for over […]
Dennis Jensen, M.P. in the Australian Parliament, made a formal parliamentary request for an audit of the BOM and CSIRO data handling processes.
This is an excellent request, something Australia desperately needs. Good data on the climate.
Given how important our climate is, I’m sure Tim Flannery, The Climate Council, The Australian Conversation Foundation, and The Australian Greens will join us in demanding that the BOM and CSIRO datasets are independently audited. Naturally, all of us would want to ensure our climate data is of the highest quality possible and not subject to any kinds of confirmation bias, or inexplicable adjustments. Right? And maybe its even worse than we thought, so they will want to check, yes?
Let’s leave no stone unturned in making sure we understand the threats to the Australian environment, the impact on our farms and homes, and on our National Balance Sheet! How could any Green disagree?
…
Dennis Jensen talks about the response he got from the BOM and the questions he did not get answered:
” … the BOM state the temperature trend prior to 1910 is unreliable. But the IPCC use data on Australia going back to 1850. So […]
The IPCC Working Group II report is due out next week. As is the way, the summary is leaked in advance so the media can slaver over the ghastly possibilities, while the irksome details and accountability are held back so they don’t get in the way of the media pump. But alas, like Paul Reiter, and Christopher Landsea, another lead author wants his name removed from the IPCC document.
UK professor refuses to put his name to ‘apocalyptic’ UN climate change survey that he claims is exaggerating the effects Prof Richard Tol said UN academics were exaggerating climate change Comes as a blow to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Panel to publish its first update in seven years on the impacts of climate change
By Ben Spencer, Daily Mail
Professor Richard Tol, an economist at the University of Sussex, said fellow UN academics were exaggerating climate change and comparing it to the ‘apocalypse’.
Prof Tol, the lead co-ordinating author of the report’s chapter on economics, was involved in drafting the summary for policymakers – the key document that goes to governments and scientists. But he has now asked for his name to be removed from the document. […]
RMR (Rick Mercer Report) sends up the long winter. Love that Canadian sense of humour. : – )
Pace, Paul Howard’s comment on youtube: here’s sending a group hug for our Canadian friends.
h/t Richard
9.6 out of 10 based on 80 ratings
Bureaucrats have not only taken over much of the science world, but even the parts of the bureaucracy designed to hunt out corruption in science are incapacitated with bureaucracy-at-its-worst too. This is second order corruption — even the checks and balances on corruption are corrupted.
As James Delingpole points out: Science is rife with corruption, incompetence, dishonesty and fabrication–and now, thanks to a frank resignation letter by the US’s top scientific misconduct official we have a better idea why.
Government science desperately needs auditing– or the free market solution, competition
One in 50 scientists admitted to have fabricated, falsified or modified data or results at least once. It’s not just about fraud, it’s about bias, and statistical sloppiness. Up to 30% admitted other questionable research practices. When asked about their colleagues, 14% said other scientists falsified results, and 70% used other questionable research practices (Fanelli 2009). In the modern electronic science world, not only are many results not replicated, but the raw data itself is not even available for checking most of the time. Research shows that scientists who withhold data are more likely to have published errors (see below). Half of the papers in high-end journals contained some […]
Remember the decidedly uncivilized protests we had here in Australia last week, called the “March-in-March”?
Tim Blair, of The Daily Telegraph, laments that he made fun of the kind-hearted and caring people who wore shirts suggesting they’d like to have sex with our Prime Minister, or alternately, to kill him. In a brilliant move he suggests the right thing to do is a mass national counter protest called “Work on Wednesday”. I’m in! Will you join me?
Celebrate civilization & democracy, and help the GDP too — Work on Wednesday!
Let’s make it global. This crosses national boundaries and cultures, it’s about democracy. It’s about being civilized. It’s about not using free speech to metaphorically behead, kill, or abort people. It’s about having an argument instead of just an insult.
Let’s show them how a civilized protest is done.
Twitter: @WorkonWednesday. Retweet it to your friends.
Tim Blair explains:
I was also wrong to dismiss the March in March movement as inconsequential. This is because I hadn’t realised the rules had changed, and that last September’s election can now be overruled by some shouty people whose total number amounts to only around one-tenth […]
What insight. ‘Tis prosaic — Nick Cohen in The Guardian packs more truth — runs tantalizingly close to a major insight, yet skates off, one single word short.
It’s projection on a rampage, and Cohen almost seems to realize it. Perhaps we can help him?
“The climate change deniers have won”
Where else, but The Guardian?
Yes, Mr Cohen, those whom you deliberately and with malice call “deniers” are winning. Incredibly, even though they have only 0.03% of the funds, none of the machinery or the institutions, the enmity of western governments, existential opposition from the $350 billion renewables industry, no support from the large global carbon trading market, and only scorn and derision from the entire UN, and yet they are winning with nothing but wits and facts.
“Scientists continue to warn us about global warming, but most of us have a vested interest in not wanting to think about it” Exactly! If you care about the environment you need to think. How serious is the problem of CO2? Here’s a handy list of topics that won’t tell us that answer: Any list of organizations, associations, committees. Any survey of keywords used in publications. Psychoanalysis, pop psychology, anonymous internet […]
Carved granite | Photo: Jo Nova
Each year the winter whitewater carves out a tiny bit more rock, and each summer we see the ripples in the granite.
8.4 out of 10 based on 25 ratings
After skeptical climate science blogs dominated the science category in 2013, the bloggies caved in and dumped the whole category. This is your opportunity to show that scientists are skeptics, and the opinions of hundreds of thousands of readers still count.
So in 2014, I suggested we could lodge a protest, or we could just nominate our favorite blogs for other categories couldn’t we? And boy-o-boy, nominate we did. (Thank you.) Skeptical science blogs are now spread across many other categories. (In the end, trying to keep skeptics out may give skeptics more wins. Ain’t that the way?) But voting closes on Sunday, so if you haven’t already done it, please take the time to tick those boxes. I know it’s a chore, but it’s a way you can help bloggers reach a wider audience, spread their influence. It’s also a way you can direct readers to sites you find rewarding that they may not have heard of. It’s also a way you can let the Bloggies organizers know that it’s no accident that skeptical blogs are so popular.
This year I’ve been lucky enough to be a finalist in three (gosh) heavy hitting categories, with some stiff competition.
[…]
Another day is The Backdown? Everything is more important than carbon action these days. In China, real pollution is trumping the fake kind. China has been toying with carbon markets, but this month announced they might have to back away. (The shame!)
[Reuters] “…the all-out efforts to combat China’s disastrous pollution levels might get in the way of plans to tax carbon dioxide emissions in a bid to stunt the rapid growth of greenhouse gas emissions, Zhu Guangyao, the vice environment minister, said.
“We have to reflect the requests of the majority through many consultation rounds,” he told the Beijing Morning Post from the sidelines of China’s annual parliamentary sessions.
A carbon tax is increasingly controversial among lawmakers, said Zhu, adding that an environment tax would be easier to push through without carbon in the mix.
Zhu also referred to the fact that Australia, under a new conservative government, is trying to abolish its carbon tax, while a price on carbon has been blocked in the United States.”
China’s carbon markets were never serious anyway — the glorious plan was to launch seven pilot trading schemes — and each new market was an excuse for environmental activists to issue press […]
Everything about associations and committees is so paralyzingly slow. But nearly four and a half years after 160 members bitterly complained about the American Physical Society (APS) statement on climate change, they are finally revisiting it, and there are very promising signs. They’ve appointed Richard Lindzen, John Christie, and Judith Curry, all either longstanding skeptics or sympathetic to skeptical arguments. That’s three of six. (Though I stress that I will remain skeptical until the new statement comes out. One other member, Ben Santer, has a record of rewriting conclusions of much larger committees, and other shenanigans*.)
In 2007, the APS improbably stepped out of the world of physics and into the world of policy and proclaimed:
The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring.
If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.
In 2009, when 160 members of the APS protested, the council “overwhelmingly” voted to reject their proposal. (See how these things work? There are 47,000 members, of which 160 people took the effort and time to publicly protest, and then a […]
Professor Richard Betts, Head of Climate Impacts Research, Met Office Hadley Centre, responded to an alarmist news story in the Independent, both with a comment at the article, and in a tweet (or two). If more scientists spoke out publicly, reporting would get better.
Prof Richard Betts commenting at the Independent (my bold):
Official prophecy of doom: Global warming will cause widespread conflict, displace millions of people and devastate the global economy
Leaked draft report from UN panel seen by The Independent is most comprehensive investigation into impact of climate change ever undertaken – and it’s not good news
Climate change will displace hundreds of millions of people by the end of this century, increasing the risk of violent conflict and wiping trillions of dollars off the global economy, a forthcoming UN report will warn.
Based on thousands of peer-reviewed studies and put together by hundreds of respected scientists, the [IPCC] report predicts that climate change will reduce median crop yields by 2 per cent per decade …
And so on– it is pretty much all there: war, starvation, floods, seas rising, and death. Richard Betts comments (my bolding):
“I’m one of the authors of the IPCC WG2 report, and […]
I find myself using the word innumerate more and more. Anything to do with climate change is about the numbers — how much will the planet warm? How much will it cost to change the weather? How much useful electricity do wind turbines produce? The arguments of everyone from trolls to Naomi Klein, to Sir Paul Nurse avoid the numbers. And the only time Greenpeace discuss numbers, they seem to pick the wrong kind — dollars instead of degrees. Then they miss the biggest dollars in this debate anyway (but only by a factor of 3,000). Numbers are just not their strong point.
Some people avoid the numbers strategically, — because it’s a debate they can’t win. Sir Paul Nurse hopes we don’t notice that he doesn’t even make an argument, he just declares his side “won”. He tosses a red herring about CO2 being a greenhouse gas. (Which is not what the debate is about. Perhaps he’s heard of feedbacks? He doesn’t say.) Otherwise, he declares the majority “know the cost benefits are worth it”, which is a/ a logical fallacy, b/ a lot like a car advert, and c/ completely wrong. The last UK poll I […]
Here in Australia the intellectual depth and moral caliber of the fans of big-government handouts is on display. This is a world where your intellect and popularity is measured in how much you hate Tony Abbott and Andrew Bolt.
The witless debate ensues, aka the March-in-March protest this weekend: “How much money should we take; you’re a racist, homophobic, corporate a** _______.” Last week a thrash band mock-beheaded Tony Abbott with jets of squirting blood for entertainment. It’s base, it’s barbarian, it’s childish and extreme. Enough.
Last week the ABC wallowed in rants, namcalling and false claims about Andrew Bolt. He who argues we should not judge people by their race, gets called a racist. Tonight the ABC finally agree to “clarify” the claims. (Why not just apologize?) Today, surprise, the ABC finds space for 43 protest photos, but omits the ones that show the depraved nature of some of the protestors. It’s not reporting, it’s propaganda. Privatize it.
Placards from the March in March protest and the “beheading” band.
After Bolt was subjected to abuse he wondered if he should give up. I was struck that what he and what Tony Abbott need are not voices just […]
A new paper (Moffa-Sánchez et al) reports that they looked at layers of dead plankton in ocean mud (otherwise known as foraminifera in marine sediments) and have reconstructed the temperature and salinity of a couple of spots in the North Atlantic between 818AD – 1780 with data on δ18O and the Mg/Ca ratios. One immediate thought, an aside, is that if this technique works, there is no shortage of ocean mud, surely, and perhaps we could drill and analyze more mud for solar correlations in other places. (I hear foraminifera live in the Southern Hemisphere too). Perhaps no one is looking for the connection with the sun?
Moffa-Sánchez et al find the big climate shifts (the 100-year variations) correlate with total solar irradiance (TSI). See especially that orange line black line track in the d graph below. I stress, correlations don’t mean causation and the mechanism is mere speculation. But I find the graph intruiging. There are a lot of turning points, and in pure “curve fitting” type of analysis, this is a better curve fit than the one with CO2. (Find me a turning point that matches with carbon dioxide!) I suspect we’ll be referring back to this paper, […]
I’ve been humbled by donations from Australia, USA, UK, Canada, NZ, Ireland, Germany, France, Sweden, Finland, Netherlands, Holland, Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Israel, Austria, and Cyprus. I hope I haven’t missed any? (For the record, Queensland has the most skeptics per capita. :- ) )
I thought I might have had writers block trying to live up to that.
Here’s the irony, can you believe? I’ve run out of chocolate. More than 600 people bought me a chocolate, yet I have none in the house.
Back soon…
Donors came from all over the West. This graphs the number of donors from each country.
(Thank you to everyone, I’m trying to send emails, but I may not manage…)
*Holland/Netherlands — yes I realize, but I’m acknowledging the names that donors used.
UPDATE: Oh! Norway added to the post and to the graph, as it should be! – Jo
9.9 out of 10 based on 66 ratings
UPDATE: This is just overwhelming. Amazing! New donations are coming in from the UK, Canada, France, Austria, New Zealand, Germany. Brilliant. Brilliant. Every bit counts. Thanks Anthony Thanks Jaymez.!
UPDATE #2: Donations (this random moment 9pm EST) are coming in the last hour from Columbus, OH; Lower Plenty, Victoria; Multi Way London; Newtown, New South Wales; Kew, Victoria; Aurora Ontario; Albion, QLD; Hollola Finland; Belmont, Western Australia; Sawston Cambridge, UK; Point Lonsdale, Victoria; Ermington, New South Wales; Witham, Essex UK; Marrickville, New South Wales; Ascot, Berkshire UK; Belair, South Australia; Oslo Norway; Tatura, Victoria ; Oxley, Queensland; Point Cook, Victoria; Stewarton, East Ayrshire UK … I’m lost for the right word.
At this rate we might make the target Jaymez set.
UPDATE #3: Good news we are well over the half way mark. I’m really delighted, thank you.
UPDATE #4!! Great news, we have claimed the full bonus from Jaymez. (Thank you! I owe a lot of people an email. I did not expect it to be reached so soon. 🙂 Extra mention goes to donors to the NAB account, I have no way of identifying or thanking some of you personally […]
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JoNova A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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The nerds have the numbers on precious metals investments on the ASX
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